1940s Crime Movies

A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.

Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.

When a plane carrying the daughter of a millionaire crashes in an African jungle, two pilots set out to collect the reward. They discover that she has become the goddess of a primitive tribe. An insurgent witch doctor and fierce wild animals make escape from the jungle difficult for the trio.

A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.

An insurance representative is seduced by a dissatisfied housewife into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, a claims investigator.

An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely waitress Stella, he also begins romancing a quiet and well-to-do woman named June Mills. Since Stella isn't interested in Eric unless he has money, the lovelorn guy comes up with a scheme to win her over, and it involves June. Before long, murder works its way into this passionate love triangle.

A disgraced cop aims to reclaim his honor by nailing a corrupt crime boss.

A woman plots to steal secrets from her Atomic-expert husband.

This Crime Does Not Pay entry focuses on fake spiritualists. A mother is worried about her son, who is missing in action. Over time, she gives a con man all of the family savings to find reassurance that her son is all right. When she can no longer pay, events take a tragic turn.

Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets married; but when he makes a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts, he finds out his aunts' hobby - killing lonely old men and burying them in the cellar!

Investigators crack down on a gang of nightclub con artists that has been victimizing wealthy bachelors.

Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

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When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.

A poisoned aspirin creates headaches for a woman who received the deadly pill from a stranger, then passed it on to her uncle.

In sleepy Santa Rosa, restless young Charlie’s world brightens when her sophisticated Uncle Charlie arrives for a long visit. But as his behavior grows increasingly strange, she begins to suspect that her beloved uncle may be hiding a terrible secret—and that danger has quietly entered her home.

A man from humble origins becomes a famous boxer, but fame has its price.

George McAllister, the black sheep of a wealthy family who has squandered his share of the family inheritance, lives in constant jealousy, hatred and resentment of his half-brother Barry, who has been supporting him. George gets his girlfriend, Carlotta Duval, a job as Barry's nurse, with the idea being to marry him, kill him, and inherit his money—and marrying George.

Framed for two crimes he didn't commit, and betrayed by his girl, Cliff Banks finds himself on the run from the police. Now distrustful of everyone, he finds a safe haven hiding out at a quaint country cottage under the care of a kindly old farmer and his daughter, a Cinderella-like blind woman who seems to be able to communicate with nature. There he is forced by their love to question his misanthropy.

The peaceful life of a gas station owner is disrupted when a man from his past arrives in town and forces him to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

There's something very odd about Romano, a notorious gangster serving time in the federal pen. For one thing, Romano doesn't sound much like himself. For another, he always seems to be hiding something. Detective Lee suspects that something's amiss, and he's probably right!

Philip Ford's crime thriller stars Lloyd Bridges as a city attorney who comes to the dawning realization that a jewelry heist may be behind the discovery of a dead body in the park -- and that the culprit may be one of the town's leading citizens (Ray Collins). Unfortunately, his investigation is hampered by his girlfriend and ex-secretary (Lorna Gray), who could very well be in cahoots with the bad guys.

Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wife. She’s threatening to quit and settle down with a new beau, but, as Walter knows, she has a weakness: she can’t resist a juicy scoop.

Danish noir crime drama with a poetic nerve. Two boys, Kristinus and Jakob (Rode and Neergaard) experienced a loveless and abusive childhood. Now as grown-ups, they are acting outside the law.

After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

Crime drama starring Richard Cromwell as a young medic who becomes the private physician to an underworld gang.

Maisie Revere, a showgirl stranded in Los Angeles, decides to join the local police department on the persuasion of Lieutenant Paul Scott who wants to use her as an undercover agent to expose a conman.

Holmes and Watson board a passenger train bound from London to Edinburgh, to guard the Star of Rhodesia, an enormous diamond worth a fortune belonging to an elderly woman of wealth; but within the first hour of the trip, the woman's son is murdered and the diamond stolen and any of the passengers in their car could be the killer thief.

Among others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed and family deceased, he tries making an honest living.

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When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

A conman poses as a war relief fundraiser, but when he falls for a charity worker, his conscience begins to trouble him.

No overview available

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.

A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.