San Quentin (1946)
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Bogey's on the lam and Bacall's at his side in Dark Passage, Delmer Daves' stylish film-noir thriller that's the third of four films Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together. Bogart is Vincent Parry who, framed for murder, escapes San Quentin and soon emerges from plastic surgery with a new face. Bacall is Irene Jansen, Vincent's lone ally. In a supporting role, Agnes Moorehead portrays Madge, a venomous harpy who finds pleasure in the unhappiness of others. The chemistry of the leads is undeniable, and they augment it here with exceptional tenderness. Exceptional too are the atmospheric San Francisco locations and the imaginative camera work that shows Vincent's point of view - but not his face - until the bandages are removed. Lest Irene get ideas, the post-surgery Vincent tells her: "Don't change yours. I like it just as it is."
A young man goes to prison and a tough, older convict takes him under his wing as a mentor.
Illicit lovers plot to kill the woman's older husband.
When a career criminal's plan for revenge is thwarted by unlikely circumstances, he puts his intended victim's son in his place by putting him in prison...and then joining him.
This movie tells the story of a man who goes undercover in a hi-tech prison to find out information to help prosecute those who killed his wife. While there he stumbles onto a plot involving a death-row inmate and his $200 million stash of gold.
A corrupt official at San Quentin tries to frame an innocent guard for several murders within the prison.
San Quentin's new warden (Paul Kelly) crusades for reform and for a framed inmate (Louis Hayward) who loves a nurse (Joanne Dru).
Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influence of narcotics alter their lives. Miklo is incarcerated and sent to San Quentin, where he makes a "home" for himself. Cruz becomes an exceptional artist, but a heroin addiction overcomes him with tragic results. Paco becomes a cop and an enemy to his "carnal", Miklo.
Singing star Johnny Desmond (Calypso Heat Wave, China Doll) goes dramatic in this Sam Katzman production. Desmond plays convict Mike Gilbert, who goes on the lam with fellow prisoners Gruber (Richard Devon, The Undead) and Graham (Roy Engel, Rogue River) when he finds out his wife is divorcing him and feels he has nothing to lose. While hiding from the law, Gilbert falls in love with Robbie (Merry Anders, Tickle Me, The Quick Gun), his ex-wifeâs sister. Through Robbieâs influence, Gilbert decides to go straight, but his cohorts arenât quite so willing to reform. Like most Sam Katzman productions of the era, this was loosely based on a true story.
The life and times of Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber.
A lawyer conducts business from the back of his Lincoln town car while representing a high-profile client in Beverly Hills.
Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mom, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he did not commit.
Danny Trejo plays 'Bullet' a tough cop who takes the law into his own hands when his grandson is kidnapped.
Palance plays twin brothers - one trying to help another escape from prison.
Clint Eastwood plays Steve Everett, a journalist recovering from alcoholism, given the task of covering the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (played by Isaiah Washington). Everett discovers that Beechum might be innocent, but has only a few hours to prove his theory and save Beechum's life.
"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.
Ocean's Eleven is the 'Rat-Pack' comedy about robber Danny Ocean and his gang's attempt to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas.
When the godson of San Francisco's crime lord asks permission to leave "the business," Don Antonio agrees, but reluctantly. Such behavior by either one is a violation of the code, and a bloody mob war breaks out. It is only through the strong support of his family connections in Sicily that Don Antonio is able to survive the mêlée and come out on top. Aghast at the situation he has caused, the godson becomes his leader's "consigliere," or Counselor at Crime.
Dirty Harry Callahan returns again, this time saddled with a rookie female partner. Together, they must stop a terrorist group consisting of angry Vietnam veterans.
A cop framed for a murder he did not commit hunts the San Francisco waterfront for the Mob racketeers who are responsible.
Detective Lou Torrey (Charles Bronson) investigates a mafia plot to murder all it's enemies.
A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine (Vincent), and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin (Duryea) team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin's wife. Their investigation leads them to confrontations with a determined policeman (Crawford) and a shifty nightclub owner (Lorre), whom Catherine and Martin suspect may be the real killer.
Lucky Bastard is a "found footage" thriller about a porn website run by Mike (Don McManus) that invites fans to have sex with porn stars. Jay Paulson plays Dave, an eager young fan given a chance to have sex with the fabulous Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue). But everyone gets more than they bargained for in the seemingly mild-mannered Dave... with gruesome results. The film is captured by the "Lucky Bastard" porn cameras for a fresh take on the "found footage" genre
Story of how a group of incorruptible federal lawmen helped put 1920s' Chicago gangster Al Capone in prison.
The story of Jody, a misguided, 20-year-old African-American who is really just a baby boy finally forced-kicking and screaming to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and jobless, he has not only fathered two children by two different women-Yvette and Peanut but still lives with his own mother. He can't seem to strike a balance or find direction in his chaotic life.
Cops go after phony "mediums" that are stealing money from rich gullible old people.
What Jake Vig doesn't know just might get him killed. A sharp and polished grifter, Jake has just swindled thousands of dollars from the unsuspecting Lionel Dolby with the help of his crew. It becomes clear that Lionel wasn't just any mark, he was an accountant for eccentric crime boss Winston King. Jake and his crew will have to stay one step ahead of both the criminals and the cops to finally settle their debt.
A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.
A fireman takes an unexpected course of action when a man whom he's been ordered to testify against, after being held up at a local convenience store, threatens him.
An actress gets involved with a criminal gang and winds up taking the rap for a $40,000 robbery. Before being sent to prison, she steals the money from her partners and hides it, she is thinking to use it as a bargaining chip to be released from prison. However, her former partners don´t have the same ideas.
Following a series of drug deals and murders, three criminals -- Fantasia, Ray Malcolm and Pluto -- travel from Los Angeles to Houston, finally arriving in a small Arkansas town to go into hiding. Two detectives from the LAPD, who are already on the case, contact the town's sheriff, Dale Dixon, to alert him of the fugitives' presence in the area. Underestimating Dixon, the criminals have no idea what they are about to face.
The Raven (1935) is a horror film directed by Lew Landers. It revolves around Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, featuring Béla Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed mad surgeon with a torture chamber in his basement and Boris Karloff as a fugitive murderer desperately on the run from the police.
On a flight transporting dangerous convicts, murderer Ryan Weaver manages to break free and cause complete chaos throughout the plane. As various people on board fall victim to Weaver, it is ultimately down to flight attendant Teri Halloran to keep the aircraft from crashing, with on-ground support from an air traffic controller. While Halloran struggles to pilot the plane, Weaver continues to terrorize the surviving members of the crew.
Its title notwithstanding, We Who Are About to Die has nothing to do with Roman Gladiators. Rather, the film is based on the true story of San Quentin inmate David Lamson, who spent 13 agonizing months on Death Row before the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Renamed John (and played by John Beal), the Lamson character knows he's innocent but also knows that the date of his execution is drawing ever nearer.
Thalmus is the leader for a group of criminals who gather in L.A. to rob a bank. Their goal is to found a new bank.
Mary Giordano is a bright, intelligent student who goes to a catholic school. She also has a addiction to mystery novels and detective magazines (hence the title of the movie), which inspire her to do her own detective work. When she starts snooping around on the case of a murderer of teenage girls, it gets her in hot water with her mentor Detective Jerry Gunn. But it also starts a team up with police cadet Tony Campbell. The two work together to find the murderer. But the closer Mary gets to solving the murder, the more danger she puts herself in of being the next victim.
Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
In this film noir classic, a revenge-seeking gangster (Dennis O'Keefe) is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac (Raymond Burr) who set him up.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. T-Men is a semidocumentary style 1947 film noir shot in black-and-white. The film was directed by Anthony Mann with cinematography by noted noir cameraman John Alton. The B-movie is featured in Visions Of Light: The Art Of Cinematography (1992) documentary for the drama's use of lighting. Description above from the Wikipedia article T-Men, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Otto Preminger's classic film noir offering captures the common postwar struggle to get ahead, and one man's balancing act between two women. Dana Andrews stars as a drifter named Eric Stanton, who, after landing in a small California town, falls in love with Stella (Linda Darnell), a diner waitress. She makes it clear that she'll have nothing to do with Eric unless he has some money, so he hatches a plan to marry June Mills (Alice Faye), a wealthy reclusive spinster who is in love with him. Unfortunately, right after the wedding, Stella turns up dead, and the blame is placed on Eric.
Barton MacLane stars as a tuna fisherman who has been wrongfully convicted of a murder he did not commit. His exemplary behavior in prison ensures that he is up for early parole. He realizes, however, that his movements will be limited, and he will be unable to join and wed his beloved. The only solution is to escape and hunt down the real killer, himself.
This unusual and worthwhile black-and-white film noir was one of the first movies to deal with issues of anti-Semitism.
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
This film noir stars Alan Ladd as a war veteran framed for the murder of his own wife and follows his search for the real murderer. Veronica Lake plays the sultry femme fatale who provides unexpected help.
A dramatization of the one possibly successful escape from the notorious prison.
The Horatio Alger parable gets the film noir treatment with the redoubtable Edmund OâBrien as a whip-smart telephone technician who moves up the ladder of a Syndicate gambling empire in Southern California until distracted by an inconveniently married Joanne Dru and his own greed. Ripped from the headlines of the 1950 Kevaufer Organized Crime Hearings, this fast-moving picture is laden with location sequences shot in Los Angeles, the Hoover Dam and Palm Springs including the famous Doll House watering hole on North Palm Canyon Drive!
A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.
1952 black and white Cold War spy film, entirely without dialog
Based on the novel Low Company. One of the most peculiar film noirs of the 1940s stars Barry Sullivan as a small-time hood who suffers a mental breakdown as his big plans begin to crumble. Beautiful Belita is the slumming society girlfriend who only fuels his paranoia.
Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.
Caged tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery. Her experiences while incarcerated, along with the killing of her husband, change her from a very frightened young girl into a hardened convict.
The Naked City portrays the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, finding the girl's killer.
The film tells the story of a well-planned robbery of an armored car when it stops at a sports stadium. Yet, the heist goes awry, and a tough Los Angeles cop named Cordell (Charles McGraw) is in hot pursuit.
After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.
Frank Johnson, sole witness to a gangland murder, goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris, on the theory that Frank is trying to escape from possible retaliation. Frank's wife, Eleanor, suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. Aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett, Eleanor sets out to locate her husband. The killer is also looking for him, and keeps close tabs on Eleanor.
A mystery woman is a murder suspect's only alibi for the night of his wife's death. Based on a story by noir scribe Cornell Woolrich.
James Cagney directs this remake of the film noir classic This Gun for Hire.
The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.
The feature-film debut of famed director Louis Malle is an interesting, modern film noir with the classic theme of lovers plotting to kill the husband and make it look like suicide (reminiscent of The Postman Always Rings Twice). Jeanne Moreau gives an astonishing performance, perverse but naive as she leads her young lover down a path that can only lead to doom for both of them.
Grier and Haig are thieving mercenaries who engineer a prison break from the outside.
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