Flame of the Islands (1956)
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Master director Martin Scorsese depicts the sloping depth of a casino mafia bossâ fall. Filmed in a semi-documentary fashion; about the life of the gambling paradise Las Vegas and its dark mafia underbelly.
When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story. Encouraged by the casino manager, she gets hooked on gambling, to the point where she "borrows" David's expense money to pursue her addiction. This finally breaks up their marriage, but David continues trying to help her.
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.
Tired of the dangerous life as gambling boss, Ace Corbin 'retires' from the racket and travels cross-country by train to begin a new life with a new name. On the train, he meets Eleanor and they fall in love. Eleanor is afraid to tell Ace she's a soiled dove and Ace doesn't tell Eleanor of his shady past. Old enemies won't let Ace begin his new life, and old commitments's won't free Eleanor of her sordid ties. Ace's old life and Eleanor's deception collide with the typical results. But love conquers all!
The daughter of a Nevada casino owner gets involved with a racketeer, despite everyone's efforts to separate them.
Dan Mahowny was a rising star at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. At twenty-four he was assistant manager of a major branch in the heart of Toronto's financial district. To his colleagues he was a workaholic. To his customers, he was astute, decisive and helpful. To his friends, he was a quiet, but humorous man who enjoyed watching sports on television. To his girlfriend, he was shy but engaging. None of them knew the other side of Dan Mahowny--the side that executed the largest single-handed bank fraud in Canadian history, grossing over $10 million in eighteen months to feed his gambling obsession.
For most of the running time it's business as usual as gamblers Andy Lau and Alan Tam pull scams when they're not exposing them for casinos and incurring the wrath of a family of Japanese gangsters before Tam marries rich girl Idy Chan and Lau, as is the way with all movie hustlers, gets a busted hand, a drink problem and Rosamund Chan (so not entirely a bad shuffle there).
Chicken Feet (Andy Lau) assists in running an honorable gambling den owned by the crippled Uncle Fan (Siu-Ming Lau) and his son Kit (Wong Kit). Having previously tried to shut down the gambling den and take over by paralyzing Fan and framing Kit for another man's murder, ruthless local Triad boss, James (Kelvin Wong) goes a step further by murdering Fan. Driven only by money and the pursuit of two valuable 'Jade stones', James kidnaps Kit's daughter so he will surrender gambling in order for James to win the upcoming Championship. Despite Kit's wish to live a life of peace, Chicken Feet finds the Jade Stones and along with his partner, Lin (Wu Chien-Lien) plots his own revenge against James.
A trucker (George Brent) with a pregnant wife (Gloria Dickson) fights a New York mobster's (Humphrey Bogart) protection racket.
Chow Yun-Fat plays Ko Chun, an extremely talented and well known gambler. On the eve of a big confrontation with a famous Singaporean gambler, Ko walks into a trap set by Knife, an avid but a so-so gambler (Andy Lau), meant for an Indian servant. Struck on the head, Ko suffers from amnesia and regresses to a child-like state. Knife takes care of Ko and begins to exploit Ko's gambling talents.
When fellow operatives (and childhood friends) Matthew Johnson and Melvin Johnson disappear during an undercover mission in Hong Kong, Cleopatra Jones travels there to find them. With the help of local detective Mi Ling, Cleopatra discovers that her friends' disappearance has to do with The Dragon Lady, a much-feared blonde "lipstick lesbian" who runs a Macao casino and controls a major chunk of the local drug trade.
Scalli is a gangster who manages women wrestlers as a front for his bookmaking, drug, and prostitution rackets. He trusts the wrong people and ends up trying to run away from both the police and mysterious mob boss Mr. Big, to whom he owes $35,000.
A television producer with a penchant for drinking and gambling is sent to Las Vegas to convince his troubled niece to enter rehab.
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.
A University teacher finds three bright students and decides to teach them how to count cards to make lots of money. As they learn how to play the casinos, things get tricky when the debt owing teacher informs them that their front man wants restitution for loses in about a weeks time. The three students decide to hit all the major casinos in Ontario and Quebec until discovered.
Jim 'Socker' Conway, former boxer and FBI hero, is maneuvered for political reasons into a do-nothing job in the district attorney's office. Meanwhile, he meets wild debutante Letty Lane, girlfriend of mob mouthpiece Steve Lawrence; and Letty's much nicer sister Susan. Now the slot machine gang brutally beats Jim's friends Franz and Otto. And Jim finds a way to use his nominal position to go into the racket- busting business. But his success puts Letty in deadly peril...
Silver-screen icons Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney star in this classic drama as Nick and Jack Venizelos, two brothers whose fateful trip to the big city to do a little gambling results in a tragic turn of events. Directed by filmmaker Alfred E. Green, this film marks the only time in Robinson and Cagney's historic careers that the pair would team up on-screen.
A racketeer terrorizes a small fishing community until he falls in love with a fisherman"s daughter.
Gambling addiction bring the stories of three otherwise unconnected people together as it destroys each of their lives.
This late-20s gangster movie features Carole Lombard as a young gal who agrees to marry a smooth-talking gangster in exchange for the mob man's pledge to arrange a big-time concert appearance for her violinist boyfriend. The only thing that can save the day for the mis-aligned lovers is a shootout between the cops and the gangland thugs. This film is notable because it is one of the early 'talkies," and uses the newly developing audio technology with abandon. In fact, most of the action takes place off screen and the characters tell the cameras just what's happened. This one's small on sets, big on dialog.
When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.
After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner former detective Johnny Blake knocks him down convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Buggs" Fenner thinks Blake is a police agent.
New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him. After a heavy loss betting on basketball, he relies on his mother to bail him out to the tune of $44,000. Unfazed, he continues to gamble recklessly, winning big at a casino, only to blow it all just as quickly. When his debts become more than he can handle, the loan sharks begin to circle.
An ace reporter (Richard Dix) with a girlfriend (Lucille Ball) nails a numbers racketeer for murders.
(William H. Macy) works at a Las Vegas casino, where he uses his innate ability to bring about misfortune in those around him to jinx gamblers into losing. His imposing boss, Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin), is happy with the arrangement. But Bernie finds unexpected happiness when he begins dating attractive waitress Natalie Belisario (Maria Bello).
Two card sharks, pretending to be brother and sister, clean out a small-town banker, then take over a crooked gambling joint.
Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals. They use their muscle to take over Tokyo's pachinko racket and commit a series of train robberies, targeting deliveries of military ammunition.
Jean Fournier (Claude Mann) is a young bank employee who is encouraged by his friend Caron to take an interest in gambling. After winning money in a game of roulette, he decides to vacation in Nice, where he falls in love with Jackie (Jeanne Moreau), divorced and mother to a child she rarely visits. Though Jackie also enjoys Jean's company, she constantly warns him that her passion for gambling will always be greater. Jean becomes jealous of not having all of her attention and has mixed feelings about gambling, yet he too is to some extend seduced by this new life style that involves taking risks. Despite Jackie's cool façade and alleged control over her choices - she claims she is unattached to the money itself, but rather the thrill of the game, and doesn't mind going from rich to poor in a matter of seconds -, she soon begins to reveal her vulnerability and the emptiness she often feels as result of her addiction.
An episode of the TV series "Climax!": American spy James Bond must outsmart card wiz and crime boss LeChiffre while monitoring his actions.
Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.
A gangster is drafted into the Army. He soon realizes how wrong his previous life was, and decides to help break up a black market ring he has discovered.
In this gangster movie, a criminal king-pin and his gang hide out in his hometown where they witness a religious revival that inspires the man to begin billing himself as a "born-again" evangelist so he can cash in on the guilty consciences of local businessmen.
New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
After the mysterious disappearance of an oil well owner, one of his workers, Gerardo assumes the business management. Soon, the owner's sister arrives from Argentina, and, believing that Gerardo killed her brother to keep the wells for himself, she starts working as a singer under a false name in the same casino her brother disappeared, in order to find out what exactly happened.
Newspaperman Bill Bradford becomes a special agent for the tax service trying to end the career of racketeer Nick Carston. Julie Gardner is Carston's bookkeeper. Bradford enters Carston's organization and Julie cooperates with him to land Carston in jail. An informer squeals on them. Julie is kidnapped by Carston's henchmen as she is about to testify
Kaitlyn is a high school student whose obsession with gambling leads to her accumulating a mountain of debt. Her habit also causes a high degree of family tension.
Former war-time Army buddies now students in college decide to rip off a Reno casino.
Hooligan boss Billy Evans has it all - a successful business, a beautiful family and respect on the terraces. But when he clashes with gangster Mickey over a backstreet proetection racket, Billy soon finds himself out of his depth as they look to finally settle the question - who is Top Dog?
A former stripper's (Rebecca Hall) talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler (Bruce Willis) who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.
Ex-bank robber and gambler, Bob, plans a heist at the Deauville casino.
Rocky and Dan, war buddies, are prowl car cops on night duty. Dan is a cynic who views all lawbreakers as scum; Rocky feels more lenient. Both are attracted to the radio voice of communicator Kate Mallory; but in person, Kate proves reluctant to get involved with men who just might stop a bullet. By lucky chance, Rocky and Dan cause big trouble for murderous racketeer Ritchie Garris; but when he swears vengeance, Kate's fears may prove justified.
A story of two teenagers trapped in the world of illegal underground boxing. One is fighting to save his fathers life and using the money pay off gambling debts accumulated by his father. The second is fighting for the money to get out of the ghettos. While being exploited by a boxing promoter the two teens become friends. An explosive ending puts the two friends in the ring against each other.
Gambling fever -- along with a brutal bookie -- leads three crooked cops into a double-dealing scheme that lands them in hot water way over their heads.
A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
When a Las Vegas bodyguard with lethal skills and a gambling problem gets in trouble with the mob, he has one last play⦠and it's all or nothing.
The story of an orphan girl, brought up in naive, rustic innocence by an elderly relative, who is suddenly exposed to the brutality, greed and deceptiveness of the outside world when her grandmother dies. Notwithstanding her healthy distrust of all strangers, which her upbringing instilled in her, it is not long before a cunning racketeer finds her weak point, that temptation which she cannot resist, that weakness, different as it may be, that each of us has, and brings her into his power. What follows is a depiction of her cruel descent into the depths of moral decay, as she becomes a collaborator in a system of exploitation, unbridled lust, vanity, and greed, in which she and other victims are always the losers.
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!
Inspector Abhay Rathod is a honest and diligent Police Inspector employed with Bombay Police. He was assigned the case of racketeer and criminal don, Shekhar Mohan. Abhay successfully entraps and arrests him, and has him sentenced to a long jail term. Years later, Abhay is now the Assistant Commissioner of Police; is married, and has a son named Chirag; and Shekhar Mohan has completed his jail term and is looking to seek vengeance against Abhay. He does so by kidnapping Chirag and taking him along with him. He object is not to seek any ransom money, but attempt to separate the child from his parents, as well as attempt to make a place in his heart. Shekhar finds out that Chirag loves racing and takes him on various race courses where the child is thrilled to watch fast sport cars, and soon starts a friendship with "Uncle" Shekhar. But with Abhay and the police closing in fast, will Shekhar and Chirag be able to maintain their friendship?
Based on a true story, a hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.
As suggested by its title, Behind the News was a "stop the presses!" yarn set in a big-city newsroom. Lloyd Nolan is top-billed as a cynical reporter with a penchant for sticking his neck out too far. Frank Albertson costars as a cub reporter fresh out of journalism school, whose presence is resented by Nolan and his fellow workers. But it is Albertson who, after running afoul of the law, is instrumental in breaking up a ring of racketeers. Behind the News was remade by Republic as Headline Hunters (55).
Celebrated as supersleuth, Mr. Moto comes out fighting when a brutal boxing match turns into cold-blooded murder! Assisted by detective-in-training Lee Chan, Moto sets out to track down the killer based on a single ominous clue: a poisoned boxing glove! But when Moto's hunch points to a corrupt gambling syndicate, he's forced to wager his very life to unmask the culpritâor go down for the count...permanently!
When a poor college student who cracks an online poker game goes bust, he arranges a face-to-face with the man he thinks cheated him, a sly offshore entrepreneur.
Winning Streak is the astonishing story of a group of young down-and-outs who are presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; to change their luck and set off on the adventure of their lives. Thanks to an infallible method based on the roulette wheelâs imperfection, their lifestyle is about to become better than their wildest dreams, as they set out to break the banks at casinos around the world.
A charming racketeer seduces the DA's daughter for revenge, then falls in love.
When a local gambling house kidnaps some peasants because they failed to pay their debts, a rival gambling house pays their debts and sets them free.
After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.
Violene and death stalk the Chinese of a big American city, but one man, Dr. Chang Ling, and his daughter, Dr. Mary Ling, defy the racketeers who are responsible, and, against terrific odds, bring peace to their oppressed neighbors.
The story takes place in Wonderland 150 years after the original "Alice's" visit, and Wonderland is an outlandish inter-dimensional city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the Queen of Hearts.
Dink Purcell loves his alcoholic father, ex-heavyweight champion Andy "Champ" Purcell, despite his frequent binges, his frequent gambling and their squalid living conditions. And there's nothing Andy wouldn't do for Dink. When Andy wins a race horse gambling, he gives it to Dink and they race it at a Tijuana track. There, Dink meets Linda Carleton, a race horse owner herself, and they have an immediate rapport. But Linda's rich husband sees Andy and realizes Dink is Linda's son, who she gave up when she and Andy divorced. Andy is bribed $200 to allow Dink to visit with Linda, but refuses to allow Dink to spend six months with the Carletons. When Andy loses the horse gambling and winds up in jail after a drunken tirade, he realizes Dink's place is with his mother. Dink tearfully goes but sneaks out and returns at his first opportunity, filling a depressed Andy with a desire to make good. So Andy goes into training after his managers arrange a boxing match with the Mexican champion.
Nonzee recreates the life of a notorious late-1950s gangster. Dang Bireley's (nicknamed after his favorite soda-pop) had Elvis and James Dean fixations and lived predictably fast and died predictably young. He first killed a man at the age of 13, and became famous in Phra Nakorn as a Chinese protection racketeer from the age of 18. Everything swung his way until one of Thailand's many coups d'etat imposed martial law and drove the city's gangsters up-country. Dang and his loyal cohort Piak had little trouble facing down the local hicks, but bristled when forced to operate a long side their arch-enemy Pu, known as Bottle-Bomb.
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