1930s and 1940s crime films

THE WRONG ROAD (1937). Running time 53 minutes.

Jimmy and Ruth are from well-off families but are dissatisfied with their run-of-the-mill jobs and the pay it offers them. Jimmy is a bank clerk and they carry out a theft of $10,000 from the bank. They stash it away in a music box belonging to Ruth's uncle. They figure that it will be waiting for them in 10 years at the end of their prison sentences. A bank insurance detective tries to persuade them to give up the money because the bills will all still be traceable after all that time.

The detective Roberts works it so that the couple get parole together and so lead him to the recovery of the cash. Two years have elapsed since their sentences began and the Ruth's uncle has died. In their search for the music box they are hounded by Roberts and a hardened criminal that Jimmy had blabbed to in prison. The couple have to make a decision of whether the cash is really worth it.

MOTIVE FOR REVENGE (1935). Running time 59 minutes.

Barry Webster is a bank clerk who is embarrassed by his low pay. He cannot keep his wife in the lifestyle that his mother-in-law expects for her daughter. Due to the henpecking he receives at home he embezzles money to keep the women in his life quiet. He lands a seven-year prison sentence as a consequence. His wife promises to wait for him.

While he is inside his wife divorces him remarries to a wealthy business man called King. Webster is released and intends to take revenge by continuing his criminal activity by fleecing the new husband. At the Embassy Club Webster and his former wife eye each other up to the annoyance of a deeply jealous King. Later King is shot dead but who will carry the can for his death?

GO-GET-'EM HAINES (1936). Running time 56 minutes.

Reporter Haines follows a businessman aboard ship. The tycoon is on the run after defrauding investors. Haines gets him to play a man who gets murdered in a play. Guns get switched and the defrauder gets murdered for real on stage.

Haines gets knocked out as he starts his investigations. Cash and securities are stolen from the state room he had been searching. Later he gets into a fight with a man who knows the identity of the person who switched the guns. The witness dies from a concussion on the brain. Haines persuades the man is still alive to a room full of suspects in order to trap the murderer.

THE GOLD RACKET (1937). Running time 64 minutes.

Not so enjoyable as 'Bank Alarm' already covered on here but it is O'Connor and his girlfriend in this one too. The price of gold has reached so high in the US that it is too irresistible for criminals to contraband it in. So they take to smuggling it from Mexico where the price is much lower. First by trucks and then by plane.

O'Connor goes to Mexico and spots a gold nugget being passed for a drinks round in the Tarantella Cafe. He gets his girlfriend to take a singer's job at the cafe to infiltrate the gang. She has to audition for Scotty Summers and recoils in horror like a vampire when she discovers Scotty uses garlic to improve his vocal chords. Later she is scared by wolf cries when she shares O'Connor's tent outside the Yellow Paradise gold mine he has tracked down. The gang discover that O'Connor is on to them and try to stop their smuggler's plane from landing.

THE DEVIL DIAMOND (1937). Running time 61 minutes.

The Jarvis Diamond is a very valuable piece but it has a curse on it. A decision is made to have it cut into several pieces to sell at a profit in the hope that it's reputation won't follow them. The diamond is packaged by ordinary mail so as not to attract attention. The cutter is a Mr Lanning who lives in a remote boarding house run by his daughter. Soon the boarding house is doing business as strangers want to stay there all of a sudden.

The visitors include Lee a young featherweight title hopeful and a secret agent called Jerry. They remind me of Batman and Robin as they fight off the thugs who are aiming to steal the cut pieces. Like Batman and Robin I think this crime film would suit a juvenile audience. Not too bright Chuck is the pick of the thug characters I would say.

SUNSET MURDER CASE (1938). Running time 60 minutes.

Kathy O'Connor is a dancing girl whose father is a policeman. He gets killed by a criminal gang. She drops her own name for Valerie and finds stardom in London. When she returns back home she sets about infiltrating the gang by making herself get noticed by it's leader Stephani. She also interests a special investigator and a reporter.

A good shot is of a hoodlum's lighted matchstick puff out on it's own as his fellow hoodlum extinguishes the life of a moll. Lou the reporter is watchable as he strings along his girlfriend and gives coded messages from a call box. But generally this crime film isn't really cohesive enough. Kathy looks so different in various parts of the movie that this can throw you offtrack.

I TAKE THIS OATH (1940). Running time 64 minutes.

Deputy Inspector Hanagan gets suspicious when a criminal called The Dutchman gets acquitted at trial every time. So he asks for and gets 2 months special assignment on the hunt for some influential bigwig who is always getting these criminals off. He knows he is running a big risk but tries to make light of it with his family. But they find all too well when Hanagan is blown up by a car bomb outside his home.

Hangan's son Steve joins up to become a policeman but doesn't attend a lot of the time. He's too busy making his own investigations after his mother gives him his father's notebook which contains his special assignment work. The story becomes involved when he gets suspicious of his best friend Joe. There is a touching death scene at the end. This has an alternative title of 'Police Rookie' if you can't find it under the title given above.

LADY IN THE DEATH HOUSE (1944). Running time 55 minutes.

Mary is in the death cell writing her last letter. Then we see her start to walk those 39 steps to eternity before the flashbacks begin.

A criminologist called Charles Finch starts to relate Mary's story holding her last letter and a key. Mary had met a man called Brad but she doesn't like his part-time job. He throws the switch at electric chair executions. Soon Mary is held for murder herself. The murder of a blackmailer has taken place in her apartment witnessed by some snoopers in the street looking up at her window. But what they saw were silhouettes on the shade with only the arm of the killer in view. The last 10 minutes of this film are almost unbearable in their suspense as Finch desperately tries to save Mary from execution.