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 Gangsters, Mobs, and other Criminals
- Heist Films
- Detectives and Other Crime Investigators / Revenge & Vindication
- Serial Killers and other Psychopaths
- Film Noir Videography
- Lawyers and the Legal Process in the Movies
- Prison Films
- Movies, Race, and Ethnicity: African American (for gangsta films)
- Films of Alfred Hitchcock
- Spy movies
- Film Noir bibliography
- Gangster/Crime film bibliography
- Film genre page (via Tom Dirks' Greatest Films web site)
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- Afraid to Die (Karakkaze yaro) (Japan, 1960)
- Director, Masumura Yasuzo. Cast: Yukio Mishima, Ayako Wakao, Eiji Funakoshi, Takashi Shimura, Shigeru Koyama, Yoshie Mizutani, Keizo Kawasaki, Michiko Ono, Jun Negami, Reiasaburo Reizaburo Yamamoto.
After finishing his prison sentence for killing a mob boss, Asahina reluctantly re-enters Japanese society where he tries to stay one step ahead of the mob. 97 min. DVD 6980
 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Algiers (1938)
- Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Sigrid Gurie, Joseph Calleia, Alan Hale.
Pepe Le Moko, a thief who escaped from France with a fortune in jewels, has for two years lived in, and virtually ruled, the mazelike, impenetrable Casbah, "native quarter" of Algiers. A French official insists that he be captured, but sly Inspector Slimane knows he need only bide his time. The suave Pepe increasingly regards his stronghold as also his prison, especially when he meets beautiful Parisian visitor Gaby, who reminds him of the boulevards to which he dare not return...and arouses the mad jealousy of Ines, his Algerian mistress. 96 min. DVD X519
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Alibi (1924)
- Directed by Roland West. Cast: Chester Morris, Harry Stubbs, Mae Busch, Eleanor Griffith, Regis Toomey.
A prohibition gangster rejoins his mob soon after being released from prison. When a policeman is murdered during a robbery, he falls under suspicion and the detective squad employs its most sophisticated and barbaric techniques to bring him to justice. 84 min. DVD 8363
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938)
- Directed by Anatole Litvak. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Humphrey Bogart, Allen Jenkins, Donald Crisp, Gale Page.
Dr. Clitterhouse wants to find out what makes a criminal tick. Eager to study the physical and mental states of lawbreakers, he joins a gang of jewel thieves. Rocks Valentine, an ice-blooded tough guy the doc calls "a magnificient speciment of pure viciousness," is part of the gang. Jo Keller is a savvy crime queen the doc hooks up with. Special features: Commentary by historians Dr. Drew Casper and Richard Jewell; Warner Night at the Movies 1938 short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel; Your true adventure series short "Night intruder;" musical short "Toyland casino;" classic cartoon "Count me out;" trailers; audio-only bonus: Edward G. Robinson in 2 radio show adaptations. 87 min. DVD X514
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- American Gangster (2007)
- Directed by Ridley Scott. Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Armand Assante, John Ortiz, John Hawkes, RZA, Lymari Nadal, Roger Guenveur Smith. Disc one: Unrated extended version (177 min.) ; Original theatrical version (158 min.) -- Disc two: Special features (ca. 113 min.) -- Disc three: Special features (ca. 53 min.).
Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in Harlem. He does so by buying heroin directly from a source in South East Asia. Lucas comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States and as a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of Richie Roberts, a dedicated and honest policeman who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Inspired by a true story. Special features: Disc one: Feature commentary with director Ridley Scott and writer Steven Zailian (Theatrical version only) ; Disc two: Deleted scenes including an alternate opening; "Fallen empire: making 'American gangster'"; Case files ; Disc three: Music videos: "Do you feel me (Remix)" performed by Anthony Hamilton featuring Ghostface Killah, "Blue magic" from Jay-Z's album "American gangster"; Hip-hop infusion featuring Common and T.I.; "The BET special: the making of 'American gangster'"; "Dateline NBC: 'American gangster' first look"; Theatrical trailer. 335 min. DVD 9554
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The American Soldier (Der Amerikanische Soldat) (West Germany, 1970)
- Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Cast: Karl Scheydt, Elga Sorbas, Jan George, Margarethe Von Trotta. Story about a charismatic hit man (Ricky) who always wears a gun bulging from his shoulder holster, sports a soft fedora hat and white suit. Ricky carries out his assignments without knowledge or emotion and the final shoot-out is one of the most startling of Fassbinder's off-beat endings. 80 min. DVD 1724; vhs 999:3285
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
- Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft, the "Dead End" Kids (Bowery Boys). Two childhood friends grow up and go their separate ways--one a criminal and the other a parish priest. Rocky Sullivan returns to his old neighborhood to find his lawless life style idolized by the young hoodlums there. Jerry Connelly, the parish priest sees his hard work turn unavailing because of Rocky's corruptive influence. 97 min. DVD 3512; VHS 999:755
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Clapp, James A. "Growing Up Urban: The City, the Cinema, and American Youth." Journal of Popular Culture; Aug2007, Vol. 40 Issue 4, p601-629, 29p
 UC users only
- Naremore, James. "Actor, role, star: James Cagney in "Angels With Dirty Faces."" Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 1983, Vol. 16 Issue 1/2, p1-17, 17p
UC users only
- Roddick, Nick. A new deal in entertainment : Warner Brothers in the 1930s London : British Film Institute, 1983. (Main Stack PN1993.5.U65.R6 1983; PFA PN1999.W3.R63 1983)
- Shannon, Christopher. "Public Enemies, Local Heroes:
The Irish-American Gangster Film in Classic Hollywood Cinema." New Hibernia Review - Volume 9, Number 4, Winter 2005, pp. 48-64 UC users only
- Arson, Inc. (1949)
- Directed by William Berke. Cast: Robert Lowery, Anne Gwynne, Edward Brophy, Marcia Mae Jones, Douglas Fowley, Maude Eburne.
A Bureau of Fire Investigation agent goes under cover to confront a ruthless arson ring that has left a trail of bodies and burned out buildings with various and sundry carnage! 63 min. DVD 8238
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Atlantic City (1980)
- Directed by Louis Malle. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Michel Piccoli, Hollis McLaren, Robert Joy, Moses Znaimer. Atlantic City is revitalized as a resort when gambling is legalized but the new industry also brings changes. For Lou, 40 years a bodyguard-boyfriend to aging beauty queen Grace, his numbers-running sideline escalates to mob involvement. A drug-related slaying leaves him with a small fortune, a new care and a new girl, Sally, who is the perfect completion of his fantasy. 104 min. 999:2311
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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- Fertel, R. J. "Louis Malle's Atlantic City: La Nouvelle Vague and the High Romantic Tradition." New Orleans Review vol. 13 no. 2. 1986 Summer. pp: 14-20.
- Baby Face Nelson (1995)
- Directed by Scott Levy. Cast: Scott Levy. In this dramatization of the life of Baby Face Nelson, the gangster becomes intoxicated on the publicity of his crimes, but with allies like John Dillinger and enemies like J. Edgar Hoover, the joy ride of his crime spree can't last forever. 81 min. 999:630
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Badlands (1973)
- Directed by Terrence Malick. Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri. Set in South Dakota in 1959, this is the story of Kit and his girlfriend Holly, two people alienated from everyday life, who go on a killing spree. Based loosely on the 1950's killing spree by Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. 95 min. DVD 201
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Beat the Devil (1954)
- Directed by John Huston. Screenplay, Truman Capote, John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre. Spoof of caper movies in the vein of The Maltese falcon and Key Largo about passengers on a steamer who attempt to outfox each other for illegal control of a parcel of land believed to be rich with uranium deposits. Based on the novel by James Helvick (Claud Cockburn). 89 min. DVD X935
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Better Tomorrow (Ying huang boon sik) (Hong Kong, 1986)
- Directed by John Woo. Cast: Di Long, Zhang Guorong, Zhou Runfa. The first in a trilogy of Chinese "Godfather" films, it portrays countless difficulties and setbacks experienced by a couple of counterfeit money smugglers who have decided to wash their hands of their past and choose a better life. In the first part, Sung Tzu-hao, one of the main protagonists is on his last "business" trip. 90 min. 999:1325
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
 Movie Review Query Engine
- Billy Bathgate (1991)
- Directed by Robert Benton. Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Steven Hill, Loren Dean, Bruce Willis, Steve Buscemi. An action-packed gangster epic detailing the rise and fall of notorious mobster Dutch Schultz as seen through the eyes of his young protege, Billy Bathgate. Billy, an ambitious streetwise kid seduced by the power, money and glamour of crime, soon begins to seriously question if his passport to the good life is going to come from the fiery Dutch and his gang! 107 min. DVD 2741
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bizarre, Bizarre (Drôle de drame ou L'étrange aventure de Docteur Molyneux) (France, 1937)
- Directed by Marcel Carne. Cast: Michel Simon, Francoise Rosay, Louis Jouvet, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean-Louis Barrault, Nadine Vogel. A quiet botanist is the secret author of a popular crime novel. His peaceful existence is threatened when a crazed fan vows to kill the author of "The model crime." The convoluted plot involves a group of Victorian Englishmen who get so enmeshed in lies and disguises, murders and supposed murders, intrigues and romances, that Scotland Yard and the participants themselves are confused. 109 min. DVD 4793
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Black Glove (aka Face the Music) (UK, 1954)
- Directed by Terence Fisher. Cast: Eleanor Summerfield, John Saley, Paul Carpenter, Geoffrey Keen.
A famed trumpet player is suspected of murdering a blues singer. Using only two minor clues, he narrows the suspects to four people, but only after surviving poison placed on the mouthpiece of his trumpet. 84 min. DVD 8360
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Hammer Films and British Film Noir bibliography
- Boiling Point (3-4x jugatsu) (Japan, 1990)
- Director, 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano. Cast: 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, Masahiko Ono, Yuriko Ishida, Katsuo Torashiki, Takahito Iguchi, Minoru Iizuka, Hisashi Igawa, Bengal. Two members of a Japanese junior baseball team get mixed up with the local yakuza. After their coach is severely injured by the gangsters, the two boys set off to Okinawa to purchase a gun in order to get revenge. While in Okinawa they get befriended by a psychotic yakuza outcast who is planning a revenge of his own. 98 min. DVD 1093; vhs 999:3200
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Movie Review Query Engine
- Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
- Directed by Arthur Penn. Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard. A likeable young couple embark on a series of increasingly violent crimes during the darkest days of the Depression. 112 min. DVD 70; also on VHS 999:2
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Born Reckless (1930)
- Directed by John Ford. Cast: Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, Frank Albertson, Marguerite Churchill.
Follows a young gangster who gets busted during a robbery and is given a choice between jail and joining the army to fight in World War I. Choosing the military, he distinguishes himself as a hero overseas, only to return home and revert back to his criminal ways.
77 min. DVD 9364
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bound (1996)
- Directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Cast: Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano, John Ryan. This thriller tells the story of a gangster's moll and her tough lesbian, ex-con lover who steal $2 million in loot from the former's brutish lover and must then flee for their lives in the seedy, crime-filled city. -- Sandra Brennan [All Movie Guide] 108 min. 999:1908
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Internet Movie Database
- Brother (USA / UK / Japan, 2000)
- Directed by Takeshi Kitano. Cast: Beat Takeshi, Omar Epps, Claude Maki, Masaya Kato, Royale Watkins, Lombardo Boyar, Tetsuya Watari. After his crime boss is murdered in a Tokyo gang war, a yakuza gangster is exiled to Los Angeles. He has a big bag of money and a really bad attitude and hooks up with his half-brother who is the leader of a small-time drug ring. Together, with a local street hustler, the brothers declare war on the other local drug traffickers. This ignites into the bloodiest, dirtiest, nastiest power struggle L.A. has ever seen. 113 min. DVD 1084
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Movie Review Query Engine
- Brother Orchid (1940)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sothern, Humphrey Bogart, Donald Crisp, Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins.
Racket Boss John Sarto, tired of gang violence, quits and goes to Europe for "culture." His fortune soon dissipated by European swindlers, he returns to the old mob; but new boss Jack Burns finds him strictly superfluous. Narrowly escaping being rubbed out, Sarto is taken in by the monastery of the "Little Brothers of the Flower." His unique talents prove very useful to the monks...especially when Sarto's old mob forces them out of the flower market. Special features: Commentary by Robinson biographer Alan L. Gansberg and Bogart biographer Eric Lax; Warner night at the movies 1940 short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel, musical short "Henry Busse and his orchestra," classic cartoons "Busy bakers" and "Slap happy pappy," theatrical trailers. 87 min. DVD X136
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bugsy (1991)
- Directed by Barry Levinson. Cast: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Joe Mantegna. The incredible true story of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the playboy gangster who betrayed the Mob for love. A cold-blooded killer who dreamed of Hollywood stardom, a crazed "patriot," who plotted against Mussolini, and the brilliant visionary who carved Las Vegas out of the dry Nevada desert, Bugsy had it all until he fell in love with a woman who wanted more. Their love affair was passionate, tempestuous and ultimately tragic. 136 min. DVD 5336
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bullets or Ballots (1936)
- Directed by William Keighly. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Louise Beavers, Barton MacLane, Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh, Joseph King, Richard Purcell, George E. Stone, Joseph Crehan, Henry O'Neill. A disgraced New York detective joins a racketeer's payroll and sets the syndicate up for a fall. 82 min. DVD 5830
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
- Directed by Woody Allen. Cast: Jim Broadbent, John Cusack, Harvey Fierstein, Chazz Palminteri, Mary-Louise Parker, Rob Reiner, Jennifer Tilly, Tracey Ullman, Joe Viterelli, Jack Warden, Dianne Wiest. David Shayne is an idealistic young writer who'll do anything to get his first Broadway play off the ground -- even if it means teaming up with the mob! Surrounded by a wacky cast of characters, including a gangster's ditzy girlfriend, a tipsy actress and a mob hit man, Shayne's got to pull it all off before the curtain falls, and the bullets start to fly. 95 min. DVD 110; VHS 999:1874
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Case of the Baby-sitter(1947)
- Directed by Lambert Hillyer. Cast: Tom Neal, Pamela Blake, Allen Jenkins, Virginia Sale. Jewel thieves, operating in the guise of a Duke and Duchess, hire the Ace Detective Agency to 'baby sit' the infant they have kidnapped and are using as a blind for their thefts. A rival gang of thieves dope the "detective sitter", "Harvard" Quinlan (Allen Jenkins), and make off with a valuable diamond. Based on the story by Myron A. Nunes. 43 min. DVD X919
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Casino(1995)
- Directed by Martin Scorsese; Cast: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods, Don Rickles, Alan King, Kevin Pollak. In an era of over-the-top glitz, Sam "Ace" Rothstein is riding high as front man for the Mob's multi-billion-dollar Las Vegas operation. To protect their "investment," the bosses send in Ace's boyhood pal, hot-headed enforcer Nicky Santoro. It's a winning hand: Ace's brain and Nicky's muscle--until sexy wild card Ginger McKenna turns up the heat. 179 min. DVD 308
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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- Classe tous risques (The Big Risk)(France, 1960)
- Directed by Claude Stutet. Cast: Lino Ventura, Sandra Milo, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marcel Dalio, Claude Cerval, Jacques Dacqmine.
After hiding out in Milan for nearly a decade, former gang boss Abel Davos sneaks back into Paris, along with his children and appointed guardian, Eric Stark. Beset by backstabbing former friends, Abel begins a journey through the postwar Parisian underworld that is both throat grabbing and soul searching. A character study of a career criminal at the end of his rope. Special features: Excerpts from "Claude Sautet ou la magie invisible:" a 2003 documentary on the director by N.T. Binh and Dominique Rabourdin; interview with Classe tous risques novelist and screenwriter Jose Giovanni; archival interview footage featuring actor Lino Ventura discussing his career; original French and U.S. theatrical trailers; booklet: features new essays by director Bertrand Tavernier and Binh, a reprinted interview with Sautet, and a 1962 tribute by Jean-Pierre Melville. 108 min. DVD X94
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Collateral (2004)
- Directed by Michael Mann; Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Bruce McGill, Irma P. Hall, Barry Shabaka Henley. Vincent is a cool, calculating contract killer at the top of his game. Max is a cabbie with big dreams looking for his next fare. This fateful night, Max becomes Vincent's collateral, and will transport him on his next mission - one night, five stops, five hits and then a perfect getaway. Together, Vincent and Max find themselves in a non-stop race against time. With the LAPD and the FBI after them, they each become dependent on the other to survive. 119 min. DVD 3780
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Confessions of a Vice Baron(1943)
- Directors: Roy Luby and William A. O'Connor Cast: Willy Castello, Lloyd Ingraham, Betty Compson.
Hours before his execution for numerous crimes, Lucky Lombardo dictates his memoirs. He attempts to warn others about the corrupting path of easy money that put him in line for the gas chamber. 59 min. DVD X971
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Cotton Club (1984)
- Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, Nicolas Cage, Fred Gwynne. In 1928 New York, spirits are high and jazz, dancing and gangsters rule supreme. Harlem's Cotton Club is in the center of it all, where rich upper-eastsiders mix with dressed-up mobsters. On stage is gifted coronet player Dixie Dwyer, who dreams of the big time, and tap sensation Sandman Williams who can't touch his girl, the lovely singer Lila Rose Oliver, because of strict club rules. As tension rises, so do tempers, and the nightclub becomes a pressure-cooker of jilted loves and mob jobs. 129 min. DVD 788; VHS 999:2852
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Movie Review Query Engine
- Criminal (2004)
- Directed by Gregory Jacobs. Cast: John C. Reilly, Diego Luna, Maggie Gyllenhaal. A $750,000 one-night score awaits Richard and Rodrigo if they can flimflam an antique currency collector by selling him a counterfiet copy of an extremely rare currency bill. 87 min. DVD 3894
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Criss Cross (1948)
- Directed by Robert Siodmak. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne DeCarlo, Dan Duryea. An armored car driver secretly meets his ex-wife and then tries to convince her hoodlum husband that he met her only to get her husband's help in an upcoming robbery. DVD 2743; vhs 999:679
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dead or Alive (Hanzaisha) (Japan, 1999)
- Directed by Takashi Miike. Cast: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi, Hitoshi Ozawa, Shingo Tsurumi.
Without a home and feeling no obligation to Japanese society or Yakuza, Ryuichi and his small group decide to make their own place by trying to take over the Shinjuku underworld and the drug trade from Taiwan. As they plan an all-out-assault on the remaining Chinese and Japanese mafia kings, only Detective Jojima stands between them and complete domination. 105 min. DVD 8354
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dead or Alive 2: Birds (Tôbôsha)) (Japan, 2000)
- Directed by Takashi Miike. Cast: Show Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Edison Chen, Kenichi Endo, Teah.
Now reunited, Mizuki and Shuichi team up to pay off their spiritual debts while staying one trigger-pull ahead of the mobsters and killers who want them dead. 97 min. DVD 8355
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dead End (1937)
- Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, The Dead End Kids, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Allen Jenkins. On the mean streets on New York's Lower East Side, Drina hopes to save her brother from a life of crime. But notorious hoodlum Baby Face Martin has come back to his old haunts looking for trouble and threatening to drag the boy down with him. Drina turns to her childhood friend Dave for help. But can he stop Martin without becoming just like him? This film was the inspiration for the series of films featuring the Dead End Kids.
92 min. DVD 3625; DVD 3327; VHS 999:14
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Springhall, John. "Censoring Hollywood: Youth, Moral Panic and Crime/Gangster Movies of the 1930s." The Journal of Popular Culture Volume 32 Issue 3 Page 135-154, Winter 1998 UC users only
- Deadly Game (aka Third Party Risk) (UK, 1954)
- Directed by Daniel Birt. Cast: Simone Silva, Finlay Currie, Maureen Swanson, Ferdy Mayne.
Vacationing at a resort hotel in Spain, Phil runs into an old friend and agrees to drive his car to London for him. After saying goodbye to his old buddy, another hotel guest, the enigmatic Mr. Darius, as well as a local police inspector, tell Phil that his old friend has become involved in criminal enterprises. When Phil finds him murdered upon returning to Britain, he finds himself in possession of an envelope filled with mysterious microfilm that everyone seems to want. 63 min. DVD 8360
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Delusion (1990)
- Directed by Carl Colpaert. Cast: Jim Metzler, Jennifer Rubin, Kyle Secor. A mild mannered computer developer is hijacked by a young couple in the desert who introduce him to a world of casual violence and planned murder which triggers his desire for revenge and survival. 100 min. 999:148
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Departed (2006)
- Directed by Martin Scorsese. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan. In South Boston, the Massachusetts State Police are waging a war on Irish-American organized crime. Undercover cop Billy Costigan is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate, which is run by gangland chief Frank Costello. Billy quickly gains Costello's confidence. Colin Sullivan is a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate. Colin is rising to a position of power within the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police that there's a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly thrust into danger. Afraid of being caught and exposed to the enemy, each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself. Special features: Additional scenes with introductions from director Martin Scorsese; Stranger than fiction: the true story of Whitey Bulger, Southie and The departed (featurette); Crossing criminal cultures (Scorsese on organized crime). 151 min. DVD 7296
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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- Desperate (1947)
- Directed by Anthony Mann. Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr, Douglas Fowley. An innocent man is framed for the murder of a police officer, but his framers don't know how dangerous a desperate man can be. When he escapes, both the police and the mob are after him. 73 min. 999:476
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dial "M" for Murder (1954)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings. In a love triangle, the husband plots to murder his wife. When things go wrong, the wrong victim falls and there's no escape from the deadly consequences. 123 min. DVD 2941; vhs 999:273
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dillinger (1945)
- Directed by Max Nosseck. Cast: Lawrence Tierney, Edmund Lowe, Anne Jeffreys. A dramatization of Dillinger's violent career from his early days through his rise to the top of the FBI most-wanted list. Concludes with the well-known "lady in red" betrayal that left Dilinger a bullet-riddled corpse on a dark Chicago street. 70 min. DVD 4113
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dinner Rush (2000)
- Directed by Bob Giraldi. Cast: Danny Aiello, Edoardo Ballerini, Vivian Wu, Mike McGlone, Kirk Acevedo, Sandra Bernhard, John Corbett. At New York's hottest restaurant, things are really heating up. Owner and bookie Louis Cropa lost a friend to a mob hit and now his chef's gambling problem has brought the unwelcome mobsters into their restaurant. 97 min. DVD 1694
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Donnie Brasco (1997)
- Directed by Mike Newell. Cast: Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Michael Madsen, Bruno Kirby, James Russo, Anne Heche. This true story (based on the book by Joseph D. Pistone with Richard Woodley) follows FBI agent Joe Pistone as he infiltrates the mafia of New York. Posing as a jewel broker he is granted entrance into the violent mob family of aging hitman Lefty Ruggiero. When his personal and professional lives collide, Pistone jeopardizes his marriage, his job, his life and ultimately, the gangster mentor he has come to respect and admire. 121 min. DVD 5334
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Le Doulos (France, 1968)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Michel Piccoli. A complicated thriller about the fatalistic relationship between two men, Maurice, a crook just out of prison, and Silien, a mysterious, cryptic informer caught up in the complex relationship between the criminal underworld and the police. In French without subtitles. 108 min. DVD X646; copy 2 DVD 3655 (Non-US format DVD (PAL)).
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Le deuxième souffle (Second Breath)(France, 1966)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Christine Fabrega, Raymond Pellegrin, Marcel Bozzufi, Paul Frankeur, Denis Manuel, Jean Negroni. Gustave Manda, better known as Gu, a dangerous gangster, escapes from jail. He goes to Paris to join Manouche and other friends, and becomes involved in a gangland killing. Before leaving the country with Manouche, Gu needs a final job to get some money. But that's not so simple when you have Inspector Blot tracking you, and have to deal with the consequences of the shooting in Paris. Special features: Audio commentary featuring film scholar Ginette Vincendeau; new video interview with director Bertrand Tavernier (publicity agent on the film); archival footage featuring interviews with Melville and actor Lino Ventura; original theatrical trailer; new and improved English subtitle translation; a new essay by film critic Adrian Danks. 144 min. DVD X647
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Jean-Pierre Melville bibliography
- Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (Mabuse der Spieler) (Germany, 1922)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Lang's first film Cast: the arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse is also an allegory about Weimar Germany. Mabuse maintains his wealth through counterfeiting, manipulating the stock exchange and his ability to bend weaker minds to his will. In Part 1, Der grosse Spieler (The great gambler), Mabuse builds his empire, and casually ruins Count Told while entrancing the thrill-seeking Countess. In Part 2, Inferno, Mabuse turns from criminal to villain, murdering the Count and kidnapping the Countess. Mabuse is finally captured in his own hideaway, consumed by madness.
- DVD 6131; DVD 846 229 min.
- VHS 999:1965 pt. 1-2: Part 1. 141 min., Part 2. 156 min.
- VHS 999:191 pt. 1-2: shorter edited version (186 min.)
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Eastern Promises (UK / Canada / USA, 2007)
- Directed by David Cronenberg. Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl.
The mysterious and ruthless Nikolai is tied to one of London's most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is jarred when he crosses paths with Anna, an innocent midwife trying to right a wrong, who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. Now Nikolai must put into motion a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution. Special features: Secrets and stories: see how director David Cronenberg brought the screenplay to life in the dark and forbidding streets of London; Marked for life: director David Cronenberg reveals the hidden history behind Russian tattoos as well as their complex symbolism and unique visual storytelling. 101 min. DVD 9256
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- Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'echafaud) (France, 1957)
- Directed by Jouis Malle. Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Lino Ventura, Ivan Petrovich, Felix Marten, Elga Andersen, Gerard Darrieu, Sylviane Aisenstein, Charles Denner, Hubert Deschamps, Jean-Claude Brialy. Florence Carala and her lover Julien Tavernier, an ex-paratrooper, want to murder her husband by faking a suicide. 92 min. DVD 5933
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- Fantomas (France, 1913-1914)
- Directed by Louis Feuillade. Films from the silent serial crime saga with the evil Fantomas battling Inspector Juve. Based on novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. [Disc 1]. Fantomas (A l'ombre de la guillotine) (1913, 54 min.). Juve contre Fantomas (1913, 60 min.). Le mort qui tue (1913, 91 min.) -- [Disc 2]. Fantomas contre Fantomas (1914, 59 min.). Le faux magistrat (1914, 70 min.). Special features. Photography, Georges Guerin and Albert Sorgius. Cast: Rene Navarre, Edmond Breon, Georges Melchior, Renee Carl, Andre Luguet, Yvette Andreyor. Special features: Photo gallery, covers of the novels, sinister crime stories of the time, illustrated filmographies, a comparison of the original novels with the films, interviews with Marcel Allain, clips from the show "Pour le plaisir" (Rendez-vous avec Fantomas, created by Georges Franju, 1966) and "Bonnes adresses pour rever" (created by Roland Bernard, 1969). DVD 5868
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966)
- Directed by Russ Meyer. Cast: Tura Satana (Varla), Haji (Rosie), Lori Williams (Billie), Susan Bernard (Linda), Stuart Lancaster (The Old Man).
In this cult classic three curvaceous go-go dancers in a sportscar go on a desert crime-spree, led by nasty Varla dressed entirely in black. Varla's lesbian moll Rosie and bimbo Billie are along for the ride. When they meet a naive young couple Varla dispatches the man with one karate chop. They take the girl hostage and drive to a house owned by a crippled old lecher, where they scheme to discover the money he has hidden on the property, not realizing that the old man has a few sinister intentions of his own. 83 min. 999:3593
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- Hentzi, Gary. "Little cinema of horrors." Film Quarterly; Spring93, Vol. 46 Issue 3, p22, 6p
- UC users only
- McDonough, Jimmy. Big bosoms and square jaws : the biography of Russ Meyer, king of the sex film New York : Crown, c2005. (PFA : PN1998.3.M49 M34 2005)
- Final Analysis (1992)
- Directed by Phil Joanou. Cast: Richard Gere, Kim Basinger, Uma Thurman, Eric Roberts. Psychiatrist Isaac Barr breaches professional ethics by romancing the sister of his troubled client and becomes the fall guy in a devious scheme of murder and inheritance. 125 min. 999:2294
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- Fun With Dick and Jane (1977)
- Directed by Ted Kotcheff. Cast: George Segal, Jane Fonda, Ed McMahon, Richard Gautier, Allan Miller.
Dick Harper and his wife have always lived way beyond their means. Just because Dick has just lost his high-paying job is no reason for Jane to stop spending like there's no tomorrow. To make ends meet, Dick and Jane take up a new career: burglary. 95 min. 999:3835
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- Gang War (1940)
- Directed by Leo C. Popkin. Host: Richard Roundtree. Cast: Ralph Cooper, Gladys Snyder, Reggie Fenderson, Lawrence Criner, Monte Hawley, Jesse Brooks, Johnny Thomas, Maceo Sheffield, Charles Hawkins, Robert Johnson, Henry Roberts, Harold Garrison. Classic battle between 2 gangs for control of the juke box machines in Harlem. 65 min. DVD 4995
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- Gangs Inc.(1941)
- Directed by Phil Rosen. Cast: Alan Ladd, Joan Woodbury, Jack LaRue, John Archer, Vince Barnett, Linda Ware. An innocent anguished woman is incarcerated on a hit-and-run rap. She emerges from prison a hardened criminal who turns to armed robbery and eventually rises through blackmail to a position of power in the local crime organization. Ladd plays an undercover reporter doubling for a notorious gangster. 73 min. DVD X971
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- Get Carter (UK, 1971)
- Directed by Mike Hodges. Cast: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland. A small-time gangster journeys to Newcastle to investigate and avenge his brother's killing. Once there he finds himself drawn into the local underworld where he encounters the full spectrum of violence and corruption. 111 min. DVD 4842
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- Get Shorty (1995)
- Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Cast: John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito. Loan shark Chili Palmer had done his time as a gangster. So when "business" takes him to Los Angeles to collect a debt from down-and-out filmmaker Harry Zimm, Chili talks tough...and then pitches Harry a script idea. Immediately Chili is swept into the Hollywood scene: he schmoozes film star Martin Weir and romances "B" movie queen Karen Flores. In fact, all would be smooth for this cool new producer, if it weren't for the drug smugglers and an angry mobster who wan't leave him alone. 105 min. DVD 8973; vhs 999:1557
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- Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
- Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Cast: Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Henry Silva. East meets West in this hip-hop infused samurai-gangster story in which a professional killer goes by the name of Ghost Dog and who lives by the age-old code of the samurai. When Ghost Dog's code is dangerously betrayed by the dysfunctional mafia family that occasionally employs him, he must find a way to defend himself without breaking the code of the samurai. 116 min. DVD 957
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- The Glass Tomb (aka The Glass Cage) (UK, 1955)
- Directed by Montgomery Tully. Cast: John Ireland, Honor Blackman, Geoffrey Keen, Eric Pohlman, Sidney James.
A circus barker stages a sensational new act, the world's longest fast undertaken by "Sapolio", on view in a glass cage. But this act also results in several murders, a kidnapping, and a poisoning. 59 min. DVD 8346
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- The Glove(1979)
- Directed by Ross Hagen. Cast: John Saxon, Roosevelt Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Joan Blondell, Jack Carter, Aldo Ray, Keenan Wynn, Howard Honig, Michael Pataki. Sam Kellog is a worn out bounty hunter in Los Angeles who takes on a job which would pay him $20,000 for tracking down an ex-convict, Victor Hale, who's dressed up in riot gear and is beating prison guards to death with a steel laced glove that was invented by the police and was first used on him. So, it's payback time for Victor, but Sam is determined to find his man and bring him in despite the warnings. 66 min. DVD X29
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- Godfather I (parts 1 & 2) (1971-74)
- Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton. The Corleone Family nearly falls from power in America but rises to observe the passage of rites from father to son. There is a balance between family life and the ugly business of crime in which they are engaged. 171 min. DVD X627 (remastered); DVD 908; VHS 999:81
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- Godfather II (parts 1 & 2) (1971-74)
- Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, Lee Strasberg. The saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family continues with the roots and rise of a young Don Vito and the ascension of Michael as the new Don. 200 min. DVD X628(remastered); DVD 908; VHS 999:137
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- Godfather III (1990)
- Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Andy Garcia, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna, Bridget Fonda. In the final installment of the Godfather Trilogy, an aging Don Michael Corleone seeks to legitimize his crime family's interests and remove himself from the violent underworld but is kept back by the ambitions of the young. While he attempts to link the Corleone's finances with the Vatican, Michael must deal with the machinations of a hungrier gangster seeking to upset the existing Mafioso order and a young protoge's love affair with his daughter. 169 min. DVD X629(remastered); DVD 908
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- The Godfather Trilogy: Supplementary Materials (1990)
- A collection of supplements discussing the history of the making of the Godfather trilogy. Features behind the scenes information, biographies of filmmakers, and additional scenes regarding the Godfather trilogy. Disc 4. 2001 archival supplements: Behind the scenes: A look inside ; On location ; Francis Coppola's notebook ; Music of the Godfather ; Coppola & Puzo on screenwriting ; Gordon Willis on cinematography ; Storyboards : Godfather part II ; Storyboards : Godfather part III ; The godfather behind the scenes 1971 -- Filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola ; Mario Puzo ; Gordon Willis ; Dean Tavoularis ; Nino Rota ; Carmine Coppola -- Additional scenes -- Family tree -- Galleries: Trailers ; Photo gallery ; Rogue's gallery ; Acclaim & response ; credits.
Disc 5. All-new 2008 supplements: Godfather world -- The masterpiece that almost wasn't -- when the shooting stopped -- Emulsional rescue revealing The godfather -- The godfather on the red carpet -- Four short films on the Godfather: GF vs. GF part II ; Riffing on the riffing ; Cannoli ; Clemenza -- credits. 291 min. DVD X630
- Goodfellas (1990)
- Directed by Martin Scorsese. Cast: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Brocco, Paul Sorvino. Revolving around the low-level gangster Henry Hill, this dramatization of a group of men involved with organized crime provides an inside view of the Mafia from 1955 to the 1980's. Based on the biography of Henry Hill titled "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi. 146 min. DVD 2843; vhs 999:1932
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- The Grifters (1990)
- Directed by Stephen Frears; Cast: John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening. Three con artists walk on the razor's edge of life. Lilly has decided it's time to get out, and wants her son out, too. But Roy has fallen for sleek Myra, who wants him for her partner. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson. 114 min. DVD 3832; vhs 999:2333
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- Gun Crazy (Crazy is the Female) (1950)
- Directed by Joseph Lewis. Cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall. Although Bart is not a violent man at heart, he allows the no-good Laurie to lure him into a life of crime. DVD 2716; vhs 999:517
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- Martin, Adrian. "Violently Happy: Gun Crazy."
Senses of Cinema, vol. 10, pp. (no pagination), November 2000.
- Ruhmann, Lony. "Gun Crazy, 'The Accomplishment of Many, Many Minds': An Interview with Joseph H. Lewis." The Velvet Light Trap, vol. 20. 1983 Summer. pp: 16-21
- High Sierra (1941)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh; Cast: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie, Henry Travers. Set against the captivating background of California's High Sierra Montains, the story begins when convicted killer Roy Earle is sprung from jail by mobster "Big Mac", who wants Earle to assist in a California hotel hold-up. As a favor to his old friend, he agrees to pull one more job and then settle down to a normal life. From a novel by W. R. Burnett. 101 min. DVD 3500; vhs 999:1812
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- Alley, Kenneth D. "High Sierra: Swan Song for an Era." Journal of Popular Film 1976 5(3-4): 248-262.
- Simons, John L. "Henry on Bogie: Reality and Romance in 'Dream Song No. 9' and High Sierra." Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 5, pp. 269-72, 1977.
- His Kind of Woman! (1951)
- Directed by John Farrow. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jan Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw. Hard-luck gambler Dan Milner is in sudden luck. He'll get $50,000 to hang out at a posh Mexican resort, $5,000 now and the big payoff when the reason he's been sent there is revealed. Of course, the gangsters making the offer don't expect him to live long enough to collect. 120 min. DVD 5847
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- A History of Violence (2005)
- Directed by David Cronenberg. Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Ashton Holmes, Peter MacNeill, Stephen McHattie, Greg Bryk. Tom is a loving, well-respected family man from a small Indiana town. When two criminals show up at his diner, Tom is forced to take action and thwart the robbery attempt. Suddenly heralded as a local hero who took the courage to stand up to crime, people look up to Tom as a man of high moral regard. But all the media attention attracts the likes of the mob, who show up at Tom's doorstep. Is it a case of mistaken identity or does Tom have a history that no one knows about? 95 min. DVD 5245
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- Hit Man File (Sum muepuen) (Thailand, 2005)
- Directed by Sananjit Bangsapan. Cast: Chatchai Plengpanit, Saranyoo Wongkrachang, Suntisuk Promsiri, Bongkot Khongmalai, Pitisak Yaowanont.
Tanthai has become the Thai underworld's secret weapon: a remorseless contract killer able to dispatch any target provided his price is met. But a when a politician hires him to kill a drug kingpin, Tanthai finds himself the target. 95 min. DVD 7472
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- Hollow Triumph (The Scar) (1948)
- Directed by Steve Sekelye; Cast: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, Eduard Franz, Leslie Brooks, John Qualen. An ex-medical student in trouble with gambling debts kills a psychiatrist who is his exact look-alike, except for a scar on the doctor's cheek. The student impersonates the dead psychiatrist, but mistakenly makes his own scar on the wrong cheek. It is not long before the doctor's secretary is on to him and he discovers the doctor had a few gambling debts himself. Originally made in 1948 as a motion picture under the title Hollow Triumph. Based on the novel by Murray Forbes. 83 min. DVD 3657; VHS 999:2245
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- Hoodlum (1997)
- Directed by Bill Duke. Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Andy Garcia, Cicely Tyson, Chi McBride, Richard Bradford, Clarence Williams III. In 1930's New York, Bumpy Johnson rules the Harlem numbers racket. When gangster Dutch Schultz threatens his reign, Bumpy realizes that his only way out is a dangerous plan involving mob chieftain Lucky Luciano. 130 min. DVD 5301
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- House By the River (1950)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Cast: Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt. Stephen Byrne is so caught up in murder that it finally catches up with him. 85 min. DVD 4918; vhs 999:677
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- In a Lonely Place (1950)
- Directed by Nicholas Ray. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart. A hotheaded Hollywood screenwriter, questioned for murder, is drawn to his neighbor when she confirms his alibi. His volatile nature eventually threatens to destroy their one last chance for real love. 94 min. DVD 3486; vhs 999:974
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- In Cold Blood (1967)
- Directed by Richard Brooks. Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe. Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe. Dramatizes a real crime in which a Kansas farmer, his wife and two teenage children were brutally murdered by two ex-convicts. Explores the inner workings of the criminals' minds as it follows their purposeless meanderings through Mexico and the United States in evasion of the law. Based on the book by Truman Capote. 133 min. DVD X897; vhs 999:974
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- Murray, E. "'In cold blood': the filmic novel and the problem of adaptation." Literature/Film Quarterly Vol I nr 2 (Spring 1973); p 132-137
- Wells, Paul. "In Cold Blood: Yellow Birds, New Realism and Killer Culture." In: Classics in film and fiction / edited by Deborah Cartmell ... [et al.]. London ; Sterling, Va. : Pluto Press, 2000. (Main Stack PN1997.85.C56 2000)
- Invisible Stripes (1939)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: George Raft, Jane Bryan, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Flora Robson, Paul Kelly, Henry O'Neill, Lee Patrick.
Cliff and Chuck leave prison together. Cliff tries the straight life but falls back into crime with Chuck and his gang. When he makes enough to enable his brother Tim to buy a garage and marry his sweetheart, Cliff quits crime again. But when he tries to help Chuck later on, he's implicated again. Special features: Commentary by historians Alain Silver and James Ursini; Warner Night at the Movies 1939 short subjects gallery; vintage newsreel; Technicolor historical short "The Monroe doctrine;" two musical shorts: "Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Crawford at home" and the Technicolor "Quiet, please;" classic cartoons "Bars and stripes forever" and "Hare-um scare-um;" trailers. 82 min. DVD X513
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- Jail Bait (1954)
- Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Cast: Lyle Talbot, Dolores Fuller, Clancy Malone, John Robert Martin, Steve Reeves, Herbert Rawlinson, Timothy Farrell, Theodora Thurman, Bud Osborne, Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel. Vic Brady draws young Don Gregor into a life of crime. He then blackmails Gregor's plastic surgeon father into fixing up his face so he can evade the cops. This is Steve Reeves' first speaking part. 71 min. DVD X971
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- Johnny Eager (1941)
- Directed by Melvin LeRoy. Cast: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin, Robert Sterling, Patricia Dane, Glenda Farrell, Barry Nelson. One of the last great gangster movies from the studio system's heyday. Johnny Eager is a racketeer looking to tighten his grip on local gambling operations. Lisbeth Bard, a sociology student (and daughter of the district attorney) falls for Johnny and then becomes a pawn in his schemes to control her father. 107 min. 999:3569
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- Juve contre Fantomas (France, 1913-14)
- Directed by Louis Feuillade. The Simplon Express disaster (23 min.) -- The haunted Villa (23 min.) Episodes of the Fantomas silent film serial about the adventures of Fantomas, the mysterious bandit in a black hood who is relentlessly tracked by Juve, the detective. Fantomas was an immense worldwide success and helped establish the advent of film serials in the United States. 47 min. 999:1926; also included on DVD 5868
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- Key Largo (1948)
- Directed by John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall. A returning war veteran fights gangsters who take over a hotel in the Florida Keys in an effort to clandestinely re-enter the country. 100 min. DVD 294; vhs 999:638
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- The Killer (Die xue shuang xiong) (Hong Kong, 91)
- Directed by John Woo. Jeffrey is The Killer, hired by the mob for one last job. Lee is the relentless cop trying to stop the killer at any cost. The two enemies form a strange and powerful bond that blur the lines between good and evil. 110 min. DVD 1868; vhs 999:848
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- Killer's Kiss (1956)
- Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Ruth Sobotka. A struggling boxer in New York City protects a nightclub dancer from her boyfriend and boss, unaware that he is a gangster. 67 min. DVD 561; vhs 999:1239
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- The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1978)
- Directed by John Cassavetes. Cast: Ben Gazzara, Timothy Agoglia Carey, Seymour Cassell, Robert Phillips, Morgan Woodward. When the gambling losses of nightclub owner Cosmo Vitelli (Gazzara) mount, he is pressured by a gangster to commit a murder to free himself of the debt. Now he is caught in a dangerous game, where every move is a deadly risk, and the only goal is to survive. (Originally released in a 135-min. version in 1976.) 109 min. DVD 2990; vhs 999:2453
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- The Krays (UK, 1990)
- Directed by Peter Medak. Cast: Billie Whitelaw, Tom Bell, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp. Based on a true story. During the 1960's, twin brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray dominated London's underworld and their passion forviolence and fearlessness made them legends in their own times. They emerged from their violent schooldaysinto leaders of their own criminal mob. Soon their personal lives began to crumble, they were tried for two brutal murders and are now serving a 30 year prison sentence. 119 min. 999:3633
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- Lady Killer (1933)
- Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Cast: James Cagney, Mae Clarke, Margaret Lindsay, Leslie Fenton, Douglas Dumbrille. Pre-Hays Code story of a New York thug who suddenly stumbles onto fame and fortune as an actor in Hollywood. His pictures are in all the fan magazines, his name is in marquee lights. Former con artist Dan Quigley's doing all right in the movie racket but if his criminal past catches up with him he could end up in the Big House. 77 min. 999:3298
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- Lady Gangster(1942)
- Directed by Florian Roberts. Cast: Faye Emerson, Julie Bishop, Frank Wilcox, Jackie C. Gleason, Roland Drew, Ruth Ford.
A tough-talking beauty gets mixed up in a bank robbery and lands in prison. Before she is jailed, she steals the loot from her partners-in-crime and hides it. While in jail, she is befriended by an influential newspaper man, Kenneth Phillips. The lady ganster attempst to earn her release by turning over the money, but a series of double-crossings by her former henchmen stand in the way. 62 min. DVD X971
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- Larceny, Inc. (1942)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson, Edward Brophy, Anthony Quinn.
On release from Sing Sing, 'Pressure' Maxwell wants to go into legal business; his pal 'Jug' Martin would rather join fellow inmate Leo's bank robbery scheme. A compromise is reached when Pressure buys a luggage shop next to the bank and they begin to build a tunnel. Pressure, Jug, and their friend Weepy prove the most incompetent burglars ever seen, but their biggest problem is keeping paying customers out of the store as it gains unexpected success! Based upon a play by Laura and S.J. Perelman. Special features: Commentary by historians Haden Guest and Dana Polan; Warner Night at the Movies 1942 short subject gallery: vintage newsreel; John Huston's Oscar-nominated patriotic short "Winning your wings;" classic cartoons: "Porky's pastry pirates" and "The wabbit who came to supper;" trailers. 95 min. DVD X511
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- Let Him Have It (1991)
- Directed by Peter Medak. Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Paul Reynolds, Tom Bell, Eileen Atkins, Clare Holman, Michael Elphick, Mark McGann, Tom Courtenay. Set in the gritty, post-war world of 1950's London, American movie gangsters are the reigning heroes of aimless young toughs that roam the streets. A robbery turns to murder and a simple-minded teenager finds himself facing a death sentence for a crime he didn't commit. 115 min. 999:1037
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- Little Ceasar (1930)
- Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Glenda Farrell. A little tough guy pushes his way to the top of the mob. Yet, at the peak of his success he is taken down as violently as he had ascended to power. 81 min. DVD 3511; also VHS 999:823
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- The Little Giant (1933)
- Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Helen Vinson, Russell Hopton, Shirley Grey.
Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help. Special features: Commentary by historians Daniel Bubbeo and John McCarty; Warner Night at the Movies 1933 short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel; musical short "Use your imagination;" classic cartoon "The dish ran away with the spoon;" trailers. 75 min. DVD X510
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- Loan Shark (1952)
- Directed by Seymour Friedman. Cast: George Raft, Dorothy Hart, John Hoyt, Paul Stewart, Helen Westcott.
Tough ex-con George Raft is hired by a factory owner and a union leader to help smash a loan-sharking mob preying on their employees. To obtain the necessary evidence, Raft puts his life on the line by joining the gang. 74 min. DVD 8238
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- Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (UK, 1998)
- Directed by Guy Ritchie. Cast: Nick Moran, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham, Steven Mackintosh, Vinnie Jones, Sting.
A streetwise charmer who loses his friends' money in a rigged game comes up with a plan to make everything come out right, but ends up in a comedy of errors. 108 min. DVD 8211
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- Love Is Colder Than Death (Liebe ist kalter als der Tod) (West Germany, 1969)
- Directed by Rainer Fassbinder. Cast: Ulli Lommel, Hanna Schygulla, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hans Hirschmuller, Peter Berling. Franz, a small-time pimp from Berin, strikes up a friendship with Bruno, another criminal recruit. Despite ther persuasive methods, Franz refuses to join the organization. Instead, he teams with Bruno on a small wave of shoplifting and murder. But Franz's prostitute girlfriend is distrustful of the gangster -- and when Bruno begins planning a bank robbery, she makes some arrangements of her own. 85 min. DVD 1655
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- The Man I Love (1947)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Bruce (Herman Brix) Bennett, Alan Hale, Dolores Moran, John Ridgely, Don McGuire, Warren Douglas, Craig Stevens. A nightclub singer who falls for a no-good mobster and a moody piano genius becomes dangerously involved with her brother's descent into crime. This film inspired Scorsese's film titled 'New York, New York'. 90 min. 999:2869
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- Marked Woman (1937)
- Director, Lloyd Bacon. Screenplay: Robert Rossen. Cast: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Eduardo Cianelli, Jane Bryan, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot, Allen Jenkins, John Litel, Ben Welden, Henry O'Neill. When a hostess's innocent sister vanishes from a party given by a racketeering boss, she threatens the boss, and is then herself in danger. 97 min. DVD 7585; vhs 999:3714
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- Campbell, Russell. Marked women : prostitutes and prostitution in the cinema. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c2006. (Main Stack PN1995.9.P76.C36 2006; PFA PN1995.9.P76.C36 2006)
- Kay, Karyn. "Sisters of the Night." Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television; Fall72 Issue 6, p20-25, 6p,
- Neve, Brian. "The Screenwriter and the Social Problem Film, 1936-38: The Case of Robert Rossen at Warner Brothers." Film and History 14:1 (Feb. 1984) p. 2
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- Married to the Mob (1988)
- Director: Jonathan Demme. Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell, Mercedes Ruehl, Alec Baldwin. Mafia princess Angela DeMarco wants out. With her husband Frank dead, Angela decides it's time to divorce "the mob" and start a new life. But what she doesn't realize is once you're married to the mob, it's death do you part ... usually yours. 104 min. DVD 1691
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- The Mayor of Hell (1933)
- Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: James Cagney, Madge Evans, Arthur Byron, Allen Jenkins, Dudley Digges, Frankie Darro.
Politicos award gangster Patsy Gargan a cushy job as a honcho at a woefully run boys reform school-- no experience necessary, no expectations, no problems. But firebrand Patsy runs up against plenty of problems. He sees something in the kids-- himself. He, too, was raised in the slums. And he decides to defy everyone to give the kids opportunities he never had. Yet all the good Patsy does could collapse when he missteps into his life of crime. Special features: Commentary by film historian Greg Mank; Warner night at the movies 1933; Short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel, musical short "The audition," classic cartoon "The organ grinder," theatrical trailers. 90 min.DVD X135
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- Mean Streets (1973)
- Directed by Martin Scorsese; Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Denova, George Memmoli, David Carradine, Robert Carradine. In this tale of the first-generation sons and daughters of New York's Little Italy, a small-time hood works his way up from the bottom rungs of the Mafia ladder. 112 min.DVD 99
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- Miller's Crossing (1990)
- Directed by Joel Coen. Cast: Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito, J.E. Freeman. The control of the gangster-political boss of an eastern city is slipping. The situation is complicated by a woman - both the boss and his trusted lieutenant are in love with her. Then the boss's control is challenged by an upstart Italian underboss and his ruthless henchman. 115 min. DVD 3331; 999:2117
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- No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald.
One morning while hunting antelope, Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies and decides to investigate. He finds a case filled with $2 million and a truck loaded with heroin. Moss takes it with him and hits the road until he can determine his next move. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.
Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Special features: "The making of No country for old men" featurette; Working with the Coens: reflections of cast & crew" featurette; "Diary of a country sheriff" featurette. 122 min. DVD 9439
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- Once Upon a Time in America (1983)
- Director, Sergio Leone. Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, Treat Williams. "Epic, episodic, tale of the lives of a small group of New York City Jewish gangsters spanning over 40 years. Told mostly in flashbacks and flash-forwards, the movie centers on small-time hood David 'Noodles' Aaronson (Robert De Nero) and his lifelong partners in crime; Max (James Woods), Cockeye (William Forsythe) and Patsy (James Hayden) and their friends from growing up in the rough Jewish neighborhood of New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, to the last years of Prohibition in the early 1930s, and then to the late 1960s where an elderly Noodles returns to New York after many years in hiding to look into the past." [Internet Movie Database] 226 min. DVD 1682; vhs 999:3099
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- Paid to Kill (aka Five Days) (UK, 1954)
- Directed by Montgomery Tully. Cast: Dane Clark, Paul Carpenter, Thea Gregory, Cecile Chevreau.
A man's business deal fails and to provide for his "adoring" wife, he hires his best friend to kill him so his wife can collect on his insurance. The business deal comes through at the last minute, but he finds he can't call off the murder. His treacherous double-crossing wife has different ideas. 71 min. DVD 8346
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Petrified Forest (1936)
- Directed by Archie L. Mayo. Cast: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Genevieve Tobin, Dick Foran, Joseph Sawyer, Eddie Acuff. Some gangsters hold a group of people hostage in a desert gas-station cafe in Arizona and the lives of the people change irrevocably. 84 min. DVD 3510; VHS 999:444
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- Pickup on South Street (1953)
- Directed by Samuel Fuller. Cast: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter. Richard Widmark stars as Skip McCoy, thief with a record and three-time loser. That doesn't stop him from pickpocketing a street-smart beauty who's carrying secret microfilm for a gang of communist spies. 84 min. DVD 2709; vhs 999:516
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- Picture Snatcher (1933)
- Director, Lloyd Bacon. Cast: James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis, Alice White, Ralf Harolde, Robert Emmett O'Connor.
James Cagney plays a con fresh from Sing Sing and putting his criminal skills to work as a sneaky, snaky tabloid photographer. He falls for the daughter of the cop who put him away and the father is not impressed by his new career, especially when he takes a daring shot of a woman being executed (based an actual incident when a New York Daily News photographer got a photo of Ruth Snyder in the electric chair). Kean isn't allowed to see Patricia any longer. But when one of his former friends kills two policemen, Kean sees his chance.... Special features: Commentary by film historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta ; Warner Night at the Movies 1933 Short Subject Gallery: vintage newsreel ; musical short, "Plane Crazy" ; classic cartoon, "Wake Up the Gypsy in Me" ; theatrical trailers. 77 min. DVD X129
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- Pierrot le fou (France, 1968)
- Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Part love story, part gangster thriller, Pierrot le fou combines romance, adventure, and violence with allusions to art, literature, and cinema to create a colorful French version of the Bonnie and Clyde story. 90 min. DVD 119; vhs 999:448
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- Godard, Jean Luc. Pierrot le Fou: A Film / by Jean-Luc Godard. Rev. ed. London: Lorrimer, 1984. Series title: Classic film scripts. (UCB Main PN1997 .P56813 1984)
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- The Pitfall (1948)
- Directed by Andre de Toth. Cast: Dick Powell, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, Elizabeth Scott. A happily married insurance salesman becomes bored with his perfect wife and ideal son. When he succumbs to the advances of a pretty younger woman, it leads to a complicated web of intrigue, jealousy and murder. 88 min. 999:1238
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- Portland Expose (1957)
- Directed by Harold D. Schuster. Cast: Edward Binns, Carolyn Craig, Virginia Gregg, Lawrence Dobkin, Frank Gorshin.
The story concentrates on an honest tavern owner named George Madison who is involuntarily sucked into the city's rotten-to-the-core political machine. When Madison refuses to allow his establishment to serve as the gathering place for hoods and delinquents, the powers-that-be threaten to harm his family. Only after his daughter is attacked by a syndicate flunkey does Madison decide to fight back. At great personal risk, he manages to tape-record damning evidence against Portland's 'untouchable' criminal kingpin. 72 min. DVD 8237
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- Portrait In Black (1948)
- Directed by Michael Gordon. Cast: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Lloyd Nolan, Anna May Wong. In this glamorous and provocative murder mystery set in San Francisco's affluent Nob Hill, an unhappy wife is eager to speed up the eventual death of her tyrannical, paralyzed shipping magnate husband. Conveniently, her 113 min. 999:1233
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- The Postman Always Ring Twice (1946)
- Directed by Tay Garnett. Cast: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, Audrey Totter, Alan Reed. Steamy tale of a drifter offered a job at a roadside diner by the owner, an easy-going older man. When the drifter and the owner's voluptuous wife fall in love, they plot to kill her husband and run away together. DVD 2232; vhs 999:902
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- Point Blank (1967)
- Directed by John Boorman; Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Lloyd Bochner, Michael Strong. A professional criminal helps pull off an underworld heist, then is gunned down and left for dead on deserted Alcatraz Island. He resurfaces in Los Angeles to track down his share of the loot. Aided by a lovely accomplice, he takes on the sundicate at its own deadly game, doggedly stalking his prey across the backdrop of seething '60's L.A. Based on the novel "The Hunter" by Richard Stark. 89 min. 999:2360
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- Prime Cut (1972)
- Directed by Michael Ritchie. Cast: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, Gregory Walcott, Angel Tompkins. A Kansas City mobster uses a meat processing factory as a front for his drug and prostitution business. There, gangsters are ground into sausage, and women are sold like cattle. Things change, however, when Chicago tough guy Nick comes to town. 86 min. DVD 6261
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- Prizzi's Honor (1985)
- Directed by John Huston. Cast: Anjelica Huston, Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, William Hickey, Robert Loggia, John Randolph. The Prizzi family's principal hit man, Charley is about to discover that he and his new bride share more than just body heat: They're both cold-blooded assassins, and their next job is to ice each other! Now Charley must choose which contract to honor -- the one to his wife or the one on his wife! 129 min. DVD 1892
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- The Professional (Léon) (France, 1994)
- Director, Luc Besson. Cast: Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman, Danny Aiello.
When his next door neighbors are murdered, New York's top hit man becomes the unwilling guardian of their surviving 12-year-old daughter. He helps her track the psychotic agent who murdered her family so she can exact her revenge. A non-stop crescendo of action, suspense and surprises. 110 min. DVD 5805
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- Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film
- As popular as the classic gangster movies were in their heyday, they still hold power over their audiences today. Explore the invention and development of the crime genre from the turn of the century to the silent era to the rise of the great Warner Bros. stars like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson; directors like Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh and William Wellman; the films themselves and the influence they had on filmmakers all over the world; and the artistic merit these defining classic films still warrant. Learn about the effect of Prohibition, Censorship, the Depression and World War II on the rise of criminality in society, and its subsequent reflection seen on-screen. Special features: Mob of classic gangster-themed cartoons: "I like mountain music," "She was an acrobat's daughter," "Racketeer rabbit" and "Bugs and thugs." 2008. 106 min. DVD X515
- The Public Enemy (1931)
- Directed by William A. Wellman. Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell. Tom Powers (Cagney) begins his life of crime at an early age with his companion Matt Doyle. Powers' eventual rise to a notorious prohibition gangster is only darkened when a rival gang brutally murders his childhood friend. Powers tries to avenge Doyle's death but his efforts lead to a chilling and savage conclusion. 84 min. DVD 3514; VHS 999:33
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- Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Directed by Quentin Tarantino; Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Christopher Walken, Bruce Willis. A clever, dark gangster film noir that tells four separate stories that are gradually brought together. Involved are two low-rent hit men, their boss and his sexy wife, a prizefighter and a pair of desperate robbers. 164 min. DVD
575; vhs 999:1393
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- The Racket (1951)
- Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan. A straight-arrow cop and an old-school gangster find a common foe: big shots who run crime like a corporation. 89 min. DVD 5851
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- Ransom (1996)
- Directed by Ron Howard. Cast: Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Delroy Lindo, Lili Taylor. When the son of a wealthy businessman is kidnapped, he defies the experts and turns the tables on the kidnappers in a last-chance effort to rescue his boy. 121 min. DVD 5196
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- The Replacement Killers (1998)
- Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Cast: Chow Yun-fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker, Jurgen Prochnow.
John Lee, a professional hit man, defies the orders of a ruthless crime boss, putting not only his own life but his family's at stake. Desperate to get home, Lee enlists the aid of a document forger, and together they fend off the "replacement killers" hired to murder them. Special features: "The making of the Replacement Killers: where the action is"; featurette: "Chow Yun-Fat goes Hollywood". 96 min. DVD 7437
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- Cheung, Floyd. "Negative Attraction: The Politics of Interracial Romance in The Replacement Killers." Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture , vol. 1, no. 2, pp. [no pagination], Fall 2002
- Road to Perdition (2002)
- Directed by Sam Mendes. Cast: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig, Tyler Hoechlin. Michael Sullivan works as an enforcer for his adopted father, Irish gangster John Rooney. When Sullivan's son, Mike Jr., witnesses one of his father's killings on Rooney's behalf, the gangster decides that his ward and his family are liabilities that must be removed. Sullivan tries to safeguard his son and get even with the man who betrayed him, while his son focuses on bonding with his emotionally distant father. 117 min. DVD 3894
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- Scarface (1932)
- Directed by Howard Hawks. Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, George Raft, Boris Karloff. Drama of the life and death of a Chicago gangster during prohibition in the 1920's. 93 min. DVD 5674; vhs 999:68
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- Scarface (1983)
- Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, Miriam Colon, F. Murray Abraham, Paul Shenar, Harris Yulin. Tells the story of the violent career of a smalltime Cuban refugee hoodlum who guns his way to the top of Miami's cocaine empire. 170 min. DVD 5676; vhs 999:2600
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- Scarlet Street (1945)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay. The story of a middle-aged bookkeeper who gets involved with a femme fatale, her boy friend and murder. DVD 2746; vhs 999:331
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- A Slight Case of Murder (1938)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly, Willard Parker. A riotous satire on racketeering. When Prohibition's ban on booze is over, bootlegger Remy Marco must make some changes and go legit. 85 min. DVD 5837
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- Sonatine (Japan, 1993)
- Directed by Takeshi Kitano. Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Masanobu Katsumura, Susumu Terashima, Ren Ohsugi, Tonbo Zushi. A seasoned mobster goes to the island of Okinawa on a "peacekeeping" mission, even though he suspects his boss is secretly trying to eliminate him. Determined not to go down without a fight, he and his gang know exactly what they have to do. 94 min. 999:3266
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- The Sopranos(TV series)
- SEE TV videography
- Stander (Canada / Germany / South Africa / UK, 2003)
- Directed by Bronwen Hughes. Cast: Tom Jane, Dexter Fletcher, David Patrick O'Hara, Deborah Kara Unger. Based on the true story of Andre Stander, a South African police officer who suffers a crisis of conscience after his involvement in a riot in Johannesburg. He goes from law enforcer to law breaker, becoming one of South Africa's most notorious bank robbers. 116 min. DVD 7318
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- Street With No Name (1948)
- Directed by William Keighley. Cast: Mark Stevens, Richard Widmark, Lloyd Nolan. Richard Widmark is Stiles, an up-and-coming crime boss trying to stake his claim in the criminal underworld. 91 min. DVD 4069; vhs 999:470
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- Strangers on a Train (1954)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker. Guy Haines, a tennis star, who hates his estranged wife and wants to be free to marry another woman, meets Bruno Anthony, who hates his father. Bruno has a chillingly simple plan: each could kill the other's victim. No motive, no clues, nothing to link Guy and Bruno but a casual meeting of strangers on a train. 101 min. DVD 458; VHS 999:256
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- Swamp Woman(1955)
- Director, Roger Corman. Cast: Marie Windsor, Carole Mathews, Beverly Garland, Touch Connors, Susan Cummings, Lou Place, Jonathan Haze, Edward Nelson, Jil Jarmyn.
A plucky police woman infiltrates a group of hardened female criminals who are planning to break jail and retrieve their loot of diamonds from its swampy hiding place. 85 min. DVD X971
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- Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) (Germany, 1933)
- Director, Fritz Lang. Locked away in an asylum for a decade and teetering between life and death, the criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse has scribbled his last will and testament: a manifesto establishing a future empire of crime. When the document's nefarious writings start leading to terrifying parallels in reality, it's up to Berlin's star detective, Inspector Lohmann, to connect the fragmented, maddening clues in a case unlike any other. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse appropriates slogans and ideas from the newly ascendant Nazi party and puts them into the mouth of a madman, warning the audience of the horrible menace that was rapidly becoming a reality. The film was banned in Germany the year of its release because of its attack on the fundamentals of the Nazi Party. Special features: Audio commentary by David Kalat; complete French-language version of the film "Le testament du Dr. Mabuse" filmed simultaneously with French actors; excerpts from "For example Fritz Lang", 1964 interview with Lang; "Mabuse in mind", 1984 film by Thomas Honickel Cast: an interview with actor Rudolf Schundler; comparison between the 1933 German version, the French version, and "The crimes of Dr. Mabuse", the edited and dubbed American version of the film; interview with Mabuse expert Michael Farin about the literary inventor of the series, Norbert Jacques; rare production designer drawings by art director Emil Hasler; collection of memorabilia, press books, stills and posters; new essay by Tom Gunning. 104 min. DVD 6550; vhs 999:1100
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- Testament of Dr. Mabuse (West Germany, 1962)
- Director, Werner Klingler. In this crime thriller, evil genius Dr. Mabuse hypnotizes the director of an insane asylum. A stylish and fast paced remake of Fritz Lang's 1932 cinematic landmark. 85 min. DVD 661
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- They Were So Young (Mannequins für Rio) (West Germany / USA, 1954)
- Directed by Kurt Neumann. Cast: Scott Brady, Raymond Burr, Johanna Matz, Ingrid Stenn.
A "white slavery" melodrama filmed on location in Rio De Janeiro. Innocent young Johanna Metz is hired for a supposed modelling job in Brazil. Upon her arrival, she finds herself broke, stranded and at the beck and call of a criminal gang. Escaping from the crooks, Johanna is rescued by Scott Brady, an engineer in the employ of tycoon Raymond Burr. Unfortunately, Burr turns out to be the leader of the gang from whom Johanna has escaped. 78 min. DVD 8237
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- This Gun for Hire (1942)
- Directed by Frank Tuttle. Cast: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar. This film noir is a hard-edged story of love, power, and betrayal set in the seamy underworld of the 1940's. Ladd portrays a cold-blooded professional killer who's been double-crossed by his client. 80 min. DVD 2744; vhs 999:1706
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- The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse) (1960)
- Director, Fritz Lang. Remake of Lang's 1930 motion picture Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse. A new variaton on the Mabuse theme incorporating a realistic modern style and new technological notions. 99 min. DVD 1
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- À tout de suite (France, 2004)
- Directed by Benoit Jacquot. Cast: Isild Le Besco, Ouassini Embarek, Nicolas Duvachelle, Laurence Cordier, Forini Kodoukaki. Lili is an impulsive, free-spirited art student living a staid existence with her father in 1970s Paris. When she meets a mysterious young Moroccan man at a nightclub, she falls instantly in love. Soon she learns he was involved in a botched bank robbery -- where a man was killed -- and without hesitation she allows him and his accomplice to hide out in her apartment. The two embark on a wild spree throughout France, Spain, Morocco, and Greece, in a contemporary joy ride. 95 min. DVD 6758
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- Tokyo Drifter (Tokyo nagaremono) (Japan, 1966)
- Director: Seijun Suzuki. Tetsu, a gangster who honors the old code long after it has been abandoned by the mob is called back to Tokyo to help in the struggle between his old employers, the Kurata gang and the rival Otsuka gang. Then he is on the run in a mad chase across Japan, pursued by rival mobsters and his own bosses, in this frenzied, visually daring, breathless action film which represents the best of Suzuki's inventive films. 83 min. DVD 5859; vhs 999:2426
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- Too Late for Tears (Killer Bait) (1949)
- Directed by Byron Haskin. Cast: Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Arthur Kennedy, Dan Duryea. A bag containing $60,000 is thrown into the convertible of a young couple. The wife murders her husband to keep the money and is prepared to murder anyone who gets in her way. 98 min. DVD 2746; also DVD X971; vhs 999:2876
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- Trick Baby (1973)
- Director, Larry Yust. Cast: Kiel Martin, Mel Stewart, Vernee Watson-Johnson, Clebert Ford, Ted Lange.
Trick Baby is the story of the relationship between two Philly con men, Johnny "Folks" O'Brien, a white man, and "Blue" Howard, the black man who raised him. On one hellish day Blue and Folks learn the disturbing truth about themselves and the world they prey on as they try to evade gangsters they have conned and cops who are trying to put them in jail. 94 min. DVD 9983
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- Underworld Beauty (Ankokugai no bijo) (Japan, 1958)
- Directed by Seijun Suzuki. The moment he is released from prison, the honorable gangster Miyamoto recovers the stolen diamonds he had stashed before getting pinched. When he returns to his old haunt to make good by a friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted by the greedy boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto's precious stones. 87 min. DVD 2363
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- Unholy Four (aka A Stranger Came Home) (UK, 1954)
- Director, Terence Fisher. Cast: Paulette Goddard, William Sylvester, Patrick Holt, Paul Carpenter.
Someone knocked a man out and left him for dead during a fishing trip in Portugal. That someone is either his fetching wife or two business partners, all sporting guilty faces after his unexpected return. Two more murders and a frame-up befall the quartet before an inspector closes the case. 80 min. DVD 8361
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- Hammer Films and British Film Noir bibliography
- Les Vampires (France, 1916)
- Directed by Louis Feuillade. Cast: Musidora, Edouard Mathe, Marcel Levesque, Jean Ayme, Fernand Herrmann, Stacia Napierkowska. 1. The severed head -- 2. The ring that kills -- 3. The red code book -- 4. The spectre -- 5. Dead man's escape -- 6. Hypnotic eyes -- 7. Satanas -- 8. The thunder master -- 9. The poisoner -- 10. The terrible wedding. A legendary 7 hour silent crime serial in 10 episodes describing the achievements of Les Vampires, a secret society of criminals led by Irma Vep. The gang uses kidnapping, poisonous gas, heavy artillery, sexual domination and murder to gain power over the elite of Paris. Special features: Inserted essay: The public is my master, Louis Feuillade and Les Vampires by Fabrice Zagury; For the children: a comedy sketch by the cast and crew of Les Vampires to raise funds for the French war orphans. Directed by Louis Feuillade (1916, 3 min.); Bout-de-Zan and the shirker: a comedy that features the child actor, Bout-De-Zan, from episode 8 of Les Vampires. Directed by Louis Feuillade (1916, 8 min.)
399 min. DVD 285
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- Wings of Danger (UK, 1952)
- Directed by Terence Fisher. Cast: Zachary Scott, Robert Beatty, Kay Kendall, Naomi Chance, Arthur Lane.
A former pilot suffering from blackouts discovers that a fellow flyer is supected of being mixed up with a web of smugglers. While searching for his missing buddy, he unwittingly becomes entangled in a morass of suspicion. 73 min. DVD 8345
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- Hammer Films and British Film Noir bibliography
- White Heat (1949)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Fred Clark. Cody Jarrett is a psychopathic gangster and a ruthless killer who is anything but rational with his fierce headaches and strong mother-fixation. 115 min. DVD 3512; VHS 999:817
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- Fischer, Lucy. "Mama's Boy: Filial Hysteria in White Heat." In: Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. / edited by Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark. pp: 70-83. London; New York: Routledge, c1993. (UCB Main PN1995.9.M46 S36 1993)
- Wolves in the Snow (Des Chiens dans la Neige) (Canada, 2002)
- Directed by Michel Welterlin. Cast: Marie-Josee Croze (as Marie Jose Croze), Jean Philippe Ecoffey, Romano Orzari, Anne Roussel, Antoine Lacomblez. Antoine has been cuckolding Lucie for years. A violent marital argument ensues resulting in Antoine's death. After lying about Antoine's whereabouts, Lucie discovers his secret life of gangsters, money laundering and violence. Followed, threatened and badgered by the gangsters, Lucie becomes trapped by her deceit. The body of Antoine disappears, other corpses appear, and the money, very quickly, becomes only the pretext of an alarming turn of events. 95 min. DVD 6345
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- Alias Jimmy Valentine (Library of Congress Video collection: Origins of the Gangster Film) (Silent, 1915)
- Directed by Maurice Tourneur. Cast: Robert Warwick, Robert Cummings, Alec B. Francis, Frederick Truesdell, Ruth Shepley. A remarkably realistic tale of bank heists and prison life. Takes up all the familiar elements of the crime drama, bank robbery, safecracking, gang solidarity, prison, hidden identity, moral reformation with suspense and wit. 65 min. DVD 645; vhs 999:1020
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- Brewster, Ben. "Alias Jimmy Valentine and situational dramaturgy." Film History (9:4) 1997, 388-409.
- All About the Benjamins (2002)
- Directed by Kevin Bray. Cast: Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Eva Mendes, Tommy Flanagan. A bounty hunter chases a bail jumper to an abandoned warehouse that just happens to be the exchange place for a major diamond heist. Now the would-be adversaries need to cooperate to foil the diamond thieves. 98 min. DVD 5698
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- Asphalt Jungle (1950)
- Directed by John Huston. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Teresa Celli, Marilyn Monroe. When criminal mastermind Doc Riedenschneider is released from prison, he approaches lawyer Alonzo Emmerich with a plan for the biggest jewel heist in history. Doc carefully selects and rehearses his team, but Emmerich is planning to double-cross the thieves and flee the country with the loot. 112 min. DVD 2717; vhs 999:1236
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- The asphalt jungle : a screenplay Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press ; London : Feffer & Simons, c1980 (MAIN: PN1997 .A78 1980; MOFF: PN1997 .A78 1980)
- The Aura (El Aura)(Argentina / France / Spain, 2005)
- Directed by Fabián Bielinsky. Cast: Ricardo Darin, Dolores Fonzi, Alejandro Awada, Pablo Cedron, Jorge D'Elia, Manuel Rodal, Rafael Castejon, Walter Reyno, Nahuel Perez Biscayart.
A quiet, cynic taxidermist, who suffers from epilepsy attacks, is obsessed with committing the perfect crime. He claims that the police are too stupid to find out about it when it's well executed, and that the robbers are too stupid to execute it the right way. He feels that he could do it himself by relying on his photographic memory and his strategic planning skills. He is invited on a hunting trip away from his home. Once there, an accident gives him the chance of a lifetime: the possibility to commit the perfect crime. 138 min. DVD 9050
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- Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) (France, 1955)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Roger Duchesne, Isabel Corey, Daniel Cauchy, Guy Decomble, Andre Garet. Bob the Gambler finds out that the Deauville Casino expects to pull in 800 million francs on a certain date. On the night of the heist, Bob plays at the casino tables where before dawn breaks some of the men and women will win, some will lose and some will die. 95 min. DVD 1264; vhs 999:413
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- Frye, Brian L. "Bob le flambeur." Senses of Cinema vol. 25, pp. (no pagination), March 2003.
- Hogue, Peter. "Melville." (film director Jean-Pierre Melville) Film Comment, Nov-Dec 1996 v32 n6 p16(7) UC users only
- Kavanagh, Thomas M. "The Narrative of Chance in Melville's Bob le flambeur." Michigan Romance Studies, vol. 13, pp. 139-58, 1993.
- Vincendeau, Ginette. "Gamblers Anonymous." Sight and Sound, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 22-24, March 2003.
- Le Cercle rouge (Red Circle) (France, 1970)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Alain Delon, André Bourvil, Gian Maria Volante, Yves Montand, Paul Crauchet, François Perier. A master thief is fresh out of prison. But instead of toeing the line, he finds his steps leading back to the shadowy world of crime. He, a notorious escapee, and an alcoholic ex-cop plan a jewel heist, while being persued by a police superintendent. 140 min. DVD 2201
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Cool! (Netherlands, 2004)
- Directed by Theo van Gogh. Cast: Fouad Mourigh, Farhane El Hamchaoui, Jones Kruijne, Remco Alberts, Julien de Roover.
Set to gangsta rap, this film tells the tale of three teenage criminals - (Abdel, Jacky, and Jeffrey) - who end up doing time in a juvenile detention center after messing up a bank robbery. Abdel, who has been changed for the better by his time in the correctional system, learns that their former gang-leader Prof is setting up another big heist. Abdel decides that Prof needs to be taken down and sets about sabotaging Prof's plan. 125 min. DVD 8247
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
- Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Carol Kane. Based on a true incident this is the story of a botched bank robbery attempt in Brooklyn on August 22, 1972 that turned into a bizarre hostage situation. 125 min. DVD 6355; vhs 999:965
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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- Blake, Richard Aloysius. Street smart : the New York of Lumet, Allen, Scorsese, and Lee Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c2005. (MAIN: PN1995.9.N49 B63 2005; PFA : PN1995.9.N49 B63 2005)
- Boyer, Jay. Sidney Lumet New York : Twayne ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1993. (MAIN: PN1998.3.L86 B69 1993; MOFF: PN1998.3.L86 B69 1993)
- Cunningham, Frank R. Sidney Lumet : film and literary vision Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, c2001. (MAIN: PN1998.3.L86 C8 2001)
- Jameson, Fredric. "Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film." College English, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 843-59, Spring 1977.
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- Dogville (Denmark / Sweden / France / Norway / Netherlands / Finland / Germany / USA / UK, 2003)
- Directed by Lars von Trier. Cast: Nicole Kidman, Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Paul Bettany, Blair Brown, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Ben Gazzara, Philip Baker Hall, Thom Hoffman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, John Hurt, Zeljko Ivanek, John Randolph Jones, Udo Kier, Cleo King, Miles Purington, Bill Raymond, Chloe Sevigny, Shauna Shim, Stellan Skarsgard. Grace arrives in the isolated town of Dogville, on the run from gangsters. The townspeople agree to hide her. However, when outsiders start looking for the fugitive, the locals make demands of Grace in exchange for the risk of harboring her. But Grace has a secret and it's a dangerous one. Dogville may regret it ever decided to bare its teeth. 177 min. DVD 3001; DVD 2821 (non-US format DVD)
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Le deuxième souffle (Second Breath)(France, 1966)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Christine Fabrega, Raymond Pellegrin, Marcel Bozzufi, Paul Frankeur, Denis Manuel, Jean Negroni. Gustave Manda, better known as Gu, a dangerous gangster, escapes from jail. He goes to Paris to join Manouche and other friends, and becomes involved in a gangland killing. Before leaving the country with Manouche, Gu needs a final job to get some money. But that's not so simple when you have Inspector Blot tracking you, and have to deal with the consequences of the shooting in Paris. Special features: Audio commentary featuring film scholar Ginette Vincendeau; new video interview with director Bertrand Tavernier (publicity agent on the film); archival footage featuring interviews with Melville and actor Lino Ventura; original theatrical trailer; new and improved English subtitle translation; a new essay by film critic Adrian Danks. 144 min. DVD X647
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Jean-Pierre Melville bibliography
- The Getaway (1972)
- Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Cast: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens. Doc McCoy has been granted parole but the catch is that the sherriff expects a small favor from him for his generosity: robbing another bank! The sherriff does not really intend to let McCoy walk away after the heist, but stopping Doc proves a trifle difficult. 123 min. DVD 5082
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery
- Directors, Charles Guggenheim, John Stix. Cast: Steve McQueen, David Clarke, Graham Denton, Molly McCarthy, James Dukas. Psychological drama based on true events that recounts the meticulous planning and thoroughly botched execution of a bank robbery. Actual St. Louis police officers play themselves in the same respective roles of the true story. 85 min. DVD 1151
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Hormigas en la boca (Ants in the mouth) (Spain / Cuba, 2005)
- Directed by Mariano Barroso. Cast: Eduard Fernandez, Adriana Gil, Jorge Perugorria, Jose Luis Gomez, Samuel Juan Claxton.
After ten years in a Barcelona prison, Martin travels to Havana to search for his beautiful girlfriend. She was the only one of his gang of bank robbers to get away. She also got away with the loot. 92 min. DVD 8588
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Kansas City Confidential (1952)
- Directed by Phil Karlson. Cast: John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, Dona Drake, Mario Siletti. In this film noir a bitter ex-cop turns criminal mastermind, pulling off a huge armored car robbery. A reformed con man turns investigator when he is unwittingly framed for the robbery. 98 min. DVD 3809; vhs 999:2870
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Killing (1960)
- Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted DeCorsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook, Jr., Kola Kwariani, Timothy Carey, Joe Sawyer. A group of small-time crooks plan and execute a daring race-track robbery--but their well-laid plans go awry. 85 min. DVD 720; vhs 999:660
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Lady Killers (2004)
- Directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen. Cast: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, Ryan Hurst. Marva Munson is a spry, elderly woman who is looking for a tenant for the spare room in her house. Goldthwait H. Dorr moves in and gains Munson's permission to use the basement for rehearsals with his "medieval music ensemble." Dorr is masterminding the robbery of a riverboat casino, and the fellow musicians in his ensemble are actually the crew he's assembled to pull off the job. Despite their best efforts, Munson finds out about their scheme and Dorr decides the best solution is to silence her permanently. After, all how hard can that be? 104 min. DVD 3333
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Ladykillers (UK, 1955)
- Director, Alexander Mackendrick. Cast: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Cecil Parker, Danny Green.
Professor Marcus and his gang of vicious bank robbers rent a room from an elderly widow. When she begins to meddle in their 'perfect crime', the crooks decide she must be killed ... but can they? 91 min. DVD 8124
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- The Last Way Out (1997)
- Directed by Mark Steensland. Cast: Kurt Johnson, Kevin Reed, Katie Brown, John Lamb, Karyn Casl. A first class "modern" film-noir drama. For two years, Frank White has kept himself hidden from his former partners in crime, But when an unexpected turn of events thrusts them together again, Frank's new life is turned upside down. Caught in the collision of past and present, Frank is forced to choose between one last heist and the last way out. 88 min. 999:2437
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- The Lavender Hill Mob(UK, 1951)
- Directed by Charles Crichton. Cast: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James.
Sir Alec Guinness is Henry Holland, a meek clerk who devises an ingenious plan to rob a fortune in gold bullion from his own bank. But his idea to melt the gold into souvenir Eiffel Towers and smuggle them to France turns his perfect crime into a disastrous caper with unexpected surprises. 81 min. DVD 8121
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- Loophole (UK, 1981)
- Directed by John Quested. Cast: Martin Sheen, Albert Finney, Susannah York, Colin Blakely, Robert Morley, Tony Doyle.
When architect Stephen Brooker loses his partnership, he finds that jobs are hard to come by, and with money in short supply, he unwittingly becomes involved in a daring scheme to rob one of London's biggest bank vaults. 105 min. DVD X230
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Night Key (1937)
- Directed by Lloyd Corrigan. Cast: Boris Karloff, Jean Rogers, Warren Hull, Alan Baxter, Samuel S. Hinds, Hobart Cavanaugh. The ingenious inventor of a new top-of-the line security system is kidnapped by a gang of burglars and forced to help them commit robberies. 78 min. DVD 6216
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Ocean's Eleven(1960)
- Director Lewis Milestone. Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson. The place is Las Vegas. The time: Midnight, New Year's Eve. Danny Ocean (Sinatra) and 10 of his ex-commando buddies get ready to rob the vaults of 5 casinos simultaneously! Special features: Feature-length audio commentary by Frank Sinatra Jr. and Angie Dickinson; interactive "then and now" Las Vegas map casino vignettes; excerpts from the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson featuring guest host Frank Sinatra and Angie Dickinson; interactive menus; cast/filmmaker profiles; 2 theatrical trailers; scene access. 127 min. DVD 7899
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Ocean's Eleven(2001)
- Director Steven Soderbergh. Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Eddie Jemison, Bernie Mac, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, Julia Roberts. Three prestigious Las Vegas casinos. More than $160 million. Danny Ocean and his 10-man handpicked team of grifters and conmen are ready to carry out the most elaborate casino heist in history, and they just might get away with it. Based on the story by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell, and the 1960 screenplay by Harry Brown and Charles Lederer. 116 min. DVD 5771
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Ocean's Twelve (2004)
- Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Julia Roberts. Ocean's Twelve reintroduces Ocean and his perfectly trained team of con men. Dividing forces to hit Paris, Amsterdam, and Rome, the heist-meisters move beyond casinos to tackle new objectives, one of which involves stealing a famous painting. 125 min. DVD 5772
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
- Director Steven Soderbergh. Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Al Pacino, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Eddie Jemison, Scott Caan, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, Eddie Izzard, Michael Mantell, Ellen Barkin, Andy Garcia. Danny Ocean's team of criminals are back and are composing a plan more personal than ever. When ruthless casino owner Willy Bank double-crosses Reuben Tishkoff, causing a heart attack, Danny Ocean vows that he and his team will do anything to bring Willy Bank and everything he's got down. Even if it includes hiring help from one of their own enemies, Terry Benedict. Special features: Additional scenes ; "Vegas: an opulent illusion" : Las Vegas' influential design sense ; Jerry Weintraub walk and talk : the producer takes us on a casino tour. 122 min. DVD 9160
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- Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
- Director, Robert Wise. Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley, Gloria Grahame. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ready for the taking. It's too much to resist for Earl Slater, a bigoted ex-con slumming through life with a patronizing girlfriend and zero expectations. He agrees to be part of a bank job planned by former cop Burke. Until, that is, he finds out one of his partners will be a black man. Earl's desperate need for cash, however, leads him to reconsider. For this job only, he'll put his racism aside ... until moments away from the score, hatred erupts. In this film to obtain the edgy look desired by the director a rare filming technique was used: infrared photography. 96 min. DVD 2229; vhs 999:1843
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- Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2001)
- Directed by Max Allan Collins. Cast: Brinke Stevens, Michael Cornelison, Rachel Lemieux, Larry Coven, Tom Keane, Chadrick Hoch. Two young armed robbers seeking drug money enter a convenience store, but the simple hold-up quickly turns into a hostage situation, captured on security cameras, squad car cams, and news team footage. 72 min. DVD 5043
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- Reservoir Dogs (1991)
- Directed by Quentin Tarentino. Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen. They were strangers, together to pull off the perfect jewel heist but their simple robbery turns into a bloody ambush when they realize one of them is a police informant. But which one? 200 min. DVD 3850; vhs 999:2154
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- Rififi (1955)
- Directed by Jules Dassin. Cast: Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Robert Manuel, Perlo Vita, Marie Sabouret, Janine Darcey, Claude Sylvain, Marcel Lupovici, Pierre Grassel, Robert Hossein, Magali Noel, Dominique Maurin. A suspenseful story of a successful jewel robbery engineered by an aging ex-con in which the four thieves betray each other. One of the greatest crime capers, it set the standard for all others that followed. Most notable is Dassin's exquisitely intense silent burglary sequence which runs nearly half an hour. 118 min. DVD 3903; vhs 999:2779
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- Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
- Directed by Gordon Douglas. Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bing Crosby, Peter Falk, Barbara Rush, Victor Buono, Hank Henry.
In prohibition-era Chicago, the corrupt sheriff and Guy Gisborne, a south-side racketeer, knock off the boss Big Jim. Everyone falls in line behind Guy except Robbo, who controls the north side. A lighthearted gangster spoof spirited along by guns, gags, tunes, and bootleg gin. 123 min. DVD 7900
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- Sexy Beast (2000)
- Director, Jonathan Glazer. Cast: Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, Cavan Kendall, Julianne White, Alvaro Monje, James Fox. High voltage crime thriller that crackles with chilling style and wit. A savage gangster named Don Logan is met with resistance when he tries to recruit a retired pal for "one last job". But Logan just won't take no for an answer. 88 min. DVD 1136
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Danks, Adrian. "London Calling: Sexy Beast." Senses of Cinema: an Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious & Eclectic Discussion of Cinema. 16:(no pagination). 2001 Sept-Oct
- James, Nick. "Thieves on the verge of a nervous breakdown." Sight & Sound Vol XI nr 1 (Jan 2001); p 18-20.
- Sweeney, Kevin W. "Inner monsters in Sexy Beast."
Journal of American Culture March 2003 v26 i1 p63(8)
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- Small Time Crooks (2000)
- Directed by Woody Allen. Writer and director, Woody Allen. Featuring Woody Allen, Hugh Grant, Jon Lovitz, Elaine May, Michael Rapaport, Elaine Stritch, Tracey Ullman. An ex-con and his manicurist wife find their get-rich-quick scheme leaves them rolling in dough. Then when a bank heist takes a comical twist, the couple discovers that cookies pay better than crime. 95 min. DVD 444
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- Snatch (2000)
- Directed by Guy Ritchie. Cast: Benico Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Vinnie Jones, Brad Pitt, Rade Sherbedgia, Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng. A diamond heist gone haywire launches gangster, bookies and a dog on a rollicking ride through the rugged world of bare-knuckle boxing in search of the missing stone. 103 min. DVD 5335
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- They Live By Night (1948)
- Directed by Nicholas Ray. Cast: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, William Phipps, Ian Wolfe, Helen Craig.
Three prisoners flee from a state prison farm in Mississippi. Among them is 23-years-young Bowie, who spent the last seven years in prison and now hopes to be able to prove his innocence or retire to a home in the mountains and live in peace together with his new love, Kitty. But his criminal companions persuade him to participate in several heists, and soon the police believe him to be their leader and go after "Bowie the Kid" harder than ever. Special features: Commentaries by Farley Grange and film historian Eddie Muller on 'They live by night' and historian/critic Richard Schickel on 'Side street;' new featurettes: "They live by night: the twisted road" and "Side street: where temptation lurks;" 'Side street' theatrical trailer. 95 min. DVD 8400
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- Thieves Like Us (1973)
- Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Keith Carradine, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Louise Fletcher, Ann Latham, Tom Skerritt. Set in Mississippi during the 1930s Depression, this film portrays the life of a convicted murderer who escapes from a prison farm with two buddies. They are soon wanted for a series of violent bank robberies. These men are not particularly bad people but in this particular time in American history robbing banks was all these pathetic desperadoes could do with any amount of success. 123 min. DVD 8242; vhs 999:2238
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- To Catch a Thief (1955)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams. A retired American jewel thief living on the French Riviera seeks to prove his innocence by exposing the burglar who has been imitating his technique. 103 min. DVD 1570
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Butte, George. "Theatricality and the Comedy of the Mutual Gaze in Hitchcock's Cary Grant Films." Hitchcock Annual 1997-1998, 114-36.
- Kindem, G.A. "Peirce's Semiotic Phenomenalism and Film." Quarterly Review of Film Studies IV/1, Winter 79; p.61-69.
- Topkapi (1964)
- Director, Jules Dassins. Cast: Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley, Akim Tamiroff, Jess Hahn.
A small-time con-man with passport problems gets mixed up with a gang of world-class jewelry thieves who are plotting to steal a jewel-encrusted dagger from a museum with an impregnable security system, the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. Turkish intelligence, suspecting arms smuggling, gets involved, and under pressure the con-man rises to heights he's never dreamed of. Based on the novel: Light of day / by Eric Ambler. 119 min. DVD X46
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- True Romance (1993)
- Directed by Tony Scott. Cast: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken. They were strangers, together to pull off the perfect jewel heist but their simple robbery turns into a bloody ambush when they realize one of them is a police informant. But which one? 100 min. 999:2154
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- Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu
- Television drama about the villainous Chinese master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu and his nemesis Sir Nayland Smith. Based on the story by Sax Rohmer. Two episodes of the 1956 television series. Contents: The Golden God of Dr. Fu Manchu, writer, Richard Landru, director, Franklin Adreon; The Master Plan of Dr. Fu Manchu, writer, Arthur Orloff, director, William Witney. Cast: Glenn Gordon, Lester Matthews, Clark Howat, Carla Balenda. 30 min. each episode. Video/C 8283
- Alphaville (Alphaville, une Ètrange aventure de Lemmy Caution) (France, 1965)
- Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. A story which unfolds in a utopian world of the future. Alphaville is governed by a totalitarian system in which the individual counts for almost nothing, and an alienated society has no use for art, poetry, love, or even thought. People are reduced essentially to the level of robots. 98 min.DVD 86; 999:73
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- The Auteur Theory (1999)
- Directed by Evan Oppenheimer. Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Alan Cox, Jeremy Sisto, Rachel True, Angeline Ball. At a relentless self-important student film festival, the directors of the (mostly terrible) short films are being killed off one-by-one. A budding British filmmaker decides to make a film about the search for the killer. The surviving filmmakers are the main suspects, so he begins to review their films, searching for footprints amidst the celluloid. 83 min. DVD 2813
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- Bad Lieutenant (1992)
- Directed by Abel Ferrara; Cast: Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Paul Calderone, Leonard Thomas, Robin Burrows, Frankie Thorn, Victoria Bastel, Paul Hipp. He's a gambler, a thief, a junkie, a killer, and a cop. Now he's investigating the most shocking case of his life, and as he moves closer to the truth, his self-destructive past is closing in. 91 min. DVD 8382; 999:2290
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- The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, 1960)
- Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Akira Kurosawa, the acclaimed Japanese director, adopts the American gangster-film style to weave a fascinating tale of corporate greed. The story focuses on a grieving son, (Toshiro Mifune), who seeks revenge for his father's murder as he infiltrates the corrupt construction company that was responsible for his father's death. 152 min. DVD 2834; vhs 999:2283
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- La Balance (France, 1982)
- Directed by Bob Swaim. Cast: Nathalie Baye, Philippe Leotard, Richard Berry. The special French police force, the Territorial Brigade, needs an informer after the murder of one of their own. They put the squeeze on Dede, a pimp, and Nicole, his girlfriend. 104 min. 999:3572
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- Basic Instinct (1992)
- Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Ozundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn. A tough but vulnerable detective investigates a murder identical to one described in the latest novel of a cold, calculating and beautiful novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite. 123 min. DVD 886; VHS 999:2282
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- Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
- Directed by Martin Brest. Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, James Russo, Jonathan Banks, Stephen Elliott, Gilbert R. Hill. Axel Foley is a brash, street smart Detroit detective who follows the trail of a friend's murderer to the posh surroundings of Beverly Hills. And before Axel gets his man, he gets up to his neck in an international network of smugglers and drug peddlers. 105 min. DVD X1034; vhs 999:3181
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- Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
- Directed by Tony Scott. Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Jürgen Prochnow, Ronny Cox, John Ashton, Brigitte Nielsen, Allen Garfield, Paul Reiser. This sequel presents further adventures of Axel Foley, a brash, street smart Detroit detective, as he comes up against a gang of munitions smugglers in California and a mean-spirited chief of police who will brook no interference from outsiders-especially the profanely insouciant Mr. Foley. 102 min. DVD X1034
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- Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)
- Directed by John Landis. Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Hector Elizondo, Theresa Randle. Axle Foley, while investigating a car theft ring, comes across something much bigger than that: the same men who shot his boss are running a counterfeit money ring out of LA's popular theme park, WonderWorld. 104 min. DVD X1034
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- The Big Chase (1954)
- Directed by Arthur D. Hilton. Cast: Glenn Langan, Adele Jergens, Lon Chaney, Jim Davis, Douglas Kennedy. As his expectant wife enters the hospital in anticipation of the blessed event, cop Glenn Lanan is off to the races, trailing payroll robbers (including Jim Davis and Lon Changey, Jr.) on a mad chase that goes from cars to rowboat to motoroat to helicopter. The chase sequence, captured in all its bullet-to-bullet glory, comprises a third of the film. 88 min. DVD X906
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- Big Combo (1955)
- Directed by Joseph Lewis. Cast: Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, Richard Conte, Earl Holliman. Discouraged by his superior officers, but helped by a gangster's former girl friend, a dedicated detective lieutenant doggedly continues his investigation to obtain evidence that would convict the head gangster of a crime syndicate. 88 min. DVD 684; VHS 999:2502
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- Big Easy (1986)
- Directed by Jim McBride; Cast: Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, Ned Beatty, John Goodman. When a hood's murder triggers a bloody gangland drug war, New Orleans detective Remy McSwain, who fits right in with the easy style of Cajun country, meets his match in Anne Osborne, a no-nonsense Assistant D.A. in town to investigate police corruption. At odds from the moment they meet, this is a saucy blend of New Orleans nightlife, romance and suspence. Special features: Cast and crew information, interactive menus, scene access, theatrical trailer. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1986. 100 min. DVD 130
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- Big Heat (1953)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin. A crime melodrama about an honest police sergeant who risks his life and his job when his investigations lead to the exposure of the crime syndicate that controls the city administration. DVD 987; vhs 999:3
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- Big Sleep (1946)
- Directed by Howard Hawks. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey. Detective Philip Marlowe is hired to find out who is blackmailing a wealthy young woman with pornographic pictures and becomes entangled with her sister. 114 min. DVD 174; VHS 999:10
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- Blackmail (1929)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John Londgen, Cyril Ritchard. The first sound film for Hitchcock and Britain, although it was begun as a silent film and bears many visual touches of that art form. A girl kills a rapist in self-defense and her fiance is the detective investigating the case. 78 min. DVD 159; VHS 999:74
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- Blood Simple (1983)
- Directed by Joel Coen. Cast: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Samm-Art Williams, M. Emmet Walsh. A jealous husband hires a sleezy private eye to murder his adulterous wife and her lover in this thriller set in rural Texas which combines chilling suspense with offbeat humor to create an all-American version of the classic "film noir." 96 min. DVD 3334; vhs 999:2120
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- Brick (2005)
- Directed by Rian Johnson. Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Emilie de Ravin, Noah Fleiss, Matt O'Leary. Brendon Frye is a loner, someone who always knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he is determined to find the 'who' and 'why'. 110 min. DVD 6125
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- Bullitt (1968)
- Directed by Peter Yates, Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall, Simon Oakland, Norman Fell. A star witness in a controversial court case is murdered, and the police detective assigned to guard him goes after the killers himself. This razor-edged thriller features one of cinema history's most memorable car chases, in which expert auto/motorcycle racer McQueen did his own stunt driving. Special features before the movie: Behind the scenes documentary - Bullitt: Steve McQueen's commitment to reality (22 min.) -- Original theatrical trailer. 126 min. DVD 5050; also DVD 197; VHS 999:2408
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- Leitch, Thomas M. "Bullitt and the Police Film." In: Crime films Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002.
(UCB Main PN1995.9.D4 L45 2002; Full-text of this book available online via ebrary - UC Berkeley users only)
- Chan is Missing (1982)
- Directed by Wayne Wang. Set in San Francisco, this sleeper concerns a Chinese-American cab driver and his nephew, who discover their friend Chan Hung has disappeared with $4000 of their savings. 80 min. Video DVD 4972; vhs 999:56
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- Charlie's Angels (2000)
- Directed by McG. Cast: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Tim Curry, Kelly Lynch, Crispin Glover. In this updated theatrical spin-off of the television drama, three women detectives with a mysterious boss retrieve stolen voice-ID software, using martial arts, tech skills, and sex appeal. 99 min. DVD 4390
- Charlie Chan Series SEE The Movies, Race, and Ethnicity: Asians/Asian Americans
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- China Moon (1991)
- Directed by John Bailey. Cast: Ed Harris, Madeleine Stowe, Benicio Del Toro, Charles Dance. Veteran homicide detective Kyle Bodine must learn the secrets of his lover's sordid past and her role in her husband's mysterious death, before it's too late. 99 min. 999:2874
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Chinatown (1974)
- Directed by Roman Polanski. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Burt Young, Bruce Glover, Joe Mantell, Roy Jenson, Diane Ladd, Dick Bakalyan, John Huston. The plot is a labyrinth of successive revelations having to do with Los Angeles water reserves, land rights, fraud and intra-family hanky-panky, climaxing in Los Angeles's Chinatown. DVD 162; VHS 999:381
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- City That Never Sleeps (1953)
- Directed by John Auer. Cast: Gig Young, Mala Powers, Edward Arnold, William Talman. Chicago police officer Johnny Kelly falls for a dancer, leaves his wife, and begins a new life by making a deal with a corrupt criminal lawyer. 90 min. 999:1234
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Cleopatra Jones (1973)
- Directed by Jack Starrett. Cast: Tamara Dobson, Bernie Casey, Shelley Winters. Classic blaxploitation potboilder. A beautiful, tough drug enforcement agent intercedes when a menacing drug ring attempts to stage a retaliatory raid on a Los Angeles drug rehabilitation center.
89 min. DVD 8336; vhs Video 999:1820
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Brody, Jennifer DeVere. "The Return of Cleopatra Jones."
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1999 25(1): 91-121.UC users only
- Coffy (1973)
- Directed by Jack Hill. Cast: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert Doqui, William Elliott, Allan Arbus, Sid Haig. Coffy (Pam Grier) is a nurse turned avenger, becoming a one-woman, anti-drug vigilante who roots out the dealers who "turned on" her 11-year-old sister. This violent, sexy drama is a variation on urban vigilante flicks, where family members fight crime more effectively than the cops, and in much more provocative ways. 91 min. DVD 5429; vhs Video/C 999:1869
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Holmlund, Chris. "Wham! Bam! Pam! Pam Grier as Hot Action Babe and Cool Action Mama." Quarterly Review of Film and Video Volume 22, Number 2/April-June 2005UC users only
- Morris, Gary. "Blaxploitation, A Sketch." Bright Lights Journal (March 1997)
- Reel knockouts : violent women in the movies / edited by Martha McCaughey and Neal King. 1st ed. Austin : University of Texas Press, 2001. (Main Stack PN1995.9.W6.R454 2001)
- Conflict (1945)
- Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Rose Hobart, Charles Drake, Grant Mitchell, Pat O'Moore, Ann Shoemaker. When a man murders his wife because his affections have turned to her younger sister, it appears he has executed the perfect crime until a minor slip-up arouses the suspicions of a family friend who is a psychiatrist. 86 min. 999:620
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- Cop Land (1996)
- Directed by James Mangold. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro. Something ugly is taking place behind the towns peaceful facade. When Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols, the big-city police officers, and upholding the law. 105 min. vhs 999:3875
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- Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
- Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are two Harlem plainsclothes cops investigating a "Back to Africa" campaign run by a shady preacher. 97 min. DVD 487; vhs 999:1819
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Morris, Gary. "Blaxploitation, A Sketch." Bright Lights Journal (March 1997)
- The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
- Directed by Woody Allen. Cast: Woody Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Helen Hunt, Brian Markinson, Wallace Shawn, David Ogden Stiers, Charlize Theron. Someone is stealing millions in jewels from New York City's upper crust. It's up to insurance investigator C.W. Briggs to find out who is stealing the goods. Feeling that the heists are an inside job, he uses his instincts to discover which "insiders" are actually responsible. 102 min. DVD 1039
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- Danger Zone (1951)
- Directed by William Berke. Cast: Hugh Beaumont, Edward Brophy, Richard Travis, Virginia Dale. When you deal with dames, you are in the Danger Zone, as the character of crime detector Dennis O'Brien (Hugh Beaumont) leans in his inaugural mystery-drama. As freelance private eye he takes on two jobs: he's hired by a woman to bid on a locked suitcase at an auction, and on the second he works with another private investigator on a divorce case--unaware that the investigator is setting him up to take the fall for a murder. Based upon stories by Louis Morheim and Herbert Margolis. 57 min. DVD X906
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- Dark Passage (1947)
- Directed by Delmer Daves. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead, Tom D'Andrea. After successful plastic surgery on his face, a man wrongly convicted of murder hides out in an apartment in San Francisco. Tension builds in this tale of a fugitive hiding from the law as he feverishly works to prove his innocence.
106 min. DVD 3485; vhs 999:1229
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- Dick Tracy (1990)
- Directed by Warren Beatty. Cast: Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman. G-man Dick Tracy battles a cast of superstar villians in San Francisco. 105 min. 999:1144
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Dirty Harry Films
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- Dirty Harry (1971)
- Directed by Don Siegal. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Reni Santori, John Vernon, Andy Robinson, John Larch, John Mitchum. A violently inclined San Francisco police inspector is the only cop who is able to arrest a rooftop sniper. When the man is released through lack of evidence, he takes private revenge. In the course of the action, Eastwood cruises by North Beach and Washington Square. The East Harbor's Marina Green is the first stop in a chase that has Eastwood racing to telephone booths across the city. The rivals have a final meeting at Larkspur Landing. 102 min. DVD 3804; also DVD 9857; vhs 999:500
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- Magnum Force (1973)
- Directed by Ted Post. Cast:Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul, Felton Perry, Robert Urich.
Detective Harry Callahan is pitted against an unexpected lawbreaker: one who carries a badge. Sharpshooting rookie motorcycle cops have turned vigilante, rubbing out crooks the courts can't touch. Their real enemy is the system. Unfortunately for them, the system is what Harry is sworn to protect. 124 min. DVD 9854
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Enforcer (1976)
- Directed by James Fargo. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, Tyne Daly.
Detective Harry Callahan has a new partner, Inspector Kate Moore, who has two jobs: tracking down a band of armed-and-wacko terrorists and winning Harry's confidence. (97 min. DVD 9856
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- Sudden Impact (1983)
- Directed by Clint Eastwood. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, Bradford Dillman, Paul Drake.
In the aftermath of a brutal rape, a beautiful woman has begun to hunt down her attackers. Harry has to find her and stop her before she kills again or her attackers find her. 117 min. DVD 2013
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- The Dead Pool (1988)
- Directed by Buddy Van Horn. Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, Evan Kim, Jim Carrey.
Dirty Harry Callahan must stop a sick secret contest to murder local celebrities, which includes himself as a target. He is up against media attention, an enraged hit men, and a new killer, who's attempting to throw off the dead pool game anyway possible. Callahan has to find the connection between the killings and then the perpetrator, before the game can be declared over. 91 min. DVD 9855
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- D.O.A. (1949)
- Directed by Rudolph Mate. Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler, Beverly Campbell, Neville Brand, Lynn Baggett, William Ching. When Frank Bigelow, a real-estate salesman, is slipped a dose of slow-acting poison he sets out in the few hours left to him to find his own murderer. 83 min. DVD 2746; DVD 178; VHS 999:1237
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- Turner, George
"'I Want to Report a Murder'." American Cinematographer, LXIX/8, Aug 88; p.35-40. (Production history and detailed plot description of the original version of "D.O.A.")
- Double Deal (1939)
- Directed by Arthur Dreifus. Cast: Monte Hawley, Jeni Le Gon, Edward Thompson, Florence O'Brien, Shelton Brooks, F.E. Miller. Rivals for a pretty singer get mixed up in gangster trouble. One of the beaus is a crook who robs a jewelry store and frames the other boyfriend. The girl sorts the truth out for herself. 60 min. 999:1224
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Double Indemnity (1944)
- Directed by Billy Wilder. Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson. An insurance man and a suburban wife conspire to trick her husband into signing a policy that pays double for accidental death--then push him from a train. It's an almost perfect crime. DVD 26; VHS 999:126
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- Dressed to Kill (1980)
- Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz. In this edge-of-the-seat chiller a psychiatrist is faced with the murderous puzzle of the sudden, hideous slaying of one of his patients who is killed with a razor stolen from his office. DVD 8949; VHS 999:126
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- The Enforcer (1951)
- Director, Bretaigne Windust. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia, Roy Roberts, Everett Sloane. A hard-hitting D.A. is facing the hottest case of the year. Armed with a killer's confession, a score of missing persons and a mob undertaker working full-time, he knows he's onto something. Relentless and determined he tracks down a notorious murder for profit ring, headed by a killer named Mendoza. 87 min. DVD 2193
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- Experiment in Terror (1962)
- Directed by Blake Edwards. Cast: Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers, Ross Martin, Roy Poole, Ned Glass. A bank teller is forced to assist a psychopathic killer in his bank robbery scheme. To save her and her teenage sister who is also held captive, the F.B.I. sets out to create an elaborate trap for the killer. 123 min. DVD 3607
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- Fargo (1996)
- Director, Joel Coen; Cast: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Harve Presnell, Peter Stormare. In this drama, which is based on a true event, a midwestern policewoman investigates a series of brutal and interconnected crimes. Steadily, she tightens the net on the killers and their accomplices in a kidnapping scheme gone wildly wrong. 98 min. DVD 45; vhs 999:1760
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- Fireworks (Hana-bi) (Japan, 1997)
- Director, Takeshi Kitano. In this gangster film combining cool violence and powerful emotions a hard-boiled ex-cop, haunted by a troubled past and pushed to the edge by the shooting of his partner, confronts his demons in a ruthless quest for justice and redemption. 103 min. DVD 1083; vhs 999:2693
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- 48 Hours (1982)
- Directed by Walter Hill. Cast: Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Annette O'Toole, Frank McRae, James Remar, David Patrick Kelly, Sonny Landham. Nolte is a rough-edged cop after two vicious copkillers. He can't do it without the help of smooth and dapper Murphy, who is serving time for a half-million dollar robbery. This unlikely partnership trades laughs as often as punches as both pursue their separate goals: Nolte wants the villians; Murphy wants money. 97 min. 999:3563
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- Foxy Brown (1974)
- Directed by Jack Hill. Cast: Pam Grier. A sexy black woman, Foxy Brown, seeks revenge when her government agent boyfriend Michael is shot down by gangsters led by the kinky couple of Steve Elias and Miss Katherine [Internet Movie Database]. 94 min. DVD 485; vhs 999:1648
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Morris, Gary. "Blaxploitation, A Sketch." Bright Lights Journal (March 1997)
- French Connection (1971)
- Directed by William Friedkin. Cast: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi. Two tough, New York City detectives discover a plan to smuggle a large amount of pure heroin into the United States concealed in a car shipped from France. 104 min. DVD 851; VHS 999:2307
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- G-Men (1935)
- Directed by William Keighley. Cast: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ann Dvorak, Robert Armstrong. A two-fisted lawyer (Cagney) joins the FBI when his friend is killed by a gangster group. 86 min. DVD 5832; vhs 999:1599
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- Glass Key (1942)
- Directed by Stuart Heisler; Cast: Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, William Bendix, Bonita Granville, Richard Denning, Joseph Calleia. Intricate mystery about a slightly corrupt politician, accused of murder, who solicits his right-hand man (Ladd) to hunt down the real killer. As he searches Ladd must endure a brutal beating from gangsters, the annoying hindrance of the police and the beguiling advances of his boss' fiancee. Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. 85 min. 999:171
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- The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946)
- Directed by Bob Clampett. Warner Brothers. Animated short. "While reading his favorite comic book, Daffy accidentally knocks himself unconscious and dreams he's Duck Twacy, famous detective, trying to solve the case of the missing piggy banks. Taking a streetcar (conducted by Porky Pig, in a non-speaking cameo role) to the gangsters' hideout, he meets up with such grotesque criminals as Pickle Puss, Eighty-Eight Teeth and Neon Noodle. DVD 3136
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- Gumshoe (1972)
- Directed by Stephen Frears. Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Franklin Finlay, Janice Rule. A private eye caper loaded with adventure, intrigue and laughs. Part-time comic and full-time dreamer, Ginley places an ad in a Liverpool paper offering his services as a detective. Before you can say "gumshoe," his mundane world turns to mayhem as this newcomer sleuth tangles with a big-time drug operation--and murder. 85 min. 999:2406
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Credits and other Information from the Internet Movie Database
- Hammett(1982)
- Directed by Wim Wenders. Cast: Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Roy Kinnear, Lydia Lei. Imaginary story about Dashiell Hammett, a writer who lives the hard-boiled life he writes about. 97 min. DVD 4747; also vhs 999:360
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- Hard Boiled (Hong Kong, 1992)
- Directed by John Woo. Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan. Tequila, a die-hard cop, stops at nothing to see that justice is done. To avenge his partner's murder, Tequila joins forces with a rebel cop, and then the body count mounts to a hair raising climax. 128 min. DVD 1702
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- Harlem Nights (1989)
- Directed by Eddie Murphy. Cast: Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Danny Aiello, Michael Lerner, Della Reese, Stan Shaw, Jasmine Guy, and Arsenio Hall. Three generations of comedy legends star in this tale of nightclub owner Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor) and his son Quick (Eddie Murphy), who fight to keep a vicious mobster and a corrupt police force from putting them out of business. 115 min. DVD 1054
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- He Walked by Night (1948)
- Directed by Alfred Werker and Anthony Mann. Cast: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, Jack Webb, Reed Hadley. Semi-documentary chase drama showing how the Los Angeles police department frantically searches for a cold blooded killer on the loose in Los Angeles. 80 min. 999:1303
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- High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku) (Japan, 1963)
- Director: Akira Kurosawa. A complex crime thriller in which a wealthy shoe manufacturer's chauffeur's son is kidnapped in mistake for his own, and he faces a moral dilemma.
143 min. DVD
2819; vhs 999:2284
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Hi-Jacked(1950)
- Directed by Sam Newfield. Cast: Jim Davis, Marsha Jones, Sid Melton, David Bruce, Paul Cavanagh.
Parolee/truck driver Jim Davis now wants to stick to the straight-and-narrow, but finds himself riding a highway of terror when his truck is hijacked and police suspect him because of his past record. 69 min. DVD X912
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- Homicide (1991)
- Directed and written by David Mamet. Cast: Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, Vincent Guastaffero, J. J. Johnston. A tough cop in assigned to what appears to be a routine homicide case of an elderly shopkeeper. But the evidence points at jewish arms-smugglers and to a conspiracy that causes him to question his own motives, his identity as a Jew and his loyalty to the force. 100 min. 999:2308
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Humanité (France, 1999)
- Directed by Bruno Dumont. Cast: Emmanuel Schotte, Severine Caneele, Philippe Tullier, Ghislain Ghesquiere, Ginette Allegre. Pharaon de Winter is a police detective who lives with his mother in a working-class town in northern France. He agonizes over the evil he confronts every day during the course of his work. The brutal rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl tests Pharaon's profound humanity to its limits as the investigation proceeds to its climax, and as Pharaon struggles to grasp the crime's meaning. In French with subtitles. 148 min. DVD 5619
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou) (Hong Kong, 2002)
- Directed by Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak. Cast: Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang.
A story of a mole in the Hong Kong police department and an undercover cop. Their objectives are the same - to find out who is the mole, and who is the cop. 101 min. DVD 7613
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Infernal Affairs II (Mou gaan dou II) (Hong Kong, 2002)
- Directed by Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak. Cast: Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Carina Lau, Francis Ng, Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Hu Jun.
In this prequel to Internal affairs (2002), Chan Wing Yan has just become an undercover cop in the triads while Lau Kin Ming joins the police force. Both the triads and the police find an enemy in a rival crime boss. 119 min. DVD 7614
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- Infernal Affairs III (Mou gaan dou III, Chung gik miu gaan) (Hong Kong, 2003)
- Directed by Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak. Cast: Tony Leung, Chiu-Wai, Andy Lau, Leoni Lai, Chen Daoming, Kelly Chen, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang.
In the third edition to the Internal Affairs series, the unit has their hands full again. The conclusion to the groundbreaking trilogy that inspired 'The Departed'. 118 min. DVD 7615
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- Inspecteur Lavardin (France, 1986)
- Director, Claude Chabrol. Cast: Jean Poiret, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jacques Dacqmine. Poiret arrives at a cozy, seaside village to investigate the bizarre murder of an eminent Catholic author. The usually cool sleuth is shaken when he discovers that the victim's widow is none other than his old flame. 100 min. DVD 6596
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Johnny Handsome (1989)
- Director, Walter Hill. Cast: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Morgan Freeman, Scott Wilson, Forest Whitaker. A man, born severely deformed, makes his living as a small-time criminal. During a robbery he and his best friend are double-crossed by their partners and he ends up in prison. There he meets a sympathetic surgeon who gives him a new face. When he is released he sets in motion a plan to get revenge on the couple who double-crossed him. 96 min. DVD 2077
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- Juve contre Fantomas (France, 1913-14)
- Directed by Various. Includes The Simplon Express Disaster (23 min.) and The Haunted Villa (23 min.) Cast: Rene Navarre, Breon, Georges Melchior, Yvette Andreyor, Renee Carl. Episodes of the Fantomas silent film serial about the adventures of Fantomas, the mysterious bandit in a black hood who is relentlessly tracked by Juve, the detective. Fantomas was an immense worldwide success and helped establish the advent of film serials in the United States. 46 min. DVD 5868; vhs 999:1926
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- Kansas City (1995)
- Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Harry Belafonte, Michael Murphy, Dermot Mulroney, Steve Buscemi, Brooke Smith. Set in 1934 Kansas City, a telegraph operator named Blondie kidnaps Carolyn Stilton, wife of a powerful businessman who commutes to Washington to advise President Roosevelt. Blondie figures she can use Carolyn to gain safe passage for her husband Johnny who is in the grip of the city's top gangster, a club owner named Seldom Seen. The movie unfolds in the dark streets of the downtown Kansas City night. 116 min. 999:2090
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- Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
- Directed by Robert Aldrich. Cast: Ralph Meeker, Paul Stewart, Albert Dekker. A detective gives a ride to a half-naked girl, who is abruptly killed by thugs. Almost killed himself, the detective tries to solve the murder. Along the way, he is told to back off by the Feds, a bomb is placed in his car, a friend is killed, and he himself is beaten, drugged, and held hostage. DVD 1077; vhs 999:146
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- Kiss of Death (1947)
- Directed by Henry Hathaway. Cast: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark. This gripping crime melodrama set a new standard for realism in Hollywood. Victor Mature is Nick Bianco, a two-bit crook who is trying to go straight. He has a wife and two girls to feed, but nobody hires ex-cons. Nick cooperates with the D.A. (Brian Donlevy) to save his family. The D.A. wants Nick to squeal on up-and-coming hood Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark), but that could be very unhealthy -- for Nick and his two young daughters. 98 min. DVD 7669; vhs 999:471
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- Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
- Directed by Gordon Douglas. Cast: James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Ward Bond. Ralph Cotter is a prison escapee driven by a vicious nature and the need to make a big score. He finds it during a shake-down by two crooked cops, with help from a less-than-honest lawyer, and sets up a plan to heist $50,000 from a local racketeer. But as he teeters on the verge of success and a clean getaway, he succumbs to one of his rare decent impulses-- and pays the ultimate price for his change of heart. 192 min. DVD 3816
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- Klute (1971)
- Directed by Alan J. Pakula. Cast: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider, Charles Cioffi, Dorothy Tristan, Rita Gam. A small-town policeman comes to New York in search of a missing friend, and during his investigation meets and falls in love with a call girl who is being stalked by a vicious psychotic killer. 114 min. DVD 3312; vhs 999:999
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- L.A. Confidential (1997)
- Directed by Curtis Hanson. Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito. Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slaying of the patrons at an all-night diner. A lush tribute to tough film-noir crime films. Also includes a behind-the scenes documentary "Off the record'" with the film's creators, lead actors and novelist, James Elroy. 156 min. DVD 3831; vhs 999:1977
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Last Embrace (1979)
- Directed by Jonathan Demme. Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover, Sam Levene, Charles Napier, Christopher Walken. When Harry Hannan, a government agent, goes to Mexico to meet a contact, he instead meets an ambush in which his wife is assassinated, sending him over the edge. After his stay in a sanitarium, Harry is pushed toward the path of a moving train and then receives a letter that is written in ancient Hebrew and signed "Avenger of Blood." Someone is out to get him, but who? The answer is revealed in one of the most exciting climaxes ever filmed at the rushing Niagara Falls. 102 min. 999:2314
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Late Show (1976)
- Directed by Robert Benton. Cast: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, Howard Duff, Joanna Cassidy. Aging private eye Ira Wells is determined to stay active and when his partner is killed while on assignment, Ira agrees to take on his current case by agreeing to help a Hollywood kook named Margo locate her missing cat. 93 min. DVD 3324
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- The Laughing Policemen (1973)
- Directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Cast: Walter Matthau, Bruce Dern, Lou Gossett, Albert Paulsen, Anthony Zerbe.
An off-duty policeman is among the victims of a massacre on a town bus in San Francisco, and unearthing the person responsible becomes the task of SFPD Lieutenant Jake Martin, his parter Leo Larsen, and a squad of department detectives, who work to learn the identities of the varied victims in the hope that it will lead to clues to the killer. When the investigation repeatedly leads to dead ends Martin, with the reluctant help of Larsen, decides to smoke out the bus killer, a move that leaves him in danger when the killer has another bus in the sights of his sub-machine gun. Based on the novel by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. 109 min. DVD 9969
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Liebestraum (1991)
- Directed by Mike Figgis; Cast: Kevin Anderson, Pamela Gidley, Kim Novak. While visiting his dying mother, Nick Kaminsky discovers Ralston Building is being demolished because of a sexually motivated double murder that occured inside. 113 min. 999:2291
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- The Limey (1991)
- Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Cast: Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro, Nicky Katt, Peter Fonda. British ex-con Wilson arrives in Los Angeles to investigate the mystery of his daughter's 'accidental' death. His prime suspect, the wealthy, heavily guarded music promoter Terry Valentine, is no easy target. Propelled into an increasingly brutal search for truth, Wilson, with single-mindedness and terrifying precision, moves unstoppably toward revenge. 85 min. DVD 5788
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- Long Goodbye (1973)
- Directed by Robert Altman; Cast: Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden. Philip Marlowe is an unromanticized snoop for hire in an unromanticized Los Angeles. Working for fifty bucks a day plus expenses, he tries to solve a case which the police have dismissed as a murder/suicide. 113 min. DVD 1334; vhs 999:2276
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- Ferncase, Richard K. "Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye': Marlowe in the me decade." (Philip Marlowe) Journal of Popular Culture v25, n2 (Fall, 1991):87 (4 pages).
- Love Crimes (1983)
- Directed by Lizzie Borden. Cast: Sean Young, Patrick Bergin, Arnetia Walker, James Read. Patrick Bergin is back on the streets, posing as a photographer, using his camera to seduce women; undressing, possessing and abusing them, but leaving his victims so humiliated, they're ashamed to face him in court. An angry assistant D.A., frustrated by the lack of witnesses, decides that the only way to bring him to justice is to lure him with new bait: herself. 92 min. 999:159
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- M (1931)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Cast: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Grundgens. A German town is gripped by terror due to the sadistic murders of little girls. The underworld is threatened when the police search proves futile so the denizens of the underworld trap, capture, and finally drag the murderer before a tribunal of criminals. 99 min. DVD 16; Video Disc 7; VHS 999:30
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- Madigan (1968)
- Directed by Don Siegel. Cast: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Susan Clark. In this hard-hitting look at the lives and loves of New York City's top cops a veteran detective is given only a few hours to track down a vicious killer. 101 min. 999:2369
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- Maiku Hama Private Eye Trilogy
- The Most Terrible Time in My Life (Waga jinsei saiaku no toki) (Japan / China / Taiwan, 1994)
- Director:Kaizo Hayashi. Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Jo Shishido, Yu Wei Yan, Caroline Lu, Wu Kao Hsiung, Haruko Wanibuchi, Noriko Sengoku, Kaho Minami.
Detective Maiku Hama navigates the Yokohama underworld with super cool threads and two-fisted street smarts. But when he comes to the aid of a Taiwanese waiter at a local parlor, the unflappable Hama has no idea what he's in for. Though seemingly a luckless immigrant on the threshold of Yokohama's gutter, Hama's client holds the secret to a ferocious gangland revenge triangle that soon has bullets and fists flying. 92 min. DVD 8330
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- The Stairway to the Distant Past (Harukana jidai no kaidan o) (Japan, 1995)
- Directed by Kaizo Hayashi. Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Jo Shishido, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Haruko Wanibuchi, Shiro Sano, Eiji Okada, Tetta Sugimoto, Mika Ohmine, Shinya Tsukamoto, Keiji Matsuda. Broke, his vintage Nash convertible repossessed, private eye Mike Hama is reduced to combing the mean streets of the Yokohama waterfront on a borrowed bicycle. But when Lily, a beautiful stripper from out of Hama's past, returns to town, the fuse is lit on a criminal powder keg set to blow the lid off the Yokohama underworld. Hama's search for his long lost parents soon has him up to his neck in a simmering conspiracy pitting corrupt politicians, local Yakuza gangsters and the Taiwanese mafia against the mysterious 'Man in White.' 100 min. DVD 8332
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- The Trap (Wana) (Japan 1997)
- Directed by Kaizo Hayashi. Cast: Nagase Masatoshi, Natsukawa Yui, Yamaguchi Tomoko, Shishido Jo.
In love for the first time, cases booked solidly for months and a brand new fax machine prodding his office into the nineties, down-on-his-luck private eye 'Maiku' Mike Hama has the world on a string at last. Or does he? When a hooded stranger appears in his office with the cryptic challenge "I want you to look for me," Hama is drawn into a string of bizarre serial murders that have Yokohama's police baffled and the city terrified. 100 min. DVD 8331
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- The Maltese Falcon (1931)
- Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Cast: Ricardo Cortez, Bebe Daniels, Dudley Digges, Una Merkel, Robert Elliott, Thelma Todd, Dwight Frye. Better known as the first version of "The Maltese Falcon", this 1931 production reflects the industry before movie ratings and codes. After the death of his partner, detective Sam Spade, played by Ricardo Cortez, is dragged into a quest for a priceless statuette. 78 min. DVD 6282
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- (Maltese Falcon) Satan Met a Lady (1936)
- Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth, Arthur Treacher, Marie Wilson, Winifred Shaw, Porter Hall, Olin Howland, Charles Wilson. Earlier screen version of Dashiell Hammett's "Maltese Falcon". The mystery this time surrounds the whereabouts of a gem-filled ram's horn sought by a mysterious woman. Bette Davis shines as the title's Lady, a blonde schemer who insists a gentleman remove his hat when in the presence of a lady holding a gun. 74 min. DVD 6282
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- Maltese Falcon (1941)
- Directed by John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre. Centers around an unrelenting search for a valuable and elusive falcon statuette. 101 min. DVD 6283; vhs 999:17
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- Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
- Director, W. S. Van Dyke. Cast: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy. Story about boyhood pals who end up on opposite sides of the law, and who fall for the same woman. In film history, this motion picture is known for three reasons: It's the film John Dillinger saw with his Lady in Red before encountering an FBI ambush on exiting the theater. It's the only pairing of Clark Gable and William Powell and it's the first teaming of frequent film partners William Powell and Myrna Loy. DVD special features: Comedy short "Goofy movies #2"; classic cartoon "The old pioneer"; theatrical trailer. 91 min. DVD 9066; vhs 999:3116
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- Munby, Jonathan. "Manhattan Melodrama's 'Art of the Weak': Telling History from the Other Side in the 1930s Talking Gangster Film." Journal of American Studies. 30(1):101-18. 1996
- Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
- Directed by Woody Allen, Cast: Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Anjelica Huston, Diane Keaton. In this comic romp bursting with wry one-liners and inspired sight gags, a bored Manhattan housewife becomes convinced her next-door neighbor has committed a murder. When her husband Larry rejects the idea, she turns to a flirtatious friend to help her search for clues. Spurred by jealousy, Larry reluctantly joins the chase, only to learn that much more than his marrige is at stake. 108 min. DVD 46; vhs 999:1877
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- Memento
- Director, Christopher Nolan. Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior. An intricate crime story about a man who has lost his short term memory due to a rare brain disorder. Now he is out to catch his wife's murderer, whose identity he cannot ever know for sure. The more he tries to figure out what is true and real, the more he sinks deeper into a multi-layered abyss of uncertainty and surprises. 113 min. DVD 1046
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- Mr. Moto Series SEE The Movies, Race, and Ethnicity: Asians/Asian Americans
- Mr. Wong Series SEE The Movies, Race, and Ethnicity: Asians/Asian Americans
- Moon Over Harlem (1939)
- Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Bud Harris, Cora Green, Izinetta Wilcox, Slim Thompson. An unusual musical melodrama with an all-black cast about a Harlem widow who unwittingly marries a double-talking gangster involved in the numbers racket. Delving into some of the complexities of black life in Harlem, the cast features 20 chorus girls, a choir, and a 60-piece symphony orchestra under the direction of Donald Heywood. 67 min. DVD 4080; vhs 999:930
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- Mortal Thoughts (1991)
- Directed by Alan Rudolph. Cast: Demi Moore, Glenne Headly, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, John Pankow. Two woman who are best friends try to juggle jobs, husbands, home and kids. Then one night the abusive husband of one of the women turns up dead. Trying to help her friend, one woman weaves a network of lies, and has to resist the relentless questioning of a police detective. 104 min. 999:2296
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- Murder in Harlem (1935)
- Directed by Oscar Micheaux. Cast: Clarence Brooks, Dorothy Van Engle, Laura Bowman, Andrew Bishop, Alec Lovejoy, Bee Freeman. A young woman is murdered at the National Chemical Labs and the nightwatchman is arrested. Then the scene shifts back three years to a man who fell in love with a woman but was unable to express his true feelings. Now he is a lawyer and the woman he loved is the sister of the nightwatchman who is on trial for murder. Together, they find the real murderer and fall in love again. 95 min. 999:2462
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- Murder My Sweet (1945)
- Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki. The story of a private detective who gets drawn into a complex web of murder, blackmail, and double-dealing while searching for a missing jade necklace. DVD 2718; vhs 999:584
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- Telotte, J. P. "Effacement and Subjectivity: Murder My Sweet's Problematic Vision." Literature/ Film Quarterly, vol. 15 no. 4. 1987. pp: 227-236.
- Trachtenberg, Alan "The Modernist City of Film Noir: The Case of Murder, My Sweet." In: American Modernism Across the Arts/ edited by Jay Bochner and Justin D. Edwards. pp: 284-302 New York: Peter Lang, c1999. (UCB Main NX504 .A545 1999)
- Murder Over New York (Charlie Chan) (1940)
- Directed by Harry Lachman. Cast: Sidney Toler. Charlie attends a police convention and winds up tangling with saboteurs who are knocking Allied planes out of the air. 65 min. 999:416
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- The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)
- Directed by D.W. Griffith. Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Elmer Booth, Harry Carey Sr., Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Donald Crisp. A young musician's job takes him away from his young wife for several days. Upon returning to his New York tenement, he is robbed by the neighborhood gangster. When the husband later stumbles upon a mob shoot-out and recognizes the crook who robbed him, he wonders if he can retrieve his money. Often cited as the first gangster film. 17 min. On collections: DVD 1545; copy 2: DVD 1399; vhs 999:606; vhs copy 2: 999:570
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- Mystic River (2003)
- Directed by Clint Eastwood. Cast: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Kevin Chapman, Adam Nelson, Tom Guiry.
Boston childhood friends Jimmy, Sean and Dave are reunited after a brutal murder. Reformed convict Jimmy and his devoted wife Annabeth find out that their teenage daughter Katie has been beaten and killed. Jimmy's old friend Sean is the homicide detective assigned to the case. Jimmy gets his relatives, the Savage brothers to conduct their own investigation. Jimmy and Sean soon suspect their old pal Dave, who now lives a quite life, but harbors some disturbing secrets of his own. 138 min. DVD 7143
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- Naked City(1948)
- Directed by Jules Dassin. Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Ted DeCorsica. In this film-noir thriller, one of the first pictures filmed on location in New York City, a squad of homicide detectives roams through the seamier parts of the City as they solve a murder case. Through the use of a hidden camera, the movie gives viewers an unvarnished look at life in the city using the technique neorealism. DVD 403; Video Disc 171; VHS 999:1134
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- Wald, Malvin. The Naked City: A Screenplay / by Malvin Wald and Albert Maltz; story by Malvin Wald; edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli; afterword by Malvin Wald. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, [1979] c1948. ( PN1997 .N324 Main Stack)
- Kozloff, Sarah. "Humanizing 'The Voice of God': Narration in The Naked City." Cinema Journal, vol. 23 no. 4. 1984 Summer. pp: 41-53.
- New Jack City (1991)
- Directed by Mario Van Peebles. Wesley Snipes, Ice T, Mario van Peebles, Judd Nelson. Gangster film about a young, rich, smart drug baron who thinks he's untouchable, and the tough, street-smart cops determined to bring him down. 101 min. Video 999:1165
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- No Way Out (1987)
- Directed by Roger Donaldson. Cast: Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, Will Patton, Howard Duff. A fast-paced, razor-sharp murder mystery set in the secretive corridors of the Pentagon. When Secretary of Defense, David Brice, murders his mistress, Brice's loyal aid creates the perfect cover up: He cleverly "invents" a more enticing killer -- a Russian spy -- and then enlists highly decorated naval commander Tom Farrel to led the top secret investigation. Based on the book The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing. 115 min. 999:2301
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- One False Move (1991)
- Directed by Carl Franklin. Cast: Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Beach, Earl Billings, Jim Metzler. After two ruthless drug dealers commit a brutal mass murder in Los Angeles and are forced to flee the state, their beautiful accomplice unwittingly leads them into a trap. 106 min. DVD 8462; vhs 999:2331
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- The Organization (1971)
- Director, Don Medford. Cast: Sidney Poitier, Barbara McNair, Sheree North, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Raul Julia, Fred Beir, Allen Garfield, Ron O'Neil, and Dan Travanti. Sidney Poitier's third and final appearance as police officer - now lieutenant - Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs becomes a rebel as he tries to help a group of civilian citizens bust a major drug-smuggling ring in San Francisco. 108 min. DVD 4563
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- The Outfit (1973)
- Directed by John Flynn. Cast: Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan. Earl is a small-time crook targeted by a crime syndicate for knocking over the wrong bank ... theirs! Upon his release from prison, he's informed by his girlfriend that his brother has been executed and that he's next. Earl teams with his former partner Cody seeking retribution but they find themselves engaged in a no-holds-barred blood war. 103 min. 999:2412
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- The Penalty (1920, silent)
- Directed by Wallace Worsley. Cast: Lon Chaney, Ethel Grey Terry, Charles Clary, Clair Adams, Kenneth Harlan. An incompetent doctor amputates the legs of a young boy who grows up to be the embittered Blizzard, a criminal mastermind who orchestrates a bizarre and heinous plot to avenge himself. 93 min. DVD 2214
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- Pépé Le Moko (France, 1937)
- Directed by Julien Duvivier. A famous gangster is safe from the police while hiding in the Casbah section of Algiers, but he falls in love and follows the lady into danger. 95 min. DVD 1538; vhs 999:659
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- Le petit lieutenant (The Little Lieutenant) (France, 2005)
- Directed by Xavier Beauvois. Cast: Nathalie Baye, Jalil Lespert, Roschdy Zem, Antoine Chappey, Jacques Perrin, Bruce Myers, Patrick Chauvel, Jean Lespert, Annick Le Goff, Berangere Allaux, Mireille Franchino, Yanis Lespert, Xavier Beauvois.
Antoine, an ambitious young rookie cop from Normandy, joins an elite plainclothes crime unit in Paris. He is happy, but misses his wife, who prefers the countryside and has stayed behind. His co-workers, drinking buddies, and mentors include cynical veteran Mallet and Moroccan Muslim Solo. He also develops a close relationship with his supervisor, Inspector Vaudieu, a recovering alcoholic who develops maternal feelings towards Antoine. When the body of a Polish drifter is found murdered along the Seine, a seemingly routine investigation suddenly turns violent and changes Antoine's life forever. 110 min. DVD 8240
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- The Phantom Light (UK, 1935)
- Directed by Lawrence Huntington. Cast: Binnie Hale, Gordon Harker, Ian Hunter, Donald Calthrop, Milton Rosmer.
The disappearance of two lighthouse keepers on the coast of Wales is linked to the specter of a rogue beacon that lures freight ships to their destruction on the rocks. Two bickering sleuths must solve the mystery of the "Phantom Light" or become its next victims. 76 min. DVD X100
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- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. (1986)
- Based on short stories by Raymond Chandler. Originally produced for television by Chandlertown Productions Inc.
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Blackmailers Don't Shoot. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe, Melody Anderson, Allan Royal, Peter Dvorsky, Robert Morelli, John Winston Carroll, August Schellenberg.
Gangsters, racketeers, movie moguls and a sizzling screen goddess are wrapped up in a kidnapping scheme. Underworld leader Lucky Landrey hires Marlowe to protect the beautiful film star Rhonda Farr. But when she's kidnapped right out from under his fedora, Marlowe goes behind the scenes to investigate the truth behind the phony, bullet-riddled lies. 51 min. (With "Red Wind.") Video/C 7273
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Guns at Cyrano's. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe,Roxanne Hart, Cec Linder, Mark Humphrey, Angelo Rizacos, John Ireland. Benny Cyrano owns a gymnasium, a nightclub ... and the new boxing commissioner, Senator Courtway. Benny's top fighter Duke is sure to win again in his 13th pro fight, but someone's "influencing" him to take a dive. When Benny hires Marlow to see what's up with his fighter going down, Marlow gets mixed up with cheap cons, dirty dealers, senators, hired guns and a beautiful dame named Adrian. 51 min. (With "Pickup on Noon Street.") Video/C 7271
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Pickup on Noon Street. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe, Robin Givens, Kate Trotter, Christopher Newton, Ken Pogue, Gene Clark, Al Waxman. Token Ware is working as a cigarettte girl down at the Juggernaut Club in L.A. She wants to become a movie star but the club owner has other plans -- the same kind that put young hopeful Molly Jackson in her grave. Detective Marlowe smells something rotten and the scent leads him to silver screen actor Rupert Eaton playing the role of his life: as accomplice to murder. 51 min. (With "Guns at Cyrano's.") Video/C 7271
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Red Wind. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe, Linda Griffiths, Maury Chaykin, Frank Pellegrino, R. H. Thompson. When the hot dry Santa Ana wind comes down through the mountain passes, on nights like this every booze party ends in a fight. Anything can happen ... and it did .. right in front of Marlowe when a drunk pumps two bullets into a guy named Coates. In an all-night chase for the killer, Marlowe stares down crooked politicians, beautiful dames, double-dealers, and the barrel of a .38. 51 min. (With "Blackmailers Don't Shoot.") Video/C 7273
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Spanish Blood. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe, Helen Shaver, Ron Van Hart, Mavor Moore, Dixie Seatle, John Vernon. Marlowe's pal Spanish Delaguerra is the kind of guy who'd give you his last nickel but now he's dead. Who would want Spanish dead? Was it the D.A., the last entry in Spanish's appointment book? Was it his secretary, Sadie Burns? Or could it have been his sultry blonde wife, Belle? Marlowe's hot clues only lead to cold bodies -- until the frightening truth exposes itself. 51 min. (With "Trouble is My Business.") Video/C 727
- Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Trouble is My Business. (1986)
- Director, Robert Iscove. Cast: Powers Boothe, Kate Reid, Jennifer Dale, Booth Savage, Paul Hecht. When Gerald's Uncle hires Marlowe to "take care" of Gerald's gambling debts as well as pay off his beautiful girlfriend Harriet, Marlowe finds the rich do things a little differently ... a fact he must learn quickly before the bullets start flying in his direction. 51 min. (With "Spanish Blood.") Video/C 727
- Pier 23 (1951)
- Directed by William Berke. Cast: J Hugh Beaumont, Ann Swayze, Edward Brophy, Richard Travis, Margia Dean, Mike Mazurki. In the first of two separate stories, Private-Detective Dennis O'Brien becomes involved with a gang that uses a rigged wrestling match as a means for murder. In the second story O'Brien tries to discourage a convict from making an escape-attempt from Alcatraz. Later O'Brien mistakes another man for the convict, and winds up charged with a murder. 59 min. DVD X919
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- The Pledge (2001)
- Directed by Sean Penn. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard, Benicio Del Toro, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke, Lois Smith, Harry Dean Stanton, Patricia Clarkson. A veteran police detective, on the day of his retirement, handles the case of a seven-year-old girl who has been brutally murdered. When a mentally retarded man confesses to the murder and then kills himself, the detectives consider the case closed, but was he actually the murderer? Before long evidence is uncovered that suggests the girl was just one in a series of brutal killings involving young girls and a mysterious man. 124 min. 999:3242
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- Point Blank (1967)
- Directed by John Boorman. Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Lloyd Bochner, Michael Strong. A professional criminal helps pull off an underworld heist, then is gunned down and left for dead on deserted Alcatraz Island. He resurfaces in Los Angeles to track down his share of the loot. Aided by a lovely accomplice, he takes on the sundicate at its own deadly game, doggedly stalking his prey across the backdrop of seething '60's L.A. 89 min. 999:2360
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- Thomson, David "As I lay dying." Sight & Sound ns8 no6 (June '98) p. 14-17.
- Police (1985)
- Directed by Maurice Pialat. Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, Richard Anconina, Pascale Rocard, Sandrine Bonnaire. A tough, romantic cop falls in love with a sullen, voluptuous suspect and struggles to reconcile his personal ethics with his growing passion for her. Non-US format DVD. In French. 113 min. DVD 3409
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- Poulet au vinaigre (Cop au vin) (1985)
- Directed by Claude Chabrol. Cast:Jean Poiret, Stephane Audran, Michel Bouquet, Jean Topart, Lucas Belvaux, Pauline Lafont. Set in a small town in France, an invalid bullies her teen aged son into obedience. They live on an estate marked for development, but they are refusing to sell. When a series of murders occur, the deceptively charming Inspector Lavardin gets to the bottom of it all. 100 min.DVD 6598
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- Presumed Innocent (1990)
- Directed by Alan J. Pakula. Cast: Harrison Ford, Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Winfield, Greta Scacchi. Rusty Sabich, an up-and-comer in the county prosecutor's office, is swept up in an obsessive affair with a co-worker. When she is murdered, he's asked to lead the investigation. Then, astonishingly, he's accused of the crime. He's the perfect suspect and his fight to clear his name pulls him into a whirpool of lies and secrets. Based on the novel by Scott Turow. 127 min. 999:1038
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- Raw Deal (1948)
- Directed by Anthony Mann. Cast: Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, Raymond Burr, John Ireland. A gangster seeks revenge afer being framed and sent to prison. With help from an innocent woman, the ex-con carries out his murderous plan of vengeance, eventually coming face-to-face with the pyromaniac responsible for his stay in prison. 79 min. DVD 163; vhs 999:1261
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- Rear Window (1954)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey, Raymond Burr. A news photographer, confined to his apartment by a broken leg uses his binoculars to spy on his neighbors, and discovers a possible murder. 113 min. DVD 633; VHS 999:3213 (remastered); 999:34
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- Rear Window (1998)
- Directed by Jeff Bleckner. Cast: Christopher Reeve, Daryl Hannah, Robert Forster. A recently paralyzed architect believes he has witnessed a murder from his apartment window. Jason's colleague quickly becomes his partner in trying to solve the mysterious puzzle that lies in the apartment across the way. A more-than-patient detective grudgingly responds to their repeated calls and accusations, but believes Jason's imagination is getting the best of him. Determined to uncover the truth, Jason continues to dig deeper, finding himself locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse. 89 min. 999:2510
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Steffen-Fluhr, Nancy. "Disabled by Desire: Body Doubles in "Rear Window" (1942), "Rear Window" (1954), and "Rear Window" (1998)."
Post Script - Essays in Film and the Humanities 22:3 [Summer 2003] p. 69-88
UC users only
- Red Circle (Le Cercle Rouge) (France, 1970)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Alain Delon, Andre Bourvil, Gian Maria Volante, Yves Montand, Paul Crauchet, Francois Perier. A master thief is fresh out of prison. But instead of toeing the line, he finds his steps leading back to the shadowy world of crime. He, a notorious escapee, and an alcoholic ex-cop plan a jewel heist, while being persued by a police superintendent. 140 min. DVD 2201
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- Reversal of Fortune (1990)
- Directed by Barbete Schroder. Cast: Glen Close, Jeremy Irons, Ron Silver. Did European aristocrat Claus von Bulow attempt to murder his wife Sunny at their luxurious Newport mansion in 1980? The tabloids of the day certainly had their opinions. "You have one thing in your favor," defense attorney Alan Dershowitz told von Bulow, "Everybody hates you." Reversal of Fortune is the acclaimed movie version of events that had all America talking. 109 min. 999:1033
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- The Roaring Twenties (1939)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh, Paul Kelly. A World War I veteran returns to New York, innocently becomes involved in bootlegging, builds up an empire and dies in a gang war. 106 min. DVD 3509; VHS 999:853
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- Rush (1991)
- Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck. Cast: Jason Patric, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sam Elliott, Max Perlich, Gregg Allman, Tony Frank, William Sadler. Undercover narcotics officers Jim Raynor and Kristen Cates are partners who become lovers and addicts as they infiltrate the local drug scene in order to bring down a suspected drug lord. Based on the book by Kim Wozencraft. 120 min. 999:2297
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- Rush Hour (1998)
- Directed by Brett Ratner. Cast: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Tom Wilkinson, Chris Penn, Elizabeth Pena.Jackie Chan is Inspector Lee, a Hong Kong Detective who helps confiscate millions of dollars worth of stolen Chinese artifacts from crime Lord Juntao. Seeking revenge, Juntao kidnaps the eleven-year-old daughter of the Chinese consul when he moves to America. Chan is sent as a diplomatic advisor and finds himself paired up with a New York cop -- a man who works alone, and wants to stay that way. 97 min. 999:3043
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- Le Samourai (1967)
- Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. Cast: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy, Michel Boisrond. A steely-eyed and enigmatic hitman is hired to do away with the boss of a nightclub, which places him under total surveillance by police. At the same time, he discovers that the man he is working for has marked him for death. 101 min. DVD 4557; vhs 999:2357
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- O'Donoghue, Darragh. "Show Me the Way to Go Home: Melville's Le Samourai." Irish Journal of French Studies. 1:37-47. 2001
- McArthur, Colin. "Mise-en-Scene Degree Zero: Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai (1967)." In: French film : texts and contexts / edited by Susan Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau. 2nd ed. London ; New York : Routledge, 2000. (Main Stack PN1993.5.F7.F74 2000)
- Scotland Yard Inspector (aka Lady in the Fog)(UK, 1952)
- Directed by Sam Newfield. Cast: Cesar Romero, Lois Maxwell, Bernadette O'Farrell, Geoffrey Keen. Cesar Romero stars in this Hammer mystery as a Yank newspaperman in London who sets out to solve a murder, American style when an English woman asks him to help find her brother's killer. Adapted from the popular B.B.C. serial by Lester Powell. 73 min. DVD X919
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- Serpico (1973)
- Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Al Pacino, John Randolph, Jack Kehoe, Biff McGuire, Barbara Eda-Young, Cornelia Sharpe.
Dramatization of the true story of Frank Serpico, a young New York police officer who refuses to extort money from criminals as the other officers do. His fellow police officers turn against him when he seeks to expose the situation during a grand jury investigation. 130 min. DVD 9883
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- Shadow of a Doubt (1942)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott, Charles Bates, Marion Lorne. A beguiling murderer charms his unsuspecting family, but soon his niece and namesake begins to suspect her uncle of being the Merry Widow murderer, and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins. As his niece draws closer to the truth, the psychopathic killer begins to plot the death of his favorite relative. 108 min. DVD 638
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- Shaft (1971)
- Director, Gordon Parks; Cast: Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, the steely private eye who takes on the mob. 98 min. DVD 681; VHS 999:947
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- Sherlock Holmes
- The Adventures of of Sherlock Holmes. (1939)
- Directed by Alfred L. Werker. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshall. Professor Moriarty has at long last been brought to trial for murder, but is acquitted after the court finds a lack of sufficient evidence. Moriarty wastes no time in plotting his next crime, but he must first divert the attention of the Great Detective. 82 min. DVD 2561
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- The Adventures of of Sherlock Holmes. (TV, 1984)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett, David Burke.
- Disc 1. A scandal in Bohemia -- The dancing men -- The naval treaty -- The solitary cyclist -- Disc 2. The crooked man -- The speckled band -- Disc 3. The blue carbuncle -- The copper beeches -- Disc 4. The Greek interpreter -- The Norwood builder -- Disc 5. The resident patient -- The red headed league -- The final problem. 690 min. DVD 2483
- The Hound of the Baskervilles Directed by Sidney Lanfield, 1939. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie, Lionel Atwill. The first of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. After learning the history of the Baskerville curse from the hirsute Dr. Mortimer, Sherlock Holmes takes upon himself the responsibility of protecting sole heir Henry Baskerville from suffering the same fate as his ancestors: a horrible death at the fangs of the huge hound of Grimpen Moor. Unable to head to Baskerville mansion immediately, Holmes sends his colleague Dr. Watson to act as his surrogate. What Watson doesn't know is that Holmes, donning several clever disguises, is closely monitoring the activities of everyone in and around the estate. 80 min. DVD 4321
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- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Carboard Box. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett,Cast: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Rosalie Williams. When Susan Cushing asks Sherlock Holmes to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her sister, Mary, the detective shows little interest. But when Susan receives a grisly Christmas gift in a plain cardboard box, and a third sister, Sarah, seems to understand the implied meaning in the strange present, Holmes can no longer resist the challenge. 50 min. Video/C 6762
- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Dying Detective. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett,Cast: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Rosalie Williams. The beautiful Adelaide Savage beseeches Sherlock Holmes to investigate her husband's cousin, Culverton Smith, a questionable scientist whom she believes is leading her husband down a self-destructive path. When Victor Savage dies of a rare parasitic fever--Smith's specialty--Holmes suspects a connection and comes face to face with the deadly disease himself. 50 min. Video/C 6760
- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Golden Pince-Nez. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett, Frank Finlay, Charles Gray, Rosalie Williams, Anna Carteret, Patricia Kerrigan, Nigel Planer. An elderly professor's young secretary is found dead in his study with no clues as to the murderer or the motive, except for a pair of golden pince-nez found clutched in the dead man's hand. 50 min. Video/C 6765
- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Mazarin Stone. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Charles Gray, Rosalie Williams. Garrideb, a member of a family who needs to be found in order to satisfy a last will and testament that will yield a vast estate for the elderly Nathan Garrideb. And Mycroft, the detective's brother, must find the Mazarin stone, a valuable crown jewel, which has been stolen. 50 min. Video/C 6764
- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Red Circle. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Rosalie Williams. Holmes must find the connection between a mysterious lodger who communicates only through notes and another lodger who turns up dead, his throat slit and a red circle daubed on the wall. 50 min. Video/C 6763
- Memoires of Sherlock Holmes: The Three Gables. (TV, 1994)
- Cast: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Rosalie Williams. Mary Maberly contacts Holmes when a house agent offers her a vast sum of money for her house on one condition: that she may not remove any of her furniture or personal belongings from her home when she leaves. 50 min. Video/C 6761
- The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Billy Wilder, 1970. Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Genevieve Page, Christopher Lee. When a beautiful woman claims that her dear husband has disappeared, the investigation takes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to Scotland, where they uncover a plot involving a clandestine society, Her Majesty's Secret Service ... and the Loch Ness Monster. 125 min. DVD 1765
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- Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon Directed by Roy William Neill, 1942. Cast:
Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill, Kaaren Verne, William Post Jr., Dennis Hoey.
Sherlock Holmes battles his arch rival, Professor Moriarty, who has kidnapped the inventor of a new bomb sight. Based on the story "The Dancing Men." 68 min. DVD 4309
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- Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror Directed by Roy William Neill, 1942. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Henry Daniell, Thomas Gomez, Reginald Denny, Montagu Love. When taunting saboteurs warn of a Nazi invasion of the British Isles through their horrific radio menace the Voice of Terror, the British intelligence's Inner Council calls in Sherlock Holmes to help in the crisis. Based on the story "His Last Bow." 66 min. DVD 4309
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- Sherlock Holmes Faces Death Directed by Roy William Neill, 1943. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Dennis Hoey, Arthur Margetson, Halliwell Hobbes, Mina Phillips, Milburn Stone. Dr. Watson, tending recuperating soldiers housed at centuries-old Musgrave Manor, summons Sherlock Holmes to investigate strange happenings. What follows is a bizarre series of events, including murders, secret passages, a game of chess and a mysterious family ritual. Based on "The Musgrave ritual" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 68 min. DVD 4309
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- Sherlock Holmes in Dressed to Kill Directed by Roy William Neill, 1946. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Patricia Morrison, Edmond Breon, Frederic Worlock, Carl Harbord, Patricia Cameron, Holmes E. Herbert, Harry Cording, Leyland Hodgson, Mary Gordon, Ian Wolfe. Three music boxes are the only clues that Holmes has to work with to find the location of bank notes stolen from the Bank of England. 72 min. DVD 4311
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- Sherlock Holmes in House of Fear Directed by Roy William Neill, 1943. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Aubrey Mather, Dennis Hoey, Paul Cavanagh, Holmes Herbert, Harry Cording, Sally Shepherd. Sherlock Holmes is called in to solve the mystery of why the members of "The Good Comrades" club are being hidiously mutilated and murdered. Based on "The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips." 69 min. DVD 4310
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- Sherlock Holmes in Pearl of Death Directed by Roy William Neill, 1944. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Evelyn Ankers, Miles Mander, Ian Wolfe, Charles Francis. Sherlock Holmes is called in to solve a series of murders involving busts of Napoleon and a gem that has caused murder and trouble since the days of the Borgias. Based on "The Six Napoleons." 69 min. DVD 4310
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- Sherlock Holmes in Pursuit to Algiers Directed by Roy William Neill, 1945. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Riordan, Rosalind Ivan, Morton Lowry, Leslie Vincent, Martin Kosleck, Rex Evans, John Abbott, Gerald Hamer, Wee Willie Davis, Frederic Worlock.
Who murdered the King of Rovenia? Can they be stopped before they kill his heir? When Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson board a ship to protect the young man, they find themselves up against notorious jewel thieves as well as royal assassins. 65 min. DVD 4311
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- Sherlock Holmes in The Scarlet Claw Directed by Roy William Neill, 1944. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Gerald Hamer, Paul Cavanagh, Arthur Hohl, Miles Mander, Kay Harding. Sherlock Holmes is called in to solve a series of murders in Canada that the locals are attributing to a legendary marsh monster. 74 min. DVD 4310
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- Sherlock Holmes in Terror by Night Directed by Roy William Neill, 1946. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray, Renee Godfrey, Dennis Hoey. Sherlock and Watson investigate the murder on a train from London to Edinburgh and how it might be connected to an attempted jewel theft. 60 min. DVD 4312
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- Sherlock Holmes in The Spider Woman Directed by Roy William Neill, 1942. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Gail Sondergaard, Dennis Hoey, Vernon Downing, Alec Craig, Arthur Hohl, Mary Gordon. London is in a panic over a series of apparent "Pajama Suicides." Sherlock Holmes, however, is more inclined to believe that they are calculated murders. It is up to the detective and his partner, Dr. Watson, to discover the motive and the means of these crimes and to quickly unmask the murderer. Miss Adria Spedding is an intoxicating woman of character whom Holmes is convinced is behind the killings. A series of masquerades and deadly game playing ensues as Holmes and Watson enter a battle of wits with The Spider Woman. Based on the stories "The Sign of Four" and "The Final Problem." 63 min. DVD 4310
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- Sherlock Holmes in Washington Directed by Roy William Neill, 1942. Cast:
Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Henry Daniell, George Zucco, Marjorie Lord. In WWII a, a British secret agent carrying a vitally important document is kidnapped en route to Washington. The British government calls on Sherlock Holmes to recover it. 71 min. DVD 4309
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- Sherlock Holmes in The Woman in Green Directed by Roy William Neill, 1945. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell, Paul Cavanagh. Four women are murdered and, curiously, all four have been left without their right forefinger. Holmes and Dr. Watson discover a web of blackmail and hypnotism unlike anything they have ever seen. 68 min. DVD 4312
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- Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
- Directed by Ridley Scott. Cast: Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers, Lorraine Bracco, Jerry Orbach, John Rubinstein. A stunning New York socialite and a down-to-earth city cop are caught in a deadly web of illicit passion and heart-stopping suspense in this taut thriller as the detective finds his life turned upside down when he is assigned to protect this beautiful eyewitness to a brutal murder. Videodisc release of a motion picture originally produced in 1988. Special features: Production notes, interactive menus, theatrical trailers, talent files, scene selections. 106 min. DVD 131
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- Movie Review Query Engine
- Soplo de Vida (Breath of Life) (Colombia, 1999)
- Directed by Luis Ospina. An ex-cop turned private detective investigates the murder of a prostitute in a squalid hotel in Bogota and encounters her diverse clientele. 110 min. 999:3413
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- Stage Fright (1949)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim, Dame Sybil Thorndike. Drama student Eve Gill envisions the acting challenge of a lifetime in the desperate predicament of a boy friend Jonathan Cooper, being framed for her husband's murder by a flamboyant stage star, Charlotte Inwood. To prove Jonathan's innocence and Charlotte's guilt, Eve impersonates a maid and goes to work for Charlotte. For Eve, undercover work is like playing a game, but she's about to encounter other actors who are playing for keeps. 110 min. DVD 5685; VHS 999:577
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- The Sting (1973)
- Directed by George Roy Hll. Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw. Set in 1930's Chicago, this Academy Award winning film deals with two con men who seek revenge on a big-time gangster who was responsible for the murder of their friend. 129 min. DVD 1439
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- The Stray Dog (Nora Inu) (1949)
- Director: Akira Kurosawa. Set in Tokyo during the late 1940's, the film captures the chaos and humiliation that existed in Japan immediately after World War II. When detective Murakami loses his revolver, he must descend into Tokyo's underworld and face the killer who has taken it. 122 min. DVD 2732; vhs 999:2243
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- Street of No Return (1989)
- Directed by Samuel Fuller. Cast: Keith Carradine, Bill Duke, Valentina Vargas, Andrea Ferreol, Bernard Fresson. The story of a former pop star who had it all until he fell in love with the wrong gangster's girl and had his throat cut for his sins. Now a drifter, he lives in a haze of amnesia, alcohol and misery until one day he rediscovers himself and a chance for vengeance. Based on the classic crime novel by David Goodis. 92 min. DVD 6988
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- Superfly (1972)
- Directed by Gordon Parks Jr. Cast: Ron O'Neal, Carl Lee, Sheila Frazier, Julius W. Harris, Charles McGregor. Tale of a Harlem drug dealer, Priest, who wants out of cocaine-dealing but a drug kingpin does not want Priest to stop. He sets up one last big drug deal before he retires, but is thwarted by double-crossers, murder and revenge. 93 min. DVD 4648; vhs 999:1181
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Suture (1993)
- Directed by Scott McGhee and David Siegel. Cast: Dennis Haysbert, Mel Harris, Sab Shimono, Michael Harris, David Graf, Fran Ryan, John Ingle, Dina Merrill. You can barely tell Vincent and Clay apart. So when these two estranged half-brothers meet, Vincent, the prime suspect in their father's murder, decides to kill Clay so he can swap identities and pin the crime on his new-found sibling. But Clay miraculously survives the attempt on his life and now, suffering from amnesia and thinking he's Vincent, must prove that he's not the killer. 96 min. DVD 1268
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- T-Men (1947)
- Directed by Anthony Mann. Cast: Dennis O'Keefe, June Lockhart, Alfred Ryder, Mary Meade, Wally Ford, Charles McGraw, Jane Randolph. There's plenty of action when two treasury agents infiltrate the ranks of a notorious counterfeiting ring known as the Vantucci Gang in this stylish film noir. 93 min. DVD 163; vhs 999:710
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- Tell Me Something (Telmi ssomding) (1999)
- Directed by Yoon-Hyun Chang. In consecutive murders occuring in Seoul, the dismembered bodies of the victims are found with arms and heads separated. When detective Cho starts investigating he is confronted with horrible and shocking scenes. 116 min. DVD 1485
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- Terror Street (aka 36 Hours) (UK, 1953)
- Directed by Montgomery Tully. Cast: Elsy Albin, Ann Gudrun, Eric Polmann, Dan Duryea.
U.S. Air Force pilot becomes the logical suspect after his wife is shot and killed. The thirty-six hours he has to clear himself are filled with twists and turns culminating in an exciting climax. 85 min. DVD 8345
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- They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
- Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; Cast: Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Griffith Jones, Rene Ray. Ex-RAF flyer Morgan, bored with civilian life, joins a gang led by Narcy. On his first job, a policeman is killed, Morgan is framed for the killing and jailed. He escapes and makes it to London, where he is sheltered by Sally, who falls in love with him. Seeking revenge, he confronts Narcy and the gang in an abandoned warehouse. 103 min. DVD 3951; vhs 999:3232
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- The Thin Man Movies
- The Thin Man (1934)
- Directed by W.S. VanDyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell. The jaunty whodunit that made William Powell and Myrna Loy the champagne elite of sleuthing. In this premier film they play a tipsy detective and his wife and dog who solve the murder of an eccentric inventor. 90 min. DVD 4154; vhs 999:405
- Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- After the Thin Man (1936)
- Directed by W.S. VanDyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart, Elissa Landi, Joseph Calleia. It's New Year's Eve, Nick and Nora Charles have returned to the West Coast, and the philandering hubby of Nora's cousin has gone missing. Retired from sleuthing, Nick must round up the usual suspects. 112 min. DVD 4155
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- Another Thin Man (1939)
- Directed by W.S. VanDyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Virginia Grey, Otto Kruger, C. Aubrey Smith. Dum-Dum, Wacky, Creeps, Fingers: They're just a few of the hoodlums in the world of amateur sleuths and professional vivants Nick & Nora Charles. And now there's a new hood: parenthood. 102 min. DVD 4156
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- Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
- Directed by W.S. VanDyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed, Sam Levene. A jockey who threw a race is murdered in the locker room. Nick & Nora Charles are off to the races on another case of murder, mirth and perfect martinis. 97 min. DVD 4157
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- The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)
- Directed by Richard Thorpe. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucile Watson, Gloria de Haven, Ann Revere. Outlaws come and go in Nick & Nora's lives. Now it's time to meet the in-laws. The debonair sleuths leave little Nicky Jr. at boarding school, grab Asta (the dog) and head to Nick's boyhood home of Sycamore Springs. 101 min. DVD 4158
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- Song of the Thin Man (1947)
- Directed by Edward Buzzell. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Keenan Wynn, Dean Stockwell, Philip Reed. At a charity gambling benefit aboard the S.S. Fortune, the tables are hot, the jazz is hotter and before you know it, a bandleader's body is growing cold. They're playing your song Nick & Nora Charles! 86 min. DVD 4159
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- Alias Nick & Nora [Documentary]DVD 4153
- Drees, Rich. "The Thin Man: Dashiell Hammett & Hollywood." Films in Review v. 46 (Sept./Oct. '95) p. 46-53.
- Isaac, Frederick. "Hard-Boiled or Ham-It-Up? The Thin Man Movies." In: It's a print! : detective fiction from page to screen / edited by William Reynolds, Elizabeth A. Trembley. pp: 49-63. Bowling Green, OH : Bowling Green State University Popular Press, c1994. (Main Stack PN1995.3.R4 1994)
- Soter, Tom. Investigating couples: a critical analysis of The Thin Man, The Avengers, and The X-Files. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, c2002. (MAIN: PN1992.8.D48 S65 2002)
- Szebin, Frederick C. "Hammett rewritten." Films in Review v. 45 (July/Aug. '94) p. 2-9.
- Twilight (1997)
- Directed by Robert Benton. Cast: Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Stockard Channing, Reese Witherspoon, Giancarlo Esposito, James Garner. Harry Ross is a burned-out private eye who's plunged into a murder mystery tied to a long-unsolved case of Hollywood dreams, schemes and cover-ups. 95 min. DVD 5405
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- The Underworld Story (1950)
- Directed by Cyril Endfield. Cast: Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm. Powerful indictment of sensationalist journalism, Dan Duryea portrays an unscrupulous reporter who stumbles onto a cover-up that may get him killed. 90 min. 999:468
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- Underworld U.S.A. (1961)
- Directed by Samuel Fuller. Cast: Cliff Robertson, Dolores Dorn, Beatrice Kay, Paul Dubov, Robert Emhardt, Larry Gates. Cliff Robertson is caught between the government and organized crime. After witnessing the brutal murder of his father, Robertson's vow to avenge this death leads him into a violent underworld, where even the toughest criminals must fight to stay alive. 99 min. 999:493
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- McArthur, Colin.
Underworld U.S.A. London, Secker and Warburg [for] the British Film Institute, 1972. Cinema one; 20 (Main Stack PN1993.C45 v.20; Moffitt PN1995.9.G3.M3)
- The Untouchables (1987)
- Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, Sean Connery, Patricia Clarkson. A fierce, larger-than-life depiction of Al Capone, the mob warlord who ruled Prohibition-era Chicago and Eliot Ness, the law enforcer who vowed to bring him down. Special DVD features: The script, the cast; production stories; reinventing the genre; the classic; original featurette: "The men"; theatrical trailer. 119 min. DVD 8432; vhs 999:2720
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- Move Review Query Engine
- Up In the Air (1940)
- Directed by Howard Bretherton. Host: Richard Roundtree. Cast: Frankie Darro, Marjorie Reynolds, Mantan Moreland. A radio singer is murdered while singing on the air in a radio studio. Radio page boy, Frankie Ryan, and his janitor pal, Jeff, solve the mystery for the none-too-sharp police. 61 min. DVD 4995
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- The Usual Suspects (1995)
- Directed by Bryan Singer; Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey. Police investigating an exploded boat on a San Pedro pier discover 27 bodies and $91 million worth of drug money. The only survivors are a severely burned Hungarian terrorist and Roger Kint, a crippled con-man. Reluctantly, Kint is pressured into explaining what happened on the boat. His story begins six weeks earlier with five criminals being dragged in by New York police desparate for suspects in a truck highjacking, and ends with the possible identification of a criminal mastermind. 106 min. DVD 3907; vhs 999:2226
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- Violent Cop (Sono otoko kyobo ni tsuki) (1989)
- Director, Takeshi Kitano. Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague Iwaki is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma's sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice. 98 min. DVD 1082; vhs 999:3199
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- Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
- Directed by Robert Zemeckis. The hapless Roger Rabbit is framed for the murder of Marvin Acme, who was photographed "playing patticake" with Roger's wife, Jessica Rabbit. The mixed live- and animated action takes place in Hollywood and next-door "Toontown," where humans and "Toons" co-exist. 106 min. DVD 203; vhs 999:1647
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- Horror Films
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- American Nightmare
- Knife-weilding murderers, buxom teens fleeing for theirlives, the undead limping across streets. These imagesare synonymous with horror movies. Gobehind-the-scenes with filmmaker greats as they revealtheir inspirations for some of the most disturbinglygruesome films that have emerged on screen. Includesexcerpts from classic horror films. Contents: Scene excerpts: Bride of Frankenstain (1935) -- Thebrood (1979) -- The crazies (1973) -- Dawn ofthe dead (1978) -- Dracula (1931) -- Frankenstein(1931) -- The fun house (1981) -- Halloween (1978) --Maniac (1980) -- It came from outter space (1953) --Last house on the left (1972) -- Night of the livingdead (1968) -- Rabid (1977) -- Scanners (1981) --Shivers (1975) -- The Texas chainsaw massacre (1974) --Videodrome (1983) -- White Zombie (1932) -- Thewolfman (1941). 2000. 71 min. DVD 2417
- American Psycho (2000)
- Directed by Mary Harron. Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Bill Sage, Chloe Sevigny, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, Guinevere Turner, Reese Witherspoon. A young, handsome man with a Harvard education, a stunning fiancee and success on Wall Street appears to have everything. But his circle of friends doesn't know his other side of terrible urges that take him in pursuit of women, greed, and murder. Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. 101 min. DVD 3528
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- The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Uccello dalle piume di cristallo) (1970)
- Directed by Dario Argento. Cast: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Eva Renzi, Enrico Maria Salerno, Mario Adorf. An American writer in Italy becomes an amateur sleuth when he witnesses a failed attempt by a serial killer to take the life of the wife of a wealthy gallery owner. 96 min. DVD 5253
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- McDonagh, Maitland. "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento." Film Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 2. (Winter, 1987-1988), pp. 2-13.UC users only
- Schneider, Steven Jay and Frank Lafond. "Dario Argento Resources online and in print." Kinoeye
- Black & White (1998)
- Directed by Yuri Zeltser. Cast: Gina Gershon, Ron Silver, Rory Cochrane. A shy rookie cop finds himself assigned to a tough, sexy female partner, a veteran officer who is legendary for her ruthless, but effective, style. The pair begins investigating a very dangerous and ingenious serial killer, and also begins a very passionate affair. 97 min. 999:3179
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- Black Widow (1987)
- Directed by Bob Rafelson. Cast: Debra Winger, Theresa Russell, Sami Frey, Dennis Hopper, Nicol Williamson. A complex psychological thriller about a beautiful serial killer whose victims are wealthy men. A keen female federal agent tracks down the alluring seductress only to be turned inside out when she falls under the killer's potent spell herself. 97 min. DVD 3822
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- Ressner, Jeffrey. "The passion of Theresa." American Film v. 14 (April 1989) p. 34-7+
- Blonde Ice (1948)
- Directed by Jack Bernhard. Cast: Leslie Brooks, Robert Paige, Michael Whalen, Walter Sande, John Holland, James Griffith, David Leonard.
The bizarre tale of a beautiful society columnist whose desire for money and position turn her into a serial killer...a story most Hollywood studios of the 1940's wouldn't touch. 74 min. DVD X971
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- Blood Feast (1963)
- Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Cast: Thomas Wood, Mal Arnold, Connie Mason, Lyn Bolton, Scott H. Hall.
Set in Miami, police are baffled by a series of grisly murders that involve ritualistic dismemberment. A deranged Egyptian caterer name Fuad Ramses goes around hacking up beautiful young gals and brings their body parts back to his temple as an offering to the goddess Ishtar. Special features: Audio commentary by director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman ; original theatrical trailer ; rare outtakes ; actors Thomas Wood and Harvey Korman demonstrate how to slice meat in the grisly educational short subject," Carving magic" (20 min.); gallery of exploitation art. 87 min. DVD 4602
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- Le Boucher (The Butcher) (France, 1969)
- Directed by Claude Chabrol. Cast: Stephane Audran, Jean Yanne, Antonio Passalia. In a provincial French town, a sophisticated schoolmistress avoids attachments but strikes up a congenial friendship with the charmingly passionate local butcher, a veteran of Indochina. As a serial killer spreads terror throughout the countryside, the effort of these two people to come back from their emotional islands to some kind of mutual understanding and reality builds from oblique tenderness and humor to shattering tragedy. 87 min. DVD 1733
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Cape Fear (1962 and 1991)
- SEE Film Noir videography
- Clean, Shaven (1993)
- Directed by Lodge Kerrigan. Cast: Peter Greene, Robert Albert, Jennifer MacDonald, Megan Owen, Molly Castelloe. A harrowing story of a schizophrenic man's desperate search for his young daughter. Peter Winter, recently released from an institution, returns home only to find out that his daughter has been put up for adoption. Hampering his search is Detective McNally who believes Peter to be a child serial killer. 80 min. DVD 2299
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- Copycat (1995)
- Directed by Jon Amiel. Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, William McNamara, Will Patton. An adrenaline pumper about the desperate hunt for a mass murderer with an elusive m.o...He copies serial killers of the recent past. 123 min. DVD 5072
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- Goldberg, Carl. "A psychological examination of serial killer cinema: the case of Copycat." Post Script XXII:2 (Winter-Spring 2003)
- Dyer, Richard.
"Kill and kill again. (portrayal of serial killers in film and television)." Sight and Sound 7.n9 (Sept 1997): 14(4).
- Simpson, Philip L.
"Copycat, Serial Murder, and the (De)Terministic Screen Narrative." In: The terministic screen : rhetorical perspectives on film / edited by David Blakesley. Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, c2003.
(Main Stack PN1994.T47 2003)
- Dead Calm (1988)
- Directed by Phillip Noyce. Cast: Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman, Billy Zane. John and Rae Ingram rescue the only surviving crew member of a crippled schooner only to find themselves the targets of a deranged killer. 96 min. DVD 3891; vhs 999:2449
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- Deep Crimson (Profundo carmesi) (Mexico / France / Spain, 1996)
- Directed by Arturo Ripstein. The story of Nicolas and Coral, a couple who roam the back roads of Mexico looking for lonely women who Nicholas seduces and insane Coral then murders. 109 min. Video 999:3374
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- The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens element) (Denmark, 1984)
- Directed by Lars von Trier. Cast: Michael Elphick, Esmond Knight, Meme Lai, Jerold Welss, Ahmed El Shenawi, Astrid Henning-Jensen, Janos Hersko, Preben Leerdorff-Rye, Gotha Anderson, Lars von Trier.The story of an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer preying on young girls. Set in Germany and shot in sepia tones with brilliant blue flashes, Von Trier boldly reinvents the expressionist style, combining dark mystery and operatic sweep to yield a celluloid nightmare. 104 min. DVD 1568
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- Frenzy (UK, 1972)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, Billie Whitelaw. In their hunt for a sex criminal known as the Necktie Murderer, the London police suspect an innocent man, who eludes them and proves his innocence by finding the real murderer. 116 min. DVD 1029; Video Disc 50; VHS 999:564
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- From Hell (2001)
- Directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. Cast: Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Robbie Coltrane, Jason Flemyng. In 1888 London's Whitechapel slums, poor women like Mary Kelly and her friends walk the streets for a living. When the streetwalkers begin to be murdered one by one, it attracts the attention of Inspector Abberline, who takes a personal interest in the case, and Mary Kelly. Now he must use his psychic abilities to stop the most notorious serial killer in history--Jack the Ripper--before Mary is killed. 121 min. DVD 5006
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- Hannibal (2001)
- Directed by Ridley Scott. Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta, Frankie R. Faison, Giancarlo Giannini, Francesca Neri, Zeljko Ivanek, Gary Oldman. After escaping from the asylum in Baltimore, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, moves to Florence, Italy where he has become one of the curators of the Palazzo Vecchio. His cover is broken when a cop, for money, turns Dr. Lecter over to his old patient, Mason Verger. FBI agent Clarice Starling finds out about Mason's evil plot to feed Dr. Lecter to a bunch of man-eating hogs and will do anything to make sure that Mason doesn't succeed. 131 min. DVD 4641
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- Heavenly Creatures (UK / Germany / New Zealand, 1994)
- Directed by Peter Jackson. Cast:Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O'Connor. Based on an actual crime, this is the true-life case of two teenage girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, who were charged with clubbing to death Pauline's mother in Christchurch New Zealand in 1954. The film opens two years before the murder, and follows the friendship as the two become obsessed with each other, retreating into a fantasy life which leads to shocking consequences. 99 min. DVD 9177; vhs 999:1994
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- The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
- Directed by Ida Lupino. Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman. The only true 'film noir' ever directed by a woman, this tour de force thriller is a classic, tension-packed, three-way dance of death about two middle-class American homebodies on vacation in Mexico on a long-awaited fishing trip. Suddenly their car and their very lives are commandeered by a psychopathic serial killer. 70 min. DVD 169; VHS 999:2777
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- I Can't Sleep (J'ai Pas Sommeil) (France / Switzerland, 1994)
- Director, Clair Denis. Cast: Katerina Golubeva, Richard Courcet, Vincent Dupont. A "granny killer" is loose in Paris, inciting fear and havoc amongst its residents. Based on the true story of Thierry Paulin, who with his male lover murdered over 20 elderly women in Paris in the 1980s, this is an eerily atmospheric portrait of urban alienation and arbitrary violence. 115 min. 999:3268
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- In Cold Blood (1967)
- Directed by Richard Brooks. Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe. Dramatizes a real crime in which a Kansas farmer, his wife and two teenage children were brutally murdered by two ex-convicts. Explores the inner workings of the criminals' minds as it follows their purposeless meanderings through Mexico and the United States in evasion of the law. Based on the book by Truman Capote (MAIN: HV6533.K3 C31 1965) 133 min. 999:2247
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- In The Cut (2003)
- Directed by Jane Campion. Cast: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Damici, Sharrieff Pugh. A lonely young English professor living in New York City gets tangled up in a murder investigation when a severed head is found in her garden. When she becomes involved with the homicide detective on the case, she realizes that the prime suspect may be closer than she likes to think. 118 min. DVD 4041
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- Kalifornia (1993)
- Directed by Dominic Sena. Cast: Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, Michelle Forbes. Twisted, psychotic ex-convict Early Grayce has found his ride out of town... and just in time. Early didn't like the way his landlord was "acting up" so he killed him. Lucky for Early and his girlfriend, a young couple writing a book on serial killers needs two people to share expenses for a cross-country trip. The two couples are about to take one unforgettable ride. 118 min. 999:2292
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Movie Review Query Engine
- Harris, Adam Duncan. "Frustrating the Investigative Desire: Violence and the Audience in Kalifornia." In: The image of violence in literature, the media, and society. Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. 1995: Conference Colorado Springs, Co.
Pueblo, Co. : The Society, 1995. (MAIN: P96.V5 S66 1995)
- The Lodger - A Story of the London Fog (UK, 1926)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Malcolm Keen, Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney. The first true Hitchcock film. Based on the famous suspense novel, The Lodger presents the story of a family that rents a room to a mysterious stranger at the time when Jack the Ripper terrorized London. They begin to have the chilling suspicion that their boarder might be the mass murderer. This is also the first film in which Hitchcock made his now traditional cameo appearance. 91 min. DVD 111; vhs 999:599
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- Lured(1947)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk; Cast: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Boris Karloff, Charles Coburn, Sir Cedric Hardwick.A serial killer terrorizes London by luring women into meeting with him through the personal ads in the newspaper and taunting the police with gruesome poems. A Scotland Yard detective enlists the aid of a feisty American redhead (Lucille Ball) to draw the murderer into the dragnet. 102 min. DVD 2043
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- M (Germany, 1931)
- Directed by Fritz Lang. Cast: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke, Theodor Loos, Gustaf Grundgens. A German town is gripped by
terror due to the sadistic murders of little girls. The underworld is threatened when the police search proves futile so the denizens of the underworld trap, capture, and finally drag the murderer before a tribunal of criminals. 99 min.
DVD 16, DVD 662; VHS 999:30
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- Man Bites Dog (C'est arrive pres de chez vous)(Belgium, 1992)
- Directed by Remy Belvaux. A camera crew follows a serial killer/thief around as he exercises his craft. He expounds on art, music, nature, society, and life as he offs mailmen, pensioners, and random people. Slowly he begins involving the camera crew in his activities, and they begin wondering if what they're doing is such a good idea, particularly when the killer kills a rival and the rival's brother sends a threatening letter. 96 min. DVD 2814
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- Beard, Steve. 'Hounded to death." Modern Review Vol I nr 7 (Feb-Mar 1993); p 33
- Lafond, Jean-Daniel. "The life and crimes of Ben; or, when a serial killer meets a film crew in Man bites dog." Post Script Vol XXII nr 2 (Winter-Spring 2003); p 92-102
- Rhodes, Gary D. "Mockdocumentaries and the production of realist horror." Post Script Vol XXI nr 3 (Summer 2002); p 46-60
- Manhunter (1994)
- Directed by Michael Mann. Cast: William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Dennis Farina, Stephen Lang, Tom Noonan. An FBI agent enlists the aid of Hannibal Lecter, an incarcerated mental patient, to help find the notorious serial killer, "The Tooth Fairy." 120 min. VHS 999:2303
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- Mary Reilly (1996)
- Directed by Stephen Frears. Cast: Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, George Cole, Michael Gambon, Kathy Staff, Glenn Close. The classic horror story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gets a chilling new twist when seen through the eyes of Dr. Jekyll's devoted maid. Equally attracted to her kind employer, Dr. Jekyll, and his mysterious assistant, Mr. Hyde, she must confront her own dangerous desires if she is to survive. 108 min. DVD 1007
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- Mommy (1994)
- Written and directed by Max Allan Collins. Cast: Patty McCormack, Jason Miller, Brinke Stevens, Michael Cornelison, Majel Barrett, Mickey Spillane, Sarah Jane Miller, Rachel Lemieux. The story of a psychopathic mother who'll stop at nothing to get what's best for her daughter and herself. 89 min. DVD 5044
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- Mommy 2: (1996)
- Written and directed by Max Allan Collins. Cast: Patty McCormack, Paul Petersen, Gary Sandy, Brinke Stevens, Mickey Spillane, Arlen Dean Snyder, Michael Cornelison, Rachel Lemieux, Sarah Jane Miller, Todd Eastland, Paula Sands, Del Close, Laurence Coven, Pamela Cecil. The film opens with "Mommy" on death row in an Iowa prison. An outraged public and a frenzied media do not stop Mommy from doing anything she can to regain the love of her daughter. 88 min. DVD 5044
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- Monster (2003)
- Written and directed by Patty Jenkins. Cast: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen, Annie Corley, Marco St. John, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Scott Wilson. Based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who was executed in 2002 for the brutal murders of at least 6 men in Florida. Homeless in Florida, down to her last five dollars and pondering suicide, she stopped into a bar for a beer where she meets Selby, who becomes her lesbian lover. One night, after a man attacks her, Aileen pulls a gun and kills the man. Aileen's loathing for the men who pay her for sex becomes so extreme that she begins killing her customers regardless of their behavior. 109 min. DVD 2752
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- Natural Born Killers (1994)
- Directed by Oliver Stone. Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield. Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media. 118 min. DVD 1271; DVD 773; also on VHS 999:2153
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- The Night of the Hunter(1955)
- Directed by Charles Laughton. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, Peter Graves, Don Beddoe, Billy Chapin, Gloria Castilo, Sally Jane Bruce. A tale of a psychopathic self-styled preacher, who marries and murders a young widow for her money, pursues her children to get his hand on it, only to meet his match in the form of a saintly farm woman, who becomes the children's protector. 94 min. DVD 283; VHS 999:402
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- Peeping Tom (UK, 1945)
- Director, Michael Powell; Cast: Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley. A study of a voyeuristic maniac who kills women while filming them with his 16mm camera. 101 min. DVD 187; VHS 999:535
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- Psycho (1960)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Horror melodrama in which a woman disappears after spending the night in an isolated motel which adjoins an eerie Victorian mansion, inhabited by a disturbed young man and his mother. 108 min. DVD 91; VHS 999:66
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- Psycho (1998)
- Directed by Gus Van Sant. Cast: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, Anne Heche. On the run Marion Crane takes refuge at a motel operated by Norman Bates -- a troubled man whose victims encounter a grisly fate at the hands of his "mother." Marion soon becomes the next victim and her disappearance prompts inquiries from her sister and a private investigator who soon discover the morbid bond between Norman and his mysterious "mother," at the Bates Motel. 104 min. DVD X421; vhs 999:2505
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- Rope. (1948)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke. Granger and Dall are two friends who strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills and then proceed to invite his family and mutual friends to dinner-with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. Their former teacher, James Stewart, suspects wrongdoing. Before the night is over, he finds out how brutally his students have twisted his own academic theories. The homosexual relationship of the two central characters was kept under wraps by the censors--although it remains fairly obvious to the careful viewer. DVD 639; VHS 999:255
Swoon,which, like Rope is based more or less loosely on the Leopold and Loeb case.
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- Sea of Love (1989)
- Directed by Harold Becker. Cast: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman. A veteran New York City police detective, while working to track down a bizarre serial killer, enters into a passionate affair with a beautiful suspect despite hard evidence linking her to the murders. 999:2323
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- Gabbard, Krin, and Glen O. Gabbard. "Phallic women in the contemporary cinema." American Imago 50.n4 (Winter 1993): 421(19).
UC users only
- Serial Mom (1994)
- Directed by John Waters. Cast: Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Suzanne Somers.
Beverly Sutphin is a seemingly perfect homemaker who will stop at nothing to rid the neighborhood of anyone who dares to make someone in her family feel bad. When she's not making obscene prank calls to the neighbors or bribing her garbagemen to save embarrassing items from her neighbors' trash, she's mowing down whoever would be so rude as to make her husband go into his office on a Saturday, break up with her daughter, or suggest that her son watches too many horror movies. As other slights befall her beloved family, the body count begins to increase, and the police get closer to the truth, threatening the family's picture perfect world. Special features: "Serial mom": surreal moments; The kings of gore: Herschell Gordon Lewis and David Friedman; The making of "Serial mom"; Feature commentary with director John Waters and star Kathleen Turner. 94 min. DVD X272
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- Se7en(1995)
- Directed by David Fincher. Cast: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. McGinley. A psychological thriller about two detectives on the trail of a serial killer who chooses his victims according to the seven deadly sins. Disc one: (the movie). Four feature-length audio commentaries Cast: director David Fincher, actors Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and other collaborators on the film -- Disc two: (supplemental material). Deleted scenes and extended takes -- Alternate endings with animated storyboard exploration -- Exploration of the opening title sequence from multiple video angles with various audio mixes and two commentary tracks -- Multiple animated galleries featuring production designs and stills, crime scene photos used in the film, "John Doe's" notebook, photos, and more -- Original theatrical trailer and electronic press kit. 127 min. DVD 2014
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- Silence of the Lambs(1991)
- Directed by Jonathan Demme. Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn. A young female FBI agent is sent to interview notorious cannibalistic killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter in hopes of obtaining information that will help the bureau catch another killer. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris. In one of the most memorable sequences "Lecter graphically tells her about his ferocious oral impulses and how he eats parts of his victims: 'A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chi-an-ti. (He approaches the glass and lets go with a slurping sound.) You fly back to school now, little Starling. (He turns his back on her and speaks in a whisper.) Fly, fly, fly. Fly, fly, fly.' [from Tom Dirks' Greatest Movies] 118 min. DVD 5475; vhs 999:1998
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Summer of Sam(1999)
- Directed by Spike Lee. Cast: John Leguizamo, Mira Sorvino, Adrien Brody, Jennifer Esposito, Anthony La Paglia, Ben Gazzara. In the summer of 1977 in New York City, a man called the Son of Sam commits numerous murders. As friends in a small Italian neighborhood become obsessed with the idea that the Son of Sam is someone nearby, the madman's plague of terror becomes the catalyst that prompts relationships to fall apart and trust to disintegrate into dread. 142 min. DVD 402
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Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Swoon (1992)
- Directed by Tom Kalin. Cast: Craig Chester, Daniel Schlachet, Michael Kirby, Michael Stumm, Ron Vawter.
A film noir "thriller" that presents the true case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, brilliant young men from good Jewish families, who were convicted for murdering a 13-year-old boy. Some of the basic features of this story were also used in Hitchcock's 1948 film, Rope 93 min. DVD X791; vhs 999:1161
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Movie Review Query Engine
- Zodiac(2007)
- Directed by David Fincher. Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Chloe Sevigny, Ed Setrakian, John Getz, John Terry, Candy Clark, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue.
A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. Looks into the lives of the four men most effected by the killer: San Francisco PD Homicide, David Toschi and William Armstrong, the San Francisco Chronicle reporters Paul Avery and Robert Graysmith. Displays the psychological and emotional effects of the killings, as well as the endless procedural details of the investigation (handwriting experts, the "2500" suspects), the letters sent to the San Francisco Chronicle by Zodiac and the work of a 20+ year investigation that wears down and whittles away at any kind of normal life for Toshi and Graysmith. Both men are obsessed with Zodiac and both pay for this obsession with the hard years and loves lost and never regained. Based on the book by Robert Graysmith.
157 min. DVD 8138
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