Dick Elliott

Bank robber Steve Clark stashes nearly $200,000 in a safety deposit box and lays low in a small town driving a cab, where he woos and marries Julie Saunders — niece of a wealthy invalid — to give himself the perfect cover. When Julie discovers who her husband really is, she is pulled into a tightening web of greed, blackmail, and murder as the law closes in. Hugh Beaumont, later famous as Ward Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver, plays against type as the cold-blooded killer, with Frances Rafferty as Julie. Directed by B-movie workhorse Sam Newfield. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

ZaSu Pitts gets a rare leading role as Emma Bates, a fluttery small-town spinster who comes to the big city to see a prizefight and is promptly mistaken for a notorious gun moll. The mix-up pulls her into the boxing racket, a kidnapping, and a couple of gangland murders, and Emma turns out to be considerably sharper than the mobsters around her. Jean Yarbrough directs for Monogram, with Roger Pryor as a fast-talking reporter and Warren Hymer doing his patented dumb-mug routine. A lightweight but likeable entry in the era's run of little-old-lady comedies. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime

A Monogram crime picture directed by Howard Bretherton. Russell Gleason plays a railway postal clerk whose mail routes keep turning up phony sweepstakes tickets, and when the service can't crack the counterfeiting ring from the outside he goes in undercover — straight into a gang that doesn't hesitate to kill. Shirley Deane plays the reporter who both helps and nearly exposes him, and J.M. Kerrigan co-stars. Brisk poverty-row melodrama with a postal-inspector hook that was timely in an era when mail-fraud rackets were front-page news. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama