Description: SCARFACE Scarface (also known as Scarface: The Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 American pre-Code gangster film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Hawks and Howard Hughes. The screenplay, by Ben Hecht, is based loosely on the novel first published in 1930 by Armitage Trail, which was inspired by Al Capone. The film stars Paul Muni as Italian immigrant gangster Antonio "Tony" Camonte who violently rises through the Chicago gangland, with a supporting cast that includes George Raft and Boris Karloff. Camonte's rise to power dovetails with his relentless pursuit of his boss's mistress while his own sister pursues his best hitman. In an overt tie to the life of Capone, a version of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is depicted. After purchasing the rights to Trail's novel, Hughes quickly selected Hawks to direct and Hecht to write the film's screenplay. Beginning in January 1931, Hecht wrote the script over an eleven-day period. Scarface was produced before the introduction of the Production Code in 1934, which enforced regulations on film content. However, the Hays Code, a more lenient precursor, called for major alterations, including a prologue condemning gangsters, an alternate ending to more clearly reprehend Camonte, and the alternative title The Shame of a Nation. The censors believed the film glorified violence and crime. These changes delayed the film by a year, though some showings retained the original ending. Modern showings of the film have the original ending, though some DVD releases also include the alternate ending as a feature; these versions maintain the changes Hughes and Hawks were required to make for approval by the Hays Office. No completely unaltered version was known to exist until the limited-edition set of Scarface (1983) was released on October 15, 2019. Audience reception was positive, but censors banned the film in several cities and states, forcing Hughes to remove it from circulation and store it in his vault. The rights to the film were recovered after Hughes's death in the 1970s. Alongside Little Caesar and The Public Enemy (both 1931), Scarface is regarded as one of the most significant and influential gangster films. Scarface was added to the National Film Registry in 1994 by the Library of Congress. In 2008, the American Film Institute listed Scarface as the sixth-best gangster film. It was remade as the 1983 film of the same title starring Al Pacino. LADY GANGSTER Lady Gangster is a 1942 Warner Bros. B picture crime film directed by Robert Florey, credited as "Florian Roberts". It is based on the play Gangstress, or Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye, who in 1928, as #440960, served less than ten months of a one- to three-year sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Lady Gangster is a remake of the pre-Code film, Ladies They Talk About (1933). Jackie Gleason plays a supporting role. Dorothy "Dot" Burton (Faye Emerson) is a member of a gang of bank robbers. Using her femininity and a cute dog provided her by her male cohorts, who dognapped him, she is able to enter a bank before opening time, leaving the door open and the bank guard holding her dog, thus enabling a successful robbery. When police interfere with the getaway, she faints and proclaims her innocence, but the police have strong doubts as "her" dog will not come to her and has a different name on his collar from what she calls him. After she confesses to her part in the robbery, she is sent to women's prison, where she makes an enemy of a fellow inmate who informs the governor that Burton knows where the bank's money is, thereby causing Burton to lose her parole. She is devastated by it but more trouble occurs as her old gang is going to kill her childhood sweetheart Ken Philips (Frank Wilcox), so she escapes by stealing the warden’s (Virginia Brissac) clothes and getting revenge on her rival inmate (Ruth Ford) before finally rescuing Ken. PRISON SHADOWS Prison Shadows is a 1936 American crime film directed by Robert F. Hill and starring Edward J. Nugent, Lucille Lund and Joan Barclay. Gene Harris, a prizefighter, is sentenced to five years in prison after killing an opponent in the ring. Gene's trainer Moran is suspicious of promoter George Miller, whose accomplice Claire Thomas is pretending to be in love with Gene while double-crossing him. Gene is paroled after three years. He returns to boxing, supported by Mary Comstock, a girl from Miller's office who believes in Gene's innocence, even after another foe dies while fighting him. They discover that an undetectable poison is being used on the fighters' towels. Overhearing a plot to kill him the same way, Gene plays dead and is carried out, setting a trap with the police that the villains fall into right after the fight. THE GIRL FROM CHICAGO The Girl from Chicago is a 1932 American Pre-Code drama film produced and directed by Oscar Micheaux, with an all-African-American cast including lead actors Grace Smith and Carl Mahon. Produced on a shoestring budget, this independent production featuring a largely non-professional cast, is known as one of the better-quality Micheaux productions. As it is common in Micheaux's films, the story line is padded with several musical numbers, offering a glimpse of African-American musical and dancing talent of the time. A federal agent falls in love while on assignment in Mississippi. He helps his lover escape a local thug, and follows them to Harlem where they become involved in the assassination of a Cuban racketeer. A SHRIEK IN THE NIGHT A Shriek in the Night is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery crime film with elements of romance directed by Albert Ray and starring Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, and Harvey Clark. It was produced by the independent studio Allied Pictures, and remains the company's best-known release. In the film, two rival journalists investigate the murder of a wealthy philanthropist, who fell from the balcony of his penthouse apartment. The initial murder is followed by an entire series of murders. Each victim was killed by strangulation. Rival newspaper reporters Pat Morgan and Ted Rand find themselves unravelling the mystery behind the death of a millionaire philanthropist who fell from his penthouse balcony. When it is discovered that the plunge was not an accident, the building's residents come under suspicion. Soon, the body count begins to mount as three more murders occur by strangulation. GANG BULLETS Gang Bullets is a 1938 American crime drama film directed by Lambert Hillyer. The film is also known as The Crooked Way in the United Kingdom. A ruthless but clever gangster who knows every loophole in the law has the tables turned by a dedicated district attorney and his assistant. GANGSTER’S BOY Gangster's Boy is a 1938 American drama film directed by William Nigh. It stars Jackie Cooper in his second film for Monogram Pictures. The film was positively received, and has been released on DVD. High school student Larry Kelly's father Tim used to be a gangster. Despite being treated badly by his friends, Kelly takes sides with his father when people try to force him to leave the town. Kelly's girlfriend and her brother Bill Davis continue to be around Kelly even though it makes their fathers unhappy. After a car accident in which Bill was the driver, Kelly takes the blame for the accident and is taken to jail for drunk driving. Judge Davis and Kelly's father are opponents on proving Larry Kelly as guilty or innocent. GANGS INC Gangs Inc, also known as Paper Bullets is a 1941 American crime thriller film directed by Phil Rosen and starring Joan Woodbury, Jack La Rue and Linda Ware. It was the first film produced by the King Brothers, launching their career. The film was re-released by Eagle-Lion Films as Gangs, Inc. giving top billing to Alan Ladd, who has a supporting role. A young girl, Rita Adams, asks her former gangster father why people call him a snitch. He is then gunned down in front of her. She is sent to an orphanage, where her best friends are Mickey Roma and Bob Elliott. Rita grows up to be a struggling single girl who lives with her best friend, singer Donna, and who has a drunken boyfriend, Harold De Witt, the son of a rich, powerful man, Clarence. Rita loses her job in a factory when she cannot get bonded. Bob, who is now an aerospace engineer, offers to try to get her work. When Harold drives Rita home at night, he kills a pedestrian in a hit-and-run while Rita is in the car. Acting on the advice of his father's lawyer, Bruce King, he gets Rita to claim responsibility for the accident, saying that he will be disinherited otherwise and that she will only get probation. She gets sentenced to one to five years in prison. Rita gets out of prison and her friend from the orphanage, Mickey, who now works in organised crime, explains how Harold betrayed her. Rita takes to crime, robbing gullible men. Clarence De Witt wants the police to crack down on organised crime and leads a reform ticket. Jimmy Kelly is a policeman undercover in the gang as Bill Dugan. Kelly/Dugan collects protection money for racketeer Kurt Parrish, who complains that receipts are down because of DeWitt's reform efforts. Mickey, meanwhile, asks Rita to return the letters in Harold's file which prove his guilt, but she has her plan for revenge and buys radio time to speak out against DeWitt's hypocrisy. This wins her a meeting with Parrish and mobster Lou Wood, and after Rita negotiates a place for herself in the syndicate, she then visits DeWitt with photocopies of the letters. Spurning DeWitt's offer of money, Rita forces him to use his political influence for the syndicate's benefit, prompting Jimmy to observe that Parrish is using votes, or "paper bullets", to take control. When Mickey learns that the real Dugan is in prison, Jimmy is abducted by Parrish's men, and the ensuing pursuit by the police ends in an accident. Joe persuades the newspapers to print the false information that Jimmy was killed in the crash, which devastates Donna, who has fallen in love with him. Rita then quits the syndicate to marry Bob, but immediately after the wedding she is arrested and indicted along with Parrish, Wood and DeWitt. During the trial, the courtroom spectators are shocked when Jimmy takes the stand, and all four defendants are convicted. As Bob comforts Rita and promises to wait for her, children play at the playground she built as a monument to the innocence of youth. ALIMONY Alimony is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Martha Vickers. The film starts with a father's search for his daughter who has disappeared. A former love interest of the missing woman narrates the events of their relationship, the nature of the woman's employment by a lawyer, and of her arrest on charges of fraud. Paul Klinger is on a desperate search for his lost daughter, Kate. He goes to see a man in New York, Dan Barker, a songwriter who knew Kate in the past when she lived in the city. Dan tells Paul that Kate changed her name to Kitty Travers, and then continues to tell the story of what he knows about "Kitty": Dan met Kitty when she was looking for work as a model and she happened to stay at the same boarding house as he and his girlfriend Linda Waring. A friend of Kitty's told her she could work as co-respondent in alimony cases where the man was framed to up the settlement sum. She started working for a lawyer Burt Crail and became involved in a big scandal, posing in a picture with a married man. Kitty apparently showed an aptitude for the work and made a good chunk of money. In the end she became interested in Dan, just when he was about to break through as a songwriter. Dan fell in love with Kitty and wrote her a song, breaking up with his girlfriend Linda. When Kitty found out that Dan wasn't going to be the success they expected, she left him and he resumed his relationship with his ex Linda. They married, and then came his real breakthrough, when the song he wrote for Kitty became a successful hit. Kitty returned and wanted a piece of the cake, demanding to sing the song on Dan's tour around the country. Again, Dan fell in love with Kitty and eventually left his wife. The relationship only survived long enough for the royalty money to be spent and then Kitty left Dan again. He again returned to Linda, who took him back. Kitty went on to bigger fish, marrying a millionaire named George Griswold, but secretly working for Crail again. Crail arranged for Griswold to be photographed with another woman, but before they got a settlement, it turned out Griswold had set them both up by sending a double, Curtis Carter. Both Crail and Kitty were arrested for fraud, together with several other accomplices. This concludes Dan's story about Kitty. When he is done, Paul gets news that Kate, who is out on parole from her prison sentence, has been involved in a car crash and lies in a hospital. Paul goes to the hospital and visits his daughter. They reconcile and he promises to help her start a new and better life. BORDERLINE Borderline is a 1950 American crime film noir directed by William A. Seiter and starring Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor. It was filmed from late May to early July 1949 at Republic Studios. Pete Ritchie (Raymond Burr) runs a narcotics smuggling operation to the US from Mexico, which the Los Angeles Police Department and the US federal government have unsuccessfully tried to stop. Because of Ritchie's careful operating procedures, US authorities haven't even been able to find out the identities of his sources or customers and are desperate for a breakthrough. As a last resort, Madeleine Haley (Claire Trevor), an LAPD officer and former OSS operative, is sent undercover to Mexico to charm her way into Ritchie's confidence. Once there, Haley manages to establish contact with Ritchie's gang, but is kidnapped by Johnny Macklin (Fred MacMurray), a federal agent posing as a hoodlum working for a rival of Ritchie's and who also steals a load of Ritchie's narcotics. Haley is unaware that he is also undercover. She joins Macklin on a smuggling trip to maintain her cover and nab Macklin and the ring, all while Ritchie is in hot pursuit.
Price: 19 AUD
Location: Bundaberg, Queensland
End Time: 2025-01-18T23:38:22.000Z
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Product Images
Item Specifics
Returns Accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Video Format: PAL
Case Type: Tall/DVD Case
Rating: MA15+
Subtitle Language: None
Director: Various (see ‘Description’ For Details)
Sub-Genre: Investigation, Mystery
Cinematic Movement: Arthouse/Independent, Cult, Art/Indie Film
Studio: Not Listed
Edition: Standard Edition
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Type: Movie
Format: DVD
Region Code: DVD: 0/All (Region Free/Worldwide)
Language: English
Release Year: 1930’s + 1940’s + 1950
Actor: Paul Muni, Faye Emerson, Eddie Nugent, Grace Smith, Carl Mahon, Ginger Roger, Lyle Talbolt, Anne Nagel, Robert Kent, Alan Ladd, Martha Vickers, Fred Macmurray, Jackie Cooper
Features: 10 Movies Over 2 Discs (Double Sided), Dolby Digital Stereo, Black & White
Genre: Crime
Run Time: 728 Minutes
Movie/TV Title: Golden Crime: 10 Movie Super Pack
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States & United Kingdom
Season: 10 Movie Super Pack
