Seventeen-year-old psychopath Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough) runs a cheap protection racket in Brighton with his gang of Dallow (William Hartnell), Cubitt (Nigel Stock), and Spicer (Wylie Watson). He kills a reporter, and it is ruled a suicide, but Ida (Hermione Baddeley), a performer the reporter met briefly, doesn’t believe it and sets out to prove
In a town ruled by the wealthy Ivers family, on a stormy night, run-away Martha Ivers is brought back to her domineering aunt. The night ends with the aunt dead, tough kid Sam gone, and weak kid Walter at Martha’s side. Years later, Sam (Van Heflin) passes through town and meets recent parolee, Toni Marachek
Detective Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) is given the task of escorting Frankie Neall (Maria Windsor), the wife of a mob boss, across country by train. The mob has sent a group of assassins to kill her, though they don’t know what she looks like. They mistake an innocent woman on the train (Jacqueline White) for
Deported gangster Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) wants to sneak back into the US and figures the best way involves finding someone his size. So his minions hire down-on-his-luck gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) to travel to a Mexican vacation lodge. Milner wants to figure out what is going on as he interacts with a group
Doc Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), recently released from prison, enters the city, where crime is rampant, though not successful, and the police are either on the take or suggest beating citizens because rights don’t matter. He has a perfect plan for a big heist, much bigger than the local low-life criminals are used to. It’s too
A middle aged professor (Edward G. Robinson) runs into a beautiful call girl (Joan Bennett) while admiring her portrait and they go back to her apartment. A jealous client bursts in and attacks the professor and they kill him in self defense. Fearful of their reputations, and that they won’t be believed, they decide to
Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark), a penny-ante crook who is forever going after the big score, gets in far over his head when he attempts to become a wrestling promoter. To do so he crosses mid-level crook Philip Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan), Norreross’s scheming wife (Googie Withers), his foolishly faithful girlfriend Mary Bristol (Gene Tierney), wrestler
Nick, a troubled policeman (Michael Douglas), becomes the mental and physical plaything of rich, educated, bisexual partier, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a suspect in an ice pick murder. His simple partner (George Dzundza) and ex-lover, psychologist Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), try to help him, but he falls deeper and deeper into addiction and Catherine’s
In London, General Sternwood (James Stewart) hires American expatriate detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) to deal with blackmail threats. However, what he really wants is for Marlowe to uncover what happened to his missing son-in-law. Marlowe finds that both the blackmail and the disappearance are tied up with Sternwood’s wild daughters, Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and Camilla (Candy
Stuffy, British couple Fiona and Nigel Dobson (Kristin Scott Thomas, Hugh Grant) take a cruise to India in an attempt to bring some magic to their overly comfortable marriage. On board they meet sexy, French, femme fatale, Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner), and her obnoxious, crippled, American husband, Oscar (Peter Coyote), who pick Nigel to hear the
Insurance salesman Walter Neff (Richard Crenna) is seduced by housewife Phyllis Dietrickson (Samantha Eggar) into killing her husband. Walter falsifies an accident policy for the husband that has a double indemnity clause: it pays double if the insured dies in a train accident. Their one foreseeable problem is Barton Keyes (Lee J. Cobb), a crack insurance investigator