Best Crime Movies of 1935

Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.

Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.

James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.

A man is haunted by a murder he's committed.

A brilliant but deranged neurosurgeon becomes obsessively fixated on a judge's daughter who in no way wants him. With the help of an escaped criminal whose face he has surgically deformed, the mad man lures her, her father, and her fiancé to his isolated castle-like home, where he has created a torture chamber with the intent of torturing them for having 'tortured' him.

Newspaperman Bill Bradford becomes a special agent for the tax service trying to end the career of racketeer Nick Carston. Julie Gardner is Carston's bookkeeper. Bradford enters Carston's organization and Julie cooperates with him to land Carston in jail. An informer squeals on them. Julie is kidnapped by Carston's henchmen as she is about to testify

When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.

In a 16th-century European town, the ruling family has been given a prophecy that, should there ever be twin boys born, the younger will murder the older; so is dismayed when twins are born to the popular baron. The older grows to be a selfish, slovenly man, who inherits the castle at his father's death and becomes ruler over the formerly happy villagers. He enjoys his power until he learns his younger brother is returning from abroad and, afraid of the prophecy, he determines to murder his sibling, hide his body in the "black room" - an old torture chamber sealed away behind the fireplace - and then impersonate him, right down to his withered arm. In this way he hopes to not only avoid the prophecy, but also escape consequences of his other criminal deeds and obtain marriage to a local girl of the nobility...

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

An ambitious Mexican-American gets mixed up with his boss's neurotic wife.

British crime film directed by Ralph Ince

A con man who stages phony "lucky legs" beauty contests and leaves town with the money is found with a surgical knife in his heart by Mason.

A robin is shot so the woodland community holds a trial to investigate.

When Paul Madvig, a successful politician who fights his rivals to seize the city, becomes implicated in a murder, Ed Beaumont, his friend and right-hand man, must decide which side he is on.

Let 'Em Have It is a 1935 gangster film. It was also known as The Legion of Valour and False Faces. An FBI agent tracks down a gang leader.

Hard-hitting news editor Jim Branch falls for high-society type Sharon Norwood but can't get to first base as he continually makes use of her knowledge of the rich and famous to try to solve the murder of one of her socialite acquaintences. Written by Doug Sederberg

A young couple and their child fall prey to kidnappers when a storm drives them into a seemingly abandoned farmhouse.

After giving the District Attorney another stinging defeat, Perry plans to take a vacation in China. That is, he was, until Rhoda, his old flame, meets him at a restaurant. It seems that her husband Moxley, who had been allegedly dead for four years, is alive and demanding money as she has married into wealth. The case escalates when the police find the body of Moxley and charge her with the murder.

G-Man Jeff Crane poses as a crook to infiltrate the notorious Purple Gang, a band of hoodlums which preys upon other hoodlums. Orchestrating the jailbreak of the gang's leader, Crane joins him in a Dillinger-like flight across the country.

Ann Grey is wrongly convicted of murder. On her way to prison a car accident gives her the opportunity to escape. She is helped by young lawyer Tony Baxter. He hides her from the police, as well as his fiancée, with the help of his butler Peedles. Ann is also wanted by the mobsters who really committed the murder as they think she knows where $250,000 worth of bonds are hidden. When the mobsters find and abduct her, Tony enlists the help of the D.A. and the police to try to get her back.

Dr. Socrates gave up his brilliant career as surgeon in a prominent hospital because his betrothed died under his knife. He is now a struggling doctor in a small town that has a gangster's hideout.

A cop, who plays by his own rules, brings down a notorious gangster.

A simple Pennsylvania coal miner is drawn into the violent conflict between union workers and management.

While filling in for injured supersleuth Bulldog Drummond (Atholl Fleming), world-class cricket player Jack Pennington (Jack Hulbert) attempts to foil a criminal mastermind's (Ralph Richardson) impending heist that's targeting a valuable jewel necklace held within the British Museum. This comedic 1930s mystery features daring rescues, intense fistfights and an exciting edge-of-your seat finale aboard a runaway train.

A publisher bets an author that he won't be able to write a romantic adventure novel while on a walking trip from New York to San Francisco.

A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.

An embezzler who expects to serve his time in prison and then pick up his buried loot is in for a surprise.

A man runs over a young couple on a deserted road, then leaves the scene and tries to cover up the incident.

A young police academy recruit tries to break up a gang of thieves.

A major newspaper publisher dies in suspicious circumstances during a parlour game at a dinner party. The publishers secretary is the obvious suspect, but the inspector isn't so sure ...

Julie Fresnel is a co-ed at Redgate University and her father, Dr. Henri Fresnel, is the new French professor. Julie attraction from the make students drops a bit when two of her admirers are found murdered. When an attempt on the life of a third one is made. Seth Dunlap, an instructor at the school, decides to turn detective and find the killer. Assisted by his sister, who is in love with the third student, Dunlap begins to follow the the small trail of clues left by the killer.

A young Iowa woman inherits her late estranged father's New York business, but the dead man's crooked associates think they can outwit the naive heir and seize control.

A con man and his partner inherit a dead gangster's precocious daughter.

Mona Stewart, madcap, spoiled daughter of a wealthy man, becomes upset when she learns that her father is engaged to a woman she hates. She runs away, via various modes of transportation, and hires an ex-con, David Mannering, to drive her around as she eludes the all-out search conducted by her father and her fiancée, Ronnie Van Zandt. A romance is blossoming until her chauffeur is arrested for the murder of a crime-syndicate boss.

A whodunit set in Budapest, starring Edmund Lowe as a detective investigating the murder of an unemployed vaudeville actor.

A newspaper reporter sets out to track down the murderer of a policeman.

A fence for a gang of jewel thieves comes under suspicion from the police.

Hard-boiled newspaper reporter Larry Doyle (Robert Armstrong) goes a bit too far in celebrating a work bonus and wakes up on a train bound for St. Louis with only a buck on his person. To remedy the problem, Doyle pawns the revolver he's carrying. When the gun is subsequently used in a murder, Doyle's problems only multiply. In the meantime, he's also fallen in love with a comely stranger (Maxine Doyle) he convinced to impersonate his wife.

A playwright descended from the Borgias becomes a murder suspect.

A story of the Michigan State Police and the strong sense of loyalty and duty it instills in its men. It follows the career of a newly-inducted rookie, Ross Martin, who has joined the force at the urging of his sweetheart, Mary Adams. Martin soon distinguishes himself by his bravery in the apprehension of criminals. But when the leader of a gang of bank robbers falls into his hands and then escapes, because of carelessness on Martin's part, he is suspended from the force.

A pair of friends robs from a jewelry shop, and buries their loot in a field out in the country before they get caught. They spend ten years in prison, and when they're let out they go back to the burial ground, only to find out that it's no longer a bucolic pasture but the site of a large department store. Despite that setback, they're still determined to dig up their stash.

A Treasury agent (Donald Cook) gains the trust of a mob gunman while working under cover to smash a crime syndicate.

An escaped convict redeems himself by becoming an auto racing champion.

A dead man's curse on a London party house seems to echo from 1780 to 1936.

Down on his luck inventor Roger (John Stuart) "borrows" some money from a handbag he finds but things go wrong when a necklace from the bag goes missing.

A renowned hospital chief physician is persuaded, by a former lover, to operate on his former friend and partner, whom she married instead. After the successful surgery, the jilted physician gives his patient an injection...

This is a great rainy day/night murder mystery in a mansion that all whodunit lovers will appreciate. A woman reporter helps an inspector solve the deaths of four financiers on the eve of a group shareout. Based on "Les Six Hommes Morts" (Editions du Masque) by Stanislas-André Steeman.

Captain Matthews is paid 40,000 dollars in cash by Nick Conrad for his shipment of silk from China. About 15 seconds after he gets the cash, he's lured away on a false pretence and robbed by Conrad's henchmen. Newspaper reporter Jerry Mason witnesses the robbery and steals the cash from Conrad.

Holmes, retired to Sussex, is drawn into a last case when.arch enemy Moriarty arranges with an American gang to kill one John Douglas, a country gentleman with a mysterious past. Holmes' methods baffle Watson and Lestrade, but his results astonish them. In a long flashback, the victim's wife tells the story of the sinister Vermissa Valley.