Best Crime Movies of 1942

Three ex-cons buy a luggage shop to tunnel into the bank vault next door. But despite all they can do, the shop prospers...

Broadway gamblers stumble across a plan by Nazi saboteurs to blow up an American battleship.

Charlie Chan, with son Jimmy on a week's pass from the Army, takes up a request for help at a castle-home, miles from anywhere in the American desert south-west and inhabited by an eccentric, reclusive historian and his wife, a descendant of Lucrezia Borgia. Once there, he finds the request's legitimacy denied by all who are present, but still necessary as one houseguest has already been murdered, the other guests are at each other's throat, and the Borgia-related chatelain is suspected...

A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was judged for in 1927.

A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.

England, at the start of World War Two. Mysterious wireless broadcasts, apparently from Nazi Germany are heard over the BBC. They warn of acts of terror in England, just before they take place. Baffled, the Defence Committee call in Holmes ...

Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by scientifically analyzing evidence.

Conniving Broadway starlet Mida King has plenty of enemies, so when she's found murdered at Grand Central Station, Inspector Gunther calls together a slew of suspects for questioning. Mida's shady ex-flame, Turk, seems the most likely culprit, but when smart-mouthed private eye Rocky Custer -- also a suspect himself -- begins to piece together the crime, a few clues that Gunther has overlooked come to light.

Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.

A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.

In the midst of World War II, Sherlock Holmes rescues the Swiss inventor of a new bomb-sight from the Gestapo and brings him to England, where he shortly falls into the clutches of Professor Moriarty.

Lil becomes a dealer in a gambling casino in order to get the information she needs to clear her father of a murder charge. She also falls in love with lawyer Brewster.

While an escaped convict, Moose Malloy, goes in search of his ex-girlfriend Velma, police inspector Michael O'Hara attempts to track him assuming him to be a prime suspect for a number of mishaps.

Duke Berne, former big shot but now a three-time loser, fears returning to crime because a fourth conviction will mean a life sentence. Finally, haunted by his past and goaded by his cohorts, he joins in planning an armoured car robbery.

Sergeant MacLane of the Mounties investigates the disruptive activities of a bunch of troublemakers.

Humble stamp dealer Otto Becker has little to do with international politics, so when he receives a surprise visit from his estranged twin brother and Nazi spy, Baron Hugo von Detner, his world is thrown into turmoil. Threatening Becker with deportation, Hugo forces him to use his shop as a front for espionage.

Steve Bell, Tommy, Pig, Ape, and String are run of town. Steve, while hopping a freight card and trying to avoid the brakeman, is killed. The boys meet Steve's mother, Alice Bell and Tommy is given a job in the storage garage which she owns jointly with Mack Steward. Steve's brother Don Bell is working with some gangsters by tipping them off on valuable merchandise that can be hijacked. Pig, Ape and String overhear Don's plans to use Tommy as the fall guy in the next hijacking.

Susan Miller works behind the girdle counter in a department store and dreams about the beautiful clothes and glamour she can never hope to have. Enter May Worthington and Warren, a pair of con artists who pose as the mother and uncle of a pretty girl in order to separate millionaires from their money. They convince Susan she has an opportunity to fulfill all her dreams, and the trio heads for Palm Beach. Susan meets John Wheeler who says he is shopping for a sailboat. Believing that he is a millionaire, Warren and May sell him a boat that doesn't belong to them, and make off with his $15,000 life savings. Looking for greener pastures, they work themselves into the family of wealthy Tod Fenwick, who falls for Sue, posing as "Linda Worthington". But John shows up as a guest of Fenwick and he tells "Linda", not knowing she was part of the scam, that he has a detective after the fake captain that sold him the boat...

During the depths of the Great Depression a hitch-hiker Steve Talbot and jukebox-joint hostess Lola Mears stumble into Cat-Tail Florida where farmers and pickers struggle under the buyer who rules by monopoly, dirty contracts and violence. Steve helps organize against the buyer, leading to further escalation ending in a lynch mob.

A man believed to be dead and buried escapes from his grave and returns to the scene of the crime seeking revenge.

A seemingly charitable soup kitchen operator (who moonlights as a criminology professor) uses his Bowery mission as a front for his criminal gang. Police attempt to close in on the gang as they commit a series of robberies, murders and bizarre experiments on corpses.

In the second film of the series (and not a second part of anything), Gay Lawrence, aka The Falcon, is about to depart the city to marry his fiancée, Helen Reed, when a mystery girl, Rita Mara, asks for his aid in disposing of a secret formula for making synthetic diamonds. He deliberately allows himself to be kidnapped by the gang for which Rita works. His aide, "Goldy" Locke, trails the kidnappers and brings the police. But the head of the gang escapes, and the Falcon continues the pursuit.

A gentlemanly detective known as The Falcon calls on his brother to help him stop the Nazis from assassinating a key diplomat.

In order to win back his girlfriend, Mike Shayne promises to give up his detective practice and get a job as riveter in an aircraft plant. He quickly finds himself investigating the theft of industrial diamonds from the plant's safe and, utilizing a variety of false identities, traces them first to a dress factory and later to a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Escaping several attempts on his life, he is able to uncover a Nazi smuggling ring, but the location of the missing diamonds continues to elude him.

Dr. Kildare's friend Dr. Gillespie is called in to investigate when a young man suffering from mental problems disappears on a killing spree.

A young millionaire (Richard Carlson) joins the real world and meets a maid (Jane Randolph) and mobsters.

When a prisoner on Death Row is "accidentally" killed just before his execution, a reporter smells something fishy...

A dizzy old spinster gets involved in the boxing racket and gangland murders.

Someone has absconded with $4,000,000 worth of diamonds, and that someone may very well be a passenger on the Bombay Clipper.

A New York radio personality travels to the small town of Fernville to oversee a contest to identify retired safecracker Jimmy Valentine, believed to be living there under an assumed name. The close-knit town of upstanding citizens is understandably upset by this venture, all the moreso when some of its citizens begin to be murdered. The radio personality and the local newspaper's young daughter collaborate on solving the murders while revealing Valentine, who has become one of the suspects.

Police detectives battle the League of Murdered Men, a gang of resurrected dead criminals.

There's something very odd about Romano, a notorious gangster serving time in the federal pen. For one thing, Romano doesn't sound much like himself. For another, he always seems to be hiding something. Detective Lee suspects that something's amiss, and he's probably right!

Dr. Steven Bishop is taken to the hideout of Frank Dillon and his gang to treat the wounded Joe Madison. Joe's nurse sister Nora Madison is also taken. Dillon tells Bishop that if Joe dies, he will be killed, but Bishop knows he will be either way. Joe dies, but Nora and Steve conceal it from Dillon and send a plea for help in a prescription that Bishop writes in Latin.

After a $50,000 heist in New York, two of the suspected robbers walk free from the courtroom and they waste no time in heading to London in search of the missing loot. This means bad news for their former accomplice Jim Raynor, who has the money hidden away not least because they're not the only ones on his tail; Scotland Yard is also on the case...

A police reporter solves a murder case in Chicago, then moves on to St. Louis-but not voluntarily, since he has been kidnapped by the minions of the Windy City gang leader against whom he is scheduled to testify.

Dr. Gillespie supports Kildare's crusade against their hospital's deal with a rival hospital.

An actress gets involved with a criminal gang and winds up taking the rap for a $40,000 robbery. Before being sent to prison, she steals the money from her partners and hides it, she is thinking to use it as a bargaining chip to be released from prison. However, her former partners don't have the same ideas.

Gangsters, nightclubs and the Roaring '20s.

The city's District Attorney is murdered, and a newspaper reporter investigates. He starts finding out that everything wasn't quite as cut and dried as it appeared to be.

Two mysterious seamen come from Alan Rogers' past to blackmail him as he seeks to locate his missing daughters. Ellery Queen is called in by Stewart Cole, Rogers' secretary. Queen goes to the estate and finds one daughter already there and the second one expected. When she arrives, it is Ellery's secretary Nikki Porter posing as the daughter as Ellery had her intercept the real heiress after learning of a plot to swindle Rogers. The blackmailing seamen are killed at a waterfront café after getting the blackmail money, Rogers is suspected and Inspector Queen arrives to arrest him, but he is also found dead.

Joe Smith is an ordinary American family man who works in an aircraft factory. Shortly after being a promoted to a much higher position, Joe is kidnapped by enemy agents who are determined to get military secrets out of him by any means possible. Will Joe keep quiet or betray his country...

An ex-con becomes a daredevil photojournalist.

A New York doctor saves a chorus girl from a window ledge, twice, and rounds up racketeers.

A detective investigates the mysterious death of a young actress.

A group of children put on a show in order to prove that a down and out musician was the real composer of a Broadway show's songs.

Blackie receives a call from a friend who asks him to retrieve some money from his apartment and deliver it to him in California. Performing this good deed, he is accused of theft, but is allowed to proceed to Hollywood to help the police find a lost diamond.

A film company hires a gangster to mock himself holding up a bank, but he succeeds too well and makes off with the money. But all ends well.

Marital comedy with a dash of murder.

An ex-gambler helps a beautiful widow, and becomes involved with a murder, secret agents, and saboteurs.