Best Crime Movies of 1947

The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try and prove his innocence.

Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?

Stanton Carlisle joins a seedy carnival, working with "Mademoiselle Zeena" and her alcoholic husband, Pete.

Attorney Anthony Keane agrees to represent Londonite Mrs. Paradine, who has been fingered in her husband's murder. From the start, the married lawyer is drawn to the enigmatic beauty, and he begins to cast about for a way to exonerate his client. Keane puts the Paradine household servant on the stand, suggesting he is the killer. But Keane soon loses his way in the courtroom, and his half-baked plan sets off a stunning chain of events.

An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.

Paratroopers Captain 'Rip' Murdock and Sergeant Johnny Drake are mysteriously ordered to travel to Washington, DC. When Drake learns that he is to be awarded the Medal of Honor, he disappears before newspaper photographers can take his picture. Murdock follows the clues and tracks him down, where he learns Drake is dead. Further investigations reveal unexpected twists. Rip learns that Johnny had been accused of murder and sets out to find out whatever he can. He falls in love with Coral whose husband Johnny is supposed to have killed.

A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?

Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club.

In a quiet Connecticut town, a kindly priest is murdered while waiting at a street corner. The citizens are horrified and demand action from the police. All of the witnesses identify John Waldron, a nervous out-of-towner, as the killer. Although Waldron vehemently denies the crime, no one will believe him. District Attorney Henry Harvey is then put on the case and faces political opposition in his attempt to prove Waldron's innocence. Based on a true story.

Helen Brent has just received a Reno divorce. That night, she discovers her neighbor Laury Palmer and a gentleman caller murdered in Palmer's home. The killer is her neighbor's other boyfriend Sam Wilde, an insanely jealous man who won't abide anyone "cutting in" on him.

A brash young lawyer takes a short-term but high-paid job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.

After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.

Two U.S. Treasury ("T-men") agents go undercover in Detroit, and then Los Angeles, in an attempt to break a U.S. currency counterfeiting ring.

Bootleggers on the lamb Frankie and Noll split up to evade capture by the police. Frankie is caught and jailed, but Noll manages to escape and open a posh New York City nightclub. 14 years later, Frankie is released from the clink and visits Noll with the intention of collecting his half of the nightclub's profits. But Noll, who has no intention of being so equitable, uses his ex-girlfriend Kay to divert Frankie from his intended goal.

A Shakespearian actor starring as Othello opposite his wife finds the character's jealous rage taking over his mind off-stage.

During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.

An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he's accused of robbery.

When an employee at an illegal gambling den dies suspiciously, her sister, Nancy, looks into the situation and falls for Johnny O'Clock, a suave partner in the underground casino. Selfish and non-committal by nature, Johnny slowly begins to return Nancy's affection and decides to run away with her, but conflict within his business threatens their plans. As Johnny tries to distance himself from the casino, his shady past comes back to haunt him.

Struggling artist Geoffrey Carroll meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops, but he doesn't tell her he's already married. Suffering from mental illness, Geoffrey returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself.

After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.

Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.

Steven Kenet, suffering from a recurring brain injury, appears to have strangled his wife. Having confessed, he's committed to an understaffed county asylum full of pathetic inmates. There, Dr. Ann Lorrison is initially skeptical about Kenet's story and reluctance to undergo treatment. But against her better judgement, she begins to doubt his guilt.

A gang of street boys foil a master crook who sends commands for robberies by cunningly altering a comic strip's wording each week, unknown to writer and printer. The first of the Ealing comedies.

Broadway star, Sheila Page, shoots Barney, her murderous husband on New Year's Eve. She flees her apartment and goes to her producer, John Friday. When she arrives, it is New Year's day, a year earlier. She has been given the chance to live life over and correct the errors of the past only to find that the end will be the same although the path will be different.

Christine Hunter kills an intruder and tells her husband and lawyer that it was an act of self-defense. It's later revealed that he was actually her lover and she had posed for an incriminating statue he created.

The daughter of a Nevada casino owner gets involved with a racketeer, despite everyone's efforts to separate them.

Mrs. Elizabeth Bright Murdock hires Marlowe to find an old rare coin, the Brasher Doubloon, that belonged in her deceased husband's collection. Marlowe begins investigating, but quickly finds himself entangled in a series of unexplained murders.

City police surround a building attempting to capture a suspected murder. The suspect knows there is no escape but refuses to give in.

Art editor Madeleine Damian carries on numerous loveless affairs. After a failed relationship with advertiser Felix Courtland, the increasingly depressed Madeleine attempts suicide. When Jack Garet, her secretary and former lover, tries to blackmail her, Madeleine resigns and seeks a reclusive life. Neighbor David Cousins befriends Madeleine, but soon Courtland and Garet discover her whereabouts and disrupt her new life.

The dream is unusually vivid: Bank employee Vince Grayson finds himself murdering a man in a sinister octagonal-shaped room lined with mirrors while a mysterious woman breaks into a safe. It is so vivid that Vince suspects it may have really happened. To get the dream off his mind, he goes on a picnic with some relatives. When a thunderstorm forces his party into a nearby mansion, Vince discovers that the bizarre room does exist, and it means nothing but trouble.

Maisie Revere, a showgirl stranded in Los Angeles, decides to join the local police department on the persuasion of Lieutenant Paul Scott who wants to use her as an undercover agent to expose a conman.

A gang of criminals, which includes a piano player and an imposing former convict known as 'Gruesome', has found out about a scientist's secret formula for a gas that temporarily paralyzes anyone who breathes it. When Gruesome accidentally inhales some of the gas and passes out, the police think he is dead and take him to the morgue, where he later revives and escapes. This puzzling incident attracts the interest of Dick Tracy, and when the criminals later use the gas to rob a bank, Tracy realizes that he must devote his entire attention to stopping them.

Sach just lost his job as an assistant to a private detective, but he wasn't paid. Slip goes with him down to the detective's office to demand payment, but finds the office empty. A woman enters the office and mistakes Slip for the detective and convinces him to take on a case to find her sister after offering a $50 retainer.

When her husband is wrongly accused of murder, an opera singer sets out to find the real culprit.

Dick Tracy investigates the theft of a fortune of fur coats, a possible insurance swindle and several murders, all linked to a huge thug who wears a hook in place of his right hand.

Columbia's 33rd serial (made between "Jack Armstrong" and "The Sea Hound") was based on the character that first appeared in "Action Comics" No. 42.

A neurosurgeon relates to his students in medical school a story about an affair he had with a married woman and how after the affair was over, the woman fell out a window and died. The surgeon, suspecting that she was murdered, set out to find her killer -- but, instead of turning the suspect over to the police, he planned to take his own revenge on the murderer.

Captain Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond investigates the murder of the C.I.D. man who had been tracing validity of rival claims to a large estate.

Steve Morgan kills a man in a holdup and hitches a ride to Los Angeles with Fergie. At a gas station, they pick up two women. Encountering a roadblock, Morgan takes over and persuades the party to spend the night at an unoccupied beach house. The police close in as one by one, the others learn that Morgan is a killer.

When his best friend is murdered inside a London dancehall, a cab driver and his girlfriend involve themselves in the investigation and discover a major criminal operation hiding behind the club's friendly facade.

A French PR man (Terence de Marney) and his girlfriend (Phyllis Dixey) steal a lottery ticket from twin trapeze artists (Herbert Lom), prompting murder.

In this MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short, a man destroys his life through gambling debts and stealing company funds.

An assistant district attorney gets mixed-up with a woman who is working for the group that he is investigating.

In this drama, a trucker's business is nearly destroyed after he is wrongfully accused of killing a policeman with whom he recently quarreled.

A bank clerk gets sent to prison after he robs his own bank. Live becomes even more difficult behind bars when he starts getting pressured to reveal where he hid the money.

A convict is forced to participate in a prison break even though he only has a year left on his sentence.