Best Crime Movies of 1963

The trademark of The Phantom, a renowned jewel thief, is a glove left at the scene of the crime. Inspector Clouseau, an expert on The Phantom's exploits, feels sure that he knows where The Phantom will strike next and leaves Paris for the Tyrolean Alps, where the famous Lugashi jewel 'The Pink Panther' is going to be. However, he does not know who The Phantom really is, or for that matter who anyone else really is...

Miss Marple and Mr. Stringer are witnesses to the death by heart attack of elderly, rich Mr. Enderby. Yet they have their doubts about what happened. The police don't believe them, thus leading Miss Marple to yet again investigate by herself.

The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963- Capturing on film the assassination of the president. In 1994, the Zapruder film footage was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry.

President John F. Kennedy is shown riding in an open-top car with his wife and several others, waving at crowds on the sidewalk. He is hit by a bullet and clutches his throat as the others react with surprise. Another shot hits Kennedy in the head and he collapses. A Secret Service agent runs up to the car, and Mrs. Kennedy climbs onto the trunk to pull him aboard as the car speeds away.

An English professor decides that there are too many useless people in the world and invents a gas that will kill them off. But first they'll at least have a good laugh.

A group of Nobel laureates descends on Stockholm to accept their awards. Among them is American novelist Andrew Craig, a former literary luminary now writing pulp detective stories to earn a living. Craig, who is infamous for his drinking and womanizing, formulates a wild theory that physics prize winner Dr. Max Stratman has been replaced by an impostor, embroiling Craig and his chaperone in a Cold War kidnapping plot.

Adrian Messenger, a famous writer, asks his friend Anthony Gethryn, a former British agent, to help him investigate the whereabouts of the people who appear on a list, without asking him the reason why he should do so.

When pilot Rex Black destroys his plane in a crash the day after his insurance policy expires, the insurance company refuses to give him any money. To strike back at the agency, Rex fakes his death, changes his identity, and escapes to Spain, with 50,000 pounds in life insurance money. His wife joins him in Spain, but when an insurance investigator arrives unexpectedly, Rex's paranoia causes him to flee again.

The crooks in London know how it works. No one carries guns and no one resists the police. Then a new gang appears that go one better. They dress as police and steal from the crooks. This upset's the natural order of the police/criminal relationship and the police and the crooks join forces to catch the IPOs (Impersonating Police Officers), including an armoured car robbery in which the police must help the gangs to set a trap.

A deported gangster trains an Italian convict to take over his operations in the U.S.

When a stranger enters a quiet, country town and is seduced by a sensuous married woman he unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a storm of sexual guilt and murder.

When the detective in charge of investigating a series of bank robberies starts to get too close to the culprits, they set up a blackmail scheme to warn him off. But when the crooks begin to fall out with each other, the police learn the truth.

In a spoof of TV's "Untouchables" Rocky and Mugsy chase "Elegant Ness" (Bugs) through the ACME cereal company.

A self-employed lorry driver is determined to find the criminals responsible for hijacking him.

William Lucas plays a lorry driver who is recently out of prison. He becomes a target when it s discovered that he knows where he can find plates for making forged banknotes.

Joe Beckett, seasoned citizen of the bedsitter belt, aged about 22, is the renegade son of modest, respectable parents and, to use his own description, 'an emotional leper'. He decides that he needs a violent shock to shake him back into life, and as a result accepts a commission to carry out the murder of a total stranger for a man he meets in a coffee bar...

Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in east London, A Place to Go charts the dramatic changes that were happening in the lives of the British working-class at the time.

Called in to investigate the murder of a model, Chief Inspector Birkett and Sergeant Saunders soon discover that the victim had been leading somewhat of an immoral life.

A British physician stands trial for murdering his wife after he and his mistress are captured while fleeing to Canada.

Alan Roper tells Bookie Larry Hart that he is planning to steal £60,000 and Hart offers to launder the money for him. What Hart doesn't know is that it is actually his money Roper intends to steal.

A young woman is harassed by a man and seeks help from the police. The officer who visits her falls in love with her, but shortly after she is murdered.

A fifteen-year-old boy wants to buy a gun from an adult racketeer named Priest, in order to become president of the gang to which he belongs, and to return them to active "bopping" (gang fighting) which has declined in Harlem.

Mickey Spillane plays his own creation, street-thug-turned-PI Mike Hammer, in this 1963 adaptation of his novel. The film opens with Hammer on the downside of a years-long bender, scooped out of the gutter by a bitter cop intent on prying information from a dying man. Inspired to clean up his act by the secrets he hears, Hammer hits the streets on a personal crusade to find the love of his life. Future Bond girl Shirley Earton costars as a glamorous society widow who goes slumming with Hammer.--Sean Axmaker

Vice cop infiltrates a jazz club to bust a heroin ring.

A bomb is discovered in the luggage of a businessman traveling aboard a plane.

A wristwatch-smuggling gang bring watches into the country in a car's petrol tank. Poor Zena Marshall knows too much, so the gangs abducts her. Stalwart customs official Anthony Steel struggles manfully to rescue the girl.

In this crime melodrama, a Swiss woman finds herself unwittingly involved in a plot to steal from her employer, a London diamond merchant. Her boyfriend is behind the scheme. First he sends two accomplices disguised as German jewelers to see the boss. He is not fooled by their ruse and is killed while the woman is knocked unconscious. She awakens with amnesia and begins aimlessly wandering the London streets. Thinking that his girl has squealed to the police, her boy friend begins scouring the town to find her. Meanwhile, she is taken in by a boxer who returns to the ring to win the money needed to get her out of the country. Trouble ensues when her lover finally finds her after the match and begins beating on the exhausted fighter.

A man has an affair with his condemned brother's girlfriend while plotting his escape in Tangier.

An assortment of international criminals plans to steal priceless Egyptian artifacts from a Cairo museum. MGM remake of Asphalt Jungle set in Egypt.

Bored farmer's daughter sets out to make it in the big city. She gets mixed up with freaks, perverts and degenerates and winds up a stripper in New Orleans.

An aide at the American Embassy in London finds himself involved with both Scotland Yard and the French police over the kidnapping of the son of a Mafia boss who has spilled the beans back in the States.

A British colonial policeman in Africa investigates a murder in a hospital up river.

A film from Bob Hope Presents Chrysler Theatre that has been restored by UCLA Film Archive. Originally scheduled to air on November 22, 1963 but it was preempted by the coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Rod Serling won his sixth and last Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama - Adaptation for his adapted version of the John O'Hara story that became this film.

While investigating his wife's sudden death, a policeman becomes involved with shady doctors and black-market racketeers.

A pair of hoodlums steal a car in which there is a note - a ransom letter - directed to a wealthy man whose daughter has just been kidnapped. The two gangsters stole the abductor's car and when they find the note, they decide to take advantage of the situation and collect the money.

Solicitor Alan Phipps formulates a plan to blackmail his wealthy and unfaithful wife, Yvonne, and at the same time, get revenge against her boyfriend, John Brodie, by setting him up to appear that he is the blackmailer and for Yvonne to kill him.

Arthur Payne, recently out of prison, meets a stranger, Theo Gaunt, on a train and explains his situation. A few days later another stranger makes a curious proposition. Arthur should participate in a fake robbery and remove some imitation jewellery from the stranger's own safe.

A detective investigates the murders of three young women, searching for the killer with a fetish for high heels.

A motel owner in Texas is accused of raping a civil-rights worker from Sweden.

A philandering woman finds herself in deep trouble when her diabetic lover is accidentally killed by a gang of youths.

A fraudster is arrested for stealing a large sum of money from his partners. When he learns that a particularly brilliant barrister will lead the prosecution against him he sets out to undermine the credibility of the barrister.

An ex-con escapes from jail to clear himself about a robbery charge

In a late night chemist a shot bank robber has been taken for treatment, and to rendezvous with the gang leader.

An up and coming politician is caught in a compromising photograph taken by a maid, who turns out to be part of a sophisticated blackmail ring. When the girl is found murdered, he holds an incriminating old dueling pistol.

A sleazy but ingenious criminal masterminds a heist at a sold-out sports arena. He hires a motley crew of henchmen, seduces the middle-aged head cashier, and plans some brutal ruses to elude the law. But he's his own worst enemy.

A tax avoidance scheme by a film producer leads to murder and the theft of £300,000.

After spending a long time in prison, Kip is still willing to pull off one more big job

West German film.