Best Mystery Movies of 1954

An ex-tennis pro carries out a plot to have his wife murdered after discovering she is having an affair, and assumes she will soon leave him for the other man anyway. When things go wrong, he improvises a new plan—to frame her for murder instead.

Based on a famous stage play and set in the year 1912, an upper crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?

Don Gallico is an inventor of stage magic effects who aspires to become a star in his own right. Just before his first performance his act is shut down by capricious manager Ross Ormond who wants Gallico's brilliant buzz saw effect for the act of The Great Rinaldi, an established star. With this defeat, and the humiliation of having already lost his wife Claire to Ormond, Gallico decides it is time to take matters into his own hands.

A young stage hopeful is murdered and suspicion falls on her mentor, a Broadway producer.

Two homicide detectives try to find just the facts behind a mobster's brutal murder.

Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.

A US intelligence officer, stationed in Germany, is caught in a political dilemma when the Russians kidnap a young Army private, the son of prominent American businessman. In exchange for the soldier's return, the Russians attempt to barter a trade for an elderly German couple who they want for treason.

When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.

A fiction writer begins working on a biography of a pilot who went down during the test flight of a new plane and finds himself soon involved in a series of murders.

Pilot episode of an unreleased television series. Blake Edwards filmed and sent this first television attempt to film Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in 1954, but the "pilot" went unsold and was archived because it was too naturalistic and violent for the small screen at the time. It was accidentally discovered, restored and posted on the Internet. Brian Keith stars as Mike Hammer.

A deaf, dumb and blind man, Jacques Vauthier (Kieron Moore), confesses to committing a murder, apparently without motive. He depends on his defense attorney, Delfot (Michael Redgrave), to unravel the mystery behind his actions.

A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.

A single mother in New Mexico senses her own death in the hands of a mysterious stalker.

After three years on the run, Jim Guthrie returns with the scar of a rope burn on his neck. In a flashback, we learn how he was framed for murder but then escaped from the lynch mob just as he was about to be hung. Tired of running, he has returned to find the real killer and the Sheriff has given him just three hours to do it.

At a carnival called the Garden of Evil, a man is murdered, apparently by a gorilla...or someone in a gorilla suit.

Duncan Lamont plays Jane Hylton's jealous husband. In a confrontation, Lamont accidentally shoots Hylton's lover. Convinced that he's a murderer, he heads for the hills as a police hunt begins... Classic British thriller from the creator of Dixon Of Dock Green.

A policeman tries to protect a young woman against a hit man, when she flees New York after witnessing a mob killing.

Yankee charter pilot Morris inadvertently finds himself in the midst of thieves who have purloined a costly antique jade figure from an exhibit. He tracks the thieves to Battersea, where he rescues the fair Germaine from their unsavory clutches, and the Buddha boosters gain only jaded justice.

Mystery writer Mickey Spillane tries to help Clyde Beatty deal with a plot to sabotage his circus.

If you remember Shelley Winters from "The Poseidon Adventure" or "Bloody Mama," you might tend to forget what a knockout she was early in her career. This film will give you the chance to see her as a sexy nightclub singer teaching her just-in-from-the-sticks friend Colleen Miller the ropes in New York City. When Winters finds out that her married boyfriend Barry Sullivan has fallen for Miller, the recriminations...and bullets...start to fly!

A hearse driver is drawn into a plot by a beautiful blonde to haul away a man she's murdered and take the body to a cemetery.

The boys get sent to Africa by a diamond firm when they find out that one of them can locate the stones by smell.

A man who owns a diamond importing business goes out for a night on the town with his girlfriend, her brother and her brother’s fiancé. The group stops by a circus to see the act of a trapeze artist who’s a friend of the man’s girlfriend. The performer suggests that all the men go out for a few drinks, and the next thing the businessman knows, he’s waking up in his apartment with a terrible hangover and a dead body in his room.