The best John Sheehan’s drama movies

In the underworld of Manhattan, a woman dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters.

Maisie becomes attached to a dirt-poor farmer and his family as they try to make ends meet joining hundreds of others digging for gold in a previously panned-out ghost town.

Sadistic killer-for-hire Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.

Rival reporters Sam and Tess fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

While packing her belongings in preparation of evacuating the White House because of the impending British invasion of Washington D.C., Dolly Payne Madison thinks back on her childhood, her first marriage, and later romances with two very different politicians, Aaron Burr and his good friend James Madison. She plays each against the other, not only for romantic reasons, but also to influence the shaping of the young country. By manipulating Burr's affections, she helps Thomas Jefferson win the presidency, and eventually she becomes First Lady of the land herself.

In a town called New Jerusalem, three bandits hold up a bank. After a gun battle with the townspeople, the three robbers retreat into the scorching desert. There, they happen upon an ill woman stranded with her child. As the mother dies, she begs the men to take care of her infant. The fugitives want to save the baby -- but to do so, they'll have to travel back to New Jerusalem, where they are wanted men.

A rookie flyer, Ens. Alan Drake, joins the famous Hellcats Squadron right out of flight school in Pensacola. He doesn't make a great first impression when he is forced to ditch his airplane and parachute to safety when he arrives at the base but is unable to land due to heavy fog. On his first day on the job, his poor shooting skills results in the Hellcats losing an air combat competition. His fellow pilots accept him anyways but they think he's crossed the line when they erroneously conclude that while their CO Billy Gray is away, Drake has an affair with his wife Lorna. Drake is now an outcast and is prepared to resign from the Navy but his extreme heroism in saving Billy Gray's life turns things around.

A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.

The Frakes attend the Iowa State Fair where Father Abel enters his Hampshire boar, Blue Boy, in a hog content while Mother Melissa enters the mincemeat competition. And their children, Margy and Wayne, find love with newspaper reporter Pat Gilbert and trapeze artist Emily Joyce. But will everyone return home safe and happy or will hearts be broken?

Big Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, where his girl, Bangles Carson sings, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but is unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his daughter, Marthy Jane (Shirley Temple), as security, or in bookie's terms, a "marker". Having lost his bet, he commits suicide, leaving "little Miss Marker" under the care of Sorrowful Jones. As Steve hides out in Chicago to avoid investigation for his crooked bets, he entrusts Sorrowful to watch over Bangles during his absence, at which time the "gold digger" helps "tight-wod" with his trouble. When Big Steve learns Bangles is involved with Sorrowful, he returns to New York to do something about it.

Beautiful chanteuse 'Bijou' (Marlene Dietrich) cascades through Malaysia's ports of call eventually landing in a handsome lieutenant's lap. As Bijou 'drifts through the standards', the fleet's Admiral reckons the US Navy "already has enough destroyers". A Marlene classic with songs by Frederick Hollander and a young and promising John Wayne.

The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?

After straight-arrow district attorney Joseph Foster says in frustration that he would sell his soul to bring down a local mob boss, a smooth-talking stranger named Nick Beal shows up with enough evidence to seal a conviction. When that success leads Foster to run for governor, Beal's unearthly hold on him turns the previously honest man corrupt, much to the displeasure of his wife and his steadfast minister.

A documentary/drama about the training of bombardiers during WWII. Major Chick Davis proves to the U.S. Army the superiority of high altitude precision bombing, and establishes a school for bombardiers. Training is followed in semi-documentary style, with personal dramas in subplots. The climax is a spectacular, if somewhat jingoistic, battle sequence.

After young Robert Graham commits a murder while drunk and defending his girlfriend, he is prosecuted by ambitious Mark Brady and sentenced to 10 years. Six years later, Brady becomes the prison warden and offers the beleaguered Robert a job as his chauffeur. Robert cleans up his act, but, on the eve of his pardon, his cellmate drags him back into the world of violence, and he faces a difficult choice that could return him to prison.

A boxer flees, believing he has committed a murder while he was drunk.

A crop of millionaire inmates struggle to get accustomed to prison life, while inmate Nick Burton watches out for everyone's interests on the inside.

A high-spirited, short-tempered, young woman hates her father and loves to rebel against him. She marries a man whom her father hates but her marriage fails and she learns the errors of her ways.