The best Lucien Littlefield’s crime movies

Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

Confirming his principle that no one escapes the news, a tabloid editor prints a scathing story about his wife.

Radio sleuth Wally 'The Fox' Benton travels to Georgia with his fiancé Carol to be married; and to help Carol's college chum, Ellamae Downs, solve a mystery involving a murdered man, old Fort Dixon, and buried treasure.

WBLA is on the air, presenting the live music, the sudsy dramas and the sell-sell-sell of commercial interludes that keep consumers buying and sponsors smiling. But one sponsor, a producer of plumbing supplies, isn’t happy. So WBLA scriptwriter Bill Grimes is bounced from his job, setting in motion this movie’s turn from comedic to darkly tragic. William Haines, two years removed from being Tinseltown’s top male star, plays Grimes in a melodrama noted for its glimpses of live radio production and for a Depression-era ethos that includes peroxide cuties eager to land a job, a sugar daddy or both.

Nan Carey ( Betty Compson ), a shoplifter, is caught by the police but acquitted through the influence of Lazare ( Lucien Littlefield ), a crooked lawyer, who places her with a gang of crooks. Posing as the Brockton family, they move to a seaside home, where they plan to steal the jewel collection of the Palmers, their neighbours. Nan wins the confidence of the family by flirting with Tom ( Kenneth Harlan ), who becomes infatuated and wants to go away with her, but she refuses him. Tom is caught red-handed in the Brockton mansion attempting to steal their jewels while Nan is making a success of the Palmer robbery.

"Twinkletoes" Minasi wants to be a great dancer like her deceased mother. Twink meets Chuck Lightfoot, a noted prizefighter, who falls in love with her at first sight. She tries to avoid falling in love with Chuck, whose wife, Cissie, is a drunken harridan and more than a little bit spiteful. Meanwhile, Twink has secured a job in a singing-dancing act in a Limehouse theater, under the auspices of Roseleaf, who has more than just a protective interest in the girl. The jealous Cissie discovers that Twink's sign-painting father also has a night job as a burglar, and she turns him into the police. While a big success dancing on the stage, the arrest of her father has left her somewhat down in the dumps, and she decides to toss herself into the Thames. Possibly, the now-free Chuck, since Cissie has been killed in an accident, might come along and rescue her.

An American pilot with a top-secret invention is kidnapped by foreign agents.

Det Andy Doyle (Bill Elliott) suspects that a suicide is actually a murder. He suspects the victim's son, Wallace (Tom Drake) who is blind and he pursues him until he gets to the truth..

After suffering a traumatic injury, a policeman (Victor Jory) resigns from the force and, after he's saved from a suicide attempt, goes to work at a cafe frequented by gangsters.

Paul Manderley, eccentric historian, and his wife, descendant of the Borgias, live in an isolated castle-like mansion in the Mojave Desert. When a guest suddenly collapses, Charlie Chan is invited to stay. As the standard mystery-mansion props come into play, and all means of outside communication are sabotaged, it becomes evident that one of the inhabitants has access to poisons and is prepared to use them...