The best Mike Donlin’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Mike Donlin’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Mike Donlin.
The General
8.1/10
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
Beggars of Life
7.4/10
After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.
20,000 Years in Sing Sing
6.8/10
Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but his tough but compassionate warden changes him.
Midnight Mary
7/10
A young woman is on trial for murder. In flashback, we learn of her struggles to overcome poverty as a teenager -- a mistaken arrest and prison term for shoplifting and lack of employment lead to involvement with gangsters. In a brothel, she meets a young lawyer, scion of a wealthy and prestigious family, who falls for her and helps her turn around her life. But her past catches up with her, and she must face the music rather than cause him scandal.
Born Reckless
5.4/10
In order to use the publicity to get re-elected, a judge sentences a notorious gangster to fight in the war.
Thunderbolt
6.5/10
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.
One Way Passage
7.5/10
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
Iron Man
5.8/10
Prizefighter Mason loses his opening fight so wife Rose leaves him for Hollywood. Without her around Mason trains and starts winning. Rose comes back and wants Mason to dump his manager Regan and replace him with her secret lover Lewis.
Up the River
5.9/10
Daily life at men and women's prison units where baseball and the marching band are serious business. Two prisoners escape in order to help paroled Steve from being blackmailed by his girlfriend's ex-partner-in-crime.
Her Man
6.6/10
A sex worker yearns to leave the grimy underground community she was born into, and sees her way out through a sympathetic sailor.
The Star Witness
6.2/10
A tough District Attorney goes after a murderous crime gang, only to find that his witnesses, an innocent family, have clammed up in fear of reprisals.
Air Hostess
5.7/10
A plucky stewardess risks her life marrying a daredevil pilot.
The Purchase Price
6.4/10
Nightclub singer Joan Gordon runs away from her gangster boyfriend to become a mail-order bride to a struggling North Dakota farmer. Their relationship has a rocky start, but just as Joan realizes she's developing feelings for her husband, her old boyfriend arrives to win her back.
Goldie Gets Along
4.8/10
A small-town girl schemes to get to Hollywood only to run into the man she left behind.
The Famous Ferguson Case
6.4/10
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglers", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.
Sweepstakes
5.3/10
A popular jockey is disbarred from racing after he's accused of throwing a race.
Riley the Cop
5.9/10
In this early comedy from John Ford, Riley is a New York Irish cop sent to Germany to track down a young man who stole money from a local bakery.
White Flannels
A smothering mother, Mrs. Jacob Politz, stands in the way of the engagement of her college son Frank Politz to local girl Anne, because she, as the wife of Jacob Politz, an ill-educated coal miner, believes their son should obtain a college education.
The Primrose Path
4.9/10
Alcoholic playboy Wallace MacDonald (as Bruce Armstrong) would like to sober up and become more responsible, after a drinking accident causes him to cripple little brother Pat Moore (as Jimmy Armstrong). Still, the lure of liquor makes him to sneak drinks at home, and go out partying with carefree showgirl Clara Bow (as Marilyn Merrill). He's promised Ms. Bow he'll quit drinking and gambling. Further complicating Mr. MacDonald's life are the bad checks he's been accumulating. Nasty Stuart Holmes (as Tom Canfield) and Tom Santschi (as "Big Joe" Snead) force MacDonald to join their diamond smuggling racket, in lieu of payment.
The Widow from Chicago
6.4/10
A woman infiltrates a criminal mob to avenge her brother's death.
