The best Pat O’Brien’s crime movies

Hildy Johnson is an investigative reporter is looking for a bigger paycheck. When an accused murderer escapes from custody, Hildy sees an opportunity for the story of a lifetime. But when he finds the criminal, he learns that the man may not be guilty. With the help of his editor, Hildy attempts to hide the convict, uncover the conspiracy and write the scoop of his career.

Two musicians witness a mob hit and struggle to find a way out of the city before they are found by the gangsters. Their only opportunity is to join an all-girl band as they leave on a tour. To make their getaway they must first disguise themselves as women, then keep their identities secret and deal with the problems this brings - such as an attractive bandmate and a very determined suitor.

In New York, the boys Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly are best friends and small time thieves. After a robbery, Rocky is arrested and sent to a reformatory school, where he begins his criminal career. Jerry escapes and later becomes a priest. After three years in prison, Rocky is released and demands the return of $100,000 deposited with his solicitor - prior to his jail term.

Socially-conscious banker Thomas Dickson faces a crisis when his protégé is wrongly accused of robbing the bank, gossip of the robbery starts a bank run, and evidence suggests Dickson's wife had an affair... all in the same day.

A cop-turned-bail bondsman gets involved in a murder investigation.

A defense attorney jeopardizes his career to save his client.

Gangsters, nightclubs and the Roaring '20s.

Pat O'Brien makes the casual acquaintance of fellow American Ruth Warrick while on vacation in Mexico City. What Warrick doesn't know is that O'Brien is a treasury agent, out to get expatriate counterfeiters Alan Hale and Edgar Buchanan. What O'Brien doesn't know is that Warrick is also out to get Hale, whom she holds responsible for her father's death.

Newlyweds (George Murphy, Carole Landis) drag their lawyer friend (Pat O'Brien) to a mountain resort on a search for a missing magician.

Given a second chance after her arrest for prostitution, Mae decides to go straight. Mae is soon befriended by kindly cab driver Jimmy Doyle who gets her work at a diner, where she meets Gert, another former prostitute. Mae and Jimmy fall in love, marry and save to buy a small business. Gert then pleads for money from Mae, which results in her unwitting involvement in a crime. Believing Mae has lied and cheated him, Jimmy threatens to leave her.

A district attorney and a reporter try to find the killer of a D.A. who uncovered a massive stock fraud.

A reporter (Pat O'Brien) who needs cash for his son's operation is paid by a smuggler (George Coulouris) to take a murder rap.

Gus Linden, former racketeer head of a Detroit local of the United Automobile Workers of America, A.F.L, attempts to destroy his successor, Blair Vicker, so he can put his old rackets back into the auto factories. Vickers fights him off, ultimately winning help from Linden's attractive daughter Barbara and from Joni Calvin, Vickers' moll.

Judith has just been paroled for a crime which her vindictive, jealous, violent husband, Gene, fingered her for. Gene is in prison for life. She claims that she had no knowledge of Gene's criminal activity, but FBI agent Lee Laird doesn't buy it.

A hardened crook behind bars comes up against a reform-minded warden.

Butch Saunders has been transferred to Missing Persons because he was too brutal in other police work...

A reporter gets the best story of her life when she goes under cover to take down the head of a crime syndicate.

A drunken attorney tries to sober up in order to defend a friend in murder case.

Johnny One-Eye was adapted from one of Damon Runyon's lesser-known stories. Pat O'Brien and Wayne Morris star as Martin Martin and Dane Cory respectively, former partners in crime who have long since split up. When a new district attorney puts the heat on, Cory, anxious to save his own hide, accuses Martin of an unsolved murder. Holed up in abandoned house, Martin is befriended by a little girl (Gayle Reed) and her dog. It so happens that the girl is the daughter of the crusading DA, and thereby hangs the rest of this tale. Produced by Benedict Bogeaus, Johnny One-Eye co-stars Bogeaus' wife Dolores Moran as a moll named Lily White. The film represented the last directorial assignment of Robert Florey, who retired shortly afterward.

In the late 1800s, a man is sentenced to life at hard labor for killing his wife and her lover.