The best Percy Helton’s crime movies

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.

Nick Garcos comes back from his tour of duty in World War II planning to settle down with his girlfriend, Polly Faber. He learns, however, that his father was recently beaten and burglarized by mob-connected trucker Mike Figlia, and Nick resolves to get even. He partners with prostitute Rica, and together they go after Mike, all the while getting pulled further into the local crime underworld.

In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

A Los Angeles police captain (Edward G. Robinson) ties the case of a slain policeman to a bank robbery, all in a day.

John Payne is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow (Joan Caulfied) into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Payne falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist boss (Dan Duryea), who tends to bolster his arguments with muscle and bullets.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

Convict Van Duff engineers a large-scale prison break; the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison, then set out on a long, dangerous journey by foot, car, train and truck to retrieve Duff's bank loot. En route, as they touch the lives of "regular folks," each has his own rendezvous with destiny.

A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.

When his son accidentally kills someone, a lawyer must defend the man wrongly charged with the murder.

A small-time gambler on the run from the law hides in his ex-wife's house.

A young Italian fugitive and his older protective brother hide among the grape pickers at a vineyard in Provence.

A Broadway director (Victor Mature) rescues a starlet (Betty Hutton) from mobsters who blame her for a shooting.

A newly promoted police sergeant discovers his girlfriend my be involved with a gang of car thieves.

A group of six thieves selected from different areas are sent a letter that promises them a minimum of $50,000 and includes a plane ticket. The letter instructs them to grow a beard. After being given a blindfolded ride from the airport, they arrive at a ghost town and meet with the boss (Number #1, Jan Murray). All of the "Wolves" are assigned a number, wear identical overalls and instructed never to take off the gloves that they are given. They are only to address eachother by their numbers; in that way, if one is caught, he can't rat-out the others. Number #1 reveals to them that they will take over a town, and clean it out. Using the ghost town for training, they develop their tactics to fleece the town.

A greedy, scheming woman is found murdered in her studio, and the police find that there is no shortage of suspects who wanted to see her dead--among them a rich husband she wouldn't divorce unless he paid her a huge settlement, a lover she caused to be fired from his job and an assistant whose fiancé she tried to seduce.

A reporter investigates the story of a young man who may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to be executed.

A smuggler (Richard Denning) hides from hit men with a Greek fisherman (Steven Geray) and his daughter.

The defense attorney who was unable to obtain the acquittal of an innocent young man concocts a complicated and diabolical scheme to revenge himself upon the prosecutor.