The best William Powell’s crime movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best William Powell’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 William Powell.
The Thin Man
7.9/10
A husband and wife detective team takes on the search for a missing inventor and almost get killed for their efforts.
Manhattan Melodrama
7.1/10
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Another Thin Man
7.3/10
Not even the joys of parenthood can stop married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles from investigating a murder on a Long Island estate.
Shadow of the Thin Man
7.2/10
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.
The Kennel Murder Case
6.9/10
Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.
Crossroads
6.7/10
A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
Song of the Thin Man
6.9/10
Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club.
After the Thin Man
7.6/10
Nick and Nora Charles investigate when Nora's cousin reports her disreputable husband is missing, and find themselves in a mystery involving the shady owners of a popular nightclub, a singer and her dark brother, the cousin's forsaken true love, and Nora's bombastic and controlling aunt.
Jewel Robbery
7.2/10
A gentleman thief charms a Viennese baron's wife and also conducts a daring daylight robbery of a jewellers.
Private Detective 62
6.7/10
A former government agent in France, who has failed at an assignment and been disavowed, is deported back to the USA, where he can only find work at a low-rent detective agency. He soon gets involved with a woman with ties to a crooked gambling club owner, who is a client of his agency.
Interference
6.3/10
Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference was dismally directed by Roy Pomeroy, whose lofty status as the studio's "technical wizard" did not necessarily qualify him to be a director. Evelyn Brent heads the cast as scheming Deborah Kane, who sets out to blackmail Faith Marley (Doris Kenyon), the above-reproach wife of Sir John Marlay.
The Benson Murder Case
6/10
A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.
The Canary Murder Case
5.9/10
A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer. Written by Tony Fontana
The Dragnet
6.7/10
A 1928 silent film crime drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Josef von Sternberg from an original screen story and starring George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent.
Shadow of the Law
6.3/10
John Nelson, a well-to-do businessman, is escorting a woman he knows as Ethel Barry to the door of her apartment suite when a man steps out of the shadows and angrily demands to know where she has been. The embarrassed Nelson excuses himself and goes to his rooms in the same hotel. The woman rushes into his apartment followed by the man who met her in the hall. The man threatens her with violence and Nelson comes to her defense. In the ensuing fight, the man is knocked out of the window and falls to his death to the pavement many stories down. He is charged with the killing and his only witness that can prove self-defense for him has disappeared, and can not be found.
Partners in Crime
2.5/10
After being dismissed for imitating his boss's voice on radio, former Assistant District Attorney Richard Deming witnesses a store robbery and is taken captive by the criminals. Suspected of the crime, he is sought by the police, but his sweetheart, Marie, convinced of his innocence, enlists the help of two friends, a newspaper reporter and a half-witted detective. Hoping to win the girl's favor, the two go to the gangsters' hideout, encounter a violent gang war, and accidently set off a case of police tear bombs. The police, summoned by Marie, arrive just in time to save the kidnaped attorney.
The Bright Shawl
6.3/10
Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.
My Lady's Lips
7/10
A newspaper publisher finds out that his wild daughter has fallen in with a ring of gamblers. A reporter who has infiltrated the gang to get a story falls in love with the gang's female leader, and when the two are caught in a police raid, they find themselves in equal amounts of trouble.
