Production
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.
Expert lineman Red takes Farm-boy Slim under his wing and teaches him the dangerous, migratory trade of putting up transmission lines. They both love their work, and the same girl, who hates their dangerous profession.
Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.
A federal tax agent goes undercover as a reporter and, working with a mobster's pretty bookkeeper, infiltrates a crime ring to catch the racketeer. When she agrees to testify, an informant exposes them and she's kidnapped.
Two Virginians are heading for a new life in Texas when they witness a stagecoach being held up. They decide to rob the robbers and make off with the loot. To escape a posse, they split up and don't see each other again for a long time. When they do meet up again, they find themselves on different sides of the law. This leads to the increasing estrangement of the two men, who once thought of themselves as brothers.
A year after a violent train robbery, the Pinkerton detective agency hires a bounty hunter to find the three remaining killers. He tracks them to Twin Forks but has no clue to their identity. Tensions surface as just his presence in town acts as a catalyst.
McCord's gang robs the stage carrying money to pay Indians for their land, and the notorious outlaw "The Oklahoma Kid" Jim Kincaid takes the money from McCord. McCord stakes a "sooner" claim on land which is to be used for a new town; in exchange for giving it up, he gets control of gambling and saloons. When Kincaid's father runs for mayor, McCord incites a mob to lynch the old man whom McCord has already framed for murder.
Nick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he mislead the bad guys and still woo the attractive singer/petty crook, Julie Benson?
An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.
After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.
After the North defeats the South, Union Maj. Jeff Clanton heads to Missouri to provide the Confederacy's Quantrill's Raiders a chance to claim allegiance to the Union, thereby clearing their wanted status. But standing in Clanton's way are the corrupt lawmen Joad and Fowler, who would rather keep the men outlaws to collect the reward on their heads. After Joad and Fowler frame Clanton for murder, he manages to escape, becoming an outlaw himself.
A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as the boyfriend of his object of affection.
Dishonorably discharged from the Army Air Corps, Brad Dunham (George Raft) disconsolately decides to try his luck with Shanghai's postwar black market. Teaming with the treacherous Tamara Baranoff (June Havoc), Dunham prospers in his newly-found illicit profession, much to the dismay of his best friend, reporter Mark Andrews (Tom Tully). When Tamara has the troublesome Andrews murdered, Dunham realizes the folly of his behavior and works overtime to squash the black market for good and all.
After losing a coveted role in an upcoming film to another actress, screen queen Mona Marshall (Lola Lane) protests by refusing to appear at her current movie's premiere. Her agent discovers struggling actress Virginia Stanton (Rosemary Lane) -- an exact match for Mona -- and sends her to the premiere instead, with young musician Ronnie Bowers (Dick Powell). After various mishaps, including a case of mistaken identity, Ronnie and Virginia struggle to find success in Hollywood.
Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.
Through flashbacks going as far back as the end of WW1, the story of a Nazi war criminal is exposed during his trial.
Colonel Ferris, a wealthy farmer in northern California, is strongly opposed to hydraulic mining, a new method developed during the gold rush of the 1870's, which is flooding the area's prosperous farmlands. Despite Ferris' political stance, Jared Whitney, a mining engineer from the East, becomes friends with the colonel's son Lance and falls in love with his daughter Serena. Family tensions deepen when the colonel's brother Ralph gives up farming to go to San Francisco to work for his wife Rosanna's father, Harrison McCooey, a leader in the mining venture. When Lance follows Ralph, the colonel, focusing his anger on Jared, forbids him to see Serena.
A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.
A scientist carrying the secret to a new high-powered explosive must be safely escorted to Washington and ace pilot Bob "Three Star" Halsey is the best man for the job. Moments before takeoff, crooks take control of the flight and steal the formula. Halsey watches helplessly from the ground as the plane goes down in flames and the thieves esape by parachute. His sweetheart Judy, whose brother was also aboard, races to the crash site, only to be kidnapped by the villains. Halsey and his co-pilot Wings risk everything to save her, calling on their world-class flying skills in the film's terrifying finale.
Gambler Arnold Rothstein marries an actress, avenges his buddy and meets an underworld fate.
