Plot
Murray Golden is an unscrupulous New York City gambler and casino operator who wants to live life to the fullest. His philosophy is encapsulated in something he keeps saying: "You're only wrong when you fail." His wife, Virginia, has extracted a promise that he will quit the business once he makes $500,000. However, when he does, he breaks his word. He also starts seeing Peggy Warren behind his wife's back.
Murray learns that gangster Al Mossiter has fixed a championship boxing match. He pays one of the fighters to take a dive in the second round, before Mossiter's man goes down in the fifth, and wins a lot of money. (Mossiter's boxer is later murdered.) However, Virginia hears about Peggy and threatens to leave Murray. He manages to convince her that Peggy is the mistress of Freddie, Murray's friend and associate. He also tells her that he has made enough money and is getting into the insurance business.
Later, Mossiter learns who double-crossed him and vows to get back everything Murray won from the fight. An associate suggests he kidnap Virginia. When Murray is told about the kidnapping, he races back to the city, but is injured and Peggy is killed in a car crash. Virginia is freed unharmed when the ransom is paid, but she has had enough. She decides to get a divorce.
Years later, Murray receives a telegram from Virginia, telling him she is sailing home from Europe and has a "surprise". He is overjoyed, assuming she is coming back to him. However, she tells him that she is going to marry someone else. She asks him for her jewelry. He promises to give it to her in a week, though he is down on his luck and has pawned them.
He gets into a poker game with Mossiter and others. After playing for a day and a half, he owes $210,000. Mossiter buys up all of his IOUs and gives him a deadline to come up with the money. Murray shows up at Mossiter's hotel room and declares he is not going to pay. Furthermore, he says he is going to tell the district attorney who killed the boxer. After Mossiter shoots him, Murray reveals he took out a life insurance policy on himself in order to raise the money to get Virginia's jewelry back. He boasts that he has outsmarted his killer (winning a $20 bet they had made). The doctor informs Virginia that Murray is dying, so she lies and tells him she is returning to him.
Room at the Top is a 1959 British drama film based on the 1957 novel of the same name by John Braine. It was adapted by Neil Paterson, directed by Jack Clayton, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film stars Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, and Hermione Baddeley.
Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel, and numerous others.
June Haver was an American film actress, singer and dancer. Once groomed by 20th Century Fox to be "the next Betty Grable," Haver appeared in a string of musicals, but she never achieved Grable's popularity. Haver's second husband was the actor Fred MacMurray, whom she married after she retired from showbusiness.
Kid Millions is a 1934 American musical film directed by Roy Del Ruth, produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, and starring Eddie Cantor. Its elaborate "Ice Cream Fantasy Finale" production number was filmed in three-strip Technicolor, one of the earliest uses of that process in a feature-length film.
Alice Beatrice Calhoun was an American silent film actress.
The Delicious Little Devil is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino. A 35 mm print of the film is housed at the EYE Film Instituut Nederland, Nederlands Filmmuseum.
Get Shorty is a 1995 American gangster comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Scott Frank, based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name. The film stars John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Dennis Farina, and Danny DeVito. It follows Chili Palmer (Travolta), a Miami mobster and loan shark who inadvertently gets involved in Hollywood feature film production.
Born Reckless is a 1930 American pre-Code crime film directed by John Ford and staged by Andrew Bennison from a screenplay written by Dudley Nichols based on the novel Louis Beretti. The film starred Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen and Marguerite Churchill.
Rose of Washington Square is a 1939 American musical drama film, featuring the already well-known popular song with the same title. Set in 1920s New York City, the film focuses on singer Rose Sargent and her turbulent relationship with con artist Barton DeWitt Clinton, whose criminal activities threaten her professional success in the Ziegfeld Follies.
The House Across the Bay is a 1940 film directed by Archie Mayo, starring George Raft and Joan Bennett, produced by Walter Wanger, written by Myles Connolly and Kathryn Scola, and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Lloyd Nolan, Walter Pidgeon and Gladys George.
The Family Secret is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by William A. Seiter and featuring child star Baby Peggy. It is based on Editha's Burglar, a story by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in 1881 by St. Nicholas Magazine and adapted for the stage by Augustus E. Thomas.
Lansky is a 1999 American crime drama television film directed by John McNaughton and written by David Mamet, based in part on the 1979 biography Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob by Uri Dan, Dennis Eisenberg, and Eli Landau. It stars Richard Dreyfuss as the famous gangster Meyer Lansky, Eric Roberts as Bugsy Siegel, and Ryan Merriman as the young Lansky. Illeana Douglas, Beverly D'Angelo, and Anthony LaPaglia also star. The film aired on HBO on February 27, 1999.
Ladies They Talk About is a 1933 pre-Code American crime drama directed by Howard Bretherton and William Keighley, and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, and Lyle Talbot. The film is about an attractive woman who is a member of a bank-robbery gang. It is based on the play Gangstress, or Women in Prison by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles. In 1928, Dorothy Mackaye, #440960, served less than ten months of a one- to three-year sentence in San Quentin State Prison.
Music Is Magic is a 1935 Fox musical film directed by George Marshall. The movie stars Alice Faye and Bebe Daniels and is based on a play by Jesse Lasky Jr. and Gladys Unger. The movie was Daniels' last American screen appearance.
The Big City is a 1928 American silent crime film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney. Waldemar Young wrote the screenplay, based on a story by Tod Browning. The film is now lost.
Enoch Malachi "Nucky" Thompson is a fictional character and the protagonist of the HBO TV series Boardwalk Empire, portrayed by Steve Buscemi. Nucky is loosely based on former Atlantic City, New Jersey political figure Enoch Lewis "Nucky" Johnson.
Frisco Waterfront is a 1935 American drama film directed by Arthur Lubin and Joseph Santley and starring Ben Lyon, Helen Twelvetrees and Rod La Rocque.
Sing, Baby, Sing is a 1936 American musical comedy film directed by Sidney Lanfield and starring Alice Faye, Adolphe Menjou and Gregory Ratoff. It was produced and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox. Richard A. Whiting and Walter Bullock received an Academy Award nomination in Best Original Song at the 9th Academy Awards for their song "When Did You Leave Heaven".
Is My Face Red? is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by William A. Seiter and written by Ben Markson and Casey Robinson. The film focuses on Bill Poster, a hugely successful newspaper and radio columnist, who pursues scandal in New York City from penthouses to the gutters. The film stars Helen Twelvetrees, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Robert Armstrong and Arline Judge. It was released on June 17, 1932 by RKO Pictures.
East of Eden is a 1981 American television miniseries based on John Steinbeck's 1952 novel of the same name. It aired in three parts on ABC from February 8–11, 1981. It was directed by Harvey Hart from a teleplay by Richard Shapiro, and starred Timothy Bottoms, Jane Seymour, Bruce Boxleitner, Soon Tek-Oh, Sam Bottoms, Hart Bochner, Karen Allen and Lloyd Bridges. It ran for roughly 382 minutes.
