Eduardo Ciannelli

The son of a powerful Mafia don comes home from his army service in Vietnam and wants to lead his own life, but family tradition, intrigues and powerplays involving his older brother dictate otherwise, and he finds himself being slowly drawn back into that world. —anonymous

A widower, his three young children, and an Italian nanny get to know each other better when circumstances have them living together aboard a badly neglected houseboat. Widower Tom Winters is trying to understand and raise three precocious children alone. He gets unexpected help from beautiful stranger Cinzia when the children decide that she is to be the new maid. She is actually an Italian socialite who is trying to get away from her overprotective father. —Brian W Martz <B.Martz@Genie.com> Upon the sudden death of his estranged and nearly-divorced wife, absentee father Tom claims ownership of his three children, seemingly more from spite against his in-laws than out of consideration for his kids. When youngest son Robert runs off in reaction, he's returned by spoiled socialite Cinzia, who's been itching to escape her orchestra-conductor father's dictates. Being a willful child herself, she harmonizes immediately with the kids and, needing a hideout, agrees to be hired on as their nanny. Finding their new house destroyed by a lustful, careless irresponsible Italian handyman, the five decide to live on the man's neglected and dilapidated houseboat rather than rightfully sue him and take rooms at a hotel. As Cinzia bridges the gap between Tom and his kids while starting to learn how to cook and clean, Tom's newly-divorced sister-in-law Carolyn makes a play for him. He accepts her proposal, but as Cinzia draws men in like a dog in heat, he realizes that he's more interested in Cinzia. —statmanjeff

In Paris, a young woman runs away from a reform school, joins a pickpocket academy, and finds herself falling for the handsome diplomat she's been blackmailed into stealing from. A young female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is caught red-handed on her first attempt at stealing by an upper class man. He recruits her to do him a favor at a society party where she meets and falls in love with a young, handsome, rich diplomat. Whether or not she can land him is another story. —Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>

DILLINGER Newsreels are being shown to an audience in a theater. At the end of the film, a master of ceremonies introduces to the crowd the person you have been wanting to see. An older man of countrified appearance and manner introduces himself as the father of John Dillinger. He says that John had a normal childhood and adolescence, but soon after he left his small town to seek fortune elsewhere. In a manner reminiscent of Orson Welles Citizen Kane, the rest of the film shows crucial scenes in the life of John Dillinger. A young man, John Dillinger and his date are having drinks at a booth in a bar. The girl says she wants two more drinks. The waiter insists that the drinks must be paid for in advance. John evidently does not have the money, tries to pay by check, is refused, and angrily wants to drag the girl somewhere else. The girl refuses to leave. John walks out of the bar and holds up a candy shop, pretending to have a gun in his pocket, and takes the cash from the till. In his room, later, he counts the money to be seven dollars and twenty cents. In the next sequence, John goes to see a movie. On the way in he is attracted to the girl at the box office, who returns his glances with interest. On his way out, he sees the girl counting money. Once again pretending to have a gun, he takes all the cash. He is caught by police but the box office girl does not want to finger him from the police lineup, despite the fact that she had identified him from a photograph. John is taken to a jail, where an older man is his cell mate. After initial friction, they strike up a relationship, and the older man, also a holdup robber, introduces him to four others of his gang. They become pals of sorts. Johns jail sentence is relatively short, and he promises to spring the others free after he first comes out of jail. In a sequence of economically filmed scenes, John frees his friends, they become bank robbers, and pull a long series of robberies, each more daring than the rest. In the course of time, he replaces the older robber Specs Green who had been his cell mate as the leader and brain of the operations. When things get too hot, they hole up in a remote country inn where one of the gang had grown up, raised by a kindly couple. At one point, flush with money, John goes back to find the girl that he liked from the movie house, seduces her with expensive gifts, such as a diamond bracelet priced at eight thousand dollars, and brings her to the farm hideout as an additional member of the gang. John is caught and sent to jail. While in prison, he buys from a man in the next cell a piece of wood and a whittling knife, with which he fashions a wooden replica of a hand gun. Using the replica hand gun, he manages to escape by tricking the guard. Some time later, the gang is so well known that they decide it is too risky to keep holding up banks, so they hold up a train that is carrying a load of money instead. Eventually the police authorities sniff out where they are hiding and are about to surround and storm the farm hideout. The tremendous pressure turns the gang members against each other. John shoots and kills Specs Green, and also the kindly couple who have been hiding them, when John finds them trying to phone for help. When the girl plans to leave the farm in the car with a younger gang member, John intercepts the gang member and axes him to death, successfully escaping from the inn with the girl. Because posters offering 15000 dollar reward for his capture are everywhere, John and the girl remain in hiding for months. The girl gets very tired of their existence, says she wants to have fun. John has grown a mustache so she says he will not be recognized. But they are running out of money. The girl decides she has no future, contacts the police and eventually gets John to take her to a movie. She is wearing a red dress so the police will recognize her. As they leave the movie house, she says she wants to buy some candy and leaves John alone. The police move in, and John is killed in a shootout. The policemen examine his pockets as he lies dead, and find seven dollars and twenty cents in his pocket.

Deresco, owner of a night club in neutral Portugal, works as a free-lance spy for everybody who can afford his price. He tries to get information from US agent John Craig with help from immigrant dancer Maritza, but she falls in love with him. Craig becomes a special guest at Deresco's casino, but there you can't be sure of the occupation of everybody, as well as in their political intentions. —Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Archaeologists defile the tomb of mummified Kharis, who was buried alive for falling in love with an Egyptian princess. A couple of comical, out-of-work archaeologists (Dick Foran and Wallace Ford) in Egypt discover evidence of the burial place of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka. After receiving funding from an eccentric magician (Cecil Kellaway) and his beautiful daughter (Peggy Moran), they set out into the desert only to be terrorized by a sinister high priest (George Zucco) and the living mummy Kharis (Tom Tyler) who are the guardians of Ananka^Òs tomb. —Jeremy Lunt <durlinlunt@acadia.net>

Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure. Verne (Clark Gable) wants nothing more than to escape from a penal colony located off the northern coast of South America. He tries to involve Julie (Joan Crawford), a saloon girl, in his plans but she turns him in to the authorities. On Verne's next try, he piggybacks on the escape of six other convicts and runs into Julie again in the process. One of the convicts is a spiritual figure (Ian Hunter) who seems to know what will happen before anyone else. The group attempts to travel through the jungle, board a boat, and make it to the mainland. —JeanneArmintrout@juno.com

Immigrant radical Bartolomeo Romagna is falsely condemned and executed for a payroll robbery. Years later, his son Mio sets out to find the truth of the crime and to bring to account the gangster Trock Estrella. Immigrant radical Bartolomeo Romagna is falsely condemned and executed for a payroll robbery. Years later, his son Mio sets out to find the truth of the crime and to bring to account the gangster Trock Estrella. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>