Best movies like Desperate

MURDER at any moment! SUSPENSE... in every step!!!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Desperate Starring Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr, Douglas Fowley, and more. If you liked Desperate then you may also like: Unmasked, The Web, Whistle Stop, Railroaded!, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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Unmasked

The editor of a sleazy tabloid newspaper has been borrowing money from his lover, the wife of a rich theatrical producer, and promises to marry her when she gets a divorce. However, the husband refuses to grant her a divorce, and takes back all the money and jewelry he has given her. The editor sees her husband leaving her apartment and, seeing his opportunity, kills her, takes all his IOUs (and the jewelry) and frames the husband for the murder.

The Web

A brash young lawyer takes a short-term but high-paid job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.

Whistle Stop

When beautiful Mary returns to her "whistle stop" hometown, long-standing feelings of animosity between two of her old boyfriends leads to robbery and murder.

Railroaded!

A beautician and her crooked boyfriend attempt to rob the bookie operation located in the back room, but when the plan goes wrong, they frame an innocent man.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

Ralph Cotter, a ruthless criminal, escapes violently from a farm prison. Then, he seduces a dead inmate’s sister, gets back quickly into the crime business, faces corrupt local cops who run the city’s underworld and meets a powerful tycoon’s whimsical daughter.

Accused of Murder

A police detective finds himself entangled in the web of the underworld when he falls in love with a nightclub singer accused of murdering a crooked lawyer.

Baby Face Morgan

When crime boss Big Mike Morgan is killed, his lieutenant, "Doc" Rogers, learns that Morgan has a son named Edward living in the country with his mother. Rogers has naĂ¯ve Edward brought to the city and installs him as the head of Acme Protective Agency. Good-hearted Eddy assumes his company provides insurance, rather than extortion-- But don't be too hard on the guy, he still doesn't know he's Baby Face Morgan, the most feared gangster in the city!

Double Jeopardy

Marc Hill is the attorney for Emmet Devrey, a real estate developer with a past, who is being blackmailed by his former partner Sam Baggett. When Sam's unfaithful wife Marge cooks up a scheme with her used car salesman lover Jeff Calder to bilk both Devrey and her alcoholic husband, Sam is killed and Devrey is accused of the crime. Mark is called to prove his employers innocence.

Shakedown

Jack Early is a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charming a notorious crime boss, Nick Palmer, into allowing himself to be photographed. Palmer takes him under his wing, but Early decides to bite the hand that feeds him and sets Palmer and another crime boss, Colton, against one another.

Most Dangerous Man Alive

An escaped, but framed, prisoner escapes prison during a cobalt explosion and soon discovers he has grown a special power that makes his body impervious to everything. Learning this, he seeks vengeance on the bad guys who framed him for jail.

Highway 13

Hank Wilson is a driver for a truck for a big transportation company which is in financial straits. He is in love with Doris Lacy, a waitress at the truck-stop where the company has its truck fleet serviced. Frequent accidents near the place leads the company to hire a private detective to investigate, and when the detective is murdered Hank is arrested as a suspect. The insurance company that covers the fleet has him released and he is sent back to work with instructions to investigate the accidents on his own. The trail leads to the uncle of Doris, and one of the part-owners of the company.

Undertow

Undertow stars Scott Brady as a gambler just out of wartime military service. No longer interested in wagers and speculations, Brady wants only to open up a mountain vacation lodge. Before this can take place, Brady is framed for murder, and forced to hide out in the home of Peggy Dow. With the help of Dow and a policeman friend, Brady searches for the real murderer. Watch carefully in Undertow and you'll spot new Universal contractee "Roc" Hudson as a plainclothes detective.

Cry Vengeance

Ex-cop Vic Barron crossed the wrong mobsters; his wife and child were killed and he himself scarred, framed and imprisoned. On release, Vic has but one desire, revenge on still-hiding Tino Morelli.

Island in the Sky

A secretary (Gloria Stuart) solves a murder for her boyfriend (Michael Whalen) in the district attorney's office.

Loophole

Bank teller Mike Donovan (Barry Sullivan) takes the first step on the road to Perdition when he fails to report a $49,000 shortage. Accused of theft, Donovan is fired from his job. He is then prevented from finding other employment by Javert-like insurance investigator Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw). Despite many setbacks, Donovan attempts to clear his muddied name.

Tip-Off Girls

A federal agent goes after a hijacking ring that uses beautiful women to help it hijack the rigs of unsuspecting truckers.

Double Cross

A disgraced cop aims to reclaim his honor by nailing a corrupt crime boss.

Woman in the Dark

A pastry-shop girl (Penny Edwards) sees a priest's (Ross Elliott) and a lawyer's (Rick Vallin) brother take part in a jewel heist.

Car 99

A story of the Michigan State Police and the strong sense of loyalty and duty it instills in its men. It follows the career of a newly-inducted rookie, Ross Martin, who has joined the force at the urging of his sweetheart, Mary Adams. Martin soon distinguishes himself by his bravery in the apprehension of criminals. But when the leader of a gang of bank robbers falls into his hands and then escapes, because of carelessness on Martin's part, he is suspended from the force.

Below the Deadline

A veteran, Joe Hilton, returns from the war to find that his brother Jeffrey Hilton, a gangster, has been killed. His quest for revenge leads him to take over his brother's illegal operations but his sweetheart, Lynn Turner, persuades him to change his ways and return to the straight and narrow.

The Traitor Within

In this drama, a truck driver begins wooing a young woman who still lives with her father who constantly brags how he, not the town mayor, was responsible for catching a regiment of Germans during WW I. Unfortunately, no one in town takes him seriously. Later the daughter meets a German immigrant who confirms her father's claim. She then convinces her boy friend to use this information to blackmail the mayor into giving him a new truck and some extra amenities lest he tell the truth.

Terror at Midnight

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

The St. Louis Kid

Trucker Eddie Kennedy gets involved with the law when he has an car accident with Ann Reid and knocks the owner of a dairy out. He evades a penalty when he claims, that he had done it as an act of solidarism with the farmers. The farmers start an boycott action against this dairy, so the owner has to bring milk from elsewhere to his dairy, but the farmers closed the road, and Kennedy is arrested once more. He leaves jail at night to meet Ann, but meanwhile the owner has asked some mobsters to deliver the milk. One of the farmers is murdered, Ann Reid is missing and Eddie Kennedy is accused of murder.

Ambush

Four bandits swoop down on a California bank and flee with $98,000, leaving a truck as the only clue to their identity. Jane Hartman, bank secretary, recognizes the truck as one on which her brother Charles worked. Fleeing to her brother, she is trapped by the gang, composed of its master-mind, Gibbs, Sidney, a gunman, and Randall, a blackballed airplane pilot. Under threat of bodily harm to her brother, she lures truck-driver Tony Andrews to the hideout, and he is forced to help them in their escape attempt.

Mary Ryan, Detective

A female police detective (Marsha Hunt) enters jail to gain the confidence of a shoplifter and learn the identity of the leader of a stolen goods racket.

Men Without Names

A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.

Midnight Morals

A rookie cop falls for a "taxi dancer" in a dance hall, but his father has strong objections to the relationship.

Between Midnight and Dawn

Rocky and Dan, war buddies, are prowl car cops on night duty. Dan is a cynic who views all lawbreakers as scum; Rocky feels more lenient. Both are attracted to the radio voice of communicator Kate Mallory; but in person, Kate proves reluctant to get involved with men who just might stop a bullet. By lucky chance, Rocky and Dan cause big trouble for murderous racketeer Ritchie Garris; but when he swears vengeance, Kate's fears may prove justified.

Gun Fight

Action Western directed by Edward L. Cahn . After courageously protecting a pretty dance hall girl (Joan Staley) from peril, former cavalry soldier Wayne (James Brown) refuses to join his brother Brad's (Gregg Palmer) unlawful cattle rustling gang, which leads to heated disagreements, bitter betrayals and life-threatening danger.

The Strange Mrs. Crane

Hoping to bury her criminal past, Jenny Hadley settles into a comfortable existence as Gina, the wife of the politician Clinton Crane. When her former associate Floyd Durant shows up to blackmail Gina, she has no choice but to murder him. Things take a bizarre turn when Barbara Arnold is charged with Durant's murder and Gina is selected to serve on the jury.

Tarnished

Bud Dolliver, a former WWII hero, and an ex-convict, returns to his home town in an effort to make a new life for himself but, even with the help of Lou Jellison, a cannery worker, he finds it hard to live down his reputation.

Lightnin' in the Forest

Psychiatrist David Lamont is pressured into "analyzing" the madcap but glamorous niece of a judge. Then crooks on the lam intrude...

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