Best movies like Strangers of the Evening

A woman falls under the hypnotic spell of a resurrected madman.

An escaped convict and the detective tasked with hunting him down end up working in parallel to clear the convict's name and nab the gangsters that framed him.

Sherlock Holmes investigates when young women around London turn up murdered, each with a finger severed. Scotland Yard suspects a madman, but Holmes believes the killings to be part of a diabolical plot.

A policeman's family helps to exonerate him of murder charges in the death of a man he had under interrogation.

Delia Jordan's father is murdered and some very valuable jewelry stolen. She hires The Lone Wolf.

Harriet O'Malley tries to solve a murder aboard a train en route to New York.

A forensic psychologist must determine if a minor should be charged with murder.

Mad scientist works on a death ray in his mountain hideaway.

A feud between rival newspapermen Kruger (Bromberg) and McDonald (Guilfoyle) goes deadly when blackmailing McDonald ends up murdered and his corpse planted in the trunk of Kruger's car. Good guy Kruger attempts to hide McDonald's body, with the help of chauffeur Hogan (Jenks), to keep from being charged with murder. However, zany scenarios occur as the body just won't stay hidden, and keeps on popping up in multiple places where Kruger is located, leading to him hiding the body again and again while Kruger tries to find the real killer.

A telephone operator plays homicide detective with her boyfriend, making it harder for the police.

When a businessman who has had a double indemnity policy taken out on him dies mysteriously, his insurance company sends an undercover investigator to town to determine exactly what happened.

Michael Shayne is a private detective who is disliked greatly by Pete Rafferty, local chief of police detectives. Rafferty notifies the newspaper press that he is going to close Shayne's agency, just as Michael is about to be hired by the wealthy Eleanor Ramsey, who is being blackmailed. She is the stepmother of what she considers to be two grown-up brats, Dorothy and Ernest, and she considers their father to be of little value to the world himself. They all conspire to get their hands on her money, even to the extent of attempting to hire Shayne to frame an insurance robbery. Mrs. Ramsey is murdered, and Rafferty is trying to pin the killing on Shayne, despite the fact that suspicion points to Buell Renslow, brother of the slain woman. Shayne's secretary, the fetching Phyllis Hamilton, decides to do a little detective work to help her boss.

The city's District Attorney is murdered, and a newspaper reporter investigates. He starts finding out that everything wasn't quite as cut and dried as it appeared to be.

A young doctor is determined to expose the killer when a surgeon is found stabbed to death in a hospital elevator.

Lucy Freers has a long-standing marriage, a nine-year old daughter, and a great family life in the suburbs of Hollywood. Great, that is, until the Hollywood set decides that motherhood is the newest way to go. When local neighbor Julia Prentice, the wife of a famous movie actor, adopts a baby in full view of the show-business media, the parenthood craze hits its peak. Soon after, Julia is found lying dead in Lucy's swimming pool, with Lucy and her husband labeled as suspects. Now Lucy must determine the truth to clear the name of both herself and her family.

A cop on suspension is framed for murder when he noses in on a murder investigation.

In a series of flashbacks, shows that attorney John Morland has given a lift to a hitchhiker who turns out to be a murderer. As a result, Morland himself is implicated in a killing. A pair of detectives discover that Morland has been having business problems and no end of difficulties with his wife Catherine. The trail of clues leads to a surprising revelation.

Choreographer Bob Connolly and prolific screenwriter Crane Wilbur teamed up on the direction of Warner Bros.' The Patient in Room 18. Patric Knowles delivers a delightfully comic performance as Lance, an outwardly normal young man obsessed with detective stories. When his obsession threatens to lapse over into lunacy, Lance is sent to the hospital for a nice long rest. It isn't long before he gets mixed up in a genuine murder mystery, using his second-hand knowhow to solve the case. Up-and-coming Ann Sheridan is quite amusing as Lance's nurse and confidante, while the murderer is played by a fellow who is usually cast as the murder victim.

A New York policeman helps a hungry and penniless young woman start life anew by arranging to get her a job in "The Follies".

An architect (Chick Chandler) studies the doors of six shops and an apartment house to solve a gem theft/double murder.

An airliner makes a forced landing at night in the desert. The passengers and crew take refuge in a nearby deserted house. Soon some of the passengers are found murdered, and one of the passengers reveals himself to be a detective who was guarding one of the murdered passengers, who was carrying a bag of diamonds--which is now missing. The detective must find out which of the passengers is the killer.

There's something very odd about Romano, a notorious gangster serving time in the federal pen. For one thing, Romano doesn't sound much like himself. For another, he always seems to be hiding something. Detective Lee suspects that something's amiss, and he's probably right!

Investigating rumors that a priceless Rembrandt, believed destroyed years ago, is actually in the possession of an elderly spinster, a male newspaper reporter and his female rival determine that it is genuine but subsequently learn it has been stolen by a gang of art thieves who plan to kill the spinster to prevent her from later identifying it.

A detective comes out of retirement to help his daughter's fiance prove that he did not commit a series of murders.

During a séance at an elderly millionaire's house, the millionaire is murdered. The detectives investigating the crime discover that everyone who was at the séance had a motive for killing the man.

A detective investigates the disappearance of a girl's body from the city morgue.

Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues, Inspector Queen (Charles Grapewin) asks his son Ellery (Ralph Bellamy) to help out.

A miner has struck it rich and gives some ore to cowhand Jess Dean to take to his granddaughter. But Horse Williams has the miner shot and uses the ore found on Jess to accuse him of the murder. Jess escapes from the mob of townspeople who later learn that the body of the supposedly dead miner has mysteriously disappeared.

A schoolteacher and amateur sleuth suspects foul play when a fellow passenger on a seaplane gets sick and dies. The third and final film with Edna May Oliver and James Gleason as the astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and the New York Police Inspector Oscar Piper busy solving crimes.

Ford Adams regains consciousness in Boston, bloody and suffering from amnesia. Information he eventually uncovers (with the help of Marie Smith) connects him to a well-known producer--who's just been murdered.

A city haunted by a bloody past has led to the emergence of some serious police brutality. As bodies pile up, two detectives seek to stop a demonic force that is terrorizing the neighborhood.

In the second of the PRC "Michael Shayne" series,civic crusader Burton Stallings hires private detective Michael Shayne to locate the former's missing step-daughter Helen. Shayne discovers that Stallings himself has had Helen confined in an asylum in order to obtain her money.

Longshoreman Johnny Barnes is in love with Kitty Tracy, barmaid at her father's waterfront saloon, and he beats up Cassidy, a crooked politician who has been annoying her. Cassidy is murdered that night and Johnny is jailed for the crime. Kitty, her father Andy Tracy, and waterfront-priest Father Cameron believe Johnny is innocent but all evidence points to his guilt.

Ralph Bellamy makes the third of four appearances as "master detective" Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime. The principal villain is crooked stockbroker John Mathews, whose Wall Street manipulations render Ray Jarden penniless. Mathews' chicanery seems particularly coldblooded, inasmuch as his daughter Marian is engaged to Jarden's son Walter. When the latter disappears, Mathews asks Ellery Queen to locate the young man.

Tex, a famous detective, recounts the story of how he went into the crime business: While visiting his old friend, Jack Nelson, a dispute breaks out between Nelson and his butler. Later that night, Nelson is murdered, and the next morning the murder weapon, a knife, is discovered next to the body. Edna, the victim's wife, seizes the knife, and Tex, fearing that she is about to kill herself, throws the weapon out the window. Interpreting Tex's actions as incriminating, the police arrest him, and he is sentenced to prison. Two years later, a fire breaks out at the penitentiary, and Tex's bravery in saving the warden's wife and child wins him a pardon. Determining to solve Nelson's murder, Tex searches for the butler but discovers him to be innocent. Summoned to Edna's deathbed, Tex hears her confess to the crime, thus causing him to devote his life to solving crimes and saving innocents from being convicted on circumstantial evidence.