Best movies like The Big Shakedown
A New Type of Racket Exposed! In This Thrilling Underworld Drama
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Big Shakedown Starring Charles Farrell, Bette Davis, Ricardo Cortez, Glenda Farrell, and more. If you liked The Big Shakedown then you may also like: X Marks the Spot, Whistling in the Dark, Quick Millions, Racket Busters, Kid Glove Killer 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.
Former bootlegger Dutch Barnes pressures neighborhood druggist Jimmy Morrell into making cut-rate knockoff toiletry, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products.
The Big Shakedown
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Whistling in the Dark
A mystery writer and his sweetheart are held hostage by a fugitive gangster, who hopes to enlist their help in devising the perfect crime.
Quick Millions
A truck driver "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal" gets mixed up in racketeering. Naturally his underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community.
Racket Busters
A trucker with a pregnant wife fights a New York mobster's protection racket.
Kid Glove Killer
Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by scientifically analyzing evidence.
Escaping the NXIVM Cult: A Mother's Fight to Save Her Daughter
The shocking true story of Catherine Oxenberg and her fight to save her daughter India from a dangerous sex cult.
Traveling Saleslady
A toothpaste magnate's mischievous daughter, tired of her father's traditional ways of conducting business, joins forces with her father's rival and a crazy inventor. Together they create "Cocktail Toothpaste". The new concoction tastes like whiskey in the morning, a martini at suppertime, and champagne at night.
Easy Money
Dan Adams resigns his position as prosecutor on the district attorney's staff and sets out to clean up a gang of fake-accident racketeers. He gets a job with an insurance company, and assures the company president he will get the goods on the gang or die in the attempt. At the company offices, he meets Carol Carter and she, believing he is a shyster (possibly redundant) lawyer in the employ of the racketeers gives him as little help as possible. Dan visits his brother Eddie, who is mixed up with the gang and tries to make him break away. Eddie is belligerent but finally, because of the pressure brought by Dan and his wife Tonia, agrees to go straight. The gang, led by "Duke" Trotti, fears he will squeal and they kill him, plus they make his death look like an accident and plan to collect on it. Dan is closing in on the gang when Carol, who is now his assistant, comes up with some conclusive evidence, but "Duke" has plans to get rid of her before she can give the information to Dan.
Who Killed Mary Whats'ername?
A prostitute is murdered on the streets of a tough, low-income neighborhood. A diabetic retired boxer who knew her is appalled by the lack of interest shown in the case by the police or anybody else in the neighborhood, and decides to investigate the case himself.
Sorry, Wrong Number
Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.
Hall of Mirrors
Dylan Hewitt is a young, desperate gambling addict plummeted into financial ruin. That is until a strange, anonymous caller -- who happens to know every intimate detail of Dylan's life -- offers a unique solution to his problems. Lured by the promise of easy money and the beauty of an enigmatic woman, Dylan enters a lurid underworld of counterfeiters and con artists, where he becomes the unwitting pawn in a scheme far more elaborate and ruthless than he could have ever imagined.
Hoodlum Empire
It's a deadly play for power when a Mafia chieftain's top gun goes straight and threatens to testify against the big boss and his cruel, nationwide network of crime. The picture, which was shot in a semi-documentary style, was inspired by the Kefauver investigations of 1950-51.
Dark Manhattan
A low-level gangster determines to let nothing stand in the way of his gaining control of the numbers rackets in Harlem.
The Counterfeit Plan
An escaped murderer flees France to England, where he forces an ex-forger, now established as a reputable estate owner, and the forger's daughter who knew nothing of his past, to counterfeit 5-pound notes for mass distribution around the countryside.
A Lady of Chance
A con woman working the Atlantic City hotels targets a visiting businessman from Alabama.
The Human Jungle
Danforth is assigned to take over the police department in a section of a large city saddled with juvenile delinquency, petty crimes, graft and also a recent unsolved murder of a strip-tease dancer. Recognizing the laxity of the department he implements many changes and soon finds himself under fire by the newspapers, the attorney of a racket leader and the denizens of this human jungle.
Missing Evidence
G-Man Bill Collins swings into action when a crooked sweepstakes racket begins insinuating itself upon the honest citizenry of the US. The crooks have flooded the market with counterfeit lottery tickets, reducing many an unwary speculator to poverty.
The Game That Kills
Ferguson is a rough-and-tumble hockey player who discovers that his chosen profession is nothing more than a racket, a plaything for game-fixing racketeers. When his brother is killed in a highly suspicious accident, Ferguson and team trainer Holland join forces to bring the killers to justice.
Midnight Morals
A rookie cop falls for a "taxi dancer" in a dance hall, but his father has strong objections to the relationship.
Contract on Cherry Street
A policeman devises an unorthodox plan for bringing criminals to justice after his partner is brutally gunned down.
Moon Over Harlem
Hardworking Minnie (Cora Green) marries "Dollar" Bill (Bud Harris) a shady gambler after her money and her attractive daughter, Sue (Izanetta Wilcois). Sue meanwhile, is in love with Bob (Carl Hough), an idealist fond of looking out over the skyline and saying "Harlem... there's so much to be done here--it's fairly screaming for leadership." When Bob decides to organize the community against local racketeers he little realizes would-be father-in-law Dollar Bill is one of them. Bill meanwhile has problems of his own: A vicious white mob from lower Manhattan is muscling in on his action, and bullets are about to fly.
Portrait of a Mobster
A vicious hood rises to the top of the rackets in Depression-era New York in this account of the life of Dutch Schultz.
The System
A gambling boss is pressured by the law and press when a crusade is started against him after one of his collectors becomes a killer.
Born Reckless
Racketeer Jim Barnes is trying to force the independent taxicab-drivers to join his "protection service" at the cost of five bucks a day. Champion race-car driver, Bob Kane, joins with his friends Lee and "Dad" Martin in a fight for the street rights of a big city.
Burn 'Em Up Barnes
Marjorie Temple, owner of a bus line and an apparently worthless plot of land, is set upon by rich oil speculators who know her land actually is worth millions. When they try to put her out of business for good, young race driver Burn 'em Up Barnes comes to her rescue - again and again and again.
Twelve Crowded Hours
An ace reporter with a girlfriend nails a numbers racketeer for murders.
The Gold Racket
At the request of the Mexican government, a federal agent and a lady reporter team up to catch a gang that has been smuggling gold from Mexico to the U.S. and then selling it to the U.S. government.
Hips, Hips, Hooray!
Hips, Hips, Hooray! is a 1934 slapstick comedy film starring Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Ruth Etting, Thelma Todd, and Dorothy Lee.
Jimmy the Gent
An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.
Phantom Ranger
A Treasury Department engraver is being held captive by a counterfeiting gang that wants him to make counterfeit plates for them. A lawman is sent to rescue him.
Take My Life
A well meaning Dr. lends his building to a group of neighborhood kids. When the neighbors learn that they are members Harlem tough -kid gang, they suspect that their operation there conducting nefarious deeds.
City Limits
The wealthy president of a big railroad, who's beginning to crumble under the combined pressure of business, personal and physical problems, meets up with a pair of hoboes from whom he starts to learn how to really enjoy life in ways he never knew were possible.
X Marks the Spot
A private detective, soon to enlist in the army, is drawn into one final case when his police officer father is killed in the line of duty. Soon his prime suspect is murdered as well, and he finds himself framed for the crime. As more witnesses get murdered, he finds himself on the run from both the police and former Prohibition violators who seem to have found a new racket.