Best movies like The Defense Rests

After a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, Nancy Drew sets out to solve the mystery.

A lawyer tries to clear his wife's lover of murder charges.

A young black doctor sets out to establish a free clinic in Harlem.

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.

Max and Page are a brilliant mother/daughter con team who have their grift down to a fine science. Max targets wealthy, willing men and marries them. Page then seduces them, and Max catches her husband in the act. Then it's off to palimony city and the next easy mark.

When a prisoner on Death Row is "accidentally" killed just before his execution, a reporter smells something fishy...

A San Francisco lawyer uses a woman to lure a merchant seaman worth a legendary fortune.

After the horrific death of his wife and two sons, suicide seems to be the only escape for small town attorney Kent "Mac" McClain... until he's assigned a capital punishment case that begins to transform his life and those around him forever.

An actor poses as a lawyer to help his sick friend, and problems develop.

A socialite finds herself involved in a murder trial that is prosecuted by her boyfriend.

A playboy takes a job as an assistant district attorney, finds himself up against a tough crime boss and his gang.

Barry Brandon, a criminal lawyer, visits the night club of Denny Larkin, his primary client, with Betty Walker, a spoiled society girl. The police raid the club and Brandon pleads that the whole group is guilty, just to get even with Larkin for a rebuke. On the same night in court, Madge Carter is on trial for disorderly conduct, and Brandon volunteers to defend her, and proves the case against her if a frame-up. Finding that she is penniless, Brandon hires her as his secretary, and falls in love with her. Brandon is appointed district attorney and has ambitions of becoming the state governor. Having dinner at Betty's home, she maneuvers him, while he is drunk, into marrying her. Later, Madge is a witness when Larkin shoots down a fellow gangster. By threatening Brandon's life, he forces her to commit perjury at his trial, and say he fired in self-defense. Brandon, the prosecuting attorney (who has had his marriage to Betty annulled) knows she is lying but doesn't know why.

Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?

Johnny Broderick, arson squad investigator, and his assistant, Ben Howard,, investigate a warehouse fire and find evidence of arson. Lawyer William Yarbo is behind the series of incendiary fires that have been plaguing the city. Keely Hariss, an actress, inherited the warehouse from her father. Yabro calls on her and says that he and her father had heavily insured the building and planned to burn it and collect, and also tells her she must accept half of the insurance money or he will see that she is blamed for the arson. "Pop" Bergen, the father of Marily Bergen, is the torch man hired by Yarbo, and he perishes in one of the conflagrations. Yarbo learns that Keely is cooperating with Broderick and he enters the movie studio where she is working, determined to kill her. Written By Les Adams

A wealthy man relates how gambling had tragic consequences for his family.

Cynical hit man Mick is tiring of his job and asks his boss George for time off. However, George gives him the assignment of his life, prompting Mick's soul-searching to reach new heights. Mick is asked to kill sultry Fiona, who owes George money and claims she wants to die. But as Mick spends time with her, he finds himself falling for her.

Fact-based story about a landmark legal battle. A woman (Park Overall) learns that her husband has been having a very open affair with his secretary (Laura Innes) and has promised marriage. The wife sues for divorce and also sues the secretary based on an obscure law on alienation of affection, which was created to protect married couples from homewreckers. This sets a new court room consideration, as the culpability of the other woman must be defended and removes from consideration the fault of the married partners.

A girl is killed and raped minutes after fighting with her boyfriend (Jeff) and he left her. Jeff is the assistant of professor Caldwell at the university, and he wanted to return with his old girlfriend (Lisa). The girl lived with another five girls, including Lisa. All these girls begin to be killed, one by one, in different and strange ways. The main suspect is Jeff.

When a handsome attorney sets off to find a former lover, he finds himself caught in a web of deceit and murder.

A woman watches her own funeral, then sets out with her lawyer to learn who was in the casket.

An assistant prosecutor and his spunky friend investigate a suddenly hot case.

Inspector Killian tries to solve a murder case with his assistant Carney.

An assistant district attorney tries to stop his girlfriend's father from being swindled out of his money by a crooked lawyer in a racetrack scam.

Just as her life is coming together, Allison experiences a terrible tragedy when her boyfriend is murdered by an intruder from whom the woman herself barely escapes. The police capture a man they believe to be the killer, but Allison, still unsettled, has her doubts. Things take a frightening turn when she meets her friend's new boyfriend and suspects him to be the killer.

A wounded, bloodied man takes a priest hostage, hell-bent on confessing a vengeful truth before it is too late. The seemingly random encounter is soon revealed to be anything but as the two men’s lives are inextricably linked.

A gangster who operates a sleazy dance hall uses a sadistic bodyguard to keep his girls afraid and his customers in line.

Well meant is often the opposite of good. Audry, who wanted to use her knowledge of Japanese to help her husband Ward, a golf instructor, enter the professional league of golf, has to learn the same thing: she lets the sleazy lawyer Rictus persuade her to play Sushi-Jo - a kind of living salver for the Japanese national dish – to be able to unobtrusively overhear a meeting with Japanese business people. Unfortunately, these people are members of the yakuza; and the business lunch takes a fatal turn when heavily armed thugs show up.

An attorney falls for the woman he's representing on a murder charge.

Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully prosecutes a prominent New York racketeer named Gilmurry. Adam's sudden renown attracts the attention of high-profile legal eagle Granville Bentley, who asks Adam to become a partner in his law firm. But Adam's rising career takes a nosedive when he's framed by Gilmurry and a sexy actress in a trumped-up breach of promise suit. The only constant in Adam's life is the loyalty and unrequited love of his secretary Olga.

Michael D'Angelo is a washed-up alcoholic cop. Demoted from his job and living in the past, he takes out his pain by exploring the nightlife of Los Angeles. Theresa, the only woman he's ever loved, is a powerful Assistant D.A. married to a prominent doctor, Peter, and is about to take on the most important case of her firm's history. But all things erupt when personal issues that have been repressed begin to surface in horrifying ways, bringing everyone together in an explosive triangle of betrayal.

Since the death of his colleague, which was partly his fault, Lieutenant Nick Gentry lives a lonesome life. Reporter Joan wants to write a story about him, and seems to be interested in other ways too, but he rejects. Instead he falls in love with his new neighbor Irene and witnesses how she's repeatedly beaten up by her husband Allan. One day, when Allan threatens her with a gun, he shoots him. Certainly self-defense -- until it turns out, that Alan's gun was made inoperable...

A study of an amoral and sleazy defense lawyer who suddenly tries to "go straight" when he finds out that his tart wife is cheating on him; as well as the similarities he has in life with one of his clients.

Country-western favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys star in the Columbia musical western Smoky Mountain Melody. Not much happens plotwise: Acuff, playing "himself," is a tenderfoot who somehow manages to come out on top when he heads westward. The villains (who aren't all that villainous) try to promote a phony stock deal, but Roy and his pals foils their plans. The comedy honors go to Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as a blowhard sheriff. Smoky Mountain Melody was scripted by Barry Shipman, the son of pioneering female filmmaker Nell Shipman.

Socialite banker Henry Judson maintains his extravagant lifestyle by embezzling from his bank, but is caught by sleazy assistant manager Waters and is blackmailed by him into continuing. Close to being found out, the two devise a scheme which sends Wally, the ex-con boyfriend of pretty hat check girl Rose Abbott, to death row.

A woman is suspected of killing her husband after a revolver is found in her attic. A coroner is determined to prove that she did it, but thanks to the assistance of a quick-witted lawyer she is eventually found innocent.