A priceless tablet of Gilgamesh, the oldest and most important work of literature is stolen from a museum. A security guard vows to do whatever it takes to get it back from a group of smugglers. Along the way, he faces his own inner demons.
Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.
A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.
Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.
Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
In-Ja, the madam of a cabaret is a mistress of the boss of espionage agent. She gathers information from the guests and gives it to Seon-Tae.
The tranquility of a small town is marred only by sheriff Tod Shaw's unsuccessful courtship of widow Ellen Benson, a pacifist who can't abide guns and those who use them. But violence descends on Ellen's household willy-nilly when the U.S. President passes through town... and slightly psycho hired assassin John Baron finds the Benson home ideal for an ambush.
Bart Tare is an ex-Army man who has a lifelong fixation with guns, he meets a kindred spirit in sharpshooter Annie Starr and goes to work at a carnival. After upsetting the carnival owner who lusts after Starr, they both get fired. Soon, on Starr's behest, they embark on a crime spree for cash.
Escaped convicts terrorize a suburban family they're holding hostage.
A con man tries to blackmail a Mexican gangster.
Claude is a ruthless and efficient contract killer. His next target, a woman, is the most difficult.
A group of robbers assault a factory in the port of Barcelona, but, upon being discovered, they are forced to flee hastily, each one his own way. An exhaustive police device is then initiated with the aim of capturing them. But the police persecution to which the members of the gang are subjected incites distrust between them and, one after another, they will fall, until only two remain.
Alan Mitchell returns to New York to work for his father Walter, the owner of a fashion house that designs and manufactures dresses. To stay non-union, Walter has hired Artie Ravidge, a hood who uses strong-arm tactics to keep the employees in line.
After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.