On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Agnes "Astra" Huston, a fortune teller at a run-down fair, is found strangled in her bedroom. As the police question five suspects, their interactions with her are shown in flashbacks from their point of view.
A family man – desperate for a job – latches onto a friend who encourages him into being a criminal.
The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who, after gaining supreme power and establishing a reign of terror ruled by death, now intends to become the dictator of France.
Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.
The dream is unusually vivid: Bank employee Vince Grayson finds himself murdering a man in a sinister octagonal-shaped room lined with mirrors while a mysterious woman breaks into a safe. It is so vivid that Vince suspects it may have really happened. To get the dream off his mind, he goes on a picnic with some relatives. When a thunderstorm forces his party into a nearby mansion, Vince discovers that the bizarre room does exist, and it means nothing but trouble.
Cleve Marshall, an assistant district attorney, falls for Thelma Jordon, a mysterious woman with a troubled past. When Thelma becomes a suspect in her aunt's murder, Cleve tries to clear her name.
A kindly, enthusiastic, newly-arrived American immigrant from Hungary is forced to turn to a life of crime after his face is badly disfigured in a hotel fire.
A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.
A beautiful but unscrupulous female performer manipulates all the men in her life in order to achieve her aims.
During a rainy Sunday afternoon, an escaped prisoner tries to hide out at the home of his ex-fiance.
A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sister.
Rosa, the self-serving wife of a small-town doctor, gets a better offer when a wealthy big-city man insists she get a divorce and marry him instead. Soon she demonstrates she is capable of rather deplorable acts -- including murder.
Ex-cop Vic Barron crossed the wrong mobsters; his wife and child were killed and he was scarred, framed, and imprisoned. On release, Vic has but one desire, revenge on still-hiding Tino Morelli.
Down-and-out artist Joe Manning wakes up from a night of drunken revelry in a jail cell, where he's being held on suspicion for the murder of a nightclub singer.
Famed Depression-era gangster “Baby Face Nelson” robs and kills while accompanied by his beautiful moll.
Story follows the rise and subsequent fall of the notorious head of a New York crime family, who decides to testify against his pals in order to avoid being killed by his fellow cohorts.
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one dies, the other accuses their Black doctor of murder.
Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.