Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Miller's Crossing (1990), The Public Enemy (1931), Baby Face (1933), Lawless (2012), A Slight Case of Murder (1938), Night Nurse (1931) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Prohibition movies.
Storyline: In 1931, Elizabeth Rambeau comes from England to live in California with her aunt and uncle of a winemaking dynasty, who are still wealthy despite 12 years of Prohibition. Object: marriage to the heir of another vineyard, to further consolidate holdings in the Valley. But John Rambeau, Elizabeth's illegitimate cousin, has other ideas about who she should marry, and sharply opposes patriarch Philippe's refusal to sell wine grapes to bootleggers. John's activities bring soap opera to the Rambeau family and violence to the valley.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: british woman, winemaker, aunt, cousin, neighbor, grandfather, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Boston, 1926. The '20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world. Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one-neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover-can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt. Joe embarks on a dizzying...
Plot Keywords: gangster, bank robber, mob boss, police officer, moll, politician, brooding ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: "Sugar" Ray is the owner of an illegal casino, who contends with the pressures of vicious gangsters and corrupt policemen who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organized crime and police corruption in the 1930s, any dastardly trick is fair.
Plot Keywords: father, adopted son, gangster, mistress, corrupt cop, amusing, engaging ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of the rise and fall of the infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone and the control he exhibited over the city during the prohibition years. Unusually, briefly covering the years after Capone was imprisoned.—Col Needham <col@imdb.com>
Plot Keywords: gangster, partner, woman, brutal, frenetic, bleak, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It's 1930. Claire (Liza Minnelli), an American living in Tijuana, Mexico, has just buried her husband Harry, who owned a dive bar there. Walker Ellis (Burt Reynolds), a loser with whom she has long had a thing on the side, agrees to wrap up her affairs in Tijuana for her so that she can move stateside before they be together after an appropriate grieving period. Wrapping up those affairs includes smuggling one last truckload of illegal Mexican immigrants across the border. In that job not going quite according to plan, Walker is forced to go into business rum running across the border with Kibby Womack (Gene Hackman), one of those he was trying to smuggle across the border, Kibby an American in trouble with Uncle Sam. Instead of via overland, Walker has hired Billy Mason (Robby Benson) to Captain the sailboat to transport the goods via water, Billy a young, quiet man unwise to the ways of the world, but wise when it comes to the sea. As Walker, Claire, Kibby, and Billy navigate the waters on this venture, they will find two inherent risks. The first is the U.S. Coast Guard, officious Captain Moseley (Geoffrey Lewis), who patrols these waters. Moseley and the Coast Guard can do nothing if they're in international waters unless there is a sign of illegal cargo or a sale of illegal merchandise. As such, Moseley can usually just "starve" rum runners who just sail up and down the coast unable to dock in a U.S. port. And second is other rum runners. While the small players generally leave each other alone, the east coast mob has sent Christie McTeague (John Hillerman) to place first a foothold then second a stranglehold on the entire west coast Mexico-U.S. trade. Through it all, Claire has convinced Kibby and an initially reluctant Walker that their three partner business should extend into the bedroom.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: smuggler, best friend, cabaret performer, criminal, police captain, engaging, playful ...
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