Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Untouchables (1987), Elmer Gantry (1960), Horse Feathers (1932), Before Stonewall (1984), Bullets Over Broadway (1994) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Speakeasy movies.
Storyline: Composer George Gershwin is driven by his need to succeed. Unfortunately his drive destroys his romantic relationships with singer Julie Adams, who is desperately in love with him, and aloof socialite Christine Gilbert.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>
Plot Keywords: composer, paris france, blackface, reference to ludwig van beethoven, opera, reference to johann sebastian bach, dutch angle ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Bumper (Al Jolson) is a vagabond leader of a strange group of tatterdemalions and eccentrics who hang around New York's Central Park. Among his followers are Egghead (Harry Langdon), Sunday (Chester Conklin), Acorn (Edgar Conner) , The General (Victor Potel), Orlando (Tammany Young) and Apple Mary (Louise Carver). Bumper's idol is Mayor Hastings (Frank Morgan), whose life he once saved and frequently has lunch at the Park Casino. Bumper is always on hand to open the door of the Mayor's Rolls Royce, and the Mayor makes it a point to linger a moment at the entrance and listen to the whimsical Bumper's philosophy and ideas abut life. Through his contact with the Mayor, Bumper is able to "fix" things when the other vagabonds get in trouble. The Mayor cannot fathom why Bumper, an unusually bright fellow, is content to spend his life in the park, doing nothing. The Mayor, for all his power and popularity, is unhappy. He's in love ----and madly jealous. He believes his sweetheart June Marcher (Madge Bellamy) is "two-timing" him. At lunch he slips a $1,000 in her purse. She loses it and the Mayor accuses her of giving it to another man. Bumper find the purse and takes it to the address in the purse and is met there by the exiting Mayor. He does not see nor know June. Later,The grief-stricken June attempts suicide by jumping from a bridge and is rescued by Bumper, but has lost her memory. He takes her to the tenement home of the Sundays, and asks the Mayor to get him a job, as he has a new interest, known to him as Angel, in his life. He spends his money making Angel happy and she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, the Mayor, despondent over not being able to locate the missing June, goes on a drinking binge and is found asleep in the park by Bumper's friends, who take him hoe and notify Bumper. While Bumper is trying to sober him up, Hastings begins talking to a photograph. Bumper discovers the woman in the photograph is that of Angel, and that the girl of his dreams is the Mayor's sweetheart. Bumper takes his friend to the Sunday family tenement and the sight of the Mayor and his voice as he clasps her in his arms restores June's memory. She pleads to be taken away from "this awful place". All she remembers is walking in the park at night. Bumper is a stranger to her. The Mayor takes her away, out of Bumper's life. Bumper returns to the park and his former life.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: suicide attempt, amnesia, poverty, great depression, central park, mayor, sadness ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Reporter Gallagher loves reporter Smith who marries Anne. He's soon bored being married to a socialite and asks Gallagher to help him write a play. She arrives with a bunch of reporters and the mansion turns into a party. Anne arrives and orders them out and Smith goes with them.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: newspaper, passed out, playwright, speakeasy, typewriter, wealthy family, ambassador ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: prohibition, based on true story, gangster, neo noir, chicago illinois, true crime, judge ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: New York city in the 1920s: a singer struggles to keep her boyfriend from trouble. When she makes it to Ziegfeld, he heads for five years in jail. Lots of Faye and Jolson singing. The story is so close to the true story of Fanny Brice and Nicky Arnstein (Jules W. Arndt Stein) that he sued the studio in a case that was quickly settled out of court in his favor.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: 1910s, place name in title, rags to riches, speakeasy, stage performance, manhattan new york city, song ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran's rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: gangster, crime boss, murder, cold blooded killer, drive by shooting, gang violence, mobster ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After WWI two men go into radio. Failure leads the wife of one to borrow money from another; she goes on, after separation, to stardom. A coast-to-coast radio program is set up to bring everyone back together.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: advertising, earphones, fight, fistfight, husband wife relationship, husband wife reunion, kiss ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Pat and Max are in a serious relationship, talking about their future together. After they spend a night together for the first time at his impetus, he graduates with his degree to become a doctor and his father pushes ahead for his planned arranged marriage. Though he's not happy about it, he does go through with it and doesn't argue when his father says he's going to send Max and his soon-to-be wife to Vienna for a strong start in his career. When Max tells Pat, it breaks her heart and she runs off. She follows his career through the newspaper. Later, she meets Eddie, a gangster running gumball machines, when he helps her out of a bathroom where the door is stuck. After taking her on a date, he confesses he'd like to marry her because of how pure, good, and clean she is, which fills her with guilt and doubt. Unsure whether to say yes, Pat asks for a day to decide. When Max comes back into her life hoping to rekindle what they had even though he's married, she must decide which relationship to move forward with.—goldenagehollywood
Plot Keywords: taxi, police officer, police sergeant, gambling, slot machine, hotel, husband wife relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Blondie, a New York tenement dweller, and Lurlene are best friends. When Lurlene makes the cast of a big Broadway show, she arranges for Blondie to join the cast as well. But the friendship goes awry when Lurlene's sweetheart, wealthy Larry Belmont, catches Blondie's act and falls for the fair-haired newcomer. Though she is attracted to Larry as well, Blondie spurns his attentions out of loyalty to her friend. But the attraction proves to be stronger than any of them could have imagined.—Dan Navarro <daneldorado@yahoo.com>
Plot Keywords: actor shares first name with character, possessive female, manipulative female, romantic rivalry, art deco, taming of the shrew, menage a trois ...
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: organized crime, voice over, racism, blackmail, trust, 1920s, 1930s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Covering a quarter-century of American 'syncopated" music (Ragtime, Jazz, Swing, Blues, Boogie Woogie)from prior to WWI through prohibition, the stock-market crash, the depression and the outbreak of WWII. A romance between singer Kit Latimer, from New Orleans, and Johnny Schumacher, in which they share and argue over musical ideas ensues. Prior to the making of the film RKO held a contest for the readers of 'The Saturday Evening Post" to vote on the musicians to make up the All-American Dance Band featured in the film; the magazine's readers chose, in the above-the-title listing: Charlie Barnet, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Jack Jenney. Gene Krupa, Alvino Rey, Joe Venuti, and singer Connee Boswell.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: world war two, dancer, detective, drummer, drunkenness, gangster, great depression ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Three petty thieves who the police believe to be major criminals are chased into a basement bar where they take five hostages including all the bar employees. The rest of the movie deals with the cops lurking outside the bar while the trio try to get hold of the situation inside.—Danny Paikov <deepee@netvision.net.il>
Plot Keywords: truck, apology, plot, bleeding, watching tv, watching news on tv, mobile phone ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1922, novice composer Kenneth Harvey arrives in New York from Kansas, hoping to publish his concerto; he meets speakeasy owner Danny O'Mara, who hopes to put on a broadway show. Ken's affairs take a turn for the better when he falls for singer Bonnie Watson. But while he labors on orchestration, O'Mara is surreptitiously adapting his tunes to the Greenwich Village Gaieties.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: camp, ballroom, behind the scenes, dancer, fortune teller, fundraiser, new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A romantic comedy set against the backdrop of America's nascent pro-football league in 1925. Dodge Connolly, a charming, brash football hero, is determined to guide his team from bar brawls to packed stadiums. But after the players lose their sponsor and the entire league faces certain collapse, Dodge convinces a college football star to join his ragtag ranks. The captain hopes his latest move will help the struggling sport finally capture the country's attention. Welcome to the team Carter Rutherford, America's favorite son. A golden-boy war hero who single-handedly forced multiple German soldiers to surrender in WWI, Carter has dashing good looks and unparalleled speed on the field. This new champ is almost too good to be true, and Lexie Littleton aims to prove that's the case. A cub journalist playing in the big leagues, Lexie is a spitfire newswoman who suspects there are holes in Carter's war story. But while she digs, the two teammates start to become serious off-field rivals ...
Plot Keywords: football, 1920s, u.s. army, battle, german army, trench, swimming pool ...
Movie Details Click Here!