John Ireland

Synopsis:
Just before Christmas, Joe Miracle, a returning WWII war hero, comes home to learn that gangster Barney Teener has taken over his nightclub and murdered Joe’s partner. Joe loots the club’s safe for $100,000 and then finds sanctuary in a settlement house ran by Jenny Jones. Mistaking him for a down-and-out musician, she helps him understand the importance of her work. “Early” Byrd, a newspaper columnist, learns Joe’s true identity and writes a column that puts Barney on his trail. The gangsters recover the money, after setting fire to the settlement house, but Joe steals it again, and returns to the gutted welfare house disguised as Santa Claus, and gives the money to Jenny to rebuild. There, Tenner and his gang catch up to Joe.Read More »

A college basketball star collaborrates with organized crime and becomes involved in ‘point shaving.’ A sportswriter tries to get him back on the right track.
(from IMDB)Read More »

All the King’s Men is a 1949 drama film based on the Robert Penn Warren novel of the same name. It was directed by Robert Rossen and starred Broderick Crawford in the role of Willie Stark.

Jack Burden is a newspaper reporter who first hears of Willie Stark when his editor sends him to Kanoma County to cover the man. What’s special about this nobody running for county treasurer? He’s supposedly an honest man. Burden discovers this to be true when he sees Stark delivering a speech and having his son pass out handbills, while the local politicians do their best to intimidate him. Willie Stark is honest and brave. He’s also a know-nothing hick whose schoolteacher wife has given him what little education he has. Stark loses the race for treasurer, but later makes his way through law school, becoming an idealistic attorney who fights for what is good. Someone in the governor’s employ remembers Stark when the governor needs a patsy to run against him and split the vote of his rival. The fat cats underestimate Stark; but Jack Burden, Stark’s biggest supporter, overestimates the man’s idealism. To get where he wants to go, Willie Stark is willing to crack a few eggs – which include his tough-talking assistant, Sadie Burke; Jack’s poised and elegant fiancée, Anne Stanton; and even Jack Burden himself.
– Written by J. Spurlin @ IMDBRead More »