Missing Witnesses (1937)
Directed by William Clemens / William B. Clemens
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson
The racket-busting activities of New York DA Thomas E. Dewey was the inspiration for several late-1930s crime films, including Warner Bros.' Missing Witnesses. The Dewey counterpart this time out is Inspector Lane (John Litel), assigned to drive all organized crime out of his community. But Lane needs good, strong evidence -- and gangland witnesses have a nasty habit of refusing to testify in court, or disappearing altogether from the face of the earth. When Mary Norton (Jean Dale) courageously comes forth with evidence against protection racketeer Ward Turgis (Harland Tucker), detective Bull Regan (Richard Purcell) is ordered to keep Mary from ending up sleeping with the fishes. Is it any surprise that Mary and Bull fall in love halfway through the picture? Missing Witnesses was written by Kenneth Gamet and Don Ryan, two ex-reporters who were intimately familiar with the doings of Dewey and his enemies.
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Keywords
bad-guy, boss [employer], bumbler, city, conflict, criminal, detective, fear, good-guy, investigator, love, newspaper, organized-crime, prosecutor, rackets [corruption], secretary, secrets, sidekick, witness
