The rise and fall of a 1930's Brooklyn crime syndicate, known as Murder Incorporated, led by mobster Lepke Buchalter.
Based on the true-life book of lawman Burton Turkus, this movie chronicles the rise and fall of the organized crime syndicate known as Murder, Incorporated. Focusing on powerful boss Lepke and violent hitman Reles.—Ken Yousten <[email protected]>
It's the mid-1930's Brooklyn. Nightclub singer Joey Collins, newly married to a chorus girl named Eadie, is having problems paying off his loan shark, Abe Reles. Reles will wipe the slate clean if Joey "introduces" him to Joey's friend, Catskills based comic Walter Sage, with who Reles has unnamed business. Joey agrees despite knowing that Reles is planning on roughing up Sage. Joey learns the hard way that Reles is a hit man when Reles instead kills Sage in cold blood. Reles is part of the Brownsville Group - or what would be later dubbed by the press as Murder Incorporated - that works for a crime syndicate. Reles is under exclusive contract to crime boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter to carry out whatever murders required. Joey and Eadie, now knowing too much about Reles' business, are at a loss on what to do to protect themselves. Things for all concerned change when prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey is appointed to head a special commission against the crime syndicate, Dewey who could subpoena any suspects or witnesses to testify at Grand Jury hearings. Choosing not to testify, Lepke goes into hiding where he meets the Collinses, and increases the killings against anyone who may rat on him at the hearings. With crusading new Assistant DA for Brooklyn Burt Turkus taking a tough stance on the unsolved murders and working with longtime Brooklyn Police Sgt. William Tobin, Lepke believes he could be in for trouble unless he gets rid of those who may know too much, including many in the Brownsville Group - including Reles - and the Collinses. As their previous stance of cooperating with Reles and Lepke seems to get them in deeper and deeper, Joey and Eadie reevaluate what to do to save themselves.—Huggo
