The Big Steal

Another of the "Fate and Irony" films from director-writer-producer-actor Hugo Haas but this one has less hair-shirt torment than most of his offerings, although his camera, as usual, lingers provocatively on the contours of the leading lady and, in this case, the leading lady is more than well-contoured. Mary Adams works in a tawdry waterfront restaurant where the owner not only maltreats her, he also cheated her father out of a fortune years ago. The owner acquires $25,000 in an illegal transaction, which Mary promptly steals, hides, confesses her crime and serves a short sentence. Freed, she goes to work in a restaurant owned by Dragomie Damitrod, and when he gets into trouble over a gambling debt, she offers to help him by telling him where the $25,000 is hidden, and will loan him what he needs. But circumstances indicate he has stolen all of the money, so she clouts him on the head, killing him. She then learns he didn't steal the money, digs it up and donates it to an orphanage, and surrenders to the police, where she learns that Damitrod is not dead. All is not lost as she seems to be heading for matrimony with fisherman Johnny, who has been hanging around romancing her at her various jobs between jail stints.

A D.A. becomes the prison warden to try to help an inmate he prosecuted, because he now believes his sentence is excessive.

Social worker tries to befriend local slum gang.

In post-WW2 Shanghai, expatriate Westerners are detained in the Waldorf Hotel until the Communists can identify a suspected spy among them but some prisoners try to outwit the interrogators and the armed guards and flee.

An electronics expert creates a huge bookie broadcast system for his crime boss, and takes over operations when his boss is murdered. His greed leads him on a deadly destructive path.

A man abused by a sadistic mining company cop before he could tell where on their desert property he'd found diamonds decides to steal them instead.