Archive Watch
Poster for They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

1939 · Feature film · 92 min · dir. Busby Berkeley

I am a fugitive! I am hunted by the mob! I am wanted by the cops! I am forgotten by decent women!

  • Drama
  • Crime
  • film noir
Watch now On the Internet Archive

Synopsis

A southpaw with a distinctive boxing style, New York based Johnnie Bradfield has just won the world boxing champion title. While he, to the public, portrays himself as wholesome, doting on his mother, he, in reality, lives a hard and fast life in stark contrast to that public persona. While in a drunken stupor, Johnnie is passed out while a reporter who was going expose his true lifestyle is found dead in Johnnie's apartment. Knowing that he did not kill the reporter but that he is implicated in doing so, Johnnie, with a few hundred dollars in his pockets of his several thousand dollars amassed wealth, goes on the run in learning that the authorities also believe that he died in a fiery car crash. Not by plan or choice but rather circumstance and need, Johnnie, using the alias Jack Dorney, ends up at the Rafferty Date Farm in Arizona, it run by elderly, widowed Grandma Rafferty, whose husband, before his passing, took in a group of six reform school kids from New York City to give them a better chance at life in that reform. While there is an initial animosity between Johnnie and Grandma, the six reformers and especially Peggy, the sister of one of the reform kids who accompanied her brother to the farm in feeling she may be a grounding influence for him, they all end up having a reciprocal positive influence on the other, especially Johnnie and Peggy who start to fall for each other. There are two problems potentially to upset Johnnie's new life. First, he may turn to the…

Synopsis from OMDb

Details

Director
Busby Berkeley
Writer
Sig Herzig
Composer
Max Steiner
Cinematography
James Wong Howe
Studio
Warner Bros. Pictures
Released
1939-01-21
Running time
92 minutes
Language
English
Collection
Film Noir, Feature Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

Cast & crew

More like this