Películas de Wilfred Lucas

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the...

A magic lamp lets a young couple become kids again and exposes a mean old man who runs his orphanage like a prison.

When retired racket boss John Sarto tries to reclaim his place and former friends try to kill him, he finds solace in a monastery and reinvents...

The boys get jobs as a butler and maid-- Stan in drag-- for a dinner party. When that ends in disaster, they resort to sweeping streets and...

A criminologist investigates the murder of a Broadway producer on an ocean liner.

Wonderful idea to give a party with people who dislike each other. Late at night, everyone decides to go into the pool, except Stamm, who is drunk....

A young woman is on trial for murder. In flashback, we learn of her struggles to overcome poverty as a teenager -- a mistaken arrest and prison term...

The Progressive Party convention is deadlocked for governor, so both sides nominate the dark horse Zachary Hicks. Kay Russell suggests they hire Hal...

Chandu consults his crystal ball and sees that Nadji, Princess of Egypt, is in danger. She is about to be sacrificed by the black magic cult of...

Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed...

Basically a travelogue featuring footage of Angkor Wat (in Cambodia) shot by a couple of explorers in the WWI years, with additional footage shot on...

A train-station telegraphist warns the next station of approaching bandits.

To increase profits for his shipping company, Lynch has goaded the Indians to attack both the telegraph line and the new railroad. When Lynch sells...

A gambling ring run out of the Mogul Taxi company is intent on fixing college football games. Football star Harold "Red" Grange is a target for the...

Defense Atorney Gerald Waring uses great skill and ingenuity in his efforts to save the life of a young man charged with the murder of his father....

A Confederate officer is called off to war. He leaves his wife and daughter in the care of George, his faithful Negro servant. After the officer is...

An Indiana boy comes into an inheritance and moves to New York City, living it up with his girlfriend until he gets in over his head and someone gets...

Winfield College students rebel against a stodgy professor who won't permit "swing" music be played in their varsity show. They appeal to a big...

On the mystic island of Lemuria, the cult of Ubasti seek the Egyptian Princess Nadji to sacrifice so that their goddess Ossana, whose soul resides in...

Enoch Arden, a humble fisherman, marries Annie Lee. He signs on as a sailor to make more money to support their growing family. A storm wrecks his...

Annie remains faithful to her husband, Enoch, even though he's been lost at sea for many years. Finally her grown children convince her to marry...

Mike breaks into an apartment to steal an old man's money, not realizing it's his girlfriend's father. When he discovers whose apartment it is, he...

The story of the massacre of an Indian village, and the ensuing retaliation.

Wealthy young socialite Diane Wyman squanders her fortune and becomes involved in a scandalous raid at a wild party. Her legal guardian, a lecherous...

A Husband thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. His wife shows him its not.

Aspiring Producer Michael McCreigh convinces Uncle Carlton to finance a play on the condition that he lives the play's ridiculous plot. If Michael...

Continuing where His Trust (1911) leaves off, George takes care of his deceased master's daughter after her mother's death. He sacrifices his own...

A woman doctor decides to have a baby without benefit of marriage.

A young writer saves a desperate young woman from committing suicide. They eventually fall in love and marry, but their marriage faces some serious...

Barry Brandon, a criminal lawyer, visits the night club of Denny Larkin, his primary client, with Betty Walker, a spoiled society girl. The police...

To the dismay of Allison Edwards, her bookworm, adoring neighbor, Mary Randolph, falls in love with and marries Jack Van Norman, a rich and handsome...

Carlos Lopez is a handsome Argentine sportsman. Many women love him and he toys with them all. His days are filled with romance and intrigue and he...

A comedy-drama about marriage and divorce. A wife does not want children, her husband leaves her and marries a woman who does.

A Butler gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.

Two hunters discover a dead young woman in a cabin in the woods.One of them being the sheriff, he proceeds to press the wealthy owner for an...

Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.

A cowboy called The Thunderbolt Kid comes to the aid of a town that is being threatened by outlaws who don't want a railroad to go through the town.

A poor girl is secretly in love with a wealthy young planter.

Thelma and Zasu go to a Turkish bath to try to get rid of a cold.

An old man tells his grandchildren about prehistoric man: Caveman Weakhands is unable to court a woman because of his physical weakness. Humiliated...

Based on Shakespeare's play. Petruchio courts the bad-tempered Katharina, and tries to change her aggressive behavior.

A murder is committed aboard a cruise ship just before it sinks in a storm. The survivors, including the killer, land on a mysterious jungle island.

Newly rich Mark Hadley drifts from his old-fashioned wife into a secret liason with Lila Millas, a pretty French girl. At the same time, he advises...

A Texas Ranger searches for his kidnapped sister.

Innocent Sally Brown thinks men are only attracted to experienced women, so she poses as the wife of an unmarried businessman on a trip to Paris.

The girls are stewardesses on an experimental flight.

John Thompson is kidnapped by mobsters after quitting his job. Then he is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for murders they committed. A...

On the day of his funeral, a dedicated smalltown doctor is remembered by his neighbors and patients.

Story of three buddies at the Virginia Military Institute. Cadet Bing Edwards is secretly married and soon to be a father.

A young singer, Marge Dexter, becomes involved in trouble when she works in a nightclub in which two of the band-members are in reality...

A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.

In 1921, British Lord Athleigh arrives in Dublin with his daughter, Helen, to engage in peace talks. As wanted Irish rebel leader Dennis Riordan is...

Mary, a woman with good intentions, takes pity on Henry, an artist with no home. What begins as a simple offer to come inside from the cold for tea...

A young woman who is engaged to a millionaire she doesn't love meets and falls in love with a rough sailor.

Two men bear the name Joe Holt. One is a shipping clerk, the other a champion Canadian swimmer. When a socialite gets them confused, thinking the...

In mid-nineteenth century England the medical establishment does not recognize the value of skilled nurses, cleanliness, nutrition and kindness....

Saving a dog from the pound gets a man mixed up in murder.

In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.

A famous aviator helps an amateur enter a cross-country air race for women.

Three Navy Cadets become friends, support each other and struggle to survive the rigorous training.

A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the...

Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed to the United States Senate by the puppet governor of his state. He...

Charley is about to get engaged to Thelma when his boss foists some clients upon him to entertain.

To spite his girlfriend, the owner of a successful bus company, an auto racer goes to work for her rival.

In this sequel to Four Daughters, Ann struggles to move on after the death of her husband as she falls in love with Felix, but on the day of her...

Man about town and First Class cricketer A.J. Raffles keeps himself solvent with daring robberies. Meeting Gwen from his schooldays and falling in...

Detective Nick Carter is brought in to foil spies at the Radex Airplane Factory, where a new fighter plane is under manufacture.

A retired lawman gets back into action to fight political corruption.

A pigeon breeder is hired to train a racehorse that wins only when it drinks beer.

In this Crime Does Not Pay series short, a young woman wants to save her baby, but is afraid of telling her parents and has no money to pay the...

Pre-code melodrama about high society marriage and fidelity.

A young man with a checkered past struggles to make good as a fireman.

All 12 jury members who sent an innocent man to the gallows are gathered together for a demonstration of how convictions can be made on...

The star of "Song of the Toreador" receives threatening messages that he will not survive the preview screening of the film. The studio publicist...

A doctor has a rough time obtaining the money for his services in a lumber town until he delivers quintuplets.

Government agent Red Barton is sent to a small western town to find both the source of a recent series of gold robberies and the method they use to...

A murder mystery about the smuggling of illegal Chinese aliens into America through Chinatown.

Winfield College students rebel against a stodgy professor who won't permit "swing" music be played in their varsity show. They appeal to a big...

Ace owns just about everything around except for the Bank, which is owned by John Ware. Ace also has his eye on Judy, but Judy only has eyes for...

A policeman doubles as a gunman to get in with the mob.

A short film directed by Wilfred Lucas for the Biograph Company.

G-Man Ted Riley is ordered to investigate happenings at Diamond Island, where a bogus Major Gray is reported engaged in manufacturing a new brand of...

A young couple and their child fall prey to kidnappers when a storm drives them into a seemingly abandoned farmhouse.

Mack Sennett appears as a Native American in this film produced by the Biograph Company.

Residents of a small frontier town take up arms when vigilantes try to block a railroad right-of-way.

Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove...

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New...

Brawling cable layer Steve Reardon doesn't want to marry girlfriend Edith but he also doesn't want her to date other men.

Mary Rollins is torn between selfish depravity and righteous living. After she's coerced into helping with the burglary of her minister's apartment,...

William Bakewell stars as an inventor who develops a high-powered boat engine. Bakewell, of course, created this wonder machine to benefit...

Bob Norton, seeking his brother's killer, tangles with outlaws, wild horses, and a "wild" boy.

An investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.

Brad Henderson arrives in Star City just in time to witness three men rob a bank of $30,000 and kill a teller. Charged for the crime and jailed, Brad...

As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, George Armstrong Custer and four friends are...

Union officer Kerry Bradford escapes from a Confederate prison and races to intercept $5 million in gold destined for Confederate coffers. A...

A convict hiding in Chinatown assumes the identity of a cripple to track down a businessman who framed him 15 years previously. He discovers that his...

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

While their mother is away from home, Billy and his sister are set upon by marauding Indians, who trap them in their cabin. Billy rigs a keg of...

Clay Tallant comes to Silver City, Arizona in the 1880s and encounters wide-spread lawlessness and disorder, unscrupulous politicians, outlaws galore...

The Pony Express is finished as the Post Office plans to award the mail contract to a stage line. Bill and his father put in a bid for the mail,...

A wild cowboy changes course and becomes a sheriff after his father is murdered.

A Hollywood heartthrob helps a small-town girl achieve stardom.

William promises to marry his sweetheart, Mary, after completing medical school. William's father has saved enough money to set up William's medical...

A farmer takes in a young orphan after her mother's death and sends her off to school. After she's grown, he encourages her to consider his younger...

The Arizona Kid (Warner Baxter) carries out his mission as a Robin Hood-type bandit while posing as a wealthy and carefree miner. He falls for an...

On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young...

Mack Sennett appears as a man at the dance and a cop in this film produced by the Biograph Company.

German Julius Reuter sends 19th-century news by carrier pigeon and then by wire, founding a news agency.

Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle...

Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the...

Directed by Wallace Worsley.

A feud existed between two Italian houses and it meant disaster to any one of the belligerents to intrude into the opposing house. The Lord of the...

Cub reporter Dusty investigates the murder of the District Attorney and stumbles into a plot involving a kidnapping and a crooked election.

When a singing, song-writing prizefighter is framed for murder and sent to the state pen, his girlfriend sets out to prove his innocence.

A timid accountant for a California cattle ranch and a lookalike dashing bandit become rivals for the beautiful daughter of a wealthy rancher.

The evil Dr. Wong abducts prominent scientist Dr. Edwin Millstone. Bumbling bank guards Tom and Monte search through Chinatown to find Dr. Wong and...

A Greek man falls for an injured French woman. When he is informed of her death, he continues to sing under her hospital window every night.

A 1917 film directed by Tod Browning & Wilfred Lucas.

Lillian Vale is the naïve and unworldly daughter of minister Josiah Vale. Swept off her feet by handsome Robert Powers, Lillian marries him,...

A young Belgian girl, raised by her longtime nanny, flees Europe at the advent of World War I and travels to America to find her real mother.

In the year 1550, Sir George Vernon agrees to have his young daughter Dorothy betrothed to John Manners, the son of the Earl of Rutland. Sir George...

Stymie takes Dickie for a ride in his runaway car and cures his stiff neck.

Handsome action star Reed Howes, the former "Arrow Collar Man," starred in this low-budget silent melodrama as an adventuresome Yankee who saves the...

Teenage orphan Jenny Yates becomes starstruck when a revival of an old Victorian melodrama passes through her small New England town, to the...

A young woman becomes infatuated with the leading man of a traveling theatrical troupe. She sneaks away to join him in the next town, but her father...

A woman with a sordid past is redeemed by love in this silent melodrama from low-budget Sanford Productions.

A silent drama film directed by Paul Powell

Sassy and ambitious waitress Mary Evans amuses and befriends amiable seldom-sober Hollywood film director Max Carey when he stumbles into her...

Moving Picture World described the film: "There is a small need to describe this subject as the poem of Lord Tennyson is so well known, so suffice it...

A love story set among Native Americans.

When the suitor of the daughter of an apparently wealthy widow finds out that the oil stocks, in which her late husband's fortune is invested, are...

A stern father rules his family by what he thinks to be the Bible's precepts, but it is simply the influence of his own narrow mind. Hence when his...

The representative of an American Syndicate comes to Mexico to look over some land. While there, he pays considerable attention to the little Mexican...

John Harland is a former boxer turned reverend posted to the town of Kangaroo. He falls in love with Muriel, an orphaned heiress, and discovers that...

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1938.

Bonnie Brewster and "Packy" Campbell, rival reporters on competing newspapers, team up to put an end to a smuggling gang that brings illegal aliens...

A detective must solve a case where a girl was murdered in a room--and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside.

A crippled girl marries a fisherman, who also has eyes for the town flirt.

A brash night club singer becomes a cop to impress a woman.

Geoffrey is desperately in love with Mavis, who lives at his boardinghouse and is also pursuing a writing career. Unable to marry her because of his...

A crusader tries to keep a dope dealer from corrupting children.

Burnt Fingers (1927)

The dream of Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company, is to have a son to continue his business. Tragically, Dombey's wife dies...

The queen of a mythical European nation flees to America when a general threatens to overthrow her government.

An eclectic group of people are stalked by a masked killer in an old mansion.

A Traveler's Aid worker who delights in solving people's problems gets mixed up with gangsters.

Olive Borden plays a modern jazz maiden who is forced to be good for six months or lose out on her grandfather's inheritance.

It's Prohibition, and the boys wind up behind bars after Stan sells some of their home-brew beer to a policeman.

Excitement runs high when a family's farm is chosen as the site for a big cornhusking contest.

The Jones family patriarch, also mayor, is swindled into thinking the town swamp is a rich mineral deposit.

The Jones family is in an uproar when Dad's campaign for mayor appears sabotaged by an anonymous newspaper article.

A young woman takes over her sick father's role as telegraph operator at a railway station, and has to deal with a team intent on train robbery.

Jose, a handsome young Mexican, leaves his home in the Sierra Madre Mountains to seek his fortune in the States. On leaving, his dear old mother...

This historical featurette focuses on Caesar Rodney of Delaware who in the summer of 1776 cast the deciding vote, at the meeting of the Continental...

This short film tells the story of a disgraced U.S. army officer who is charged with treason. At his court martial he is sentenced to lifetime exile...

Two sisters, Nellie and Florence, support themselves and their mother by sewing. A man accompanying a wealthy client tempts first Nellie and then...

When John Wilson comes home drunk, his marriage collapses, and he agrees to live separately from his wife in their apartment. His evenings now free,...

Andrew Maxwell is so intent on creating a universal language that he completely neglects his wife, Laurette, and daughter, Ruth. Laurette decides she...

A pretty mountain girl has to decide between three suitors, an upright young man from the mountains, a shiftless fiddler, and a visitor from the city.

A man loses his business and his fiancée, and drifts into the saloons. There he meets a similarly-downtrodden young woman. She works behind...

Thieves follow a doctor as he takes home a large sum of money. Later, when they break into his house, the doctor's wife and daughter are trapped. One...

A wealthy young Australian, the last of the "Fighting O'Farrells," decides to secretly work at his own farm in order to prove himself.

Crickle is a tenacious small-town grocer who stubbornly resists the efforts of a monopolistic chain-store firm to purchase his establishment. The...

After a tumultuous first marriage, Millie Blake learns to love her newfound independence and drags her feet on the possibility of remarriage. The...

In the underworld of Manhattan, a woman dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters.

When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates...

A city visitor falls for a mountain girl and collides with her family of rustic moonshiners.

The hypnotist Svengali makes an artist's model sing, but cannot force her love.

Patrick Henry's rousing speech before the Virginia legislature argues for colonial independence.

An excellent silent comedy starring unjustly forgotten star Douglas MacLean. Its indictment of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs is far sharper than Side...

A French princess flees an arranged marriage and sails for New Orleans, where she is rescued from pirates by a dashing mercenary.

Joe Tomasso is an Italian-American bookmaker and gambler who, outwardly, is hard but soft-hearted inwardly. He becomes fond of a homeless waif,...

A burlesque impresario is hired to help the failing fortunes of an old opera company.

When a wealthy hypochondriac is dissatisfied by the care of the town doctor (Doc Arnold), he consults with a new physician in town who swindles him...

A high-spirited, short-tempered, young woman hates her father and loves to rebel against him. She marries a man whom her father hates but her...

Hard-working insurance company bookkeeper John Carter, comes home Easter eve to his suburban cottage with a potted lily for his loving wife and two...

After her father's death, little Briar Rose is taken in by the men at a lumber camp. The girl shows a definite preference for one of the lumberjacks,...

Two miners are fighting over a woman, and one is about to murder the other in his sleep. At the critical moment, the woman introduces her...

During the American Revolution, a young soldier carrying a crucial message to General Washington is spotted and pursued by a group of enemy soldiers....

Two wannabe bandits join the service of a dashing nobleman, who secretly masquerades as Fra Diavolo, a notorious outlaw.

The girl decided after what happened at the garden party that she did not want his love any longer, but could not live without it. She decided to...

Over the Kingdom of Romanda there reigned a King who was greatly influenced by his favorite, whom he devotedly loved. He presents her with a necklace...

The evils of drink cause a man to separate from his family. In time he becomes sober and prosperous. Then he meets and falls in love with a young...

Musician Adam Lemp and his four equally musical daughters, Emma, Ann, Kay, and Thea, live happily together. Each daughter has an upstanding young man...

A circus on the verge of bankruptcy decides to save itself by staging a animal act with lions and tigers for the first time.

An elderly carpenter is told by a doctor that his wife is seriously ill. Soon afterwards, an insensitive shop foreman lays him off from his job...

The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.

Gilead is a lumber town that is dominated by two branches of the Kidder family: the puritanical, ultra-conservative side led by Enoch and his son...

The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.

A cub reporter rashly makes a promise to solve a murder mystery within 24 hours, then must make good on his boast.

Craig Larrigan's father and his partner own a large cattle ranch that is losing stock to rustlers. Craig, an easterner, heads west but in the...

Thieves decide to steal the money an old miser has hidden away. He refuses to open the safe for them, so they threaten to kill a little girl who...

A man known to be a mute is suspected of committing a murder, as he was noticed at the scene. However, witnesses saw and heard him talking as he was...

The police use a gangster's son to get to him.

A young man looks for a thoroughbred horse that was got lost during a train wreck.

Irene, a young girl from a small town, arrives in New York City determined to make it on the Broadway stage. She meets up with Cookie, a worldly...

Judge Robert Appleton (Winter Hall) has led an exemplary life. His four children, however, fell short once they grew up and had to fend for...

When a smart-alec street kid's father, a policeman, is killed in the line of duty, the boy turns over a new leaf and goes to work to support his...

Wealthy orphan Carol Gordon marries the executor of her estate, though she does not love him. Soon afterward, trying to help a friend who is being...

Edith enters a convent after losing her fiancé to someone else. Years later, Edith finds him again, now poverty-stricken, and secretly helps...

A Mexican is thrown out of a bar by a young prospector and swears to get even. Later, he kidnaps the prospector's wife. In the meantime, a group of...

The Goddess, the prettiest and best-natured girl that ever graced that little mining town, meets the tenderfoot prospector and leaves him another...

A disgraced son of a mine owner discovers a plot among the workers to defraud his father.

Jack Wade is the son of a wealthy father who runs a successful ship-building company. He uses his athletic prowess to defeat the villainous...

Two dimwitted detectives investigate the robbery of an express company.

When old rancher Mark Ridgeway passes away, his property goes to relatives in the East instead of to trusted foreman Tom Taylor as promised. The...

Civil engineer Robert Clay is commissioned by wealthy New Yorker Mr. Langham to open iron deposits in the tiny South American republic of Olancho....

Patrick Angus O'Toole is a military officer assigned to investigate a gang of gunrunners operating near Fort Sumner in the Dakota Bad Lands. At the...

A film producer is found murdered on a ship, and among the suspects are a young woman whose mother was mistreated by him and his recently fired...

A thin gent in formal wear, amid a club or party, reads a book about primitive man after he's ignored by a pretty lady. We see the book enacted:...

A beautiful chorine marries a handsome rich socialite, but her idyllic life ends when she visits a dying old beau and is charged when he commits...

Poor stenographer Gloria Graham believes that clothes make a woman successful in business and as a result she incurs great debts.

After a roustabout sailor avoids being shanghaied in 1850s San Francisco, his audacity helps him rise to a position of power in the vice industry of...

Jack Grant agrees to drive in the big race in order to save his brother Carl from being charged with embezzlement.

Shipwrecked fugitives try to escape a brutal sea captain who's losing his mind.

Mr. Bach, a wealthy man, visits the scenes of his boyhood days in his auto and meets farmer Brown, his boyhood friend. Brown is the father of a very...

Posing as relatives, Ralph and Helen Gordon visit Col. Moncrief Gordon's Kentucky mansion, hoping to marry Helen to the colonel's son, Donald. The...

A criminal designs a plan to get revenge on the district attorney who convicted his brother.

Also known as The Man Without a Country

In a provincial Spanish town, during the mid-nineteenth century, Manuela is sold as a dancing girl to a strolling musician. In their wanderings, she...

A DA's son gets involved in a drug-related murder, and it's up to his father and sister to get him out.

A young man in South Carolina inherits property in a valley he has never visited before. On arriving he is mistaken by the locals for a revenue...

Joe, "The Bad Man of San Fernand," is one tough customer. He sets his sights on a lovely young lady who spurns his advances and elopes with a...

Baffles, Gentleman Burglar

Mary Barrett is an aspiring opera singer who is taken under the wings of a famous operatic maestro, Guilio Monterverdi. After spending endless...

After a woman experiences what happens to her when she joins the "Do a Good Deed a Day" Club, she feels like murdering the president of the...

Romaticized biopic about the life of composer Franz Schubert.

Tourist film.

A budding entrepreneur nearly loses everything after his get-rich quick scheme selling "flunk" insurance to his fellow students goes terribly awry.

Retired hockey player Johnny Hansen, in order to make money to enlarge his chicken farm, returns to the game and leads his team into the championship...

Tom Wayne rescues Clancy, Renard and Schmidt in the Arabian desert and they join him in going after El Shaitan, a bad guy who is never seen as he...

Wrongfully convicted of a robbery and murder, Paul Lavond breaks out of prison with a genius scientist who has devised a way to shrink humans. When...

At the end of the Civil War, engineer Jim Bludso, accompanied by his friend, Banty Tim, returns home to the town of Gilgal, and discovers that his...

A detective and his bumbling sidekick join the crackdown on racketeering in '30s New York City.