The Set-Up (1949)

A telephone repairman in Los Angeles uses his knowledge of electronics to help a bookie set up a betting operation. After the bookie is murdered, the greedy technician takes over his business. He ruthlessly climbs his way to the top of the local crime syndicate, but then gangsters from a big East Coast mob show up wanting a piece of his action.

Charley Davis, against the wishes of his mother, becomes a boxer. As he becomes more successful the fighter becomes surrounded by shady characters, including an unethical promoter named Roberts, who tempt the man with a number of vices. Charley finds himself faced with increasingly difficult choices.

An unscrupulous boxer fights his way to the top, but eventually alienates all of the people who helped him on the way up.

An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.

Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.

A charming racketeer seduces the DA's stepdaughter for revenge, then falls in love.

Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?

An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.