The Swindlers

Nuns on the Run

March 1990 •English

Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to "leave" he sets them up to be killed, after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decides to steal the money for themselves, but when their escape doesn't go to plan, they have to seek refuge in a Nuns' teacher training school.

Nothing to Lose

July 1997 •English

Advertising executive Nick Beame learns that his wife is sleeping with his employer. In a state of despair, he encounters a bumbling thief whose attempted carjacking goes awry when Nick takes him on an involuntary joyride. Soon the betrayed businessman and the incompetent crook strike up a partnership and develop a robbery-revenge scheme. But it turns out that some other criminals in the area don't appreciate the competition.

We Go Fast

September 1941 •English

A waitress falls for a foreign businessman (Mohr), while receiving attention from a pair of motorcycle cops, Curtis and Defore. She soon realizes that Mohr is actually a crook and goes back to flirting with her fast cop friends.

The Ice Harvest

November 2005 •English

A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.

The Olsen Gang in Jutland

October 1971 •Danish

The Olsen gang in Jutland. Ones again Egon Olsen has a plan when he gets out of Vridslose State Prison. He has found out that the Germans left a large sum of money (in American dollars and gold bars) in one of their commando bunkers, when they were defeated in 1945; the only problem it's in Jutland. Egon, Benny and Kjeld "appropriate" a car and drives to Jutland along with Kjelds wife and child Yvonne and Borge. They look forward to fooling the the people in Jutland, but of course, things don't go quite as planed. It ends with Benny, Kjeld, Borge and Yvonne sitting in the train back to Copenhagen, were they are overtaken by Egon in his car on the road next to the track. This is the last time the Olsen gang goes to Jutland.

The Olsen Gang on the Track

September 1975 •Danish

Egon and his two cronies managed to sneak a fortune with them to Spain. Here they live a life in a whirl of pleasures, but they are not truly happy. While Egon always has the money chained to him, Bøffen still manages to steal them. Egon ends up in jail once again, and when he comes out, he has a brilliant plan.

Arsène Lupin

October 2004 •French

As the daring thief Arsène Lupin ransacks the homes of wealthy Parisians, the police, with a secret weapon in their arsenal, attempt to ferret him out.

Barefoot Boy

August 1938 •English

A spoiled boy sent to the country to grow-up. He has to deal with life, friends and crooks.

A Thief Catcher

February 1914 •English

Two criminals chase a plainclothes policeman who, while taking out his dog, witnesses their crime.

The Stoolie

November 1972 •English

Roger Pitman is a petty thief who makes a deal with the police to use bait money to trap other criminals. But when he gets the cash, Roger can't resist the temptation and steals part of it. He runs off to Miami Beach, but now lives in fear of the crooks that he set up as well as the police.

Shady Lady

September 1945 •English

A crook becomes the victim of a crafty card player who works for the District Attorney.

They Never Come Back

May 1932 •English

Prizefighter Jimmy Nolan, facing an opportunity to get a championship fight, is knocked out when he sustains what is apparently a permanent injury to his arm. From there, Nolan's path leads downhill. He is drawn into a romance with a nightclub entertainer, then is framed on a theft charge by a jealous suitor. After his prison term, Nolan makes a spectacular comeback in a fight which proves his courage and integrity, while disproving the fallacy about the old sports adage that "they never come back."

Kind Lady

December 1935 •English

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 gradually turns into more. Before the unsuspecting woman knows it, Henry, his family, and his friends con their way into her home. Eventually, Mary creates a ruse to rid herself of the parasites, but they have a different plan.

Only Saps Work

December 1930 •English

Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., the film casts Errol as James Wilson, a kleptomaniac who starts with picking pockets and ends up robbing a bank. Wilson's friend Lawrence Payne (Richard Arlen) inadvertently aids our hero during one of his heists, ending up in deep doo-doo with the law. Before Wilson is able to extricate Payne from his dilemma for the sake of heroine Barbara Tanner (Mary Brian), he pauses long enough to pose as a private eye -- and even gives bellboy Oscar (Stu Erwin) tips on how to spot a crook! If only all of Leon Errol's feature films had been as consistently hilarious as Only Saps Work.

No Place for a Lady

February 1943 •English

A private detective and a blonde acquaintance whom he has rescued from a misdirected murder charge, discover a body in his beachside cottage; only it has disappeared by the time the police arrive, leaving him to be charged with hoaxing the police. With his license in jeopardy, his would-be fiancee and an inquiring reporter set out to investigate.

Hard Rain

January 1998 •English

An armored car driver tries to elude a gang of thieves while a flood ravages the countryside.

Amateur Crook

December 1937 •English

Jerry Cummings, a mining engineer, has pledged a large diamond on a short-term note to a pair of crooked loan sharks, Crone and Jan Jaffin, and heads for Mexico. His daughter Betsy, posing as a jewel thief called Mary Layton, is working to keep the crooks from absconding with the jewel, and her efforts are hindered greatly by an artist, Jimmy Baxter, who thinks she is a crook and Crone and Jaffin the good guys.

Should Men Walk Home?

January 1927 •English

Mabel plays an out-and-out crook, a "Girl Bandit," no less. And she quickly hooks up with a male partner in crime, in this case a Gentleman Crook played by perpetually grinning Creighton Hale. Mabel seems a little livelier in this film than in some of her other late works. In the very first scene we find her hitch-hiking, and she's forced to make a mad dash for cover when Hale's car nearly hits her. Soon they team up and crash a swanky party in a mansion to steal a jewel from the host's safe.

Eastern Cross

July 1991 •German

OSTKREUZ tells the episodic story of 15-year-old Elfie, who literally and metaphorically inhabits a no-man’s-land between the two Germanies shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film deploys a neorealist aesthetic to reinforce the difficulties confronting the girl, and by inference, Germany.

Der Etappenhase

March 1937 •English