The Vice Squad

The Vice Squad
Directed byJohn Cromwell
Screenplay byOliver H.P. Garrett
StarringPaul Lukas
Kay Francis
Judith Wood
William B. Davidson
Rockliffe Fellowes
Esther Howard
Monte Carter
CinematographyCharles Lang
Music byRudolph G. Kopp
Ralph Rainger
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • May 30, 1931 (1931-05-30)
Running time
81 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Vice Squad is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film directed by John Cromwell, written by Oliver H.P. Garrett, and starring Paul Lukas, Kay Francis, Judith Wood, William B. Davidson, Rockliffe Fellowes, Esther Howard and Monte Carter.[1][2] It was released on May 30, 1931, by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

“The vice squad trick a foreign embassy into squealing on an infamous gang of crooks.” [3]

A foreign embassy worker is caught, in an embarrassing situation with the wife of an ambassador. The wife panics and kills a policeman. In trying to avoid revealing the name of the ambassadors‘s wife to the police, the embassy attache makes a deal with a dirty cop to be used as a stool pigeon to inform on prostitutes. He ends up working on a case of a girl who he knows is innocent, but being framed by the cops, so he is faced with the difficult decision of exposing his past or letting her go to jail.

Cast

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Movie Review - The Vice Squad - THE SCREEN; Charm and Sentiment. The Stool Pigeon. In the South Seas. Smuggling and Blackmail. - NYTimes.com". nytimes.com. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  2. ^ "The Vice Squad". afi.com. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  3. ^ Canham, 1976 p. 118: Filmography section. Complete plot summary quoted verbatim above.

References

  • Canham, Kingsley. 1976. The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 5: King Vidor, John Cromwell, Mervyn LeRoy. The Tantivy Press, London. ISBN 0498016897


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