The story of the infamous Purple Gang, a ring of bootleggers, hijackers and killers in 1920s' Detroit.
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Barry Sullivan | ... | Police Lt. William P. Harley | |
| Robert Blake | ... | William Joseph 'Honeyboy' Willard | |
| Elaine Edwards | ... | Gladys Harley | |
| Marc Cavell | ... | Henry Abel 'Hank' Smith | |
| Jody Lawrance | ... | Joan MacNamara | |
| Suzanne Ridgway | ... | Daisy (as Suzy Marquette) | |
| Joe Turkel | ... | Eddie Olsen (as Joseph Turkel) | |
 |
Victor Creatore | ... | Al Olsen |
|
|
Paul Dubov | ... | Thomas Allen 'Killer' Burke |
| Ray Boyle | ... | Tom Olsen (as Dirk London) | |
| Kathleen Lockhart | ... | Nun | |
| Nestor Paiva | ... | Laurence Orlofsky | |
|
|
Lou Krugman | ... | Dr. Riordan |
| Robert Anderson | ... | Police Commissioner | |
| Mauritz Hugo | ... | Licovetti | |
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Plot Summary
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Storyline
A teen-age rat pack of the Detroit slums, the Purple Gang, headed by psychotic William Joseph "Honeyboy" Willard, teams with adult hijackers during prohibition and in three years controls the city's underworld. Detective Bill Harley is given a special assignment to break the gang. To intimidate Harley, Honeyboy and his chief henchman, Hank Smith, terrorize his pregnant wife, Gladys, who loses her baby and dies. The gang moves in on the cleaning and dyeing industry, which calls in the Mafia for protection. Hank tries to tip off Harley as to where the Mafia hoods are holed up but Honeyboy, mistaking his intentions, has Killer Burke seal him alive in a coffin and drop him in the Detroit river. Honeyboy locates the Mafia headquarters in an apartment building and goes there with two of his men. They break in and machine-gun the three Mafia leaders, Licovetti, Ricco and Castiglione. Written by Les Adams <[email protected]>
Plot Keywords:
murder of a police officer | murder of a pregnant woman | pregnancy | street gang | mean streets |Taglines:
When machine gun mania rocked the nation! See more »Certificate:
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Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
5 January 1960 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Die Ratten von Detroit See more »Company Credits
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IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
Mono (RCA Sound Recording)Color:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1
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Did You Know?
Trivia
The real Purple Gang was made up of mostly Jewish members. The script of this film gave the members non-Jewish names. See more »Frequently Asked Questions
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Enjoy a night in with these popular movies available to stream now with Prime Video.
The Purple Gang was a mob of bootleggers and hijackers with predominantly Jewish members operating in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s. They came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang, but ultimately excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to self-destruct in the 1930s. This Allied Artists production, leveraged by a goodly amount of footage lifted from earlier films, plays fast and loose with what was an interesting history in a production weighted by two excellent leads, Sullivan and Blake, and which contains two or three memorably violent scenes while Blake's screaming claustrophobia offers other choice moments. Ultimately not one of the genre stand outs (for that one needs to seek out such titles as AL CAPONE or the RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND etc) it is never the less a entertaining enough time waster even if it ends up feeling rather perfunctory. Sullivan's best gangster film, imho, is the appropriately named THE GANGSTER.