The Racket

A taut underworld drama, adapted for the screen from Lewis Milestone's own play by Bartlett Cormack. Politically connected bootlegger Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) and police captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan) have a long-standing beef, which intensifies after Scarsi's trucks are stopped by the police then released because of his pull with local politicos. Scarsi tries to pay off McQuigg, and when McQuigg refuses, Scarsi uses his juice to have McQuigg transferred to a precinct in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, Scarsi is having trouble on the home front. His younger brother Joe (George Stone) has the hots for a chanteuse named Helen (Marie Prevost). She and Nick have...