Sleepers East (1934)

Release Date: 1934-01-01
Runtime: 1h 9min
Director: Kenneth MacKenna

FIND THIS WOMAN! Hold her for the police! For her lips hold the fate of six people! Murder! Suspense! Mystery! Intrigue! Romance!

No good deed goes unpunished for Lena Karelson (Wynne Gibson), hooker with a heart of gold trying to go straight in the big city. Covering a bachelor party for a friend in need, Lena winds up at a gambling house where she is the sole witness when Mayor Wentworth's drunken lout of a son shoots the owner. Wentworth's political machine wants Lena to falsely incriminate mob boss Callahan to bolster their re-election campaign. Callahan's mouthpiece nabs Lena first, conveying her stealthily by train from Toledo to New York to prevent her from testifying against the big boss. A midnight special smash-up, a tense courtroom finale and true love triumphant round out this typical Fox pre-Code programmer, released just before the Legion of Decency dropped the hammer in 1934.