Angels Over Broadway 1940

Bill O’Brien, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., is a New York con man always on the lookout for his next gullible victim. In a fancy nightclub, he spots Charles Engle, John Qualen, a guilt-ridden man on the brink of suicide after embezzling a large sum of money that he has spent on his high-maintenance wife. Charles seems like an unsophisticated out-of-towner visiting the city, and Bill decides to press his luck for the cash. But the desperate Charles has a strict deadline: he must repay the money by 6 AM before the crime is discovered, or everything will fall apart.

One of the showgirls at the club, Nina Barona, is persuaded by Bill to help trick Charles into entering a poker game to win back the money. The game is arranged by a gangster named Dutch Enright. Another disillusioned man at the club, playwright Gene Gibbons, learns about Charles’s misfortune from the suicide note he discovers in his coat, and he wants to turn the hardship into a story with a happier ending. He tries to obtain a valuable brooch from his ex-girlfriend to give to Charles so he can raise the money, but the plan backfires when the brooch proves to be a cheap copy. Instead he overhears Bill describing the poker scam against Charles, and persuades Bill to alter the plan so that Charles wins early and is allowed to slip away from the game after that. A deal is struck: Bill will receive whatever Charles wins beyond the $3,000 he needs.

Yet the tension deepens when Gene passes out while waiting for the game to start, and upon waking, he does not remember the agreement he made and returns home to his wife. Bill soon discovers that Gene is missing, and Dutch learns of Charles’s intended escape and moves to stop him. Nina steps in and convinces Bill to do the right thing, helping fend off Dutch’s men when they close in on Charles and the money. In the end, Bill experiences a genuine change of heart, discovering that choosing honor over greed carries a real, positive payoff. He also falls in love with Nina, who returns his feelings, setting the stage for a different future built on trust rather than deceit.