THE PURPLE GANG (1959)

This hard-hitting crime drama made me gasp a couple times.  It starts out with a government type at a desk giving us a history lesson.  The Purple Gang was a real syndicate made up of teenagers in Detroit during prohibition.  In this dramatization, they are led by Robert Blake (he still looked very young despite actually being 25).  They easily get protection money from everyone and kill a welfare worker who is trying to help them!!  They want a police lieutenant (Barry Sullivan) out of the way, but when he won't resign, they scare his pregnant wife (while wearing stockings over their heads) into jumping through a window!  Eventually the mafia moves into the territory and Blake gets more psychotic as it goes on.  Great line of narration:  "Marijuana...in a tulip."