They Made Me a Killer is a 1946 B-movie

B-movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

 directed by William C. Thomas, and written by Daniel Mainwaring

Daniel Mainwaring

Daniel Mainwaring was a novelist and screenwriter. A native of Oakland, California, he began his professional career as a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and enjoyed a successful career as a mystery novelist...

, Winston Miller and Kae Salkow, based on story by Owen Franes. The film was made by Pine-Thomas, the B-movie unit of Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

.

Plot

Tom Durling quits his job and drives across country after his brother is killed in an accident. He gives an attractive girl a ride and he's forced at gun point to be the driver in a bank robbery. During the crime, Steve Reynolds, another innocent man is involved and killed in the escape. After a high-speed chase, the car crashes and Durling is knocked unconscious while the bandits get away. The police arrest Durling but refuse to believe that he wasn't one of the robbers.

Durling escapes the police then later teams with Reynolds' sister in an attempt to prove his innocence. The trail leads to a small roadside diner where the two end up finding the gang hiding out in the building's basement. They go undercover

Undercover

Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...

, her as a waitress and Durling joins the gang. In the end, they trick the criminals into confessing their crimes. Durling's reputation is saved, and the criminals, led by a Ma Barker

Ma Barker

Kate "Ma" Barker was the mother of several criminals who ran the Barker gang from the "public enemy era", when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the U.S. Midwest gripped the American people and press...

-type mom, get shot up.

Cast

• Robert Lowery
  Robert Lowery (actor)
  Robert Lowery was an American motion picture, television, and stage actor who appeared in over seventy films.-Early life:...
  
   as Tom Durling
• Barbara Britton
  Barbara Britton
  Barbara Britton was an American film and television actress.She was the first actress to play Laura Petrie on television on the pilot program, Head of the Family, which was retooled and became The Dick Van Dyke Show with the role taken over by Mary Tyler Moore. The California native signed a film...
  
   as June Reynolds
• Lola Lane
  Lane Sisters
  The Lane Sisters refers to a group of sisters, three of whom achieved success in the 1920s and 1930s as a singing act, with their popularity onstage leading to a series of successful films. A fourth sister was not successful and left this milieu and a fifth avoided show business altogether...
  
   as Betty Ford
• Frank Albertson
  Frank Albertson
  Frank Albertson was an American character actor who made his debut in a minor part in Hollywood at age 13....
  
   as Al Wilson, Glen Grove patrolman
• Elisabeth Risdon
  Elisabeth Risdon
  Elisabeth Risdon was an English film actress. She appeared in over 140 films between 1913 and 1952. An attractive beauty in her youth she usually played in society parts...
  
   as Ma Conley
• Byron Barr
  Byron Barr
  Byron Barr sometimes billed as Byron S. Barr, was an American actor born in Corning, Iowa.Barr was in 17 films in his career. He is perhaps best known for his role as Nino Zachetti in Double Indemnity, his first appearance...
  
   as Steve Reynolds
• Paul Harvey
  Paul Harvey (actor)
  Paul Harvey was an American actor who appeared in at least 177 films.-Selected filmography:*They Shall Have Music *Behind the News *Moonlight Masquerade *Spellbound...
  
  as District Attorney Booth