Taxi, Mister (1943)

Taxi, Mister (1943) is set in the bustling streets of New York City in 1928, where taxi-cab owners Tim McGuerin and Eddie Corbett struggle to make ends meet with their single, rundown cab. Their dream is to expand their business, and they already have a second cab in their garage, awaiting a motor. Tim's life takes an unexpected turn when he is lured into a burlesque theater by a wealthy drunk, Reginald Van Nostrum, who has hired the cab for the day. There, Tim falls head over heels for dancer Sadie O'Brien, who also catches the eye of notorious gangster Louis Glorio. Glorio is far from pleased with Tim's interest in Sadie, but she is smitten with Tim and unaware of Glorio's claim on her. Sadie secretly arranges for two of Glorio's henchmen, Stretch and Joe, to buy a motor for Tim and Eddie's second cab. In a cost-cutting move, the henchmen steal the motor from the first cab and install it in the second. Meanwhile, Glorio orchestrates a scheme to frame Tim and Eddie by having his henchman Silk plant guns and booze in their cab while they are playing baseball. The police are called, and Tim and Eddie endure hours of intense questioning. The interrogation backfires on the police when they discover a fingerprint on the planted gun belongs to a notorious gangster known as the Frisco Ghost. Silk, despite his name, is not the sharpest tool in the gangster's shed and has planted a gun taken from Glorio's desk. As the police close in, Glorio attempts to force Tim to help him escape, a plan that might have worked if the cab still had a motor.