With the help of their teen children, Two womenovercome the female stereotypes of the time. They outwit and survive the bad guys who take over their house so they can use it for their nefarious activities which backfires on the bad guys big time.

SYNOPSIS:

"Wise Guys Don't Dance" is my crime-drama set in Oystertown on the Washington coast. It's the great depression of 1932. Our movie begins with GRACE MERRILL at her husband's funeral. Grace is the daughter of an Eastern auto manufacturer. She is refined and breathtakingly beautiful. Her rebellious daughter, ELAINE 13 and her adventurous son, MICHAEL 11 grieve over the loss of their father. Elaine's dog, ROSIE, has a sixth sense when the children are in trouble. TOM MCGUIRE, 30ish, is a bootlegger and the self-assured scion of the town banker; whose bank is closed by the Feds. Sheriff, CURTIS HENSEN 50ish, a huge African-American man, Tom's partner in crime is the Sheriff gone bad. Tom and Curtis plan to take over Grace and her family, so they can use her waterfront house for their nefarious purposes. They want the money that they believe Grace's dead husband hid in the house. Curtis begins a relationship with the suspicious VIOLET LITTLETREE, Grace's Canadian-Native-American housekeeper and ex-Canadian Army Nurse in WWI.

Tom finds out that FDR will end Prohibition in a few days. Tom and Curtis scheme to cheat BOSS SCINTILLA in Seattle, by pawning off on him a warehouse full of soon-to-be-worthless booze. Boss Scintilla sends a couple of his wise guys to "...that little fish head of a town." to make Tom pay up. Tom and Curtis are in it up to their eyeballs. Tom and Curtis have a blow-up over Grace and her children. Grace falls in love with Tom, but he uses them as cover and Curtis gets cold feet. In a drunken stupor, Tom shoots Curtis. Violet patches him up. Curtis is mad a hell at Tom. Set adrift by Boss Scintilla's wise guys, Grace is tied up in Tom's boat. Just as the boat is about to smash on the rocks, Michael and Elaine swim to the boat, then set her free. Grace vows that "...No man will ever do this to me again."

Lounging in his huge yacht, Boss Scintilla is surprised by Tom. Tom kills the old gangster, then sets the yacht ablaze. Believing that Tom will shoot him, Curtis finds Tom at the docks. Tom has a change of heart. He unloads his gun. Not knowing he's unarmed, Curtis in police mode, gets off a fatal shot. Grace arrives on the scene with her children and Violet. Not knowing that before he died, Tom had redeemed himself, Grace puts her family ahead of her personal feelings. Rosie finds Tom's loot in her car as Grace drives Violet, Elaine, and Michael home to begin again. Sitting on the front porch, with Tom's broken fender in his lap, Grace's dead husband's father asks her, "Where is that drunken fool?" With a smile, Grace tells him that Tom has gone away.