The Lady and the Mob (1939)

Society-lady Hattie Leonard organizes her own band of 'gang-busters' when she discovers a garment she sent to the dry-cleaners had been taxed 25 cents to pay for gang 'protection.' She sends to New York City for a reformed gangster she had befriended, Frankie O'Fallon, and he hires the manpower needed from the usual Columbia hoods. Her gang hijacks the racketeers, recovers the merchant's money and returns it to them. Lila Thorne, engaged to Hattie's son Fred, throws in with her future mother-in-law when she sees that the old lady is fighting for the American principle of freedom of choice...and action. Lila frames the gang-leader, George Watson, and Hattie's big-city vigilantes kidnap him and extract the information that the town-mayor, Johnny "J.J." Jones, is the brains behind the protection-gang and is getting the big cut of the money. But Hattie must still rob a bank before she can secure the evidence needed to convict the mayor. All in a day's work for a crusading society dame.