Absent from films since 1938 (except as producer of a brace of RKO Radio features), silent-screen comedy favorite...
|
|
1947
|
It took nerve for writer/director Preston Sturges to lampoon the whole concept of hero worship in the middle of World War...
|
|
1944
|
After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great...
|
|
1944
|
This wild, once-controversial comedy stars Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker, a man-crazy single girl whose favorite pastime...
|
|
1944
|
Keep 'Em Slugging was the last of Universal's "Little Tough Guys" series-which, like Monogram's "East Side Kids", was an...
|
|
1943
|
As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not...
|
|
1942
|
This last entry in the Dr. Christian series tells about a country doctor who pieces together a defense to get a bank...
|
|
1941
|
|
|
1941
|
|
|
1941
|
While recklessly playing baseball in a busy street, Our Gang member Mickey (Robert Blake) is struck by a car. Though he fully...
|
|
1940
|
|
|
1940
|
|
|
|
1940
|
The moral of Preston Sturges' first directorial effort The Great McGinty seems to be: If you're a crook, stay a crook,...
|
|
1940
|
Hoping to get an early start on a fishing trip to the East River, the Our Gang kids board a double-decker bus at the crack of...
|
|
1940
|
Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his...
|
|
1939
|
This comedy chronicles the further exploits of the hilarious "Higgins Family." In this entry, the father eagerly awaits a...
|
|
1939
|
|
|
1939
|
After an eccentric young woman (Merle Oberon) is left on her father's estate to keep her from spoiling his Presidential bid,...
|
|
1938
|
Warner Bros.' Girls on Probation was, and is, a potboiler, redeemed slightly by its cast. The fascinating, underused...
|
|
1938
|
|
|
1938
|
This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire....
|
|
1938
|
|
|
1938
|
This melodrama chronicles the enduring friendship between four boys in New York's Hell's Kitchen. As boys, the made a pact...
|
|
1938
|
Start Cheering is Columbia Pictures' idea of a college musical: Practically everyone in the cast is past the age of 30....
|
|
1938
|
This late-30s gem is an engaging spoof that features the U.S. film debut of the French acting beauty Daniell Darrieux. She...
|
|
1938
|
The Black Doll is one of the better entries in Universal's "Crime Club" series. Most of the action takes place on a dark and...
|
|
1938
|
Though he would later dismiss it as "just a ten-day job," actor Conrad Nagel made a remarkably smooth directorial debut with...
|
|
1937
|
|
Trotter
|
1937
|
|
|
|
1937
|
In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot...
|
|
1937
|
|
|
1937
|
Not only is "she" no lady, but heroine Jerry (Ann Dvorak) doesn't even have a ladylike name. Jerry is an insurance...
|
|
1937
|
The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a...
|
|
1937
|
A lovely stenographer, tired of men falling all over her, tries to make herself homely in this comedy. With her horn rim...
|
|
1937
|
Financier J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold) -- known in the press as "the Bull of Broad Street" -- may be one of the wealthiest...
|
|
1937
|
In this crime drama, a young couple decides to rob the bank where the woman works as a teller. They get 100,000 dollars and...
|
|
1937
|
|
|
|
1937
|
|
|
|
1937
|
In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an...
|
|
1937
|
This service comedy from the Republic Studio mills was perhaps the most aggressively titled of the "Marine Corps" film cycle...
|
|
1937
|
When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by...
|
|
1936
|
In this crime drama a high-school principal's principles are put to the test when he, also a member of a parole board, is...
|
|
1936
|
In his only visit to Columbia Pictures, Paramount's resident crooner Bing Crosby stars in a sentimental musical drama. In...
|
|
1936
|
In this drama, a manicurist is mistaken for the winner of a large sweepstakes and finds herself pursued by fortune hunters....
|
|
1936
|
|
|
|
1936
|
In this musical comedy, a strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home...
|
|
1936
|
After retiring from a boxing career, Johnny Cave (James Cagney) accepts an appointment to serve as head of the Bureau of...
|
|
1936
|
Loosely based on a story by frontier writer Bret Harte, this romantic western drama tells the story of an innocent, carefree...
|
|
1936
|
|
|
|
1936
|
|
|
1936
|
Dore Schary, several years removed from his tenure as head of MGM, was screenwriter for the modest Universal actioner...
|
|
1935
|
In this family comedy, the wealthy executive of a steel company must endure life with a strict, teetotaling wife, a wild...
|
|
1935
|
Radio baritone Joe Morrison was being groomed for stardom by Paramount when he was top-billed in One Hour Late. Morrison is...
|
|
1935
|
Though it wasn't RKO Radio's final "Hildegarde Withers" mystery, Murder on a Honeymoon represented the final appearance of...
|
|
1935
|
There's nary a serious moment in the loopy Warner Bros. programmer A Night at the Ritz. William Gargan stars as Duke Regan, a...
|
|
1935
|
A man who has ruined a woman's life attempts to make good on his debt to her (and his conscience) in this sudsy drama based...
|
|
1935
|
In this comedy, a con artist gets elected to the chamber of commerce in his home town. He then goes there with three fellow...
|
|
1935
|
|
|
|
1935
|
Anxious to graduate from 2-reel comedies to feature films, producer Hal Roach began phasing out his short-subject manifest in...
|
|
1935
|
Two rich and wealthy millionaires who have a lot of money bet that reporter Robert Pryor can't spend $720,000 in twelve...
|
|
1935
|
In this drama, a fighter's fiancee refuses to marry him until he can overcome his insane jealousy. He does and they marry....
|
|
1934
|
Although it is included in TV's "Shock Theater" passage, there's nothing overtly frightening about the heavily plotted...
|
|
1934
|
"I Sell Anything" is the boast of penny-ante auctioneer Spot Cash Cutler (Pat O'Brien), and he more than makes good his boast...
|
|
1934
|
Based on a story by Zona Gale, When Strangers Meet concentrates on a small, interrelated community separated down the middle...
|
|
1934
|
Warner Bros. grabbed up the rights to Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis' satirical novel of middle America, soon after publication in...
|
|
1934
|
Paramount Pictures' annual college musical of 1934 is a pip, as they used to say. Jack Oakie plays Finnegan, a conceited...
|
|
1934
|
|
|
1934
|
Harold Lloyd plays Ezekial Cobb, a missionary's son who has spent his entire life in China. Cobb is sent to his father's home...
|
|
1934
|
Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling...
|
|
1934
|
Kansas City Princess came at the tail end of the "gold-digger" movie cycle. The inevitable Joan Blondell plays Rosie, a...
|
|
1934
|
Glamorous American jewel-thief Sophie Lang (Gertrude Michael) not only regularly outwits Scotland Yard, but has great fun...
|
|
1934
|
Student Tour looks like an MGM musical two-reeler that was expanded to feature length as it went along. Charles Butterworth...
|
|
1934
|
|
|
|
1934
|
In this romantic comedy, a rakish fellow involves himself with a married woman. Later his secretary endeavors to win him...
|
|
1934
|
|
|
|
1934
|
|
|
|
1934
|
Dry-goods store owner Tillie Prescott (ZaSu Pitts) has promised to marry meek barber Chris Peterson (El Brendel), but he...
|
|
1934
|
Female executive Doris (Genevieve Tobin) is hardly "uncertain" in the business world, but she's not so secure in her home...
|
|
1934
|
In this drama, a doctor and his wife find themselves dreaming of others and thinking about divorce. The wife decides to sow...
|
|
1934
|
In this military adventure, a Navy lieutenant is stripped of his rank and booted out after he fires at communist ships in...
|
|
1933
|
Sent to Sing Sing prison, influential crook Tom Connors (Spencer Tracy) is unregenerate and refuses to adhere to the rules....
|
|
1933
|
The second of two low-budget murder melodramas starring Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot, A Shriek in the Night is not quite as...
|
Wilfred
|
1933
|
Sing, Sinner, Sing is one of several 1930s films based on the notorious, well-publicized romance between nightclub singer...
|
|
1933
|
Goldie dreams of being a movie star. One day she decides to leave her New Jersey home and her boy friend to head for...
|
|
1933
|
In this drama, a young surgeon and his driver must combat the racketeers who have taken over the hospital where he works. ~...
|
|
1933
|
|
|
|
1933
|
This cheapie but goodie stars Skeets Gallagher as a young man who doesn't want to be strong-armed into a questionable...
|
|
1933
|
A very young John Wayne is atypically cast as a randy playboy in His Private Secretary. Much to the dismay of his businessman...
|
Little
|
1933
|
Distantly related to Frederick Lewis Allen's non-fiction book of the same name, Only Yesterday uses fictional characters to...
|
|
1933
|
This comedy is last entry in the five-movie series "The Cohens and Kellys." In this episode, Sidney and Murray are competing...
|
|
1933
|
This 1933 movie version of Sinclair Lewis's novel Ann Vickers stars Irene Dunne in the title role. Left alone and pregnant by...
|
|
1933
|
This comedy, set during the Prohibition, chronicles the exploits of two disparate sisters. The older sister is a jaded...
|
|
1933
|
One woman helps make an unknown boxer a star, but could a handful lead him back to obscurity again? Steve Morgan (Max Baer)...
|
|
1933
|
"Thou Shall Not Be Caught" is the commandment referred to in this low-budget melodrama ostensibly based on Ella Wendel, a New...
|
|
1933
|
In this crime drama, a dapper thief meets a female detective at a party and fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi...
|
|
1933
|
Rivalry between two towns for the honor of becoming county seat turns violent in this interesting Ken Maynard Western from...
|
|
1933
|
In this melodrama with strong racist overtones, Clara Bow attempts to revive her failing career by playing a free-spirited...
|
|
1932
|
In this melodrama, a starving orphan deliberately breaks a store window in hopes that she'll be tossed in jail and get a hot...
|
Mr. Kerr
|
1932
|
Joan Blondell, borrowed for the occasion from Warner Bros., earned top-billing in this delightful Hollywood parable, but the...
|
|
1932
|
Having signed for eight Westerns with poverty row entrepreneur E.W. Hammons, Ken Maynard went on to deliver a series of solid...
|
|
1932
|
A reluctantly appointed police chief in a crime-riddled city takes his job seriously and works hard to clean the streets of...
|
|
1932
|
A mentally unstable naval officer goes mad with jealousy when his wife's recent lover shows up as a lieutenant on the...
|
|
1932
|
Ruth Robbins (Mae Clarke) is already a cynic about marriage, and well she should be -- at age 19, she's the...
|
|
1932
|
|
|
|
1932
|
|
Thaddeus heath
|
1932
|
In this political melodrama, an idealistic freshman congressman swears to do his best to get relief for his impoverished...
|
|
1932
|
Confidence woman Martha Hicks (Alison Skipworth), better known to those who know her at all as "the Countess," is a career...
|
|
1932
|
The Crusader was one of the earliest efforts from Majestic Pictures, for many years the most ambitious of the independent...
|
|
1932
|
Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but...
|
|
1932
|
A star football player in college, Garry King (Richard Arlen) finds post-college life very different; he betrays the trust of...
|
|
1932
|
Perhaps most noteworthy for the first onscreen performance by future Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, this politcal...
|
|
1932
|
Before he settled down to a long career as a jovial character actor, Lloyd Corrigan functioned as screenwriter and director...
|
|
1931
|
|
|
|
1931
|
Not every Greta Garbo film is an imperishable classic; this was seldom truer than in the case of her repetitious 1931 vehicle...
|
|
1931
|
|
|
|
1931
|
Set in the Mississippi Valley, The Flood spends the bulk of its running time concentrating on a romantic triangle. Heroine...
|
|
1931
|
In this comedy, a bumbling rube from a small town manages to get involved in a gang war. The trouble really begins when one...
|
|
1931
|
In this comedy, a luckless newspaper reporter heads for a coastal resort and finds himself mistaken for a famous dare-devil...
|
|
1931
|
|
|
|
1931
|
In this romantic comedy, a fighter goes to a southern town to train for the championship. He soon falls in love. The girl...
|
|
1930
|
Out of sympathy, a grown lad fighting for Canada in World War I agrees to let an older childless woman adopt him, becoming...
|
|
1930
|
In this heartwarming drama, an amiable department store worker gets more than he bargained for when he accidentally slips a...
|
|
1930
|
In this romantic drama, a chorine marries her absent-minded childhood sweetheart so she can make her real love, a...
|
|
1930
|
The marriage between Jim and Esther Hamilton (Owen Moore and Dorothy Christy) spirals downhill rapidly when Esther purchases...
|
|
1930
|
In this drama, a New York dressmaker struggles to make it big so she can provide a good life for her beloved son. As her son...
|
|
1930
|
In this comedy, one of the first to be completely shot in Technicolor, two shop clerks go out on the town to look for...
|
|
1930
|
In her second film, Broadway actress Ann Harding plays the vacationing wife of a judge who finds herself blackmailed by a...
|
Michael Sturm
|
1930
|
In this newspaper drama, a star reporter learns that prominent city officials are covering for a bootlegging crime lord....
|
|
1929
|
In this comedy, a meddlesome and grouchy publisher pushes his son and his wife a little too hard to make a few grandchildren...
|
|
1929
|
In his second talking picture, Richard Dix is cast as British officer Capt. Leslie Yeullat, at present on leave in London....
|
George Faraker
|
1929
|
A pleasant but unremarkable comedy from Universal, Home James featured the studio's premiere light comedian Laura La Plante...
|
|
1928
|
In this low-budget romantic comedy, a beautiful model from Paris sets her sights on the heart of an American ex-lover and so...
|
|
1928
|
A largely silent musical, My Man is primarily a showcase for the enormously popular Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice who...
|
|
1928
|
Originally titled 10 Modern Commandments, this sophisticated romantic comedy-drama was the third directorial effort by...
|
|
1927
|
Previously filmed in 1914, the popular turn-of-the-century stage farce Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary was remade in 1927. This...
|
|
1927
|
Joyce Brandon (Laura La Plante) is in love with Jack Sturdevant (Tom Moore), but he doesn't even know she's alive. As a means...
|
|
1927
|
This routine drama was spiced up by a good cast and solid directing. A clerk (Lloyd Hughes) loses his job, so his wife,...
|
The Inventor
|
1927
|
Marion Davies has the lead role of Tillie in this adaptation of Russ Westover's popular 1920s comic strip. Tillie is bored by...
|
|
1927
|
This rugged Richard Dix vehicle casts the star as rough-and-tumble sea captain Jim Bucklin. Landing at a Chinese port,...
|
|
1927
|
Personable Owen Moore starred in this romantic comedy from Warner Bros. featuring Dolores Costello. About to marry his...
|
Waldo Squibbs
|
1927
|
Though Will Rogers was still packing 'em in on Broadway, he was considered a Hollywood has-been when he starred in the...
|
|
1927
|
Alma Rubens, a hauntingly beautiful silent screen actress whose career was cut short by drug addiction, stars in The Gilded...
|
|
1926
|
For Wives Only was based on the stage play The Critical Year. The story takes place in Vienna, where handsome Dr. Rittenhaus...
|
Dr. Fritz Schwerman
|
1926
|
In the tradition of the venerable stage comedy The Gold Diggers, Footloose Widows zeroes in on two girls who hope to land...
|
Henry
|
1926
|
Priscilla Dean was at her best when she was playing lady crooks, and in this entertaining mystery, no one is quite sure which...
|
|
1926
|
If Eve's Leaves has the "look" of a Cecil B. DeMille production, it's because DeMille himself functioned as producer. Salty...
|
|
1926
|
Directed in the manner of a lamp-lighted melodrama by Louis J. Gasnier, That Model From Paris was based on the old Goveneur...
|
|
1926
|
Lew Cody stars as Tony Townsend, a top-hatted "international adventurer" who gets into a heap of trouble when he runs out of...
|
|
1926
|
|
|
Yessky
|
1926
|
Pola Negri is her usual overstated self in the outlandish comedy-melodrama Crown of Lies. Negri plays Olga, an immigrant girl...
|
Fritz
|
1926
|
T. Roy Barnes was a comedian whose most memorable appearances were as support to more illustrious comics such as Buster...
|
|
1926
|
This first film version of the Otto Harbach-William Collison stage farce Up in Mabel's Room was released in 1926, the same...
|
|
1926
|
Produced but not directed by Cecil B. DeMille, The Coming of Amos nevertheless has many earmarks of a typical DeMille film,...
|
Bendyke Hamilton
|
1925
|
After cutting his teeth on Mack Sennett comedies, this drama became Roy Del Ruth's first serious film. Eve Burnside (Irene...
|
|
1925
|
Lady Gwendolyn (Blanche Sweet, who, at the time, was married to Marshall Neilan) is the daughter of Sir Alfred Grayle, a...
|
|
1925
|
When Ellen Linden (Alice Terry) returns from finishing school, she discovers that her father has lost his fortune. Although...
|
|
1925
|
This adventure virtually butchers its source, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel. But with stop-motion photography and...
|
Prof. Summerlee
|
1925
|
This comedy-drama is mostly a collection of different stories, all intertwined, with a cast that consists of solid...
|
Alf Stacey
|
1925
|
A typical silent programmer, this Universal "Jewel" production features House Peters as a millionaire yachtsman whose...
|
|
1925
|
John Brent (Hobart Bosworth) returns from the East to tell his fellow cattlemen that they will have to leave the range and...
|
|
1924
|
|
|
|
1924
|
Bebe Daniels never let her public or her studio down. In Daring Youth, Daniels delivers her usual sprightly performance as...
|
|
1924
|
|
|
|
1924
|
This fast-paced but undistinguished farce was Laura La Plante's second starring vehicle for Universal. Colonel Faraday...
|
Franklin Faraday
|
1924
|
For a husband, Carol Pelham (Beverly Bayne) chooses hard-working Bob Hilton (Monte Blue) over the wealthy but idle Ted Lowe...
|
|
1924
|
|
|
|
1924
|
|
|
Professor Click
|
1923
|
This well-cast light comedy was based on the stage play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Three clerks for the Kincaid...
|
|
1923
|
As his first picture for the Goldwyn studios, director Marshall Neilan decided to adapt Donn Byrne's sprawling novel to the...
|
|
1923
|
This comedy-melodrama, based on the novel by Rupert Hughes (who also directed), blends fiction and reality to tell the story...
|
|
1923
|
John Craig and Mary Eileen Anderson are childhood sweethearts who grow up in a small town in this melodrama taken from the...
|
|
1923
|
This Hawaiian romance was the last picture directed by Julia Crawford Ivers, who also penned the screenplay. Although it was...
|
|
1923
|
Doris May, a minor light comedienne of the 1910s and early '20s, is the star of this farce. Tom Manning (Wallace MacDonald)...
|
|
1922
|
Because Owen Moore's biggest claim to fame is that he was Mary Pickford's husband before she fell in love with Douglas...
|
Harold Wright
|
1922
|
This farce from Paramount was loosely adapted from the play The Open Door by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustave Kadelberg. Arthur...
|
|
1922
|
Marie Prevost got her start as a Mack Sennett bathing beauty, and even though this romantic comedy runs rather short for a...
|
|
1922
|
Maybe the reason that Alice Calhoun's name has faded into the far reaches of silent film history is because she was difficult...
|
|
1922
|
William Desmond Taylor's final film -- a poorly paced, overly sentimental romance -- only proves that if he had not been the...
|
|
1922
|
This vehicle for Wanda Hawley proved to be an entertaining little programmer. John Coningsby (Arthur Hoyt) is constantly...
|
|
1922
|
Based on Peter B. Kyne's The Sheriff of Cinnabar, this fine silent Western starred Hoot Gibson as Pinto Peters, who with his...
|
|
1921
|
|
|
|
1921
|
Although by no means the definitive version of the Alexander Dumas story -- scenarist June Mathis modernizes it and the...
|
Count De Varville
|
1921
|
After graduating from college, rich girl Margery Carr (Doris May) decides to do some good in the world. Much to the chagrin...
|
|
1921
|
Author Gertrude Atherton wrote this story especially for the screen; it is supposedly based on a true story that happened in...
|
|
1921
|
Although Nurse Marjorie (Mary Miles Minter) proves to be a skilled caregiver, she is actually the daughter of the Duke and...
|
|
1920
|
Legendary escape artist Harry Houdini stars in the offbeat adventure yarn The Grim Game. Houdini plays Harvey Hanford, a...
|
|
1919
|
Lord and Lady Bazelhurst (Arthur Hoyt and Katherine Adams respectively) own an estate in the Adirondacks next door to wealthy...
|
|
1919
|
Kitty Manning (Gloria Swanson) lives with her husband, Jim (Lee Hill), a telegraph operator, at a remote railway station....
|
Director
|
1918
|
This blatant World War I propaganda film was based on a Henry Irving Dodge story that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post....
|
|
1918
|
After ten years in China, Monty Gray (Franklyn Farnum) meets up with old friend Wilbur Mason. He sees a photo of Wilbur's...
|
|
1917
|