Emmett Vogan
Linus and David Larrabee are the two sons of a very wealthy family. Linus is all work – busily running the family corporate empire, he has no time for a wife and family. David is all play – technically he is employed by the family business, but never shows up for work, spends all his time entertaining, and has been married and divorced three times. Meanwhile, Sabrina Fairchild is the young, shy, and awkward daughter of the household chauffeur, who goes away to Paris for two years, and returns to capture David's attention, while falling in love with Linus.
When an oil discovery is reported at Paxton, Oklahoma, Marshal Rex Allen immediately suspects that where there is oil, there is trouble. Rex arrives just as a band of desperadoes stage a bank hold-up and escape with $25,000 which ranchers have invested in prospective oil drillings.
When a man confesses to his wife that he has been unfaithful, she imagines all the different ways that historical figures such as Cleopatra and Joan of Arc might handle the situation.
It's a dangerous hypnotic suggestion when a psychiatrist tells married couple Joe and Alice McDoakes to switch points of view during a session.
A Montana lawyer (Glenn Ford) gets distracted after moving to California with his wife (Ruth Roman) and children.
Hoping to strike it rich, four people--two best buddies, a blonde waitress and a cheerful oldtimer--pool their resources so they can drill for oil. A Columbia Pictures B-film from 1951.
US Border Patrolman Roy Rogers is assigned to prevent a herd of diseased cattle from crossing over from Mexico.
A lawyer (Robert Clarke) defends a slot-machine king, and his bride (Penny Edwards) and partner (Ross Ford) don't like it.
The fourth entry in Monogram's "Father" series. Henry Latham decides he'll save money by hunting for his meat rather than buying it from the store.
A horse trainer who has fallen on hard times looks to his horse, Broadway Bill, to finally win the big race.
The town of Rio Blanco is the center of a fight over the statehood issue and is a perfect setup for Lon Bryson and Chuck Bowers, who organize a couple of phony protection associations. Opposing them is Henry Waterman, publisher of the Rio Blanco Herald. He and his assistant, Andrew Jackson Weems, send for the help of the Territorial Rangers. One of the dispatched Rangers is Jeff Lanning who, unknown to him, has a brother as a member of the gang under an assumed name of Bob Mitchell. Jeff is so shocked at seeing his brother gun down Waterman that he is unable to act in time to prevent it. Unable to explain the cause of is inaction, he is suspended by the governor. Unable to persuade his brother to quit the gang, Jeff, with the aid of Weems and Waterman's daughter Carol, begins his quest to bring the outlaws to justice.
A mailman (Warren Douglas) leads PO-men to a pistol-packing stamp thief (Audrey Long) and her gang.
All the passengers on an airplane headed for San Francisco are drugged, and when they wake up, it is discovered that a quarter-million dollars is missing. Charlie Chan--and, of course, his #1 son--must discover the identity of the person who doped the passengers and stole the money.
An arson investigator goes undercover to break up a ring that sets fires in order to collect the insurance.
A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn't return, he learns that taking care of a child interferes with his free-wheeling lifestyle. Sorrowful must also evade crooked gangsters and indulge in a bit of horse-thieving.
Poor Red Jones gets fired from every job he tries. His fiancée gives him one last chance to make good when he becomes a Fuller Brush man. His awkward attempts at sales are further complicated when one of his customers is murdered and he becomes the prime suspect.
Detective Charlie Chan springs into action when top officials of a New Orleans chemical company begin dropping like flies.
When Border Patrol Lieutenant Roberts is killed, it appears that his brother Tim was the killer. To clear the Robert's name for his boss, Lieutenant Rocky Lane heads south of the border posing as an outlaw. He hopes to get in with the gang and find Tim who is using an assumed name. As always, Nugget is there to help.
Airline hostess Ann Parker is fired for being undignified when she sang to calm the passengers during a storm. Mike Connors, publicity man for Frankie Carle's orchestra, invites her to try out as the band's vocalist since the regular singer, Mary Lou, had just quit the band on the eve of an engagement at a swanky New York night club. Encouraged by her boyfriend, Steve Roberts, Ann lands the job and assumes the name of "Mary Lou", a trademark almost for Frankie Carle singers. But the departed Mary Lou shows up and threatens to sue if she is not rehired. Ann returns to her former job. Meanwhile, Steve locates the woman who was the original Mary Lou with the band, and urges Mike to keep the current Mary Lou off the bandstand until he can return with Ann.
When power-hungry Faulkner and Leroux want to divide Texas into smaller sections, instead of allowing it to enter the Union as a single state, Gary Conway and the Texas Rangers must step in to thwart their chicanery.
Slip and Sach are working as cleaners in a high rise building. They enter an office to clean it when a messenger hears them use Slip's given name, Terrance Mahoney. The messenger has a letter for "Terrance Mahonoey, Esq." and mistakenly delivers it to Slip. The letter informs Slip that he has inherited a mansion in Long Island. The boys then make their way to the mansion and find that it is inhabited by diamond smugglers. The real owner of the house shows up and helps save the day and defeat the smugglers and gives the boys the house as a reward.
Former burlesque star May and her daughter Peggy dance in the chorus. When May has a fight with featured dancer Bubbles, Bubbles leaves the show and Peggy takes her place. When Peggy falls in love with wealthy Randy, May fears class differences may lead to misery.
Hoping to bury her criminal past, Jenny Hadley settles into a comfortable existence as Gina, the wife of the politician Clinton Crane. When her former associate Floyd Durant shows up to blackmail Gina, she has no choice but to murder him. Things take a bizarre turn when Barbara Arnold is charged with Durant's murder and Gina is selected to serve on the jury.
Based on and built around the west coast radio program, "The Hollywood Barn Dance", although no members of the 1947 cast of the program are in the film, but the better-known (on a national scale) Ernest Tubb and His Texas Troubadors, Jack Guthrie and Jimmy and Leon Short more than make up for that. The slight plot, around 18 songs, begins with Tubb and his band searching for $2000 needed to rebuild their town chuch after it burned down while they were rehearsing in it. Hollywood, here they come!
In this comedic short, Joe McDoakes goes through the problems and anxieties of becoming a new father.
Red Ryder convinces homesteaders to settle in Paradise Valley. Business men in nearby Central City want control of the valley and water supply and propose to build a dam for half interest in the land. They use Red to generate interest in the dam but when the dam is completed, they rig the stockholder's meeting so Central City will get the water.
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.
New York hockey player Andy Buell is approached by Hollywood talent scout Nancy Davis to play the hunk lead in "The Behemoth" but he would prefer she quit her job and become his wife.
Blackie runs into a woman he formally loved who now is married with a kid. When her husband gets out of prison he's killed in Blackie's apartment and of course the police thing Blackie pulled the trigger. Blackie must set out to prove his innocence as well as capture the real killers.
After losing heavyweight contender Al Costa to mob boss Florini fight promoter Knobby Walsh recruits small town boy Joe Palooka to take his place. First in the series.
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.
"Night Editor" was based on the already existing radio program in which a newspaper editor would recount the 'inside story' of some bit newspaper story, and later became a television series.
A high school student is mistaken for a famous radio singer who goes missing. Complications ensue.
While packing her belongings in preparation of evacuating the White House because of the impending British invasion of Washington D.C., Dolly Payne Madison thinks back on her childhood, her first marriage, and later romances with two very different politicians, Aaron Burr and his good friend James Madison. She plays each against the other, not only for romantic reasons, but also to influence the shaping of the young country. By manipulating Burr's affections, she helps Thomas Jefferson win the presidency, and eventually she becomes First Lady of the land herself.
The Three Stooges help an aspiring singer, Carol Lawrence, and a nightclub owner, Danny Warren, find love. It features dizzy dishwashers Moe, Larry, and Curly, and musical numbers by Connee Boswell and the Louis Jordan and Will Osborne orchestras, including "Stormy Weather" and "Caldonia."
A man waits on death row while his son and friend try to prove that he did not kill a grocer with an ax.
The corny daughter (Joan Davis) of a famed policewoman tries to catch a blowgun killer.
U.S. Deputy Marshal Roy investigates the disappearance of a government agent who has come to Dale's father's Ladder A Ranch. The bad guys want the land the ranch sits on because they know an oil pipeline is planned through this location.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a squadron of PT-boat crews in the Philippines must battle the Navy brass between skirmishes with the Japanese. The title says it all about the Navy's attitude towards the PT-boats and their crews.
In a small African port, a tawdry bar is run by a old man named Webb Fallon. Fallon is actually a vampire, but he is becoming weary of his "life" of the past few hundred years.
An interesting entry in Republic Pictures' long-running "Red Ryder" B-Western series, this film is not about hardy settlers braving the Colorado winters, as the title would suggest. Instead it's a sort of Reform School Western about a couple of wayward Chicago boys (Billy Cummings and Freddie Chapman) taken in by Ryder's indomitable aunt, "The Duchess" (Alice Fleming.) The boys escaped their very own "Fagin," Bull Reagan (Roy Barcroft), and were given a second chance on the lady's Western ranch. Unfortunately, Reagan returns to do a bit of cattle rustling, once again luring the boys into becoming his accomplices.
In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.
A military nurse recovering at an inn from a nervous breakdown keeps having dreams where she sees two men trying to murder a third. When she meets a man who is a federal agent at the inn, she is astounded to discover that he is the man in her dream who is the intended murder victim.
An estranged wife shows up after a nearly 7 years of disappearance -- thought to be dead, to prevent her husband from marrying his new love until someone kills her.
A famous stage actor hopes to land the lead role in a big new Broadway musical, but he's unaware his teenage son has already been given the part.
Determined to become a radio singer, a young girl runs away from her family. She hooks up with a man who is actually the real voice of a famous radio crooner, who actually can't sing at all.
Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last - one way or another.
Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.
Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
After the Civil War, veteran Jim Christi (Allan Lane) returns to Texas, where he is unjustly accused of murder. In flashback, Mr. Christi relates the story of his father Corpus Christi Jim. After robbing a stage, Jim and partners Rocky and Steve decide to go straight and return the money. But the fourth member of the gang, Spade refuses and leaves. The two former partners soon find themselves on opposite sides of the law.
A Martian invader crashes his spaceship conveniently close to the workshop of a scientist who is developing an interplanetary craft. If the extraterrestrial Purple Monster can complete the rocket ship and return to Mars, he will be able to start a full-scale invasion of Earth. Good thing Craig Foster sets out to thwart the Monster's mission!
When Bigshot Jones gives his unnamed dog to the All-For-One Club, Buckwheat quickly named the canine, "Smallpox"---inadvertently causing a city wide panic.
1940. Sixteen year old Phillip is one of a number of amateur radio operators across the US, doing it purely as a fun hobby. He is informed by Bill Beck of the Radio and Intelligence Division (RID) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that amateur international radio communication is now banned due to spying a result of the war in Europe. Beck, on behalf of the RID, asks Phillip, however, to continue to monitor the airwaves for suspicious activity.
Broadway producer Jerry Flynn is anxious to recapture the magic and reclaim the crowds after a set of costly flops. Outside his theater one night, Flynn meets a young boy who just might save the day. Inside a small box the boy shows Flynn his pride and joy: a caterpillar named Curly that dances to Yes Sir, That's My Baby. Word quickly spreads about the amazingly talented hoofer, and the caterpillar becomes a symbol of hope for wartime America. Soon, offers are pouring in to capitalize on this sensational insect.
A newspaper columnist and host of his own national network radio program, interviewing more film personalities on his show than any other commentator, is searching for a story for a Sunday column carried by newspaper from coast to coast. Hanging out in Hollywood's famed Trocadero restaurant and night-spot, he gets his story when "Troc" owner and band-leader Eddie LeBaron, relates to him the sage of the famed screenland nitery. And hears plenty of music furnished by four of the top name-bands in the land, including that of Bob Chester, who formed his own swing band in 1935 after being top saxophonist with the bands of Ben Pollack and Ben Bernie. Singer Ida James and the Chester band led off with "Shoo Shoo Baby" in their screen debut.
When John Barrabbee's plane makes an emergency landing, he wanders off and joins Roy's cattle drive. Later he learns he was killed when his plane resumed its flight and crashed. He also learns his daughter is going to sell his ranch and marry a man he dislikes. So he gives Roy a job on the ranch and sends him off to see if he can prevent both of these events while he remains in hiding. Written by Maurice VanAuken Western girl moves east and influenced badly by her snobby fiance. She returns to sell her deceased father's ranch. The father isn't really dead, though; he's hoping that his friend Roy can restore the girl's western values. Songs include "New Moon Over Nevada," "A Cowboy has to Yodel in the Morning," and "The Harum Scarum Baron of the Harmonium." Written by Ed Stephan
During the latter stages of the Civil War, a gang of supposed Confederates, headed by Alex Morel (Lionel Atwill), raid all gold shipments destined for Washington from Oro Grande, California. Can they be brought to justice?
A nightclub dancer, raised in an orphanage, learns she might be the long-lost heiress to a hair tonic fortune.
Tom and Cora Elliott love their active social life so much that they neglect their daughter Mary and son Les. Fred Mason, Tom's neighbor and the doctor at the defense plant employing Tom, worries about the effect that Tom and Cora's drinking and socializing have on the children....
An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning that Ananka's spirit has been reincarnated into another body, he kidnaps a young woman of Egyptian descent with a mysterious resemblance to the princess. However, the high priest's greedy desires cause him to lose control of the mummy...
Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson are Broadway stars who return to Universal Studios to make another movie. The mere mention of Olsen and Johnson's names evacuates the studio and terrorizes the management and personnel. Undaunted, the comedians hire an assistant director and unknown talent, and set out to make their own movie.
William Gargan and Margaret Lindsay, stars of Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, were reunited for the like-minded comedy/mystery No Place for a Lady. Gargan plays private eye Jess Arno, while Lindsay is Jess' ever-faithful, long-suffering fiancee June Terry.
This Passing Parade entry looks at several historical "truths" that just aren't so: Steve Brodie never jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge; Mrs. O'Leary's cow did not start the great Chicago fire; Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned; and Lady Godiva never rode naked through the streets of Coventry.
A down-to-earth pilot (Robert Cummings) charms a European princess (Olivia de Havilland) on vacation in the United States.
Margin for Error is a 1943 American drama film directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Samuel Fuller is based on the 1939 play of the same title by Clare Boothe Luce.
Cowboy Dan Somers and oilman Jim "Hunk" Gardner compete for oil lease rights on Indian land in Oklahoma, as well as for the favors of schoolteacher Cathy Allen.
Roger Hudson, a wealthy businessman who has moved to Washington to work for the government as a "dollar a year man," is late for a radio broadcast about his new department, the Mobilization of Woman Power for War. He takes a cab driven by Dixie Dugan, who hopes that being a cabbie while the country's men are away fighting will help the war effort. Her incompetent driving, however, results in an accident for which Roger must take responsibility in order to reach the radio station in time. Dixie then returns home, where she lives with her father Timothy, who is constantly practicing his air raid warden duties, her mother Gladys, an aspiring Red Cross worker, and cousin Imogene, who studies incessantly to become a "quiz kid." The Dugans rent out their spare rooms to Dixie's fiancé, Matt Hogan, and to blustering Judge J. J. Lawson. Matt, who works in a munitions factory, wants Dixie to settle down and marry him, but Dixie is determined to help her country.
While shooting a western on location, a Hollywood "cowboy" star--whose offscreen image is exactly the opposite of his onscreen one--is saved from disaster by a gregarious local girl. She winds up becoming not only his leading lady in the movie but, because of a set of nutty offscreen circumstances, his fiancé in real life.
A shy bookkeeper accidentally discovers that the company where he works is targeted in a series of late-night robberies.
Honeymoon Lodge is a musical variation on the old Awful Truth plotline. Divorce-bound Bob and Carol Sterling (David Bruce, June Vincent) make a last-ditch attempt to avoid their legal breakup by restaging their mountain-resort honeymoon. Things get complicated when a rancher named Big Boy (Rod Cameron, in a Ralph Bellamy-style "sap" role) shows up at the resort in ardent pursuit of Carol, while Lorraine Logan (Harriet Hilliard) sets her cap for Bob.
This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short highlights the film preservation efforts of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Several scenes from early newsreels are shown.
Circumstances arise that result in a man impersonating his uncle. As the "uncle", he finds himself pursued by his girlfriend's aunt, who does not approve of their relationship.
In this western a pugnacious cowboy tries to prevent a city-slicker from conning the local ranchers and the utility company. The hero believes the man is really a murderer. To find out for sure, the hero and his assistant pretend to be cons on the lam. The hero is soon accused of the murder. Now he must escape and bring justice to the real killer.
A radio-show mystery writer (Ruth Terry) and her rival (Frank Albertson) solve real murders.
Cosmo Jones, a correspondence-school detective from a small town, comes to the big city to offer his services to the police. He happens by where a gangster is killed by an opposing gang. Socialite Phyllis Blake is running around with gang member Tom and the opposing gang plan on kidnapping her. Cosmo is with Sergeant Flanagan when the attempt is made in front of a night club, where a bystander is seriously wounded in the gun-battle. Police Chief Murphy blames Flanagan for the shooting and demotes him. Cosmo, with the aid of a porter, Eustace and Flanagan's fiancée, Susan, tries to find the killer. Phyllis is finally kidnapped and Cosmo decides the act was committed by one of the two gangs. He has her father place an ad in the newspaper that contact has been made with the kidnappers. Each gang thinks the other is pulling a double cross, and one gang wipes out the other.
Students at the Davis School of the Theatre are assigned "Antigone" as their class play, but they conspire to do a swing musical instead.
Roy Rogers, Smiley Burnette and the Sons of the Pioneers go undercover to help Texas Governor Russell Hicks stop World War II Axis sympathizers from blowing up U.S. warehouses.
This short film examines the origins of several superstitions including crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, rabbit's feet, and breaking champagne bottles to christen ships, plus the role of superstitions in the Flying Dutchman tale.
Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by scientifically analyzing evidence.
A high priest of Karnak travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka thirty years earlier.
Uneven version of Wyatt Earp vs. the Clanton Gang with a little romance thrown in haphazardly.
Dr. Gillespie is called in to investigate when a young man suffering from mental problems disappears on a killing spree.
Sadistic killer-for-hire Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.
As bareknuckled boxing enters the modern era, brash extrovert Jim Corbett uses new rules and dazzlingly innovative footwork to rise to the top of the top of the boxing world.
A singing cowboy (Gene Autry) and his partner (Bill Henry) thwart a foreman who wants their mine.
In order to win back his girlfriend, Mike Shayne promises to give up his detective practice and get a job as riveter in an aircraft plant. He quickly finds himself investigating the theft of industrial diamonds from the plant's safe and, utilizing a variety of false identities, traces them first to a dress factory and later to a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Escaping several attempts on his life, he is able to uncover a Nazi smuggling ring, but the location of the missing diamonds continues to elude him.
Chicago is gripped by an Axe Murderer. The streets are empty at night as there has been six murders and six people have been caught, but they are lunatics. Only one person has lived to tell about it, Edwina, who is as dumb as a brick. If it were not for Oliver, she would be number seven. When there is a second attempt on Edwina, Oliver figures that the crimes are not random and that someone is hypnotizing these people to do his bidding, but the police and Edwina are skeptical.
Radio sleuth Wally 'The Fox' Benton travels to Georgia with his fiancé Carol to be married; and to help Carol's college chum, Ellamae Downs, solve a mystery involving a murdered man, old Fort Dixon, and buried treasure.
A psychiatrist's patient, a nutty heiress, travels west to find gold in her grandfather's abandoned mine. The psychiatrist, unable to talk her out of it, decides to follow her out there.
Number 10 in the Blondie series, Blondie Goes to College is predicated on the notion that Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake) must receive a college diploma or lose his job with the Dithers Construction Company. Not wishing to be separated from her husband, Blondie (Penny Singleton) enrolls in college as well. But Leighton College rules stipulate "No Married Couples", forcing Blondie and Dagwood to pretend that they're not married. This causes quite a dilemma when coed Laura Wadsworth (Janet Blair) begins flirting with Dagwood and Rusty Bryant (Larry Parks) does same with Blondie. And Blondie's discovery of a very pleasant secret threatens to expose her and Dagwood's marital status too. The student body at this particular seat of learning is comprised of quite a few familiar faces, including Lloyd Bridges, Sid Melton, and Adele Mara.
This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short dramatizes how the work of Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman, who searched for a cure for beri-beri on the island of Java in the 1890s, led to the discovery of vitamins.
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is a 1941 film about a man who wants to sell a film story to Esoteric Studios. On the way he gets insulted by little boys, beat up for ogling a woman, and abused by a waitress. W. C. Fields' last starring role in a feature-length film.
Rodeo rider Hurricane Smith is wrongly convicted of murder and robbery, but escapes and creates a new life, but one of the real criminals shows up to claim the loot which he believes Smith has.
The operators of 'Silver Haven', a cultish group bilking gullible rich people out of money, is set to inherit a large sum after the deceased woman's heir also dies. Leader Joesph Jones decides to hurry the process along and kidnaps Wally Benton, his fiancé, and a friend, to further this goal. Wally, 'The Fox', is a radio sleuth who solves murders on the air. Jones wants him to devise a perfect murder, and isn't above killing others sloppily along the way to get his foolproof murder plot.
Up-and-coming Universal leading man Robert Stack made his western-movie debut in Badlands of Dakota. Set in the Dakotas during the days of the Great Gold Boom, the story finds brothers Jim and Bob Holliday (Stack and Broderick Crawford) dukeing it out over the affections of pretty Anne Grayson (Ann Rutherford). While all this is going on, Wild Bill Hickok (Richard Dix) does his best to neutralize the local criminal element-and to fend off the romantic overtures of boisterous Calamity Jane (Frances Farmer).
A down-on-his luck businessman organizes an excursion to Sir Henry Morgan's Island for a treasure hunt only to encounter a mysterious phantom and murder.
A test pilot and his weather observer develop a "robot" control so airplanes can be flown without pilots, but enemy agents get wind of it and try to steal it or destroy it.
Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.
A young soldier uncovers a ring of spies when he investigates his brother's mysterious murder.
A young man in a small town wins $5000 in a radio contest. He goes to New York City to propose to his girlfriend, but gets mixed up with a crooked attorney and two con men...
Fictionalized story of the 1869 adoption of women's suffrage in Wyoming Territory. In the new-founded railroad town of Laraville, Boss Jim Cork hopes to manipulate the sale of town lots to give him control, but Quaker schoolmarm Annie Morgan bags one of the key lots. Cork's lawyer Steve Lewis tries romancing Annie to get the lot back, finding her so overpoweringly liberated she leaves him dizzy. Still, Steve attains his nefarious object...almost...then has cause to deeply regret having aroused the sleeping giant of feminism!
Private detective 'Duke' Martindale and his wife, Phyllis, an attorney, are working together to clear a girl falsely convicted of murdering a judge. Two people who know the truth are killed and 'Duke' Is shot at. Despite some interference by Police-Sergeant Brent, and a dangerous automobile chase and 'Duke' and Phyllis finding themselves prisoners of the real murderers, the case is solved.
An assistant prosecutor (Dennis O'Keefe) and his spunky friend (Florence Rice) investigate a suddenly hot case.
Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father.
When his friend Professor Kingsely (Ridges) is at deaths door, brain surgeon Dr. Sovac (Karloff) saves his life by means of an illegal operation that transplants part of injured gangster Red Cannon's brain. Unfortunately, the operation has a disasterous Jeckll and Hyde side effect and under certain conditions the persona of Cannon emerges. Sovac soon learns of the duel personality and of half a million dollars the gangster has hidden away. He attempts to find the money through the manipulation of his friend, an attempt that brings Kingsley closer to madness as he alternates between a meek professor of english and a brutal gangster out for murderous revenge on those who tried to kill him.
As suggested by its title, Behind the News was a "stop the presses!" yarn set in a big-city newsroom. Lloyd Nolan is top-billed as a cynical reporter with a penchant for sticking his neck out too far. Frank Albertson costars as a cub reporter fresh out of journalism school, whose presence is resented by Nolan and his fellow workers. But it is Albertson who, after running afoul of the law, is instrumental in breaking up a ring of racketeers. Behind the News was remade by Republic as Headline Hunters (55).
Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin (John Miljan), Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name
Beautiful young Virginian Jane steps down from her proper aristocratic upbringing when she marries down-to-earth surveyor Matt Howard. Matt joins the Colonial forces in their fight for freedom against England. Matt will meet Jane's father in the battlefield.
This MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short tells the fictitious story of a bill counterfeiting ring and explores the government's attempt to curb counterfeiting.
A wax museum run by a demented doctor contains statues of such crime figures as Jack the Ripper and Bluebeard. In addition to making wax statues the doctor performs plastic surgery. It is here that an arch fiend takes refuge. The museum also houses a statue of Charlie. Frustrated number-two son kicks statue in rear; oops, number-two son wrong in his assumption
Nightclub owner Steve Larwitt (George Raft) sees his empire of investments collapse as he faces tax evasion charges and attacks by rivals. Believing Steve will be safer in prison for one year, his wife, Brenda (Joan Bennett), testifies against him on advice from his lawyer, Slant Kolma (Lloyd Nolan), who is in love with her. After Steve receives 10 years in Alcatraz, Brenda moves to be near him and avoids advances of airplane builder Tim Nolan (Walter Pidgeon), who knows nothing about her past.
June McCarthy has unwittingly aided an undercover Nazi naval officer with acquiring a "mother ship" for German submarines in the Atlantic.
A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.
This entry in MGM's series of shorts, "Crime Doesn't Pay", features a big city crime boss's attempt to use his crime "machine" to fraudently win re-election for the current corrupt mayor. By using several illegal tactics, and aided by voter apathy, the crime boss nearly continues his control of the city.
In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with invention of an early form of stock market ticker.
On a cruise ship from Honolulu to San Francisco, the famous Chinese detective encounters four more murders while trying to figure out the murder of a Scotland Yard friend.
After intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located on Black Island near the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle. Undaunted, Mary sets sail for Cuba with a stowaway in her trunk—wise-cracking Larry Lawrence, a radio announcer who helps Mary get to the bottom of the voodoo magic, zombies and ghosts that supposedly curse the spooky estate.
A pair of slick Broadway producers con a wealthy cowboy into backing their show.
The story of Abraham Lincoln's 30-year struggle of persistence-through-failure is told to an unemployed 50 year old man.
Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.
Three comrades graduate from Viriginia Military Institute. Bing has a chance to return to VMI as a football coach.
A movie company making a film about a famous sheriff hires his grandson as a stand-in for the lead.
A hardened crook behind bars comes up against a reform-minded warden.
Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard. Soon, he is approached by charlatan J. Frothingham Waterbury about buying shares in a mining company. Egbert persuades teller Og Oggilby to lend him bank money, to be returned when the scheme pays off. Unfortunately, bank inspector Snoopington then makes a surprise appearance.
A girl decides to consult her natural father, whom she's never seen, for advice on her mixed-up love life.
An MGM Miniature about an incurable optimist who is always giving up on his job or project to try something new, while his wife and kids humor him, thinking that some day he may make that million he always talks about. He takes over a peanut farm, but immediately starts off on a bee-hive project, leaving his wife and kids to run the peanut farm.
FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.
After a socially conscience reporter adopts a slum orphan after she causes his brother's gang to go to prison.
Blondie and Dagwood are in charge of operations at a mountain motel. The elderly owners of the establishment are in danger of losing their life savings. Among other things, arson threatens.
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
Jerry tries to out compete his older brother Cass, a lieutenant Naval aviator. Cass is both tough on and protective of his brother, but Jerry can give it right back.
In Springdale, a small town near New York, taxi driver Brick Tennant and his friend Joe Linden are unjustly accused of a hideous crime and blindly convicted by those who are only interested in feeding the voracious machinery of an inhumane justice system.
In this comedic short, when a waiter accidentally knocks out boxing champ Tiger Dorsey in Slapsie Maxie's restaurant, Maxie arranges a boxing match between the reluctant waiter and the champ.
The MGM crime reporter introduces Norman Kennedy, District Attorney of a large city, he who talks about the general want for money, and the extraordinary lengths some will go to to get it. The loan sharking business has that want for money on both sides. He tells the story of one such loan shark, Stephen Hanley, who tried to pass his company off as a legitimate loan business, but who charged exorbitant rates, and used extortion and fraud to get out of his customers even more than what they may have owed on paper.
A cabbie and petty thief dreams of the big heist that will end his thieving ways.
When American newspaperman and adventurer Henry M. Stanley comes back from the western Indian wars, his editor James Gordon Bennett sends him to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, the missing Scottish missionary. Stanley finds Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") blissfully doling out medicine and religion to the happy natives. His story is at first disbelieved.
The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.
In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.
A couple inherits a college and to generate revenue offers a thousand dollars to players for each touchdown they score.
When Barry Corvall discovers that his new bride is a possible enemy agent, he resigns from the diplomatic service to go undercover to route out an espionage ring planning to destroy American industrial capability.
A tugboat captain (Wallace Beery) serves under his rival (Chester Morris) as a U-boat chaser in World War I.
A businessman's (Charles Winninger) youngest daughter (Deanna Durbin) helps her innocent sisters in love.
An elderly grandfather proves to be heroic when he takes a stand against local city corruption.
This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross.
Wisecracking showgirl Maisie Ravier finds herself trapped in a Wyoming town when her new employer closes the show prematurely. She meets ranch foreman Charles "Slim" Martin when he accuses her of lifting his wallet and ends up being hired as a maid for ranch owners Cliff and Sybil, who are attempting to mend their rocky marriage after Sybil's infidelity with a cowboy.
Romance and heartbreak walk hand-in-hand when Philip Chagal accidentally meets Helen Lawrence in a restaurant where she is a waitress. Unhappily married to a woman who suffers from mental illness, he is attracted to her and they make a date to go sailing, arriving at Philip's country home just as a storm is breaking. Helen learns who he is for the first time, a celebrated-and-famous concert pianist and, falling in love with him, decides to leave before matters go further. A hurricane hits and their car is crippled by a falling tree. Rising water forces then to seek shelter in the choir loft of a church, where they spend the night.
The future is bleak for a troubled boy from a broken home in the slums. He runs away when his step father breaks his violin, ending up sleeping in the basement of a music school for poor children.
A famous aviator (William Gargan) helps an amateur (Kay Francis) enter a cross-country air race for women.
Filmed in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Sonora, California, this Universal serial is Universal's 40th sound-era serial. Eagle Scout Bruce Scott, leader of Martinsville Troop Number One, and his pack sets off in search of lost treasure and finds adventure
A romantic drama film about a love triangle between a stage actress, her financial backer, and his friend.
In this musical comedy, two star-struck small town kids head for the Big Apple and become famous for their jitterbug act. Their fame doesn't last long, but they had fun anyway. Songs include: "Baltimore Bubble," "Gingham Gown," "Just a Bore," "Wasn't It You," "Kaneski Waltz" (Frank Skinner, Charles Henderson).
A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound freighter's cargo.
Police set up a dragnet to trap an outlaw's wife whom they believe to be his accomplice.
In Shanghai amidst Sino-Japanese warfare an adventurer (Sanders) collecting money from gun suppliers falls in loves with a French singer (Del Rio).
Roberta Morgan is being raised in a wealthy home where her mother is occupied with her society-club activities and her father is immersed in his business activities. She also feels that the household staff is against her and that no one understands her needs and problems. Things spiral out of control.
McCrea plays Joe Meadows, whose only ambition as a Kansas farm boy was a life at sea. He moves to New York to try to get a job as a sailor, finds it more difficult than he thought, and meets Helen Brown, who falls for him and uses her feminine wiles to try to prevent him leaving.
This historical featurette focuses on Caesar Rodney of Delaware who in the summer of 1776 cast the deciding vote, at the meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, so that the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
This was one of the annual "blooper" reels screened by the Warners Club, an organization of Warners actors, crew and executives. It was meant to poke fun at the flubs and bloopers that occurred ont the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1938.
A medical school graduate takes an internship at a big city hospital, only to be subjected to a rigorous (and sometimes embarrassing) testing of his knowledge by the hospital's top dog, Dr. Leonard Gillespie.
Army Private Eddie Pratt smuggles his new bride into camp in hopes of having a happy wedding night. Instead they discover a murder. Colonel Rogers of Army Intelligence arrives to take over the case. The prime suspect, Jevries, is well-known to Rogers, who sets out to get a confession from Jevries even though there are plenty of other suspects.
When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
This short film tells the story of the discovery of radium and how it is used in medicine.
Lively June (Jane Withers), teen-aged daughter of mystery writer Waldo Everett (Jon Qualen), who calls her "Angel," becomes involved in intrigue centering on movie star Pauline Kaye (Sally Blane) and her companion Stivers (Joan Davis). Reporter Nick Moore (Robert Kent), once sweet on Pauline, is convinced that her sudden disappearance is a publicity stunt, which is true -- until gangster Bat Regan (Harold Huber) decides to get involved.
With no other prospects, a World War I veteran puts the skills they taught him in the War to use.
Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Jameson's interest in his sister.
John Thompson is kidnapped by mobsters after quitting his job. Then he is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for murders they committed. A suspicious detective thinks he is innocent and works to save his life.
Torchy Blane solves a murder and smuggling case during a round-the-world flight.
This short film tells the story of a disgraced U.S. army officer who is charged with treason. At his court martial he is sentenced to lifetime exile aboard American ships at sea, no crew member can mention anything about the United States within his hearing, and in the books he is allowed to read all references to the United States are removed.
Set in the underworld of Manhattan, Marked Woman tells the story of a woman who dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters. The women of the story are "hostesses". What is implied, but not stated clearly is that they are prostitutes, who work in a gambling den in the city.
In the 1840s, Ramsey MacKay, the driver for the struggling Wells Fargo mail and freight company, will secure an important contract if he delivers fresh oysters to Buffalo from New York City. When he rescues Justine Pryor and her mother, who are stranded in a broken wagon on his route, he doesn't let them slow him down and gives the ladies an exhilirating ride into Buffalo. He arrives in time to obtain the contract and is then sent by company president Henry Wells to St. Louis to establish a branch office.
Ace owns just about everything around except for the Bank, which is owned by John Ware. Ace also has his eye on Judy, but Judy only has eyes for Clay. Since Ace is a crook, he holds up the stage and has his cronies swear that Clay was the bandit which gets Clay 10 years in jail. After he gets out in 5 for good behavior, Clay sets out to find who framed him and stole the stage strongbox. Since the sheriff does not like Clay, he takes his guns away as part of his probation and it makes Clay a target for the Ace gang.
Fun little film about an egotistical crime writer who gets involved with the case of a notorious art thief (who is believed to be dead) while at the same time romancing a lovely young actress who's in a play that also happens to be the cover for massive jewel job. Art connoisseur and criminologist George Melville (Joel McCrea) is hired to track down art thieves, assisted by perky Claire Peyton (Jean Arthur) and goaded by Phil Bane (Thomas Mitchell), the roaring newspaper editor who has employed him. The mastermind poses as a theatrical impresario and stages a war drama, replete with loud explosions, to divert attention from his band of thieves, who are cracking safes in a bank adjacent to the theater.
The Big Noise is retired textile manufacturer Julius Trent (Guy Kibbee). Seeking a new outlet for his entrepreneurial energies, Trent buys a half interest in a thriving dry-cleaning establishment. This gets him mixed up with a gang of protection racketeers, who promise dire consequences if Trent doesn't dance to their tune.
A profligate, polo-playing playboy (Henry Fonda) is married to a beautiful but superficial heiress (Mary Brian). They divorce, and the wife gets all the money. But the humbled (and impoverished) Fonda finds true love in the arms of Pat Paterson, who cares nothing for material things.
Fate brings a job at Boulder Dam and romance with a saloon singer into the life of a young man on the run.
In this MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short, a protection racket preying on milk distribution is broken through the persistence of law enforcement and the courage of a local businessman.
A dog and a horse become unlikely allies when they attempt to thwart a crooked gambler from rigging a race.
A radio-network manager's boss makes him air a serial based on a murder, tormenting a woman involved.
Cowboy Jeff Larabee returns from the east and meets Doris Halloway, a young girl, that he regards as a vagabond, till he learns that she's the owner of the farm where he works. He tries to win her heart, but without success, until she is endangered by gangsters
Neurotic Broadway star Al Jackson faces professional ruin when he loses his voice. While recuperating in the country, he falls in love with farm girl Ruth Haines, the pretty aunt of precocious little Sybil Haines.
An aviator ignores skeptics to make the first commercial flight from San Francisco to China.
The story is told in flashback. Backers want a gambler to marry a rich girl for her dowry.
Broadway star Jimmy Canfield stars in a patriotic show on the great white way during WWI. He plays the heroic soldier, but he is doesn't want to join the Army. To evade some troubles with fellow actress Berenice, he acts like joining the forces going over there, but that turns out to be real. In France he falls in love with a French barmaid and is arrested as spy. He escapes from prison, only to end in the uniform of a German officer leading "his" soldiers in an Allied trap. But being escaped from prison and wearing the enemy's uniform isn't that healthy in wartime.
A country girl goes to the city and gets a job in a posh hotel, and winds up becoming an instant celebrity thanks to an ambitious photographer.
An admiral's son with no interest in carrying on the family tradition is a successful crooner. He finally joins the Navy to prove he can, but with no real love in it.
An American oil company representative almost sacrifices his marriage for his career.
A taxi driver travels to Venice and poses as a gondolier to land a radio singing job.
James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.
When reporter Dan Miller is once again late to meet his girl friend, Helen Murdock, because he is working on a story, Helen breaks up with him. Later, in an effort to reconcile with her, Dan misses an appointment with the district attorney, and is fired when his editor learns that the district attorney was murdered in Dan's absence. The man suspected of the crime, Mitts Coster, is rumored to be traveling to Europe aboard an ocean liner. While Dan's friend, photographer Snapper McGillicuddy, fetches Helen to the boat, under the pretense that Dan is leaving town to forget her, Dan searches the ship for Mitts, whom he does not recognize. When Helen arrives, Dan feigns illness, and she admits her love for him. When Helen learns of Dan's ruse, however, she angrily hits him with a package that a passenger gave her when she boarded the ship. The package contains a passport for Dorothy Madden, who greatly resembles Helen, and $2,000 dollars.
The wealthy Van Dyke family are constantly in the media for outrageous behavior, much to the frustration of the patriarch, Dan Van Dyke. His self-centered wife has a fondness for foreign imports, including "pet projects" like dancers and such and his spoiled children Tony and Carol have constant run-ins with the law. When Dan himself ends up in the clink for five years for tax evasion, he becomes bunk-mates with ex-bootlegger Joe "Spots" Ricardi. Ricardi lectures him on being such a push-over for an out-of-control family, so a dying Dan makes Ricardi his estate trustee once he is released from prison. Ricardi is then thrust into high society and must do everything he once nagged Dan to do.
Newspaperman Bill Bradford becomes a special agent for the tax service trying to end the career of racketeer Nick Carston. Julie Gardner is Carston's bookkeeper. Bradford enters Carston's organization and Julie cooperates with him to land Carston in jail. An informer squeals on them. Julie is kidnapped by Carston's henchmen as she is about to testify
An eccentric, wealthy spinster, 'Queenie' Baxter is erroneously presumed to be kidnapped. She subsequently pretends to indeed be kidnapped, , in order to allow a reward of $50,000 to benefit an impecunious family headed by Tony Orsatti and his three sons, Blackie, Doc and Flash.
ZaSu Pitts and Slim Summerville meet when both are sold deeds to an abandoned ranch in the California desert. Their lonely lives become much more crowded when a drifter discovers gold on the property—though all he’s found is Slim’s missing filling. (adapted from MoMA capsule)
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Tycoon J.L. Higgins controls his whole family, but one of his sons- in-law, Dan Brooks and his daughter Alice are fed up with that. Brooks quits his job as manager of J.L.'s paper box factory and devotes his life to his racing horse Broadway Bill, but his bank- roll is thin and the luck is against him, he is arrested because of $150 he owes somebody for horse food, but suddenly a planed fraud by somebody else seems to offer him a chance...
After having been swindled out of all their money by a crooked business manager, formerly wealthy socialites Jerry and Carol discover that they owe their chauffeur and maid back wages they are unable to pay. They're forced to let their former employees live in their luxury apartment in lieu of paying the money they owe them.
