Jean Hersholt
A look at actresses who starred in films with thought-provoking subjects made between 1930 and July 1934, before the Hollywood Production Code —the infamous Hays Code— was enforced.
A collection of behind the scenes and home movies from the golden age of Hollywood.
Western that starts when a man (Matt Dow) is mistaken as a train robber. After the town's sheriff shoots the kid he's riding with, Dow clears his name and ends up as the new sheriff. He romances a Swedish woman and settles in to a peaceful life only to find that the boy has a few secrets of his own.
Live television broadcast of the world premiere. Described by various participants as the biggest world premiere in memory, even bigger than the Academy Awards.
Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.
A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance
World War II public education film about sexually transmitted diseases focused on syphilis.
Dr. Christian takes an interest in a young boy, a violin prodigy, whose mother is a divorced music teacher. His interest isn't just in the boy's music career--he believes it would be best for the boy to have his parents back together, and sets out to do just that.
Hedda Hopper plays hostess at a party for her (grown) son William (DeWolfe Jr.). Hopper, attends the dedication of the Motion Picture Relief Fund's country home and goes to the Mocambo. There is also a sequence dedicated to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin world premiere of the first short in this series attended by more that a few film stars.
Dr. Christian takes time out from his appointed rounds to help clear a bank teller of embezzlement charges.
A small town doctor suspects the stranger in town is promoting an oil swindle. The fourth entry in the "Dr. Christian" series of six films.
A conman arrives in town trying to sell his miracle methods of weight loss to the ladies. It's left to the good Dr. Christian to expose this fake and save a fragile young girl's life.
A doctor fights an epidemic that breaks out in the poor section of town and tries to get the rest of the town to help out.
This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Fay Bainter, Mickey Rooney, Thomas Mitchell, Sinclair Lewis, and more, with host Bob Hope.
The first of six films in the "Dr. Christian" series, starring Jean Hersholt as a small town doctor trying to convince local officials to approve funds for a new hospital.
Danger has a special sparkle when Mr. Moto heads to Puerto Rico to put a stop to the glut of contraband diamonds that are flooding the world's jewel market! But his smuggling investigation quickly turns into a murder mystery when both an undercover government agent and a top political figure wind up dead—and Moto begins to suspect that he is going to need a gem of a plan... to put these crooks on ice!
Roger Grant, a classical violinist, disappoints his family and teacher when he organizes a jazz band, but he and the band become successful. Roger falls in love with his singer Stella, but his reluctance to lose her leads him to thwart her efforts to become a solo star. When the World War separates them in 1917, Stella marries Roger's best friend Charlie. Roger comes home after the war and an important concert at Carnegie Hall brings the corners of the romantic triangle together.
Bandleader (Romero) and manager (Ameche) discover skater (Henie) in Norway. They become rivals as she returns with them to America.
Rival reporters compete to sign the Wyatt Quintuplets to be guests on their radio shows.
After saving a tramp from suicide, a millionaire takes his clothing and disappears. Word is out that he will give a million dollars to anyone who is kind to a tramp.
American theatrical manager (Menjou) discovers Henie preparing for the Olympics in Switzerland and brings her to Madison Square Garden.
Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.
A Parisian sewer worker longs for a rise in status and a beautiful wife. He rescues a girl from the police, lives with her in a barren flat on the seventh floor, and then marches away to war.
Epidemiologist Cliff Claybourne (Robert Taylor) falls in love with Rita Wilson (Barbara Stanwyck) in a gambling house. They want to marry but Cliff's brother is convinced Rita is no good and forces Cliff to fulfil his agreement to do research in Africa in exchange for paying gambling debt. Rita, Cliff and brother are furious with each other, but Rita and Cliff are still in love.
Austrian church bell ringer Freyman loves music and wants his two sons (both played by Ameche) to love it too. The first goes to America and the second is born deaf-mute but gains hearing during WWI bombing.
A doctor has a rough time obtaining the money for his services in a lumber town until he delivers quintuplets.
Newspapers around the world proclaim the birth in Moosetown, Canada of the 3,000th baby brought into the world by the doctor, John Luke, known for delivering the famous Wyatt quintuplets. To honor the doctor on his retirement and to publicize their town, the Moosetown chamber of commerce decides to hold a reunion of all the babies delivered by the doctor, some of whom have become famous.
Constance, a poor, but aspiring composer, meets the great conductor, Franz, through their old music teacher. They fall in love, despite Constance knowing about Franz's weakness for pretty women.
Sir Karell Borotyn appears to have been killed by Count Mora, a vampire who prowled around his castle. One year later, Irena, Karell's daughter, is haunted by the vampire and will be his next victim… unless Professor Zelen can avoid it.
A traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of technology -- an electric firing device -- is sabotaged. Then one of the cruiser's crew is murdered. In order to catch the killer, the captain locks down the ship. With foreign dignitaries, corporate goons and even Tom's girlfriend, Betty, trapped on the vessel, there is no shortage of suspects.
A dedicated young doctor places his patients above everyone else in his life. Unfortunately, his social register fianceé can't accept the fact that he considers an appointment in the operating room more important that attending a cocktail party. He soon drifts into an affair with a pretty nurse who shares his passion for healing.
Set during the first World War in neutral, but pro-German, Holland, Lewis Allison, an interned British officer, is paroled to the castle of Baron Von Leyden and finds living there, but now married to German officer Rupert Von Narwitz, his childhood sweetheart Julie. Long discussions between Julie and Allison, centering on family conflicts that kept them apart, take place before the severely wounded Von Narwitz returns to the castle and more long discussions ensue.
This drama centers on the fight for certain post-Prohibitionist groups to gain total control over the liquor industry. Much of the tale is focused upon a family endeavoring to keep their little brewery.
An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.
A doctor who is also a “mentalist” confesses to a murder. The only problem is that the murder he’s confessed to hasn’t happened yet – although dead bodies are now starting to turn up all over the place. A reporter sets out to solve the “mystery”.
Genial Irish NYC policeman Tom O'Hara is looking forward to the arrival of his wife and their young son, Shandy from Ireland. Several days before the ship is to dock, O'Hara gets a radiogram informing him that his wife has died at sea. That night a burglar breaks into the Antigue & Second Hand Shop ran by Sol Bloom, directly below O'Hara's flat. The burglar shoots O'Hara, who has rushed to his friend's aid, and, with his last breath he asks Sol to take care of Shandy. When Shandy arrives, Sol immediately makes him a member of the family, which also consists of a very mischievous motherless boy named Joey Bloom, whose pursuits consist of stealing oranges from fruit-dealer Tony, and playing hookey from school. Tom Varney, the young beat cop, is in love with Ruth Sneider, whose mother runs a Cleaning and Dyeling establishment. Ruth, however, is momentarily dazed with worthless Dave Haller.
Proper parents who treat their adult children as teenagers have a son who wants to go to Paris to study art, and a daughter in love with a married man.
The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.
When Fred Smith's wife dies in childbirth, Emma Thatcher, who has been nanny to the couple's three children, cares also for the family's new addition. Fred becomes rich and successful, then he and Emma marry. When Fred dies, his will becomes a source of trouble between the children and Emma.
Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his corrupt brother Ed to watch over Daisy who was associated with Belmonte.
Skyscraper Souls is a Pre-Code 1932 drama film starring Warren William and Maureen O'Sullivan. The film was directed by Edgar Selwyn and is based upon the novel Skycraper by Faith Baldwin. The film depicts the aspirations and lives of several people in the Seacoast National Bank Building. Among them is David Dwight, the womanizing bank owner who keeps his estranged wife happy by paying her bills. His secretary Sarah wants him to get a divorce so they can marry.
WBLA is on the air, presenting the live music, the sudsy dramas and the sell-sell-sell of commercial interludes that keep consumers buying and sponsors smiling. But one sponsor, a producer of plumbing supplies, isn’t happy. So WBLA scriptwriter Bill Grimes is bounced from his job, setting in motion this movie’s turn from comedic to darkly tragic. William Haines, two years removed from being Tinseltown’s top male star, plays Grimes in a melodrama noted for its glimpses of live radio production and for a Depression-era ethos that includes peroxide cuties eager to land a job, a sugar daddy or both.
A corrupt night court judge tears an innocent young family apart in his efforts to elude a special prosecutor.
Amanda and Elyot are one another's former spouse. Elyot remarries to Sibyl, Amanda weds Victor. Unexpectedly, both honeymooning couples arrive to a hotel on the same day and are put in rooms with adjoining terraces. Things go well until Amanda sees Elyot on the adjacent terrace.
Chéri-Bibi is a world class escape artist, but he cannot escape the false murder charge that is placed on him.
Out of jail for a crime she did not commit, Madelon turns to prostitution and thievery to send her illegitimate son to medical school.
As a luxurious ocean liner makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean, the audience is made privy to the travails of several of its passengers. Edmund Lowe heads the cast as Monty Greer, a suave gambler who falls in love with Judy (Lois Moran), the daughter of immigrant lens grinder Rudolph Kramer (Jean Hersholt). In trying to recover some valuable securities stolen from banker Henry Graham (John Halliday), Greer finds himself in the middle of a fierce gun battle in the ship's engine room. Meanwhile, Graham, who has been cheating on his wife Kay (Myrna Loy) with sexy dancer Sigrid Carline (Greta Nissen), is murdered by person or persons unknown. And that's only three of the plot strands in this marvelously complex shipboard thriller.
A young woman runs away from an abusive home and pre-arranged marriage only to be frustrated in her attempts to find happiness with a handsome engineer.
Ming Toy is on the auction block in China. She is saved by Billy and taken to San Francisco by Lo Sang Kee. To save her from deportation she is sold to Charlie Yong, the Chop Suey King. Billy kidnaps her with plans of marriage.
Lovely Anita dreams of escaping the monotony of her island home and sailing to bustling Havana. But when her abusive father promises her to the greasy local merchant, Anita does everything in her power to make her dream a reality.
This film earned an Oscar nomination for Sound Recording. It is the only film nominated in this category that is among the lost. No negative or print material is known to have survived. Contemporary reviews were scathing, describing the film as a vastly overlong and boring talk-fest.
August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.
This sentimental Romberg-Hammerstein operetta was made late in the first cycle of movie musicals, and the glut of product at the time crowded it out at the box office. Which is too bad, because it's an excellent example of its kind -- well-crafted, well-cast, and in handsome two-tone Technicolor.
Soap-opera about a social-climbing Jewish man and his old-world parents who are heartbroken by his rejection of them. Young Morris Goldfish follows his immigrant father into business. His ruthless business practices cause him to become a big success, and he moves the family to Park Avenue. They go, but were happier back on the East Side. Morris is ashamed of this parents and his humble origins, but learns in the end that there is more to life than money.
The illiterate daughter of a drunken, nasty sea captain falls in love with a tugboat pilot. Her father disapproves of the relationship, and is determined to do everything he can to break it up.
A young prince falls in love with a beautiful barmaid while at university in old Heidelberg.
Gum-chewing frizzy-haired golddigger Marie Skinner cooks up a scheme with her lover Babe Winsor, a jazz hound, to fleece a portly middle-aged real estate tycoon, William Judson. Marie moves into Judson's apartment building and contrives to meet and seduce him, plying him with compliments, music, swoons, décolletage, and batted eyes. When his loyal wife (and their two children) see him out catting with Marie at a night club, mom's devastated and confronts him. He moves out. Babe wants Marie to sell Judson worthless bonds. Will mom commit suicide? Will sis shoot the floozy? Will pops figure out he's being a fool?
The owner of a fruit cannery is facing financial ruin as a result of a strike. Unbeknownst to him, his son is the person who is organizing it.
An Elderly fruit grower sends a photo of his foreman, not himself, to a waitress he wishes to marry. She falls in love with the foreman.
In this comedy, a wealthy matron is terribly upset when she learns that her socialite son is planning to marry a blue collar girl.
Scott Sidney silent mistaken identity romantic comedy about a timid man, named Seymour White, who creates a new kind of ladies' lingerie. When he goes to Atlantic City to meet his lost sweetheart, he discovers she has grown fat and ugly, so he pretends to be "Mr. Wright". All kinds of comic hilarity ensue. This is a "lost" film, which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist.
Fernie Schmidt (Colleen Moore) lives with her parents in the rear of their delicatessen. The smells of the business - cheeses, sausages, garlic and pickled herrings - repulses Fernie, who dreams of leaving this environment and moving into a life that's more rarified. Her father, Pop Schmidt (Jean Hersholt) has plans for his daughter to marry Peter Halitovsky (Arthur Stone), a sausage salesman, but Fernie is repulsed by the idea. At a dance, Fernie meets Jack Dugan (Malcolm McGregor), who tells her that he is in stocks, a paper-counter, and she falls for him. Because of her rejection of her father's chosen candidate for matrimony, Pop puts Fernie out of the house.
A story of Vienna following World War I, in which the butchers became millionaires and the aristocrats became beggars, told against a background of mother-love and sacrifice.
Railroad builder James Travers (George Nichols) wants his pretty daughter, Anne (Virginia Valli), to marry Herbert Landis, a young engineer (Eugene O'Brien). Unfortunately, Anne loves Landis...like a brother, and his rival, Hilary Fenton (Bryant Washburn), stands ready to snatch her up.
Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.
An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.
The story of a woman on trial for her life for shooting the man who had promised to love her but had deserted her...and of a woman on the jury who refused to condemn her when eleven men had voted guilty...a woman brave enough to defy public opinion, brave enough to lose the loss of the love of her husband by baring her soul to the world in order to save the girl on trial.
A newly married husband and wife make an agreement that should either of them want to terminate their relationship then a bowl with goldfish would be presented to the other signalling the end of their marriage.
The City of Stars is structured as a "coming attractions" promo within the fictional framework of an Eastern editor (vaudeville actor Broderick O'Farrell) arriving in Los Angeles to meet with Universal's advertising manager. The sceneic resources of the studio are showcased throughout, with a "See America First" wagon visible in one scene, and a scattering of panoramic shots of Universal City and the Universal zoo.
An impoverished British lord (Paul Menford) impersonates a doctor in order to woo an ailing American heiress (Dorothy Adams). The lord is in it for love, but his business associate (Joe Diamond) smells money.
Wealthy Elias Graves builds his home on the top of a hill, where a group of squatters have taken up residence at the bottom. Many of the men in the squatters' village have their eyes on young Tess, and one of them, Ben Letts, frames Tess's father for murder. While maintaining her father's innocence, Tess must keep her love for Graves' son a secret, while caring for Elias' daughter's illegitamate child.
A fine cast brings depth to this melodrama of a crippled boy, an unhappy marriage, an injured young lady and the miracle of faith.
In managing the shipyard inherited from her father, Derith Keogh has considerable labor problems and accedes to the unreasonable demands of John Trevelyan, an anarchist labor agitator. Derith's brother John is off in pursuit of an adventuress, and Angus Campbell, her superintendent, resigns in exasperation. Angus returns, however, to help Derith persuade Trevelyan to settle a strike, which Trevelyan accomplishes in spite of being shot by one of his own men.
Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.
At the Golden Trail saloon in Alaska, Dave Langdon meets chorus girl Faro Kate who reminds him of his long-lost love, Jane Sunderlin. Meanwhile, back in the States, Harry Teal, scheming to steal a mine claim, hires Jane's brother Dick to do his dirty work in Alaska. After Jane accompanies her brother up North, Teal, who has designs on Jane, begins to fear that she will go back to Dave and so plots to discredit him by igniting the jealousy of Kate's admirer, Jim Sykes. Teal succeeds, and in the violent fight that erupts between Dave and Sykes, Sykes is shot by an unknown hand. While pursuing Sykes' assailant, Dave discovers Jane, but their reunion is cut short when Dave is arrested for the shooting.
Robert "Bob" Wesley horrifies his father, Admiral John Wesley of the Naval Advisory Board, by failing his examination at the Annapolis naval academy. Bob seizes the chance to redeem himself, however, when he overhears Hanson, the butler, plotting with German agent Count Von Ornstorff to deliver his father's plans for the Atlantic coastal defenses to German Baroness Von Hulda. In Baltimore, Bob meets the baroness' ship and, with the aid of an old college professor, makes her his prisoner. Having impersonated a woman in the college play, Bob disguises himself as the baroness, rendezvous with the spies, and obtains the plans.
Jack Calvert bets four friends that he can travel from New York to Constantinople without a cent. The Library of Congress holds an incomplete print (two of five reels are preserved).
The daughter of a disowned upper class Bostonian finds acceptance in Parisian society. An incomplete copy exists at the Library of Congress.
Harry is thrown out of town and on his way across the desert meets a minister and his family; when the man is killed in an Indian raid, Harry takes care of his little daughter, later puts on the minister's frock and reforms a town.
Frivolous young Marie de Severac is frightened into following a more virtuous path, when her father relates a story in which an equally frivolous woman is entombed alive. The movie was Rex Ingram’s directorial debut, and he later remade the film as Trifling Women in 1922. Black Orchids is considered to be a lost film.
Princess Seraphina, taking her small son, Paul, flees from Yulania to the village of Champ Fleury in Normandy, because of the debauchery of her husband, Prince Feodor. The agent of Saxonia, Count Stefan, calls to convince Feodor he should divorce his wife and marry Princess Sofia Anoria with her fifty million francs, for Saxonia needs Yulania as a buffer state in case of war. Prince Feodor consents and agrees to the conspiracy of the agent to gain reason for divorce.
Determined to maintain her status as a star detective, Nellie Gleason goes after Jim Kinkaid, who has fled to Mexico after robbing real estate magnate George Arnold.
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier community.
A young woman is out shopping and buys a new hat in the latest fashion. Unfortunately, the hat is so huge that it leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes. A quite ordinary stroll suddenly becomes deeply problematic. (stumfilm.dk)
