Karen Morley
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.
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
A naïve, recently-orphaned young man discovers he's being used as a pawn in a crooked gambler's plan to rig a July 4 horserace. Western.
Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon Paula Craig, a venomous seductress. When Craig's boyfriend, Steve Price, robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert, but Craig murders Price, takes the money and convinces Lambert that he killed Price in a blackout. Lambert is ready to skip town, until he learns a friend is set to take the fall.
In this drama, a trucker's business is nearly destroyed after he is wrongfully accused of killing a policeman with whom he recently quarreled.
"The Unknown" was the final entry in Columbia’s I Love A Mystery series. A woman hires two detectives to keep her alive long enough to claim her inheritance.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes. But pride, prejudice and misunderstandings all combine to complicate their relationships and to make happiness difficult.
The story of seven people: their lives and love affairs in Madrid during the Civil War.
Irish rebels launch an uprising against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1920s. One of the rebellion's leaders and a beautiful aristocratic Englishwoman meet and, despite the enormous class, cultural, political and social differences between them, fall in love.
In this action film, a courageous test pilot works with experimental aircraft for the US Armed Forces. When an important airplane manufacturer dies, his daughter is left to run the company. The company seems to be producing dangerous prototypes, so the woman decides to close the company.
Virgie Cary's father, a rebel officer, sneaks back to his rundown plantation to see his dying wife and is arrested. A Yankee officer takes pity and sets up an escape. Everyone is captured and the officers are to be executed. Virgie and Uncle Billy beg President Lincoln to intercede.
A young doctor running a health farm for polio victims is dazzled by a pretty and wealthy society girl, to the detriment of his patients and the woman who really loves him.
A whodunit set in Budapest, starring Edmund Lowe as a detective investigating the murder of an unemployed vaudeville actor.
A simple Pennsylvania coal miner is drawn into the violent conflict between union workers and management.
When he finds out that his wife is having an affair, a criminologist commits the perfect murder--and pins the crime on his wife's boyfriend so well that the man is convicted of the murder.
John and Mary sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society based upon the teachings of Edward Gallafent. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.
Just out of prison, Benny Horowitz tries to go straight. Things are complicated by his former girlfriend and his former gangster buddies.
A political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident.
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.
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.
An honest, talented and well respected attorney defeats a corrupt incumbent U.S. Senator. After a very good start he has to face the subtle temptations and innocent looking traps of Washington.
Five men have to prove their innocence when a blackmailer is murdered.
In the Austrian manor of Baron and Baroness von Burgen, the relationship between the upstairs aristocracy and the downstairs staff is quite positive. The servants seem to enjoy their time together, and some even fall in love, as head butler Albert and maid Anna have done. But when lecherous new chauffeur Karl Schneider enters the house, affairs and blackmail follow, and the harmony of the home is slowly destroyed.
In a plan to trap potential enemy spies in Washington, an American secret agent sets up a gambling house. He soon finds himself in a rivalry with his old friend the British ambassador over a beautiful Hungarian woman, and it leads to espionage, blackmail and murder.
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 charming and very daring thief known as Arsene Lupin is terrorizing the wealthy of Paris, he even goes so far as to threaten the Mona Lisa. But the police, led by the great Guerchard, think they know Arsene Lupin's identity, and they have a secret weapon to catch him.
The film features the leading actress Greta Garbo as Yvonne, an artist's model. Other stars include Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone, Marjorie Rambeau and Judith Vosselli. It is a romantic melodrama, portraying a Parisian belle with a past returning to haunt her. The film is the only one where Montgomery played opposite Garbo.
Out of jail for a crime she did not commit, Madelon turns to prostitution and thievery to send her illegitimate son to medical school.
Ivy Stevens (Joan Crawford) is a cafe entertainer in love with a shifty salesman (Neil Hamilton) who deserts her. In attempting to commit suicide, she is saved by Carl (Clark Gable), a Salvation Army officer. Encouraged by Carl, Ivy joins the Salvation Army. When her old flame re-enters her life, Ivy finds she is still attracted and begins another affair with him.
A guilt-ridden U.S. Marine returns to Cuba to try to find the woman he promised to marry.
Dan works for Pritchard and Pritchard out of San Francisco and is in love with Maisie, referred to as "the icebox" by his news reporter friend. As one of his ships returns to San Francisco, Dan learns that the Captain has contracted Leprosy and asks Dan to be the guardian of his South Sea island daughter Tamea. Dan soon learns that Tamea wants him and will do nothing without a kiss. But Tamea soon learns that she is different than Dan and Maisie and that makes her angry. Dan decides to go and live on the island with Tamea, but soon finds out that Paradise is not everything that he thought it was.
After years of fighting off the advances of her old flame Steve, Lisbeth settles into a steamy, casual romance with journalist Alan. Against the advice of her happily married aunt Celia -- who encourages her to demand a serious commitment -- Lisbeth continues to see Alan, even after she hears he may have a wife in France. When Alan's work sends him abroad, a lovesick Lisbeth struggles to understand her feelings.
