Ralph Brooks
Against the counsel of his friends, psychiatrist Dick Diver marries Nicole Warren, a beautiful but unstable young woman from a moneyed family. Thoroughly enraptured, he forsakes his career in medicine for life as a playboy, until one day Dick is charmed by Rosemary Hoyt, an American traveling abroad. The thought of Dick possibly being attracted to someone else sends Nicole on an emotional downward spiral that threatens to consume them both.
Gambler Arnold Rothstein marries an actress, avenges his buddy and meets an underworld fate.
In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.
Eager to land a journalistic position, Adam White goes to work as an advice-giving newspaper columnist. His editor, Shrike, takes pleasure in browbeating his alcoholic wife Florence for her past adultery, and assigning his employees journalistic jobs for which they have little aptitude or interest. Shrike goads Adam into meeting one of his correspondents, Fay Doyle, a teary, self-pitying woman who makes a play for him. Adam is torn between his loyalty to the newspaper and his girl Justy.
Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill, but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.
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.
Author & amateur astronomer John Putnam and schoolteacher Ellen Fields witness an enormous meteorite come down near a small town in Arizona, but Putnam becomes a local object of scorn when, after examining the object up close, he announces that it is a spacecraft, and that it is inhabited...
As Jerry Golding scales the heights of show business, he breaks the heart of his father, who'd hoped that Jerry would follow in his footsteps. Sorrowfully, Cantor Golding reads the Kaddish service, indicating that, so far as he is concerned, his son is dead. A tearful reconciliation occurs when Jerry dutifully returns to sing the "Kol Nidre" in his ailing father's absence.
Professional killer Bus Crow is hired by cattlemen to eliminate squatters. When Marshal Sam Rochelle is sent to investigate, saloon owner Hallie has to be a reluctant witness.
The Horatio Alger parable gets the film noir treatment with the redoubtable Edmund O’Brien as a whip-smart telephone technician who moves up the ladder of a Syndicate gambling empire in Southern California until distracted by an inconveniently married Joanne Dru and his own greed. Ripped from the headlines of the 1950 Kevaufer Organized Crime Hearings, this fast-moving picture is laden with location sequences shot in Los Angeles, the Hoover Dam and Palm Springs including the famous Doll House watering hole on North Palm Canyon Drive!
When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the woman's identity, how she died, and who killed her.
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son.
Architect Ronald Reagan and wife Ruth Hussey invite his widowed mother (Spring Byington) to move in with them, only to discover the sweet elderly lady is romantically involved with what seems to be every old coot in town. This breezy 1950 comedy, directed by Alexander Hall, also features Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn, Piper Laurie, Scotty Beckett and Connie Gilchrist.
Deborah Chandler's rejected suitor, Selden Clark, manages the factory of her father, who dies a suspicion death. But charming Clark manages to win her over and marry her. On the honeymoon, Clark's former girl Patricia intervenes and opens Deborah's eyes, alas too late. Now Clark tries to kill Deborah. Believed dead by all but Clark, she flees. But drifter Keith Ramsey recognizes and follows her. Can she trust him? Can he believe her?
In "Shakedown," Howard Duff plays a photographer who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the very top of the success ladder. On the strength of his sheer tenacity, he gets a job with a major newspaper, and it's not long before he's made a name for himself by charming a notorious crime boss (Brian Donlevy) into allowing himself to be photographed. Donlevy takes him under his wing, but Duff decides to bite the hand that feeds him and sets Donlevy and another crime boss, Lawrence Tierney, against one another. He uses photos to blackmail Tierney into providing him with a steady income while he sidles up to Donlevy's wife on the sly, all the while romancing the photo editor of the paper at which he works.
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.
An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.
The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who, after gaining supreme power and establishing a reign of terror ruled by death, now intends to become the dictator of France.
A football halfback has a heart condition, a nagging wife and a team secretary who loves him.
The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.
Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.
An old millionaire, who believes he's dying, bequeaths his fortune to a young woman with a fanatical obsession with movie stars. But then the elderly tycoon recovers from his illness and decides he wants his money back. Comedy most notable for its numerous unbilled cameos by Warner Bros. actors.
Broadway star, Sheila Page, shoots Barney, her murderous husband on New Year's Eve. She flees her apartment and goes to her producer, John Friday. When she arrives, it is New Year's day, a year earlier. She has been given the chance to live life over and correct the errors of the past only to find that the end will be the same although the path will be different.
Christine Hunter kills an intruder and tells her husband and lawyer that it was an act of self-defense. It's later revealed that he was actually her lover and she had posed for an incriminating statue he created.
A boy's tall tale about a gun puts his parents and school principal in jail.
When his employer goes to Florida, a butler masquerades as a millionaire and winds up marrying an heiress.
Susan is about to be married, but the wedding may get called off after her fiancé summons three former beaus. Each reveals a different portrait of Susan: one describes her as a naive country girl who reluctantly becomes an actress, another paints a picture of a gay party girl and and the third describes a serious intellectual.
Shy sailor Casey Kirby suddenly becomes known as a sea wolf when his picture is taken with a famous actress. Things get complicated when bets are placed on his prowess with the ladies.
A nine-year-old Elizabeth Taylor made her film debut in this lively comedy. She plays the spoiled-brat daughter of a pudding manufacturer who has been entered into the town's mayoral race by some of the local businessmen. They have chosen him because they think he is easy to manipulate. As a sales gimmick, the pudding magnate advertises that his product contains the highly nutritious "Vitamin Z." He suddenly begins selling pudding like crazy and soon his political campaign is well-funded. Unfortunately, there is no "Vitamin Z" and when this is discovered, the town fathers try to dump him and show that he is a fake.
Berle plays a mystery writer who forever writes himself into corners and is never able to finish a story. While visiting his wife (Mary Beth Hughes) at the office where she works, Berle overhears several men discussing the suicide of a coworker. Struck with a brilliant notion, Berle decides to confess to the murder of the dead man, certain that he'll be able to wriggle out of the situation and thereby have plenty of material for a story.
Susan Applegate, tired of New York after one year and twenty-five jobs, decides to return to her home town. Discovering she hasn't enough money for the train fare, Susan disguises herself as a twelve-year-old and travels for half the price. Caught out by the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby, a military school instructor who takes the "child" under his wing.
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.
A pair of shipboard smugglers have a large diamond hidden inside a small elephant statuette, which they plant on absentminded Lord Epping to get it past customs. Now, his lordship is visiting Uncle Matt Lindsay who looks just like him. Thanks to flirtatious Diana's efforts to get the elephant back, the comic confusion proliferates, with 'spitfire' Carmelita (now a blonde) playing a prominent part.
Two taxi-fleet operators rescue a girl and she follows them to a mountain resort.
Two bumbling service station attendants are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when they are stranded in a haunted house along with several other strangers.
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.
Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts, a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world. Aboard the Alabama, Tommy meets up with Smoky and Pomeroy, who help hide him from Dorothy, who hatches numerous schemes in an attempt to photograph Tommy/Russ being a sailor.
A young promoter is accused of the murder of Vicky Lynn, a young actress he "discovered" as a waitress while out with ex-actor Robin Ray and gossip columnist Larry Evans.
Jim "Lucky" Moore, an insurance salesman, comes up with a novel policy for his friend, Steve: a 'love insurance policy', that will pay out $1-million if Steve does not marry his fiancée, Cynthia. The upcoming marriage is jeopardized by Steve's ex-girlfriend, Mickey, and Cynthia's disapproving Aunt Kitty. The policy is underwritten by a nightclub owner, Roscoe, who sends two enforcers - Abbott and Costello - to ensure that the wedding occurs as planned.
On return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic in the slums.
Judy O'Brien is an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe. Also in the company is Bubbles, a brash mantrap who leaves the struggling troupe for a career in burlesque. When the company disbands, Bubbles gives Judy a thankless job as her stooge. The two eventually clash when both fall for the same man.
The Saint Takes Over, released in 1940 by RKO Pictures, was the fifth motion picture featuring the adventures of Simon Templar, a.k.a. "The Saint" the Robin Hood-inspired crimefighter created by Leslie Charteris. George Sanders returned as Templar, with Wendy Barrie playing his latest romantic conquest in her second of three appearances in the Saint film series (playing a different role each time). This film focuses on the character of Inspector Henry Farnack (Jonathan Hale), who appeared in several of the Saint series. When Farnack is framed by a gang he is investigating, it is up to The Saint to clear his name.
Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.
An alcoholic film star attempts a comeback. Director Walter Lang's 1940 comedy stars John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Anne Baxter, John Payne, Lionel Atwill and Edward Brophy.
Kitty Foyle, a hard-working white-collar girl from a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania low, middle-class family, meets and falls in love with young socialite Wyn Strafford but his family is against her.
A priceless necklace goes missing at a plush party. Police close in on the jewel thieves but is one cop getting too close to one of the crooks?
Texas girl (Bari) goes to New York, becomes a newspaper reporter, and tries to get her gambler boyfriend (Woods) to come home.
Beautiful chanteuse 'Bijou' (Marlene Dietrich) cascades through Malaysia's ports of call eventually landing in a handsome lieutenant's lap. As Bijou 'drifts through the standards', the fleet's Admiral reckons the US Navy "already has enough destroyers". A Marlene classic with songs by Frederick Hollander and a young and promising John Wayne.
Dagwood inadvertently gets cornered in to resigning. When his wife Blondie tries to ask Dagwoods boss Mr. Dithers for his job back, he ends up hiring her instead. This doesn't sit too well with Dagwood. Blondie's sister comes to visit, and Dagwood is put in a compromising situation with another woman.
A maker of illusions for magicians protects an ingenue likely to be murdered.
Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.
A mobster's moll (Joan Bennett) leads a newsman (Adolphe Menjou), cub reporter (John Hubbard) and photographer to a scoop.
In this reworking of Cinderella, orphaned Connie Harding is sent to live with her rich aunt and uncle after graduating from boarding school. She's hardly received with open arms, especially by her snobby cousin Barbara. When the entire family is invited to a major social ball, Barbara sees to it that Connie is forced to stay home. With the aid of her uncle, who acts as her fairy godfather, Connie makes it to the ball and meets her Prince Charming in Ted Drake, her cousin's boyfriend.
Woman hopes to be a great singer and is encouraged by her scheming teacher. After she flops her husband, encouraged by an amorous professional singer tries opera and also flops.
Studio publicist discovers Minnesota skating teacher and takes her to Hollywood. She goes back to Minnesota but he follows her.
A businessman's (Charles Winninger) youngest daughter (Deanna Durbin) helps her innocent sisters in love.
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. Whipsnade is struggling to keep a step ahead of foreclosure, and clearly not paying his performers, including Bergen and McCarthy, who try to coax money out of him, or in McCarthy's case, steal some outright.
The spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner is forced to use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty, following Maj. Gen. William Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea,” during the American Civil War.
Nicole has no job and is several weeks behind with her rent. Her solution to her problems is to try and snare a rich husband. Enlisting the help of her friend Gloria and the maitre'd at a ritzy New York City hotel, the trio plot to have Gloria catch the eye of Bill Duncan, a millionaire staying at the hotel. The plan works and the two quickly become engaged. Nicole's plan may be thwarted by Bill's friend, Jim Trevor, who's met Nicole before and sees through her plot.
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 reporter covering a murder trial guesses that the murderer of a ruthless businessman is her ex-fiancé and persuades him to confess and clear the innocent man on trial.
A nurse's younger brother is caught in a shootout between a criminal gang and the police, and he is shot and killed. The officer who is accused of shooting the man knows that he didn't do it, and sets out to find the real killer and clear his own name.
This short film tells the story of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865), the Hungarian physician who was the first to realize that the deaths of new mothers could be significantly reduced simply by requiring doctors to wash their hands before treating a patient.
Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.
A newlywed unhappily discovers that her husband's scheming ex-wife still has a controlling influence in his life and home.
When a department store songstress becomes a radio star she keeps her identity secret, as the "Masked Countess", because he estranged husband is a crook.
n Vienna, a new jazz club featuring American trumpeter Buzzy Bellew threatens the existence of its neighbor, the Waltz Palace, run by Franz Strauss and featuring his granddaughter, singer Elsa. Smitten by Elsa, Buzzy hides his identity and association with the club -- whose owner intends to buy out the Palace property. When Elsa accidentally learns who Buzzy really is, it appears he may have to return to America alone.
President McKinley asks Lt. Richard L. Perry to go underground to identify some obviously very well briefed Mid-Western bank robbers based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
An Italian immigrant singer, Nino, hoping to succeed in Hollywood, falls in with a gang of crooks who use his talent to distract everyone at a party while they steal the jewels.
A millionaire is found murdered in his apartment. Suspicion falls on a variety of suspects, including his fiancé and her parents, the butler, and a professional mentalist known as The Great Gambini.
At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. Can the old folks take matters into their own hands?
A silent Western star has trouble adjusting to the coming of sound.
When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.
The heiress to a powerful newspaper owner gets a job at the paper under an assumed name and helps break up a blackmail racket.
In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfriend with him. Also going to court are the Jubilee singers, hillbillies, and some cowboys and Indians who demonstrate that the composer wrote his song by rearranging four folk tunes. He wins his song back and $50,000 in damages. Songs include: "Heading Home," "Roll Along Prairie Moon," "Tender Is the Night," "You're My Thrill," "I'm Bound for Heaven," and "The Army Band."
An amateur criminologist and his college student son work together to solve the campus murder of the brother of the son's girlfriend, and thereafter two other students as well.
An auto engineer (Herbert Marshall) and a professor's daughter (Jean Arthur) pose as married servants in a mobster's (Leo Carrillo) mansion.
Val takes the assistance of a society reporter and a journalist to investigate the disappearance of her half-sister Arlene, a wealthy socialite who is involved in criminal activities.
An arrogant boxer (Pat O'Brien) discovers his wife (Glenda Farrell) had a hand in his success.
Jim Fowler is Western University's football hero and is constantly besieged by reporters. Jim's father Ezra comes to visit him and becomes reacquainted with an old Western football chum, Mr. Chandler, who happens to be the father of Jim's girlfriend Joan. Jim keeps his roommate, Andy, busy by sending him to collect money on their laundry concessions business, even though Andy is desperately trying to meet his girlfriend Thelma, who has just come for a visit. When the coach tells Chandler and Fowler that Jim is nervous and erratic, Chandler invites Jim to spend the night before the big game at his home.
On the back of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a young business man is about to commit suicide. With the note to his wife scribbled down and a gun in his hand, he notices a thick envelope addressed to him at the desk. As he begin to read, we're taken back to the days of WW1 and his meeting with a young woman named Mary Lane.
A murder trial reunites a former chorus girl and her son, a grandson of an English aristocrat.
Corrupt politicians resort to murder and blackmail when a young boy accidentally witnesses them taking payoffs.
A middle aged millionaire falls in love with a gorgeous, but stupid blonde gold digger, being guided by her ever-present shrewish friend.They marry but the man soon regrets his rash move when she's constantly bored and looking for dancing and excitement, leaving him feel his age. He conspires with a loyal friend to find a suitable man she might run away with so he can divorce her.
A dance trophy winning young couple is temporarily split up when a playboy aviator leads the girl to believe he's in love with her.
