1930s

Unwed mother gives up baby for adoption and hopes to get it back when the adoptive mother dies.Read More »

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Hell’s Kitchen gives the reform school potboiler The Mayor of Hell the full Dead End treatment and brings a tyro Ronald Reagan along for the ride.Read More »

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THE LUCILLE BALL RKO COMEDY COLLECTION VOL. 1
Long before she was crowned the queen of TV, Lucille Ball reigned as the “Queen of the Bs” for RKO Pictures, appearing in over 43 films in under a decade. Although she had yet to find her niche, Lucy’s prodigious talents, grace and charm as a performer found her much in demand across a wide variety of movies. This collection brings together three rarely seen cinematic treasures from Lucy’s RKO days, giving modern audiences a chance to witness a star on the rise. 3 Films on 2 DVDs.Read More »

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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. In the end, Eddie’s bride Sally surprisingly turns the tables on the culprit.Read More »

Gloria Swanson co-produced Perfect Understanding, a romantic comedy that teamed her with a young Laurence Olivier. A young American woman (Swanson), on vacation in England, meets an aristocrat (Olivier) and the two fall passionately in love. Seeing how other couples become possessive and implode in marriage, they make a pact: they’ll marry, but they’ll keep the arrangement light and loose. But can two young lovers really carry on carefree, committed to not belonging to each other?Read More »

From luise-rainer.com:
Many sources, including Luise herself, referred to the ‘overnight sensation’ that Luise made in her first film for MGM, Escapade (1935). This narrative of the newly discovered film star conveniently erased Luise’s film career up to that point. She had appeared in three films in Europe before Hollywood came calling.Read More »

A “Crime Doesn’t Pay” morality drama about a young man sentenced to a prison term and attempts by the system to rehabilitate jailed criminals.Read More »

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Directed by Tod Browning (Dracula (1931) & Freaks (1932)), this film features a host of character actors led by Robert Young as retired magician Mike Morgan, who now sells tricks to the other performers in his former trade (hence the film’s title). Frank Craven plays Young’s father, having just come to NYC to visit his son, and provides the film’s comic relief. Judy Barclay (Florence Rice) is being chased and comes to Morgan for help, whose assistance becomes the story, which plays out confusingly and frenetically during this picture’s 71 minutes. Henry Hull as Houdini-like Dave Duvallo and Lee Bowman (among others, some listed later) also appear in this Harry Ruskin, Marion Parsonnet, and James Edward Grant screenplay (based on Clayton Rawson’s novel).Read More »

When her husband is accused of murder, an actress tries to prove his innocence.Read More »