Roving reporter Rickey Mayberry (Dennis Morgan) tells Irene he'd marry her if he didn't have a wife; but Sue Mayberry (Merle Oberon) is divorcing Rickey to marry Owen Wright (Ralph Bellamy). So Rickey tries various devices with help from his photographer Pasha (George Tobias) to keep Sue from divorcing him.
This farce is outlandish and absurd but funny.
Tom (Mickey Rooney) and Penny (Judy Garland) produce a show to help kids go to camp; but Tom's real motive to get on Broadway almost gets in the way.
This Busby Berkeley musical entertains with songs and dances,
and its youthful energy even offers hope to refugee children from
Britain.
Based on Porter Emerson Browne's play, a Mexican bandit (Wallace Beery) holds up a farm being lost to Hardy (Henry Travers) or sold to Morgan Pell (Tom Conway) by Gil Jones (Ronald Reagan) and his uncle (Lionel Barrymore) and decides that Lucia Pell (Laraine Day) should go with Gil and that Angela Hardy (Nydia Westman) should marry Red (Chill Wills).
In this dystopia things are decided by an arrogant man with
a gun by force while the other characters have to try to persuade
him what to do. In this fantasy he lets love prevail.
Younger brothers Jim (Arthur Kennedy), Cole (Dennis Morgan), and Bob (Wayne Morris) rob banks to help farmers pay taxes to keep carpetbagger Merrick (Victor Jory) and his wicked sheriff Bilson (Howard Da Silva) from taking over. Jim's girlfriend Mary (Jane Wyman) knows they are doing wrong but hopes they will be pardoned.
This Robin Hood version of Confederate veterans turned violent
criminals with the Jesse James gang makes a mockery of history.
Bill (Wallace Beery) and his partner Pico (Leo Carrillo) have trouble paying debts. Bill puts his boat in the name of his daughter (Virginia Wiedler). She arrives, and Marge (Marjorie Main) helps Bill provide for his family by joining too.
In this comic role reversal the young daughter helps the
childish man to mature.
When Blondie (Penny Singleton) gets angry at Dagwood (Arthur Lake) for loaning $50, he does not get the money back but brings home a Great Dane, which she enters in a show.
Blondie's indignation at her husband not giving the money
for their family expenses drives this comedy.
Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is in Rio with his son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) to arrest entertainer Lola (Jacqueline Dalya) for murder. She is murdered and so is the suspected butler; but Charlie cleverly solves the case.
This mystery has a psychic Hindu (Victor Jory) use a cigarette
with an herb to hypnotize people into answering questions.
Intern Mike (John Garfield) treats Jane (Nancy Coleman) for temporary amnesia but learns that she is a British agent; both are kidnapped by a Nazi spy claiming to be her father (Moroni Olsen) and a psychiatrist (Raymond Massey) whom Mike respects; but Mike and Jane manage to survive and gain the upper hand on the spies.
This spy thriller reflects the Nazi menace and their ruthless
methods used to gain intelligence for the war effort with the
warning theme that information about convoys can cost many lives.
The Falcon (George Sanders) is about to leave to marry Helen (Wendy Barrie), who has to wait while he and Goldy (Allen Jenkins) help clueless Inspector Mike O'Hara (James Gleason) capture a gang that is extorting a formula for making artificial diamonds from its inventor.
This mystery is played for comedy and has many plot twists
to enhance its entertainment quality.
Confident reporter Jeff Sherman (Walter Pidgeon) promises wealthy newspaper owner J. M. Blair (Edward Arnold) he will get him out of alimony payments by framing Judge Cornelia Porter (Rosalind Russell) for breaking up Jeff's engagement to Dotty (Jean Rogers).
When Jeff falls in love with Cornelia, she gets wise to
the con and gets Jeff and Blair charged with obstructing justice;
but in court Jeff asks her to marry. This comedy tries to show
that love can overcome much duplicity.
Shipping owner Frederic Osborne (Adolphe Menjou) gives his business to his married son Junior (John Howard) and marries actress Leslie Collier (Gloria Swanson), arguing with her and becoming jealous when they take in Mexican singer Carlos (Desi Arnaz).
A father acting more immaturely than his son is the role
reversal but is only pathetically amusing.
John Hathaway (Don Ameche) writes a book about how jealousy is irrational; but his wife Julie (Rosalind Russell) feels differently, and both are tested when they meet John's editor Nellie (Kay Francis) and her neurotic boyfriend Elliott (Van Heflin).
This comedy explores the emotion of jealousy, satirizing
John, who is not jealous and others who are.
Based on events in 1701, Asano has refused to pay Kira a bribe
to learn court etiquette and attacks him. For this breach Asano
is ordered to commit hara-kiri. His unemployed (ronin)
vassals led by his chamberlain Oishi (Chojuro Kawarasaki) consider
how they may get revenge.
This drama appeared just before the attack on Pearl Harbor
and represents the Bushido code of obedient military duty. The
samurai are already moving toward a mass suicide just as the Japanese
military are in the World War.
Investment counselor Frank Warren (Errol Flynn) has a life secret from his wife Rita (Brenda Marshall) writing mysteries and gets involved with Police Inspector Mason (Alan Hale) in solving a case that leads him to a dentist (Ralph Bellamy).
This mystery is played for humor and is intended for escape
entertainment.
Max (Robert Cummings) and his father (Nigel Bruce) lack money and hope to marry it; but Max falls in love with Martha (Ruth Hussey) in the same situation.
Both Martha and Max find they cannot go through with marrying
for money as love triumphs in this fine little romantic drama.
In the this first of the Falcon films, Gay Laurence (George Sanders) puts off his fiancée Elinor (Anne Hunter) by helping Helen (Wendie Barrie) solve a jewel-thief mystery that has his chauffeur Goldie (Allen Jenkins) under suspicion.
This comic mystery series follows the general formula made
popular in the Saint series.
Very similar to the 1935 film Public Hero #1, an FBI agent (Robert Sterling) goes to prison to escape with a mobster (Dan Dailey) to help track down his gang and falls in love with the gangster's sister (Donna Reed).
Loyalty to serving the government against its enemies is
emphasized in this remake.
Pretty sharp-shooting Bill (Penny Singleton) arrives with new sheriff Tex (Glenn Ford) in Headstone, where deputy sheriff Hank (Allen Jenkins) and her uncle Jim (Charlie Ruggles) are trying to catch a bank-robber.
This musical comedy spoofs westerns and features the tap-dancing
of Ann Miller. Its silliness reflects the absurdity of many westerns.
Two waiters (Abbott and Costello) lose their jobs, inherit a gangster's hotel, and try to find his money, but find ghosts instead.
Slapstick humor gets help from Joan Davis and offers laughs
to those who like this clever silliness.
Based on a play by George Haight and Alan Scott, a novelist (George Brent) is threatened with suits from relatives of a former flame and turns to his secretary (Ann Sheridan).
This fast-paced comedy follows the 1933 film Goodbye
Again very closely, exploiting a funny play with current
stars.
The promoter (Victor Mature) of a murdered model (Carole Landis) is suspected by a detective (Laird Cregar), but her sister (Betty Grable falls in love with the promoter and helps him find the killer.
This early film noir mystery uses a menacing mood to depict
a murderous obsession based on rejected love.
A singer (Dick Powell) joins the Navy but is pursued by a photographer (Claire Dodd) as sailors (Abbott and Costello) provide comedy and the Andrews sisters music.
The U. S. Navy refused to support this film until a scene
with ships going awry was made into a dream sequence, indicating
how the military was dominating the culture even before the United
States entered the war.
Murdering his brother to become king, Sedemondo (Gino Cervi) sees a prophecy about his brother's son and his daughter come to pass.
This epic directed by a disenchanted Italian Fascist dramatizes
a medieval legend about the eventual triumph of justice but could
not be seen in the United States until after the war.
Kathleen (Shirley Temple) is approaching awkward adolescence but has no mother and a father (Herbert Marshall) who rarely sees her. He is planning to marry Lorraine (Gail Patrick), whom Kathleen dislikes; but Kathleen is given a psychiatrist nanny (Laraine Day), whom she loves and hopes her father will marry. Kathleen finds consolation with a sympathetic man (Felix Bressart).
This drama deals with unpleasant emotions and uses the old
theme of contrasting superficial values to true love and friendship.
Two ground men (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello) are taken for rides in the army air force and fall for twins (Martha Raye) as barnstorming pilot (Dick Foran) woos a singer (Linda Joyce) by saving her brother (Charles Lang).
Laughs exceed the thrills as Costello goes from one predicament
to another, offering escape entertainment that foreshadows the
war involvement.
A boxer (Arthur Kennedy) marries Angela (Olympe Bradna) but is tempted by a female sports writer (Virginia Field) and has his career ruined by a corrupt fight manager (Anthony Quinn).
This drama exposes the brutality of the boxing racket that
causes so many men to have their brains damaged.
In 1869 tyrannical Jim Cork (Edward Arnold) is using crooked lawyer Steve Lewis (Robert Preston) to try to take over a town and monopolize its water; but independent Annie Morgan (Loretta Young) buys a property and refuses to give in, finally gaining women the right to vote so that Cork is convicted by a jury of women, while she wins over Steve.
This western comedy gives a fictional version of how women
gained the vote in the Wyoming territory.
Owing money on a bet as a bookie with Cookie (Sam Levene) to a threatening gangster (Sheldon Leonard), con-man Randy (Robert Young) sells a manuscript on the psychology of marriage by Ladislaus (Felix Bressart) but loses his bedroom privileges with his wife Norma (Ruth Hussey) because he is pretending to be bachelor author. When he lectures that wives should see other men, his wife begins seeing his publisher (Lee Bowman).
This comedy explores the independence of wives and the changing
double standard when a con man is caught in his own game.
To correct a past wrong, a rich woman (May Robson) has a lawyer (Jeffrey Lynn) give a young woman (Priscilla Lane) a million dollars; but her boyfriend is a composer (Ronald Reagan), who refuses to live off her money.
This fantastic plot nonetheless has realistic results as
people experience the personal difficulties of adjusting to a
fortune.
Young Caroline (Anna Lee) has fallen in love with an Argentine (Gilbert Roland) while her husband Anthony (Ronald Coleman) was away again; but his charm wins her back just as he did a few years before when she was briefly enchanted by Paul (Reginald Gardiner).
This comedy assumes that a clever man can easily changes
his foolish wife's mind for her.
Sailors Cake O'Hara (Jack Oakie) and Powerhouse Bolton (Jack Haley) in Hawaii borrow money from Buttons (Jack Carson) to bet on a gunnery contest but are caught in their own con game. Lilibelle Bolton (Martha Raye) and Margie (Ann Sheridan) try to help them get their gunner Homer (Herbert Anderson) to re-enlist.
This musical comedy entertains while subtly promoting the
need for enlistments.
Reporter Matt Sawyer (Ronald Reagan) lucks into a major murder investigation; but it is declared a suicide. He and two cops (James Gleason and Edward Brophy) get help from the victim's daughter Jane (Joan Perry) in finding the murderer.
This mystery moves at a fast pace and provides escape entertainment.
Adapted from Martin Berkeley's play, a teenager (Gene Reynolds) admires his criminal father (Edward Arnold); but put in the country, he learns better values from a farmer (Robert Sterling), his fiancée (Gloria DeHaven) and her Grandpop (Lionel Barrymore).
This drama shows how human relationships shape the character
of a youngster for bad or good.
Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres) operates on an ice skater (Bonita Granville) after a car crash to save her life; but when her leg is paralyzed, she sues him in court.
The title is in error since this is a civil suit; but with
the help of Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) Kildare's magic triumphs
once again.
Based on James Hilton's novel, insane Phillip Morrell (Robert Montgomery) escapes and kills himself in such a way as to frame his best friend Ward Andrews (George Sanders); but Phillip's wife Stella (Ingrid Bergman) loves both men, and with the help of Phillip's doctor (Oskar Homolka) learns the truth.
This strange and convoluted drama defies logical motivations
and thus gives the audience the unsettling impression that madness
makes no sense.
Robert Benchley (himself) visits the Disney studio and learns about animation, seeing stories of Baby Weems, Goofy trying to ride a horse, and a film of the story he brought about a boy who meets a poetry-writing dragon, who is defeated and reformed by the knight Giles.
This comic look behind the scenes shows the elements that
make up animated pictures. The dragon becoming a cooperative member
of society offers a good peace theme during the world war.
Broke Maisie (Ann Sothern) gets a job as a companion to the mother (Margaret Moffatt) of a boxer (Robert Sterling) and helps him find his way out of boxing while having an ambivalent relationship with his manager (George Murphy).
Maisie avoids sexual harassment while being taken for a
tramp by the manager, but as usual her spunky attitude lifts the
spirits of those who need it despite her own personal troubles.
Simon Templar (George Sanders) gets help from a pick-pocket (Paul Guilfoyle) in finding who is murdering people in order to steal the valuable stamps a woman (Elna Johnson) inherited.
The story is hardly believable but mildly entertaining nonetheless.
A reporter (William Lundigan) and police Lt. Ryder (Regis Toomey) compete for singer Dixie (Nan Wynn) but work together to solve a double murder involving the sale of a nightclub by Phil (Ricardo Cortez).
This mystery has as much humor as action, offering a tight
little package of escape entertainment.
After her father loaned him money, David (David Bruce) helps Vickie (Brenda Marshall), whom hard luck has drawn into drinking; he falls in love with her even though he is engaged to Claire (Virginia Field).
This melodrama contrasts the characters of two women, one
with passion who has survived great difficulties, the other with
the easy life of a snobbish aristocrat.
Music and color are added to the play by Jane Cowl and the film of the same title in 1932, a bride is murdered by a jealous neighbor, causing John (Brian Aherne) to mourn her all his life. A minister (Ian Hunter) asks him to raise her niece (Jeanette MacDonald), and she falls in love with the murderer's son (Gene Raymond), helping her uncle end his grudge.
This sentimental romance portrays a close relationship between
this world and the spiritual realm where souls go after death.
A grandmother (Helen Westley) hires broke Lucky (Wayne Morse) and his valet (Willie Best) to be fiancé of an heiress (Alexis Smith), but a reporter (Brenda Marshall) warns him he is liable to be the next victim.
This farce entertains with lively action, romance, mystery,
and funny situations while the brash innocence of Lucky and his
loyalty to his black servant is refreshing.
Boy wants to trade gold and is saved from natives by an English science expedition, which greed turns awry, endangering Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) and Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller); but O'Doul (Barry Fitzgerald) helps Tarzan save her.
The natural values of the heroic Tarzan prove superior once
again to the artificial white ways.
Adapted from a play by Lothar and Adler, Carmen (Miranda) is jealous as an entertainer (Don Ameche) impersonates a baron (Don Ameche) and gets to know the baroness (Alice Faye) in a colorful musical comedy.
The mistaken identity makes for the confusion and humor,
and the entertainment fantasy works with the same actor playing
both parts.
Gerald (Clark Gable) poses as a detective to steal a necklace from thief Anya (Rosalind Russell), and both almost get caught; but he impersonates a British officer and wins a medal against the Japanese in China.
This odd combination of a romantic comedy with an action
climax foreshadows the imminent transition from civil society
to war with Japan.
Based on a novel by Eric Hatch, retired Seton (Charles Coburn) helps young Kathleen (Anne Shirley) handle courtship by a wealthy executive (James Craig).
With Seton's gracious moral support Kathleen maintains her
common sense while riding the emotional ups and downs of relating
to an eccentric heir of a big shoe company.
Carnival boss Nick (Humphrey Bogart) finds a new lion tamer in young Matt (Eddie Albert). Fortune-teller Florine (Sylvia Sidney) can't get along with Nick and likes Matt, who falls for Nick's sister Mary (Joan Leslie).
Matt replacing the drunk lion-tamer Hoffman (Sig Ruman)
symbolizes American innocence taking over from evil Germans in
the world situation; but Nick's over-protectiveness of his sister
is taken from the plot of the 1937 film Kid
Galahad.
Jay (John Payne) is about to marry Terry (Cobina Wright) when her father (George Barbier) sends him to get waivers for his steamship company. Nan (Alice Faye) refuses to sign until she has a good time in Havana. Jay tries to do this job; but she wants romance, and singer Rosita (Carmen Miranda) makes sure it isn't with her gambling manager Monte (Cesar Romero).
This musical shows Havana as the vacation spot for the wealthy
as Nan converts Jay from business to pleasure.
Based on the Rachel Crothers play and longer than the 1933 film When Ladies Meet, Jimmy (Robert Taylor) is in love with novelist Mary (Joan Crawford), but her life mirrors her latest book as she has fallen in love with her married publisher Rogers Woodruff (Herbert Marshall). Jimmy meets the wife Clair Woodruff (Greer Garson) and contrives to bring her to Mary at the home of foolish Bridget (Spring Byington) as his latest girl-friend.
Jimmy squares this triangle and exposes Rogers as a selfish
philanderer and Mary as the naïve fool.
Based on a play by Gross and Carpenter, like the 1933 film Whistling in the Dark, a cult led by Joseph (Conrad Veidt) tries to get radio detective Wally (Red Skelton) to devise a perfect murder and kidnaps his fiancé (Ann Rutherford) and Fran (Virginia Grey); but using radio and telephone they manage to catch the whole gang.
This absurd plot offers comedy entertainment while playing upon the confusion of radio programs with real life.
Based on a play by Marc Connelly and Herman Mankiewicz, a grifter (Frank Morgan) returns to his grown-up daughter (Mary Howard), and they go to a theatrical boardinghouse, where he pretends he is an actor.
This comedy entertains while indicating difficulties of
the theatrical professions.
A philandering producer (Robert Benchley), in trouble with his wife, asks his choreographer Curtis (Fred Astaire) to give a bracelet to dancer Sheila (Rita Hayworth). Curtis joins the army, gets in trouble, but gets to do a show with Sheila for the producer.
This musical reflects American preparations for war in which
people go along without really understanding the gibberish that
is taking them there.