90% (2) I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang 92 min, Passed, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir] [Mervyn LeRoy] [19 Nov 1932]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 81%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 3 wins.
Actors: Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Paul Muni
Writer: Robert E. Burns (by), Howard J. Green (screen play), Brown Holmes (screen play)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Having returned from fighting in World War I, James Allen doesn't want to settle into a humdrum life and decides to set off to find his fortune. He travels the length and breadth of America, working as a skilled tradesman in the construction industry. When times get tough however, he finds himself living in a shelter where an acquaintance suggests they go out for a hamburger. What the friend really has in mind is to rob the diner and Allen soon finds himself working on a chain gang with a long jail sentence. Allen manages to escape however and heads to Chicago where over several years he slowly but surely works his way up the ladder to become one of the most respected construction engineers in the city. His past catches up with him and despite protestations from civic leaders and his many friends in Chicago, he finds himself again on the chain gang. Escaping for a second time, he accepts that to survive, he must lead a life of crime.
Rotten Tomatoes: Wrongfully convicted for a hold-up, a war vet sentenced to a chain gang escapes and builds a new, respectable existence, only to realize he can never be free of his past. This classic, still-powerful reality-based indictment of the Depression-era prison system is the peak of Warner's 1930s school of social realism.
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74% (1) Jewel Robbery 68 min, Passed, [Comedy, Crime, Romance] [William Dieterle] [13 Aug 1932]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, External Reviews
Actors: Hardie Albright, Helen Vinson, Kay Francis, William Powell
Writer: Erwin S. Gelsey (screen play), Ladislas Fodor (based on a story by), Bertram Bloch (English version)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: When a baroness is present during a robbery at a jewellers in Vienna, she finds the gang's debonair leader more attractive than either her husband or her lover.
Rotten Tomatoes: Conning the rich in charming Vienna, a professional gem thief charms a fabulously wealthy baroness into his calculating clutches but hasn't reckoned on the extent of her jealous husband's outrage. This romantic comedy comes from a stageplay which was also the basis of an earlier version made in Austria.
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69% (1) The Power and the Glory 76 min, PASSED, [Drama] [William K. Howard] [06 Oct 1933]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Colleen Moore, Helen Vinson, Ralph Morgan, Spencer Tracy
Writer: Preston Sturges (original screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A man's life is retold just after his funeral. Beginning as a track walker, Tom Garner rose through all sorts of railroad jobs to head the company. In the meantime he lost touch with his family. When he saw what was happening it was already too late.
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69% (1) Midnight Club 64 min, [Crime, Drama] [Alexander Hall, George Somnes] [29 Jul 1933]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Alison Skipworth, Clive Brook, George Raft, Helen Vinson
Writer: Leslie Charteris (screenplay), Seton I. Miller (screenplay), E. Phillips Oppenheim (story)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Elegant Colin Grant and his associates are successful jewelry thieves, even unmasked to their victims, their perfect alibis making impossible for the Comissioner police to arrest them. Things are running smoothly until Nick Mason enters the scene -and flirts with Colin's love interest.
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68% (1) Broadway Bill 104 min, APPROVED, [Comedy, Drama] [Frank Capra] [27 Dec 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 nomination.
Actors: Helen Vinson, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Warner Baxter
Writer: Robert Riskin (screen play), Mark Hellinger (based upon a story "Strictly Confidential" by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Tycoon J.L. Higgins controls his whole family, but one of his sons- in-law, Dan Brooks and his daughter Alice are fed up with that. Brooks quits his job as manager of J.L.'s paper box factory and devotes his life to his racing horse Broadway Bill, but his bank- roll is thin and the luck is against him, he is arrested because of $150 he owes somebody for horse food, but suddenly a planed fraud by somebody else seems to offer him a chance...
Rotten Tomatoes: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family business, but Baxter would rather spend his time at the racetrack. He buys a nag named Broadway Bill and tries to build the horse into a winner--if he doesn't bankrupt himself first. Only Baxter's sister-in-law Myrna Loy and black stable hand Clarence Muse have faith in Broadway Bill. The horse wins a crucial race, but dies suddenly at the finish line. Baxter is comforted and given encouragement by Loy, who is now his sweetheart, Vinson having long since washed her hands of her "irresponsible" husband. Broadway Bill was remade by Capra as Riding High (1950), utilizing generous portions of stock footage and even going so far as to rehire several of the original film's cast members (Douglass Dumbrille, Clarence Muse, Charles Lane, Raymond Walburn, Margaret Hamilton, Frankie Darro) to recreate their roles and match up their scenes from the earlier production. Long withheld from distribution due to Riding High, Broadway Bill was made available for videocassette in the mid-1980s. Keep an eye out for Lucille Ball as a blonde telephone operator and Alan Hale Sr. as a racetrack announcer.
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67% (1) Private Worlds 84 min, [Drama] [Gregory La Cava] [19 Apr 1935]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 67%, External Reviews
Actors: Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert, Helen Vinson, Joan Bennett
Writer: Lynn Starling (screenplay and adaptation), Gregory La Cava (screenplay and adaptation), Gladys Unger (additional dialogue), Phyllis Bottome (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: The work of a progressive female psychiatrist and her colleague at a mental hospital is threatened by the arrival of a conservative new supervisor, who disapproves of both her methods and the fact that she is a woman in a "man's field."
Rotten Tomatoes: The flow of life at a progressive psychiatric hospital is disturbed by the arrival of the conservative new superintendent and his sister.
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67% (1) The Wedding Night 83 min, Passed, [Drama, Romance] [King Vidor] [08 Mar 1935]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 67%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors: Anna Sten, Gary Cooper, Helen Vinson, Ralph Bellamy
Writer: Edwin H. Knopf (an original story by), Edith Fitzgerald (screen play)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Polish Country: USA
Plot: Because his finances are low and he is seeking background for a new book, author Tony Barratt and his wife Dora return to his country home in Conneecticut. While he is finding a theme for his book on the lives and customs of the local, immigrant tobacco farmers, his wife returns to New York and, alas, his Japanese servant deserts him. He meets a neighboring farm girl, Manya Novak, and hires her to cook his meals and clean his house. They soon fall in love. But, following the customs of the old country, her father has entered a 'marriage bargain' for her to wed a man, Fredrik Sobieski, not of her choosing.
Rotten Tomatoes: This romantic tragedy centers on the star-crossed love between a troubled and married writer and the beautiful Polish girl who becomes his inspiration. As the girl and the writer get to know each other, he learns that her stern father has betrothed her to a man she does not love.
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