Dorothy Mackaill

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

Drummond goes up against foreign agents who are trying to steal plans for a top-secret aircraft.

Four "Picture Brides", from New Orleans, arrive in the Brazilian jungle on a riverboat, brought there to marry workers at Lottagrasso, a remote mining site of the Standard Diamond Mines. Also on the boat with the four "mail-order" brides (Americans Mame Smith, Flo Lane, and Gwen from England and Lena from Europe) is Mary Lee, a frightened and innocent girl, who has come to see the mine's brutal supervisor, Von Luden, about a job.

A criminal gang is after a rich man's money. A female member of the gang gets the bright idea of getting him to marry her, then getting a healthy settlement after a quick divorce.

An elderly detective sets out to find who murdered a lecherous stage actor. His estranged wife? His would-be fiancee? Her father? Her boyfriend? A suicided actress's sister? The temperamental prop man? Or maybe the show's talented female chimpanzee?

The dim-witted son of a heroic fire chief tries to follow in his late father's footsteps, only to become the unknowing pawn of corrupt politicians.

An on-the-lam New York card shark marries a small-town librarian who thinks he's a businessman.

Heiress learns to fly from aeronautical engineer. Things get complicated as their affair progresses.

To avoid the rigors of the law, Gilda flees New Orleans and hides on a Caribbean island where the worst criminals can ask for asylum. Besieged by the scum of the earth, Gilda will soon find out that she has found refuge in hell.

Party Husband finds ex-Ziegfield Girl Dorothy playing the better half of a thoroughly “modern marriage” whose openness threatens to bring about its premature end. Fellow Ziegfield alum Mary Doran plays the coquette whose intended conquest of the free-thinking hubby (James Rennie) starts to throw the couple’s “understanding” awry.