Charley Grapewin

A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression. (imdb)

Dorothy Gale is swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return home. (imdb)

Harvey Cheyne is a spoiled brat used to having his own way. When a prank goes wrong onboard an ocean liner Harvey ends up overboard and nearly drowns... (imdb)

Warren Haggerty is the chief editor of the New York Evening Star. He keeps on delaying his marriage... (imdb)

Alan Squier, a failed, world-weary British writer, hikes into an isolated, weather-beaten desert café in Arizona owned by Jason Marple... (imdb)

The misadventures of two social-climbing women in small town America. (imdb)

Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father. (imdb)

This is the story of General Custer from the time he enters West Point military academy, through the American Civil War, and finally to his death at Little Big Horn. The battle against Chief Crazy Horse is portrayed as a crooked deal between politicians and a corporation which wants the land Custer gave to the Indians. (imdb)

Clark Gable plays a card cheat who has to go on the lam to avoid a pesky cop. He meets a lonely, but slightly wild, librarian, Carole Lombard, while he is hiding out. The two get married after Lombard wins a coin flip and they move back to the city... (imdb)

The story of a farmer in China: a story of humility and bravery. His father gives Wang Lung a freed slave as wife. By diligence and frugality the two manage to enlarge their property. But then a famine forces them to leave their land and live in the town. However it turns out to be a blessing in disguise for them... (imdb)

Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of hillbilly stereotypes live in a rural backwater where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank's plans to take over the land for more profitable farming; subplots involve the affairs and marriages of son Dude and daughter Ellie May. (imdb)

A love story centered around the lives of three young German soldiers in the years following World War I. Their close friendship is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman who is dying of tuberculosis. (imdb)

Against his personal preference, PT boat commander Ward Stewart is made executive officer of the submarine USS Corsair. On leave before sailing, he meets schoolteacher Jean Hewlett and gives her a romantic rush...unaware that she's the sweetheart of Dewey Connors, his new commander. At sea, the men bond while fighting German Q-ships. When will they discover their mutual romantic rivalry? Will it interfere with a spectacular commando raid on a secret German base? (imdb)

Joe Benton is an independent cabdriver. He and his fellow independents are constantly harassed by drivers from the Comet Taxi Company, which has hired ruffians to steal business from the independents. When a coincidence makes Joe's foreign-born wife Anna appear guilty of murder and sabotage in the bombing of Comet's garage, the district attorney's office decides to deport her as a means of leveraging an end to the taxi wars.

A veteran fights drug addiction to make his way in the business world. (TCM.com)

A gunman trying to avoid killing gets caught in the middle of a vicious range war. (TCM.com)

In this is the entry into the Andy Hardy series about a small town depression era family, Judge Hardy faces problems at work and at home. Powerful men in town are upset with his decisions and want to see him impeached; his daughters, Joan and Marion, have romantic problems; and his son, Andy discovers Polly Benedict. As usual, Judge Hardy is concerned with everyone in the family and lends wisdom and calmness to all. (SM {smortens@ix.netcom.com})

Filming of a character sketch by the well-known vaudevillian Charles E. Grapewin. On a bare stage backed by a dark curtain, a man dressed in a three-piece suit and overcoat holds a racing program and excitedly watches a race supposedly taking place offstage. (library of congress)

Story of small-town life in turn-of-the-century America, and a young boy's problems facing adolescence. (imdb)

A frontierswoman shelters a notorious outlaw. (TCM.com)

Tensions between dog owners and sheep farmers become ugly in rural Missouri.

An eccentric millionaire, unable to locate his only granddaughter, decides to divide his estate among a group of people less close to him: his niece and nephew, his attorney, his doctor, and his housekeeper. But complications and murder arise when two different women turn up, claiming to be the granddaughter. (imdb)

Nick and Ellen's second honeymoon in Switzerland is interrupted when he is called back to Paris on business. But it turns out to be funny-business when he discovers his ex-mistress Linda sent him the telegram. Nick spurns her, leading her to shoot and kill him. His ghost cannot rest, though, since Linda's husband Jeff is arrested for the crime and tried. Nick hovers over Ellen guiding her to the evidence that will clear Jeff and convict Linda, at which point he can rest at peace (imdb)

When the daughter of the town's leading citizen and a local dairyman have a romance,and the man makes a sudden-and-unexplained trip out of town, the local gossips, employing the small-town's shared telephone lines, start a malicious gossip campaign discussing the assumed-but-incorrect reason. (imdb)

This western starring Beery and Taylor as rivals is one cackling western. It involves the kidnapping and reselling of free slaves. Set in 1812 in the North and a town of abolitionists, the crimes needs to be solved. Beery has a need to solve the crimes because it implicates. Taylor, a sympathetic Southerner has his reasons too. Together they bicker, fight and join forces to save the slaves and bring justice to the criminals. (imdb)

An old bandit reforms when he meets his long-lost son. (TCM.com)

Allen Meighan, an intern, assures himself residency at 'General Hospital', when he saves the life of a man trapped in an explosion. Allen is in love with student nurse, Claire Donahue, and she with him, but, she is married to Tom a physically abusive husband. Claire refusing to leave Tom, provokes Allen to marry Patricia, a women whose life he saved. Patricia becomes furious for Allen is spending too much time on his profession and not on their marriage. (imdb)

Standing before a divorce court judge are Sergeant Andy Anderson and Janie Anderson asking him to dissolve their marriage. Janie's father, William Smith, objects and the judge allows him to give his version of their story. They had met in San Francisco fifteen months earlier and, after knowing each other only three days, had gotten married. Andy was sent overseas the day after the wedding and when he returns and despite the fact that Janie had borne him a son, they find they are almost strangers (imdb)

With thousands of cattle being rustled from White Sage ranch the 1930's Texas Rangers are called in. They manage to get one of their agents into the gang by making them think he is the Pecos Kid on the lam. (imdb)

"Lucky" Walden is a power lineman-turned-criminal. He is due to go to the electric chair, which he helps prison electricians wire correctly, when his sentence is commuted for an act of heroism. But he finds the wrong side of the law more attractive, and returns to his nefarious ways. (imdb)

Racing car enthusiast Jerry O'Connor and his dim-witted mechanic, Buddy Buttle, get their chance to join the crew of race car builder Pinky Delano, who just suffered a setback when one of his drivers was killed by failing to make a turn on the track. Then, one by one, his other drivers suffer the same fate, until it is Jerry's turn to drive in the big race. Buddy tries an experiment and determines these were no accidents but is it too late to help Jerry, who has started the race? (imdb)

Member of royal family is forced to marry a vagabond. (imdb)

When motorcycle cop Dick Fay gives a ticket to Phyllis Crawford, her father's graft-fed influence leads to his demotion to foot patrolman. When Fay leads a raid on a gangster's place he discovers Phyllis there, helps her escape, then blackmails her father. (imdb)

Lew Ayres, a plumber, wins big at the racetrack but then his luck runs out and almost ruins his business. Ginger Rogers, his manicurist girlfriend , stands by him and helps him readjust to life as a plumber. (imdb)

The mysteriously ill John Braun makes a new will, leaving out his daughter Barbara, over the protests of his wife. The trouble began when the daughter wanted to marry Mr. Braun's doctor, James Rogers. Mrs. Braun asks Inspector Queen to help find the long-missing Barbara. The inspector's son, Ellery, works on the case. He goes to a home frequently visited by Dr. Rogers where the bell is answered by Nikki Porter who Ellery mistakes for Barbara and insists she return to the Braun home. (imdb)

Detective Ellery Queen aids Free Dutch agents battle Nazi spies over a prize of industrial diamonds. (imdb)

Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson's final film for Warner Bros. is as much a vehicle for comedienne Winnie Lightner as it is for the venerable vaudeville team. The premise: Gertie (Lightner) marries Harlan (Johnson), then divorces him to marry Guthrie (Olsen), Harlan's partner in a bathing-suit manufacturing business. After Gertie dumps Guthrie, he weds Lucille (Vivian Oakland), while Harlan ties the knot with Lucille's sister Mabel (Dorothy Christy). (allrovi.com)

A young boy finds out that the man he thought was his father actually killed his real father, then adopted him. (imdb)

The setting is a farm. Kate Smith and Sally Blane play sisters; assorted relatives live with the sisters, but everyone at home, and in the whole town, depends on Kate to hold everything together. The power company wants to build a dam which will require flooding many of the farms; Kate is holding out; if Kate sells, everyone else will sell; if Kate refuses, the rest of the town will refuse as well. Randolph Scott meets Kate's beautiful sister, Sally Blane, at a dance. (imdb)

Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., about a kleptomaniac who starts with picking pockets and ends up robbing a bank. (imdb)

A young man from a small town hits New York City, bound and determined to become a radio star. Amazingly, he achieves his ambition, but in the process alienates everyone around him with his arrogance and egomania. (imdb)

The Warner Bros. annual blooper reel for 1936. (imdb)

Vaudeville acts are re-created in the story of how Atlantic City became a famous resort. (imdb)

Two mysterious seamen come from Alan Rogers' past to blackmail him as he seeks to locate his missing daughters. Ellery Queen is called in by Stewart Cole, Rogers' secretary. Queen goes to the estate and finds one daughter already there and the second one expected. When she arrives, it is Ellery's secretary Nikki Porter posing as the daughter as Ellery had her intercept the real heiress after learning of a plot to swindle Rogers. (imdb)

This entry in the detective series follows Queen as he investigates the case of a woman's missing husband, a banker. As he searches, he must cope with several murders and a burlesque queen. (allmovie.com)

Marge Walker, the daughter of a steamship-line owner, stows away on one of her father's ships bound for Shanghai. Roy Dale, the captain of the ship, is in love with her as is the first officer, Steve Andrews. The situation is touchy, but gets touchier when both a typhoon and a mutiny strike the ship. (imdb)

Ralph Bellamy made his fourth and final appearance as literary sleuth Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring. On this occasion, Ellery and his police-inspector father (Charley Grapewin) are summoned to a private hospital by its owner, philanthropist Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka). There've been some very weird goings-on at the hospital as of late, and Mrs. Stack wants to get to the bottom of things. (allmovie.com)

Ralph Bellamy makes the third of four appearances as "master detective" Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime. The principal villain is crooked stockbroker John Mathews (Douglass Dumbrille), whose Wall Street manipulations render Ray Jarden (H. B. Warner) penniless. Mathews' chicanery seems particularly coldblooded, inasmuch as his daughter Marian (Linda Hayes) is engaged to Jarden's son Walter (John Beal). (allmovie.com)

Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues, Inspector Queen (Charles Grapewin) asks his son Ellery (Ralph Bellamy) to help out. (allmovie.com)

Tony, the son of Italian immigrants, works in a smoky steel mill in Gary, Indiana. He wins a company scholarship which will enable him to attend Yale college. Over the four years of his college career he learns about football, love, and class prejudice. (imdb)

In this drama, an unlucky family find themselves plagued by murderous mobsters after they inadvertently witness a crime that could send a gang leader to the chair. The police protection provided proves woefully inadequate when the crooks manage to kidnap a son. It is the brave grandfather who succeeds in saving his grandson from death. The film is a remake of Starwitness1931. (allmovie.com)

A New York socialite (Loretta Young) travels to Shanghai to visit her ailing aunt (Alison Skipworth) and falls in love with a Russian banker (Charles Boyer), who harbors a family secret. Director James Flood's 1935 melodrama also stars Warner Oland, Libby Taylor, Keye Luke, Charley Grapewin, Walter Kingsford and Fred Keating.

The President Vanishes, released in the United Kingdom as Strange Conspiracy, is a 1934 American political drama film directed by William A. Wellman and produced by Walter Wanger. Starring Edward Arnold and Arthur Byron, the film is an adaptation of Rex Stout's political novel of the same name.

At Portland, Oregon, playboy pilot Len Kendrick lands at the end of a cross-country record flight, met by his father J.P. Kendrick who owns Amalgamated Air Lines. Len is a media darling, adored by fans for his daring flights. He is in love with Amalgamated stewardess Kay Armstrong who is dating veteran pilot "Wad" Madison. Len dates her sister Penny (Frances Sage) who learns that his hard-drinking and recklessness has caused the death of his co-pilot.

When her husband, who founded the town's crusading local newspaper, doesn't come back from the French battlefields of World War I, a woman struggles to raise her two sons and keep the newspaper going. Matters are complicated by the fact that, several years later, one of the sons wants to turn the paper from its position as a hard-fighting champion of the working-class into an upscale society paper catering to the rich and powerful.

A scientist invents a "superspeed" device that makes people fight for its ownership. (imdb)

Chane Weymer, an Arizona rancher goes after a gang that is trapping and catching wild horses by the use of barbed-wire enclosures. He suspects Ward, of being the gang leader but is unable to find the needed proof. Ward also has an eye on the lovely Sandy Melbarne. (imdb)

Mazie, a poor orphan girl, is mistreated by cruel farmer Slag and his wife for whom she works. When reform school runaway Adam arrives, he is put to work by Slag and also mistreated. Mazie and Adam fall in love, but are threatened by Slag. A new farmhand holds the key to their happiness and Mazie's past. (imdb)

Members of a wealthy family start getting threatening letters, and it's not long before the threats turn into reality and family members start getting bumped off. The family lawyer is a former newspaper reporter, and since the family patriarch owns a newspaper, the lawyer uses his investigative experience and the newspaper's resources to dig into the family history to see if he can uncover the person behind the killings. The evidence he unearths seems to point to one person--his girlfriend. (imdb)

The night before his grandson, Tommy Grayson, a mechanic at the Midland Aircraft Corporation, is to marry Gail, a former showgirl, Major Matt Grayson, a war veteran and watchman at the plant, catches two men breaking into the machine shop. The men run, but the major shoots one of them..... (imdb)

Jeff Keane's expensive showhorse escapes from a train and runs wild in the Colorado wilderness. Keane searches for the horse while the horse learns the ways of the wild.

Elna Curry develops an unfounded jealousy of neighbor, Trudie Morrow. Elna who suffers from neurasthenia, believes that Trudie is having an affair with her husband, John, and vows revenge on Trudie. John explains to Trudie Elna's condition and plan. Trudie, being good-hearted tells John that she'll move. One evening, John returns late from work to discover Elna dead. John burns Elna's suicide note to protect Trudie. This results in John being charged for murder and put on trial.

Promises of happier times dawn for the financially distressed Patterson family when father Sweeney and brother-in-law Archibald "Doc" Finney win a $150,000 grand prize in the sweepstake contest. With their windfall, each member of the family decides to pursue a dream.

Bert Lahr is a big city boy hung up on tales of the Old West. When his playing cowboys and Indians causes a ruckus, he's brought before a judge who prescribes him rest and relaxation...out West.

Jimmy idolizes bootlegger Matt, and when he refuses to implicate his friend, he is sent to reform school. He befriends Shorty, a boy with a heart condition, and escapes to let the world know about the brutal conditions. (imdb)

Will Rogers plays the lead roll, that of Judge William "Billy" Priest in a very patriotic (Confederate) southern town. Priest plays a laid-back, widowed judge who helps uphold the law in his toughest court case yet. In the meantime, he plays matchmaker for his young nephew. (imdb)

A night club singer hosts a children's radio show in hopes of finding the child she gave up years earlier. (TCM.com)

Embittered after serving time for a burglary he did not commit, Joe Bell is soon back in jail, on a prison farm. His love for the foreman's daughter leads to a fight between them, leading to the older man's death due to a weak heart. Joe and Mabel go on the run as he thinks no-one would believe a nobody like him. (imdb)

When a night watchman is mistaken for a wealthy college alumnus, his family and friends help him go along with the pretense.

Glenn (Glenn Tryon), is trying to get into a secret fraternity in order to impress his girlfriend, Fanny (Helen Mann). But his rival is the president of the fraternity and has some very special plans for Glenn. The latter soon finds himself crooning a love song to two tough policeman. and being instructed to convince his blond sweet patootie, Fanny, that he prefers a brunette sweet patootie.

"When I Grow Up" is an uncharacteristically modest film from producer Sam Spiegel (during his "S. P. Eagle" years). Bobby Driscoll plays a young boy who feels neglected and misunderstood at home. Preparing to run away, Bobby chances across an old diary once kept by his grandfather (Charley Grapewin). Leafing through the yellowed pages, Bobby discovers that grandpa went through many of the same childhood travails that Bobby is enduring at that moment--and look how well gramps turned out!

"Duke" Gordon (Robert Armstrong), a circus lion-tamer, tries to tames his wife, Laura (Sally Eilers), just as he does his lions. But, she is a one-man woman, married to the wrong man, but refuses to cheat on her cheating husband even though her happiness depends on doing so.