Melville Cooper

When a naive young woman marries a rich widower, they settle in his gigantic mansion, where she finds the memory of the first wife maintaining a grip on her husband and the servants. (imdb)

When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army. (imdb)

Returning from a year up the Amazon studying snakes, the rich but unsophisticated Charles Pike meets con-artist Jean Harrington on a ship... (imdb)

A father of a young woman deals with the emotional pain of her getting married, and the financial and organizational pain of arranging her wedding. (imdb)

Documentary-style prologue follows training of O.S.S. agents for WWII work behind enemy lines. One of the group is a German "mole;" leaders Gibson and Sharkey are aware of this and scheme to feed him false info about the invasion of Europe, while the real agents go to France to find a secret V-2 rocket depot. But the German spy outsmarts them and rejoins his people knowing too much; Bob Sharkey takes the risk of going in after him. (imdb)

Set just after the American civil war, businessman and inventor Victor Barbicane (Joseph Cotton) invents a new source of power called Power X. He plans to use it to power rockets, and to show it's potential he plans to send a rocket to the moon... (imdb)

From Arnold Bennett's novel "Buried Alive". An artist returning from years abroad takes the identity of his dead valet to escape the attentions of the press. (imdb)

Somewhere in the 18th century Great Britain, noble but penniless young boy John Mohune is sent by his dying mother to Moonfleet, to put himself under the protection of a certain Jeremy Fox. The boy discovers that Fox is both a former lover of his mother and the leader of a gang of buccaneers. A strange friendship grows as their adventures go on. (imdb)

In 1915 France, Major Brand commands the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The young airmen go up in bullet-riddled "crates" and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the "brass hats" at headquarters see reason. Insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney is another thorn in Brand's side...but finds the smile wiped from his face when he rises to command the squadron himself. Everyone keeps a stiff upper lip. (imdb)

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes. But pride, prejudice, and misunderstandings all combine to complicate their relationships and to make happiness difficult. (imdb)

Gangster Hal Wilson takes psychiatrist Dr. Shelby hostage. While captive, the doctor analyzes Wilson as though he were a patient. (imdb)

A fictional comedy set around a real person, the 18th-century British actor David Garrick, widely considered one of the greatest of all time. (TCM.com)

Kitschy musical remake of Bachelor Mother. Debbie Reynolds plays an over-eager clerk in a large department store and Eddie Fisher plays the boss' son. After getting fired from her job, she finds an adorable baby on the steps of the foundling home and the folks inside mistake her for the mother. Fisher, well-meaning, but obtuse, tries to help her out with the baby, and the buds of romance begin to appear. Meanwhile old Merlin, the owner of the store, thinks he just might be a grandfather... (imdb)

Out on patrol in the war-time desert a Canadian corporal reminisces about the woman he has left behind in London and ponders whether she will fall for the charms of his rival in love. At the same time he worries about how he would get on with his outfit if his crack sergeant was not there to guide him. Circumstances combine to give answers to both questions. (imdb)

The Marx Brothers help young Broadway hopefuls while thwarting diamond thieves. (imdb)

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. makes his big-screen swan song with Korda's deliciously satiric deflation of the Don Juan myth. After having faked his own death and escaped Seville, the aging lothario returns, only to find that he has been promptly forgotten; perhaps Merle Oberon's raven-haired beauty can coax him back into business. Don Juan was a rare "talkie" for Fairbanks, and a shrewd poking at the actor's own persona. (criterion.com)

When Charlie's old friend from Scotland Yard is murdered when they attend a police convention in New York, Chan picks up the case he was working on. (imdb)

When her long lost husband returns after her re-marriage, a woman decides to try life with two mates. (TCM.com)

Donald Elwood meets after the war his former USO partner, Kitty McNeil, who is now a rich widow with a little child. She tries to evade her paternal grandmother, who wants her to live in a way according to the customs of her dead husband's class. (imdb)

On a ski trip, rich, idle Peter Kirk pursues and falls (literally) for Helen Hunt, M.D. After a courtship of hypochondria, she agrees to marry him on the condition that she continue to practice medicine. But will jealous Peter be able to reconcile himself to his wife's seeing male patients? (imdb)

A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks. (TCM.com)

Lady Mary's father is innocently accused of treason and is executed. It is the king's evil chancellor, the duke of Brompton, who has found a way of getting rich by accusing his enemies of treason, having them killed and then expropriating their fortune. Lady Mary travels to London to meet the duke, but instead meets the handsome Michael Dermott. Dermott has found the duke's notebook where all his evil schemes have been written down. Of course, he is very anxious to get his notebook back. (imdb)

Ousted from their homeland by the Bolshevik revolution, a royal Russian couple find themselves impoverished and living in Paris. They take positions as butler and housemaid in a wealthy household and, owing to their impeccable breeding and manners, excel in their new jobs. But once they are recognized for the royal couple they are, they must face new -- and formidable -- responsibilities. (imdb)

A beautiful woman serving as advisor to the King of France falls for his son. (TCM.com)

When spoiled young heiress Maggie Richards tries to charge some gasoline at an auto camp run by Bill Davis, he makes her work out her bill by making beds. Resolving to get even, she pretends to have forgiven him, and sends him to her father to get financing for a plan Bill has. What happens next was not part of her original revenge plan. (imdb)

A young female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is caught red-handed on her first attempt at stealing by an upper class man. He recruits her to do him a favor at a society party where she meets and falls in love with a young, handsome, rich diplomat. Whether or not she can land him is another story. (imdb)

The story of a Russian ballerina in Vienna in 1945 who is befriended by, and falls in love with, a British Major when they meet in the convent in which she is hiding from the Russian authorities. The British Colonel turns her over to the Russians when they present a trumped-up story but discovers the lie when he sees her on a DP (Displaced Persons) train later. The Mother Superior of the convent and the Colonel set about trying to get her freed. (imdb)

Swiss hotel ski instructor (Henie) falls in love with a man (Power) who goes skiing every morning. (imdb)

Mike Reese, yellow journalist and antihero, prints a story that leads to a gang killing, and is blacklisted from the city papers under suspicion of ties with racketeer Carl Durham. So, with a shrug, he makes the suspicion come true, then elbows his way into the editorship of the local paper in a small town where, opportunely, a sensational murder case threatens to destroy the family of newspaper magnate E.J. Stanton. (imdb)

A young actress struggles to make a hit on stage and in married life. (TCM.com)

Story of a rising stage star and the trouble she causes by her ambition. (imdb)

Owners and show girls of the bankrupt Club Ballé are mistaken for the Academy Ballet of America and are off to Paris to compete in an International Dance Exposition. (imdb)

Kathy lives in a cramped New York flat with her father Madden Thomas, a celebrated actor brought down by drink. Lame from an early age and feeling trapped with her father in her small world, Kathy is delighted to meet fellow tenant Robert. When Madden is offered the lead in a new King Lear and Robert lands a composing job in Hollywood, better times seem for a while to beckon. (imdb)

A woman about to divorce her husband and marry for a second time discovers that she is pregnant by her husband. She must decide whether she wants to stay with him or divorce him and marry her lover. (imdb)

The Grand Hotel formula that was so overworked in the 1930s made an encore appearance in 1940's Escape to Glory. The story is given timeliness by placing the characters on a British merchant ship on the very day that World War II is declared. The ship is attacked by a Nazi U-Boat, resulting in a variety of reactions from the diverse passengers--one of whom (Erwin Kalser) is a German doctor. (allrovi.com)

Sweeney Bliss, champion mule raiser in Missouri, takes his prize mule Samson to London, where the British government is trying to decide whether to buy mules or tractors for its colonial troops. He is accompanied by his ritzy wife Julie who has high society aspirations and hopes to have her younger sister Lola Pike marry a British diplomat. Complicating matters is a business rival, Porgie Rowe, who is trying to sell tractors to the government and keeps knocking Sweeney's prize Missouri mules. (imdb)

Millicent Hopkins, while touring with a dancing troupe in 1892, meets Clive Loring who is campaigning in the English Midlands for Parliament. They fall in love and Millie remains behind at the home of her father while her friend, Rose Bridges and the rest of the company go to London. Lord Belmont, Clive's older brother, tells Millie that a marriage below Clive's station will jeopardize his future happiness. (imdb)

A typical Francis vehicle of the time was Women are Like That, in which the star is cast as businesswoman Claire King, the daughter of a powerful advertising executive. When Claire marries humble copywriter Bill Landin (Pat O'Brien), she wants to use her influence to help her husband get ahead, but he will have none of it. Claire's persistence and Bill's stubbornness almost leads to a parting of the ways.

When Clive Randolph finally returns "home" from Gold Coast colony, younger brother John balks at following the family Colonial Service tradition. But back in Gold Coast, one Zurof, nominally studying ants, pursues a hidden political agenda that causes worldwide unrest; the Colonial Office persuades both brothers to go back and deal with it. Young John makes a mess of things, then must save the day on his own. (imdb)

An artist famous for his calendar portraits of beautiful women becomes fascinated by a prim and proper professor and tries to get her to pose for his arwork. She declines his offer, but he's determined not to take no for an answer.

Fatherless Rory O'Donnell (Jackie Cooper) inherits a valuable piece of land in Texas which he is not yet capable of handing on his own. Bill Hattlet (Alan Dinehart), an unscrupulous oil man can't wait to appropriate the land for himself, but is prevented from doing so by the intervention of Hilary Harrington (Melville Cooper) and his son David (Freddie Bartlolomew).

A newspaper columnist, critic and novelist suddenly becomes caretaker to an infant boy left by his parents who are being deported for what turns out to be a silly miscommunication of the English language.