Esther Howard
Also Known As: not available
Biography: Esther Howard (April 4, 1892 – March 8, 1965) was an American stage and film character actress who played a wide range of supporting roles, from man-hungry spinsters to amoral criminals, appearing in 108 films in her 23-year screen career. From 1940 to 1949, Howard was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in seven films written and directed by Sturges. From 1937, Howard was a regular player in short-subjects produced at Columbia Pictures, where she was frequently cast opposite comedian Andy Clyde. Her last film was a Columbia comedy short, Caught on the Bounce (1952), in which she played Joe Besser's aunt. From Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Butte, Montana, USA
Birthday: April 02, 1892
Deathday: March 08, 1965
Adult: No
Gender: Female
Popularity:
Known For:
Detour
Overview: The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-11-30
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The Palm Beach Story
Overview: A New York inventor, Tom Jeffers, needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife, Gerry, decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire, J. D. Hackensacker III.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-08-28
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Born to Kill
Overview: A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with a hotheaded murderer.
Genres: Crime Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-04-30
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The Great Flamarion
Overview: A beautiful but unscrupulous female performer manipulates all the men in her life in order to achieve her aims.
Genres: Crime Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-01-13
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The Velvet Touch
Overview: After accidentally killing her lecherous producer, a famous actress tries to hide her guilt.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-07-13
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The Great McGinty
Overview: Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-08-01
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Sullivan's Travels
Overview: Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to "know trouble" first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion, he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.
Genres: Comedy Romance Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-11-30
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The Falcon's Alibi
Overview: A society sleuth sets out on the trail of a society matron's lost jewels.
Genres: Adventure Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-04-12
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Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
Overview: A police detective uses his girlfriend to track down a homicidal maniac.
Genres: Crime Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-11-22
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Hail the Conquering Hero
Overview: Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge.
Genres: Comedy War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-08-09
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Winner Take All
Overview: Overworked boxer Jim goes to a health ranch in New Mexico to recover where he falls in love with Peggy and her sickly son. Once recovered, Jim leaves to return to the ring. Can their romance survive the distance?
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-07-16
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Merrily We Go to Hell
Overview: A drunken newspaperman, Jerry Corbett, is rescued from his alcoholic haze by an heiress, Joan Prentice, whose love sobers him up and encourages him to write a play, but he lapses back into dipsomania.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-06-10
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No Man of Her Own
Overview: A penniless pregnant woman adopts the identity of a rich woman killed in a train crash.
Genres: Drama Crime Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-02-21
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Sappy Birthday
Overview: Andy and his brother-in-law plan a fishing trip but never get beyond the driveway.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-02-05
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Klondike Annie
Overview: A San Francisco singer flees Chinatown on murder charges and poses as a missionary in Alaska.
Genres: Comedy Drama Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-02-21
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My Favorite Blonde
Overview: Larry Haines, a mediocre vaudeville entertainer, boards a train for Los Angeles. Aboard, he meets an attractive, blonde British agent carrying a coded message hidden in a brooch—and is being pursued by Nazi agents.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-04-02
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Hollywood Classic Special
Overview: Compilation hodgepodge.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-01-28
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Broadway Serenade
Overview: A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer only wants the singer, leaving the husband without a job and feeling a failure.
Genres: Romance Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-04-07
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A Fool's Advice
Overview: An elevator operator invents a machine that he believes can help to defeat a corrupt politician in the city's upcoming mayoral election.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-02-20
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Stand-In
Overview: An east coast efficiency expert, who stakes his reputation on his ability to turn around a financially troubled Hollywood studio, receives some help from a former child star who now works as a stand-in for the studio.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-10-29
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Rhythm in the Clouds
Overview: Judy Walker is a poor songwriter who, through mistaken identity, gets her songs played on the radio.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-06-21
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Sweepings
Overview: Daniel Pardway, starting with almost nothing after the great Chicago fire, builds the biggest department store in town. He wants to pass on the business to his three sons and daughter, but has to deal with their lack of interest or aptitude.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-04-14
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Idle Roomers
Overview: The stooges are working as bellboys in a large hotel when a side show promoter shows up with 'Lupe', a wild wolfman who promptly escapes. The stooges try to capture the wolfman by playing music to calm him, but music makes the wolfman go berserk and soon the stooges are the ones trying to run away. The boys end up caught in an elevator with the wolfman who shoots them into the sky.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-07-15
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Ship Ahoy
Overview: Two sailors get romantically involved with a mother and daughter.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-03-01
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The Crooked Way
Overview: A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-04-22
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The Best Man Wins
Overview: A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the crook's operation and bring in his gang--including the man who saved his life.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-01-14
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The Vice Squad
Overview: A diplomat is blackmailed by crooked vice cops into helping them frame prostitutes.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-05-29
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Tee for Two
Overview: A musical revue in which a golfer is knocked unconscious by a golf ball and dreams that the Country Club is loaded with beautiful girls.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-10-08
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The Lady Gambles
Overview: When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story. Encouraged by the casino manager, she gets hooked on gambling, to the point where she "borrows" David's expense money to pursue her addiction. This finally breaks up their marriage, but David continues trying to help her.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-05-20
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Partners in Crime
Overview: Detective Hank Hyer investigates a blackmail case involving a candidate for mayor.
Genres: Comedy Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-10-08
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June Bride
Overview: A magazine's staff, including bickering ex-lovers Linda and Carey, cover an Indiana wedding, which goes slightly wrong.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1948-10-29
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It Always Happens
Overview: While on a business trip, Andy accidentially gets into a compromising position with the wife of a client.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-09-14
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Ladies of the Big House
Overview: A woman tries to save her husband from the electric chair after both are sent to prison for a murder they didn't commit.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-12-26
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A Letter for Evie
Overview: Evie's co-workers at the uniform shirt factory, and her almost-fiancée's inability to kiss, inspire her to slip a letter into a size sixteen-and-a-half shirt for some anonymous soldier. It's received by "Wolf" Larson, who immediately throws it away, but his sensitive, dreaming--and short--buddy John McPherson snags it, and begins a correspondence with Evie, pretending to be Wolf. But things get complicated when Evie wants to meet her tall, handsome soldier. And even more complicated when Wolf sees Evie and likes what he sees.
Genres: Romance Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-01-28
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The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Overview: A small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember.
Genres: Comedy Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-09-18
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The Misses Stooge
Overview: Thelma and Patsy get a job working for a magician.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-04-20
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The Virginian
Overview: Arriving at Medicine Bow, eastern schoolteacher Molly Woods meets two cowboys, irresponsible Steve and the "Virginian," who gets off on the wrong foot with her. To add to his troubles, the Virginian finds that his old pal Steve is mixed up with black-hatted Trampas and his rustlers...then finds himself at the head of a posse after said rustlers; and Molly hates the violent side of frontier life.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-05-05
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Stars Over Broadway
Overview: An aggressive agent turns a hotel porter into an overnight sensation.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-11-23
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Caged
Overview: A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-05-19
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Below the Sea
Overview: A wealthy woman funds an underwater expedition to explore for marine life, but what she doesn't know is that her "colleagues" have other intentions.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-03-28
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M'Liss
Overview: The third film version of the Bret Harte tale, starring Anne Shirley as a miner's daughter in a small town who falls for a handsome young schoolteacher.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-07-27
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The Gracie Allen Murder Case
Overview: The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder.
Genres: Comedy Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-06-02
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Ready for Love
Overview: In this fluffy romance, a young woman fights against the narrow-minded residents of her small town. The trouble begins when a young woman flees her boarding school to stay with her retired aunt, a former actress, who try as she might, has never been welcomed into the snobbish community in which she resides. The young woman too, is shunned and ends up being victimized in witchcraft trial and ducked into a pool of water.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-11-30
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Caught on the Bounce
Overview: Joe Besser needs money to pay back a loan of $2500 and travels to ask his aunt for the money. She boards the train, along with a man who looks like a wanted bank-robber, and tells Joe she needs $2500 herself and can not help him. Between them they capture the bank robber and split the $5,000 reward.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-10-09
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Wedlock Deadlock
Overview: Newlyweds Eddie (Joe DeRita) and Betty (Christine McIntyre) barely moved into their new house before Betty's mother (Esther Howard), aunt (Patsy Moran) and brother (Charles Williams) show up and give every indication of becoming permanent free-loading guests. Dick (William Newell) gives Eddie a plan that will cause his unwanted guests to vacate the premises, by having Dick and his wife, Ruby (Dorothy Granger), move in as Eddie's relatives, and even bigger pests, thereby causing Betty's relatives to move out. The plan works and Eddie and Betty are pleased until Dick announces that he and Ruby have intentions of staying on.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-12-18
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Boobs in the Woods
Overview: Andy's annoying brother-in-law Gus gets him fired from his job, and then tag-a-longs on a vacation with Andy and his wife.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-05-31
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San Francisco Docks
Overview: Longshoreman Johnny Barnes is in love with Kitty Tracy, barmaid at her father's waterfront saloon, and he beats up Cassidy, a crooked politician who has been annoying her. Cassidy is murdered that night and Johnny is jailed for the crime. Kitty, her father Andy Tracy, and waterfront-priest Father Cameron believe Johnny is innocent but all evidence points to his guilt.
Genres: Crime Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-12-25
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I Married a Witch
Overview: A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her.
Genres: Comedy Romance Fantasy Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-10-30
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The Iron Master
Overview: The wealthy owner of an iron foundry dies, and his greedy heirs are outraged when they find out that he left his entire estate not to them but to the foreman of his foundry.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-02-04
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The Yellow Ticket
Overview: A young Russian girl is forced into a life of prostitution in Czarist Russia, and she and a British journalist find their lives endangered when she reveals to him information regarding the social crimes rampant in her country.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-10-30
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Without Reservations
Overview: Kit Madden is traveling to Hollywood, where her best-selling novel is to be filmed. Aboard the train, she encounters Marines Rusty and Dink, who don't know she is the author of the famous book, and who don't think much of the ideas it proposes. She and Rusty are greatly attracted, but she doesn't know how to deal with his disdain for the book's author.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-05-13
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Murder, My Sweet
Overview: After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-12-14
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The Lady from Cheyenne
Overview: Fictionalized story of the 1869 adoption of women's suffrage in Wyoming Territory. In the new-founded railroad town of Laraville, Boss Jim Cork hopes to manipulate the sale of town lots to give him control, but Quaker schoolmarm Annie Morgan bags one of the key lots. Cork's lawyer Steve Lewis tries romancing Annie to get the lot back, finding her so overpoweringly liberated she leaves him dizzy. Still, Steve attains his nefarious object...almost...then has cause to deeply regret having aroused the sleeping giant of feminism!
Genres: Comedy Drama Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-04-11
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Hellfire
Overview: Zeb Smith is a gambler with a larcenous streak, but when an itinerant preacher takes a bullet meant for him, Zeb vows to fulfill the preacher's mission of building a church. Frustrated in his attempts to get donations, Zeb attempts to capture fugitive Doll Brown in order to obtain the reward. But he finds that there's more to Doll than meets the eye. When his old friend Bucky McLean shows up gunning for Doll, Zeb sees a chance to redeem them all... one way or another.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-05-29
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Champion
Overview: An unscrupulous boxer fights his way to the top, but eventually alienates all of the people who helped him on the way up.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-04-09
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Life Begins
Overview: A day in the maternity ward from the lens of accepted morals and medical attitudes of 1932. The ward includes women from all walks of life and situations.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-09-10
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Jackass Mail
Overview: An unknowing orphan idolizes the horse thief/mail robber who has shot his father.
Genres: Romance Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-07-01
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Swing, Sister, Swing
Overview: In this musical comedy, two star-struck small town kids head for the Big Apple and become famous for their jitterbug act. Their fame doesn't last long, but they had fun anyway. Songs include: "Baltimore Bubble," "Gingham Gown," "Just a Bore," "Wasn't It You," "Kaneski Waltz" (Frank Skinner, Charles Henderson).
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-16
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Adventure
Overview: A rough and tumble man of the sea falls for a meek librarian.
Genres: Adventure Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-12-28
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Ride, Cowboy, Ride
Overview: Dinny and his cowhand friends rescue Laura from a runaway stagecoach after it is robbed by outlaw Pancho Dominguez and his gang. Dinny is attracted to Laura, who isn't interested in him at all. The climax arises when Pancho's gang raids the town and robs the bank.
Genres: Western Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-09-09
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Rackety Rax
Overview: Gambler/racketeer "Knucks" McGloin takes note of just how much money and action (aside from the game itself) takes place around and about the annual Rose Bowl football game, and decides this is one sweet proposition and could be even sweeter if one had his own college and football game and had a large say beforehand as to the outcome of any game this team had. So he ups and creates his own college---Carnasie after his own neighborhood. His gangster rival. Gilatti, thinks this give McGloin a definite inside advantage and, if there is one thing a gambler can't abide, it is that someone has an inside advantage and they are not that someone. Gilatti gets himself a college football team. Education marches on.
Genres: Action Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-10-23
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All That I Have
Overview: As a wealthy retired surgeon nears the end of his life, he begins to distribute his wealth to those in need, stating that "all that I have belongs to God." His nephews bring him to court to determine his mental competence in the hopes of stopping him from disposing of all his money.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-10-01
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Scandal Street
Overview: Joe McKnight temporarily leaves his fiancée, Nora Langdon, for an expedition in a South American jungle. Nora gets a position as librarian in the small town of Midberg, where she boards with the Smith family. Nora is befriended by her next-door neighbor Austin Brown, who, unknown to his wife, is engaged in a moneymaking scheme with James Wilson.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-02-11
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Alex in Wonderland
Overview: In this Warner Bros. short film, Alex visits his sister Belinda and her husband Fred. It looks like Alex is going to be around for a while, much to Fred's displeasure. Alex in is New York to look for a job and he sees an ad for a champagne salesman. He decides to crash a swank party given by railroad tycoon J.D. Swinnerton and his wife. Alex has his own zany way of getting an introduction to the man. Mayhem ensues when several of the guests come as Robin Hood and one of them is a jewel thief.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-03-09
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Song of the Thin Man
Overview: Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club.
Genres: Comedy Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-08-28
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Grand Slam
Overview: A Russian waiter in New York City becomes a national celebrity after he develops a "system" for winning at contract bridge.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-02-22
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True to Life
Overview: A writer for a radio program needs some fresh ideas to juice up his show. For inspiration, he rents a room with a typical American family and begins to secretly write about their true life antics. The show becomes a big hit, but he begins to feel guilty about his charade when he falls in love with the family's pretty older daughter.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-12-24
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Homicide
Overview: Michael Landers, a police lieutenant, sets out to investigate an intricate murder case. But, the case is closed after the only witness is found dead. Will Michael be able to fathom the mystery?
Genres: Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-04-02
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Dead End
Overview: Mobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up, dropping in on his mother, who rejects him because of his gangster lifestyle, and his old girlfriend, Francey, now a syphilitic prostitute. Martin also crosses paths with Dave, a childhood friend struggling to make it as an architect, and the Dead End Kids, a gang of young boys roaming the streets of the city's East Side slums.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-08-27
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Marie Antoinette
Overview: The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-08-26
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The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood
Overview: The Cohens and the Kellys invade a Hollywood studio after Kitty becomes the darling of the studio.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-03-27
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The Big Noise
Overview: During World War II Stan and Ollie find themselves as improbable bodyguards to an eccentric inventor and his strategically important new bomb.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-09-22
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Wicked
Overview: Margot Rande, a basically decent woman, is led down the path to perdition by her bank robber husband.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-10-04
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