Lynne Overman

A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was judged for in 1927.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)

The Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the salvagers of Key West, like the intrepid and beautiful Loxi Claiborne and her crew, reap, aboard frail schooners, the harvest of the wild wind, facing the shark teeth of the reefs to rescue the sailors and the cargo from the shipwrecks caused by the scavengers of the sea.

A bored society girl sets her sights on a dancer in a Broadway show.

Big Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his little girl, Marthy Jane, as security, or in bookie's terms a "marker". "Marky", as she comes to be known, winds up under the care of Sorrowful Jones and his lady friend, singer Bangles Carson.

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

Paul Hudson, leads a group of desert bandits against some Nazis, who want to use them as cheap labor for their railroad.

Don Bolton is a movie star who can't stand loud noises. To evade the draft, he decides to get married...but falls for a colonel's daughter. By mistake, he and his two cronies enlist. In basic training, Don hopes to make a good impression on the fair Antoinette and her father, but his military career is largely slapstick. Will he ever get his corporal's stripes?

A Broadway playboy inherits an almost bankrupt girls' school and tries to save it by a big show.

Two Alaskan salmon fisherman find their friendship at risk when one aligns with Russian fish pirates and the other aligns with local vigilantes.

Oliver Quade is a pitchman who follows state fairs that feature dog shows---which limits his territory more than a little---at which he sells encyclopedias...and does it well as he possesses a photographic memory that amazes the rubes. The Champion, in the title, is a Great Dane who has won the title at the Rubeville State Fair, and it isn't long before the Champion turns up dead, which is because somebody---motive unknown at the moment---has killed the Champion. This is repeated at other shows along the way and Quade's bright young assistant, "Small Fry", fancies himself as an amateur detective, and starts nosing around into the mystery and drags Quade along with him.

A young songwriter leaves his Kentucky home to try to make it in New Orleans. Eventually he winds up in New York, where he sells his songs to a music publisher, but refuses to sell his most treasured composition: "Dixie." The film is based on the life of Daniel Decatur Emmett, who wrote the classic song "Dixie."

A cabaret dancer witnesses a murder and is forced to hide from gangsters by disguising herself as a male Princeton student.

Jury foreman Edward Weldon's questioning leads to the death sentence for Ethel Saxon. His daughter Stella claims to have killed her lover, the gangster Garboni, just as Saxon was to sit in the electric chair.

A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education and returns to his island after his father dies to try to stop a revolution.

A young girl fresh out of reform school who is singing in a burlesque show is offered a scholarship to a famous music camp by the camp's owner. She must overcome the suspicions of the other students in order to prove herself.

The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.

A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.

The policy-racket reaches it lean, bony fingers into the ivy-towers of a large university and the underworld trying to “beat the numbers-racket” with applied mathematics. One of the professors, Tom Barry is murdered in the Dean’s office.

Christopher Powell is in Malaysia with his fiancée and her father, capturing wild animals. While out hunting, he is attacked by a tiger, and his native guides run away, leaving him for dead. But the tiger is the pet of Ulah, a beautiful young woman who grew up by herself in the jungle. She rescues Chris and takes him back to her cave, where she nurses him to health and falls in love with him. When he eventually returns to camp, she follows. The fiancée is jealous, and the natives don't like Ulah or her pet tiger either, all of which leads to a lot of trouble.

Ranger Don Stuart fights a forest fire with timber boss friend Tana 'Butch' Mason, and finds evidence of arson. He suspects Twig Dawson but can't prove it. Butch loves Don but he, poor fool, won't notice her as a woman; instead he meets socialite Celia in town and elopes with her. The action plot (Don's pursuit of the fire starter) parallels Tana's comic efforts to scare tenderfoot Celia back to the city.

Notorious racketeer Joe Albany kills James Flowers when he discovers he is embezzling from the club they own. Joe escapes through a window and hails a taxi, but when he gets nervous at the sound of sirens, he jumps out. Hardware salesman Peter Harris accidentally hits Joe with his car, and unharmed, Joe seizes this opportunity to hide in Peter's car. Peter is so drunk that Joe is able to con him into believing that he is Charles Edwards, a fellow hardware man who was with him at a convention, and in the guise of friendship, accompanies Peter to his suburban home. The next morning, Joe gets antsy and wants to leave, but Peter's family, his wife Mary, young son Robert and daughter Jane all entreat him to stay.

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 bankroll is thin and the luck is against him. He is arrested because of $150 he owes somebody for horse food, but suddenly a planned fraud by somebody else seems to offer him a chance...

Pop, a security guard at Paramount has told his son that he's the head of the studio. When his son arrives in Hollywood on shore leave with his buddies, Pop enlists the aid of the studio's dizzy switchboard operator in pulling off the charade. Things get more complicated when Pop agrees to put together a show for the Navy starring Paramount's top contract players.

Victor Ballard, a happy-go-lucky albeit impoverished sidewalk photographer, shares a New York City studio apartment with Polish immigrant painter Stefan Janowski. The big city doles out joy and misery indiscriminately: In the apartment below Victor and Steve, Gus Nelson learns that his wife has given birth to quintuplets, while the lonely tenant in the apartment below Gus has given up on life and committed suicide.

Parkhouse plays a practical joke on a poker-playing buddy by sending him home with a lady's chemise stuffed in his coat pocket. The gag backfires, whereupon Parkhouse finds himself in hot water with his own wife. Threatened with divorce, Parkhouse is advised by a zany astrologer to frame Mrs. P. in a compromising situation at the Hotel Haywire, enlisting amateur detectives Bert and Genevieve Sterns in his scheme.

When vaudeville performer Florette Faxon is left penniless with her six-year-old son Jimmy, she relies on the friendship of fellow performer Bud Hannigan to help her get a job. Bud is reluctant to become her partner, as he has proven to himself to be unreliable in relationships, but he tells her to call him whenever she needs help. While working in a beer garden, Florette meets Hap Stanley, an avaricious performer who marries her to get the rights to perform her show routine. Hap dislikes Jimmy and eventually convinces Florette to send him away to school. Both Jimmy and Florette are broken-up over being apart, but Jimmy pretends it is what he wants so Florette can be happy with Hap.

Casino operator Johnny Lamb hires down-on-her-luck socialite Lucille Sutton as his casino hostess, in order to help her and to improve casino income. But Lamb's pals fear he may follow Lucille onto the straight-and-narrow path, which would not be good for business. So they hire Gert Malloy and Dictionary McKinney, a pair of con-artists, to manipulate Johnny back off the path of righteousness.

A beautiful heiress is an excellent poker player. Her comfortable life changes when her father and his fortune die during market crash of the 1800's.

Man marries opera singer, winds up taking back seat to her career.

The son of a cattle-rustling Cossack immigrant must choose between following the straight path and helping his father escape from prison.

After being released from prison, con man Thurston Hall gathers his gang of cronies--along with innocent chump Guy Kibbee--to help him sell worthless stock in a New Mexico gold mine.

A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.

Two men searching for black pearls are marooned on an island when their crew mutinies. There they run into a beautiful girl who had been washed up on the island in her childhood. They must fight angry natives and a typhoon in order to survive.

While searching the South Pacific for a missing aviator, Bob Mitchell and Jimmy Wallace are caught in a typhoon and crack up on an island, escaping unharmed with the aid of Tura, a beautiful jungle girl who is the only inhabitant of the island and is believed a goddess by the natives of the adjoining islands. The three are about to leave the island on a make-shift raft when a gang of savage tribesman land, headed by Kuasa, a half-mad potentate who informs them that all whites are his mortal enemies because an Englishwoman once spurned his love and he got his revenge by stealing her daughter, who is Tura.

Millionaire Baron de Courland and his fiancée Linda Stewart employ Jim Logan as a guide for their hunting trip in the jungle. Linda finds unplanned adventure in her sudden love for Jim, ultimately forsaking her future with the Baron for the joys of true love.

Sons of The Legion is a film about a group of young men looking to start a squadron in their Legion Post. However, because the boy's father wrongfully received a dishonorable discharge after World War I, his father cannot join the Legion and in turn his son cannot join the squadron [wikipedia]

Afraid of marriage, Simone (Mary Ellis) breaks off her long term engagement with her fiancé Paul de Lille (Tullio Carminati). Paul heads to the top of The Eiffel Tower with thoughts of suicide. In another part of Paris and also afraid of marriage, Mignon (Ida Lupino) breaks it off from her young lover (James Blakely). Despairing, Mignon also climbs to the top of the The Eiffel Tower intending to leap to her death. There she meets Paul and the two compare stories. After discussion, Paul dissuades her from leaping and the two conspire to make their respective partners jealous by pretending to have an affair with each other.

When Dr. Ernest Tindal's wife is murdered, evidence mounts to convict her lover, Frank Marian. But Frank knows he didn't do it.....

A songwriter has to come up with a full-length theatrical piece within a few days.

Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.

An actor is jealous of his wife's stardom.

Fred Stevens is an aspiring songwriter from Schenectady who journeys to New York City, hoping to make a name for himself. On the train he meets dental assistant Edna Baker, and the two embark upon a friendship that evolves into her falling for him. While struggling in Tin Pan Alley, Fred falls in with his composer partner's gold-digging sister-in-law Eileen. Eileen really becomes interested when she finds out Fred is carrying his life savings.

Jennie Mullins and her fiancé Peter Cary are happily in love but their families are miserable about their relationship. The Carys and Mullinses have been feuding for years over the apparent failure of the Carys' business which was caused by the now-deceased Mr. Mullins. Despite familial pressure to the contrary, Jennie and Peter proceed with their wedding. Just before the wedding, Peter receives advice from his soon-to-be brothers-in-law, Jeff and Bill Mullins. Both men warn him about the drudgery of marriage, ply him with drink, and destroy his fantasy of an ideal, romantic marriage.

A behind-the-scenes showcase of how screen tests for studio executives are made and used in the Hollywood casting process. Some of the featured performances include actress Betty Jane Rhodes and opera singer Gladys Swarthout.

A police inspector 'solves' a crime that, in fact, may not have occurred at all.

Kitty Reily and Lena Marchetti meet each other at an amateur Radio Show. Kitty quickly learns to greatly dislike incompetent Lena. They keep running into each other until Kitty resigns to being friends with Lena when they become hospital nurses and share a dorm room.

Reporter Nicholas Ranson is jubilant when, on 17 Dec 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright take their first airplane flight. Back home in Underwood, Maryland, however, his uncle Hiram F. Jenkins, owner and editor of the local newspaper, refuses to print the story. Nicholas quits and continues to work on his own airplane, with the devoted help of his little daughter Peggy. Peggy is actually the first in her family to fly when her friends, Patrick Falconer and Scott Barnes, induce her to get inside a large kite they have made, and run with it in a field until she is airborne. The kite is caught in a tree, however, and Peggy gets a black eye. Later, Nicholas dies when his experimental airplane crashes, leaving his wife and children alone. By Peggy's adulthood, planes are capable of flying at an altitude of 11,000 feet, and speeds of nearly 100 m.p.h. Peggy continues her father's obsession with flight by helping Scott and Pat to build a plane.

During a stick-up, a woman is excited by the criminal and joins him on his crime spree.

When Bert Adams brings his boss, Mr. Mason, home for dinner, he and his wife Carrie hope Mason will take the opportunity to announce that Bert will be promoted to fill a new vacancy in the company's shipping department. But Mr. Mason has other plans for that vacancy, and for Bert.

A tightwad accountant for a newspaper becomes friends with a reporter. The bookkeeper goes on vacation, and while there he learns of a kidnapping conspiracy. He quickly phones the paper and they order him to follow up on the story and stay off the phone so the reporter (whom he secretly has a crush on) can use it.

Detective Hank Hyer investigates a blackmail case involving a candidate for mayor.