Virginia Bruce

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows

Lieut. Robert Banks, an American aviator on leave in Paris, meets Mary Gordon, a young American who lives abroad, but their romance is cut short by his return to the front. In an air battle, Robert brings down and captures the Grey Eagle, Baden, and takes him to American Intelligence in Paris. Mary, ostensibly a spy for the Germans, drugs Robert, who awakens to find that his uniform has been stolen by Baden. Later, in an exciting air conflict, Baden is wounded but shoots down Robert's plane. The German rescues him, however, and takes him to an Allied hospital, assuring him of Mary's love; his faith in her is restored when he learns that she is actually a spy for U. S. Intelligence.

When heiress Jean Courtland attempts suicide, her fiancée Elliott Carson probes her relationship with John Triton. In flashback, we see how stage mentalist Triton starts having terrifying flashes of true precognition. Now years later, he desperately tries to prevent tragedies in the Courtland family.

A promotional short to hype the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.

Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.

Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.

David and Lynn are a happily married couple. When David gets his dream job in another state, Lynn, a high-powered executive, doesn't want to leave NYC and her job

Two surgeons in love with a nurse end their rivalry in the operating room.

Two people with ties to rich murdered socialite Lowe Hammle die from unusual suicides—but Vance suspects foul play.

This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.

The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying

On leave, a sailor falls in love with a young lady aspiring to become a Broadway dancer, but their relationship is jeopardized by an established Broadway star, who is also enamored by him.

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

Mississippi, 1830's. Tom Rumsford comes back to Magnolia Landing, his parents'estate. Having been brought up in the North by Quaker relatives, he just hates violence and accordingly refuses a duel. As this is the only way in the South to settle a dispute between gentlemen, Tom's father is so infuriated by his behavior that Tom has no other choice but leave. Away from Magnolia Landing, Tom learns bravery and returns seven years later as "the notorious Colonel Blake", the terror of the Lower Mississippi.

Fay Wray plays a beautiful showgirl who falls for a rich Park Avenue guy played by Phillips Holmes. William Powell is a producer in love with Miss Wray, but he won't use his influence to take any advantage... as usual, he's a perfect gentleman.

A pair of bus drivers accidentally steal their own bus. With the company issuing a warrant for their arrest, they tag along with a playboy on a boat trip that finds them on a tropical island, where a jewel thief has sinister plans for them.

Reporter Michael Gordon uncovers intrigue in Damascus, where the Allies and Nazis struggle for control of Arab sympathies.

A nurse in the Red Crescent (the Turkish equivalent of the Red Cross) fights to save the populace during a plague.

A Harvard man fights a railroad baron with a disguise and the power of the press.

In this drama, a girl from a small town in Pennsylvania dreams of being a star while she goes to school. The trouble is, no one notices her. Later a mentor turns her into a successful Broadway entertainer. She returns to her former college to get sweet revenge.

Social butterfly marries Park Avenue doctor and learns that his nurse is in love with him.

Society lawyer Christopher Durant agrees to defend his friend Phil Siddall who was arrested for the murder of an ex-girlfriend. With the help of nightclub singer Pat Abbott and crime boss Tony Gazotti (a former client), Durant launches his own investigation of the murder in order to prove his friend's innocence.

In the Austrian manor of Baron and Baroness von Burgen, the relationship between the upstairs aristocracy and the downstairs staff is quite positive. The servants seem to enjoy their time together, and some even fall in love, as head butler Albert and maid Anna have done. But when lecherous new chauffeur Karl Schneider enters the house, affairs and blackmail follow, and the harmony of the home is slowly destroyed.

An heiress takes a job as a department store clerk.

A young Iowa woman inherits her late estranged father's New York business, but the dead man's crooked associates think they can outwit the naive heir and seize control.

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

Brazil is perhaps the best of the handful of US films made by singing sensation Tito Guizar. In typical screwball-comedy fashion, the plot is set in motion by authoress Nicky Henderson, who has hit the best-seller charts with her latest tome, Why Marry a Latin? While researching her next book in Rio De Janeiro, she finds out "why" when she meets handsome songwriter Miguel Soares. Upon learning about Nicky's book, Miguel decides to teach her a few lessons in the affairs of the heart. Edward Everett Horton is also on hand, twittering his way through the role of a well-meaning buttinsky. Thanks to the "Good Neighbor" policy of the 1940s, South American musicals were a glut on the market, but Brazil was good enough on its own merits to pay its way at the box office.

A girl with a reputation falls for a wealthy playboy.

In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfriend with him. Also going to court are the Jubilee singers, hillbillies, and some cowboys and Indians who demonstrate that the composer wrote his song by rearranging four folk tunes. He wins his song back and $50,000 in damages. Songs include: "Heading Home," "Roll Along Prairie Moon," "Tender Is the Night," "You're My Thrill," "I'm Bound for Heaven," and "The Army Band."

A young law graduate joins his older brother's legal practice, only to discover the firm's clients are mostly mobsters.

The company of a musical comedy gets shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by a "king" from Brooklyn and his coterie of wild native girls.

Various Hollywood performers put on a pirate-themed variety show on Catalina Island, with a number of amiable stars in the audience.

A ruthless outlaw becomes very protective of a prizefighter when he learns the young man is his own son.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Aloysius 'Butch' Grogan leads a life of criminal activities motivated to provide for a widow and her child. He's on lookout for a gang of safe crackers when he has to also look after the baby of one of the criminals.

Let 'Em Have It is a 1935 gangster film. It was also known as The Legion of Valour and False Faces. An FBI agent tracks down a gang leader.

A troubled youth is offered the opportunity to serve as a Senate page in Washington, DC.

An attorney handling a murder case is unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.

This film tells the history of the United States from pre-Revolution through 1939.

A newlywed unhappily discovers that her husband's scheming ex-wife still has a controlling influence in his life and home.

Kenneth Seeley, member of the U. S. State Department's Foreign Service Bureau, and Marge Weldon, a morale worker with the bureau, are assigned to an area in Mongolia dominated by an outlaw warlord. The latter captures the village where they reside and when escape is clearly impossible, Seeley blows up the outlaw's headquarters, losing his own life in doing so.

Federal Airlines ace pilot Chick Faber is grounded by Flight Superintendent Bill Graves when a doctor says his eyesight is failing. Aided by Mary Norvell and Nan Hudson, Graves persuades Chick to take a job as teacher in the school for airline hostesses, and Chick and Mary get married. He learns that the Army is going to test a stratosphere plane that he and Artie Dixon designed and feels that he should make the first flight but permission is refused.

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.

A gang of crooks evade the police by moving their operations to a small town. There the gang's leader, John Madison, encounters a faith healer and uses him to scam the gullible public of funds for a supposed chapel. But when a real healing takes place, a change comes over the gang.

Mildred Harker loses custody of her child in a messy divorce settlement. Leaving her hometown in disgrace, Mildred heads to New York, where after a crash course in the school of hard knocks she joins the chorus of a Ziegfeld-like musical revue. Now a full-fledged gold-digger, she enjoys the favors of backstage johnnies and elderly sugar daddies, but finally finds true love in the form of Park Avenue socialite Ted Willing.

Barnstorming pilots Speed Condon, Bill Adams, and Eddie Smith travel the country with their manager, Alec Dugan, performing at fairs and air shows and hawking rides for the locals. But when Speed's rambunctious flying results in tragedy, he gives up flying in despair and guilt. Alec tracks him down and hopes to get him back on his feet and back in the air.

A lawyer's wife walks out on him, then poses as a French nurse to spy on him.

Bill Reardon, a private detective, is working on a case involving stolen items from a local jewelry store. The case takes a different turn when Bill's prying wife wants to help catch the crook.

Hospital intern Allen Meighan assures himself residency 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's married to the physically abusive Tom.

Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.

In this short film, two starstruck movie fans hire a tour guide and see a plethora of Hollywood stars.

This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors

20th Century Fox's highly fabricated film biography of circus showman P. T. Barnum stars Wallace Beery (as Barnum), Virginia Bruce (as Jenny Lind), Janet Beecher and Adolphe Menjou. Released in 1934.

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?

In this espionage movie, set in Washington during WW II, the daughter of an ex-senator has become a dress model. She is approached by an American counter-espionage agent who offers her a chance to serve her country. The carefree son of a naval official receives a similar offer. He is asked to secure secret Naval plans. Unbeknownst to them, the man they work for is actually a Nazi spy. The two dupes finally figure it out, and the spy kidnaps them. Somehow they escape and break up the spy ring.

Nightclub singer Alice Carroll is found in the office of club owner Al Barrow, who is lying dead on the floor. Alice has been overheard threatening to kill Barrow rather than give in to his advances. She protests her innocence, but the District Attorney doesn't believe her and charges her with Barrow's murder. However, things aren't quite as cut-and-dried as the D.A. believes them to be.

A fairly accurate historical account of Walter Reed's search for the cause of "Yellow Jack" or Yellow Fever and those who risked their lives in the pursuit.

The ruthless Flint, a disabled man, rules an isolated region of Kongo like an omnipotent god, through superstition and sadism, living only for the day when he can get revenge on the man who ruined his life.

Western sheriff Bob Wells is preparing to marry Sally Morgan; she loves part-Indian Wanenis, whose race is an obstacle. Sally flees the wedding with hypochondriac Henry Williams, who thinks he's just giving her a ride; but she left a note saying they've eloped! Chasing them are jilted Bob, Henry's nurse Mary (who's been trying to seduce him) and others.

A money-to-burn and girl-chasing Texas oilman, and a sensitive, dignified entomologist find themselves in charge of a brood of wild kids whose parents, both famous explorers, are reported lost while on an African safari.

Lora Moore, the club champion, loses a golf match to a woman from another golf club. Then Jerry Downs, a handsome golf pro, and his goofy friend, Jack Martin, show up. Lora takes him on as her golf teacher to work on her putt. She falls for him, but so do several other women. Meanwhile Angie Howard, Lora's friend, chases after Jack. A lot of silliness ensues.

When a Hollywood producer is murdered, the most likely suspect is a man who is smitten with the victim's fiancee.

A woman and a man vying for a woman's affection: the usual love trio? Not quite so since the belle in question is Lorraine de Grissac, a very wealthy and alluring society woman, while one of the two rivals is none other than Arsène Lupin, the notorious jewel thief everybody thought dead, now living under the assumed name of René Farrand. As for the other suitor he is an American, a former F.B.I. sleuth turned private eye by the name of Steve Emerson. Steve not only suspects Farrand of being Lupin but when someone attempts to steal a precious emerald necklace from Lorraine's uncle, Count de Brissac, he is persuaded Lupin is the culprit. Is Emerson right or wrong? Which of the two men will win over Lorraine's heart?

A romantic comedy-drama-musical of mistaken identity, infidelity and farce, set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century.

The younger brother of a police captain is a wanted fugitive, so when the captain railroads his brother's former criminal partner, the partner's sister devises a plan to get back at the captain where it will hurt the most.

Friends uncover a dark secret when they compare notes about a theft and suicide.

A dress shop employee falls in love with a millionaire.

A distinguished English gentleman has a secret life--he is the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman". When he meets a woman and falls in love he decides to "retire" from that life, but an old friend comes to him with a predicament that entails him committing one last job.

Marco Perkins is a garage mechanic and a would-be-prizefighter who gets a place on the ritzy country club's polo team because he is the town's most proficient mallet-wielder, having learned to play polo while serving in the U.S. army. His hobnobbing with the town-elite and social upper-crust at the polo-matches gives him an inflated idea of his social position, and he decides he is is moving on up. He breaks off with his girl-friend, true-blue Cynthia Brown, and hits on débutante Gloria Staunton, who appears to have an interest in being hit upon. Gloria's interest lies mostly in showing Marco that hired-hands who can play polo still aren't to the manor born.

Before handing over a large inheritance, a guardian hires three chorus girls to educate his charge about the "underside" of big-city life.

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett.

Opera prima donna leaves the Metropolitan to form her own company with Tibbett as leading man. She leaves this company too which means Tibbett and company must carry on without her.

Cooper is a Union Army officer who after being jilted by girlfriend, Virginia Bruce, volunteers on what could be a suicide mission. He volunteers to go behind enemy lines disguised in Confederate gray as a staff officer to Robert E. Lee. He's to ride to a certain plantation which is a local brigade headquarters and deliberately let himself be caught with maps showing false Union troop positions. Of course, the penalty, then as now, is execution.