Columbia Pictures

A voice teacher must marry within hours to inherit a fortune, and the Stooges scramble to find him a bride among a parade of bruisers and shrews. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts, and a particular favorite of Shemp-era fans. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

Linda Darnell plays a young woman who gets herself sent to a women's prison to be near her husband, a Coast Guard officer convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Inside she finds a population of wives and mothers serving time alongside — and sometimes instead of — the men who dragged them into trouble. Edgar Buchanan and Glenda Farrell lead the ensemble. Sidney Salkow directed this Columbia prison-reform drama at the height of the wartime cycle of women's-prison pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Crime

The Three Stooges are called as witnesses at a murder trial and proceed to wreck the courtroom with their chaos, accidentally helping to expose the real killer. One of the four Columbia Stooge shorts that fell into the public domain, and among the best-loved. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

Flight is a 1929 pre-Code aviation adventure directed by Frank Capra for Columbia Pictures, dedicated to the United States Marine Corps and made with their full cooperation. Jack Holt plays Panama Williams, a hard-boiled Marine gunnery sergeant and pilot stationed in Nicaragua, where he and a hotshot young corporal (Ralph Graves) fly missions against the rebel leader Sandino and rivalry over a nurse (Lila Lee). Columbia built a complete flying field at North Island in San Diego and shot the aerial sequences from real planes without process photography, and Holt's plane actually crashed during filming. Capra wrote the dialogue from a story by Graves, and the film was advertised as the "first all-talking aviation epic." As a 1929 release whose copyright was not renewed, the film is in the public domain.

Adventure · War

Cary Grant plays a newspaper editor who discovers his ex-wife is leaving journalism to marry a safe, boring insurance salesman. He lures her back with one last story: a convicted murderer is about to be executed, and the governor may be about to pardon him. The dialogue is fast and overlapping, with characters talking over each other in a way that sounds natural and was hard to write. Rosalind Russell matches Grant beat for beat. The film was based on the play "The Front Page" but Hawks changed the Hildy Johnson character from a man to a woman, which gave the story a romantic tension the original lacked.

Comedy · Romance

A 15-chapter Columbia cliffhanger serial directed by James W. Horne, with Chapter 1 titled "Chaotic Greek." Jack Holt plays a Secret Service agent infiltrating a gang of counterfeiters who have kidnapped the government's best engraver to produce undetectable phony money. Evelyn Brent co-stars as his undercover partner Kay Drew. Holt, Columbia's longest-tenured star, was effectively demoted to serials by studio head Harry Cohn, but the production retained a feature-film crew under producer Larry Darmour. The serial is in the public domain.

Action · Crime

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck. Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves), the artistic son of a wealthy railroad magnate, hires Kay Arnold (Stanwyck), a "party girl" he meets while driving along the waterfront, as his model. As they work together, Kay falls in love with Jerry and begins to reform herself, but faces strong opposition from Jerry's family, who disapprove of her past. The film was based on the 1924 Broadway play Ladies of the Evening by Milton Herbert Gropper. The success of the film made Stanwyck a star and established Capra as a major director at Columbia Pictures.

Drama · Romance

The Stooges run a cafe and get mixed up with a band of desert cutthroats hunting the tomb of Rootin' Tootin, where they mistake a circle of magicians for the thieves. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A newspaperman and a former shop girl meet over a phonograph record in a San Francisco music store, and their marriage plays out through the songs that bookend it. As Julie packs to leave Roger, she plays each record and remembers: the courtship, the move to Japan, the earthquake that costs them everything, the long wait to adopt a child, and the strain of Roger's failing newspaper that pulls them apart. George Stevens directs with a gentle, unhurried hand, letting the music carry the emotion the dialogue will not. Cary Grant, in one of his two Oscar-nominated dramatic performances, is loose and wounded as Roger, and Irene Dunne matches him with a performance built on small, precise gestures. The film is a melodrama in the old sense, earned by patience rather than contrivance. Its copyright was not renewed at the end of its first 28-year term, and it entered the public domain in 1970.

Romance · Drama

Frank Capra's circus comedy, adapted from the hit Broadway musical. When her father dies, Mary Rainey (Joan Peers) inherits his struggling show, kept afloat by the manic clown Smiley Johnson (vaudevillian Joe Cook, recreating his stage role) until a climactic fire threatens to end it all. Originally shot as a full musical, the numbers were cut before release to dodge the public's backlash against the genre, leaving a fast-paced comedy that was a hit for the young Columbia Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama

The Stooges run a failing tailor shop and stumble into a cache of stolen loot hidden by a gangster, leading to a frantic scramble to stay alive and collect the reward. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A silent college sports drama directed by David Butler for Columbia Pictures. The film follows a college student who rises from underdog to campus hero through athletic prowess, navigating romance and rivalry along the way. Pauline Garon stars as the love interest in one of the many college-themed films that were popular in the 1920s. The film is a product of the era's fascination with collegiate culture, which would reach its peak with Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925). The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama · Silent

A 15-chapter Columbia cliffhanger serial based on Lee Falk's comic strip, with Chapter 1 titled "The Sign of the Skull." Tom Tyler plays Geoffrey Prescott, who inherits the mantle of The Phantom—the legendary "Ghost Who Walks"—and races against a foreign agent and a treasure hunter to find the Lost City of Zoloz. Jeanne Bates co-stars as Diana Palmer. Directed by B. Reeves Eason, the serial is a faithful early screen translation of the comic character and is in the public domain.

Action · Adventure

A documentary-style expedition film combining genuine footage from Paul L. Hoefler's 14-month, 14,000-mile trek across Africa with staged scenes filmed in Los Angeles, narrated by Lowell Thomas. Directed by Walter Futter, the film was a surprise hit that captured the sounds and sights of African wildlife and tribal cultures. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Documentary · Adventure

A voice teacher must marry within hours to inherit a fortune, and the Stooges scramble to find him a bride among a parade of bruisers and shrews. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts, and a particular favorite of Shemp-era fans. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

Linda Darnell plays a young woman who gets herself sent to a women's prison to be near her husband, a Coast Guard officer convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Inside she finds a population of wives and mothers serving time alongside — and sometimes instead of — the men who dragged them into trouble. Edgar Buchanan and Glenda Farrell lead the ensemble. Sidney Salkow directed this Columbia prison-reform drama at the height of the wartime cycle of women's-prison pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Crime

The Three Stooges are called as witnesses at a murder trial and proceed to wreck the courtroom with their chaos, accidentally helping to expose the real killer. One of the four Columbia Stooge shorts that fell into the public domain, and among the best-loved. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

A swaggering Spanish toreador squares off against a mischievous bull in a bullring full of sight gags and musical flourishes. An early Walt Disney Silly Symphony. The 1929 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.

Animation · Comedy · Music

Flight is a 1929 pre-Code aviation adventure directed by Frank Capra for Columbia Pictures, dedicated to the United States Marine Corps and made with their full cooperation. Jack Holt plays Panama Williams, a hard-boiled Marine gunnery sergeant and pilot stationed in Nicaragua, where he and a hotshot young corporal (Ralph Graves) fly missions against the rebel leader Sandino and rivalry over a nurse (Lila Lee). Columbia built a complete flying field at North Island in San Diego and shot the aerial sequences from real planes without process photography, and Holt's plane actually crashed during filming. Capra wrote the dialogue from a story by Graves, and the film was advertised as the "first all-talking aviation epic." As a 1929 release whose copyright was not renewed, the film is in the public domain.

Adventure · War

Satan presides over a hellish jazz concert where demons and imps dance to a fiendish orchestra, until one rebellious devil challenges the boss. A Ub Iwerks-directed Disney Silly Symphony. The 1929 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.

Animation · Comedy · Horror · Music

Cary Grant plays a newspaper editor who discovers his ex-wife is leaving journalism to marry a safe, boring insurance salesman. He lures her back with one last story: a convicted murderer is about to be executed, and the governor may be about to pardon him. The dialogue is fast and overlapping, with characters talking over each other in a way that sounds natural and was hard to write. Rosalind Russell matches Grant beat for beat. The film was based on the play "The Front Page" but Hawks changed the Hildy Johnson character from a man to a woman, which gave the story a romantic tension the original lacked.

Comedy · Romance

A 15-chapter Columbia cliffhanger serial directed by James W. Horne, with Chapter 1 titled "Chaotic Greek." Jack Holt plays a Secret Service agent infiltrating a gang of counterfeiters who have kidnapped the government's best engraver to produce undetectable phony money. Evelyn Brent co-stars as his undercover partner Kay Drew. Holt, Columbia's longest-tenured star, was effectively demoted to serials by studio head Harry Cohn, but the production retained a feature-film crew under producer Larry Darmour. The serial is in the public domain.

Action · Crime

The Stooges run a cafe and get mixed up with a band of desert cutthroats hunting the tomb of Rootin' Tootin, where they mistake a circle of magicians for the thieves. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

The fifth of Columbia's Whistler films. A shady private detective named Don Gale is hired by an old shopkeeper to find a young woman from his past so he can leave her a fortune, but the case is a setup, and Gale is soon framed for murder. As the Whistler's narration reminds us, the detective's own greed set the trap, and the film watches him scramble to stay ahead of the police and the real killer. Richard Dix plays his seventh Whistler lead, with Barton MacLane as the cop on his trail and Mike Mazurki as a menacing thug. William Castle directed. Released in 1946, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

A newspaperman and a former shop girl meet over a phonograph record in a San Francisco music store, and their marriage plays out through the songs that bookend it. As Julie packs to leave Roger, she plays each record and remembers: the courtship, the move to Japan, the earthquake that costs them everything, the long wait to adopt a child, and the strain of Roger's failing newspaper that pulls them apart. George Stevens directs with a gentle, unhurried hand, letting the music carry the emotion the dialogue will not. Cary Grant, in one of his two Oscar-nominated dramatic performances, is loose and wounded as Roger, and Irene Dunne matches him with a performance built on small, precise gestures. The film is a melodrama in the old sense, earned by patience rather than contrivance. Its copyright was not renewed at the end of its first 28-year term, and it entered the public domain in 1970.

Romance · Drama

Pioneer Days is a 1930 Mickey Mouse cartoon directed by Burt Gillett for Walt Disney Productions, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Mickey and Minnie travel west in a covered wagon as part of a pioneer wagon train. When Minnie is captured by Native Americans, Mickey must rescue her, eventually frightening off the attackers by pretending to be an entire army of soldiers. The short features Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow in supporting roles. As a 1930 work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Western

Frank Capra's circus comedy, adapted from the hit Broadway musical. When her father dies, Mary Rainey (Joan Peers) inherits his struggling show, kept afloat by the manic clown Smiley Johnson (vaudevillian Joe Cook, recreating his stage role) until a climactic fire threatens to end it all. Originally shot as a full musical, the numbers were cut before release to dodge the public's backlash against the genre, leaving a fast-paced comedy that was a hit for the young Columbia Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama

The Stooges run a failing tailor shop and stumble into a cache of stolen loot hidden by a gangster, leading to a frantic scramble to stay alive and collect the reward. One of the four public-domain Columbia Stooge shorts. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy

Springtime is a 1929 Silly Symphony cartoon directed by Walt Disney for Walt Disney Productions, distributed by Columbia Pictures. The first Silly Symphony to use synchronized sound throughout, the short depicts the awakening of spring in the natural world, with flowers dancing, frogs performing, and spiders spinning webs in time to the music. The cartoon was an important technical milestone for Disney, demonstrating that animation could be synchronized to music without a central character. As a 1929 work, the film is in the public domain.

Animation · Musical

Mickey Mouse is a convict on a chain gang who escapes with the help of a pair of bloodhounds, marking the first appearance of Pluto. A Burt Gillett-directed Mickey Mouse short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy

The second of Columbia's eight Whistler films, drawn from the popular radio mystery series in which an unseen narrator who "knows many things" walks the listener through a story of fate and guilt. Richard Dix plays a drifter who stumbles into a dormant bank account left in his name by a dead man, and tries to pass himself off as the depositor's long-lost son to collect the money. The scheme draws in a woman who may know more than she lets on and a killer waiting in the background. William Castle directed, working from a Cornell Woolrich story, and the film carries Woolrich's signature dread of ordinary people trapped by coincidence. Released in 1944, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

A 15-chapter Columbia cliffhanger serial based on Lee Falk's comic strip, with Chapter 1 titled "The Sign of the Skull." Tom Tyler plays Geoffrey Prescott, who inherits the mantle of The Phantom—the legendary "Ghost Who Walks"—and races against a foreign agent and a treasure hunter to find the Lost City of Zoloz. Jeanne Bates co-stars as Diana Palmer. Directed by B. Reeves Eason, the serial is a faithful early screen translation of the comic character and is in the public domain.

Action · Adventure

Mickey Mouse takes Minnie on a picnic, but their outing is disrupted by a mischievous Pluto making his first animated appearance. A Burt Gillett-directed Mickey Mouse short. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Family

The first Silly Symphony, and the short that proved Walt Disney's studio could do more than Mickey Mouse. Animated almost entirely by Ub Iwerks, it shows four skeletons rising from their graves in a graveyard at midnight and dancing to Carl Stalling's score, itself inspired by Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre. There is no story and no dialogue, just movement cut to music, and the timing is so sure that the gags still land nearly a century later. The picture was a hard sell at first, exhibitors balked at the "gruesome" subject, but it became a hit and launched the Silly Symphony series, which the studio used as a laboratory for the techniques that would eventually make Snow White possible. Published in 1929, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Animation · Short · Horror

A musical Western directed by Sam Newfield and produced by Jed Buell, billed as the world's only musical Western with an all-dwarf cast. Billy Curtis stars as the hero Buck Lawson, who must rescue the town from the villainous Bat Haines while winning the heart of Nancy Preston. The film uses a conventional Western story to showcase gags such as cowboys walking under swinging saloon doors and riding Shetland ponies. It is frequently cited as one of the worst films ever made. The film is in the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Western · Comedy · Music