Louise Fazenda

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

A masked criminal known as the Bat terrorizes the guests of an old dark house rented by a mystery writer, while a stolen bank fortune is hidden somewhere inside. The Bat announces his crimes in advance and dares the police to stop him, and the household spends the night hunting for the money, the Bat, and a killer who may or may not be the same person. Roland West directed this adaptation of the 1920 Broadway hit by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, and his use of a bat signal and a caped figure inspired Bob Kane's later creation of Batman. The film was considered lost for decades before a print surfaced in the 1980s. Pre-1930 films are in the public domain in the United States.

Horror · Comedy · Silent