Marie Prevost

A pre-Code drama that marked Joan Crawford's transition from flappers to serious roles. She plays Mary Turner, a shopgirl wrongly convicted of theft who, on release, turns the law against those who jailed her through a series of breach-of-promise "heart balm" scams, until she targets the department store owner who ruined her by marrying his son. Sam Wood directed from Bayard Veiller's play Within the Law, with Robert Armstrong and Kent Douglass (in his film debut) supporting. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Ernst Lubitsch's first American film for Warner Bros. is the crystalline comedy of manners that critics would later call the "Lubitsch Touch" in its purest early form. Around a circle of suspected and real infidelities in Vienna, Lubitsch suggests everything and states nothing, letting a glance, a closed door, or a misplaced glove carry the joke. Florence Vidor plays a wife whose faith in her husband is tested by the scheming of her unhappily married friend, and Adolphe Menjou is the physician at the center of the misunderstandings. The film was a hit and established Lubitsch as a Hollywood director of sophisticated comedy. He remade it as the musical One Hour with You (1932). The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Comedy · Romance · Silent