Marsha Hunt

Martha Scott stars as Ella Bishop, a small-town Midwestern schoolteacher looking back over fifty years at Midwestern College — the men she loved and lost, the students whose lives she shaped, and the niece (Marsha Hunt) she raised. William Gargan plays the suitor who never quite catches her. Directed by Tay Garnett and adapted from Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel Miss Bishop, it is a sentimental women's picture in the Goodbye, Mr. Chips mold, carried by Scott's performance, which earned her comparisons to the best character actresses of the day and an Oscar nomination for its score by Edward Ward. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Drama · Romance

Singer Angie Evans gives up her own rising career to marry struggling crooner Ken Conway, and when his star finally ascends she finds herself alone with a baby, a bottle, and a husband who's never home. Susan Hayward earned her first Academy Award nomination as the wife sliding into alcoholism, with Lee Bowman, Eddie Albert, and Marsha Hunt in support. Walter Wanger produced and Stuart Heisler directed this stark melodrama, released by Universal-International. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Noir

A Monogram crime programmer built on a genuinely nasty twist. Warren Hull plays John Randolph, an idealistic newspaper editor crusading against a crime syndicate — not knowing that the gang's secret boss is his own father, long believed dead. When a hit man with a conscience gets involved and a society engagement party turns into a shootout, the crusade becomes very personal. Howard Bretherton, one of poverty row's fastest and most reliable directors, keeps it moving through a tight hour. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A racetrack melodrama from Grand National, one of the scrappier studios of the late 1930s. Gordon Jones plays Rinty, a trainer whose string of bad luck ends when he inherits a colt nobody wants — a horse with heart but no pedigree. Marsha Hunt co-stars as the owner who stakes him, and the picture builds to the big race where a lifetime of debts rides on one finish. Directed by Charles Lamont, who spent the decade grinding out programmers for every poverty-row outfit before settling in as Abbott and Costello's house director at Universal. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama