Melville W. Brown

A capable private secretary holds a struggling executive's business together, only to see him take the credit and the corner office, in a pre-Code workplace drama about the woman behind the man. Mary Astor and Ricardo Cortez star. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

The only feature film starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the creators and voices of the enormously popular radio program Amos 'n' Andy. The two play the owners of the Fresh Air Taxi Cab Company who get involved in a mystery at a haunted house while helping a wealthy man find a lost deed. The film captures the radio duo in blackface, a convention of the era that is deeply offensive by modern standards but was standard practice for the show. The film was a major box office hit at the time, riding the wave of Amos 'n' Andy's unprecedented radio popularity. Duke Ellington and his orchestra appear in a musical sequence. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy

A Monogram aviation melodrama built around the era's fascination with record-breaking balloon ascents. Army pilots Tom "Soapy" Cooper (William Cagney, James's brother) and Richard "Woody" Wood (Edward J. Nugent) are inseparable in the air but rivals on the ground, both courting Evelyn Worthington (June Collyer), daughter of their commanding officer. When a high-altitude balloon mission goes wrong, the feud must give way to survival miles above the earth. Typical of Monogram's brisk B-pictures, it pads its stock footage with pre-Code barracks banter and a genuinely tense stratospheric climax. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Drama · Romance