Robert Armstrong

A silent comedy directed by Howard Hawks, starring Victor McLaglen as Spike Madden, a rough-and-tumble sailor who leaves a girl in every port he visits. When he befriends fellow sailor Salami (Robert Armstrong), the two become inseparable buddies—until they both fall for the same woman, the alluring Marie (Louise Brooks) in a French port. Brooks, in one of her earliest American roles, is magnetic, her bobbed hair and smoldering gaze already hinting at the icon she would become. The film's blend of brawling humor, male bonding, and exotic locales made it a hit, and Fox remade it as Goldie (1931) with Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

William Cagney — James's younger brother, in his only starring role — plays Bob Mason, a carefree socialite who poses as a detective to impress a girl and promptly gets himself suspected of a real murder. With the police on one side and the actual killer on the other, Bob has to solve the case to clear his own name, helped along by Marion Burns as the girl he is trying to win. A poverty-row quickie from Monogram directed by silent-comedy veteran Vin Moore, it coasts on Cagney's easy charm and a plot that never sits still for its sixty-odd minutes. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery

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