
An Irishman sets out to become famous as a singer on the radio. Due to a mix up he is instead entered as a contestant on a quiz show. He causes mayhem in the studio and the publicity attracts the attention of an agent who thinks he can help.
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Tag Archives: 1930s
Ich war Jack Mortimer (1935) Carl Froelich, Anton Walbrook, Eugen Klöpfer, Sybille Schmitz, Drama, Thriller

The jealous star conductor Montemayor knows that his beautiful younger wife, Winifred, is cheating on him with an American named Jack Mortimer. After the concert rehearsal, he takes a taxi to the train station, sees Mortimer and shoots him at an intersection from the backseat of his taxi.
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Attorney for the Defense (1932) Irving Cummings, Edmund Lowe, Evelyn Brent, Constance Cummings, Drama

A lawyer is haunted by a previous case in which he manipulated evidence and convicted an innocent man.
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Back Page (1934) Anton Lorenze, Peggy Shannon, Russell Hopton, Claude Gillingwater, Crime, Drama

Peggy Shannon plays a young female reporter who is fired from a big city newspaper, then decides to take over a troubled small town newspaper. She encounters difficulties with small town politics, getting advertisers to help keep the paper afloat, and issues with 1930’s feminism in the resistance she receives from the town’s residents to her attempts to run the newspaper. An insightful story of a woman’s determination to succeed in an era long before the women’s rights movement.
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I Found Stella Parish (1935) Mervyn LeRoy, Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Paul Lukas, Drama, Romance

Stella Parish, star of the London stage, keeps her private life a secret. After an opening night triumph, her mysterious past catches up with her and she vanishes before the after-party. When Ms. Parish doesn’t show up, Keith Lockridge, an ace newspaper reporter, at first assumes it to be a publicity stunt. But producer Stephan Norman receives word that Stella is leaving the country. Lockridge is able to track Stella to a ship bound for America, where she is traveling under a false name and wearing a disguise. Aboard the ship Lockridge befriends Stella and her young daughter Gloria. In New York he becomes very close to Stella (now without the disguise) and Gloria, all the while digging up the details of Stella’s sordid past. Stella confesses her love for Lockridge after he’s already wired his story to his newspaper. With the truth out in the open, Stella sends Gloria to be raised abroad while she exploits her notorious reputation onstage. Sorry for the mess he’s made, Lockridge does …
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Gentleman’s Fate (1931) Mervyn LeRoy, John Gilbert, Louis Wolheim, Leila Hyams, Drama

Jack lives the high life and wants to make Marjorie his one and only. He then learns that his deceased father is alive but dying of lead poisoning. His father sent him away, twenty years before, to keep him out of the rackets. But now that he is dying, he wants to split the business between Giacomo (Jack) and Frank, his other son. The business includes running booze down from Canada.
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Seishun no yume ima izuko / Where Are the Dreams of Youth (1932) Yasujirô Ozu, Ureo Egawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Tatsuo Saitô, Comedy, Romance

When a young man inherits his father’s lucrative business, he cheats the system to set up three of his college friends with jobs.
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The Spy in Black / L’Espion Noir (1939) Michael Powell, Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Sebastian Shaw, Thriller, War

Captain Hardt (Conrad Veidt), a World War I German submarine commander, is ordered to lead a mission to attack the British Fleet at Scapa Flow. He puts ashore on the Orkney Islands to meet his contact but finds more than he bargained for in the local schoolmistress (Valerie Hobson).
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Abschied / Farewell (1930) Robert Siodmak, Brigitte Horney, Aribert Mog, Emilia Unda, Comedy, Drama

Peter Winkler’s new job offer is about to take him away from his lover Hella, but he has been keeping it a secret from her. Mutual lack of trust and vicious gossip threatens their relationship as they plan to make their farewells.
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Hellbound Train (1930) James Gist, Drama

Hellbound Train comprises a series of vignettes of “sinful” acts, any of which could book you a spot on that locomotive to perdition: Women deceiving their husbands; gamblers and tipplers; crooked men conducting illicit business; and insolent children disrespecting their parents make up the 20-minute silent film. At the end of each scene a character dies, and a round man in a form-fitting devil suit hops off a train and does a little jig as he accepts a new passenger.
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