Behind City Lights

A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.

Kris Kringle, seemingly the embodiment of Santa Claus, is asked to portray the jolly old fellow at Macy's following his performance in the Thanksgiving Day parade. His portrayal is so complete that many begin to question if he truly is Santa Claus, while others question his sanity.

A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.

A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.

Two attractive jewel thieves, one female (Olympe Bradna), one male (Gene Raymond) escape together after their latest escapade and hide out in the home of an aged concert pianist (Lewis Stone). To cover their tracks and keep the old man from turning them in, the thieves pretend to arrange his comeback concert. The artifice becomes reality, the pianist makes a triumphant return, and the thieves reform. This 1938 film is not a remake of 1932's Stolen Heaven, which wove an entirely different story about a suicide pact.

After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has already married, he returns instead with Angel, a dancer originally from France.

A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.

A magazine's staff, including bickering ex-lovers Linda and Carey, cover an Indiana wedding, which goes slightly wrong.

A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.

Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at a club offering free of charge food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen on their way overseas. Club founders Bette Davis and John Garfield give talks on the history of the place.

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

Johnny is a riverboat entertainer with a big gambling problem. After a psychic tells Johnny how he can change his luck, the appearance of a new 'lady luck' soon causes a catfight with Johnny's girlfriend, Frankie.

An orphan helps a doctor fight an epidemic in a small western town, in one of Allan Dwan’s closely observed studies in Americana.

Tongues begin to wag when a lonely widow becomes romantically involved with a military man. Problems arise when the gossip is filtered down to her own children.

World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While Betty gamely struggles with managing the crumbling house and holding off nosy neighbors and a recalcitrant pig, Bob makes plans for crops and livestock. The couple's bliss is shaken by a visit from a beautiful farm owner, who seems to want more from Bob than just managing her property.

Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wrongly mistaken for a wanted kidnapper and arrested.

Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.

B-movie film noir take on Crime and Punishment. A college student gets deeper and deeper in trouble when he takes a loan from a shady college professor.

Frank Bigelow is about to die, and he knows it. The accountant has been poisoned and has only 24 hours before the lethal concoction kills him. Determined to find out who his murderer is, Frank, with the help of his assistant and girlfriend, Paula, begins to trace back over his last steps. As he frantically tries to unravel the mystery behind his own impending demise, his sleuthing leads him to a group of crooked businessmen and another murder.

A group of people are invited to a party at a creepy mansion where legend has it a ghost appears once a year.

How can a smart middle class girl suddenly turn into a devoted right wing debater? That's what happens with Catherine when she meets the charismatic leaders of the neo-nazi organization NIM. Catherine, a first-year university student who feels alienated from the liberal campus, joins a hate group through the Internet and becomes their voice, only to gradually question their beliefs even as she becomes more deeply involved.

A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of theatre and film appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance.

A cop-turned-bail bondsman gets involved in a murder investigation involving a former flame.

A cocky U.S. Army Air Force pilot stationed in England during World War II falls for a daring female flier. After he's killed on a mission, he's sent back to Earth by a heavenly General with a new assignment.

A working-class woman is willing to do whatever it takes to give her daughter a socially promising future.

A female ex-con falls in love and hesitates to reveal her past.

A cub reporter goes after his story in a big way when he single-handedly exposes a crime ring.

Two card sharks, pretending to be brother and sister, clean out a small-town banker, then take over a crooked gambling joint.

Convinced that she has what it takes to be a detective, inquisitive secretary Kitty O'Day gets her chance to put her sleuthing skills to the test when her investment broker boss is mysteriously murdered. But Kitty's investigation hits a snag when Inspector Miles Clancy begins to suspect that she's the culprit.

Five defense workers on their way to the munitions factory tell their stories: a refugee from the French Resistance, a frustrated race car driver, a prison warden, a former Miss America, and an intellectual who dropped out of society and saw the country as a bum.

A telephone operator plays homicide detective with her boyfriend, making it harder for the police.

A young girl rents an apartment from a man who has recently enlisted in the Marines. The trouble is that he's given out keys to a half-dozen of his friends, and they all keep dropping in.

Two doctors try to find the cure for a fatal disease, while battling each other for the affection of a beautiful woman doctor.

In this Gothic tale, a returning WW2 vet goes looking for a small-town girl whom he knows only from letters. It’s the pretext for an off-beat treatment of sexual frustration morphing into a dangerous delusion, and eventually murder.

The three Scott sisters, Susie, Hallie and Lily, live in the small town of Riverdale with their father Tom, a handyman whose laziness is legendary. The high-spirited sisters relieve the tedium by collaborating on Lily's correspondence with Pvt. Robert Mason, who is stationed in Arizona....

After the Civil War, Confederate soldier Blayde Hollister travels to Dallas to avenge the savage murder of his family. Discovering his enemy is now an esteemed citizen, Hollister plots to expose the outlaw and his syndicate.

After his wife dies in childbirth, a doctor settles down in the small Oklahoma town of Cherokee Wells to raise his newborn daughter. Unfortunately, not all the citizens there are hospitable, especially when the doctor hires a pretty Indian teenager as his child's nanny.

An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he's seeing gnomes! He's committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.

Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.

Autry is drawn into the plot when he's given power of attorney in a property settlement involving his old pal and a gang of land swindlers. The pal then goes on an extended vacation, leaving Autry to sort things out.

A boxer is killed in the ring, and the only clue is a tune that a man was whistling.

It all begins when Joe Higgins, business manager of a prosperous candy-manufacturing firm, is ordered by his pompous boss Ellis to break up the romance between Ellis' son Bill and Joe's daughter Jean. Refusing, Joe quits his job and sets up his own candy company. It's a money-losing enterprise until Joe's wife Lil loses her diamond ring in a batch of candy and offers a $5000 reward to anyone who can retrieve the ring.

Edited version of the 1938 Republic serial "The Lone Ranger."

Singer/Dancer Peggy Ryan neither sings nor dances in this comedy in which she plays a secretary, whose life has no romance because she devotes all of her time to her attractive older sister. But she does keep a diary that contains some fact and many fictional entries. One such is read by the wife of her boss who promptly sues for a divorce. Virginia Grey stars in a musical produced by Hall and sings (possibly dubbed) "Makin' a Million" and "Keep Your Chin Up." No spoiler to add that Ryan gets a boyfriend and Hall and Allbritton are reunited before this one runs it course.

The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.

Government agents work to interfere with schemes to trick the Comanches into war with the Texans.

In this romantic comedy, set during WW II, an newlywed army couple are unable to consummate their marriage, as on their wedding night the husband is called away to sentry duty. Later they try again, but as he has just completed a 37-mile hike, he finds himself too tired to work up any enthusiasm for conjugal bliss. Fortunately, the bride's understanding aunt intervenes with the young man's colonel and the frustrated couple is at last able to share a night of love.