Crinoline and Romance

A brash young American aristocrat attending Oxford University gets a chance to prove himself and win the heart of his antagonist's sister.

A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.

Songwriter Mack Gordon introduces flagpole sitter Shipwreck Kelly, who hoists some girls aloft with him and shows them sights around Hollywood.

Young bride Patricia Morley's flirtatious ways at a summer resort keep her husband Henry in a state of continual anxiety. At an old-fashioned barn dance, Patricia enacts the role of a chicken breaking out of an egg, and Henry's wrath explodes. After accusing her of being in love with another man, Henry returns to New York and files for divorce. Heartbroken, Patricia sends her friend Victoria French to tell Henry that she is dying.

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

Stranded in the small town of Buckeye Junction young actress Madge Joy crawls upon a load of hay and falls asleep. Knocked unconscious when young farmer Robert Deep hitches up the wagon not realizing she’s inside she awakes in the Deep living room. "Ma" Deep takes to her at once, but old “Pa” Deep looks at her sternly. Claiming to be a runaway orphan rather than an actress she becomes a member of the family. Falling for Madge Robert confesses he dreams of being a playwright, that night his sister Susan, who has run away to be an actress, reappears. Pa Deep is furious when he finds out his daughter has been on the stage, but Madge reveals that she is herself an actress threatening to go away with Robert unless he makes up with his daughter. Eventually Madge finds fame in New York with Robert following with a play he knows is right.

The publisher of a tabloid-type romance magazine decides to get some publicity by sponsoring a "Cinderella and Prince Charming" contest.

George Periolat plays a dual role in this film, initially as Joseph Sayles a sickly old man who has taken his daughter, Rhoda (played by Mary Miles Minter), overseas after a quarrel with his family. She yearns to return home, but he has disowned his past. After his death, Rhoda ventures to America on her own. She nearly becomes destitute for a lack of money but happens upon some questionable fortune as she takes on the chores of Rosy Taylor after inadvertently finding an envelope with money in it. Rosy had been hired as a housekeeper (thus the money), but has passed away before actually showing up for employment.

Ann Jordan, flirtatious and pampered daughter of a wealthy contractor, is engaged to Robert Metcalf, a relaxed and boring young man. She then meets Frank Oaks, who aggressively sweeps her off her feet, and she is presently engaged to him also. Mr. Jordan, Ann's father, becomes interested in one of Robert's friends, Jack Gardner, an engineer who is preparing a design for a bridge competition. The elder Jordan invites Jack to the house and covertly copies Jack's plans for the bridge.

Helen continuously looks for reasons to doubt Dick, causing friction in their young marriage. Her jealousy intensifies when Dick seems to pay more attention to Alma's ankles than the curtains she is hanging. A series of misunderstandings continuously fan the flames of Helen’s jealousy. The final straw occurs when Helen walks in and catches Dick and Alma in what looks like an incredibly compromising position. Believing her marriage is over, Helen threatens to file for a divorce. However, Alma’s actual fiancé arrives just in time to clear up the confusion, explain the innocent context of the situation, and completely reconcile the newlyweds.

The Jazz Age rages in this comedy film starring Viola Dana as the madcap title character madly dashing through a series of adventures.

Happy O'Brien, called "The Microbe," or "Mike" for short, a female street urchin who sells newspapers dressed as a boy to avoid harassment, is saved from arrest for fighting other newsboys in Chinatown by wealthy author DeWitt Spense. DeWitt, there to purchase drugs, is so moved by Mike's pugnacity, that he takes her to his mansion for literary inspiration. When DeWitt learns that Mike is a girl, he resolves to educate her. As Mike blossoms, DeWitt's attentions turn to love, to the dismay of Judith Winthrope, who wants to marry him, and his friend Robert Breton, who, with Judith, convinces Mike that DeWitt's writing is suffering because of her.

Madge Dreyer is a sales girl in a large department store whose street-wise past long ago taught her how to handle any situation. A small adventure with her boss leads to her getting fired. She takes a job as a taxi-dancer in a dime-a-dance joint, and meets and falls in love with a rich playboy, Jeff Sanford, and he with her. Jeff is now faced with convincing his society-parents that he has made a wise choice.

After healing the leg of the murderer John Wilkes Booth — responsible for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, considered part of the atrocious conspiracy, is sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the sinister Shark Island Prison.

Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, followed by his release to live in London with the daughter he has never met.

A Polish countess is dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to support Polish independence.

A woman infiltrates a criminal mob to avenge her brother's death.

An orphan is provisionally adopted by the manager of a hotel populated by show business people. The hotel's owner doesn't like the entertainers and wants the girl returned to the orphanage.

Cossetted and bored, Barbara Barry is finally sent off to school by her busy if doting widowed soap manufacturer father. When her nurse is injured en route, Barbara finds herself alone in town, ending up as part of radio song-and-dance act Dolan and Dolan sponsored by a rival soap company.

A professional equestrian marries a polo player from a once-wealthy family, only to face the scorn of his snobbish relatives. When she becomes entangled in a murder trial, she must choose between protecting her reputation and saving the man she loves.

When Captain Howland decides that his daughter Tess is getting a bit to old to continue to go to sea with him, they move into a small cottage on the coast of Maine, but not for long. A local millionaire, Frederick Garfield, lays a false claim to the property and has them evicted. Later, when Tess saves a young man about her age from drowning, she is a bit dismayed to learn that he is Garfield's son. But when her father is jailed on a false-accusation charge of murder, the younger Garfield comes to their aid and proves he himself.

A ham-handed cautionary fable against communism, the film concerns a group of Civil War veterans who are appalled by the burgeoning radical movement in America.

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

A young crown prince, wishing to be just an ordinary boy, runs away with his friend. The king dies, and when the prince does not appear, the people begin to rise in revolution. When the crown prince finally hears the death knell for the late king he immediately attempts to return to the palace, however is abducted by revolutionaries and held captive. Will he be rescued in time to restore order?

Joe Lane, radio entertainer and songwriter, learns that the manager of the studio, Arthur Phillips, has made improper advances to his wife, Katherine. Infuriated, Lane engages him in a fight, and the encounter results in Phillips' accidental death. Joe goes to prison for a few years, and when he is released he visits his son, Little Pal, at school and is begged by him to run away together.

In the year 1550, Sir George Vernon agrees to have his young daughter Dorothy betrothed to John Manners, the son of the Earl of Rutland. Sir George signs a contract, promising that the marriage will take place on Dorothy's 18th birthday, or else he will have to pay a large penalty to Rutland. But when the two children have grown older, rumors of John's wild behavior in France provoke Sir George to call off the engagement, and to pledge his daughter instead to her cousin Malcolm. Rutland now claims the forfeit from Sir George, and meanwhile, John has befriended Mary Stuart, the sworn enemy of Elizabeth, who is now Queen of England.

An unprincipled hustler who makes his living getting--or making up--evidence in divorce cases finds that he's framing his own daughter.

The sixth in The Shadow series of shorts from Universal. In this one the circus trapeze artist falls to her death when someone flips the light switch just as she starts her famed triple somersault. It only takes the circus manager about fifteen minutes to figure out the obvious suspect was the guilty one.

A small-town girl returns home from schooling in the East to find that her father's small store and indeed the whole town are in danger of being eliminated by a ruthless land developer. The developer has a son who falls for the young girl, and together they try to come up with a plan to save her father's store and the town.

After leaving Sing Sing for serving time for theft, The Boy drifts into a small Pennsylvania town and falls in love with Marie, an innocent local girl. The Boy leaves for New York, first obtaining Marie's promise to follow him in a week to become his wife. The Boy runs into some of his former associates in crime, however, and they hold him prisoner until they can pull off a big job. Meanwhile, Marie arrives in the city, and there is no one to meet her. Ashamed to return home, Marie supports herself by prostitution until she is reformed by a kindly priest, who, unknown to her, is also attempting to help The Boy, who has become a dope fiend. The Boy and Marie finally meet and are reconciled. The priest then sends for her parents, and Marie and The Boy are married.

Skin Deep is a 1929 American talking drama film directed by Ray Enright and starring Monte Blue. It was produced and distributed by the Warner Brothers. It was also released in the U.S. in a silent version for theaters not equipped yet with sound. The film is a remake of a 1922 Associated First National silent film of the same name directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Milton Sills. All copies of this film are now lost. However, the Vitaphone soundtrack, of music and effects, survive.

Young Irish physician Peter Blood is exiled as a slave to Barbados, where he and his friend Jeremy are purchased by Colonel Bishop at the behest of his niece Arabella. With other slaves he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the terror of the Caribbean privateers until offered a commission in the English Navy. He defeats the French at Port Royal, and as a reward he is named governor of Jamaica and marries Arabella.

Society children Madalyn Harlan and Bob Elkins separate the day they are to be married. Madalyn marries her chauffeur, Jerry, while Bob falls in love with unsophisticated Ruth Cassell and, after careful consideration, marries her. Madalyn's marriage is unhappy, ending in a double suicide after Madalyn's parents disown her and Jerry's family proves to be lower class.

Left penniless by her vengeful ex-husband, Madeline is forced to become a pickpocket to pay for a new wardrobe. One of her victims is a Mr. Finlay, who threatens to turn her over to the police -- until he hears Madeline's woeful tale of her cruel, possessive husband.

When Mona Frentiss dies, she has her confidante "Doctor Bobs" watch over her family, especially her youngest daughter Patricia. The family has been raised in a most unconventional manner, with Mona having a much younger lover and the father Ralph keeping his own lover on the side. As Patricia grows older, she attracts the attention of her mother's former lover, the much older (than Patricia, who in the book is in her early to mid teens) Carey Scott. Patricia tempts fate with her wild ways, nearly loses her virtue to a musician aboard an ocean-going boat, and is saved in time by Carey. Realizing that he is the man for her, she settles down into an experimental marriage.

Railroad foreman Murray Sinclair is dismissed by George McCloud, division superintendent, for ransacking wrecks. Sinclair along with his henchmen, retire to his ranch and forays against the railroad. "Whispering Smith," engaged by the railroad to restore order, is hesitant in dealing with Sinclair when he falls in love with Marion, Sinclair's wife, who is separated from her husband and operates a small shop in Medicine Bend. Dicksie, McCloud's sweetheart, overhears Sinclair threaten McCloud, and she rides through a storm to warn him; Smith, with the aid of Bill Dancing, tracks down Sinclair and his men, and Bill kills the villain. Dicksie and McCloud marry and take Marion under their protection.

Wilson Travers and his brother, Mortimer, live singular lives, interested only in their respective hobbies of collecting rare gems and even rarer tropical fish. The police learn that jewel thieves are planning to knock over the Wilson gem collection, and the brothers take precautions. One evening, Marie Duquesne, dressed as a bride, appeals to the brothers to help her avoid a distasteful marriage to an old man. The brothers let her stay the night; Mortimer resents her presence, but Wilson falls in love with her. The following morning, the butler tells Wilson that, suspicious of Marie's nocturnal prowling, he has called the police; and a policeman soon arrives and takes her into custody. That night the butler is prevented from looting the safe by Marie, who has returned to the house. Marie, who is a detective, sees to the arrest of the butler and then turns her attentions to Wilson.

On a desolate beach near a lifesaving station, Ira, the youngest member of the lifeguard crew, rescues a baby girl from a wreck. The child is cared for at the station, where the men christen her Periwinkle. Living near the station are Ephraiam Rawlins and his childless daughter Ann, a widow with maternal longings. Joyously, Ann takes charge of Periwinkle and raises the girl as her own. Grown to adulthood, Periwinkle is the bright spot for the men at the station. One day, Richard Langdon Evans, a dissolute, wealthy young New Yorker, is cast ashore from the wreck of his yacht. Periwinkle, aiding the lifesavers, helps bring him back to life. Her innocent goodness and faith transform Dick from a carousing society ne'er-do-well to a man of noble ambitions. Thus rehabilitated, Dick wins Periwinkle's hand in marriage.

After her ex-convict husband Bill is killed in a bank robbery, Nancy Preston and her young son Bubsy are protected by Mike Horgan, a former friend from Sing Sing. Mike is wrongfully jailed, and Nancy—falsely accused of murdering a criminal fence who tried to abuse her—goes on the run. Mike breaks out of prison to join Nancy in a small town where he practices medicine under his real name, Stafford. When a persistent detective tracks them down, he falls ill, gets nursed back to health by the pair, has a change of heart, and proves Nancy's innocence so she and Mike can marry.

Sonya Schnoema, a Jewish girl, comes to the United States as an immigrant and works in her father's ghetto grocery store, where she gains the affections of a young settlement worker, David Dahlman. But she loves Mischa, a young doctor who soon arrives from Odessa, and to aid him financially, she distinguishes herself in the local Yiddish theater.

After a stormy six year marriage, Barnaby Powers divorces his wife Richmiel. She returns home, taking their young son Oliver with her. Barnaby follows her, to ask for custody of the boy, but meets and falls in love with Richmiel's pretty and sensitive cousin Ledda. Complications ensue.

Dr. Claude Drummond, a young English doctor in India, saves Ameia, a young girl, from being sacrificed to the priests of the temple of Krishna by buying her as his wife. Returning to England upon the death of his elder brother, who was the heir to the estate, Claude finds that his father has arranged a marriage between himself and Olive Dennison, the daughter of the Major-General. To please his father, Claude is about to submit to the marriage, although neither he nor Olive love each other, when Ameia arrives from India. Discovering that her existence is a barrier to her husband's advantageous alliance, Ameia takes poison but is saved by an antidote administered by Claude. It is then discovered that Ameia is actually the daughter of Major-General Dennison, by a native wife whom he had deserted. Thus, Claude finds it possible to be true to his love and to his father's wish that he marry the general's daughter.

A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.

Norma Keith, an industrious secretary, helps Bruce Elliot rise from obscurity to a position of increasing prominence as a criminal lawyer. Norma's devotion goes unnoticed, however, and Bruce marries a mercenary blonde schemer named Rita Thane. When Rita is accidentally killed, Bruce is convicted of murdering her on damaging circumstantial evidence. Norma then scouts around in the underworld to find evidence to set Bruce free.

Eddie Phillips works for his father, an oilman searching for deposits in the north woods. A puppy intended for Eddie falls out of the truck that's transporting him and is stranded in the forest, but the pup learns to survive on his own and soon becomes master of his domain. A year or so later Eddie and another dog, White Fawn, happen to be camping near property owned by pretty young Betty Francisco when swindler Jim Mason discovers oil deposits on Betty's land the tries to swindle her out of them, but the heroic dog, now named Thunder, determines to stop Mason and Eddie helps him, not knowing that Thunder is the dog originally meant for him.

A concert pianist who is popular with women tries to discourage a teenage admirer.

A romantic rivalry among members of a secret society becomes even more tense when one of the men is assigned to carry out an assassination.

When rich civil engineer Robert Penfield goes to a small Quaker town in Pennsylvania to supervise a job, he meets Patience, who soon falls in love with him, but Robert is engaged to Edith, who plans to marry him for his money only. To remain close to Robert, Patience returns with him to the city to take a job as his mother's secretary.

After graduating from a fashionable finishing school and touring Europe with her father, Selina Peake returns to the United States, where her father is accidentally killed after losing his fortune in a gambling den. Selina is reduced to teaching in a high school in the Dutch community at High Prarie near Chicago. She boards in the farmhouse of Klass Poole, a dull-witted market gardener, and finally marries Pervus DeJong, a poor and backward farmer. She shares the drudgery of her husband's futile life and finds happiness only in their small son, Dirk, whom she calls "So-Big."