Honor First

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.

Popular monarch Queen Christina of Sweden must choose between love and loyalty to her nation when she unexpectedly falls for a Spanish envoy.

Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.

In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.

Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his police detective brother Ed to watch over Daisy who is associated with Belmonte but things don't go as planned.

The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.

When John Conroy's wife takes his infant son Jack and runs away with another man, Conroy becomes a tramp and goes to Alaska. Fifteen years later, he returns and learns that his son Jack is being coerced into marrying Edith Wyatt, the daughter of a congressman, in order to further the political ambitions of his stepfather, Mayor Horace Manners. Conroy makes friends with the boy, who is unaware that the congenial tramp is actually his father. Jack loves cobbler's daughter Beth Stafford, and when Conroy discovers that Manners plans to frame Jack for the loss of city funds and thus scare him into marriage with Edith, he intercedes and insures that his son receives both his rightful inheritance and the woman whom he loves. After securing the boy's happiness, Conroy slips away without revealing his true identity to his son.

The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.

When a pretty small-town girl with no talent goes to Hollywood, what could go wrong? She could get Stranded!

Set in the fictitious European kingdom of Balanca, Prince Michael IV is being coerced, by his advisers, to marry a young woman of royal blood. However, he has fallen for a peasant.

Harry Ryan, a wealthy spendthrift, falls in love with Mary Gardner, a beauty shop employee, and marries her. Mary, discouraged because she is unable to cure Ryan of his dissolute ways, leaves him. She returns after a change of heart to find her husband bedridden and despondent. At the moment of reconciliation it is revealed that in reality Mary, unattached, was only dreaming, as the result of reading a book entitled Marriage Morals, by J. C. Black.

Mary Maddock works as a seamstress to bring home money while her husband Steve, unemployed, has no real prospects of earning money. Mary's employers, are trying to strike an oil related business deal with a rich man by the name of Nelson Rogers. The deal does not seem to be on the table, as Mr. Rogers is leaving town shortly and does not have the time to work out the details of such a deal. In an order to entice him to stay, Mrs. Mallory - wife of Mr. Mallory who is proposing the business deal - convinces Mary to be her guest at a dinner party with the intent of making Mr. Rogers fall for her and thus stay long enough for Mr. Mallory to make him agree to a business deal.

Socialite Anatol Spencer, finding his relationship with his wife lackluster, goes in search of excitement. After bumping into old flame Emilie, he lets an apartment for her only to find that she cheats him. He is subsequently robbed, conned, and booted from pillar to post. He decides to return to his wife and discovers her carousing with his best friend Max.

After five years of marriage, Beth and Peter Marsh's life together is a series of rows and reconciliations. Beth is frivolous and extravagant; Peter is domineering and ambitious and has difficulty paying the bills. Daniel Rankin, who lives in the same apartment building, becomes attracted to Beth and arranges with the Marsh chauffeur to have her car break down, allowing him to offer assistance and gracefully introduce himself; Rankin later invites her to a dance. Resenting Rankin's attentions to his wife, Peter forbids her to go. However, Beth accompanies Rankin to spite her husband, and Rankin proposes that she divorce Peter and become his wife. A lost film.

Johnny Spivins adores Milly Fields, but since he's only an errand boy at the local grocery, he can't get her to look his way. Things get even worse when a city boy comes to town and boards at the Fields' home.

First one stranger, then another, arrive at the presidio, each with a government pass and each claiming to have been robbed by the notorious Captain Fly-by-Night and his highwaymen. The soldiers and Señorita Anita believe the first to be Fly-by-Night and the second to be Señor Rocha, Anita's fiancée and emissary of the governor. But the first stranger, to whom Anita is drawn, proves to be on a government mission and exposes the second stranger as Captain Fly-by-Night.

Jacqueline Floriot is driven from her home by her husband Louis, a deputy attorney of Paris, because of his unjust suspicions regarding her relations with another man. Floriot forbids Jacqueline to see her baby boy, who is dangerously ill, and when informed that the boy believes her dead, she attempts suicide.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

North-West Mounted Police Sgt. David Carrigan takes a breather from fighting as he brings a convict to trial and woos the lovely Jeanne-Marie.

Paul Bonard an artist, loses his memory when he receives a blow on the head from one of two apaches fighting over Wildcat, a sultry stepper in a cafe. He becomes an apache himself, falls in love with Wildcat and paints her portrait--his masterpiece. Wildcat learns Paul's identity and restores him to his family, though realizing that she will lose him. Surgery restores Paul's memory, but some subconscious force guides him back to the cafe and Wildcat's love.

Veteran postman Bob Morley and his son Johnnie are honored for their service to the U. S. Mail Service. When Johnnie takes a position on the Enterprise, he is falsely convicted of theft and murder when the cargo is stolen and the ship's officer is shot.

Tom Walker, a miserly man, is much beaten and bullied by his Amazonian wife, Dame Walker. The action of the piece takes place in New England, early in the eighteenth century, when the Puritans were still in power.

Katherine Trowbridge, a rebellious young orphan, lives with her aunt and uncle, the Curtises, who desire a match between Katherine and Weathersbee but pretend to oppose the union, knowing she will be the more likely to accept it. Accidentally discovering their trickery, she leaves home and determines to marry the first man who will have her.

A newspaper owner discovers that his girlfriend's father is the head of the biggest racket in New York City.

Granny Willard, seeing the end of her days approaching, begs to leave her bed and sit in her old armchair, the bumble throne about which three generations have assembled. Her favorite grandson, Tom Willard, has come in from the farm with his buxom wife to visit. So the strong arms of youth carry old age gently to the armchair in the sunlit room for a last meeting with all her kith and kin. There came the rural types known to that modest old cottage, and then that more sacred circle of grandsons with their wives and little ones.

After Mary Page marries Fred Walton, she soon discovers that he is a womanizer. She tries to ignore Fred's affairs but, refuses to file for divorce even when Platt Sinclair, her husband's lawyer, urges her to do so. Mary does not realize that Sinclair is actually helping Fred, who is in love with his current mistress, Helen Lee, and wants to marry her. To escape her misery, Mary organizes a settlement house in the slums and there meets reporter Eric Mann, with whom she becomes very close.

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

One of the sons of late Dr. Henry Frankenstein finds his father's ghoulish creation in a coma and revives him, only to find out the monster is controlled by Ygor who is bent on revenge.

Short film in which Frankie Darro as a Telegram delivery boy visits various Hollywood locations to make deliveries. He visits the Los Angeles Pier and a Gala Hollywood Premiere.

Beleaguered adventurer Carl Denham returns to the island where he found King Kong.

When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she and her group of friends prove them wrong.

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

Based on the first centenary of the largest exporter of films in the world, that is Hollywood, is the story told by its protagonists, actors and writers and other people who made life in this business, interspersing images of famous movies.

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

Overview of director King Vidor's filmography.

Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

The story of a wealthy young flapper, Theodora Bland (Pauline Garon), and the amorous adventures and misadventures she has after being expelled from a fashionable and costly east-coast boarding school.

William Lowry rescues Claudia Royce from a burning building, and upon hearing that her parents are trying to force her to accept millionaire Leland, whom she does not love, he proposes a marriage of convenience to himself. She accepts, and Bill arranges a fake ceremony; but when she falls in love with Davidge, Bill refuses her a "divorce." Later, Bill gets rich in the manufacture of a patented fireman's pole, and when he buys a house for Claudia she realizes her love for him and they are legally married.

In order to impress the father of a girl he is keen on, a young man goes to the city in search of work. In his letters home he writes of his various jobs which her imagination expands into much nobler ones than those that he is actually attempting.

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.