The Edge of the Law

After the death of a United States Senator, the idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. The naive and earnest new senator soon finds himself battling political corruption.

With the aid of his former law students, a professor-turned-prosecutor battles corruption and organized crime.

After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.

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.

In an effort to be able to afford expensive treatment for her gravely ill American husband, a retired German entertainer returns to the cabaret as Blonde Venus and catches the eye of a wealthy politician.

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.

Sheltered beauty Magnolia Hawkes takes over as the leading lady on a Mississippi riverboat show when mixed-race Julie and her white husband are forced out of town by a prejudiced sheriff. Charismatic opportunist Gaylord Ravenal wins Magnolia's heart, but his gambling losses threaten to ruin their chances for a happy marriage.

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

A young girl, Peggy Warren (Dorothy Revier), raised in expensive boarding schools, discovers that her mother, respectable Katherine Warren (Ruth Stonehouse) also leads a second life as the notorious Texas Kate, Queen of the New York nightclubs. She leaves home ashamed of how her mother paid for her expensive schooling. A reconciliation re-unites mother and daughter after the mother saves her from a loveless marriage.

After Ned Hamilton is rejected by his girlfriend, he travels to Japan where he hears an old legend about the Willow Tree Princess, who kills herself so that her lover will go off to battle. When he makes a purchase from Tomotada, an image maker, he meets his pretty daughter O-Riu, and they recreate the events of the legend.

A grouchy landlord discharges a kind-hearted rent collector for failing to collect the rent from an impoverished widow. After dreaming that he himself is experiencing the sordid experiences of being destitute, the old man sees the error of his ways and becomes suddenly charitable.

Cowboy Stanley Carson is visiting Virginia Martin in a southern city when her brother and his gambler friends try to disgrace her. Then Carson is tricked out of winning a horse race by crooked gamblers who abduct Virginia. He chases them by jumping into a boat, swimming ashore, and leaping aboard a fast train. Jumping from the train into a moving automobile, he arrives at the hotel where Virginia is held captive. Here he pauses to rescue a family from a fire and then proceeds to save Virginia. A lost film.

Tony is sentenced to be hanged for the murder of his friend, Pietro, whom he found seducing his bride, Felipa, and she is sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment as an accessory. Born in prison, her child is taken from her at the age of three and is adopted by the judge, now governor, who sentenced the parents.

Madge Nelson is ordered to move to the countryside for health reasons, but her finances prevent her from making the move from the city, so she answers an advertisement for a mail-order bride for miner Hugo Ennis in Nevada.

Having spent several wasted months in a Shanghai opium dem, former prostitute Cassie Cook yearns to start her life afresh. Likewise, ex-convict Badlands McKinney also wants to clean up his act.

When her drunken father dies from falling downstairs on the night of her engagement announcement, Helen Winthrop finds a note from him warning that drinking has ruined the family's past four generations. She breaks her engagement to lawyer Robert Craig so that she can test herself as she fears that her children might inherit the habit. After sacrificing her reputation to save that of her adulterous married friend Stella Scarr, Helen goes to a resort hotel where she wins a tennis tournament and flirts with Percy Farwell, the son of social climber Mrs. Honorah Farwell. In order to break up her son's romance with a supposedly disgraced woman, Mrs. Farwell hires Robert Craig.

Two cowboys, Jim and Johnny Little Bear, discover a rich mine and decide to spend some of their money traveling. Their travels lead them to the kingdom of Queen Sylvia, who is being warred upon by the neighboring monarch Ferdinand because she will not marry him. Sympathetic to the Queen's plight, the cowboys wire to America for the rest of the gang, who arrive just in time to rout Ferdinand's attack.

Accomplished portrait painter Clementina Wing, sacrificing all self-interest to her art, complies with the request of fellow artist Tommy Burgrave to paint a portrait of his wealthy Uncle Quixtus, whose unhappy life has made him unsociable. Quixtus is about to be taken advantage of by adventuress Lena Fontaine when Clem intervenes.

Cheyenne Harry, owner of the biggest cattle ranch in his corner of the west, is having trouble with John Merritt, a land-grabbing Chicago meat-packer. By some artifice of shrewd legal aid, Merritt manages to seize Harry's ranch under a bogus writ of foreclosure. Failing to get justice by his many letters to Merritt, Cheyenne Harry goes east and calls at the millionaire's mansion. At first, Merritt refuses to see him. Then, to cause amusement for his daughter, Helen, and her guests, he invites the "uncouth" westerner into his dining hall. He is sure that he will make some grave error in table deportment and afford them all a laugh. To the amazement of Merrit and the guests Harry's table manners are faultless. Then, to trick him into an embarrassing position, Merritt eats with his knife. Harry, realizing that it is proper for the guest to follow the example of the host, does likewise. He leaves the house chagrined but more determined than ever to get justice from Merritt.

Rev. Dr. Penfield Sturgis, of fashionable St. Martins-in-the-Lane, finds himself face to face with Jane Bartlett, a grand opera prima donna whose opera he has denounced on grounds of morality, and who comes to his very vestry room to make him "eat his sermon word for word."

Inspired by his wife Lorna, shiftless William Gordon discovers a welding process worth millions and becomes president of a large corporation. Henry Blake, a friend of Gordon's from his indolent days, is forced to marry when his girl friend Mamie gives birth to a daughter, who is sent to live in a convent.

After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.

Crash Corrigan, a recent graduate of Annapolis, and Diana, a go-getting reporter, join Professor Norton for a search for the source of a string of earthquakes, Atlantis. They ride Prof. Norton's rocket submarine searching the sea and little Billy Norton, the professor's son stows away, of course. When they find Atlantis they are caught in a war between peaceful Atlanteans, note their white capes, and war-monging Atlanteans, note their black capes. After many harrowing moments for Crash, Diana, Prof. Norton and Billy, they barely get away with their lives when they escape a tower of Atlantis raised to the surface for the sole purpose of dominating or destroying the Earth (Which one depends on the compliance of the upper world dwellers.)

Fired for crashing his aeroplane into his employer's ranch, Tom Mix is elected sheriff in a town with, as a title stated, "a high mortality rate among sheriffs." Mix, of course, prevails against almost impossible odds, at one point cornering a gang of cutthroats holding leading lady Dorothy Dwan captive in the crater of a volcano about to erupt.

A musician's ex-wife wants him back after he finds love and success.

President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.

This final Carter film is a lot of fun, with Nick (unwillingly, at first) taking on a ring of Fifth Columnists (since this was filmed before the US entered the war, we're not told the villains are Nazis, but it's pretty clear anyway). Of course, the helpful and persistent Bartholomew is at his side--much to Nick's irritation. To further complicate things--and to make them still funnier--Joyce Compton is along for the ride too, as a delightfully brainless "detective" named Christine Cross.

Independent Gilda is resigned fo a life of married tedium when Tom and George, having gotten past their jealousy, come to America and whisk Gilda away to live an exciting polyamorous life in Paris.

An archeologist discovers an ancient parchment inside a mummy case, and realizes that he is the reincarnation of the lover of an Egyptian princess who took her own life many centuries earlier.

A small-town newspaper publisher finds himself in opposition to the local banker on the return to town of a lad jailed possibly wrongly for a theft from the bank.

A comedy short film directed by George Marshall.

New England codfish-packer Silas Kidder wants his son to succeed him in the business, but because young Cuthbert seems interested only in playing pool, his father turns him out. In Chicago, Cuthbert beats a gang of pool sharks at their own game, and in anger they steal all his money and knock him out cold. He is picked up by tin-can magnate James Knight and his pretty daughter Julie, who invite him to recuperate at their estate.

O'Day, the terror of Red Gulch, wins the entire stake of a gambler named Granger in a poker game but gives it all to Denver Nell, a dancehall girl, when she tells him her sad story. O'Day later discovers that she has returned the money to Granger, and he decides to reform. He goes to another town, where (now known as Good Deed O'Day) he meets an old friend, a wealthy rancher with whose sister, Mary, he is in love. Snowden takes a trip to Denver and returns with Nell, whom he has married.

Elmer Day and his wife, Eunice, are visiting Gilbert and Maud Stone, and the two husbands, wishing to attend a masquerade, plead business engagements to escape from their wives. But the wives, discovering the invitation, also attend, and matters are complicated by changes and substitutions of costumes and the appearance of Mrs. Day's aunt and uncle. After a police raid there are general explanations and reconciliations at the police court.

Cardelanche, the son of an Indian chief, returns from the East to find himself rejected by his own people. He is made captain of the U.S. army when he saves a detachment of cavalry from a group of renegade Indians, and further removes himself from his race when he develops a relationship with Miriam, the daughter of the Fort Remmington commandant. Lieutenant Parkman (Walker) gets into a fight with Cardelanche when Parkman is demoted, while General Custer's troops are slaughtered by Cardelanche's people. Cardelanche decides that his true allegiance is to his own race, and gives up Miriam to return to them.

Orphan Hilda Swanson's prayers are answered when a Swedish-American colonization company agrees to send her to America. Aboard the steamer, she meets Olaf, a young Swede, and Donna, an enemy courier who is posing as a passenger. Learning that the secret service is on her trail, Donna sews secret documents into the hem of Hilda's skirt. She then sends a wire to her comrade Felix Martinez, notifying him to intercept the Swedish girl.

Kathleen Clifford, a wealthy widow, is undecided whom to marry. Ralph Fenton, a man of her own age, or George Rosslyn, a youth in his twenties.

An evil tailor uses a dog to tear men's clothes to boost his business. When he pulls this stunt on a Moorish Prince, a feud erupts as they both compete for the same girl. The Prince traps the tailor in a dungeon, but the tailor escapes using a magic lamp and endures wild adventures to ultimately win the girl's heart.

Jones plays Buck Bronson, a ranch hand taking to the air as a barnstorming pilot.

Kent Hollis has arrived in Dry Bottom, New Mexico to settle the affairs of his dead father. But when he discovers that the town is at the mercy of "Big Bill" Dunlavey and his crew, he decides to stick it out at dad's old ranch for a spell.

During World War I, German spies were even capable of infiltrating a Tom Mix Western!

Dick Rainboldt (Carey) signs up to work at a gold mine without realizing that he's being hired as a strikebreaker. He takes the job primarily because of a pretty girl who lives in the town. The superintendent and manager of the mine convince Rainboldt to blow up the mine and make it appear like the strikers did it. But Rainboldt turns the tables on the plotters and reveals their scheme. The mine owner rewards him with a big assignment and the girl promises to marry him.

Tex Robert rescues beautiful Ramona Wadley from the gang-leader of cattle rustlers. Later, he saves Ramona's sister from a stampede, and is then awarded a job on the Wadley ranch. The obligatory showdown features Pete and the gang.