Sweethearts Jimmie Carter and Bessie Barnes work for Adolph Brock at the Acme Corporation. One day while he is out for a drive in his jalopy of a car, Jimmie spies a pretty young woman on horseback. He comes to her rescue after she falls off her horse and gets injured, he leading her to refuge in an abandoned cabin when it starts to rain heavily. Although she flirts with him, he, in turn attracted to her, wants to remain faithful to Bessie and resists his urges. When this woman mysteriously disappear on him, he can't stop thinking about her and follows her innuendo to meet with her at her apartment. All the while, he is unaware that she is Peggy Joyce, Brock's gold-digging fiancée. He is also unaware that Peggy has ulterior motives for coming on to him, which, in combination with her dangerous past, could lead to complications for all involved.
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.
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.
Bootlegger/cafe owner, Johnny Franks recruits crude working man Scorpio to join his gang, masterminded by crooked criminal defense lawyer Newton. Scorpio eventually takes over Frank's operation, beats a rival gang, becomes wealthy, and dominates the city for several years until a secret group of six masked businessmen have him prosecuted and sent to the electric chair.
An American bandleader woos a Brazilian beauty who is already engaged to his employer. His friends try to help him, while learning the local dance, The Carioca. The first pairing of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, and their only pre-Code film.
A vicious crime lord decides that he has had enough and much to the shock of his colleagues decides to give the business to his second in command and retire to Florida after marrying his moll. Unfortunately, he has no idea that she and the man are lovers.
A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair. Told in flashback, we witness a sleazy dancehall girl (Vivienne Osborne) dupe a high rise riveter (Edward G. Robinson) into marriage so she can live off of him. But when he loses his job and his marbles, she ends up supporting him with money from her side man--and misses no opportunity to rub it in his face that she's now supporting him in his emasculated state. As the animosity grows and things get more and more unbearable, he is eventually driven to desperate measures.
Young kids face off in a dance competition.
Carny con artist and snake-oil salesman Eustace McGargle tries to stay one step ahead of the sheriff but is completely devoted to his beloved daughter Poppy.
A young woman uses her body and her sexuality to help her climb the social ladder, but soon begins to wonder if her new status will ever bring her happiness.
A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?
Hoping to foil his own gold-digging wife's plan, a loathsome businessman arranges his own kidnapping, only to realize that there are plenty of other people interested in his wealth as well.
Socialite Judith Traherne lives a lavish but emotionally empty life. Riding horses is one of her few joys, and her stable master is secretly in love with her. Told she has a brain tumor by her doctor, Frederick Steele, Judith becomes distraught. After she decides to have surgery to remove the tumor, Judith realizes she is in love with Dr. Steele, but more troubling medical news may sabotage her new relationship, and her second chance at life.
The coquettish granddaughter of a respected small-town judge is stranded at a bootleggers’ hide-out, subjected to an act of nightmarish sexual violence, and plunged into a criminal underworld that threatens to swallow her up completely.
An investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.
Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help.
Ann Schuyler is an upper-crust socialite who bullies her reporter husband into conforming to her highfalutin ways. The husband chafes at the confinement of high society, though, and yearns for a creative outlet. He decides to write a play and collaborates with a fellow reporter.