Acting
In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.
Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit show so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he just may pull it off until temperamental star Dorthy Brock breaks her ankle on the eve of the show's premiere and has to be replaced by her understudy Peggy.
Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.
At a Mexican resort, a fast-talking magazine editor woos the dancer he's trashed in print.
J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.
When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.
After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Bugs" Fenner, meanwhile, is certain that Blake is a police agent.
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.
Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to six months on a prison farm populated by both men and women (segregated, of course). Ross is also incarcerated, suffering the cruelties of the sadistic male and female guards (including J. Carroll Naish and future "Ma Kettle" Marjorie Main!)
Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.
When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap and fashion designer Lynn Mason to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses.
College students rally to save a struggling hotel from closing. Comedy.
Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin, Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name
The Bar Association disbars attorney Tyler Cradon when it appears he was implicated in the murder of a prominent vice crusader. Cradon, not wishing to be without an income,is impressed by the way Joan Carroll handled a small-town murder, poses as a real estate agent and offers to get her into a law firm of a friend of his. Placed in the office of Roberts, running a front for Cradon, Joan is taught every trick of the trade. With her cases all prepared for her, she goes from one courtroom victory to another, soon becoming the darling of the underworld and the despair of all law-enforcing authorities.
It is the fate of a small frontier town, adjoining the no-man's-land where the Russians and Austrians are fighting out one of the final campaigns of World War I, to be occupied one day by the Russians, the next by the Austrians, and the inhabitants soon acquire a complacent view of the changing allegiances. To the town comes Ann Warschaska, intent on avenging the suicide of her sister, who has killed herself after being betrayed by an Austrian officer. She knows no more about his identity than the number of his room at the "Hotel Imperial".
Val takes the assistance of a society reporter and a journalist to investigate the disappearance of her half-sister Arlene, a wealthy socialite who is involved in criminal activities.
Two starving songwriters will only get funding if they get British actress Jane Clarke to star in their show.
Department store owner J. Elliott Dinwiddy has waited fifteen years for the perfect astrological moment to propose to his secretary, Myrtle Tweep. His astrological advisor, Dr. Wakefield, has told him that if he can unite a boy and a girl in true love before midnight, he can propose to Myrtle the following night. Fate then brings unemployed dancer Caroline Wilson into the music department of Dinwiddy's, where she meets handsome songwriter Terry Keith.
An ad man gets his model girlfriend to pose as a debutante for a new campaign.
An honest sports columnist's greedy wife persuades him to go easy on a cheat, famous for crooked sports deals.