Acting
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?
Air-race champions "Speed" Leslie and Branda Fowler combine to open a very profitable airplane service that flies patients to other cities for special treatment. Gangsters soon move in and offer to take over, without an invitation.
Innocent Sally Brown thinks men are only attracted to experienced women, so she poses as the wife of an unmarried businessman on a trip to Paris.
A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.
A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.
Farmer Frank and his ward hunt brother Jesse's killers, the back-shooting Fords.
Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.
After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.
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.
Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father.
Wyatt Earp agrees to become marshal and establish order in Tombstone in this very romanticized version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Lil works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her.
Socialite Letty Lynton is returning to New York, abandoning one-time lover Emile Renaul in South America, when she strikes up a shipboard romance with Jerry Darrow. Renault is waiting for her in New York and will not leave her alone, so she poisons him. When detectives take her to the D.A.'s office, Jerry cooks up an alibi.
Jim Gladden, a construction site foreman, is partially responsible for the accidental death of one of his workers, Fred Smith, and makes good on Fred's deathbed request to go to Scotch Valley and take care of his surviving wife and children. When Jim arrives in the small town, he is told that there are two Fred Smith families in Scotch Valley, the rich Smiths and the poor Smiths. Jim assumes that the Smiths he is looking for are the poor ones, and is directed to a house where four children live in poverty.
Two destitute New Yorkers meet cute in Central Park and then separate and independently get tangled up with some gangsters only to be reunited again in the end.
With no other prospects, a World War I veteran puts the skills they taught him in the War to use.
A weary dance-hall girl in a Panama saloon is given the choice of jail or going with a rough-and-tumble oil driller's jungle oil-field in order to pay him back for being slipped a mickey and robbed.
Mrs. Doray sits with a Juvenile Court Judge to learn more about problem children and what to do about them. One of the cases involves 13 year old Arthur, "the worst kid in town", who moves cars away from fiire-plugs without the knowledge of the owners. The judge gives Arthur and friend Nutty another chance. However they run into further trouble when they break into Mr. Doray's drugstore to get medicine for Nutty's grandmother. Mr. Doray is not sympathetic and completely against his wife's plan to become Arthur's guardian. More incidents occur with Mr. Doray quick to judge prior to getting all of the facts. Mrs. Doray must choose between her marriage and Arthur.
Racketeer Jim Barnes is trying to force the independent taxicab-drivers to join his "protection service" at the cost of five bucks a day. Champion race-car driver, Bob Kane, joins with his friends Lee and "Dad" Martin in a fight for the street rights of a big city.
