Acting
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
Amid big-budget medieval pageantry, King Richard goes on the Crusades leaving his brother Prince John as regent, who promptly emerges as a cruel, grasping, treacherous tyrant. Apprised of England's peril by message from his lady-love Marian, the dashing Earl of Huntingdon endangers his life and honor by returning to oppose John, but finds himself and his friends outlawed, with Marian apparently dead. Enter Robin Hood, acrobatic champion of the oppressed, laboring to set things right through swashbuckling feats and cliffhanging perils!
Cowboy Sunset Carson teams up with Frog Millhouse on a routine supply trip to Placer City. Before long, the duo find themselves ambushed by a team of dastardly highwaymen embroiled in an extortion ring. Sunset and Frog must then go undercover to set things right for a mining town under siege. Galloping hooves, spittin' six shooters, and all manner of disreputable behavior ensue.
Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.
Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.
Eastern millionaire's son Bard finds his father murdered and flies west to see rancher Drew who may know something about it. En route he crashes his plane into Jerry's bathroom; she falls in love with him which makes her suitor Steve jealous.
Stan and Ollie stow away to Scotland expecting to inherit the MacLaurel estate. When things don't quite turn out that way, they unwittingly enlist in the Scottish army and are posted to India.
The lives of a young man and woman, an infamous gangster and a group of street kids converge one day in a volatile New York City slum.
Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which MĂ©tis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)
Two Virginians are heading for a new life in Texas when they witness a stagecoach being held up. They decide to rob the robbers and make off with the loot. To escape a posse, they split up and don't see each other again for a long time. When they do meet up again, they find themselves on different sides of the law. This leads to the increasing estrangement of the two men, who once thought of themselves as brothers.
Falsely convicted of murder, young Robert Draper escapes custody during a practice blackout drill. Under cover of darkness, Draper hopes to find the real killer, who turns out to be a member of a Nazi sabotage ring. Completed shortly before America entered WW2.
When a confused eyewitness identifies New York City cabbie Brick Tennant as a killer, he is sentenced to death for a murder that he wasn't involved in. Though no one is willing to listen to the innocent prisoner's pleas for freedom, Brick's faithful fiancée, Mary, knows that her lover is innocent because she was with him when the crime was committed. As the scheduled execution draws ever nearer, Mary begins to investigate the murder herself.
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.
Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.
During the 1942 North African campaign, a British straggler passes as a waiter at the hotel commandeered as Erwin Rommel's headquarters. He has thoughts of assassinating Rommel but his cover may provide an even better use.
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.
The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
A remake of Frank Capra's Submarine (1928), Devil's Playground is a snappy Columbia "B plus" picture starring Richard Dix and Chester Morris. Submarine officers Dorgan (Dix) and Mason (Morris) battle on land for the affections of dance-hall girl Carmen (Dolores del Rio). She marries Dorgan but makes a play for Mason when her husband is on duty. The romantic rivalry is forgotten when Dorgan must rescue Mason and his crew from a sunken sub.
Construction workers in World War II in the Pacific are needed to build military sites, but the work is dangerous and they doubt the ability of the Navy to protect them. After a series of attacks by the Japanese, something new is tried, Construction Battalions (CBs=Seabees). The new CBs have to both build and be ready to fight.
