Pre Code Movies

A look at the forces that shaped Pre-Code Hollywood and brought about the strict enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934.

Two female song-pluggers decide to become ruthless gold-diggers, with comic results.

Daily life at men and women's prison units where baseball and the marching band are serious business. Two prisoners escape in order to help paroled...

Jeannette Vaubernier, an impulsive shopgirl en route to deliver a hat, dreams of luxury and position as she saunters through the woods, and attracted...

A sideshow bally girl sets out to seduce the naive son of the show's manager to get even with him for a friend that he jilted.

The film tells the story of Yang Naifan (Ruan Lingyu) who runs from her arranged marriage to be with her true love, Li Zuyi (Jin Yan). The film...

At a hotel in the middle of the Sahara, an old man and his daughter try to keep the location of a hidden treasure from a collection of thieves and...

After a tumultuous first marriage, Millie Blake learns to love her newfound independence and drags her feet on the possibility of remarriage. The...

A dapper gangster sponsors an alcoholic violinist in order to win the love of a glamorous divorced socialite.

Mary Holmes (MacKellar), once a famous opera star known as Maria di Nardi, now lives in a run-down shanty and suffers from alcoholism. Known for her...

Made during the early days of sound cinema, this tense submarine adventure is an intriguing example of a hybrid silent-talkie. A disgraced English...

A crusader tries to keep a dope dealer from corrupting children.

Civilian Mary Dane and falsely imprisoned Bud Leonard love each other. Lou Rinaldo, who framed Bud to get Mary, and escape-minded King Callahan want...

William Poster writes a gossip column for the Morning Gazette. He will write about anyone and everyone as long as he gets the credit. He gets most of...

A group of air mail pilots risk their lives to deliver important mail through bad weather conditions.

Billy, after shooting down land baron William Donovan's henchmen for killing Billy's boss, is hunted down and captured by his friend, Sheriff Pat...

The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey, who, in the course of his work,...

Mary, a writer working on a novel about a love triangle, is attracted to her publisher. Her suitor Jimmy is determined to break them up; he...

A district attorney and a reporter try to find the killer of a D.A. who uncovered a massive stock fraud.

When a popular radio singer is knocked unconscious during a robbery, a squeaky-voiced college boy fills in for him. To everyone's amazement,...