When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
A Polish countess is dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to support Polish independence.
An American boy turns out to be the heir of a wealthy British earl. He is sent to live with the irritable and unsentimental aristocrat, his grandfather.
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.
A young couple die in a plane crash in the jungle. Their son is found by Tarzan and Jane who name him Boy and raise him as their own. Five years later a search party comes to find the young heir to millions of dollars. Jane agrees, against Tarzan's will, to lead them to civilization.
A female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris.
Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.
When Lassie's master dies, an old friend tries to convince a judge that the dog's life should be spared.
The story—in which an American heiress on holiday in South America falls in love with an Argentine horse breeder against the wishes of their families—takes a backseat to the spectacular location shooting and parade of extravagant musical numbers, which include the larger-than-life Carmen Miranda singing the hit “South American Way” and a showstopping dance routine by the always amazing Nicholas Brothers.
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
A family of confidence tricksters sets their sights on a very rich, very lonely old lady named Miss Fortune.
In 1921, British Lord Athleigh arrives in Dublin with his daughter, Helen, to engage in peace talks. As wanted Irish rebel leader Dennis Riordan is not recognized in public, he is able to move about freely and saves the Athleighs from an assassination attempt by a radical faction. Dennis and Helen meet again and, unaware of his position, Helen falls in love with him. Later when Dennis admits his identity, Helen must make a fateful decision.
In 1853, as the British and Russian empires compete to gain and maintain their place in the dreadful Great Game of political intrigues and alliances whose greatest prize is the domination of India and the border territories, Major Geoffrey Vickers must endure several betrayals and misfortunes before he can achieve his revenge at the Balaclava Heights, on October 25, 1854, the most glorious day of the Crimean War.
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
When Ivy, an Edwardian belle, begins to like Miles, a wealthy gentleman, she is unsure of what to do with her husband, Jervis, or her lover, Dr. Roger. She then hatches a plan to get rid of them both.
This period drama frames the tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the man who would be King of England.
Dr. Peter Blood, unjustly convicted of treason and exiled from England, becomes a notorious pirate.
Having once again avoided criminal conviction, Professor Moriarity develops a murderous plan to “finish off” his last major nemesis, Sherlock Holmes, by making him fail to prevent the perfect crime. Does it involve a family curse, the crown jewels of England, or something else…
A conman poses as a war relief fundraiser, but when he falls for a charity worker, his conscience begins to trouble him.
Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.
An Australian opera singer hires a husband so she can work in the U.S. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene.
A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous sister Jean, unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.
Julia and William were married and soon separated by his snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when their daughter he has raised invites her mother to her wedding, with the disapproval of William's mother.
A European princess arrives in New York City to secure a much-needed loan for her country. She contracts the mumps, and an actress who looks exactly like her is hired to impersonate her.
A World War I veteran returns home after fifteen years in an asylum and finds that everything has changed — his daughter is grown and about to marry.
Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.
A Butler gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.
A decoding expert tangles with enemy spies.
Henry Stephenson stars as a retired Scotland Yard detective. He is regarded as an icon because he has written volumes of books on the art of detection. While Stephenson is being honoured for his past successes, he senses modern detectives, particularly the current District Attorney, look at him and his methods as outdated. This spurs the old man out of retirement to prove himself to the know-it-all modern detectives.
A group of archaeologists asks Tarzan to help them find an ancient city in a hidden valley of women. He refuses, but Boy is tricked into doing the job. The queen of the women asks Tarzan to help them.
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.
Tom Collier has had a great relationship with Daisy, but when he decides to marry, it is not Daisy whom he asks, it is Cecelia. After the marriage, Tom is bored with the social scene and the obligations of his life. He publishes books that will sell, not books that he wants to write. Even worse, he has his old friend working as a butler and Cecelia wants him fired. When Tom tries to get back together with Daisy to renew the feelings that he once felt, Daisy turns the tables on him and leaves to protect both of them.
An orphaned young boy is guided by his great-grandfather and strives to go to university to become a doctor. However, the boy's harsh grandfather stands in his way.
In 1940 England, aristocratic Prudence Cathaway alarms her snobbish parents by joining the WAF service branch. She soon meets and falls in love with the brooding Clive Briggs, despite his prejudice against the upper classes, and agrees to spend a week with him at a Dover hotel. When Clive's soldier friend, Monty, arrives to retrieve him, Prudence learns that Clive went AWOL after Dunkirk, and urges him to recall why England must fight the war.
A recently divorced interior decorator falls in love with a married barrister.
A cabaret dancer witnesses a murder and is forced to hide from gangsters by disguising herself as a male Princeton student.
Millionairess Dorothy Hunter is tired of finding out that her boyfriends love her for her money, and equally weary of losing eligible beaus who don't want to be considered fortune-hunters. That's why she trades identities with her secretary Sylvia before embarking on her next romance with Tony Travers. This causes numerous complications not only for Dorothy and Tony but for Sylvia, whose own husband Philip is not the most patient of men.
An aspiring actress is offered the lead in a major new play, but discovers that her mother, a more seasoned performer, expects the same part. The situation is further complicated when they both become involved with the same man.
A murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.
Richard Arlen is the convicted murderer and Adrienne Ames his sister who believes in his innocence. We see the murder and the framing set-up at the beginning of the film, so there’s no mystery for the audience to solve. Just the pleasure of watching an intricate cat-and-mouse game, with the murderer one step ahead of his pursuers until the final, tense confrontation.
A sophisticated jewel thief tries to prove himself innocent of a string of cop murders.
Snooty heiress decides to track down her dead sister's kids, who are living a Bohemian life with their uncle in Greenwich Village. Once she finds them, she discovers that the Bohemian life is fun and free of the constraints her country-club life places on her. But she decides to take the uncle to court anyway to free him from the kids so he can paint.
A medical student with a club foot falls for a beautiful but ambitious waitress. She soon leaves him, but gets pregnant and comes back to him for help.
People in an old, dark mansion are menaced by a maniac called "The Black Ace".
Richard Bruce, an American in fog bound London stumbles into the midst of international intrigue, with Rose Thorne, an innocent dupe. Together they try to unravel the mystery, enlisting the aid of a cat burglar named Holmes, who they bump into along the way.
A London barrister's marriage is under strain after his affair with a shopgirl who is out to have him. The story is told in flashback.
A young lady named Hilda who works as a servant for the wealthy Clarksons, sheep farmers, and dreams of being a great singer. An upcoming visit by Sir Julian, a famous composer arriving from London, drives jealous Mrs. Clarkson (an interfering biddy who fancies she can sing - but can't) to send away Hilda, so he doesn't hear Hilda has a good voice. Meanwhile, an infamous outlaw named Stingaree has just arrived in town and kidnaps Sir Julian, then poses as him at the Clarksons, where he meets Hilda a few hours before she is to leave.
The Victorian wife of a mad baron waits years for a British soldier sent to Egypt.
Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother, visiting the United States, falls madly in love with a young woman he meets in Baltimore.
An American lawyer's wife is reunited with her child and his father, an English nobleman.
Secrets of Scotland Yard is Republic's spin on a plotline first elucidated in the old E. Phillips Oppenheim novel The Great Impersonation. After losing WW I, the German high command, with remarkable foresight, prepares for the next war by planting a spy in the British Admiralty. Edgar Barrier plays the dual role of the German spy and his British twin brother. When one twin is killed, the other assumes his identity. The question: is the surviving brother the "good" one or the bad? It is up to C. Aubrey Smith, cast as Scotland Yard inspector Sir Christopher Belt, to sort out the mystery. Though it owes a great deal to the aforementioned Oppenheim yarn, Secrets of Scotland Yard is actually based on a novel by Denison Clift, who also wrote the screenplay.
After tricking him into marriage, a woman tries to win the love of her philandering husband.
Aspiring actress Louise Muban attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her classmate Nana discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.
A woman's dubious past proves to be a stumbling block when she becomes engaged to marry.
Young Austrian Archduke Paul "Gustl" Gustave is in an arranged engagement but his uncle, the emperor, decides to let Gustl carry on a fling with ballet dancer Lisl Gluck.
Nora Shard, a young American girl living in England, is ostracized from society for her presumed part in a scandal which culminated in a murder-suicide by a nobleman and his wife. Nora disguises her identity and goes to Italy, where she finds happiness - until the spectre of the past is raised.
A circus wild animal trainer searches for the son who was taken away from him by a meddling relative years earlier.
Aspiring young Scottish politician John Shand enters into an unusual agreement with the wealthy Wylie family -- if they fund his education, he must marry their daughter, Maggie. Staying true to his word, John weds Maggie and begins a successful career, thanks largely to his savvy wife. The couple's relationship is placed in jeopardy when John faces temptation in the form of the lovely aristocrat Lady Sybil Tenterden.
In this light and lovely romantic musical, a Hungarian woman attends a Viennese fair and buys a card from a gypsy fortune teller. It says that she will meet someone important and is destined for a happy marriage. Afterward she gets a job as a baker's assistant. She then meets a handsome army drummer who secretly dreams of becoming a famous composer and conductor. Unfortunately the military forbids the young corporal to create his own music. But then Ilonka secretly sends one of the drummer's waltzes to the Austrian Emperor with his weekly order of pastries. Her act paves the way toward the tuneful and joyous fulfillment of the gypsy's prediction.
A British explorer brings an Eskimo hunter to London, where he misreads a woman.
A young couple's marriage is threatened by the husband's love of horses and the racetrack circuit.
Inventor Robert Fulton receives support from a tavern owner and a shipyard worker to help realize his dream of a high-powered steamboat.
Psychiatrist finds herself falling for her patient.
Northern lawyer John Reynolds travels to New Orleans to try and clean up the local crime syndicate based around a lottery. Although he meets Julie Mirbeau and they are attracted to each other, the fact that her father heads the lottery means they end up on opposite sides. When her father is killed, Julie becomes more and more involved in the shady activities and in blocking Reynolds' attempts at prosecution.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.
Will Prescott (Richard Dix) is a bank cashier whose assistant, Ned Seabury (Neil Hamilton), has made a killing in the stock market. With his newfound riches, Seabury proceeds to woo Prescott's wife, Agnes (Claire Adams), by buying her luxurious items that her husband can not afford. Seabury makes no secret of his aim, and Prescott desperately steals some of the bank's bonds, hoping to make enough money to keep Agnes by his side.
A beautiful Austrian refugee in England--who is also a Nazi agent--marries a scholarly English pacifist. He lives near a secret military base she needs to get information about so she can help in Hitler's planned invasion of England.
A strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents.
Roland Dane finally retires to the house he was brought up in. Lost in thoughts of his lost love Lark, he does not want to be disturbed in his last days. However, the appearance of his niece and her subsequent romance with Lark's nephew causes him to reevaluate his life and offer some advice so the young couple doesn't make the same mistake he did, all those years ago.
Allison Long is acquitted on charges of poisoning her father but then her benefactor is poisoned. Reporter Duffy Giles has faith in her innocence.
A WWII tale of romance that begins during New Orlean's "Mardi Gras" celebration when a soldier and a girl meet and fall in love. He asks her to marry him but she decides to wait until his next leave. He is sent overseas and she does not receive his letter and feels abandoned, but she does find out she is pregnant. She gives the child to her married sister and does not see her child again for three years. She returns to her sister's home to reclaim the child, and the soldier, who has been searching for her, also turns up. The sister is not interested in giving up the child. Written by Les Adams
Spoiled socialite Cynthia Grace is suffering from a blood clot. Not unexpectedly, Tommy Coalt falls in love with Cynthia, much to her parents' dismay. Soon he's drawing up plans to marry the girl and setting up private practice in a smaller town.
In a make-believe, mittleuropean kingdom, a vivacious but dim country girl sings in a beer garden for her rent money. Meanwhile, the king is facing bankruptcy for his little nation, unless he marries a rich but undesirable queen of another comic opera principality. Eventually he takes in the struggling young singer, and they fall in love, despite possible ruin.
A strait-laced country vicar is very embarrassed by his father's naughty exploits with a lively actress.
Louis Hayward, star of 1940's Son of Monte Cristo, returns to Alexandre Dumas territory in Columbia's Return of Monte Cristo. This time, Hayward plays the grandson of his namesake Edmond Dantes, who, it will be recalled, was cheated out of his fortune and falsely imprisoned, only to escape and wreak vengeance on his betrayers by assuming the guise of the Count of Monte Cristo. Just like grandpa, the younger Dantes is framed by a trio of connivers and shipped off to Devil's Island. Escaping with a fellow convict, political radical Bombelles, Dantes adopts the bearded guise of an elderly man in order to destroy his enemies and reclaim his birthright. One of his principal antagonists - at least during the first half of the film - is haughty aristocrat Angele Picard, who because she wasn't a part of the original conspiracy genuinely believes that Dantes is a criminal.
The son of a wealthy Maine family shocks his relatives by announcing he wants to pursue a career in music.
A young lady leaves her brutal husband and meets another man on board a ship.
John Evans encounters his lookalike, Malcolm Scott. When Scott is killed in an accident, Evans finds himself mistaken for Scott and decides to do some good in his new role.
Linda Wadsworth rebels against her millionaire grandfather, J. H. Wadsworth, and runs away from home. Unknown to Mr. Wadsworth, she gets a job at one of his many five-and-ten-cents stores as a clerk.
A British aristocrat falls in love with an Austrian woman before they are separated with the outbreak of World War I.
Susan Miller works behind the girdle counter in a department store and dreams about the beautiful clothes and glamour she can never hope to have. Enter May Worthington and Warren, a pair of con artists who pose as the mother and uncle of a pretty girl in order to separate millionaires from their money. They convince Susan she has an opportunity to fulfill all her dreams, and the trio heads for Palm Beach. Susan meets John Wheeler who says he is shopping for a sailboat. Believing that he is a millionaire, Warren and May sell him a boat that doesn't belong to them, and make off with his $15,000 life savings. Looking for greener pastures, they work themselves into the family of wealthy Tod Fenwick, who falls for Sue, posing as "Linda Worthington". But John shows up as a guest of Fenwick and he tells "Linda", not knowing she was part of the scam, that he has a detective after the fake captain that sold him the boat...
When his first stage show fails, songwriter Cole Porter goes off to fight in WWI until, injured, he lands in a hospital. He impresses nurse Linda Lee with his creativity, but their budding romance must wait as Cole heads home. Back in New York, he mounts a series of popular shows, and when his work brings him back to Europe, he eventually marries Linda. But success doesn't spare him from marital complications or bad news about a beloved relative.
Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.
Wealthy New York girl, Susan Van Dusen, in search of thrills and laughter, leaves home and finds work with a private detective agency. She meets Tod Waterbury, who, under another name, is working as a cab driver (in search of story material for a novel), and the two fall in love.
Georgina asks permission from her old aunt, Patricia Mercer Vanderpyl, to marry Capt. Nugent before his departure for France. Patricia refuses and, in reply to Georgina's questioning, gives her a diary from her own girlhood to read. The diary unfolds the story of Patricia's marriage to soldier Anthony Vanderpyl. Returning on furlough after the outbreak of the Civil War, Anthony suddenly leaves Patricia to visit Mrs. Le Roy, an old flame, and is killed by her jealous husband. Positive that Anthony had been unfaithful to her, Patricia refuses to open the letter that her husband sent her on the day of his death. Georgina now opens it and discovers that Anthony had gone to Mrs. Le Roy to end the affair that his brother Bentley was having with her. With this revelation, Patricia sanctions her niece's marriage, then dies, joining Anthony in "the spreading dawn".
Emily Cottrell, one of the most respected members of a large gang of crooks headed by Fraser Grimstead, is caught while robbing the home of wealthy David Parrish. Emily accepts David's offer of a home and a chance to go straight, but Grimstead is unwilling to lose her, and he insists that she help him steal the famous diamond collar, The Tower of Jewels, which is in David's possession. When Emily refuses, Grimstead threatens to expose her past to Wayne Parrish, her benefactor's son with whom she is in love. Grimstead and the gang surround the Parrish home, then Wayne's cousin removes the jewel case to throw suspicion on her rival for Wayne's affections. Emily's innocence is established later, and her reputation is further cleared by Grimstead, who is shot by the police. With his dying breath, Grimstead describes Emily's gentle birth and states that she is fit to marry Wayne.
The daughter of the former queen of a Paris gambling house impersonates her mother and reopens the establishment when she finds herself in dire need of funds.