King Charles II first meets Nell Gwyn after seeing her do a turn at Drury Lane. They soon become close, the King preferring her feisty irreverent company to that of the aristocratic French Duchess of Portsmouth. Nell becomes his most loyal subject, while ever-ready to take the Duchess down a peg. But the actress can never hope to be fully accepted by the King's circle despite his constant attentions.
A spinster dressmaker falls for a ne'er-do-well.
Four "Picture Brides", from New Orleans, arrive in the Brazilian jungle on a riverboat, brought there to marry workers at Lottagrasso, a remote mining site of the Standard Diamond Mines. Also on the boat with the four "mail-order" brides (Americans Mame Smith, Flo Lane, and Gwen from England and Lena from Europe) is Mary Lee, a frightened and innocent girl, who has come to see the mine's brutal supervisor, Von Luden, about a job.
Julek doesn't want to work, he prefers to sing on the street and marry his beloved. His family doesn't want to hear about it, to which Julek sings in the voice of Eugeniusz Bodo: "That's just how cold-hearted I am..."
A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.
Harry and Inez are a dance team at the Wonder Bar. Inez loves Harry, but he is in love with Liane, the wife of a wealthy business man. Al Wonder and the conductor/singer Tommy are in love with Inez. When Inez finds out that Harry wants to leave Paris and is going to the USA with Liane, she kills him.
Mary is an impetuous romantic who marries British aristocrat Lord Philip Rexford on a whim. Their marriage is successful, though, and they grow closer over the years. Then, a trip to the Italian Riviera unexpectedly reunites Mary with her former beau, Tommie. After some vicious gossip makes Rexford distrust her, he begins work on a divorce. Mary must now choose between the man she has married and the man she once loved.
An ex-vaudeville actor is working as the assistant to a doctor who has Frankenstein aspirations. The ex-vaudeville actor kills the doctor and decides to assume the identity of the dead physician.
The adopted daughter of New-York-City gambler, Al Draper, elopes from quarantine (key plot word) with another voyager from Europe. Later she is found murdered in a hotel room. Draper is dissatisfied with the handling of the case by the district attorney and sets out to work the case himself.
An aging actor returns to a small town with his troupe and reunites with his former lover and illegitimate son, a scenario that enrages his current mistress and results in heartbreak for all.
That old theatrical war-horse Bella Donna (previously filmed in America by Alla Nazimova) was resurrected by Britain's Twickenham Studios in 1934. Conrad Veidt stars as sinister Egyptian Mahmoud Baroundi, who even before the film gets under way has left a long trail of ruined women behind him. His latest victim is American girl Mona Chepstow (Mary Ellis), whom Baroundi treats like dirt and makes her like it. The plot centers around a murder by poison, as evidenced by the film's deliberately exotic title. Critics in 1934 praised newcomer Mary Ellis for underplaying her role, but many film fans preferred Nazimova's arm-waving histrionics in the earlier version.
Harry Holt returns to Africa with his friend Martin Arlington to head up a large ivory expedition.
A criminal lawyer's wife is blackmailed when she is falsely accused of infidelity.
A businesslike syndicate runs all the gambling joints in town; least profitable is honest Mike Lee's. Under pressure to allow cheating, Mike "walks out," leaving tough-minded daughter Lady Lee to earn a living the only way she knows. She soon becomes a success gambling among the rich, but, falling out with the syndicate, she considers the marriage proposal of blueblood Garry Madison. Can such a match work despite snobbery and old associations?
ZaSu Pitts and Slim Summerville meet when both are sold deeds to an abandoned ranch in the California desert. Their lonely lives become much more crowded when a drifter discovers gold on the property—though all he’s found is Slim’s missing filling. (adapted from MoMA capsule)
While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.
A man falls in love with a young woman, only to discover that she's the daughter of an ex-girlfriend who jilted him almost 20 years before.
A criminal gang is after a rich man's money. A female member of the gang gets the bright idea of getting him to marry her, then getting a healthy settlement after a quick divorce.
Nan Reynolds encourages her copywriter husband Bill to open his own agency. Nearly out of business, he finally gets a client. Former girlfriend Patricia Berkeley writes a very successful commercial for the client and neats up their old romance. Wife and girlfriend struggle over Bill.
John and Mary Sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.
