• Director: F.W. Murnau
• Genre:Drama | Romance

Cast

Charles Farrell : Lem Tustine
Mary Duncan : Kate
David Torrence : Lem’s father
Edith Yorke : Lem’s mother
Anne Shirley : Marie Tustine (as Dawn O’Day)

The city girl Kate falls in love with farmer Lem. He takes Kate to his family farm but Kate has trouble being accepted by the family.

• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Genre:Drama / Fantasy / Horror / Romance / Thriller
• Runtime:127 minutes

Cast

Bela Lugosi : Count Dracula
Helen Chandler : Mina
David Manners : John Harker
Dwight Frye : Renfield
Edward Van Sloan: Van Helsing

Renfield (Dwight Frye), a British solicitor, travels through the Carpathian Mountains via stagecoach. The people in the stagecoach are fearful that the coach won’t reach the local inn before sundown. Arriving there safely before sundown, Renfield refuses to stay at the inn and asks the driver to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper and his wife seem to be afraid of Renfield’s destination, Castle Dracula, and warn him about vampires. The innkeeper’s wife gives Renfield a crucifix for protection before he leaves for Borgo Pass, whence he is driven to the castle by Dracula’s coach, which was awaiting him at Borgo Pass, with Dracula himself disguised as the driver. During the bumpy ride, Renfield leans out and starts to ask the driver to slow down, but is startled to see that the driver has disappeared, and a bat is leading the horses.

Renfield enters the castle welcomed by charming but odd nobleman Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi), who unbeknownst to Renfield, is a vampire. Renfield expresses concern about the strange disappearance of the coach driver and his luggage, but Dracula assures him that he has arranged to have his luggage delivered. They discuss Dracula’s intention to lease Carfax Abbey in England, where he intends to travel the next day. Dracula then leaves and Renfield goes to his bedroom. Dracula hypnotizes Renfield into opening a window and then causes him to faint. A bat is seen at the window, which then morphs into Dracula. Dracula’s three wives suddenly appear and start to move toward Renfield to attack him, but Dracula waves them away, and he attacks Renfield himself.

Aboard the schooner Vesta, bound for England, Renfield has now became a raving lunatic slave to Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship’s crew. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered the only living person in it; the captain is lashed on the wheel and none of the ship’s crew is discovered. Renfield is sent to Dr. Seward’s sanatorium.

Some nights later at a theatre, Dracula meets Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston), who is with a group in a box seat area. Dr. Seward introduces his daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners), and the family friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade). Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, after Lucy has a talk with Mina and falls asleep in bed, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered. Read more

• Director: Rouben Mamoulian
• Genre:Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi
• Runtime:92 minutes

Cast

Fredric March : Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Hyde
Miriam Hopkins : Ivy Pierson
Rose Hobart : Muriel Carew
Holmes Herbert : Dr. Lanyon
Halliwell Hobbes: Brigadier General Carew

The film tells of Dr. Jekyll (Fredric March), a kind doctor who experiments with drugs because he’s certain that within each man lurks impulses for both good and evil.

Dr. Jekyll develops a drug to release the evil side in himself, becoming the hard drinking, woman-chasing Mr. Hyde. Jekyll quickly becomes addicted to the formula, and unable to control the violent and unstable Mr. Hyde. Read more

• Director: Clarence Brown
• Genre:Drama / Romance
• Runtime:76 minutes

Cast

Joan Crawford : Marian Martin
Clark Gable : Mark Whitney
Wallace Ford : Al Manning
Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher : Wally Stuart (as Skeets Gallagher)
Frank Conroy : Horace Travers

Marian Martin is a factory girl living with her mother in a grimy railroad town. Factory boy Al Manning hopes to marry her, but Marian is determined to find a better life. When a train makes a stop in town, Marian looks through the windows and sees the wealthy passengers. She then makes the acquaintance of Wally Stuart, a New Yorker who gives her champagne and writes down his address, telling her to look him up if she ever makes it to New York. Marian, now tipsy from the champagne, happily returns home. Giggling, she tells Al and her mother that she was drinking down by the railroad tracks. Al, who was waiting for her and accuses her of being drunk, spots the piece of paper containing Wally’s address in Marian’s hand, grabs it from her, and tears it up. He then tells Marian that her actions are inappropriate and that she’s staying with him. Marian lashes out, telling Al and her mother that no one owns her and that her life belongs to herself. She grabs the torn paper shreds up from the floor and pastes them back together, then leaves for New York City. There, she looks up Wally who gives her some advice on meeting and keeping wealthy men, which Marian uses to begin a relationship with his friend Mark Whitney, a divorced attorney.

She eventually becomes Mark’s mistress and he provides her with a complete make-over, educating her in the arts and culture of his social set. Three years pass and the two entertain with brio and style. Marian and Mark fall in love.

When Mark decides to run for gubernatorial office, however, friends caution him that his relationship with Marian is a serious liability. To cover their relationship, she has changed her name to “Mrs. Moreland” and poses as a wealthy divorcee. Some time later, Al, now running a prosperous cement business, comes to the city hoping to land a big contract. He sees Marian and asks her to marry him, but she refuses. When she overhears Mark talking with some politicians, she realizes that he now plans to marry her, despite the fact that their relationship would cause a scandal. She pretends not to love Mark and says that she is going to marry Al instead. A political rival soon leaks her true identity and Marian is forced to defend herself at one of Mark’s election rallies. As the crowd rumbles, Marian steps up from the audience and tells them that Mark has always been an honorable man, who once belonged to her, but now belongs to them. The crowd cheers as she leaves, sobbing. Outside, Mark catches up to her and tells her that from now on they will be together no matter what. Mark legitimizes their relationship by proposing marriage. Read more

• Director: George Marshall
• Genre:Comedy / Short
• Runtime:21 minutes

Cast

Stan Laurel : Stan
Oliver Hardy : Ollie
Billy Gilbert : Joe – Junkyard Owner

Laurel and Hardy are in the fish business. They drive around town seeing if they can sell any. Stan suggests they catch their own fish and keep all the profits. Ollie likes the idea of cutting out the “middleman” so they buy a boat at a junk yard. After testing it for leaks by filling it with water and some setbacks such as dropping an anchor through the hull and sawing through the mast, they succeed in fixing it up. When the boat is finally ready, the whole operation goes south when they decide to hoist the sail. Read more

• Director: George Marshall
• Genre:Comedy / Short
• Runtime:21 minutes

Cast

Stan Laurel : Stan
Oliver Hardy : Ollie
Mae Busch : Mrs. Arabella Hardy
Billy Gilbert : Process server

Mrs Hardy is annoyed that her husband Oliver seems to spend more time with his friend Stanley than with her. After a furious argument, Mrs Hardy says that she is through if Ollie goes out with Stan again. Stan suggests that Ollie adopts a baby, which he does. Unfortunately, his wife has left their apartment on returning, and a process server delivers a paper informing Ollie that she is suing him for divorce, naming Stan as correspondent. The boys are now left to look after the infant on their own.

This is rare Laurel and Hardy film, as there is no resolution at the end. In the original script, Mrs. Hardy came back to Oliver with another adopted baby, but so much time and money had been spent on adding Stan Laurel’s improvisations that there was no budget left to film it. Read more

• Director: Lloyd French
• Genre:Comedy / Short
• Runtime:20 minutes

Cast

Stan Laurel : Stan
Oliver Hardy : Ollie
Richard Cramer : Judge Beaumont
Arthur Housman : Drunk (as Arthur Houseman)
Vivien Oakland : Mrs. Beaumont

Ordered out of town by angry Judge Beaumont, vagrants Stanley and Oliver meet a congenial drunk who invites them to stay at his luxurious mansion. The drunk can’t find his key, but the boys find a way in, sending the surprised woman inside into a faint. They revive her with what they think is water, but is actually gin, and all get tipsy in the process. Outside, the drunk realizes he’s at the wrong house and stumbles off. Eventually, the real homeowner arrives, none other than Judge Beaumont. Read more

• Director: James Parrott
• Genre:Comedy / Short
• Runtime:119 minutes

Cast

Stan Laurel : Stan
Oliver Hardy : Ollie
Billy Gilbert : The Doctor
May Wallace : Miss Wallace, head nurse
Estelle Etterre : Nurse Smith

Ollie has broken his leg and he is in County Hospital. Stan comes to visit but gets lost on the way to the room. But he does make it Ollie’s room and tells him he didn’t have anything else to do, so he thought he’d come to see him. Ollie thanks Stan somewhat sarcastically for the visit. Stan has also brought Ollie a gift: a bag of hard boiled eggs and nuts. Ollie is not impressed and complains he can’t eat them, suggesting that Stan could have brought candy. Stan complains that candy costs too much and Ollie hasn’t paid him for the last box.

Stan starts to eat one of the eggs which he seasons with a salt cellar he’s brought in his pocket. Then he drops another one into Ollie’s drinking water jug. Ollie tells him not to put his hand in the pitcher to get it, so Stan retrieves the egg by pouring the water (and the egg) into a glass. Then he pours the water back into the pitcher, catching the egg. In drying the egg, Stan spills the water onto Ollie and Ollie hits Stan over the head with a bedpan.

When the doctor (Billy Gilbert) arrives to check on Ollie, Stan absent-mindedly picks up a weight attached to Ollie’s leg harness by a rope. The doctor yanks the weight from Stan propelling himself out the top-floor window. Now the doctor is hanging by the rope; in addition, his weight has lifted Ollie up, suspending him over the bed. The rope snaps and the doctor grabs the window at the last moment. Ollie falls on to the bed breaking it. The commotion brings a number of nurses in to the room. One of them puts a hypodermic syringe on the chair. While the doctors attend to Ollie, Stan manages to get the doctor back inside, but not without splitting his trousers.

Outraged and embarrassed, the doctor first dismisses all the other doctors and nurses attending to Ollie at the moment and then orders Ollie to leave at once. Ollie blames Stan for ruining his peaceful stay in the hospital and tells Stan to get his clothes, still grumbling about Stan’s gift of “hard-boiled eggs and nuts!” Stan fetches Ollie’s clothes (involving a short comic episode with the closet light bulb) but has a hard time getting Ollie’s trousers on. Exasperated and impatient, Ollie tells Stan to get a pair of scissors and cut the leg off, but of course, Stan at first thinks Ollie was asking him to cut off his leg! In exasperation, Ollie specifies he meant cut the leg of his trousers off so he can put them on. Stan cuts the wrong leg off. Ollie is annoyed and asks for the scissors so he can cut the correct trouser leg off: “Hind to front!” Ollie’s roommate appears, “all aflutter” because the doctor has told him he can now go back home. He gathers his clothes and it turns out he has put Ollie’s trousers on by mistake, which means Stan has cut both legs off the roommate’s pair. Then Stan sits on the needle. The nurse returns to retrieve it and, finding it in Stan’s rear, laughs herself silly: the syringe contains a tranquilizer, and her supervisor points out that Stan will sleep for a month. Read more

• Director: James W. Horne
• Genre:Comedy / Short
• Runtime:21 minutes

Cast

Stan Laurel : Stan
Oliver Hardy : Ollie
Julie Bishop : Bride (as Jacqueline Wells)
Walter Long : Mugsie Long, proprietor of Ye Mariner’s Rest

Sailors Laurel and Hardy disembark and book in a sleazy hotel. The owner Mugsie Long intends to marry a young girl against her wishes, but Stan and Ollie come to her rescue. After fleeing the hotel, the boys find out they’ve left their money in their room, but an old pal of Ollie’s offers $50 if Ollie will fight in a boxing ring that night. Ollie agrees but predictably makes Stan the fighter and himself the manager. The catch is Stan’s opponent is Mugsie himself. Knowing how tough Mugsie is, Ollie makes a seemingly wise bet with a drunk on Mugsie to win. The drunk accepts the bet, making himself seem to Ollie a sucker. But when the fight concludes, thanks to a Laurel-and-Hardy-esque turn of events, guess who the real sucker turns out to be? Read more

• Director: Stephen Sommers
• Genre:Action / Adventure / Comedy / Fantasy / Horror
• Runtime:54 minutes

Cast

Boris Karloff : Imhotep
Zita Johann : Helen Grosvenor
David Manners : Frank Whemple
Arthur Byron : Sir Joseph Whemple
Edward Van Sloan: Doctor Muller

An Ancient Egyptian priest called Imhotep is revived when an archaeological expedition finds Imhotep’s mummy and one of the archaeologists accidentally reads an ancient life-giving spell. Imhotep escapes from the archaeologists, taking the Scroll of Thoth, and prowls Cairo seeking the reincarnation of the soul of his ancient lover, Princess Ankh-es-en-amon.

Imhotep finds two archaeologists, claims that his name is Ardath Bey, a modern Egyptian, and shows them where to dig to find Ankh-es-en-amon’s tomb. The archaeologists find the tomb and give the mummy and the treasures to the Cairo Museum. The archaeologists thank Imhotep for giving them the information of where to find the tomb.

Imhotep was once mummified alive for attempting to resurrect her, and, upon finding a woman bearing a striking resemblance to the Princess, attempts to mummify her and make her his bride. In the end, she is saved when she remembers her past life and prays to the goddess Isis to save her. The prayer causes a ray from the statue of Isis to burst out and burn the scroll that gives Imhotep life. He crumbles into a heap of bones. Read more