Mary Brian

Mary Brian

Mary Brian (born Louise Byrdie Dantzler, February 17, 1906 – December 30, 2002), was an American actress, who made the transition from silent films to sound films. Brian was dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures." After her showing in a beauty contest, she was given an audition by Paramount Pictures and cast by director Herbert Brenon as Wendy Darling in his silent movie version of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. There she starred with Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston, and the three of them stayed close for the rest of their lives. Ralston described both Bronson and Brian as 'very charming people'. The studio, who created her stage name for the movie and said she was age 16 instead of 18, because the latter sounded too old for the role, then signed her to a long-term motion picture contract. Brian played Fancy Vanhern, daughter of Percy Marmont, in Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men, which had newcomer Louise Brooks in an uncredited debut role as a moll. Her first talkie was Varsity, which was filmed with part-sound and talking sequences, opposite Buddy Rogers. After successfully making the transition to sound, she co-starred with Gary Cooper, Walter Huston and Richard Arlen in one of the earliest Western talkies, The Virginian, her first all-talkie feature. In it, she played a spirited frontier heroine, schoolmarm Molly Stark Wood, who was the love interest of the Virginian. Brian co-starred in several hits during the 1930s, including The Royal Family of Broadway, Paramount on Parade, and The Front Page. After her contract with Paramount ended in 1932, Brian decided to freelance, which was unusual in a period when multi-year contracts with one studio were common. That same year, she appeared on the vaudeville stage at New York's Palace Theatre. Also in the same year, she starred in Manhattan Tower. When World War II hit in 1941, Brian began traveling to entertain the troops, ending up spending most of the war years traveling the world with the U.S.O., and entertaining servicemen from the South Pacific to Europe, including Italy and North Africa.Flying to England on a troop shoot, Mary got caught in the Battle of the Bulge and spent the Christmas of 1944 with the soldiers fighting that battle. She appeared in only a handful of films thereafter. Her last performance on the silver screen was in Dragnet, a B-movie in which she played Anne Hogan opposite Henry Wilcoxon. Over the course of 22 years, Brian had appeared in more than 79 movies. She played in the stage comedy Mary Had a Little... in the 1951 in Melbourne, Australia, co-starring with John Hubbard. Like many "older" actresses, during the 1950s Brian created a career for herself in television. Perhaps her most notable role was playing the title character's mother in Meet Corliss Archer in 1954. She also dedicated much time to portrait painting after her acting years.

  • Title: Mary Brian
  • Popularity: 1.446
  • Known For: Acting
  • Birthday: 1906-02-17
  • Place of Birth: Corsicana, Texas, USA
  • Homepage:
  • Also Known As: The Sweetest Girl in Pictures (nickname), Louise Byrdie Dantzler
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Mary Brian Movies

  • 1935
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    Charlie Chan in Paris

    Charlie Chan in Paris

    6.5 1935 HD

    Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is...

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  • 1936
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    The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss

    The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss

    6.9 1936 HD

    A bored millionaire wagers his doctor that he can support himself at a working class job for a year without touching his inheritance.

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  • 1929
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    The Virginian

    The Virginian

    5.5 1929 HD

    A good-natured cowboy who is romancing the new schoolmarm has a crisis of conscience when he discovers his best friend is engaged in cattle rustling.

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  • 1931
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    The Front Page

    The Front Page

    6.5 1931 HD

    Hildy Johnson is an investigative reporter looking for a bigger paycheck. When an accused murderer escapes from custody, Hildy sees an opportunity...

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  • 1932
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    Blessed Event

    Blessed Event

    6.5 1932 HD

    A New York gossip columnist feuds with a singer and enjoys the power of the press.

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  • 1927
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    Man Power

    Man Power

    1 1927 HD

    Caterpillar-tractor operator Tom Roberts' mission is to deliver a fragile cargo of dynamite, to be denoted for the purposes of redirecting an...

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  • 1927
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    Shanghai Bound

    Shanghai Bound

    1 1927 HD

    Landing at a Chinese port, tough sea captain Bucklin and his passengers are threatened by a marauding war lord, who intends to kill the captain and...

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  • 1927
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    Two Flaming Youths

    Two Flaming Youths

    1 1927 HD

    Sheriff Ben Holden is in love with hotel owner Madge Malarkey when down-and-out carnival man Gabby Gilfoil shows up hoping to take her for some...

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  • 1932
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    The Unwritten Law

    The Unwritten Law

    1 1932 HD

    A film producer is found murdered on a ship, and among the suspects are a young woman whose mother was mistreated by him and his recently fired...

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  • 1935
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    Man on the Flying Trapeze

    Man on the Flying Trapeze

    5.9 1935 HD

    Hard-working, henpecked Ambrose Ambrose Wolfinger takes off from work to go to a wrestling match with catastrophic consequences.

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  • 1930
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    The Royal Family of Broadway

    The Royal Family of Broadway

    5.5 1930 HD

    Julie Cavendish comes from a family of great Broadway actors. Her mother Fanny staunchly continues acting. Her boisterous brother Tony is fleeing a...

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  • 1931
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    Homicide Squad

    Homicide Squad

    1 1931 HD

    The police use a gangster's son to get to him.

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  • 1929
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    The Man I Love

    The Man I Love

    4.5 1929 HD

    Wellman’s first all-talkie, scripted by Herman Mankiewicz, with arrogant boxer Richard Arlen romancing Mary Brian, then falling for temptress...

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  • 1933
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    Moonlight and Pretzels

    Moonlight and Pretzels

    1 1933 HD

    A song plugger is stranded in a small town. There he meets a girl who later helps him to put on a show on Broadway.

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  • 1933
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    The World Gone Mad

    The World Gone Mad

    4.3 1933 HD

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

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  • 1930
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    The Light of Western Stars

    The Light of Western Stars

    2 1930 HD

    A friend of Dick Bailey is killed by a mysterious assailant, whom Dick suspects to be Stack, who is in league with the crooked sheriff. Out on a...

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  • 1932
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    Manhattan Tower

    Manhattan Tower

    6 1932 HD

    The lives of the residents of a Manhattan apartment building are intertwined with the actions of a crooked investor.

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  • 1933
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    Hard to Handle

    Hard to Handle

    6.6 1933 HD

    A hustling public relations man promotes a series of fads.

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  • 1929
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    The Marriage Playground

    The Marriage Playground

    5.8 1929 HD

    A delightful pre-code cocktail recipe. Take three couples (add gin and tonic), their several divorces and the seven children/stepchildren of their...

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  • 1933
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    One Year Later

    One Year Later

    6.3 1933 HD

    A man is convicted of killing his boss, whom he suspected of having an affair with his wife. On board the train taking him to prison for his...

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  • 1934
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    Monte Carlo Nights

    Monte Carlo Nights

    5.9 1934 HD

    A man wrongfully convicted of murder escapes custody and goes in search of the real killer. The problem is that he only has one clue to go on.

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  • 1930
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    Only the Brave

    Only the Brave

    1 1930 HD

    Cooper is a Union Army officer who after being jilted by girlfriend, Virginia Bruce, volunteers on what could be a suicide mission. He volunteers to...

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  • 1942
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    Jealous

    Jealous

    1 1942 HD

    R.C.M. Soundie

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  • 1930
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    Only Saps Work

    Only Saps Work

    4 1930 HD

    Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., the film casts...

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  • 1933
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    Girl Missing

    Girl Missing

    5.1 1933 HD

    Kay and June, two showgirls, are hurt when they seek financial help from Daisy. On Daisy's wedding night when she is rendered missing, Kay and June...

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  • 1926
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    Beau Geste

    Beau Geste

    5.9 1926 HD

    Michael "Beau" Geste leaves England in disgrace and joins the infamous French Foreign Legion. He is reunited with his two brothers in North Africa,...

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  • 1932
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    It's Tough to Be Famous

    It's Tough to Be Famous

    5.7 1932 HD

    Scotty, an unwilling Navy war hero is cast into the limelight. He wants to get married and be an engineer, but is forced to fulfil the expectations...

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  • 1943
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    Calaboose

    Calaboose

    1 1943 HD

    A love-smitten cowpoke acciidentally causes a horse stampede.

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  • 1937
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    Affairs of Cappy Ricks

    Affairs of Cappy Ricks

    4.8 1937 HD

    Cappy Ricks, a crusty old sea captain, returns home from a long voyage to discover that his family and his business are in chaos--his daughter is set...

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  • 1937
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    Navy Blues

    Navy Blues

    5 1937 HD

    A sailor bets his friends he can get a date with any woman they choose. They pick out a librarian with glasses and a bookish appearance. When he...

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  • 1936
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    Three Married Men

    Three Married Men

    1 1936 HD

    Jennie Mullins and her fiancé Peter Cary are happily in love but their families are miserable about their relationship. The Carys and...

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  • 1931
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    The Runaround

    The Runaround

    7 1931 HD

    Filmed in an early Technicolor process, The Runaround tells the story of Broadway dancer Evelyn who refuses to play the gold-digging games indulged...

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  • 1931
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    Captain Applejack

    Captain Applejack

    6.5 1931 HD

    An ordinary man is confronted by gangsters who have reason to believe a treasure is buried somewhere on his property.

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  • 1936
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    Spendthrift

    Spendthrift

    5 1936 HD

    A profligate, polo-playing playboy (Henry Fonda) is married to a beautiful but superficial heiress (Mary Brian). They divorce, and the wife gets all...

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  • 1928
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    Varsity

    Varsity

    1 1928 HD

    The story deals with college life at Princeton with a different angle of situations and romance than is usually served from the screen (Tampa Times,...

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  • 1926
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    Brown of Harvard

    Brown of Harvard

    5.8 1926 HD

    Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for...

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  • 1930
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    Burning Up

    Burning Up

    3.5 1930 HD

    Racecar-driver Lou Larrigan gets mixed up with a crooked gang of racetrack promoters, and is in love with Ruth Morgan, whose father is marked as a...

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  • 1928
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    Forgotten Faces

    Forgotten Faces

    1 1928 HD

    A petty thief (Clive Brook) just robs the very rich at speakeasies, and gets away with it because the rich don't want the bad publicity, finally is...

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  • 1930
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    The Social Lion

    The Social Lion

    6 1930 HD

    Marco Perkins is a garage mechanic and a would-be-prizefighter who gets a place on the ritzy country club's polo team because he is the town's most...

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  • 1928
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    Partners in Crime

    Partners in Crime

    2 1928 HD

    After being dismissed for imitating his boss's voice on radio, former Assistant District Attorney Richard Deming witnesses a store robbery and is...

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  • 1928
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    Harold Teen

    Harold Teen

    7 1928 HD

    Farmboy Harold moves to the city and there attends high school. Soon he is very popular, his spirited nature causing much excitement on the campus....

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  • 1943
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    Danger! Women at Work

    Danger! Women at Work

    6 1943 HD

    Three women inherit a 10-ton truck and decide to go into business. Hi jinks ensue.

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  • 1925
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    The Street of Forgotten Men

    The Street of Forgotten Men

    6 1925 HD

    Easy-Money Charley, the best fake crippled beggar in New York, loses his beloved dog and adopts a dying prostitute's daughter to fill the empty place...

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  • 1924
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    Peter Pan

    Peter Pan

    7.035 1924 HD

    Peter Pan enters the nursery of the Darling children and, with the help of fairy dust, leads them off to Never Never Land, where they meet the...

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  • 1926
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    Paris at Midnight

    Paris at Midnight

    9 1926 HD

    In a Paris boarding house, a mysterious stranger seems to somehow solve the problems and conflicts of the residents, all the while hiding a secret of...

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  • 1926
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    Behind the Front

    Behind the Front

    6 1926 HD

    During World War I a young man joins the army and winds up befriending another young recruit, not knowing that it's the same pickpocket who stole his...

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  • 1929
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    The River of Romance

    The River of Romance

    1 1929 HD

    Mississippi, 1830's. Tom Rumsford comes back to Magnolia Landing, his parents'estate. Having been brought up in the North by Quaker relatives, he...

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  • 1930
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    The Kibitzer

    The Kibitzer

    4.7 1930 HD

    In this comedy, a Yiddish fellow cannot keep from kibitzing into other people's lives. Trouble ensues when he is mistakenly given a huge fortune in...

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  • 1925
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    The Air Mail

    The Air Mail

    1 1925 HD

    Russ Kane obtains work as a pilot in the airmail service with the purpose of robbing the mails. However, during his training period at the Reno...

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  • 1925
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    The Little French Girl

    The Little French Girl

    1 1925 HD

    Madame Vervier, a sophisticated woman, sends her daughter Alix to live with Owen Bradley's parents in London.

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  • 1934
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    Ever Since Eve

    Ever Since Eve

    1 1934 HD

    Neil Rogers, a young man who owns a substantial share of a Western gold mine, comes East and falls in love with the rather wild Elizabeth Vandegrift.

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  • 1933
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    Song of the Eagle

    Song of the Eagle

    1 1933 HD

    This drama centers on the fight for certain post-Prohibitionist groups to gain total control over the liquor industry. Much of the tale is focused...

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  • 1943
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    I Escaped from the Gestapo

    I Escaped from the Gestapo

    5.5 1943 HD

    A forger is forced to work for a Nazi spy ring. His conscience gets the better of him, though, and he secretly conspires with the FBI to turn over...

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  • 1941
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    I Was a Criminal

    I Was a Criminal

    1 1941 HD

    Aka Passport to Heaven. In Prussia shoemaker Voight needs a residence permit to get a job, but can only get a job if he already has a permit. He...

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  • 1926
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    More Pay - Less Work

    More Pay - Less Work

    1 1926 HD

    Albert Gran and E.J. Ratcliffe are warring San Francisco shipping magnates; Mary Brian is Gran’s daughter and Charles (Buddy) Rogers is...

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  • 1934
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    Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove

    Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove

    5.5 1934 HD

    Several members of MGM's 'galaxy of stars' attend an evening of music and a fashion show.

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  • 1930
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    Paramount on Parade

    Paramount on Parade

    6.4 1930 HD

    This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors

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  • 1931
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    Gun Smoke

    Gun Smoke

    5.5 1931 HD

    Following a killing and robbery in a big city back east, gang leader Kedge Darvas and some of his henchies take a train to a small western town in...

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  • 1929
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    Black Waters

    Black Waters

    1 1929 HD

    A mad captain poses as a cleric to murder people aboard a fogbound ship.

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  • 1927
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    Running Wild

    Running Wild

    5.75 1927 HD

    Cowardly Elmer Finch is browbeaten by his wife, daughter, fat son and the family dog. After hypnosis he is domineering. He enters a contract with a...

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  • 1934
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    College Rhythm

    College Rhythm

    4.7 1934 HD

    The story deals with the college rivalry of a piccolo player and an All-American halfback on the football team who both love the same co-ed. After...

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  • 1947
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    Dragnet

    Dragnet

    6 1947 HD

    Scotland Yard Inspector Geoffrey James comes to the United States looking for a band of international gem-thieves who have smuggled a rich load of...

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  • 1926
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    Stepping Along

    Stepping Along

    1 1926 HD

    Johnny Rooney is a fast-stepping young politician and Molly Taylor is an even faster-stepping showgirl in "George White's Scandals" in a tale of New...

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  • 1925
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    He's a Prince!

    He's a Prince!

    1 1925 HD

    Prince Alexis is the son of the king of a small European country. His duties, though fairly unimportant, nevertheless keep him so busy that he has no...

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  • 1933
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    Fog

    Fog

    5 1933 HD

    The murders are committed in swift succession on board a liner crossing the Atlantic in a dense fog, and many of the passengers come under suspicion...

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  • 1926
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    The Prince of Tempters

    The Prince of Tempters

    1 1926 HD

    Francis, the result of a clandestine marriage between the Duke of Chatsfield and a peasant girl, after being raised in a monastery following his...

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  • 1928
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    The Big Killing

    The Big Killing

    1 1928 HD

    The Beagles and the Hickses are two mountain families that have been feuding all their lives. The Hickses come up with a plan to get rid of their...

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  • 1927
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    Knockout Reilly

    Knockout Reilly

    1 1927 HD

    A Malcolm St. Clair silent boxing sports romantic love triangle prison melodrama about a steel worker who saves a girl in a bar fight by knocking out...

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  • 1926
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    The Enchanted Hill

    The Enchanted Hill

    1 1926 HD

    Based on a Peter B. Kyne novel, The Enchanted Hill featureds a triangle romance between Jack Holt, rancher's daughter Mary Brian and jealous foreman...

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  • 1936
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    Killer at Large

    Killer at Large

    6 1936 HD

    A master of disguise poses as a wax figure to rob a safe of its jewels.

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  • 1936
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    Once in a Million

    Once in a Million

    5 1936 HD

    Fantasy of a bank clerk who accepts a deposit of a million too late to put it in the bank and has to guard it over the weekend.

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  • 1928
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    Under the Tonto Rim

    Under the Tonto Rim

    1 1928 HD

    Gold miner Edd Denmeade loves Lucy Watson, the sister of the official mining claim recorder. Denmeade suspects Watson of killing his father, who...

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  • 1936
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    Two's Company

    Two's Company

    1 1936 HD

    The son of a stodgy British earl falls in love with the daughter of an American millionaire businessman. The fathers oppose the relationship.

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  • 1931
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    Hollywood Halfbacks

    Hollywood Halfbacks

    1 1931 HD

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  • 1954
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    Meet Corliss Archer

    Meet Corliss Archer

    1 1954 HD

    Meet Corliss Archer is an American sitcom that aired in syndication from April to December 1954. The series stars Ann Baker in the title role. The...

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