The Benson Murder Case is a 1930 American pre-Code crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and written for the screen by S. S. Van Dine and Bartlett Cormack. The film stars William Powell, William “Stage” Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Paul Lukas, Natalie Moorhead, Richard Tucker and May Beatty. The film was released on April 13, 1930, by Paramount Pictures, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by S. S. Van Dine.

In the film, foppish amateur sleuth Philo Vance (William Powell) takes on a surprise murder investigation when ruthless stockbroker Anthony Benson (Richard Tucker) is found dead at an impromptu party in his lavish country estate which Vance himself attended. As Vance follows the trail of deception, he encounters a cast of shady suspects including the likes of notorious gambler Harry Gray (William ‘Stage’ Boyd), enigmatic actress Fanny Del Roy (Natalie Moorhead), and mysterious gigolo, Adolph Mohler (Paul Lukas). With the help of tough-talking Sgt. Ernest Heath (Eugene Pallette) and sharp-witted District Attorney John F. X. Markham (E. H. Calvert), Vance navigates a dangerous web of lies, greed, and betrayal to determine who killed Benson.

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The post The Benson Murder Case 1930 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Front Page is a 1931 American pre-Code comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The supporting cast includes Mary Brian, George E. Stone, Matt Moore, Edward Everett Horton and Walter Catlett. At the 4th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Milestone for Best Director, and Menjou for Best Actor.

In 2010, this film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The film is in the public domain.

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The post The Front Page, 1931 by Howard Hughes appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Cimarron is a 1931 American pre-Code epic Western film starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, and directed by Wesley Ruggles. Released by RKO, it won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (written by Howard Estabrook and based on Edna Ferber’s 1930 novel Cimarron), and Best Production Design (by Max Rée). It is the first of four Westerns to ever win the top honor at the Academy Awards, being followed almost 60 years later by Dances with Wolves in 1990, Unforgiven in 1992, and No Country For Old Men in 2007.

Both Dix and Dunne were nominated for their leading roles, and Edward Cronjager for Best Cinematography, but did not win. Estelle Taylor, Edna May Oliver, and Roscoe Ates appeared in supporting roles. Epic in scope, spanning forty years from 1889 to 1929, Cimarron was RKO’s most expensive production up to that date, as well as its first production to win the Best Picture Oscar. It was a critical success, although it did not recoup its production costs during its initial run in 1931. Due to the film being registered for copyright late in 1930, it entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

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The post Cimarron, 1931 – Academy Award for Best Picture appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Glenn Duffie Shriver (born November 23, 1981) is an American convicted of conspiracy to spy for China.

Shriver’s experience was dramatized in the short film Game of Pawns, produced by the Counter-Intelligence Unit of the FBI and released online in April 2014. One of the film’s goals was to warn students of dangers in China. It featured the actor Joshua Murray as Shriver.

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China: The Roots of Madness is a 1967 Cold War era, made-for-TV documentary film produced by David L. Wolper, written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Theodore H. White with production cost funded by a donation from John and Paige Curran. The film has been released under Creative Commons license. It won an Emmy Award in the documentary category.

The film attempts to analyze the anti-Western sentiment in China from the official American perspective, covering 170 years of China’s political history, from Boxer Rebellion of the Qing Dynasty to Red Guards of Cultural Revolution. The film focuses on the power struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, amid heavy political intervention from Moscow, with Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong playing the pivotal role at the center stage.

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The post China: The Roots of Madness, 1967 propaganda film appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Have You Got Any Castles is a 1938 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin. The short was released on June 25, 1938.

Characters from well-known works of literary fiction come to life inside of a library that was just closed to the public (outside of the library) by the owner.

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The post Cartoon: Have You Got Any Castles, 1938 with voice from Mel Blanc appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy television series broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. The show had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozarks region who move to posh Beverly Hills, California after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by writer Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired “country cousin” series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies.

The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among the top 20 most-watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, twice ranking as the number one series of the year, with a number of episodes that remain among the most-watched television episodes in history. It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. The series remains in syndicated reruns, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film remake by 20th Century Fox.

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The post The Beverly Hillbillies, 1962 (serial) Episode 3 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

In November 1932, King Features signed an agreement with Fleischer Studios to have Popeye and the other Thimble Theatre characters begin appearing in a series of animated cartoons released by Paramount Pictures. The first cartoon in the series was released in 1933, and Popeye cartoons remained a staple of Paramount’s release schedule for nearly 25 years. Billy Costello was the original voice of Popeye, a voice that was replicated by later performers, such as Jack Mercer and even Mae Questel. Many of the Thimble Theatre characters, including Wimpy, Poopdeck Pappy, and Eugene the Jeep, eventually made appearances in the Paramount cartoons, though Olive Oyl’s extended family and Ham Gravy were absent. Thanks to the animated-short series, Popeye became even more of a sensation than he had been in comic strips, and by 1938, polls showed that the sailor was Hollywood’s most popular cartoon character.

Although Segar used spinach as a prop a few times, it was Max Fleischer who realized its potential as a trademark. In almost every Popeye cartoon, the sailor is invariably put into what seems like a hopeless situation, upon which (usually after a beating), a can of spinach becomes available, and Popeye quickly opens the can and consumes its contents. Upon swallowing the spinach, Popeye’s physical strength immediately becomes superhuman, and he is easily able to save the day, and very often rescue Olive Oyl from a dire situation.

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The post Cartoon: A Date To Skate, 1938 – Popeye appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss is a 1936 British romantic comedy film directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Cary Grant. It is a remake of the 1920 film The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss.

The film was re-issued in the United States in 1937 under the title The Amazing Adventure (also alternatively Romance and Riches), and was edited down from the original UK running time of 80 minutes, to 62 minutes. Most prints these days are the shorter one.

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The post The Amazing Adventure, 1936 starring Cary Grant appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Rain or Shine is a 1930 American pre-Code film directed by Frank Capra and starring Joe Cook, Louise Fazenda and Joan Peers. In the on-screen credits, Fazenda and Peers are shown side by side, with Fazenda first. In fact Peers plays the heroine. Fazenda appears as a Cooch dancer in what might be called a cameo role today. The film was adapted from a hit Broadway musical of the same name and was originally planned as a full-scale musical. Due to the public backlash against musical films (beginning in the latter part of the summer of 1930), all musical numbers were discarded before release. This move proved to be prudent as the film was a box office success, continuing the streak of hits Capra directed for the young Columbia Pictures studio.

As a film published in 1930, it entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

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The post Rain or Shine, 1930 directed by Frank Capra appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Hitch-Hiker is a 1953 film noir directed by Ida Lupino, about two fishing buddies who pick up a mysterious hitchhiker during a trip to Mexico. Inspired by the crime spree of the psychopathic murderer Billy Cook (1928–1952), the screenplay was written by Robert L. Joseph, Lupino, and her former husband Collier Young, based on a story by blacklisted Out of the Past screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring (who did not receive screen credit).

The Hitch-Hiker is regarded as the first American mainstream film noir directed by a woman and was selected in 1998 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

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The post The Hitch-Hiker, 1953 film noir directed by Ida Lupino “first film noir directed by a woman” appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Ladies of Leisure is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Ralph Graves, and Lowell Sherman. The screenplay by Jo Swerling is based on the 1924 play Ladies of the Evening by Milton Herbert Gropper, which ran for 159 performances on Broadway.

The film is about an artist from a wealthy family who hires a “party girl” as his model. As they get to know each other, the girl begins to regret her past, and the two fall in love, but they must face his family’s strong opposition to their union. Ladies of Leisure received generally positive reviews, and Stanwyck’s performance was praised by critics. The success of the film made Stanwyck a star.

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The post Ladies of Leisure, 1930 directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Ghost Train is a 1941 British mystery thriller film directed by Walter Forde based on the 1923 play of the same name written by Arnold Ridley.

Plot:
Tommy Gander (Arthur Askey), a vaudeville comedian, pulls the communication cord on a GWR express train, bringing it to a stop so he can retrieve his hat. Returning to the train, he escapes an angry conductor by ducking into a compartment occupied by attractive blonde Jackie Winthrop (Carole Lynne), with whom Gander flirts. Another passenger, Teddy (Richard Murdoch), has his eye on Jackie as well, but her companion Richard Winthrop (Peter Murray-Hill) ejects both of them from the compartment.

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The post The Ghost Train, 1941 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

King of Jazz is a 1930 American pre-Code color musical film starring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. In the 1920s Whiteman signed and featured jazz musicians including Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang (both are seen and heard in the film), Bix Beiderbecke (who had left before filming began), Frank Trumbauer, and others.

King of Jazz was filmed in the early two-color Technicolor process and was produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal Pictures. The film featured several songs sung on camera by the Rhythm Boys (Bing Crosby, Al Rinker and Harry Barris), as well as off-camera solo vocals by Crosby during the opening credits and, very briefly, during a cartoon sequence. King of Jazz still survives in a near-complete color print and is not a lost film, unlike many contemporary musicals that now exist only either in incomplete form or as black-and-white reduction copies.

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The post King of Jazz, 1930 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Sadist (also known as Profile of Terror and Sweet Baby Charlie) is a 1963 black-and-white exploitation film written and directed by James Landis, and stars Arch Hall, Jr. The film was distributed by Fairway International Pictures of the United States and Prima Film of Canada.

The film is loosely based on the killing spree of Charles Starkweather, upon which the later films Badlands (1973) and Natural Born Killers (1994) were also based. It was shot by famed cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond over a period of 2 weeks for $33,000 with a cast of five, one of whom doubled as the film’s production manager. It was Zsigmond’s first full-length film as a director of photography, and he is credited as “William Zsigmond.”

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The post The Sadist, 1963 film appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Scrooge is a 1935 British fantasy film directed by Henry Edwards and starring Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop and Robert Cochran. Hicks appears as Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser who hates Christmas. It was the first sound version of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, not counting a 1928 short subject that now appears to be lost. Hicks had previously played the role of Scrooge on the stage many times beginning in 1901, and again in a 1913 British silent film version.

Plot:
On Christmas Eve in 1843 Ebenezer Scrooge (Sir Seymour Hicks) a cold-hearted and greedy elderly money-lender is seen working in his freezing counting house along with his suffering, under-paid clerk Bob Cratchit (Donald Calthrop). Two fellow business men arrive at the counting house to collect a donation for the poor from Scrooge but the old man instead supports the prisons and workhouses and goes as far to say if the poor would rather die then they ‘better do it and decrease the surplus population’. Scrooge catches Bob trying to take some coal but warns him he will be out of a job if he does not go back to work. Scrooge then refuses to dine with his only relative Fred his nephew and claims Christmas is ‘Humbug!’.

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The post Scrooge, 1935 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Angel on My Shoulder is a 1946 American fantasy film about a deal between the Devil and a dead man.

The film was an independent production, produced by Charles R. Rogers and David W. Siegel, directed by Archie Mayo, written by Harry Segall (who also wrote the screenplay for Here Comes Mr. Jordan and the play Heaven Can Wait) and Roland Kibbee, and released by United Artists. The film was Mayo’s last before his retirement.

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The post Angel on My Shoulder, 1946 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Terrytoons, Inc. was an American animation studio headquartered in New Rochelle, New York, which was active from 1929 until its closure on December 29, 1972 (and returned between 1987 and 1996 for television in name only). Founded by Paul Terry, Frank Moser, and Joseph Coffman, it operated out of the “K” Building in downtown New Rochelle and later nearby at 38 Centre Avenue.

The studio created many cartoon characters including Fanny Zilch, Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Little Roquefort, the Terry Bears, Dimwit, and Luno; Terry’s pre-existing character Farmer Al Falfa was also often featured in the series.

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The post Africa Squawks, 1939 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

The Black Raven is a 1943 American film directed by Sam Newfield, produced and released by Producers Releasing Corporation.

Cast:
George Zucco as Amos Bradford aka The Raven
Wanda McKay as Lee Winfield
Robert Livingston as Allen Bentley
Noel Madison as Mike Bardoni
Byron Foulger as Horace Weatherby
Charles B. Middleton as Sheriff
Robert Middlemass as Tim Winfield
Glenn Strange as Andy
I. Stanford Jolley as Whitey Cole
Jimmy Aubrey appears uncredited as Roadblock Watchman.

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The post The Black Raven, 1943 appeared first on Public Domain Movies.

Morocco is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou. Based on the 1927 novel Amy Jolly (the on-screen credits state: from the play ‘Amy Jolly’) by Benno Vigny and adapted by Jules Furthman, the film is about a cabaret singer and a Legionnaire who fall in love during the Rif War, and whose relationship is complicated by his womanizing and the appearance of a rich man who is also in love with her. The film is famous for a scene in which Dietrich performs a song dressed in a man’s tailcoat and kisses another woman (to the embarrassment of the latter), both of which were considered scandalous for the period.

Dietrich was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, von Sternberg for Best Director, Hans Dreier for Best Art Direction, and Lee Garmes for Best Cinematography. In 1992, Morocco was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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The post Morocco, 1930 starring Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich appeared first on Public Domain Movies.