Blonde Venus (1932)

Blonde Venus (1932)

[7] Marlene Dietrich re-teams with director Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel) to play a woman-on-the-run in Blonde Venus. After her husband falls ill from radium poisoning, Dietrich performs in a nightclub to make money for his treatment. But when Cary Grant…
Devil and the Deep (1932)

Devil and the Deep (1932)

[6] Devil and the Deep stars Tallulah Bankhead as the wife of a U.S. naval commander played by Charles Laughton (receiving 'introducing' credit here). Laughton's character is mentally ill and insanely jealous of every man Bankhead ever comes into contact with, which…
This Is the Night (1932)

This Is the Night (1932)

[6] Cary Grant made his big-screen debut as a singing javelin thrower in this romantic comedy about adulterous lovers (Thelma Todd and Roland Young) who go to great lengths to hide their secret affair from the woman's husband (Grant). The cover-up involves…
Horse Feathers (1932)

Horse Feathers (1932)

[5] Groucho Marx plays the dean of a university in desperate need of a football win. His son (Zeppo) convinces him to recruit two football players at a local bar, but of course, Groucho recruits the wrong people (Chico and Harpo). When…
Miss Pinkerton (1932)

Miss Pinkerton (1932)

[6] Joan Blondell (The Public Enemy, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) stars as a bored nurse who gets recruited by a police detective to infiltrate a rich family's mansion and help him solve a suicide case that looks suspiciously like murder. Blondell is…
Strange Interlude (1932)

Strange Interlude (1932)

[2] This laughably bad melodrama is based on a Eugene O'Neill stage play about a woman who cheats on her mentally ill husband in order to have a kid who won't end up in the looney bin. Clark Gable and Norma Shearer…
Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Island of Lost Souls (1932)

[7] Charles Laughton plays H.G. Wells' mad scientist in the first film version of The Island of Dr Moreau. It's a reasonably faithful adaptation until the halfway point, where it gets as loose as the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter.…
Chandu the Magician (1932)

Chandu the Magician (1932)

[6] When a madman kidnaps the inventor of a lethal ray gun, it's up to a powerful hypnotist named Chandu to stop the fiend from unleashing the death ray on the world. This is Bela Lugosi in his prime. His performance as…
Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Red-Headed Woman (1932)

[5] Jean Harlow plays such a nasty little character in Red-Headed Woman, sleeping her way to the top of the workforce while ending marriages left and right. She's so cold and calculating, I almost wish the movie would have been like most…
Scarface (1932)

Scarface (1932)

[6] Paul Muni plays a thinly-veiled version of Al Capone in Howard Hawks' Scarface, a grim, violent gangster flick that was pretty controversial for its time. The lack of bloodshed keeps it tame by today's standards, but myriad onscreen deaths and an…