Gavin Gordon

[4] Barbara Stanwyck plays an engaged Christian missionary who is separated from her husband-to-be during the Chinese civil war in Shanghai. She is rescued by General Yen (Danish actor Nils Asther with ‘squinty eyes’ makeup), who takes her to his palace and looks after her. But Stanwyck soon realizes she hasn’t so much been rescued as kidnapped. While begging to be reunited with her husband, …

[7] In this early Frank Capra flick, romance blossoms and seeds of betrayal are sown during two days at a bank where a robbery leads to a public panic that threatens the bank’s existence. Walter Huston plays the bank’s owner, an optimist who lends to hard-working Americans who can’t get loans anywhere else. He’s the sort of boss who treats the security guard and the …