Ruth Donnelly

Hard to Handle (1933)

[6] James Cagney stars as a career con artist who keeps trying to prove his worth to his girlfriend (Mary Brian) and her mother (Ruth Donnelly) through a series of promotional scams. From a rigged dance marathon and a bogus ocean pier treasure hunt, to a fat-reducing cream and a grapefruit-growing buy-in, Cagney’s character gets into one jam after another, all while his would-be mother-in-law’s …

Ladies They Talk About (1933)

[5] Pre-Code bad girl Barbara Stanwyck stars in this hybrid of a love story and a prison movie. Stanwyck plays Nan, a woman who works with a team of mobsters who rob banks. She goes in and distracts the security guards while the men rush in with guns and grab the cash. But Nan is eventually captured and sentenced to prison. But then an evangelical …