Before the Production Code Administration in 1934 clamped down with strict censorship codes, Hollywood produced a number of frank and sordid melodramas featuring tough, sinful, bawdy, naughty and fallen women, pleasure-loving golddiggers, prostitutes and ruthless divorcees - some of whom were repaid for their sinfulness and indiscretions by rejection, drug-addiction, death, or anonymity. The silent Madame X (1920) was one of the first of such films - in which a woman (Pauline Frederick) was separated from her legitimate child, and then defended by her unknowing, grown-up son when wrongly accused of murder.

The Divorcee - 1930Norma Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for MGM's The Divorcee (1930) as a recent divorcee who finds revenge on her faithless husband by becoming a philanderer herself. Cecil B. DeMille directed the outrageous Madam Satan (1930) about a wealthy socialite (Kay Johnson) who pretends to be a sultry French vamp in order to seduce her own husband away from his mistress. (The film featured an infamous debauchery scene - a masquerade costume ball aboard a zeppelin dirigible above New York harbor.)

Download Melodramatic Tales of Fallen and Liberated Women

Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is producer/director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant, satirical, provocative black comedy/fantasy regarding doomsday and Cold War politics that features an accidental, inadvertent, pre-emptive nuclear attack. The undated, landmark film - the first commercially-successful political satire about nuclear war, has been inevitably compared to another similar suspense film released at the same time - the much-more-serious and melodramatic Fail-Safe (1964). However, this was a cynically objective, Monty Python-esque, humorous, biting response to the apocalyptic fears of the 1950s.

The witty screenplay, co-authored by the director (with Terry Southern), was based on Peter George's novel Red Alert (the U.S. title). [George's work, under his pseudonym Peter Bryant, was first published in England with the title Two Hours to Doom. Early drafts of the script were titled Edge of Doom and The Delicate Balance of Terror.] The novel's primary concern was the threat of an accidental nuclear war. Dr. Strangelove himself did not appear in the novel, however - he was added by Kubrick and co-screenwriter Southern.

Download Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964)

Short who-dun-its in the 1930s and 40s featured the B-movie, Canton-born, Honolulu-based Oriental sleuth Charlie Chan, derived from Earl Derr Biggers' works, and based on real-life Hawaiian cop Chang Apana (very unlike the movie version). The round-faced, meticulous sleuth was one of the screen's most prolific detectives, with 46 Chan films and one serial from 1926 to 1949. [Charlie Chan was never played on the screen by a Chinese actor.]

Download Foreign Sleuth: Charlie Chan

sident Abraham Lincoln has often been the primary subject of biopics, including:
D. W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) with Walter Huston in the adult title role
John Ford's quasi-biography Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) with Henry Fonda in the title role
Raymond Massey in an adaptation of Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

Download Abraham Lincoln and other Political Biopics

Ghosts as the subject of films date back to World War II era and post-war romantic comedies. A lengthy list of films with angels in them can be found in the genre section on fantasy films. Originally, supernatural apparitions were not intended to frighten audiences, but to entertain as they assisted earth-bound characters out of crazy predicaments, or interacted with them. For example:

Download Films with Benevolent Ghosts

Starring Mel Gibson
Jodie Foster
Anton Yelchin

Review:

Depression is a difficult condition to explore in modern American cinema because no one wants to be around depressed people. We can see characters be sad, but only if they were happy before and will rally and be happy again by the time the movie ends. But an honest look at someone suffering from depression is rare and on that count The Beaver deserves acclaim. Unfortunately, despite the confidence of Kyle Killen’s script, director Jodie Foster never manages to bring a thoughtful vision the film. Even worse, no chemistry is developed between the characters, which is a serious issue when you’re making an intimate family drama. Individually, the actors do a terrific job, but the story never finds the emotional core that ties them together.

Download The Beaver

Cast
Jeff Daniels as Richard Dunn
Emma Stone as Abby
Ryan Reynolds as Captain Excellent
Lisa Kudrow as Claire Dunn
Hunter Parrish as Bryce
Kieran Culkin as Christopher
Arabella Field as Lucy

Download Paper man

Stars: Daniell Edwards, Sami Darr and Anna Bård


Download Westbrick Murders

Cast
Zoe Felix
Eric Savin
Arie Elmaleh
Ivan Franek
Igor Skreblin
Margaux Guenier
Philippe Krhajac
Jana Bitternova
Clara Barbosa
Typhaine Hilaire
Thais Fischer
Goran Kostic
Eric Kailey
Sacha Mijovic


Download Captifs

A visual effects artist who worked on several Dreamworks films like "Shrek" faces more than 4 years in prison -- after he was accused of beating his neighbor's puppy to death ... with a hammer.


Download Dreamworks Movie Artist Charged in Fatal Dog Beating