Paul Lukas

A look at actresses who starred in films with thought-provoking subjects made between 1930 and July 1934, before the Hollywood Production Code —the infamous Hays Code— was enforced.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

All-out war between the United States and an Asian country is averted when the two sides agree to settle their differences by each choosing a single soldier as champion and having the two men fight to the death on an isolated island.

Government agent Sol Madrid travels to Mexico with hooker Stacey to bring mobster Villanova and drug kingpin Dietrich to justice.

After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself.

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.

Mike works on a boat in Acapulco. When the bratty daughter of the boat owner gets him fired, Mike must find new work. Little boy Rauol helps him get a job as a lifeguard and singer at a local hotel. Clashes abound when Mike runs into the rival lifeguard, who is the champion diver of Mexico.

Karl from Germany and Marcelo from France emigrated to Argentina and became brothers-in-law. Karl soon returned to Germany to serve in the army. Marcelo and his children Julio and Chichi became Argentinean citizens but later returned to Paris. Karl became a general with a son (Heinrich) in the SS and in WWII he got a high job within the occupation administration in France.

Against the counsel of his friends, psychiatrist Dick Diver marries Nicole Warren, a beautiful but unstable young woman from a moneyed family. Thoroughly enraptured, he forsakes his career in medicine for life as a playboy, until one day Dick is charmed by Rosemary Hoyt, an American traveling abroad. The thought of Dick possibly being attracted to someone else sends Nicole on an emotional downward spiral that threatens to consume them both.

An Englishman and a cabby try to save an heiress from murder in Spain.

In Fort Lamy, French Equitorial Africa, idealist Morel launches a one-man campaign to preserve the African elephant from extinction, which he sees as the last remaining "roots of Heaven." At first, he finds only support from Minna, hostess of the town's only night club, who is in love with him, and a derelict ex-British Army Major, Forsythe. His crusade gains momentum and he is soon surrounded by an odd assortment of characters: Cy Sedgewick, an American TV commentator who becomes impressed and rallies world-wide support; a U.S. photographer, Abe Fields, who is sent to do a picture story on Morel and stays on to follow his ideals; Saint Denis, a government aide ordered to stop Morel; Orsini, a professional ivory hunter whose vested interests aren't the same as Morel's; and Waitari, leader of a Pan-African movement who follows Morel only for the personal good it will do his own campaign.

The son of a French aristocrat is accused of stealing his father's money and of stealing his step-sister's heart.

A ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.

During the British Raj, the orphan of a British soldier poses as a Hindu and is torn between his loyalty to a Buddhist mystic and aiding the English secret service.

Robert Ryan leads a group of Allied agents fighting an underground Nazi group in post-war Europe.

After hearing that a famous actress is dying in a hospital after being hit by a car, a reporter goes to the hospital to interview the actress. She then tells the reporter that her wealthy fiance, who was killed in an accident several years before, was actually murdered. Before long the reporter finds herself in a web of corruption, mental illness and murder.

After marrying an archaeologist, a Victorian-era woman with a sordid past realizes that she is not ready to settle down with one man.

A young Navy sailor has one night to find out why a woman was killed and he ended up with a bag of money after a drinking blackout.

In 1903, Doctor Huntington Bailey meets a friendly older lady during a train trip. She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died. Shortly afterward, he meets the strange couple and gets suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife.

When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.

In occupied France, a convicted thief and murderer escapes the guillotine when a bombing raid strikes the prison, but is quickly re-captured by the inspector of the Surete responsible for his original arrest. Fearing the guillotine more than his actual death, the convict inveigles the inspector to help him with a plan to rescue 100 Frenchmen taken by the Gestapo following an act of sabotage: he will confess to being the saboteur and allow himself to be executed by firing squad, the Gestapo's method of execution, thus freeing the 100 men.

On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.

After the mysterious disappearance of a German soldier from a Prague cafe, the staff and customers are held captive by the Nazis accused of murder and collusion with the Czech resistance.

Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

An Austrian prince flees his homeland when the Nazis take over and settles in London. He meets a beautiful Austrian émigré who makes him realize his mistake in leaving. He makes a deal with the Nazis to return in exchange for some Austrian prisoners, but discovers that the Nazis are not to be trusted.

After a young woman is coerced into prostitution and her brother framed for murder by an organized crime syndicate, retribution in the form of an ape visits the mobsters.

After intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located on Black Island near the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle. Undaunted, Mary sets sail for Cuba with a stowaway in her trunk—wise-cracking Larry Lawrence, a radio announcer who helps Mary get to the bottom of the voodoo magic, zombies and ghosts that supposedly curse the spooky estate.

A man witnesses a murder that isn't a murder, only to get involved with the magician and his wife who created the illusion. The insanely jealous magician husband eventually kills his wife, making for complications in life of unhappily married man who is now involved more than he ever thought he would be.

All but a prisoner in the exotic Malayan retreat she shares with her Chinese financier husband, Yuan Sing (Paul Lukas), British singer Sadie Merivale (Kay Walsh) begins a dangerous affair with nearby plantation owner Harold Marquess (Wallace Douglas). But when Sing discovers his wife’s betrayal, he plots to regain his honor by slowly torturing her lover to death.

Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure.

An Irish convict sentenced to hard labor in Australia escapes into the outback, and organizes a band of fellow escapees to fight a corrupt landlord.

FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.

On a train headed for England a group of travelers is delayed by an avalanche. Holed up in a hotel in a fictional European country, young Iris befriends elderly Miss Froy. When the train resumes, Iris suffers a bout of unconsciousness and wakes to find the old woman has disappeared. The other passengers ominously deny Miss Froy ever existed, so Iris begins to investigate with another traveler and, as the pair sleuth, romantic sparks fly.

The daughter of a murdered financier works as a jewelry salesperson while she tracks her father's colleagues who plotted against him.

The story of a surly crew, an honest God-fearing captain, a hardboiled-but-loyal Scotch mate, a scoundrelly second-mate, and then a mutiny, the fight and the final voyage to a safe harbor. But not before the Captain has been murdered, his pretty daughter in peril, her rescue by the single passenger on board, and a member of the crew thrown overboard by another crew member.

A remarkable story of love lost and found, as a young couple are separated by circumstance, and plunged into emotional turmoil by a reunion...

Two reporters pose as man and wife in order to get the goods on a munitions supplier and the rumours of war in Europe.

Time marches on.

Three young women in Budapest share living quarters while searching for romance.

A retired auto manufacturer and his wife take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.

A blackmailer preys on an actress who is trying to protect her daughter from her past.

The young Gascon D'Artagnan arrives in Paris, his heart set on joining the king's Musketeers. He is taken under the wings of three of the most respected and feared Musketeers, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Together they fight to save France and the honor of a lady from the machinations of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

A book publisher finds his business floundering, which prompts his socially ambitious wife to desert him for a society millionaire, leaving him with their young son. The publisher's fortunes improve dramatically, however, when a best-selling romance novelist decides to publish her new book with his firm. In the meantime, his ex-wife has married the millionaire, and she and her new mother-in-law come up with a plan to sue her ex-husband for custody of the boy.

When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.

After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to both Leopold Fischer, who unknown to him is Evelyn's uncle, and Father Brown, in which he vows he will steal from them the ten diamonds that comprise the "Flying Star." Flambeau intends to give these diamonds to Evelyn. Father Brown, whose gold cross contains some of the Flying Star diamonds, is determined to meet Flambeau before he is arrested, to reform and redeem his soul.

Conceited radio announcer irritates everyone else at the station.

Set during the first World War in neutral, but pro-German, Holland, Lewis Allison, an interned British officer, is paroled to the castle of Baron Von Leyden and finds living there, but now married to German officer Rupert Von Narwitz, his childhood sweetheart Julie. Long discussions between Julie and Allison, centering on family conflicts that kept them apart, take place before the severely wounded Von Narwitz returns to the castle and more long discussions ensue.

After accidentally killing her no-good husband, Judy makes her true love promise not to tell her small son about his imprisoned mother. She is released ten years later...

When a novelist is murdered, suspicion falls on all the women he had affairs with--and then wrote about in his books.

A distraught movie extra flees a movie set with a fancy costume and car. Circumstances lead her to begin impersonating a Countess, while a fellow extra takes on the role of her servant.

A beautiful woman mistakes a Prince's butler for the Prince.

Little Women is a coming-of-age drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by their beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.

While waiting out World War I in a German POW camp, Captain Fred Allison discovers that his oldest and dearest friend Digby has also been captured and put into the same camp with him. Fred longs for news of his wife, Monica, but Digby speaks little of her. Digby knows a secret about Monica, a secret he must keep from his friend, and it wears at his conscience so much that he attempts a reckless escape.

A singer on a gambling ship is married to a wealthy playboy. When he is found murdered, all evidence points to her as the culprit, and she is put on trial for the crime.

According to a legend, the mansion's "blue room" is cursed -- everyone who has ever spent the night in that room has met with an untimely end. The three suitors of the heroine wager that each can survive a night in the forbidding blue room.

When a famous doctor kills his adulterous wife, he is defended by his best friend, an attorney who suspects that his own wife is having an affair.

A Russian waiter in New York City becomes a national celebrity after he develops a "system" for winning at contract bridge.

A Broadway actress with a problematic past falls hard for the author of her new play.

Just prior to the outbreak of World War I, in the British West African town of Akkra, English woman Myra Carson becomes involved in a scandal and is deported. While Myra's ship is docked at Duala, in German West Africa, the war breaks out and she finds herself facing internment by the Germans.

In the Austrian manor of Baron and Baroness von Burgen, the relationship between the upstairs aristocracy and the downstairs staff is quite positive. The servants seem to enjoy their time together, and some even fall in love, as head butler Albert and maid Anna have done. But when lecherous new chauffeur Karl Schneider enters the house, affairs and blackmail follow, and the harmony of the home is slowly destroyed.

Tallulah Bankhead's first Hollywood movie was this romantic-drama, in which she plays Susan, the unhappy wife of oil rigger Walt (Charles Bickford), who labors in a Central American oil field. The bored Susan falls in love with Walt's good friend Ken (Paul Lukas) but keeps her husband in the dark about her feelings... until he's plunged into darkness for real when he loses his eyesight. Susan finds her attentions then wandering yet another man, Davis (Ralph Forbes), and Ken urges her to return to Walt.

A young wife wants to have children, but her husband neglects her. She confides her longings to a handsome brain surgeon. Complications ensue.

When the boyfriend of a rich, bored socialite dies from a weak heart, she finds herself attracted to the doctor who treated him, a hard-working idealist decidedly different from the usual spoiled society rich kids she is used to.

A hopelessly silly young flibbertigibbet from Mississippi is faced with the choice of her poor, boorish New Jersey boyfriend or a dashing Opera star, a man of experience.

Two sisters from Indiana, the wide-eyed and innocent Mae Thorpe, and her sister June, more streetwise, move into the Rolf House for Homeless Girls in New York. With June's help, Mae obtains a job as a stenographer for scientist Joseph von Schraeder, while June gets work as a telegraph operator at Western Union.

Michael Morda, a young sculptor living in San Francisco, is madly in love with Elinor Hunter, and they plan to be married. When Elinor becomes jealous of Julie Stressman, an old friend of Michael's and one of his models, Michael reluctantly asks Julie not to visit him at his studio. They agree to meet only at the construction site where he is working on a sculpture for which Julie is modeling. When Elinor also shows up at the site, Julie leaves so as to avoid a confrontation, but she is killed by some falling materials. Julie's dying request is that Michael adopt her daughter Mitzi, whose father died years earlier. In order to prevent Mitzi from being taken to an orphanage, Michael lies and says he is her father. Elinor hears this, and without asking questions, leaves him and marries another man the same night.

A diplomat is blackmailed by crooked vice cops into helping them frame prostitutes.

A mobster's daughter leads her boyfriend from the circus into bootlegging.

In this society drama set in contemporary England, a noblewoman pretends to be an adulteress in order to protect her sister-in-law, who actually is.

A woman becomes estranged from her daughter when the girl learns that she is illegitimate.

A lawyer, left by his wife gets drunk and marries a chorus girl, or so he learns the morning after.

An exhaustingly cantankerous old man solves a jewel robbery.

Beautiful manicurist Hallie Hobart sets her sights on handsome David Stone, the son of wealthy wheat farmer Ezra Stone. Professing to hate men, Hallie is only interested in luring David in for a lucrative business deal. David easily falls in love, but older brother Mark brands Hallie a gold-digger. To get even with the straight-laced Stone family, Hallie accepts David's marriage proposal.

A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.

Lieut. Robert Banks, an American aviator on leave in Paris, meets Mary Gordon, a young American who lives abroad, but their romance is cut short by his return to the front. In an air battle, Robert brings down and captures the Grey Eagle, Baden, and takes him to American Intelligence in Paris. Mary, ostensibly a spy for the Germans, drugs Robert, who awakens to find that his uniform has been stolen by Baden. Later, in an exciting air conflict, Baden is wounded but shoots down Robert's plane. The German rescues him, however, and takes him to an Allied hospital, assuring him of Mary's love; his faith in her is restored when he learns that she is actually a spy for U. S. Intelligence.

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett.

Gardoni, a down-on-his-luck vaudeville performer, is taken in by a fellow performer, a clown who has a bicycle riding act. Gardoni shows his appreciation by stealing the clown's act and his girlfriend, whom he marries.

Odd little circus film about trapeze artists and obsessive love.

A ruthless stockbroker sells short in the copper business and ruins the life of his friends by ruining their finances.

Shortly after the United States enters World War I in 1917, a Broadway actress agrees to let a naive soldier court her in order to impress his friends, but a real romance soon begins.

Nancy Carroll stars in Manhattan Cocktail as Babs, a college coed who dreams of becoming a famous actress. Joining up with her campus chums Fred (Richard Arlen) and Bob (Danny O'Shea), likewise aspiring thespians, Babes heads to Broadway with stars in her eyes. The winsome threesome are quickly disillusioned by the heartless machinations of nasty producer Renov (Paul Lukas) and his harridan wife (Lilyan Tashman). Before the plot proper gets under way, the audience is regaled with a cute "mythological" prologue, featuring the same three leading actors. Manhattan Cocktail was a silent picture, except for two brief musical numbers showcasing Nancy Carroll.

A silent film directed by Ludwig Berger.

Night Watch is a 1928 American drama film directed by Alexander Korda and starring Billie Dove, Paul Lukas, and Donald Reed. It was an adaptation of the dramatic 1921 play In the Night Watch, written by Michael Morton. The film is set almost entirely on a French warship at the beginning of the First World War.

Rachel becomes the leading actress in the Comédie Française through the patronage of three influential men: Baron Hartman, the wealthiest man in France; Count Vareski, a relative of Napoleon; and Dr. Durande. All three men are in love with her, but she throws them over when she falls in love with Raoul Duval....

Aspiring newsreel camera girl Pat Clancy, is hired by her father, a publisher, to work on The Sun and causes Scoop Morgan, the paper's best cameraman, to quit in protest of the hiring of a woman. The Mercury hires Scoop, and there begins a heated rivalry between him and Pat. Pat gets a few lucky breaks and manages to get a beat on Scoop during her brief career. After she exposes the theft of a jewel from the turban of a visiting maharajah, she and Scoop are kidnapped by Clayton, the thief, and taken aboard his yacht. Rescued, she and Scoop find love and happiness.

A woman allows her husband, who she knows no longer loves her, to believe that she has been killed in a train wreck. Her husband later finds her as a hostess in a gambling den.

Set during the 16th-century Spanish occupation of Flanders, the story concentrates on the fiercely patriotic Mark Van Ryke (Colman). Donning the guise of "Leatherface," a swashbuckling masked avenger, Van Ryke performs his derring-do on behalf of the Prince of Orange (Nigel de Brulier). Naturally, Van Ruke considers beautiful Spanish aristocrat Donna Leonora de Vargas (Vilma Banky) to be a bitter enemy, and the feeling is mutual. To no one's surprise, however, Van Ryke and Donna Leonara eventually fall in love (hence the title). The pulse-pounding climax finds Van Ryke riding hell-for-leather through a rainstorm to warn the Flemish troops about the Spaniards' plans to burn the city of Ghent to the ground. Two Lovers was based on Madame Orczy's novel Leatherface, and adapted for the screen by Alice Duer Miller.

In English known informally as "The Half of a Boy" and "Stepmother". Based on the novel by Kálmán Mikszáth. After his wife's death Gáthy Lörinc (in Serbian version: Mr. Wickfield) remarries and in secret he takes his son born from this second marriage to the same foster parents who take care his first son born from his first marriage and left without mother. Five years later, when both boys return home, his wife does not know which is her own child, and which is the child of the previous wife, so the husband's desire is fulfilled, his orphaned son doesn't have step-mother, because his wife loves both boys equally, as her sweet children.

Silent film drama

Directed by Béla Balogh.