"A Free Soul" (1931)

It's the cast that make this a Hollywood melodrama of the finest order served thick and hammy. Just as they famously would eight years later in "Gone With the Wind", Clark Gable and Lesley Howard vie for the affection of a spoiled society girl. This time it's Adrian gowned and furred Norma Shearer who has to choose between the pantingly sexy mobster (Gable) and the wealthy--but somewhat stiff--WASP (Howard). But there's one more man in this boiling pot of emotions: Shearer's drunkard but brilliant trial lawyer, Lionel Barrymore. He won't accept his daughter slumming with the underworld cad Gable who's also his client. It all comes to a not-to-be-believed stunner of a courtroom scene with tensions and revelations galore. Barrymore probably won the Oscar for this canny bit of scene-stealing alone. Pre-code malarky but oh-so-watchable.

"They Live by Night" (1948)

What makes the film noir genre so endlessly fascinating is the many variations on its heady thematic brew of alienation/crime/desire/psychosis. This fine example from first time director Nicholas Ray hits all those high notes and then some. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donell are pitch perfect as two teenage country rubes who get caught up in a string of botched bank robberies with two ex-cons, Howard DaSilva and Jay C. Flippen. As the movie progresses you very much care for these kids who just want to escape to a better life but this being a nasty noir world, once you've been pulled into a life of crime it's pretty much a fast descent to a bad end. There have been many young criminal lovers-on-the-run movies since (the most famous, "Bonnie & Clyde", borrows extensively from it), but this one has an indelible place all it's own in that dark place where passion meets sin.

"Anchors Aweigh" (1945)

This wartime musical has a thin hodgepodge of a plot but it boasts a smorgasbord of entertaining highlights. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra are two sailors on shore leave for four days in Hollywood with one goal: girls, girls, girls. Kelly is the ladies' man and Sinatra the shy kid from Brooklyn who needs to be shown the romantic ropes. They meet and vie for the affections of aspiring actress Kathryn Grayson and her too-cute-for-words nephew, little Dean Stockwell who steals every scene he's in. Kelly shot to mega-stardom with this vehicle and it's easy to see why. He's charismatic, sexy, and his boundless athletic dancing is hard not to love, he draws you in like a tractor beam. By comparison, Sinatra is way overshadowed, he seems reticent, like he knows he's being outshined, but there's no denying he can still sell a handful of Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn numbers with that smooth baritone Voice. Grayson fulfills the requirements of lovely eye candy, plus she has a couple of faux operatic songs in her signature trilly coloratura style. The famous dance scene with Kelly jumping into an animated fairytale world and dueting with Jerry mouse still looks great.

"The Divorcee" (1930)

That goody-goody Grand Dame of Hollwood, Norma Shearer, nabbed an Oscar by going bad in this pre-Code romance drama. She's a high-society It Girl who falls in love and marries New York's biggest catch (Chester Morris). All is well until an old flame of his turns up and he admits to some marital cheating. She decides that turnabout is fair play so she shacks up with one of his best friends. Then things really get unpleasant. Like most early talkies, it's a bit stagey and the acting is mannered, but the frank handling of sex, infidelity and equality of the sexes (in 1930!) make it a fascinating outing. And La Shearer gets to wear some stunning Adrian gowns through all that hand wrung suffering.