Kept Husbands, 1931.
Joel McCrea and Dorothy Mackaill.
Grand Slam, 1933.
Paul Lukas and Sally Blane.
This terrifying yet pathetic scene was cut by the censors of several states. Through the child who does not fear him, the monster discovers his own humanity. Yet he kills her.
Baron Frankenstein's sadistic assistant torments the monster with fire, the only thing he fears. Eventually it destroys him.
In Bride of Frankenstein, 1935, the pathos of the monster's distorted humanity was emphasized. His obliging creator makes him a woman of his own who takes one look at her prospective mate and screams in horror. Elsa Lanchester is the synthetic woman.
Count Dracula's three sisters, also vampires, sleep in coffins in the dungeons of Castle Dracula.
Dracula, 1931. Bela Lugosi as the vampire is not a figure in masquerade but a fiend who actually sucks the blood of humans, in this case Helen Chandler’s.
The Return of the Vampire, 1944. The Wolf Man, Matt Willis, tenderly opens the coffin bed of the vampire, Bela Lugosi, apparently for the purpose of delivering a package.
Joan Crawford hold a "lingerie party" on her yacht in Dance, Fools, Dance, 1931.
A fan magazine used this publicity still of Norma Talmadge on its cover in 1929, but painted out the number 5 on the mike and substituted 13. A veteran of twenty years of the movies, Miss Talmadge had grown a little bored with stardom, but the talkies seemed to challenge her and after more than a year of voice instruction she made a successful sound debut in New York Nights, 1930. But her second talkie, based on Belasco's Madame Dubarry, evoked from a critic: "She speaks the Belascoan rodomontades in a Vitagraph accent." Her sister Constance, already retired, wired her, "Leave them while you're looking good and thank God for the trust funds Momma set up." A few years later a fan asked Miss Talmadge for her autograph. "Get away, dear," the ex-star replied. "I don't need you any more."
Colleen Moore was making $12,500 a week in 1929. She had appeared in two successful talking pictures, but with the vogue of the flapper waning, her employers let her contract lapse. She then financed and starred in a Broadway play. When no movie offers resulted, she returned to Hollywood in some alarm and signed for $2,500 a week, commenting, "I'm just getting a button compared to my old salary, but I'd work for nothing, it's so good to be back." Miss Moore showed her skill and versatility in the offbeat role of a timid schoolteacher in The Power and the Glory, 1933, but the picture failed to re-establish her. She could have cemented her comeback in any of four opportunities Hollywood gave her. She had the looks, the talent, the intelligence. She was too rich really to care.
The Girl From Missouri