Ricardo Cortez

Who killed Jenny Wren? An added undercurrent of excitement accompanied this atmospheric mystery's arrival at movie houses. A multi-episode radio version had preceded the release of the film, and listeners were invited to vie for prizes by submitting their ideas on how the broadcast's cliffhanger ending should resolve. Would one of those submittals end up on the screen? Fans would have to see the movie to find out! Karen Morley portrays unfortunate Jenny, who plans to blackmail her rich and powerful paramours at a posh soiree. Instead, she is murdered. A career criminal (Ricardo Cortez) at the gathering, knowing he must act before police arrive and accuse him, takes it upon himself to sift through the clues to discover the Maltese of the whodunit. Combining elements of parlor mystery with the secret passages, stormy nights and strange apparitions of old-dark-house tales, the Selznick RKO unit crafts a clever entertainment.

An heir educated in Spain returns to 1855 California and turns the tables on the corrupt tax collectors bankrupting his family and friends.

Postal inspectors track down money stolen from a railroad car.

A man tries to bond with his grown-up daughter after serving a long prison sentence for a murder that was actually committed by his wife.

A French mayor and his daughter appear to collaborate with the German Army, while secretly helping the Allies.

After being kicked out of their house by a noblewoman, a young woman is heartbroken when her sweetheart won't go to Paris with her and her father.

Shortly before shedding her snakeskin vamp persona for good by wrapping herself in the ermine confines of Nora Charles, Myrna Loy terrified and terrorized as the murderous mesmerist Ursula Georgi in the pre-Code horror show Thirteen Women. Following a racist sorority's cruel rebuff, half-caste Ursula embarks on a blood-thirsty trail of deceit and murder until only one woman (Irene Dunne) is left to face her. Aside from the allure and interest of its two leading ladies – each on the cusp of their ascension into cinema legend – Thirteen Women's delights are rather more diabolical and devastating than the more domestic concerns of a traditional "Women's Picture." From its breathless and terrifying (and arrestingly staged) opening aerial atrocity through its stabbings, suicides and hidden bombs, Thirteen Women's relentless pace startles and astonishes, ever driven by Loy's portrayal of Ursula's unalloyed and unapologetic evil.

Mr. Moto thwarts a ruthless band of international agents who try to foment an international incident by mining the entrance to the Suez Canal and blaming the British.

When she was a tot, Sue Talley was given half a Biblical quotation. Now she's in France, eagerly awaiting a reunion with her brother, whom she hasn't seen since early childhood. How will Sue recognize him? He has the other half of the quotation. Put them together and brother and sister can claim a handsome inheritance – but only if they live to collect it. A fine cast, that includes such mystery stalwarts as Ricardo Cortez (1931's The Maltese Falcon) and Minna Gombell (The Thin Man), gathers clues and stumbles over corpses in The White Cockatoo. New love, a kidnapping plot, a missing room key, a miniature sword and a crime-solving cockatoo complicate the action, guided by groundbreaking director Alan Crosland (The Jazz Singer, John Barrymore's Don Juan). The White Cockatoo is one of Crosland's last films, released the year before his death at age 41 from injuries sustained in a car accident.

A woman with a past tries to get rid of a former lover.

Political corruption challenges a man in 19th century California who is trying to make the Pony Express between California and Missouri work.

Arriving in 1800s California to make his fortune, a scrappy sailor battles his way to power on the Barbary Coast.

After getting a seemingly perfect new secretary, a private detective finds himself embroiled in the case of a notorious gossip columnist's murder.

Wealthy New York party girl Joan Prescott (Joan Crawford) has lassoed herself a cowboy!

A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.