Movies: Mae West

Film archivist and former director of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Jenni Olson created this fast-paced and often funny, campy 75-minute film comprised entirely of spliced together movie trailers. Some of the segments have themes su...

Compilation of lighting and costume tests from various films, most notably Sternberg's "The Devil Is a Woman" (1935)....

A former boxer purchases a classy speakeasy and falls in love with a wealthy society girl....

Born in Mexico, Anthony Quinn became the family's main provider when his father died in an accident. Thus began the story of a man who had a thousand jobs before acting in a Cecil B. DeMille film…...

The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this attraction, the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her...

Cleo Borden grew up in a saloon, loves the men—and the men love her—but her aspirations lead her to enter into a contract to marry a wealthy man. When he dies and leaves her all of his fortune, she soon learns that although she has money, she is not ...

From the A&E "Biography" series, a review of the birth, development and cinematic history of Betty Boop, the flapper cartoon character who has been a popular icon since the 1930s....

Compilation of the mismatched but immortal pair's various films and shorts....

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had ...

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Peter Fonda host an examination of the history of decency standards for movies from the early 1920s onwards....

A retrospective of the life and career of actor Cary Grant, including clips from his films and interviews with his friends and co-workers....

A look at the forces that shaped Pre-Code Hollywood and brought about the strict enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934....

The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was ...

Mae West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. A full-time actress at seven, a vaudevillian at 14, a dancing sensation at 25, a playwright at 33, a silver sc...