Employees' entrance 1933 - Excellent look at the backstage of a department store

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: Roy Del Ruth
Main Cast: Warren William, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Alice White

"Warren William plays a high-powered ambitious executive who unflinchingly steamrolled his way to the top without regard for the havoc he left in his wake. As the manager of a Macy-like department store, he constantly browbeats his flunkies into submission, and ends-up driving at least one to suicide. Loretta Young plays the wife of one of William's minor employees (Wallace Ford), with whom the Big Boss has a brief affair during an office party. Eventually William gets his comeuppance, and Loretta is vindicated in the eyes of her hubby. A terrific example of pre-Motion Picture Production Code raciness, Employees' Entrance still causes audiences to gasp at its audaciousness when seen today
Warren William dominates the picture - just as he did in Skyscraper Souls (1932) in an identical role - as the store's completely amoral, conniving, tyrannical manager. He is perfect in the part and it is fascinating to watch a skilled actor portray a thoroughly bad character. As one of the finer actors of the decade, it is indeed a shame that William is all but forgotten today.
The rest of the cast is excellent: Wallace Ford and Loretta Young as a secretly married couple whom William tries to corrupt; Alice White as the store floozy, willing to drop her morals at William's command; Ruth Donnelly as William's no-nonsense secretary; Frank Reicher and Charles Sellon as two old men who respond in very different ways to having William destroy their livelihood; and Hale Hamilton as the store's ineffectual, absentee owner." - www.allmovie.com

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Loose ankles 1930 - Young and Fairbanks are charming, but character actresses shine

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021087/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 5,9

Director: Ted Wilde
Main Cast: Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Louise Fazenda, Otis Harlan

"The story concerns a group of society people hearing a will read to them. The deceased's niece (Loretta Young) has most of the luck when an estate is left to her under the condition that she find a husband and no scandal be brought to the family. Everyone else's inheritance depends on this clause, but Ann (Young) doesn't want her share. In fact, she's determined to force everyone out of theirs because she thinks the family is too greedy. Off she goes to put an ad in the paper for a boy to 'compromise her'. Andy (Edward Nugent) finds it in the paper and thinks he'd be perfect for the role, but instead thinks maybe his room mate Gil (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) would be better suited. In a very funny scene, Gil goes to Ann's home and is taken advantage of by the maid (Daphne Pollard). Somehow, they all end up at a speakeasy where Ann's uptight aunts Katherine (Ethel Wales) and Sarah (Louise Fazenda) steal the show during a drunken spectacle where Andy tries to control his laughter.
Heady with too much dialogue, as were so many of the first talkies, it tends to creak badly, leaving the performers to strain a bit for laughs. Very little more is required from the two leads than to look attractive and recite their lines. However, there are some fun performances from the supporting cast which makes the film worthwhile."

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(double feature with The Naughty Flirt 1931)

The house of Rothschild 1934 - A great biopic with one of Arliss's best performances

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025272/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Alfred L. Werker
Main Cast: George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young, Robert Young, C. Aubrey Smith

"George Arliss plays Nathan Rothschild, the head of a family of celebrated 19th century Jewish bankers. Despite the anti-semitic efforts of a powerful politico (Boris Karloff), Rothschild moves in the best European social circles. He is ultimately knighted for his services to the English crown, which include the financing of the Duke of Wellington's battle against Napoleon at Waterloo.
This being a Hollywood picture, the political and financial intrigues have to be offset by romance - in this case the love affair between Rothschild's daughter (Loretta Young) and a handsome military officer (Robert Young). The final scene was photographed in the newly perfected three-strip Technicolor process, though for many years the TV distributors either removed this sequence or reprinted it in black and white. Designed in part as an attack against the burgeoning anti-semitism movement in Hitler's Germany, House of Rothschild was ironically exploited by Nazi functionary Joseph Goebbels, who redubbed and re-edited the film to serve as anti-Jewish propaganda!" - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-house-of-rothschild-v95763

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Bulldog Drummond strikes back 1934 - Simply the best Bulldog Drummond movie

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024932/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB ratings: 7,4

Director: Roy Del Ruth
Main Cast: Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, Warner Oland, C. Aubrey Smith

"This second and final 'Bulldog Drummond' film to star Ronald Colman, finds the famed sleuth in the midst of a sinister plan orchestrated by Warner Oland. Damsel in distress Loretta Young reports that her wealthy and influential uncle is missing, but all those concerned insist that the uncle never existed, and that Young is out of her mind. Drummond suspects that she's telling the truth, and that the uncle's disappearance is tied into political intrigue of some sort or other. Before the rousing climax, Drummond, the heroine, and Drummond's pal Algy (Charles Butterworth) are repeatedly kidnapped, imprisoned, and threatened with certain death. Counterpointing the film's plot twists (a bit too convoluted to relate in full here) is a comic subplot involving the continually interrupted honeymoon of Algy and his frustrated bride (Una Merkel)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/bulldog-drummond-strikes-back-v86218

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Man's castle 1933 - An unsentimental, romantic Depression-era drama

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024302/
IMDB rating: 7,4

Director: Frank Borzage
Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young, Marjorie Rambeau, Glenda Farrell, Walter Connolly

"Man's Castle could easily be a candidate for the best movie released by Columbia Pictures during the first half of the 1930's - and ranks right alongside the best work of Frank Capra, who was usually regarded as the studio's ace-in-the-hole. And, ironically, it's a film whose key players  director Frank Borzage, and stars Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young - were never closely associated with Columbia. And courtesy of Joseph August's cinematography, it's certainly the best-looking picture to come out of the studio during this period, yet it isn't lacking for grit, or a verisimilitude of poverty and life on the skids, or an array of rich and fascinating characters and players, of whom the two lead performances are only some of the fine elements to be discovered. Borzage has pulled off one of his frequent conjuring tricks, mixing honest, raw emotion, all on the surface and in your face, with a comparatively subdued sentimentality and belief in romance, and pulled it all together through the performances of Tracy and Young. There are moments where the uncertainty that afflicted Spencer Tracy's career during this period get close to the surface - in the early part of the picture, he's pushed a little close to James Cagney territory, whereas later on, it seems as though he's aiming for Wallace Beery, but he never quite falls into an identifiable groove, and in the end comes out as . . . Spencer Tracy. The big surprise in this picture is Loretta Young - her early work, which is hardly seen enough, shows an actress of surprising depth and the ability to reach audiences with small nuances and understated approaches to a role; all of this will amaze viewers who only know her later, rather over-the-top and self-conscious performances, which usually don't wear well. And to top it off, we also get highly workwhile supporting performances from Marjorie Rambeau, Arthur Hohl (in a surprisingly subtle villain turn), Glenda Farrell, and Walter Connolly. A Man's Castle is full of surprises, in terms of its look, and its plot, and characterizations, but Young's work may be the biggest of a brace of revelations, all of them rewarding and well worth tracking down.
Dealing with tough material in an adult manner, Man's Castle was considered quite daring in its day. A year after its release, Hollywood adopted the Production Code that prohibited the depiction of unwed cohabitation and premarital pregnancy (among many other things), which would have made this a very different film." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/a-mans-castle-v101472

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