The best William Pawley’s drama movies

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.

After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

Farmer Frank and his ward hunt brother Jesse's killers, the back-shooting Fords.

Two destitute New Yorkers meet cute in Central Park and then separate and independently get tangled up with some gangsters only to be reunited again in the end.

Socialite Letty Lynton is returning to New York, abandoning one-time lover Emile Renaul in South America, when she strikes up a shipboard romance with Jerry Darrow. Renault is waiting for her in New York and will not leave her alone, so she poisons him. When detectives take her to the D.A.s office, Jerry cooks up an alibi.

After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Bugs" Fenner, meanwhile, is certain that Blake is a police agent.

Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Jameson's interest in his sister.

A doctor's medical studies are threatened by his infatuation with a Chinese girl. The girl returns to China, but complications ensue when she runs into him in Nanking during a Japanese bombing raid.

A homeless woman named Hannah drifts into the lives of the kindly Ward family, in a small Indiana town in 1919. Hannah makes herself useful as a cook and housekeeper and stays with the Wards... but her real interest is in meeting their neighbor, teenager Peter Trimble. It turns out that Peter is the son she bore out of wedlock and gave up for adoption, and now Hannah has returned to town to see what sort of young man her son has become.

In this MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short, a protection racket preying on milk distribution is broken through the persistence of law enforcement and the courage of a local businessman.

A weary dance-hall girl in a Panama saloon is given the choice of jail or going with a rough-and-tumble oil driller's jungle oil-field in order to pay him back for being slipped a mickey and robbed.

Two troublesome boys grow into very different men, one becoming a hoodlum and the other embracing college but both are in-love with the same girl.

Mrs. Doray sits with a Juvenile Court Judge to learn more about problem children and what to do about them. One of the cases involves 13 year old Arthur, "the worst kid in town", who moves cars away from fiire-plugs without the knowledge of the owners. The judge gives Arthur and friend Nutty another chance. However they run into further trouble when they break into Mr. Doray's drugstore to get medicine for Nutty's grandmother. Mr. Doray is not sympathetic and completely against his wife's plan to become Arthur's guardian. More incidents occur with Mr. Doray quick to judge prior to getting all of the facts. Mrs. Doray must choose between her marriage and Arthur.

Wall Street broker Robert Cain, Sr., is jailed for embezzling. His college graduate son Bob then turns to crime to raise money for his father's release. As assistant to mobster Mickey Dwyer, then falls for Dwyer's girl Lucky. He winds up in the same prison as his father.

Vivienne Ware is defended by her ex-beau when she's accused of killing her faithless fiance.

Margot Rande, a basically decent woman, is led down the path to perdition by her bank robber husband.