Rainbow Over Broadway (1933) / Tango (1936) (DVD)

Rainbow Over Broadway (1933, B&W): Ex-vaudeville singer Trixie Valleron thinks "modern" music is trash. When her adult step-children, aspiring songwriters Judy and her brother, Bob, audition their work for big-time producer Don Hayes, she upstages them and sings her own old-fashioned tunes. Hayes offers Trixie star billing at a famous New York City club, and the entire family packs up and moves to the Big Apple, hoping for riches and fame. When Trixie learns that the music she'll be performing was written by Bob and Judy, she threatens to quit, but she's an old pro and the show must go on.

Grace Hayes, who plays the pretentious Trixie, was a popular vaudeville singer and shines at the center of this witty, well-written ensemble comedy. Director Richard Thorpe, who was equally at ease making musicals, comedies, mysteries and adventures, started out with silent westerns. He went on to helm over 180 films, including four Tarzan pictures with Johnny Weismuller and two Elvis Presley spectaculars. Starring Joan Marsh, Frank Albertson, Grace Hayes, Lucien Littlefield; Directed by Richard Thorpe.

Tango (1936, B&W): Plucky chorus girl Treasure McGuire sneaks into an ad agency looking for work and lands a high-profile job modeling Tango hosiery. As her career starts to take off, she meets and marries a wealthy young heir, Anthony Thorne. Tony's parents are against the union and, since he's not yet twenty-one, they have his marriage annulled, leaving poor, distraught Treasure to struggle on alone. After Tony announces his engagement to a more "socially acceptable" fiancee, he learns that he is already the father of Treasure's new baby.

The 1936 production of Tango marked the last film appearance by star Marian Nixon, a vaudeville chorus dancer who started film work in 1922 and appeared opposite such stars as John Barrymore and Al Jolson. In 1934, on the set of We're Rich Again, she met and married the film's director, William Seiter, retiring from the movie business a year after the birth of their son in 1935. Starring Marion Nixon, Chick Chandler, Matty Kemp, Herman Bing; Directed by Phil Rosen.

• drama