Without Children

Struggling architect David Cole is encouraged by his boss, Phil Graham, to fraternize with high society as a means of drumming up business. This inadvertently leads to him having an affair with a rich older woman. When his wife Sue discovers the infidelity, she divorces him and takes away their two children. It turns out this was Phil's intent all along - so he could marry Sue. With David now living in Europe, the two children grow up spoiled and self-centered under Phil and Sue's neglectful care. When one of them is shot while roughhousing, David realizes he must own up to his responsibilities as a father...but it may be too late to make a difference in his children's lives...

According to the credits, Without Children is "suggested by Eyes of Youth, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow." This was the pen name of writer Nancy Mann Waddel Woodrow (1867-1935.) Despite what you might think at first glance, she was not the wife of President Woodrow Wilson, but the estranged spouse of his distant cousin James Wilson Woodrow. For decades, she used this tenuous connection to help market her sexually tinged melodramas to great success. Leading man Bruce Cabot is forever immortalized as the heroic Jack Driscoll in King Kong (1933), but he also had memorable parts in Fritz Lang's Fury (1936) and Michael Curtiz's Dodge City (1939). Marguerite Churchill was John Wayne's first leading lady in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930). Gorgeous, tough-as-nails Evelyn Brent had a long career in Hollywood, with standout roles including a gangster's moll in Underworld (1927) and a Russian spy in The Last Command (1928). Reginald Denny was a popular leading man during the silent era, but the advent of sound and his heavy British accent made this transitional period a difficult one for the actor. He soon found his niche playing supporting parts in films such as Anna Karenina (1935), and Rebecca (1940). Child star Dickie Moore is best known for his classic version of Oliver Twist (1933).

• drama