Barbara Stanwyck

A famous food writer lies about living on a farm, raising her children and being a good cook. In reality she is an unmarried New Yorker who can't boil an egg. When her editor says she will spend Christmas with a heroic sailor, her job is on the line.

Young, rich, bedridden Barbara Stanwyck dials a telephone number one night and overhears two men plotting the murder of an unidentified woman. She becomes frantic. Her terror is intensified by mysterious calls from an old college rival and a friend of her father. With time running out, Stanwyck pieces evidence together that leads her to suspect that it is her husband who wants her murdered.

In a struggle over the family fortune, an ominous secret that plagues the Caldwell estate enshrouds all its inhabitants in a mantle of morbidity and malice.

Classy shoplifter Lee Leander, on trial for swiping a diamond bracelet, has her case postponed by Assistant District Attorney John Sargent until after Christmas. Taking pity on her, he bails her out of jail. He's driving home to Indiana for the holidays, and when he finds Lee's a Hoosier too, offers to drop her at her mother's on the way. When she's rejected by her mother, he brings her home to his place where his mother, his aunt and their farmhand,...

An actress comes home to the husband and children she abandoned years before.

Dove Linkhorn shows up in New Orleans with drifter Kitty Twist looking for his old flame, Hallie. When Dove finds out that Hallie works at the Doll House, a bordello run by Jo, Dove looks to take her away. But Jo and her cohorts have no intention of letting their star employee go without a fight.

Shelby Barret, a professional equestrienne, marries into the snobbish upper crust. When events involve her in a death aboard a playboy's yacht, Shelby knows her husband's family will grab their excuse to renounce her.

After the recent death of her husband, Jessica is lonely and out of sorts. She meets two men who are very different. As Jessica debates the merits of passion versus security, she becomes the subject of mean-spirited gossipmongers.

Barbara makes the mistake of marrying an unrepentent gambler. When his gambling debts become too cumbersome, she turns to a wealthy suitor.

After the dawn of sound and before the Production Code, Hollywood ran wild and free. Fearlessly and frankly tackling subjects and scenes that would quickly become forbidden to a generation of filmmakers, these seldom-seen pre-Code wonders are both revelatory and sin-sational. This fifth volume takes a walk on the wild side. Hard to handle: Con leads to con when the prize money for a rigged dance marathon is stolen. Ladies they talk about: "Nan Taylor,...