Best Family Movies of 1937

Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.

Night in an old mill is dramatically depicted in this Oscar-winning short in which the frightened occupants, including birds, timid mice, owls, and other creatures try to stay safe and dry as a storm approaches. As the thunderstorm worsens, the mill wheel begins to turn and the whole mill threatens to blow apart until at last the storm subsides.

Stan and Ollie try to deliver the deed to a valuable gold mine to the daughter of a dead prospector. Unfortunately, the daughter's evil guardian is determined to have the gold mine for himself and his saloon-singer wife.

Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.

Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.

Donald Duck goes to a museum of modern inventions. After getting in without paying, he meets a robot butler who takes Donald's hat every time he sees him. Donald is very annoyed by this and magically fixes himself a new hat every time this happens and strolls on. Ignoring the sign not to touch it, Donald starts playing with a wrapping machine and ends up being wrapped himself. He also encounters and tries out a robot nursemaid and a fully automatic barber chair. They both don't do him much good.

In 1897, little Priscilla Williams, along with her widowed mother, goes to live with her army colonel paternal grandfather on the British outpost he commands in northern India.

Alfalfa tries to back out of a fight by pretending to be incapacitated.

Alfalfa and Butch are competing in an amateur radio contest, and Butch tries to fix it so that he will win.

Because of a storm, the Gang has to stay overnight at Darla's house, and they drive her father crazy.

Butch challenges Alfalfa to a fight.

A toyless boy finds a broken soldier doll and gets a very special Christmas as a result.

A compilation of five Oscar-winning Disney shorts, released to help promote the upcoming release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

An inexperienced duck hunter is taunted and tormented by a mischievous duck.

While Alfalfa was away at military school, his letters to his friends back home bragged about how he was a star football player. Now that he's back home, he has to prove it.

Judge Hardy faces problems at work and at home. Powerful men in town are upset with his decisions and want to see him impeached; his daughters, Joan and Marion, have romantic problems; and his son, Andy discovers Polly Benedict. As usual, Judge Hardy is concerned with everyone in the family and lends wisdom and calmness to all.

After Porky and Gabby oversleep yet again, their boss warns them that they'll be fired if they're late again...

When they overhear Miss Witherspoon, the school superintendent, say that nothing short of an epidemic will allow the school to be closed for a week, the Our Gang conspire to fake illness.

Alfalfa gives up being "King of the Crooners" to sing opera, but a nightmare of being under the thumb of an evil producer sends him back to his roots.

Porky Pig and his family inherit Uncle Solomon's estate, but if they die everything goes to the lawyer, who turns himself into a Mr. Hyde-style monster in an effort to kill off the pigs.

Robert Flaherty and Zoltán Korda shared best director honors at the Venice Film Festival for collaborating on this charming translation of Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book” story “Toomai of the Elephants.” A harmonious mix of the two filmmakers’ styles, Flaherty's adeptness at ethnographic documentary meeting Korda's taste for grand adventure, ELEPHANT BOY also served as the breakthrough showcase for the thirteen-year-old Sabu, whose beaming performance as a young mahout leading the British on an expedition made him a major international star.

A small girl makes her living selling matches on the streets of New York. It's winter, and the hustling crowds at best ignore her, and some are outright rude. She takes shelter and, to try to stave off the cold a bit, lights a match. It gets blown out; this happens again, then on the third try, she falls into a dream. In this dream, cherubs attend her, she gets a new doll, then a new dress. The cherubs put her on a throne. Then a storm comes, and she goes toward a candle. That candle goes out, and we see that back in the real world, so did her match and her life. An angel comes along and takes her soul.

Porky and another contractor are competing to submit the lower bid for a new city hall. When they submit identical bids, the city has them compete, whichever finishes first gets the job.

While visiting Hollywood a starstruck movie fan (Eddie Cantor) fantasizes about himself cast in an Arabian adventure. Director David Butler's comedy--with many songs--also features Tony Martin, Roland Young, Gypsy Rose Lee (billed as Rose Hovick), John Carradine, June Lang, Virginia Field, Charles Lane, The Peters Sisters and many big-name guest stars playing themselves.

Red walks past a pool hall; the wolf sees her and pursues. But Red is oblivious to his come-ons. The wolf short-cuts to granny's house; when Red arrives, granny lets the wolf dress as up and attack. The action pauses for a phone call (granny places her grocery order), some late arrivals, and egghead meandering along.

Porky reads a book of new dog tricks; unfortunately, his dog, Rover, is old. A puppy comes by and taunts him.

Porky invests his savings. Mayhem ensues.

In the world of this cartoon, cars act like humans. Junior wants to grow up to be a taxi, but mom wants him to be a nice, respectable touring car (taxi dancers are literally taxis). What mom doesn't know is that junior has been sneaking into town to play in traffic, drink hi-test gas, and race trains. He runs out of gas at a particularly bad time and gets towed to the garage.

Porky decides to start a garden. Mayhem ensues.

Momma parrot is teaching her young-uns to say "Polly want a cracker" but little Peter doesn't want a cracker, he wants to be a sailor like dad. Mom tells him what a no-account his dad really was, setting sail for Hawaii ("no, Maw, it was Catalina") right after the kids were born. Peter is unswayed, and takes off. He turns a barrel into a boat, and crews it with an annoyingly talkative duckling, then sets sail on a lake. They get caught in a thunderstorm (the duck loves it). Peter calls for help and momma comes running, but the duck has already saved him. But he still wants to be a sailor.

A hungry little pig eats a couple of pies off the windowsill. When it's time for dinner, he ties together the spaghetti of all the other little pigs and eats it all. That night, he has a nightmare where he is force-fed by a mad scientist.

The iceman is in love with a pretty girl, and an old spinster is pining and cooking for him. But his dreamgirl prefers crooners like Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, or Eddie Cantor. After leaving her, he spots the sign of an imitator, and thinks he could ask him to do the crooning for him while he is trying to date his girl. The imitator accepts, and at first the trick is working, until the imitator gets too cold amid the ice in the back of the van and the girl gets suspicious.

A series of gags at a dog show, including a stage revue. A dog gets into a trunk of roller skates and crashes through the stage show.

City dweller Egghead dreams of being a cowboy, but his bouncing around gets him kicked out of his boarding house. He sees an ad for a ranch looking for a cowboy and applies. His tryout includes tests of marksmanship and use of a branding iron, but most of it consist of chasing down and roping a troublesome little calf. He passes the test, but the job isn't exactly what he dreamed of.

A mouse is trying to free himself from a trap when a cat arrives. The mouse, desperate, asks if the cat has heard the story of the lion and the mouse.

Jack and Jill Rabbit get hitched in this classic Fleischer Studios cartoon (made a year before Bugs Bunny hit the scene).

A hen's chicks hatch, but one of them is actually an ostrich. She treats it as her own, but the ostrich keeps getting into trouble, first getting stuck after eating a goldfish, then falling down steps into a basement and swallowing a car jack, then having a little run-in with a worm and a lawn sprinkler, and finally getting captured by the weasel.

Little Cheeser and his friends, inspired by Buck Rogers (and visions of cheese), build a rocket ship and fly to the moon.

A rat comes between two mice in love.

A door to door salesman visits Betty Boop's home with a long line of useless household gadgets.

Young Sybil visits her grandfather, a British Colonel stationed at a garrison in India, and she helps negotiate a diplomatic truce between him and the local natives.

The gang puts on a musical show at a reunion for some of the former Gang kids.

An orphan girl becomes adopted by a group of old men and is placed in the home of one of them. She sings and dances and helps out where she can.

In this Pete Smith Specialty short, a raccoon spends the night looking for food for his family. After his encounters with a skunk, a frog, and a menacing bobcat, he experiences the dangers in a vacant cabin.

A 12-episode serial in which Tim Tyler goes to Africa in search of his father in gorilla country. He meets up with Laura, who is after Spider Webb who has framed her brother. Webb causes the death of Tim's father, but is eventually tracked down.

The title character is a resourceful young man who knows a whole little about a whole lot of things, and who concentrates by playing his saxophone. Clarence ingratiates himself with the wealthy and eccentric Wheeler family, though daughter Cora can't stand the boy.