Best Romance Movies of 1937

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.

At a family reunion, the Cooper clan find that their parents' home is being foreclosed. "Temporarily," Ma moves in with son George's family, Pa with daughter Cora. But the parents are like sand in the gears of their middle-aged children's well regulated households. Can the old folks take matters into their own hands?

Robert Tisdall finds on the beach the corpse of a woman he knew. Others wrongly conclude that he is the murderer. Fleeing, he desperately attempts to prove that he is not the killer. A young woman becomes embroiled in the effort.

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.

An Englishman who resembles the king of a small European nation gets mixed up in palace intrigue when his look-alike is kidnapped.

Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical star he's fallen for but barely knows. By the time the ocean liner reaches New York, a little white lie has churned through the rumour mill and turned into a hot gossip item—that the two celebrities are secretly married.

A way of life is dying on a remote Scottish island, but some of the inhabitants resist evacuating to the mainland.

J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.

An infatuated debutante renews a Shakespearean actor's running feud with his leading lady.

After divorcing a society man, a small-town woman tries to build a better life for their daughter.

Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.

Madcap couple George and Marion Kerby are killed in an automobile accident. They return as ghosts to try and liven up the regimented lifestyle of their friend and bank president, Cosmo Topper. When Topper starts to live it up, it strains relations with his stuffy wife.

A woman and her husband take separate vacations, and she falls in love with another man.

A Polynesian sailor is separated from his wife when he's unjustly imprisoned for defending himself against a colonial bully. Members of the community petition the governor for clemency but all pretense of law and order are soon shattered by an incoming tropical storm.

China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the many hardships of life over the years; but the temptations of a fragile prosperity will endanger their love and the survival of their entire family.

A romantic headwaiter fights to save a woman from her possessive ex-husband.

An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer.

A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.

Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.

A poor singer in a bar masquerades as a rich society woman thanks to a rich benefactor.

When a small-town girl is incorrectly diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an unknowing newspaper columnist turns her into a national heroine.

A gangster's widow fights for love despite society's disapproval.

Lady Alyce Marshmorton must marry soon, and the staff of Tottney Castle have laid bets on who she'll choose, with young Albert wagering on 'Mr. X'. After Alyce goes to London to meet a beau she is restricted to the castle to curb her scandalous behavior. Albert then summons Jerry to Alyce's aid in order to 'protect his investment'.

An east coast efficiency expert, who stakes his reputation on his ability to turn around a financially troubled Hollywood studio, receives some help from a former child star who now works as a stand-in for the studio.

A polish countess dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to make Poland independent.

A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks.

A horse breeder's granddaughter falls in love with a gambler in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

After a night on the town, Jonathan Blair wakes to find that Texan Valentine Ransome has escorted him home. Valentine is attracted to Jonathan and sets out first to reform him, and his family's near-bankrupt shipping company, and then to marry him. In her way is Jonathan's fiancée, actress Carol Wallace.

Madge Winton (Marion Davies), a beautiful secretary, makes herself look homely in order to avoid advances by lecherous bosses. When her new employer, writer Freddy Matthews (Robert Montgomery), accidentally sees her without her disguise, she has to pretend to be her roommate Sadie.

Madeline Goddard, is a British double agent who meets and falls in love with a German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I. This tale of espionage blends high adventure and romance making perfect order from wartime chaos and growing in faith from despair.

The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.

In the 1810s, an old maid poses as her own niece in order to teach her onetime beau a lesson.

A local politician in Scotland tries to break the reporter who wrote a negative story about him, and who is also in love with his daughter.

President McKinley asks Lt. Richard L. Perry to go underground to identify some obviously very well briefed Mid-Western bank robbers based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

A philanthropist's will dictates that four people receive $5,000 apiece, with the stipulation that the first one who can double the amount -- without dishonesty-- will win a cool million. Hindering the four are the avaricious relatives of the late millionaire.

A society girl is suspected of murdering an artist whose brother is a notorious racketeer. In her pursuit of an alibi, she inadvertently implicates a struggling advertisement photographer. Now they must keep up the appearance of being engaged as a bumbling detective snoops around, and their initial distaste for each other blossoms into romance.

Raymond Dabney returns to his family after trouble with the law. He convinces the sheriff to give him a job watching the house and furniture of widow Crystal Wetherby without knowing she is engaged to his brother.

Dr. Kildare treats and falls for impoverished ex-con Janet Healy, widow of a bank robber, who can't find her baby. Later she helps Kildare sew up gangster Hanlon in a tavern back room. Kildare pursues Janet and enlists Hanlon to help her; the gangster's solution, not surprisingly, is violent.

A new Broadway show starring Gary Blake shamelessly lampoons the rich Carraway family. To get her own back, daughter Mimi sets out to ensnare Blake, but the courtship is soon for real, to the annoyance of his co-star, hoofing chanteuese Mona Merrick.

When upper-class Parisian Charles Dupont and his family hire Tina and Michel as their servants, they have no idea that the domestics are in fact Tatiana, the Grand Duchess Petrovna, and her husband, Mikail, Prince Ouratieff. Recent exiles from the Russian Revolution, Tatiana and Mikail befriend the Dupont family, keeping their true identities a secret -- until one night when Soviet official Gorotchenko arrives for dinner.

A Parisian sewer worker longs for a rise in status and a beautiful wife. He rescues a girl from the police, lives with her in a barren flat on the seventh floor, and then marches away to war.

A young model is set up with her own fashion business by a crooked financier, who sells worthless bonds.

When You're in Love is a 1937 musical film starring Grace Moore, Cary Grant, and Thomas Mitchell. Moore sings "Minnie the Moocher" in one scene. She also sings the wonderful Ernesto Lecuono classic "Siboney" (though her Spanish is not perfection) drooled over by Cary Grant

In the face of rebellion in Russia, Czar Alexander II sends soldier Michael Strogoff 2,000 miles away, with a critical message for Grand Duke Vladimir. On the train journey, Michael befriends a traveler and comes into contact with a mysterious spy, who both unexpectedly aid him in his quest. Once behind enemy lines, Michael is near his hometown and his mother, whom he must avoid in order to fulfill his mission.

Colonel John Wister, on duty with the British army in the desert region of Dubik, returns to England on leave. There he falls in love with Julia Ashton, who cares deeply for him but believes herself incapable of love following the death of her fiancé; some time before. Wister convinces her that he loves her enough to live without her romantic love and that she should marry him. She does so and returns to Dubik with him. There she meets his adjutant, Captain Denny Roark. Roark is a dashing young man who reminds Julia thoroughly of her lost love. Soon she finds she is indeed capable of love, but it is Roark with whom she falls in love, not her husband. As warfare with the local tribes heats up and as Wister gains awareness of the unconsummated romance growing between his wife and best friend, tragedy lurks.

When a crafty reporter uses false pretenses to get a story out of heiress Tony Gateson, she turns the tables on him, telling the press that they are engaged. Suddenly he's front page news, every salesman is at his doorstep, and he loses his job. A series of misadventures ensues with him alternately back on his job and fired and her ex-fiancé showing up.

Expert lineman Red takes Farm-boy Slim under his wing and teaches him the dangerous, migratory trade of putting up transmission lines. They both love their work, and the same girl, who hates their dangerous profession.

A remarkable story of love lost and found, as a young couple are separated by circumstance, and plunged into emotional turmoil by a reunion...

A young woman finds herself as the intended victim of a murder plot on a transatlantic flight from London to New York.