John Butler

A charming psychopath tries to coerce a tennis star into his theory that two strangers can commit the perfect crime by exchanging murders—each killing the other’s most-hated person.

A detective tries to prevent the assassination of President-elect Abraham Lincoln during a train ride headed for Washington in 1861.

A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son.

In the Canadian mountains, a trapper goes on the run accused of a crime and is pursued by a rugged and determined lawman of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.

A newspaper editor takes on the cause of oppressed migrant Mexican fruit pickers.

Pirdy is accident prone. He has been denied insurance from every company in town because he is always getting hit or hurt in some way. On the day that he meets the lovely Ellen of the Yellow Cab Co., he also meets the crooked lawyer named Creavy. Pirdy is an inventor and when Creavy learns about elastic-glass, his new invention, he makes plans to steal the process. With the help of another con man named Doksteader, and the boys, he will steal this million dollar invention no matter who gets hurt.

A lawyer uncovers secrets behind a 12-year-old murder case.

A gunfighter takes part in a scheme to bilk a wealthy cattle family out of half a million dollars by pretending to be their son, who was kidnapped as child.

A scrupulously honest lawyer discovers that the client he's gotten off was really guilty.

A prison warden fights to prove one of his inmates was wrongly convicted.

An insurance agent's greedy girlfriend with a taste for mink leads him to a life of crime.

During a heated argument with her sister Joan, Gail discovers the shocking news that she is adopted. With the reluctant support of her adoptive parents and baby sister Penny, Gail goes in search of her biological mother and true identity.

Arizona Territory is in the grip of outlaw terror and killer outlaws, secretly organized by Hulon Champion, who covers his power ambitions with the guise of a respectable firearms merchant. Hoping to eradicate the lawlessness plaguing the newspaperman Fred Gately prints a letter asking the president to visit the area. But Fred's killed by secret gang leader Champion, who also plans to assassinate the president. Undercover officer Rocky Lane teams with his assistant, Nugget, and Fred's spunky daughter to combat Champion's head gunslinger.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter's lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.

Petty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.

Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer and family man named Dan O'Mara. Daisy meets a single man, a war veteran named Peter Lapham, and after a brief and hesitant courtship decides to marry him, although she is still in love with Dan.

Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.

Ruthless Italian-American banker Gino Monetti is engaged in a number of criminal activities. Three of his four grown sons refuse to help their father stay out of prison after he's arrested for his questionable business practices. Three of them take over the business but kick their father out. Max, a lawyer, is the only son that remains loyal.

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

Frank Warren is a treasury agent assigned to put an end to the activities of a powerful mob crime boss. Frank works undercover, posing as a criminal to seek information, but is frustrated when all he finds are terrified witnesses and corrupt police officers.

Jenny Marsh, recently released from prison for killing a man, finds herself under the watchful eye of her parole officer, Griff Marat, who helps her secure a job caring for his ailing mother.

Through a fluke circumstance, a ruthless woman stumbles across a suitcase filled with $60,000, and is determined to hold onto it even if it means murder.

A scientist discovers a formula that makes a baseball which is repelled by wood. He promptly sets out to exploit his discovery.

Boyhood friends grow up into different professions: one a dedicated Canadian Mountie, the other a notorious gambler.

An assistant prosecutor and his spunky friend investigate a suddenly hot case.

A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn't return, he learns that taking care of a child interferes with his free-wheeling lifestyle. Sorrowful must also evade crooked gangsters and indulge in a bit of horse-thieving.

Magazine editor Margot Merrick pretends to be married in order to avoid advances from male colleagues. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan when Jeff Thompson, a potential suitor, uncovers the deception and decides to show up at Margot's family home posing as her husband!

A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.

A California railroad agent hunts two brothers for murder and robbing a payroll express.

One of Hoppy's Bar 20 ranch hands is tricked into participating in nefarious activities after being subjected to hypnosis.

Joe Smith is an ordinary American family man who works in an aircraft factory. Shortly after being a promoted to a much higher position, Joe is kidnapped by enemy agents who are determined to get military secrets out of him by any means possible. Will Joe keep quiet or betray his country...

Lee Garvin has eloped with the daughter of a railroad man who didn't approve of the marriage. Hoppy steps in when the young man is framed for murder.

Small-town soda-jerk Peggy Evans quits her dead-end job and moves to New York where she invents a new identity.

A mild-mannered insurance salesman gets mixed up with gangsters.

A man violates company policy by getting married.

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short takes a look at the origins of North American slang.

Set against the backdrop of WWI Europe, a man and woman of different classes are brought together by their love of Lippizan horses.

When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she and her group of friends prove them wrong.

The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.

When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.

A cabbie and petty thief dreams of the big heist that will end his thieving ways.

This MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short shows the role the crime laboratory plays in the solving of cases, and how even the smallest detail can become a major clue.

"Iron Man" Mason is a talented but rather dimwitted prizefighter. Against the advice of his crusty old manager George Regan, Mason dumps his ever-loving girlfriend Judy Williams in favor of sexy blonde Rose Whitney.

A magazine reporter exposes a crooked District Attorney, resulting in his trial. Complications ensue, however, when the man is acquitted.

A Navy veteran with one leg fights to make himself a success.

A former prizefighter tries to help his son pay off his gambling debts.

An attorney handling a murder case is unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.

Officer James O'Malley, a true believer in law and order, treats even the smallest offenses with the utmost seriousness. But O'Malley brings bad publicity to the force when his pigheaded ethics become the subject of a scathing news story, and he's subsequently relegated to traffic cop. While on the beat, he tickets impoverished family man John Phillips, unaware that his stubbornness will set off a series of devastating events for Phillips.

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.

A young man is determined to turn his beloved racehorse, which is blind, into a champion.

Torchy conducts a one woman campaign against a corrupt mayor and crime boss, and when the reform candidate is murdered, she takes up the banner.

A singing cowboy turns out to be a tenderfoot.

Wyatt Earp agrees to become marshal and establish order in Tombstone in this very romanticized version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

A Broadway producer is in a quandary when he discovers that the opening of his newest big production coincides with that of a major charity event. He despairs that the show will close after opening night until an ingenious writer suggests that he simply give the production snob-appeal by making the tickets nearly impossible to get by fabricating a story that they were all purchased by a flamboyant Texas oil baron who is totally besotted by the show's star.

In this comedic short, a psychoanalyst encounters a patient who eerily resembles himself.

Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.

An aviator ignores skeptics to make the first commercial flight from San Francisco to China.

Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.