Best movies like A Fool There Was

The story hinges on the redemption of a country boy, an artist, who has fallen among evil companions, and is an outcast.

A flirtatious young woman takes a job in a busy office, where her presence is terribly disruptive. None of the men in the office can concentrate on their jobs while her charms are on display. Of course, she sets her eye on the one man who seems oblivious to her.

Mako is a neglectful husband. Not the most loving man. His wife gradually encounters a widower who is a kind, gentle figure. She eventually makes the transition to leave her husband and go to this fellow.

A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.

Jean, a wealthy young Canadian back from a trip to Europe, meets and falls for Carmen, a pretty young Spanish girl. They marry and have a daughter, but soon afterward Jean discovers his wife is having an affair. She takes her daughter and leaves him, and Jean's luck gets even worse--he loses his business in a fire and his thieving father-in-law steals what little money he has left.

Early MGM talkie about a retired businessman, his headstrong daughter, and the comical complications that result when she marries in haste.

Dreams can make a life worth living, but they can also be dashed by bad decisions. This is the crossroads whare the Younger family find themselves when their father passes away and leaves them with $10,000 in life insurance money. Should they buy a new home for the family? Perhaps a liquor store? While no choice is easy, life on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s is even harder.

Larry Grayson, jazz age son of permissive parents, drifts from wild parties with his classmates to more heady, roadhouse entertainment. There he becomes involved with an underworld gang and falls in love with Spanish Marla, one of their vamps. Larry leaves home after an argument with his father, throws in with the gang (who are using him for their own purposes), and is blamed for a murder. Tried and convicted, Larry is given a light sentence when the judge places most of the blame on his overindulgent parents.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.

This 1922 Frank Borzage film is a masterwork waiting to be rediscovered. Hester Bevins is a simple country girl who yearns for adventure. Though she has a handsome young man, Jerry, who is devoted to her, she leaves her village and goes to New York in search of a grander life. There she becomes the lover of a wealthy and unscrupulous businessman. But when Jerry returns blinded and dying from the war, Hester must choose between her new life and the man whose loyalty to her has never failed.

Frank Andrews is a successful businessman. He has always found pride and joy in the company of his wife, son and daughter. He suddenly finds himself enthralled by the advances of a gay young woman siren, who lives in the same apartment house as he does. So marked an influence does she have over him as time progresses that at last he quite forgets his home ties, neglects his family, and goes the way of many other men who have forgotten the meaning of paternity and blood ties. The story is advanced through many scenes enacted with the accompanying notes of New York's night life, and the denouement comes when the faithful wife discovers her husband's infidelity. At this time the mother's mind nearly loses balance, while Jane, the beautiful daughter, crazed by the grief of her mother, determines to take part in the tragedy. With revolver in hand she steals up to the apartment of the woman, but her frail nature is overcome by the temperamental anger of the woman and her mission fails.

A decadent tale of drugs and the London underworld the cosseted daughter of a respectable businessman - in fact head of a cocaine racket - succumbs to the pleasures of drink and drugs. Vivid nightlife scenes recreate the interwar world of flappers and hedonists; the dapper club owner and seedy street dealers.

Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.

The tactics of a vicious slumlord and greedy businessman finally drive a distraught man to commit suicide. The businessman is tried for murder and executed, and is afterward taken by demons to the Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity. .

"My heart is ice, my passion consuming fire. Let men beware," exclaimed Theda Bara (via an inter-title, of course) in this "Vamp" melodrama based on Grabriele D'Annunzio's 1898 story La Gioconda.

Eve's Daughter was the fourth and final screen teaming of Billie Burke and Thomas Meighan. This time out, Burke is cast as Irene Simpson-Bates, who is disheartened to learn that her millionaire father has left her with a mere $15,000. She is subsequently courted by two men: Poor but respectable John Norton (Thomas Meighan), and rich but disreputable Courtenay Urquahrt (Lionel Atwill, in his American screen debut).

Lord Cyril Wimborne, a barrister, divorces his wife, Myra, and takes custody of their child, Kenyon, when he finds her name linked with the profligate Major Pollock. Myra goes into seclusion while Pollock, intending to conceal Myra's innocence, goes to Burma. A few years later Myra sees Kenyon in the park with Mrs. Debenham, a widow with designs on Wimborne. Noting the resemblance between the lady in the park (whom he calls his "princess") and a photograph of his mother, Kenyon invites Myra to dinner at a time when his father, who has curtailed the visits to the park, plans to be away. At the same time Harold Courtenay, an old family friend, sees an opportunity to reunite the estranged couple.

A concert violinist becomes charmed with his daughter's talented piano teacher. When he invites her to go on tour with him, they make beautiful music away from the concert hall as well. He soon leaves his wife so the two can go off together.

Jack Standish feels responsible for the failure of the partnership with his father and goes to the South Seas where he falls prey to alcohol, is seduced by Lullaby Lou, a vamp, and tricked by a brutal plantation owner, Gordon Van Brock.

A private eye hired to kill a man's wife warns her instead and then finds both are impostors.

When Suzie and her parents take a visit to Japan her father's business partner, an inventor called Tetsuro decides to make Suzie a robot. The robot's name is 'Too Much' (or TM for short) and he and Suzie become the best of friends. But when the day comes for Suzie to return home she finds she's not allowed to take TM with her, so they run away together. However, they must watch out for a rival inventor of Tetsuro's is looking for them so that he can examine TM's programming. Will TM and Suzie manage to escape from his clutches and prove that love conquers all?

Young gypsy girl Mary, is seduced by the immoral Robert Crane and abandoned. She is exiled from the gypsies and, along with her mother Zenda, known as "The Woman in Black," she vows revenge. Meanwhile, Crane blackmails Stella Everett's father into forcing her to marry him, even though she loves Frank Mansfield, Crane's rival for a congressional seat. Frank wins, but Stella still faces the prospect of marriage to Crane until Zenda comes to her with a plan. On their wedding day, after the vows are recited, when Crane lifts the veil from his wife's face, he is shocked to discover, that his new bride is Mary. Now Stella and Frank are free to marry, and Zenda has gained her revenge.

Terry Dunniva, a retired sea-captain living in Marblehead, Massachusetts, adopts two children, Chrystal and Ned. As the girl grows to womanhood, Terry realizes his fatherly-love had grown to something stronger. He asks her to become his wife. Chrystal, who is in love with her foster-brother, consents rather than destroy Terry's happiness. On the day of their marriage, Ned returns from a long voyage with the intent of making Chrysal his wife. And, he, too, rather than destroy the happiness of his adopted-father, leaves to embark on an Artic voyage that might mean his death. When Terry learns of the sacrifice both Chrystal and Ned are making on behalf of his happiness, he takes Ned's place on the voyage and gets both to pledge that if he does not return, they will marry each other.

Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter, Faith, must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that neither likes, and Faith is in love with and eager to marry her childhood sweetheart, John Temple.

Grace Leonard, a typical woman of the New York stage, beautiful but old in sin, seduces William Craig, who becomes a thief in order to shower luxuries upon her. He is sentenced to prison and emerges five years later as a sad-faced, gray-haired man, entirely cured of his mad passion for La Valencia. But she sees him and her old passion is stirred, meaning nothing to her that since his release from prison, he has fallen in love and married a good woman who knows nothing of his past. When William is not swayed by her fascinations, Grace threatens to expose his past life.

The seemingly happy relationship between Tony and Jim is threatened when his manipulative, drama-queen ex-wife visits.

A young man falls into the clutches of a nightclub singer who corrupts him.

A young girl, Peggy Warren (Dorothy Revier), raised in expensive boarding schools, discovers that her mother, respectable Katherine Warren (Ruth Stonehouse) also leads a second life as the notorious Texas Kate, Queen of the New York nightclubs. She leaves home ashamed of how her mother paid for her expensive schooling. A reconciliation re-unites mother and daughter after the mother saves her from a loveless marriage.

A spoiled carefree rich kid gets into too much trouble for his father who sends him out on his own to prove himself capable of making a respectable man of himself.

Fred Colgate, wealthy young man, learns that his tramp wife has been unfaithful and leaves her, and goes to Mexico. An accident causes him to be thought dead. He becomes a prizefighter, and when he return to his home city, he encounters a strange situation.

Bernard Fine's career leaves little time for romance, so fate takes over. When Bernie befriends a little girl, he meets - and falls for - her single mother, Liz. They soon marry and add a son to their new family. But the happiness is short-lived as Liz is fatally stricken by cancer. Added to the heartbreak is a threat from the past that could tear the family apart. For Bernie, it's a struggle to hold on to and savor the truly fine things in life.

To satisfy her controlling mother and secure both of their futures, a daughter hesitantly enters a loveless marriage to a wealthy businessman. Years later, after she has uncovered and overcome her mother's deceptions and manipulations, her newfound happiness is threatened with the appearance of a mysterious "man from the sea."

In this romance set in Russia, a fisherman's daughter is jilted by her true love and instead marries a baron. Time passes and the two men meet each other in Siberia where they have both been exiled. When the poorer man has the opportunity to come home, he changes places with the baron so that he can return to his wife. Unbeknownst to him, she has gone to the frozen wasteland to search for him.

Molly Hull, a maid, and Sam Sutton, a butler, are bequeathed a million dollars, and they encounter many problems and difficulties as they try to become the newest members of the idle rich.

The Robinsons are two respectable middle class parents living with their children in a suburban house in Acacia Avenue. Preferring to holiday every year in Bognor, they are pressed into booking a cruise for their annual vacation and thereby leaving their teenage children free run of their house. As the youngsters enjoy their newfound freedom and discover the angst of teenage life, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson begin to have second thoughts about their cruise and decide to return home early.