Best movies like Child of Manhattan
The drama of a good girl with a bad name!
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Child of Manhattan Starring Nancy Carroll, John Boles, Buck Jones, Jessie Ralph, and more. If you liked Child of Manhattan then you may also like: You and Me, The Upturned Glass, Knock On Wood, Accused of Murder, Blind Date and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Paul Vanderkill is extraordinarily wealthy because his grandfather happened to buy farmland in what was to become Midtown Manhattan. The Loveland Dance Hall is one of the tenants of the Vanderkill estates. To reassure his aunt Sophie, Vanderkill visits Loveland to determine whether it is as disreputable as Sophie suspects. There he meets a dime-a-dance girl, Madeleine MacGonagal, who charms him with her quaint proletarian accent. They begin a secret affair, which turns into a secret marriage when pregnancy ensues. When the baby fails to survive, Madeleine decides that since he had married her only for the baby's sake, she should make haste to Mexico to secure a divorce. There she meets Panama Canal Kelly, a former suitor who now owns a silver mine. Her plans for divorce and quick remarriage are complicated when Vanderkill arrives to confront her.
You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.
Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list
The Upturned Glass
A neurosurgeon relates to his students in medical school a story about an affair he had with a married woman and how after the affair was over, the woman fell out a window and died. The surgeon, suspecting that she was murdered, set out to find her killer -- but, instead of turning the suspect over to the police, he planned to take his own revenge on the murderer.
Knock On Wood
Ventriloquist Jerry Morgan has failed with another love affair. The reason: when the relationship reaches the point when it is time to discuss marriage, his two dolls become mean and jealous. Morgan's dollmaker Papinek is a member of a spy ring who has stolen the secret plans for the top-secret Lafayette airplane. Since Morgan is leaving for Zurich the same night, he decides to hide the secret plan in the heads of the dolls.
Accused of Murder
A police detective finds himself entangled in the web of the underworld when he falls in love with a nightclub singer accused of murdering a crooked lawyer.
Blind Date
A young woman is torn between a wealthy suitor who wants her body and the honest young man who wants what's best for her.
Broadminded
Jack's father lowers the boom when his irresponsible rich-kid ends up in jail after a night of debauchery. The father appoints Ossie, Jack's cousin, as guardian, not realizing that Ossie is just as bad. They set off on a transcontinental trip with mischief on their minds.
Murder at Midnight
Wealthy Mr. Kennedy shoots his secretary, Channing, during a parlor game, but it turns out the gun was loaded with real bullets. Luckily, criminologist Phillip Montrose is on hand to help the police. When Kennedy quickly ends up dead as well, the police think it's a tidy murder-suicide, but the family lawyer knows of a letter that voiced Kennedy's suspicions about someone who was out to get him. Soon, the cops are on the trail of a ruthless and clever killer who is one step ahead of even Montrose.
Shall We Dance
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.
Forbidden
On a cruise to Cuba, Lulu Smith falls in love with Bob Grover. Back home, she breaks off the romance when he tells her he is married. Lulu has a baby, but doesn't tell Bob, who turns out to be a rising politician. She passes herself off as the baby's nanny. When Bob learns what is going on, he adopts the little girl, not telling his wife or anyone else where she came from. Lulu gets a job at a newspaper. Things get complicated when the editor gets the dirt on Grover, but also wants to marry Lulu
A Ticket to Tomahawk
A cowboy is hired by a stagecoach boss to stop the railroad reaching his territory and putting him out of business. He uses everything from Indians to dancehall girls to try to thwart the plan. But the railroad workers, led by a female sharpshooter and an ambitious salesman, prove tough customers.
Paid in Full
Two sisters fall in love with the same man. After the wedding, the new husband realizes he may have married the wrong sister.
My Sin
A prostitute living in Panama shoots her pimp and is charged with murder. The lawyer who gets her off fronts her money to start a new life in NY where she becomes a successful business woman and meets wealthy businessman, Harry Davenport. He knows nothing of her past. Then someone from the past shows up. Will she be exposed? Will she follow through on her plan to marry?
The Singing Blacksmith
Moishe Oysher, the renowned cantor and star of Yiddish radio, stars in Edgar G. Ulmer’s musical version of David Pinski’s play Yankl der Shmid. Singing, dancing, and flashing his eyes, Oysher gives his most robust performance as a passionate shtetl blacksmith who must struggle against temptation to become a mensch. Recently rediscovered footage makes this the most complete extant version of Ulmer’s lively folk operetta, replete with an example of Yiddish swing.
Panama Flo
An engineer makes a thieving entertainer work off her debts as a housekeeper at his jungle mining camp.
The Awful Truth
Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.
Broadway Bad
Showgirl Tony Landers, supported by her friend Flip Daly, fights for the custody of her son during a divorce hearing.
Midnight Morals
A rookie cop falls for a "taxi dancer" in a dance hall, but his father has strong objections to the relationship.
A Child Is Born
A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.
It's All Yours
Jimmy Barnes arrives from Europe to be educated by his multi-millionaire uncle, Edward J. Barnes and in five years the extravagant escapes of Jimmy, now a lawyer, are the talk of San Francisco. Linda Gray is a mouse-like secretary to the elder Barnes who has fallen in love with Jimmy, but he favors actress Constance "Connie" Marlowe. Mr. Barnes dies and leaves everything to Linda but he has urged his partner, Alexander Duncan, to plan things so that Jimmy and Linda will get married. Coached by Duncan, Linda accepts the inheritance and announces that she is departing for New York on a wild spending spree. He tells Jimmy that the will can be broken but only after many months and he suggests that Jimmy follow Linda and curb her spending or there won't be any money left. In New York, Linda hires Jimmy as her private secretary. Connie also arrives in New York, as does the ingenious Baron Rene de Montigny with the intention of marrying the wealthy Miss Gray.
Miss Pinkerton
Scion of the once-rich Mitchell family, Herbert Wynn is found shot to death. Nurse Adams, bored by hospital routine, is recruited by the police to ferret out clues as she tends to Wynn's elderly aunt Julia. Jokingly given the 'rank' of Miss Pinkerton, after the famous detective agency, Adams probes into the mystery, but not before a second death.
Let's Go Native
The company of a musical comedy gets shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by a "king" from Brooklyn and his coterie of wild native girls.
Ten Cents a Dance
A taxi dancer with a jealous husband finds herself falling for a wealthy client.
Ladies of Leisure
Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.
This Earth Is Mine
Set during the Prohibition era, when wine makers were financially challenged and had to decide whether or not they wanted to cooperate with bootleggers to survive.
Tarnished Lady
Nancy Courtney, a once wealthy socialite, has had to struggle to maintain a facade of prosperity ever since her father's death. Although she loves writer DeWitt Taylor, who is indifferent to amassing a fortune, her mother urges her to marry stockbroker Norman Cravath instead. Nancy acquiesces to her mother's wishes but, despite the fact her new husband does everything he can to please her, she is miserable in her marriage.
Strictly Unconventional
An adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle. A young woman married into an aristocratic English family finds life with her husband dull and decides to elope with a Canadian. However her mother-in-law, who did something similar thirty years before, tries to prevent her.
Merry Wives of Reno
Three couples raise a ruckus when they travel to Nevada for quickie divorces.
Dance Hall
A dance trophy winning young couple is temporarily split up when a playboy aviator leads the girl to believe he's in love with her.
Peach-o-Reno
After a quarrel at their 25th wedding anniversary, Joe and Aggie Bruno decide to divorce each other, and both leave for Reno. So do their daughters Prudence and Pansy, but they want to get their parents back together. Joe and Aggie, accidentally, are becoming clients at the same law-firm, Wattles and Swift, which is the biggest and most successful in town.
She's My Weakness
Tommy Mills and Marie Thurber, sweethearts, plan to marry when Tommy sells some land he has inherited. Marie's parents favor the match, as they prefer Tommy over Bernard Norton, another suitor. Her father, Warren Thurber, however, is in financial straits and plans to sell land to a civic improvement association headed by David Tuttle. When he discovers that Tommy has agreed to sell his land to Mrs. Oberlander, he berates him; but Tommy agrees to boost the price so that Thurber will win out. Tuttle, who favors Bernard as Marie's husband, persuades Tommy that he must endure the displeasure of the Thurbers, and as a result a misunderstanding arises over the sale of the land. But Tuttle's scheme backfires, and Tommy wins the girl after all.
Soft Living
Nancy Woods, secretary to a divorce lawyer, is tantalized by the idea of collecting alimony payments, she marries Stockney Webb with the intention of fleecing him after the honeymoon. Realizing that he has been fooled, Webb determines to teach Nancy, whom he truly loves, a lesson in humility and wifely behavior by taking her to his cabin in the wilderness.
You and Me
Mr. Morris, the owner of a large metropolitan department store, gives jobs to paroled ex-convicts in an effort to help them reform and go straight. Among his 'employed-prison-graduates' are Helen Roberts and Joe Dennis, working as sales clerks. Joe is in love with Helen and asks her to marry him, but she is forbidden to marry as she is still on parole, but she says yes and they are married. In spite of their poverty-level life, their marriage is a happy one until Joe discovers she has lied about her past, in order to marry him. Disillusioned, he leaves, goes back to his old gang and plans to rob the department store.