The Divorcee (1930)(dvd)

Synopsis: Norma Shearer won her best actress Academy Award for the spunky, sexy performance on display here. This may surprise viewers who only recall her as the grand queen of the lot in her later roles at a prestige-conscious MGM run by her husband, Irving Thalberg. In fact, this movie was based on a novel so racy that the author published it anonymously, and much of that substance (though not the actual plot) is on screen in those halcyon pre-Hays Code days.

Shearer plays a woman having an affair with a man loved by another woman. It all looks a bit creaky now, and who'd want to end up with stodgy square-jawed Chester Morris anyhow? Shearer's actually better in the following year's A Free Soul.

Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris
Runtime: 83 min