"Merrily We Go to Hell" (1932). Fredric March, who was five years away from playing one of the most famous drunks in cinematic history in "A Star Is Born," gets into character here as an alcoholic newspaperman who becomes a successful playwright. Along the way, heiress Sylvia Sidney forsakes her fortune to marry him but he continues to drink and cheat until she eventually gives him a taste of his own medicine. March and Sydney are great, and look for Cary Grant in a small role as a stage actor.

"Hot Saturday" (1932) is one of the best films here, focusing on small-town gossip and its damaging effect on an innocent young woman (silents star Nancy Carroll) whose reputation is tarnished by exaggerated rumors of her relationship with a womanizing playboy (Cary Grant). Her naive childhood sweetheart (Randolph Scott) wants to marry her but dumps her after he hears about it. So she decides that if she's going to be painted as a loose woman she might as well become one. Equal parts comedy and melodrama with the stars lighting up the screen.

"Torch Singer" (1933) is a powerful showcase for Claudette Colbert, who demonstrates wide range as a destitute unwed mother forced to give up her child. She eventually finds nightclub success and becomes a hardened, notorious singer. But when she inadvertently becomes the incognito voice of a children's radio show, she re-evaluates her shallow life and decides to use the show to search for her daughter. A real star vehicle, allowing Colbert to strut her stuff in both melodrama and comedy.

"Murder at the Vanities" (1934), based on Earl Carroll's Broadway show about a backstage murder, is really just an excuse to display Carroll's famous nearly-nude chorus girls in a variety of truly zonked-out musical numbers — including a flamenco celebration of marijuana! This is one of the weirdest films of its type ever put out by a major studio, with cop Victor McLaglen and producer Jack Oakie providing comic relief. Duke Ellington is also on hand! (This is the only film in this set that was previously on VHS.)

"Search for Beauty" (1934) is a rapid-fire comedy that also displays a fair amount of flesh as Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino play straight-arrow Olympic swimmers duped by fast-talking con artists (Robert Armstrong, James Gleason) into participating in a "health and exercise" magazine that's really just sexual exploitation. When they finally catch on, the athletes turn the tables. Included are some truly bizarre Busby Berkeley-like workout production numbers. Lupino's a blonde with her British accent intact, and though Crabbe played Tarzan a year earlier, Flash Gordon was two years away.

Extras: full frame, featurette (a brief history of the Production Code on Disc 1 with "The Cheat"); 20-page replica of the original Production Code document (with detailed explanations of what could not be depicted on film from mid-1934 through the late 1950s)

"Cleopatra: 75th Anniversary Edition" (Universal, 1934, b/w, $29.98)