The Bride Wore Red

Bankrolled by a count with a taste for practical jokes, streetwise bargirl Anni (Joan Crawford) passes herself off as an aristocrat at a posh Alpine resort. There she plans to land a wealthy husband (Robert Young) pronto, even though she’s drawn to the town postman (Franchot Tone, Crawford’s then-husband, in the last of the seven films they made together).

From its love-vs-security theme to its knockout clothes (the eponymous dress boasts two-million bugle beads), The Bride Wore Red is a quintessential woman’s picture—and it features a fabulous woman on each side of the camera: gorgeous Crawford, at her romantic, rags-to-riches peak and Dorothy Arzner (Dance, Girl, Dance), Hollywood’s only Golden Age female director.