Heroes for Sale (film)

Heroes for Sale
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	William Wellman
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis
Written by	Robert Lord Wilson Mizner
Starring	Richard Barthelmess Aline MacMahon Loretta Young
Music by	Bernhard Kaun
Cinematography	James Van Trees
Edited by	Howard Bretherton
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	June 17, 1933
Running time	76 min. (1933 release) 71 min. (TCM print)
Country	United States
Language	English

Heroes for Sale (1933) is an American Depression-era Pre-Code film directed by William Wellman, starring Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, and Loretta Young, and released by Warner Bros. and First National Pictures. Original 76 minute considered lost, current 71 minutes from Turner Entertainment print.

A veteran of World War I, Thomas Holmes (Richard Barthelmess), struggles to make his way in civilian life in almost every way imaginable. In the opening scene of the movie, Tom and his friend are on a mission to gather intelligence by capturing a German soldier. Tom's friend, the banker's son Roger Winston (Gordon Westcott), in terror, refuses to leave the shell hole so Tom volunteers to go alone.

He captures a German but is apparently killed; in fact, he has only been wounded, and the Germans take him to their hospital to recover. His friend Roger Winston returns to the safety of American lines with the captured German soldier and is rewarded with a medal for it; his feeble efforts to refuse credit are dismissed as modesty, and he comes home a decorated hero. During Tom's captivity, German doctors treat his pain with morphine and he becomes addicted to the drug. After Tom returns from the war, Roger offers him a job at his father's bank out of shame.

But Tom's addiction costs him his job. Exposed as an addict, confined and cured in an asylum, he comes out in 1922, unemployed and alone; his mother has died, apparently of shame and grief, while he was away. Heading to Chicago, he happens upon an apartment over a diner, run by kindhearted Pop Dennis (Charlie Grapewin) and his daughter Mary (Aline MacMahon). Tom finds a job in a laundry, and a romance with Ruth Loring (Loretta Young). Always the go-getter, Tom makes good, better than the other drivers on his route, and earns a promotion. A fierce radical inventor (Robert Barrat) devises a machine that will make washing and drying clothes easier, and Tom induces his fellow employees to raise the money to pay for patenting it. The laundry company adopts the machinery, but only on Tom's stipulation that none of the workers at the plant lose their jobs because of it. Success and marriage are his. Then the president of the firm, the kindhearted Mr. Gibson (Grant Mitchell) dies. The new ownership decides to break the deal and automate the laundry, throwing most of its employees out of work, Tom included.