A Free Soul is a 1931 Pre-Code film which tells the story of an alcoholic

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 defense attorney who must defend his daughter's ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with; a mobster whom her father had previously got an acquittal for on a murder charge. A Free Soul stars Norma Shearer

Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

, Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard (actor)

Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...

, Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...

, and Clark Gable

Clark Gable

William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

 (the first screen appearance together of the future Ashley Wilkes

Ashley Wilkes

George Ashley Wilkes is a fictional character in the Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and the later film of the same name. The character also appears in the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind written by Alexandra Ripley, and in Rhett Butler's People by Donald...

 and Rhett Butler

Rhett Butler

Rhett Butler is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.-Role:In the beginning of the novel, we first meet Rhett at the Twelve Oaks Plantation barbecue, the home of John Wilkes and his son Ashley and daughters Honey and India Wilkes...

).

The movie was adapted by Becky Gardiner and John Meehan

John Meehan (screenwriter)

John Meehan was an American-born Canadian screenwriter.He was born in Lorraine, Ohio, before moving shortly afterwards to Lindsay, Ontario. Following high school he briefly attended the Heinrich Von Gerkenstein school of Culinary Sciences in Austria, before leaving to pursue a career in Hollywood...

 (dialogue continuity) from the play by Willard Mack

Willard Mack

Willard Mack was a Canadian-born actor, director, and playwright.Born Charles McLaughlin, in Morrisburg, Ontario, at an early age his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. After two years, they relocated to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where McLaughlin finished high school...

, which was based on the novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns

Adela Rogers St. Johns

Adela Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies and, late in life, appeared with other early twentieth-century figures as one of the 'witnesses' in Warren Beatty's Reds, but she is best remembered for her...

. It was directed by Clarence Brown

Clarence Brown

Clarence Brown was an American film director.-Early life:Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was 11. He attended Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of...

.

A Free Soul became famous for a sequence where Barrymore delivers a monologue that is said to be the main reason he won the Academy Award for Best Actor

Academy Award for Best Actor

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 that year. (Norma Shearer was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role

Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 and Clarence Brown for Best Director

Academy Award for Directing

The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...

.) Gable made such an impression in the role of a gangster who pushes Shearer around that he was catapulted from supporting player to leading man, a position he held for the rest of his career.

A Free Soul was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on March 8, 2008 (along with The Divorcee

The Divorcee

The Divorcee is a 1930 American drama film written by Nick Grindé, John Meehan and Zelda Sears, based on the novel Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director...

, also starring Norma Shearer), as one of five Pre-Code films in the "TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2" DVD box set.

Cast

In credits order:

• Norma Shearer
  Norma Shearer
  Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
  
   as Jan Ashe
• Leslie Howard
  Leslie Howard (actor)
  Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...
  
   as Dwight Winthrop
• Lionel Barrymore
  Lionel Barrymore
  Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
  
   as Stephen Ashe
• James Gleason
  James Gleason
  James Austin Gleason was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.-Career:...
  
   as Eddie
• Clark Gable
  Clark Gable
  William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
  
   as Ace Wilfong
• Lucy Beaumont
  Lucy Beaumont
  Lucy Beaumont was an English actress of the stage and screen from Bristol, England. She was the daughter of Sir Albert and Helen Coles. She was educated at a young ladies' college in Bath, England....
  
   as Grandma Ashe

Production

According to the Guinness Book of World Records

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

(2002), A Free Soul holds the record for the longest take

Take

A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.-Film:In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup"...

in a commercial film, the final courtroom scene at 14 minutes. Since a reel of camera film lasts only 10 minutes, the take was achieved by using more than one camera.