Affairs of a Gentleman
1934 American drama film directed by Edwin L. Marin

Affairs of a Gentleman is a 1934 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Edwin L. Marin and written by Cyril Hume, Peter Ruric and Milton Krims, adapted from the 1928 play Women by Edith Ellis and Edward Ellis. The film stars Paul Lukas, Leila Hyams, Patricia Ellis, Phillip Reed, Onslow Stevens and Dorothy Burgess. The film was released on May 1, 1934, by Universal Pictures.
Plot
The gentleman of the title is Victor Gresham, a popular novelist. He has loved many women, and has been loved back by many of them. Several of these ladies have left the domestic security provided by their husbands in order to further pursue a relationship with Gresham, despite Gresham's own advise to the contrary. As his lovers compete over him, Gresham uses his love life as inspiration for a series of cynical novels. Each of his novels described the events of one of his love affairs.
Early in the film, Gresham is found dead at his own writing desk. The rest of the film explores the events which led to his death, covering the last twelve hours in Gresham's life.
“Affairs of a Gentleman” enters the record as 1934 American drama film directed by Edwin L. Marin. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Affairs, Gentleman and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16038894. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934 and 1928.
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This entry incorporates text from “Affairs of a Gentleman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.