A Free Soul is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by Clarence Brown, starring Norma Shearer, and featuring Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, James Glrason, and Clark Gable.

His upper-class family has all but disowned him and his free-spirited daughter Jan. Jan is engaged to clean-cut Dwight Winthrop, but their relationship is threatened when she meets Ace and becomes enamored of him and his exciting life.

As Stephen continues to slip deeper into alcoholism, Jan breaks her engagement with Dwight and begins a clandestine affair with Ace that grows into love.

[9] However, according to MGM publicity material, the story upon which this film was based first appeared serially in Hearst's International with Cosmopolitan magazine from September 1926 to February 1927.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Mordaunt Hall wrote:Talking pictures are by no means elevated by the presentation of 'A Free Soul' ...

In fact, his is the only characterization that rings true, the other players being handicapped either through miscasting, the false conception of human psychology or poorly written lines.

[2] Academy Awards Wins[13] Nominations A Free Soul was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on March 8, 2008 (along with The Divorcee, also starring Norma Shearer), as one of five pre-Code films in the TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol.