Heroes for Sale is a 1933 pre-code movie from Warner Brothers, the studio with a social conscience. Directed by William Wellman, it stars silent film actor Richard Barthelmess, who found some success in talkies.
Wellman directed the silent epic Wings, and he displays his skill with war scenes in the opening of Heroes for Sale. Barthelmess plays a WWI soldier who suffers from inoperable shrapnel in his spine and becomes a veteran with an opioid addiction.
He gets out of rehab and finds love with 20-year-old Loretta Young. The always excellent Aline MacMahon is along for the ride that includes a Capitalism vs. Communism theme.