| 1922 | Rain. Colton's first major success is this adaptation, written with Clemence Randolph, of Somerset Maugham's short story about an American prostitute on a South Sea island and the missionary who falls in love with her. Colton had been the drama critic of the Minneapolis Tribune whose first play to reach Broadway was Drifting (1922). |
| 1926 | The Shanghai Gesture. Colton's sensational melodrama set in a Shanghai brothel is dismissed by critic George Jean Nathan as "box-office drivel," but it proves to be one of the season's biggest hits. |
