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Randolph Scott is as strong and silent as ever in Thunder Over the Plains. The scene is Texas, in the years just following the Civil War. Carpetbaggers have taken hold of the Texas government and imposed a near-dictatorship, hiding behind the legal protection of the Union Army of Occupation. Though his heart belongs to Dixie, Captain David Porter (Scott) is honor-bound to uphold the law of the land, even though it protects criminals and persecutes the innocent. Eventually, Porter reveals his true feelings as he tries to clear Texas patriot Ben Westman (Charles McGraw) from a murder charge framed by villains Standish (Elisha Cook Jr.) and Balfour (Hugh Sanders). Meanwhile, caddish Captain Bill Hodges (Lex Barker) tries to make time with Porter's long-suffering wife Norah (Phyllis Kirk). Perhaps a bit too complicated storywise for western fans, Thunder Over the Plains is right to the point when it comes to the action highlights.

Fritz Lang directed this gritty drama of gangland murder and police corruption, which was considered quite violent in its day. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a scrupulously honest police detective who learns that one of his fellow officers has committed suicide. Bannion is told by the officer's wife, Bertha (Jeanette Nolan), that he was severely depressed after being told he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. But the cop's mistress, a barmaid named Lucy (Dorothy Green), has another tale to tell. She claims that he left behind a suicide note detailing a complex trail of corruption in the department, leading to mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), and now Bertha plans to use the note to blackmail Lagana. When Lucy is found dead beside an abandoned road, with her body showing obvious signs of torture, Bannion is convinced that her story was true, and he goes after Lagana. When he threatens to expose Lagana's dealings, the gangster orders Bannion killed. But the car bomb meant to finish Bannion off instead kills his wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando). The police take Bannion off the case, but, convinced his peers are trying to cover their tracks, Bannion follows the case alone, determined to get revenge. Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame shine in key supporting roles.

Robert Aldrich's screen adaptation of Clifford Odets' stage play reflects the quandary of the writer's later career; the golden boy of the Group Theater in the '30s, when his plays were the toast of Broadway, his talent seemed to wither after a number of years in the screenwriting trenches, and a revulsion for what he saw as hackwork combined with his capitulation to HUAC to blight his final decade. Jack Palance stars as Charlie Castle, a major film star who has refused to sign a long-term contract for big money with a studio run by the tyrannical Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger). This has led to the return of his wife, Marion (Ida Lupino), who had left him due to his womanizing and a willingness to kowtow to Hoff in doing bad movies only for the money. After his agent, Nat Danziger (Everett Sloane), tries unsuccessfully to get him to reconsider, Hoff himself badgers Charlie, insisting on the absolute necessity of his signing. When the star continues to resist, Hoff threatens to blackmail him with an ugly incident from his past.

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel was translated to film in 1962 by Horton Foote and the producer/director team of Robert Mulligan and Alan J. Pakula. Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch, magnificently embodied by Gregory Peck. Finch puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man accused of rape. The trial and the events surrounding it are seen through the eyes of Finch's six-year-old daughter Scout (Mary Badham). While Robinson's trial gives the film its momentum, there are plenty of anecdotal occurrences before and after the court date: Scout's ever-strengthening bond with older brother Jem (Philip Alford), her friendship with precocious young Dill Harris (a character based on Lee's childhood chum Truman Capote and played by John Megna), her father's no-nonsense reactions to such life-and-death crises as a rampaging mad dog, and especially Scout's reactions to, and relationship with, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his movie debut), the reclusive "village idiot" who turns out to be her salvation when she is attacked by a venomous bigot. To Kill a Mockingbird won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction.

The Asphalt Jungle is a brilliantly conceived and executed anatomy of a crime -- or, as director John Huston and scripter Ben Maddow put it, "a left-handed form of human endeavor." Recently paroled master criminal Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), with funding from crooked attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern), gathers several crooks together in Cincinnati for a Big Caper. Among those involved are Dix (Sterling Hayden), an impoverished hood who sees the upcoming jewel heist as a means to finance his dream of owning a horse farm. Hunch-backed cafe owner (James Whitmore) is hired on to be the driver for the heist; professional safecracker Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso) assembles the tools of his trade; and a bookie (Marc Lawrence) acts as Emmerich's go-between. The robbery is pulled off successfully, but an alert night watchman shoots Ciavelli. Corrupt cop (Barry Kelley), angry that his "patsy" (Lawrence) didn't let him in on the caper, beats the bookie into confessing and fingering the other criminals involved. From this point on, the meticulously planned crime falls apart with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. Way down on the cast list is Marilyn Monroe in her star-making bit as Emmerich's sexy "niece"; whenever The Asphalt Jungle would be reissued, Monroe would figure prominently in the print ads as one of the stars. The Asphalt Jungle was based on a novel by the prolific W.R. Burnett, who also wrote Little Caesar and Saint Johnson (the fictionalized life story of Wyatt Earp).

By 1937, producer Hal Roach was hoping to wean himself away from the Laurel & Hardy-Our Gang slapstick on which he had built his studio's reputation by delving into the "screwball comedy" genre. Roach selected the racy Thorne Smith fantasy novel Topper for adaptation, and the result was one of the most endearingly funny films of the decade. Constance Bennett and Cary Grant play Marion and George Kerby, a wealthy, freewheeling young married couple whose uninhibited lifestyle is the talk of the town. After a particularly bibulous evening on the town, the Kerbys race homeward in their gleaming new roadster. George fails to negotiate a curve, and the car plows into a tree, killing both its occupants. Seconds later, the ghosts of George and Marion emerge from the wreckage, behaving as frivolously as if nothing had happened. Upon realizing that they're dead, the Kerbys also realize that they haven't been immediately snatched up into Heaven. Determining that they're required to perform one good deed before being allowed past the Pearly Gates, George and Marion set about to "liberate" stuffy, sedate, henpecked banker Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). At first resistant to the charms of his invisible benefactors, Topper begins to loosen up and truly enjoy life for the first time. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with Topper's supercilious wife (Billie Burke) nor his long-suffering butler (Alan Mobray), especially during a climactic free-for-all at a vacation resort. Though special effects abound in Topper, most of the humor derives from the embarrassed reactions of Roland Young as he tries to fend off the flirtatious advances of the ghostly Marion and the benignly strongman tactics of the spectral George. Adding to the fun are Eugene Pallette as a flustered house detective and Arthur Lake as a pratfalling bellboy. The musical score by longtime Hal Roach composer Marvin Hatley is perfectly attuned to the zany goings-on (including snatches of background music from Roach's earlier Laurel and Hardy comedies), while Hoagy Carmichael appears briefly on screen to introduce the film's signature tune, "Old Man Moon." Topper proved successful enough to warrant two sequels, as well as a popular TV series of the early 1950s.

In this low-budget, campy horror film, a murderous pianist pays for his crime when body parts from the lover he pushed from a lighthouse come back to haunt him just before he is to marry a prominent socialite.

Joan Bennett plays a young woman who believes she's killed bigtime crook Sidney Blackmer. She changes her hair color from blonde to brunette and escapes from San Francisco to parts unknown. Police detective Fredric March is hired to track down Bennett, which he does in the company of two assistants, wisecracking Ann Sothern and dimwitted Ralph Bellamy. March's chase takes him all over the world (courtesy of back-projected shots of Tay Garnett's recent worldwide vacation); when he catches up with Bennett, he falls in love with her. Still, when they reach Frisco again, March turns Bennett in to the authorities, convincing Bellamy and Sothern that their boss is a no-good rat. But it's actually a clever ploy by March to bring the real murderer out in the open. Trade Winds was produced by Joan Bennett's future husband Walter Wanger, who noted the popularity of Bennett's new brunette status and advised her to stay that way...which she did.

Rodeo champ Gene Autry inherits half interest in both a ranch and a mine that provides steady employment for the surrounding rancheros. Unfortunately, the other half goes to Easterner Barbara Erwin (Carol Hughes), who is only interested in monetary remuneration. To convince Gene to buy her share, Barbara enters into an unholy alliance with unscrupulous attorneys Arnold (Ivan Miller) and Fry (Sam Flint), who, without their client's consent, hire a gang of thugs headed by Tommick (John Merton). When a ranchero (Elias Gamboa) is mortally wounded in the ensuing gun battle, Barbara sees the error of her way and switches sides. When not fighting for the rights of the common man, Gene Autry and sidekick Smiley Burnette perform "Under Fiesta Stars", "Purple Sage in the Twilight", "When You're Smiling" and "The Man in the Flying Trapeze". Under Fiesta Stars has been restored to its original length of 62 minutes by Gene Autry Entertainment.

Based on the same H.G. Wells story as his later Food of the Gods, this silly but good-looking fantasy from Bert I. Gordon is among his more entertaining films. The young Ron Howard plays Genius, who develops a substance which causes animals to grow to monstrous size. After eight kids (led by Beau Bridges and Tisha Sterling) crash their car in the mud, they dance and get drunk, then steal some food containing the growth-gunk, causing them to attain huge physical size as well. It's up to the good teens of the town (including Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman, and "Mickey" crooner Toni Basil) to set things right. That involves a gas-like antidote and a lot of subpar musical numbers from the likes of Freddy Cannon and the Beau Brummels. Joseph Turkel and Rance Howard are also in the cast, and a jokey ending features a number of midgets including Felix Silla, best known as Cousin Itt on TV's The Addams Family. The first in a projected 13-picture production deal with Joseph E. Levine, Gordon followed this with the William Castle-inspired Picture Mommy Dead.

A suburban London teen finds her traditional education replaced by something slightly more sinister when an older, more worldly suitor sweeps her off of her feet while placing her future in jeopardy. London, 1961: 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is smart, attractive, and eager to start her adult life. She's grown tired of the familiar adolescent routine, so when urbane newcomer David (Peter Sarsgaard) appears in town, Jenny senses a rare opportunity to shake things up a bit. Quickly falling under David's spell, the impressionable Jenny begins accompanying her newfound beau to classical concerts, art auctions, crowded pubs, and dinners that stretch into the small hours of the night. But Jenny is brighter than most kids her age, and her parents always dreamt of getting their exceptional daughter into Oxford. These days it seems like she's headed in a different direction -- will David ultimately be her undoing, or the person who helps her finally realize her true potential?

Based on the novel by Rachel Maddux, A Walk in the Spring Rain is a romantic drama directed by Guy Green and adapted to screenplay by Sterling Siliphant. Taking a break from New York, Libby Meredith (Ingrid Bergman) moves to a small house in backwoods Tennessee with her husband, Roger (Fritz Weaver), who is on sabbatical to write a book. Their neighbor, Will Cade (Anthony Quinn), is very helpful to them and to Libby especially. With her intellectual husband paying her little attention, she comes to like the country life and finds herself attracted to Will's rural sensibilities. Though he is married to Ann (Virginia Gregg), Will and Libby start up a middle-aged affair. Libby's daughter, Ellen (Katharine Crawford), arrives asking for help raising her son while she attends Harvard. Soon enough, Will's son (Tom Fielding) finds out about the affair and assaults Libby, leading to drastic consequences for all.

ABBA, the spirited Swedish pop-singing group who skyrocketed to fame with their 1974 single "Waterloo," star in this loosely constructed vehicle. The story involves the efforts of a diligent DJ to secure an interview with the group while they're on tour in Australia. Eighteen of ABBA's hits are heard on the soundtrack and seen in grainy 16 mm concert footage, shot in March 1977. ABBA: The Movie was thus filmed some five years prior to the group's breakup. The film's director was Sweden's Lasse Hallström, who later gained infamy for his arthouse success My Life as a Dog (1985).

Across 110th Street is a violent urban thriller about a corrupt, older white cop (Anthony Quinn) and an honest, young African-American cop (Yaphet Kotto) chasing three robbers-cum-murderers who ran away with $300,000 that belonged to the Italian mob. The police must find them before the sadistic Mafia henchman Nick D'Salvio (Anthony Franciosa) reaches them first. The film has reached a cult status; the title song, performed by Bobby Womack, was later used in Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's extended homage to the crime flicks of the 1970s.

Airport had enough plot and enough star power in its cast for three feature films, and it only encompassed about half of the complexity or characters found in Arthur Hailey's best-selling potboiler. Essentially built around 12 harrowing hours at a major Midwestern airport, the film had everything an audience of the period could have wanted -- suspense, romance, drama, and comedy -- all spread across a vast canvas. Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster) is the manager of Lincoln Airport, facing a night beset by the worst blizzard in a decade, a wife (Dana Wynter) who announces she wants a divorce, a primary runway blocked by an airliner stuck in a snowdrift, and a governing board ready to fire him. Bakersfeld's cynical, smooth-talking brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin), won't let up on his criticism of the management at Lincoln, but he has his own problems as well, mostly in the form of a young stewardess, Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset), who is pregnant by him and whom he finds he genuinely loves. Add to that the presence of an old lady stowaway (Helen Hayes) and a mentally disturbed passenger (Van Heflin) carrying a bomb, and there's more than enough plot to keep viewers engrossed for two hours plus. Airport became one of the top-grossing movies of its era, racking up astronomical box-office numbers and spawning an entire film genre -- the disaster movie. With Jean Seberg, George Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Barry Nelson, and Maureen Stapleton filling out the rest of the leading roles, there was something for almost everyone in this film. The movie still has a lot to offer if only as a prime example of Hollywood at its most successfully glitzy.

This violent blaxploitation film stars Jim Brown as the owner of a Los Angeles nightclub. When his brother, a Vietnam veteran, is murdered by gangsters, Brown gathers some of his brother's fellow veterans and an assortment of ex-convicts to get brutal revenge. Martin Landau, Luciana Paluzzi, and Jeannie Bell head the cast, along with genre regulars Bruce Glover, Bernie Casey, and Gary Conway. Director Robert Hartford-Davis is best known for horror films like Incense of the Damned and Corruption, while Brown went on to more successful genre fare in Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off.

The Oklahoma land rush of 1889 provides the starting point for this western drama, based on a novel by Edna Ferber. Yancey Cravat (Glenn Ford) is an impulsive, short-fused cowboy who has married an immigrant woman, Sabra (Maria Schell). Together, Yancey and Sabra claim a homestead, and Yancey starts a newspaper. While he doesn't have much of a head for business, Sabra does, and when she takes greater control of the paper, it grows into a profitable and influential journal. Eventually, Yancey becomes a well-recognized figure, and it's suggested that he run for public office. However, Yancey finds himself unable to support legislation that would steal more land and mineral rights away from the Native Americans who first settled the land. Cimarron was previously filmed in 1931; this version reduced the role of stereotyped black characters and has Native American actors playing the "Indians," including Eddie and Dawn Little Sky.

A "Cinderella Liberty" is Navy jargon for a pass that runs out at midnight. Sailor John Baggs, Jr. (James Caan) has such a pass, and intends to make the most of it while his ship is docked in Seattle. He "wins" prostitute Maggie (Marsha Mason) in a pool game, but backs off at a "wham-bam-thank you ma'am" when he finds out that Maggie has a son, an 11-year-old mulatto (Kirk Calloway) -- and that there's another baby on the way. John has so much empathy for Maggie's travails that he marries her. When she loses her baby, however, Maggie feels unable to resign herself to living with John, plagued by both guilt and an unwillingness to be tied down -- thus forcing John to fight for her. Darryl Ponicsan adapted his own novel.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Warner Bros. developed a positive genius for remaking earlier films in new, disguised fashion, retaining the plotlines but altering the circumstances and character names. Wagons Roll at Night was a 1941 reworking of the prizefight drama Kid Galahad, filmed only four years earlier. The original film was about a naive boxer who falls in love with the sister of his semi-crooked manager. The remake stars Eddie Albert as a bucolic lion tamer, Humphrey Bogart (who'd been the villain in Kid Galahad) as the circus manager, and Joan Leslie as the girl. The earlier film also included Bette Davis as the manager's put-upon mistress; her counterpart in Wagons Roll at Night is Sylvia Sidney as a worldly circus star. It's amazing how well the prizefight milieu adapts itself to the lion cage, and for this alone Wagons Roll at Night is memorable.

Based on a true story, Endangered Species stars Robert Urich and JoBeth Williams. Urich plays vacationing ex-cop Ruben Castle, while Williams portrays Harriet Purdue, a small-town sheriff. Intrigued by Purdue's investigation of a rash of cattle mutilations, Castle begins following the evidence trail himself. What has been attributed to a religious cult or extraterrestrials by the locals turns out to be a covert operation conducted by a corrupt cartel.

Meghan Lee Ethridge and Melanie Porter star in this sci-fi drama following people who are confined to a secret government facility after having been abducted by aliens. Written and directed by Eric Forsberg.

Its wartime setting notwithstanding, the fast-paced Warner Bros. B-picture Adventures in Iraq is a remake of the 1930 George Arliss vehicle The Green Goddess, with much of the original dialogue intact. Forced to making a landing in the Syrian desert, pilot Doug Everett (Warren Douglas) and his passengers George and Tess Torrence (John Loder, Ruth Ford), find themselves the unwilling guests of Sheik Ahmid Bel Nor (Paul Cavanagh, in the George Arliss role). The civilized but deadly Sheik intends to hold the threesome as hostages to prevent the execution of his three Nazi-spy brothers by the British. After several desperate escape attempts, the trio is prepared for human sacrifice by the ruthless Shiek. The ending is substantially the same as in The Green Goddess.

Based on a story by Jules Verne and featuring battle footage from a French film version of the tale, this epic action-adventure follows a courageous courier of the Czar Alexander II as he struggles to deliver vital information to Russian troops fighting a losing battle against the invading Tartar hoards in Siberia.

The 1938 filmization of Myron Brinig's novel The Sisters stars Bette Davis, Jane Bryan and Anita Louise as Louise, Grace and Helen Elliot. The daughters of turn-of-the-century druggist Henry Travers and his wife Beulah Bondi, the Elliot girls all meet their future husbands at a 1904 ball in honor of President Teddy Roosevelt. Special emphasis is given the relationship between Louise and reckless, irresponsible newspaperman Frank Medlin (Errol Flynn). Feeling trapped by his marriage, Medlin turns to drink and philandering. When Frank eventually runs off to Singapore, Louise is too proud to hold her husband by informing him that she's pregnant. Caught up in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (superbly conveyed with a single interior shot of a collapsing apartment), Louise wanders around dazedly until she finds shelter in an Oakland brothel (though it is not so specified). She loses her baby, but is consoled by her employer Ian Hunter, who falls in love with her. The original book ended with Louise giving up her unhappy marriage for a joyous relationship with her boss; the film ends with Louise being reunited with the suddenly sobered Frank (despite the protests of both Bette Davis and Errol Flynn). A prime example of Hollywood Soap Opera, The Sisters also yielded an amusing reel of outtakes, the best of which shows Bette Davis breaking up Errol Flynn by sighing "I've just had a baby in the ladies' room."

To make the Rising of the Moon, American filmmaker John Ford returned to his Irish roots. An obscure and highly personal film for Ford, it is comprised of three episodes--each offering insight into Irish culture and values. All are introduced by Tyrone Power. In "The Majesty of the Law," a police officer is assigned to arrest an Irish curmudgeon who hit the neighbor who sold him a lousy batch of homemade whiskey. But this is no ordinary arrest as the old man is a traditionalist who loathes the new directions his beloved Eire is going. Out of respect, the cop eschews his car and walks to his cottage. The two have a conversation and the old man mourns the loss of the old ways and expresses his frustration over the encroachment of modern amenities that are destroying the Irish heritage. The sympathetic cop offers to free him if the old man will pay a small fine, but though the codger has more than enough to pay it, he refuses on principal. Even when the man who filed the charges offers to pay the fine, the coot refuses to give in and stoically heads off to serve his time. As he walks with the officer to the jail, the whole town comes out to honor the old man. Set at a train station "A Minute's Wait" offers a humorous look at Irish conceptions of time as train's brief scheduled stop to pick up some lobsters for an important dinner stretches out into a long, leisurely pause. The final vignette, "1921" features members of Dublin's Abbey Theatre and tells the story of how they engineer an elaborate rescue of an Irish patriot from prison.

Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its "guts", this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer's bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter words). Aldo Ray heads the cast as sadistic sergeant Croft, who'd as soon kill one of his own men as he would the Japanese. Sensitive, moralistic Lieutenant Hearn (Cliff Robertson) tries to put a leash on Croft, but he's ordered to keep out of the situation by psychotic General Cummings (Raymond Massey), who is convinced that soldiers will fight harder the more they hate their superiors. The film wavers uncomfortably between excessive violence and excessive moralizing, with time out for a few ill-conceived slapstick setpieces (including an outsized barroom brawl) and romantic interludes with such zaftig beauties as stripteaser Lili (Lili St. Cyr) and good-time girl Mildred (Barbara Nichols). In one of his first film appearances, comedian Joey Bishop plays Pvt. Roth, whose reaction to Sgt. Croft's relentless anti-semitism culminates in a spectacular death scene. Distribution of The Naked and the Dead was taken over from the failing RKO Radio operation by Warner Bros., who also changed the name of the film's widescreen process from SuperScope to WarnerScope.

Jimmy Dolan (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) is a light heavyweight champion, with the world at his feet. Then he gets into a fight with a reporter at a party and, thanks to an accident of fate and a perfect frame by some "friends" of his, he ends up on the run from a homicide. He ends up hiding out in a small town on a health farm, run for the rehabilitation of young children suffering from infantile paralysis (aka polio) by Peggy (Loretta Young) and Mrs. Moore (Aline MacMahon). They initially have doubts about this stranger, who seems to be hiding something, but Dolan is gradually won over by the unselfishness of the two women -- especially Peggy -- and the love of the children, whose ranks include Freckles (Mickey Rooney), Mary (Anne Shirley), and Sam (Allen "Farina" Hoskins). Peggy and Mrs. Moore may lose the farm unless they can come up with a way of paying off the mortgage, and when a barnstorming fighter comes through town offering $100 a round for anyone who can stay in the ring with him, Jimmy starts thinking that maybe this is a chance to use his fists one last time for a good cause. But then Philaxer (Guy Kibbee), a disgraced police detective, shows up, looking to redeem himself by finding the killer in the case back in New York -- and he's got his eye on Dolan.

According to encyclopedic film historian Roger Dooley, The Law in Her Hands is the only film of the 1930s to concern itself with a pair of female legal partners. The firm of Mary Wentworth (Margaret Lindsay) and Dorothy Davis (Glenda Farrell) specializes in defending criminals -- and ethics are hardly a consideration. Mary is the more idealistic of the two, insisting that she is furthering the cause of justice by championing the underdog. She is shown the error of her ways by district attorney Robert Mitchell (Warren Hull), who is as handsome as he is honest. In a denouement that might prove amusing to real-life criminal lawyers, Mary not only "reforms," but also inaugurates the proceedings for her own disbarment!

The Las Vegas Story features two of Hollywood's most impressive physiques. Victor Mature stars as Dave Andrews, a policeman, while Jane Russell plays Linda, the love of his life. Assuming that Andrews has forgotten her, Linda marries Lloyd Rollins (Vincent Price) on the rebound. All three main characters are reunited in Las Vegas, where they become enmeshed in a robbery scheme that results in murder. Clearly inspired by Casablanca, the film even includes a philosophical piano player, portrayed by Hoagy Carmichael who also wrote the film's incidental songs. Though Las Vegas Story was largely scripted by Paul Jarrico, producer Howard Hughes refused to give Jarrico screen credit because of the latter's alleged pro-communist sympathies. Jarrico promptly sued Hughes and RKO, sparking one of the more famous cause celebres of the Blacklist era. As it turned out, nobody came out ahead with The Las Vegas Story: the film posted a loss of $600,000.

Though she may have won an Oscar in 1948, Jane Wyman still had a Warner Bros. contract to fulfill, even if it meant appearing in frivolities like The Lady Takes a Sailor. It all begins when Jennifer (Wyman), the head of an oceanographic research institute, claims to have made a fascinating underwater discovery. It is suspected that she's made this claim so that her funding will be continued, so the money-men send Bill Craig (Dennis Morgan) to investigate. Disguised as a sailor, Bill accompanies Jennifer on her next expedition, just to see if her story was true. Jennifer falls in love with Bill, neglecting her work in the process. When Bill is revealed to be a fake, things look bleak--but not for long. Eve Arden has all the best lines as Jane Wyman's sarcastic best friend (the sort of role Wyman used to play in her blonde-ingenue days).

(Preston Sturges) wrote and directed this classic romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, who are involved in a scintillating battle of the sexes, as Sturges points up the terrors of sexual passion and the unattainability of the romantic ideal. Henry Fonda plays Charles Pike, the heir to the Pike Ale fortune ("The Ale That Won for Yale"). An ophiologist (a snake expert), he just spent a year "up the Amazon" looking for rare snakes with his cynical and protective guardian/valet Muggsy (William Demarest). He arrives to board the S.S. Southern Queen bound for New York, and immediately becomes the main order of business for a collection of single women looking to nab the eligible bachelor. Amongst those watching Charles board are a trio of con men and cardsharps -- Colonel Handsome Harry Harrington (Charles Coburn), his partner Gerald (Melville Cooper), and the Colonel's daughter Jean (Barbara Stanwyck). All three see Charles as a pushover and at dinner, while all the women are ogling Charles, Jean wins the day by sticking out her foot and tripping him. Complaining to Charles that he should watch where he is going, she gets him to escort her to her cabin so that she can replace her broken heel. Charles is sexually attracted to Jean, but when Charles is about to make a pass at her, she pulls back, telling him, "You ought to be put in a cage." Back in the dining room, Charles is introduced to the Colonel and the three play cards, Charles winning $500 from the Colonel and $100 from Jean. But Charles is merely being set-up for the next game when the Colonel will come in for the kill. Back at Jean's cabin, Charles and Jean sit close and something happens she hadn't planned -- she becomes attracted to Charles too. The next morning, Muggsy warns Charles that the Colonel and Jean are cardsharks, but Charles won't hear of it. Meanwhile, the Colonel is looking forward to fleecing Charles, but Jean doesn't want any part of it. Jean participates in the card game between Charles and the Colonel, making sure than the Colonel doesn't cheat. But while Jean waits on deck for Charles after the game, the Colonel plays Charles a game of double-or-nothing, with Charles losing $32,000. Jean, angry with her father, makes the Colonel tears up Charles' check. The next morning, Muggsy proves to Charles the three are con artists. Devastated, Charles shows Jean the photograph, claiming he knew she was a criminal the morning after he met her. Jean is determined to get even with Charles ("I hate that mug!"). Docking in New York, the Colonel reveals he merely palmed the $32,000 check. But that's not enough revenge for Jean. Impersonating an aristocratic English woman, Lady Eve Sidwich, Jean has herself introduced to Charles. Planning to make Charles to fall in love with her again, she intends to break his heart like he broke her own. As she explains, "I've got some unfinished business with him -- I need him like the axe needs the turkey."