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Another Face (1935)

  • Director
  • Christy Cabanne
  • Writers
  • Tom Dugan(story)
  • Ray Mayer(story)
  • Garrett Graham(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Wallace Ford
  • Brian Donlevy
  • Phyllis Brooks


Charming but ruthless fugitive gangster Dutra (Brian Donlevy) demands that a doctor (Oscar Apfel) perform plastic surgery upon him. Emerging from the bandages with a new face, Dutra murders the doctor, changes his name to Dawson, and heads to California, secure in the belief that no one who can identify him is still living. Unfortunately for him, the sole link to Dawson's past, nurse Molly Lamont, is now working in Hollywood -- where Dawson is enjoying a whole new career as a movie star! Things move along comically until Dawson tips his hand by taking his leading lady Sheila (Phyllis Brooks) hostage. Salvation comes in the unlikely form of obnoxious studio-press-agent Joe Haynes (Wallace Ford). Also released as It Happened in Hollywood, Another Face is a very uneven blend of comedy and melodrama, making up in energy what it lacks in coherence.

 
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Author Author (1982)

  • Director
  • Arthur Hiller
  • Writer
  • Israel Horovitz
  • Stars
  • Al Pacino
  • Dyan Cannon
  • Tuesday Weld


Successful playwright Al Pacino can't get any work done as long as he is pestered by his wacko wife Tuesday Weld. Making things worse are the couple's obstreperous children, many of them products of her previous marriages. Just as Pacino is completing his latest work, his wife walks out on him. That's the good news: the bad news is that he's saddled with a bunch of snot-nosed kids. Still and all, Pacino finds time to inaugurate an affair with his play's leading lady, played by Dyan Cannon, while attempting to juggle the stresses of opening night with the needs of the demanding, often obnoxious children.

 
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Conspiracy (1930)

  • Director
  • Christy Cabanne
  • Writers
  • Beulah Marie Dix(screen play)
  • Robert M. Baker(play)
  • John Emerson(play)
  • Stars
  • Bessie Love
  • Ned Sparks
  • Hugh Trevor


The "conspiracy" of the title refers not only to a deadly narcotics ring, but also the combined efforts by the good guys to capture the villains. Margaret Holt (Bessie Love) and her brother Victor (Bert Morehouse) team up to destroy the drug peddlers responsible for their father's death. They are aided in this endeavor by cub reporter John Howell (Hugh Trevor), and by sourpuss mystery writer Winthrop Clavering (Ned Sparks). In the film's tension-packed climax, avenging-angel Margaret slowly sneaks up on gang leader James Morton (Otto Matiesen), dagger in hand. A remake of a Paramount silent film, Conspiracy barely made back its cost, precluding any future remakes.

 
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Copper Canyon (1950)

  • Director
  • John Farrow
  • Writers
  • Richard English(story)
  • Jonathan Latimer(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Ray Milland
  • Hedy Lamarr
  • Macdonald Carey


Set just after the close of the Civil War, a former Confederate officer (Ray Milland) joins a vaudeville target-shooting show to avoid detection by the Union army. Working his way West, he falls in league with a group of Southern copper-miners being harassed as they try to make a living.

 
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Dodsworth (1936)

  • Director
  • William Wyler
  • Writers
  • Sinclair Lewis(based upon the novel by)
  • Sidney Howard(dramatized by)
  • Robert Wyler(uncredited)
  • Stars
  • Walter Huston
  • Ruth Chatterton
  • Paul Lukas


In this highly acclaimed adaptation of Sinclair Lewis's novel, Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth, a good-hearted, middle-aged man who runs an auto manufacturing firm. His wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton) is obsessed with the notion that she's growing old, and she eventually persuades Sam to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe. He agrees for the sake of their marriage, but before long Fran has begun to think of herself as a cosmopolitan sophisticate and thinks of Sam as dull and unadventurous. Craving excitement, Fran begins spending her time with other men and eventually informs Sam that she's leaving him for a minor member of royalty. While in Italy, Sam runs into Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), an attractive widow whom he first met while sailing to Europe. Edith seems to understand Sam in a way his wife does not, and they fall in love. However, Sam impulsively breaks off their relationship, only to discover in her absence just how deeply he cares for her. Dodsworth was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Walter Huston), and Best Supporting Actress (Maria Ouspenskaya), though only art director Richard Day walked away with an Oscar.

 
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Fire On The Mountain (1981)

  • Director
  • Donald Wrye
  • Writers
  • Edward Abbey(book)
  • John Sacret Young
  • Stars
  • Buddy Ebsen
  • Ron Howard
  • Julie Carmen


A 1962 novel by Edward Abbey was the source for this 1981 TV movie. Buddy Ebsen plays a stubborn oldster who refuses to leave his mountain property when it is targeted for a government missile base. Not even a promised $100,000 compensation will induce Ebsen to leave. Young land developer Ron Howard is sent to vacate Ebsen, but soon Howard joins the older man in defying the military. Soon it boils down to a battle of wills between Ebsen and the equally bullheaded army officer Michael Conrad. Fire on the Mountain may have your typical "all-TV" cast, but it's a good one.

 
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Gentlemen With Guns (1943)

  • Director
  • Sam Newfield
  • Writer
  • Fred Myton(original story)
  • Stars
  • Buster Crabbe
  • Al St. John
  • Patricia Knox


Sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) finds himself in deep trouble with the law in this above-average entry in PRC's Billy Carson series starring Larry "Buster" Crabbe. Angered by Fuzzy's refusal to sell him his water rights, nasty Jim McAllister (Steve Terrell) has the grizzled old-timer framed in the killing of one of his henchmen, Slade (George Chesebro). But Slade is still very much alive and Fuzzy's reluctant mail-order bride, Mathilda Boggs (Patricia Knox), grabs a chance to come out ahead by joining McAllister. Fortunately, Fuzzy's friend and partner Billy Carson (Crabbe) is on to the shenanigans and Jones escapes both the hangman and the grasping Miss Boggs.

 
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Georgy Girl (1966)

  • Director
  • Silvio Narizzano
  • Writers
  • Margaret Forster(screenplay)
  • Peter Nichols(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • James Mason
  • Alan Bates
  • Lynn Redgrave


Georgy Girl is a bittersweet comedy drama about Georgy (Lynn Redgrave), a slightly overweight, working-class virgin in her early twenties who shares an apartment with the gorgeous, promiscuous Meredith (Charlotte Rampling). Georgy has never been the subject of the desire for any man until the wealthy, married employer of her family, James Leamington (James Mason) (for whom her parents work as servants) decides that he would like her for a mistress. Shortly afterward, the unmarried Meredith becomes pregnant and introduces Georgy to the father, Jos (Alan Bates). Georgy and Jos fall in love. Although Meredith initially wants to give the child up for adoption, she agrees to let Georgy act as surrogate mother. Meanwhile, James - whose wife unexpectedly dies -- has also indicated that he wants to marry her. As the film approaches its denouement, Georgy is faced with a tough call: should she stay single and keep the child, marry James and keep the baby, or marry Jos? We won't divulge the ending here, but the finale is a heartbreaker. Georgy Girl was a tremendously popular film upon its 1966 release, as was the Seekers' catchy title song.

 
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Black Beauty (1971)

  • Director
  • James Hill
  • Writers
  • Anna Sewell(novel)
  • Wolf Mankowitz(screenplay)
  • James Hill(additional dialogue)
  • Stars
  • Mark Lester
  • Walter Slezak
  • Peter Lee Lawrence


This internationally produced adaptation of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty is essentially a vehicle for Oliver star Mark Lester. The young Lester spends most of the film trying to reclaim his beautiful black horse, which passes through several hands over the course of 90 minutes. All the setpieces of the Sewell original are in attendance, including the showstopping "burning barn" sequence. Walter Slezak is the only truly recognizable actor in the film outside of Lester.

 
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The Bicycle Thief (1948)

  • Director
  • Vittorio De Sica
  • Writers
  • Cesare Zavattini(story)
  • Luigi Bartolini(novel)
  • Oreste Biancoli(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Lamberto Maggiorani
  • Enzo Staiola
  • Lianella Carell


This landmark Italian neorealist drama became one of the best-known and most widely acclaimed European movies, including a special Academy Award as "most outstanding foreign film" seven years before that Oscar category existed. Written primarily by neorealist pioneer Cesare Zavattini and directed by Vittorio DeSica, also one of the movement's main forces, the movie featured all the hallmarks of the neorealist style: a simple story about the lives of ordinary people, outdoor shooting and lighting, non-actors mixed together with actors, and a focus on social problems in the aftermath of World War II. Lamberto Maggiorani plays Antonio, an unemployed man who finds a coveted job that requires a bicycle. When it is stolen on his first day of work, Antonio and his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) begin a frantic search, learning valuable lessons along the way. The movie focuses on both the relationship between the father and the son and the larger framework of poverty and unemployment in postwar Italy. As in such other classic films as Shoeshine (1946), Umberto D. (1952), and his late masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), DeSica focuses on the ordinary details of ordinary lives as a way to dramatize wider social issues. As a result, The Bicycle Thief works as a sentimental study of a father and son, a historical document, a social statement, and a record of one of the century's most influential film movements.

 
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Getting Gertie's Garter (1945)

  • Director
  • Allan Dwan
  • Writers
  • Wilson Collison(play)
  • Avery Hopwood(play)
  • Allan Dwan(adaptation)
  • Stars
  • Dennis O'Keefe
  • Marie McDonald
  • Barry Sullivan


Getting Gertie's Garter is an updated adaptation of the venerable stage farce by Wilson Collison and Avery Hopwood. Dennis O'Keefe, newly married to lovely Sheila Ryan, is in a jam. O'Keefe's former girl friend, exotic dancer Marie McDonald, has in her possession an expensive, jeweled garter given to her by O'Keefe in his bachelor days. McDonald intends to show the garter to O'Keefe's suspicious wife, so Our Hero must retrieve the embarrassing accouterment without tipping off the missus. Previously filmed in 1927, Getting Gertie's Garter was one several enjoyable films produced by Edward Small and directed by Allan Dwan, all based on popular stage comedies.

 
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Bureau Of Missing Persons (1933)

  • Director
  • Roy Del Ruth
  • Writers
  • Robert Presnell Sr.(screen play)
  • John H. Ayers(story "Missing Men")
  • Carol Bird(story "Missing Men")
  • Stars
  • Bette Davis
  • Lewis Stone
  • Pat O'Brien


Although claiming to be based on actual cases, this mild crime drama appears to have been derived more from a screenwriter's manual than a police blotter. Newly transferred from robbery to missing persons, glib Butch Saunders (Pat O'Brien) is like the proverbial bull in a china shop at first, but quickly gets the hang of things. In walks pretty Norma Roberts (Bette Davis), claiming to be missing her new husband, whom she accuses of shipping out. Despite being married to nagging Belle (Glenda Farrell), Butch falls in love with the dame, until, that is, he learns the truth. Norma's last name isn't Roberts at all, but Williams, and she is wanted in Chicago for the murder of her boss, Therme Roberts. Begging Butch to cover for her -- "just for a little while. I'll explain everything later" -- Norma does a disappearing act herself and makes it look like suicide. But Butch refuses to buy the act and with the help of his boss, Captain Webb (Lewis Stone), the fast-talking cop arranges for a corpse to be lying in state at a local funeral parlor under the name of Norma Williams, hoping to flush out the real Norma. Norma walks right into the trap with another cockamamie story at the ready. But this time, it may just be the truth and Butch becomes determined to clear the lady of murder.

 
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Gleason (2002)

  • Director
  • Howard Deutch
  • Writers
  • Rick Podell
  • Michael Preminger
  • Stars
  • Brad Garrett
  • Saul Rubinek
  • Gretchen Egolf


Everybody Loves Raymond co-star Brad Garrett brings "The Great One" to life in this made-for-TV biography of video icon Jackie Gleason. The product of a fractious Brooklyn childhood, capped by the abrupt desertion of his ne'er-do-well father, Gleason launches his show business career with the motto "Never depend on anyone." Yet because of his multitude of insecurities, he demands total loyalty and 100-percent devotion from everyone around him. Trouble is, he has no loyalty or devotion to give in return: Dedicated to his career, his drinking, and his womanizing (not always in that order), Jackie neglects his wife Gen (Gretchen Egolf) and his children, tyrannizes his associates in general and his faithful agent George "Bullets" Durgom (Saul Rubinek) in particular, and shamelessly steals other people's ideas and comedy material, claiming it exclusively as his own. For all his bluster and bullying, Gleason remains likable and arguably even lovable -- just like his most famous TV character, Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden (indeed, the script suggests that Gleason was Kramden and Kramden was Gleason -- and that Jackie was envious of Ralph's ability to "make things up" to his long-suffering wife Alice at the end of each Honeymooners sketch). The film is at its best in its re-creations of Gleason's stage and TV triumphs, though one could nitpick about the hazy and often downright inaccurate chronology of events. As the title character, Brad Garrett offers an uncannily on-target portrayal, despite the fact that the 6'8" actor was nearly a foot taller than the real Gleason (this discrepancy was amply compensated for by the clever camera angles of cinematographer Neil Roach, not to mention the elevator shoes worn by practically every other member of the cast). Of the supporting players, Gretchen Egolf and Terry Farrell are superb as Jackie's first and second wives respectively, while Michael Chieffo's portrayal of Art Carney is eerily perfect. Co-written by Michael Preminger and Rick Podell, the same team responsible for Jackie Gleason's final theatrical feature Nothing in Common, Gleason made its CBS network debut on October 13, 2002.

 
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The Blair Witch Project (1999)

  • Directors
  • Daniel Myrick
  • Eduardo Sánchez
  • Writers
  • Daniel Myrick
  • Eduardo Sánchez
  • Heather Donahue(documentary material)
  • Stars
  • Heather Donahue
  • Michael C. Williams
  • Joshua Leonard


Combining Hi-8 video with black-and-white 16 mm film, this film presents a raw look at what can happen when college students forego common sense and enter the world of voodoo and witchcraft. Presented as a straightforward documentary, the film opens with a title card explaining that in 1994, three students went into the Maryland back woods to do a film project on the Blair Witch incidents. These kids were never seen again, and the film you are about to see is from their recovered equipment, found in the woods a year later. The entire movie documents their adventures leading up to their final minutes. The Blair Witch incident, as we initially learn from the local town elders, is an old legend about a group of witches who tortured and killed several children many years ago. Everyone in town knows the story and they're all sketchy on the details. Out in the woods and away from their parked car (and civilization), what starts as a school exercise turns into a nightmare when the three kids lose their map. Forced to spend extra days finding their way out, the kids then start to hear horrific sounds outside their tents in the pitch-black middle of night. They also find strange artifacts from (what can only be) the Blair Witch, still living in the woods. Frightened, they desperately try to find their way out of the woods, with no luck. Slowly these students start to unravel, knowing they have no way of getting out, no food, and it's getting cold. Each night they are confronted with shrieking and sounds so haunting that they are convinced someone is following them, and they quickly begin to fear for their lives. The film premiered in the midnight movie section at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

 
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Going Ape (1981)

  • Director
  • Jeremy Joe Kronsberg
  • Writer
  • Jeremy Joe Kronsberg
  • Stars
  • Tony Danza
  • Jessica Walter
  • Stacey Nelkin


In this comedy, the death of his rich father leaves Foster (Tony Danza) as the sole heir to a five-million-dollar estate -- if he can keep his dad's three pet orangutans safe and sound for the next five years. With the help of his disgruntled girlfriend (Stacey Nelkin), Foster must struggle keep the outrageous apes out of trouble.

 
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Broadway Ballyhoo (1935)

  • Director
  • Roy Mack
  • Stars
  • Owen Hunt & Parco
  • Herman Hyde
  • Sally Burrill


In this musical short, three barkers for a NYC sightseeing bus lament the lack of customers. They sing "What the Heck's the Matter with New York," then - using a megaphone as a viewing scope - show the gathered crowd scenes at three nightclubs. At The Casino Theatre, four couples in tuxedos dance in unison, then we watch a vaudeville routine of a young women and an old man. At the Parakeet Club, four couples dance acrobatically. At the Devil's Den, Harlem's hottest spot, Avis Andrews sings "Roll Jordan." A mildly drunk man follows a woman to Hyde and Burrill's Music Store where she sings and he comically accompanies her on several stringed instruments. Will tourists finally want the bus tour?

 
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The Star (1952)

  • Director
  • Stuart Heisler
  • Writers
  • Dale Eunson(original screenplay)
  • Katherine Albert(original screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Bette Davis
  • Sterling Hayden
  • Natalie Wood


An actress who once knew the heights of fame is forced to confronts the depths of defeat in this show business drama. Margaret Elliot (Bette Davis) was once one of Hollywood's great stars, but as she edges into her 50's, both her career and her life have reached an unfortunate crossroads. Margaret hasn't worked for several years, her marriage has fallen apart, her former husband has custody of her daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood), and she's running short of money. Margaret's agent Harry Stone (Warner Anderson) can't get her a part, and isn't willing to lend her the money to pay her bills. When they learn that Margaret is all but penniless, her sister (Fay Baker) and brother-in-law (David Alpert) turn their back on her, and Margaret's landlady (Katherine Warren) is threatening to evict her. Depressed and desperate, Margaret goes on a drinking binge, and ends up in jail on a drunk driving charge. No one comes to her aid but Jim Johannson (Sterling Hayden), an former actor who worked with Margaret years ago and has long been in love with her. Jim urges Margaret to leave Hollywood behind, and offers to care for her if she'll have him, but when Margaret's pleas to Harry finally result in an audition with producer Joe Morrison (Minor Watson), she holds on to the desperate hope she may have one more chance at regaining her stardom. Bette Davis's performance in The Star earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Shirley Booth for Come Back, Little Sheba -- a role that had been first offered to Davis.

 
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This Property Is Condemned (1966)

  • Director
  • Sydney Pollack
  • Writers
  • Tennessee Williams(suggested by a one act play of)
  • Francis Ford Coppola(screenplay by)
  • Fred Coe(screenplay by)
  • Stars
  • Natalie Wood
  • Robert Redford
  • Charles Bronson


Sydney Pollack's tawdry potboiler, adapted from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, was rife with production problems, culminating in Williams' failed attempt to have his name removed from the credits. The story is set by a framing device as thirteen-year-old Willie Starr (Mary Badham) sits on an abandoned railroad track with her friend Tom (Jon Provost) and relates the tale of her deceased older sister Alva (Natalie Wood). Alva is a beautiful woman living in a small Mississippi town in the 1930s with her manipulative mother Hazel (Kate Reid), the owner of a boarding house. Hazel wants Alva to marry the well to do Mr. Johnson (John Harding), but Alva has fallen in love with a good-looking stranger from New Orleans, Owen Legate (Robert Redford), who is in Mississippi to lay off railroad workers. Hazel is opposed to their love affair and when Owen is beaten to a pulp by a gang of workers, he decides to leave town and take Alva with him. But Hazel fools Owen into thinking Alva is engaged to Mr. Johnson. In retaliation, Alva marries Hazel's loutish lover J.J. (Charles Bronson). The next day, she abandons J.J. to meet Owen in New Orleans. Her mother, incensed at Alva's betrayal, sets out to ruin her daughter's reputation by exposing her marriage to J.J. to the world.

 
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I Live For Love (1935)

  • Director
  • Busby Berkeley
  • Writers
  • Jerry Wald(story & screenplay)
  • Julius J. Epstein(story & screenplay)
  • Robert Hardy Andrews(story & screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Dolores del Rio
  • Everett Marshall
  • Guy Kibbee


Though Busby Berkeley is the director of I Live for Love, there isn't a dancer or dance number anywhere to be seen. Dolores Del Rio stars as hot-tempered South American stage favorite Donna Alvarez, who is brought to America to headline a Broadway show. The film details the backstage romance between Donna and her handsome co-star Roger Kerry (played by Everett Marshall, an opera star who'd last been seen on-screen in 1930's Dixiana). They fight, make up, fight again, make up again, and fight and make up again. And that's all, folks. The film's singular highlight is the barbershop-quartet lampoon "A Man Must Shave".

 
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The Rear Gunner (1943)

  • Director
  • Ray Enright
  • Writer
  • Edwin Gilbert
  • Stars
  • Burgess Meredith
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Tom Neal


Documentary-style drama on training of aerial rear gunners in World War II. Private PeeWee Williams, a Kansas farm boy, transforms his home-grown shooting skills into those necessary to an aerial gunner in the tail turret of an American bomber.


 
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They Shall Have Music (1939)

  • Director
  • Archie Mayo
  • Writers
  • Irma von Cube(screenplay)
  • John Howard Lawson(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Jascha Heifetz
  • Joel McCrea
  • Andrea Leeds


This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Lawson's inner-city music school. Unfortunately, the school teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately the determined young boy convinces his street buddies to help him plead with Heifetz to help them save the school by doing a benefit concert. The master violinist agrees and saves the day.

 
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The Wicked Dreams Of Paula Schultz (1968)

  • Director
  • George Marshall
  • Writers
  • Burt Styler(screenplay)
  • Albert E. Lewin(screenplay)
  • Nat Perrin(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Elke Sommer
  • Bob Crane
  • Werner Klemperer


In this romantic comedy, a rebellious East German athlete forgoes her dowdy uniforms in favor of daring miniskirts. Soon the leggy track star attracts a lustful villain. To escape, she pole vaults over the Berlin Wall. There she is befriended by a broke black marketeer who has secretly agreed to return her to the communists in exchange for badly-needed money. He hides her in the apartment of an old army buddy of his who secretly works for the CIA. The smuggler is preparing to turn the girl over when he realizes that he is in love. The fellow is still busted and so tries to convince his pal to let her work for the CIA. When the athlete learns about this, she is crushed and decides to return to East Germany. Later, to prove he does love her, the smuggler dresses in drag and sneaks into East Berlin to see her. The woman is bowled over and together, they creep back into West Germany.

 
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Hotel Berlin (1945)

  • Director
  • Peter Godfrey
  • Writers
  • Vicki Baum(novel "Hotel Berlin '43")
  • Jo Pagano(screenplay)
  • Alvah Bessie(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Faye Emerson
  • Helmut Dantine
  • Raymond Massey


Vicki Baum, the author of the novel Grand Hotel, also wrote this similarly structured tale about a group of disparate characters brought together in a towering hotel in Germany as the nation teeters on the verge of collapse near the end of World War II. Martin Richter (Helmut Dantine), a member of Germany's anti-Nazi underground, has escaped from a prison camp and is now on the run from the Gestapo; he's hiding out at the Hotel Berlin, once a palace of luxury but now a shadow of it's former glory. Martin used to work with Johannes Koenig (Peter Lorre), once a renowned scientist before he was forced to use his gifts for his Nazi captors; he now lives under an assumed name and scrapes by as a waiter rather than support the Axis war machine. Arnim Von Dahnwitz (Raymond Massey) is a disgraced Nazi general on the outs with Gestapo leader Joachim Helm (George Coulouris), who has a lot on his mind -- he's looking for Martin, he's riding herd over Arnim, and he has designs on Arnim's mistress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King). Lisa, a stage actress of some success, is one of the few at the hotel who is able to live in some semblance of the glamour of Berlin's glory days; her wardrobe makes her the envy of Tillie Weiller (Faye Emerson), the hotel's concierge who pretends to be everyone's friend but is actually keeping tabs on the anti-Nazi activities of her tenants and is preparing to turn them in to the Gestapo. Hotel Berlin was completed in great haste, since midway through production it became obvious that Berlin would soon fall and the war in Europe would be over. Warner Bros. was so eager to get the film into theaters -- before the war's end would make the film seem dated -- that Hotel Berlin went through the studio's editing department in less than a week.

 
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The Warped Ones (1960)

  • Director
  • Koreyoshi Kurahara
  • Writer
  • Nobuo Yamada
  • Stars
  • Tamio Kawaji
  • Yuko Chiyo
  • Eiji Gô


This Japanese melodrama warns of the dangers of the jazz age as it tells the story of a pickpocket and a streetwalker with a taste for tourist who live in an ultra cool jazz bar. The two do all right until another couple finks upon them and gets them sent to jail. While there, the two plot their weird revenge.

 
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The Vanishing Virginian (1942)

  • Director
  • Frank Borzage
  • Writers
  • Jan Fortune(screenplay)
  • Rebecca Yancey Williams(based on the book by)
  • Stars
  • Frank Morgan
  • Kathryn Grayson
  • Spring Byington


The Vanishing Virginian was adapted from the autobiographical bestseller by Rebecca Yancey Williams. Newcomer Kathryn Grayson stars as Ms. Williams, a headstrong Southern girl growing up in the early 20th century. Rebecca sets her conservative household on its ear when she joins the woman's suffrage movement, despite the objections of father Frank Morgan, a lifelong civil servant. In the tradition of Life with Father, the film is really about the dad rather than the daughter: his abiding love for his family, his eccentricities, his occasional bullheadedness, and his grudging acceptance of social changes. Intended in part as a showcase for MGM's new young-talent roster, The Vanishing Virginian spotlights, in addition to Kathryn Grayson, hopefuls Douglass Newland and Natalie Thompson--who were seldom heard from again.

 
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The Train (1964)

  • Director
  • John Frankenheimer
  • Writers
  • Franklin Coen(screen story)
  • Frank Davis(screen story)
  • Rose Valland(based upon "Le Front De L'Art" by)
  • Stars
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Paul Scofield
  • Jeanne Moreau


John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster in the tense spy thriller The Train. Lancaster plays Labiche, a French railway inspector. Allied forces are threatening to liberate Paris, so Col. Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is ordered to move the priceless works of art from the Jeu de Paume Museum to the fatherland. The head of the museum (Suzanne Flon) attempts to convince Labiche that he should sabotage the train on which they are transporting the art. Labiche is more focused on destroying a trainload of German weapons. After his friend is killed trying to stop the train with the art, and after a consciousness-raising conversation with a hotel owner (Jeanne Moreau), Labiche resolves to save the antiquities. Lancaster and Frankenheimer had worked together previously on both Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May.

 
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Gunplay (1951)

  • Director
  • Lesley Selander
  • Writer
  • Ed Earl Repp(original screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Tim Holt
  • Joan Dixon
  • Harper Carter


Tim Holt rides again in RKO's Gunplay. This time, Holt and saddle pal Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) try to solve a murder. The victim is the father of 11-year-old Chip Martin ([Harper Carter]) (best known for his portrayal of Clifton Webb's son in Titanic). At stake is a huge inheritance, which young Chip may lose to the head villain (who, of course, masterminded the murder). RKO's Tim Holt series was beginning to show its age, as indicated by the comparatively small box-office take of Gunplay. Nevertheless, the studio continued grinding out low-budget westerns until 1952.

 
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Granny Get Your Gun (1940)

  • Director
  • George Amy
  • Writers
  • Kenneth Gamet(original screen play)
  • Erle Stanley Gardner(based on a story by)
  • Stars
  • May Robson
  • Harry Davenport
  • Margot Stevenson


Though one would never know it, the bucolic comedy-mystery Granny Get Your Gun was based on one of Erle Stanley Gardner's "Perry Mason" novels! In place of lawyer-sleuth Mason, the audience is offered one Minerva "Granny" Hatton (May Robson), sharp-shootin' matriarch of Gold City, Nevada. When her granddaugther Julie (Margot Stevenson) is sued for divorce on the grounds of a trumped-up "chronic gambling" charge, Granny decides to investigate. Before the film's 55 minutes have expended themselves, Granny finds herself confessing to a murder apparently committed by Julie-and then piecing together the clues to ascertain the real killer's identity. Earl Stanley Gardner claimed to have wept openly when he saw what Granny Get Your Gun had done to his original Perry Mason yarn; some viewers may be inclined to do the same.

 
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Going Places (1938)

  • Director
  • Ray Enright
  • Writers
  • Sig Herzig(screen play)
  • Jerry Wald(screen play)
  • Maurice Leo(screen play)
  • Stars
  • Dick Powell
  • Anita Louise
  • Allen Jenkins


Louis Armstrong steals the show as the groom to Jeepers Creepers, a skittish racehorse that can only settle down and run when Armstrong croons him the horse's namesake song. The main story concerns a plucky, ingenious salesman, who needing business, poses as a steeplechase jockey and endears himself to a prominent stable owner and his lovely niece. Romantic sparks fly between the girl and the sly fellow and his ruse works well until he is assigned to ride Jeepers Creepers, in the big race. The trouble is, the salesman doesn't know how to ride. On the day of the big race, the horse is extra nervous until Armstrong and a full band ride up beside him and begin performing. The horse then runs like the champ he is, insuring that the salesman gets his girl. Sure, it's a lot of horsefeathers, but who watches these old musicals for the plot? The story was filmed twice before as Hottentot and Polo Joe. Look for Ronald Reagan in a minor role as the stable owner's playboy son.

 
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God's Gift To Women (1931)

  • Director
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Writers
  • Joseph Jackson(screenplay & dialogue)
  • Raymond Griffith(screenplay & dialogue)
  • Jane Hinton(play "The Devil Was Sick")
  • Stars
  • Frank Fay
  • Laura La Plante
  • Joan Blondell


God's Gift to Women demonstrated conclusively that Warner Bros. would never make a movie star out of Broadway comedian Frank Fay. Portraying a most unlikely Frenchman, Fay pitches woo at every beautiful woman in sight, but falls in love with none of them. When Cupid genuinely strikes him for the first time, Fay is compelled by the girl's father to prove that he's honestly in love with her and not just with her millions. Fay does just that, but it takes ever so long. God's Gift to Women is injured beyond repair by the obnoxious, mannered performance of Frank Fay, and by the fact that Fay and director Michael Curtiz detested each other at first sight.

 
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Girls On Probation (1938)

  • Director
  • William C. McGann
  • Writer
  • Crane Wilbur(original screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Jane Bryan
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Anthony Averill


Warner Bros.' Girls on Probation was, and is, a potboiler, redeemed slightly by its cast. The fascinating, underused Jane Bryan stars as innocent young Connie Heath, who is falsely accused of theft by witchy Gloria Adams (Susan Hayward). Though Gloria withdraws her charge, the insurance company continues to persecute poor Connie, resulting in a charge of grand larceny. Championing her cause is crusading attorney Neil Dillon (Ronald Reagan), who gets Gloria off with probation. Alas, she resumes her friendship with "fast girl" Hilda Engstrom (Sheila Bromley), who was responsible for getting Connie into trouble in the first place. And there's still 30 minutes to go! Girls on Probation received plenty of airplay in the 1980s during the Reagan presidency then enjoyed a second life as a late-night mainstay of the Turner Classic Movies cable service.

 
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Gambling Lady (1934)

  • Director
  • Archie Mayo
  • Writers
  • Ralph Block(screen play)
  • Doris Malloy(screen play)
  • Stars
  • Barbara Stanwyck
  • Joel McCrea
  • Pat O'Brien


Born on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks, Lady Lee (Barbara Stanwyck) rises to prominence as a professional gambler. Though she works in a somewhat shady casino, our heroine enjoys a reputation for utter honesty, refusing all entreaties to turn crooked. Impressed by this quality, wealthy young Garry Madison (Joel McCrea) falls in love with Lady Lee and asks her to become his wife. Madison's friends and family assume that Lady Lee is merely a gold-digger, but she proves them irrefutably wrong when she saves him from a murder charge. According to some sources, Tyrone Power can be spotted in a bit role in this "A-minus" Warner Bros. programmer. Gambling Lady would make an interesting double feature with the later Stanwyck vehicle The Lady Gambles.

 
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'G' Men (193

  • Director
  • William Keighley
  • Writers
  • Seton I. Miller(story)
  • Darryl F. Zanuck(novel "Public Enemy No. 1")
  • Stars
  • James Cagney
  • Margaret Lindsay
  • Ann Dvorak


In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a G-Man. Though scrupulously honest, Davis is looked upon with suspicion by his fellow agents because of his association with the crooked McKay. He proves he's a "good guy" when his former girlfriend, Jean Ann Dvorak, now the wife of mobster Brad Collins (Barton MacLane), tips him off to a "Little Bohemia"-style gangster hideaway. Jean later sacrifices her own life to help James rescue his new girl, nurse Kay McCord (Margaret Lindsay), from the vengeful Collins. Based on Gregory Miller's book Public Enemy No. 1, G-Men was reissued in 1949, with an added prologue featuring David Brian as an FBI trainer who advises his students not to laugh at the old-fashioned costumes and slang in the 1935 film; seen today, it is Brian's superfluous opening comments that seem hopelessly dated, while the film itself is as exciting and entertaining as ever.

 
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The Subject Was Roses (1968)

  • Director
  • Ulu Grosbard
  • Writer
  • Frank D. Gilroy(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Patricia Neal
  • Jack Albertson
  • Martin Sheen


Frank D. Gilroy's Pulitzer-winning "kitchen sink" theatrical piece The Subject Was Roses was given a no-frills film transference in 1968. Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson re-create their stage roles as a returning serviceman and his alcoholic father. Patricia Neal takes over from the play's Irene Dailey as Nettie Cleary, Timmy's (Sheen) overly protective mother, long at odds with husband John (Albertson) over his drinking. Mother and Father try to put on a facade of happiness for the benefit of their son, but soon the three of them are squabbling again, just as if the boy had never been away. With the exception of adding a few extraneous characters, the film version of The Subject Was Roses is essentially the same as its 1964 Broadway counterpart. The film helped establish the career of Martin Sheen, launched a whole new dramatic career for Jack Albertson, and represented a triumphant comeback for Patricia Neal, who'd recently recovered from a debilitating stroke.

 
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The Seven Ups (1973)

  • Director
  • Philip D'Antoni
  • Writers
  • Albert Ruben(screenplay by)
  • Alexander Jacobs(screenplay by)
  • Sonny Grosso(story by)
  • Stars
  • Roy Scheider
  • Tony Lo Bianco
  • Victor Arnold


This was the only directorial effort of Philip D'Antoni, producer of the action classic Bullitt (1968). Roy Scheider stars as Buddy Manucci, a New York City Police Department investigator running a task force charged with taking down criminals guilty of offenses that would get them a minimum sentence of seven years in prison upon conviction. Manucci's best street informant is Vito Lucia (Tony Lo Bianco), who double-crosses Manucci by using the lawman's secret list of Mob loan sharks to kidnap the crooks on the list and hold them for ransom. When the scheme results in the death of Ansel (Ken Kercheval), one of Manucci's men, the tough cop and his team, including Barilli (Victor Arnold) and Mingo (Jerry Leon), wage war on the city's underworld. As they bend the law in whatever violent shape they see fit in order to track Lucia down, grisly deaths and a heart-stopping highway car chase along the Hudson River ensue.

 
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Four Frightened People (1934)

  • Director
  • Cecil B. DeMille
  • Writers
  • Bartlett Cormack(screen play)
  • Lenore J. Coffee(screen play)
  • E. Arnot Robertson(from the novel by)
  • Stars
  • Claudette Colbert
  • Herbert Marshall
  • Mary Boland


Cecil B. DeMille's least characteristic sound feature, Four Frightened People is a character study about a quartet of castaways whose fates are permanently altered by spectacular circumstances. Four coastal steamer passengers jump ship when a deadly bubonic plague breaks out. They steal a lifeboat and land on a remote Malayan island. The frightened people are a wealthy, married rubber chemist (Herbert Marshall), a mousy schoolteacher (Claudette Colbert, with requisite eyeglasses), a tough news correspondent (William Gargan) and the supercilious wife of a British official (Mary Boland). As the four adapt themselves to the rigors of jungle life, the lady teacher sheds her glasses and becomes more attractive by the day--and is subsequently fought over by the two men in the party. Their native guide (Leo Carrillo) dead, the castaways are captured by hostile Islanders. The newsman dies, the chemist and the teacher are thrust together in peril, and the official's wife becomes the unofficial queen of the island thanks to her diplomatic skills. Upon rescue, the married chemist nobly parts with the schoolteacher, but eventually escapes his loveless marriage and is reunited with his new love--even as her young pupils look on in adolescent fascination. As entertaining as any of DeMille's "big" pictures, Four Frightened People did disappointing business, prompting DeMille to return to historical spectacles.

 
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Fugitive In The Sky (1936)

  • Director
  • Nick Grinde
  • Writer
  • George Bricker(original story and screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Jean Muir
  • Warren Hull
  • Gordon Oliver


Fugitive in the Sky closely resembles such earlier aviation programmers as 13 Hours by Air and Absolute Quiet. Once again, a plane-load of diverse passengers is hijacked by a fugitive criminal, who this time forces the plane to land during a dust storm. This incident opens a whole new can of worms concerning a still-unsolved murder case, which seemingly involves everyone on the plane. The carefully disguised killer is revealed in a devilishly clever (and cinematically inventive) manner, though the identity of this worthy is inadvertently tipped off in the opening credits. This is the sort of "good, little picture" which, once seen in childhood, is never forgotten.

 
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Freshman Love (1935)

  • Director
  • William C. McGann
  • Writers
  • Earl Felton(screen play)
  • George Bricker(screen play)
  • George Ade(based on story idea by)
  • Stars
  • Patricia Ellis
  • Warren Hull
  • Frank McHugh


In this lively campus comedy, a stern rowing coach sets up a rigorous practice schedule for his team and insists they lead strictly disciplined lives (meaning no girls and no fun) so that they will become winners and thereby save his endangered job. Unfortunately, a seductive coed keeps leading his lambs astray. Things look bleak until the coach devises an ingenious method to recruit new oarsmen. Things really get in synch when jazz bandleader George E. Stone becomes the swingin' new coxswain.

 
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Four Jacks And A Jill (1942)

  • Director
  • Jack Hively
  • Writers
  • John Twist(screenplay)
  • Monte Brice(story)
  • W. Carey Wonderly(story suggested by "The Viennese Charmer" in Young's Magazine)
  • Stars
  • Ray Bolger
  • Anne Shirley
  • June Havoc


This quickie RKO musical is the second retread of Street Girl (1929); the 1937 musical That Girl from Paris was the first remake. This time around, the four jacks are musicians Nifty (Ray Bolger), Happy (Eddie Foy Jr.), Nat (Jack Briggs), and Eddie (William Blees). Their singer Opal (June Havoc) quits the band because her mobster boyfriend The Noodle (Jack Durant) is pressuring her to pay more attention to him. Nifty discovers the down-on-her-luck Nine (Anne Shirley) and persuades her to masquerade as a celebrated foreign singing star. Farcical complications result -- including cab driver Steve (Desi Arnaz) posing as Balkan nobility! -- as the musicians and their new girl singer pursue fame and fortune. Songs include "You Go Your Way And I'll Go Crazy" and Boogie Woogie Conga".

 
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Four Daughters (1938)

  • Director
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Writers
  • Julius J. Epstein(screen play)
  • Lenore J. Coffee(screen play)
  • Fannie Hurst(from the Cosmopolitan Magazine story by)
  • Stars
  • Claude Rains
  • John Garfield
  • Jeffrey Lynn


Fannie Hurst's Sister Act was the source for this money-making Warners weeper. The four daughters of the title are played by the Lane Sisters--Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola--and by Gale Page. All are musical prodigies, and all are daughters of master-musician Claude Rains. To help make ends meet, Rains rents several rooms of his home to boarders--most of whom, thanks to the dictates of the plot, seem to be marriageable men. We're supposed to care the most about the mutual attraction the daughters feel towards handsome Jeffrey Lynn, but the film really belongs to John Garfield, making his movie debut (no, he wasn't in 1933's Footlight Parade) as an embittered piano genius. Garfield has us in the palm of his scruffy hand the moment he begins philosophizing about "the fates:" "So they flipped a coin...heads he's poor, tails he's rich....they flipped a coin--with two heads." Aware that he can bring only unhappiness to Priscilla Lane, the daughter who cares most for him, Garfield obligingly drives into a heavy snowstorm and is killed in an auto accident (but it's not staged as a suicide, lest the Hays Office spank). John Garfield made so powerful an impression in Four Daughters that Warners was compelled to write him into the sequel Four Wives, first as a flashback and then as (implicitly) a ghost. Another film, Daughters Courageous, was hastily constructed using the same cast, but with different character names so as to accommodate a happier denouement for Garfield and Lane. Four Daughters was remade in 1954 as Young at Heart, with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day in the John Garfield and Priscilla Lane roles.

 
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Fools For Scandal (1938)

  • Director
  • Mervyn LeRoy
  • Writers
  • Herbert Fields(screen play)
  • Joseph Fields(screen play)
  • Irving Brecher(additional dialogue)
  • Stars
  • Carole Lombard
  • Fernand Gravey
  • Ralph Bellamy


In her only Warner Bros. starring film, Carole Lombard plays a Hollywood movie actress who makes the park-bench acquaintance of an impoverished French marquis (Fernand Gravet). Hoping to coerce Carole into marriage, the nobleman poses as a butler and enters her household. His plan is to compromise Lombard and force her to make him an "honest man"--with the attendant cash settlement. Ralph Bellamy, as ever, is the poor clod who really loves Lombard but who loses her in the end to the chastened Gravet. Rodgers and Hart were commissioned to write several songs for this film, but found most of their efforts consigned to the cutting room floor. Fools for Scandal was based on Nancy Hamilton's stage play Return Engagement.

 
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Five Came Back (1939)

  • Director
  • John Farrow
  • Writers
  • Jerome Cady(screenplay)
  • Dalton Trumbo(screenplay)
  • Nathanael West(screenplay)
  • Stars
  • Chester Morris
  • Lucille Ball
  • Wendy Barrie


Often cited as a "model" B picture, Five Came Back is set in motion when the twelve-seat passenger plane "Southern Star" crashes into a treacherous South American jungle. With a hostile tribe of headhunters drawing ever closer, pilots Bill (Chester Morris) and Joe (Kent Taylor) race against time to repair the crippled plane and rescue themselves and the nine other survivors, who begin to fight for survival. These include: spineless socialite Judson Ellis (Patric Knowles), his embittered wife Alice (Wendy Barrie), elderly scientist Spengler (C. Aubrey Smith), Spengler's devoted spouse Martha (Elizabeth Risdon), trollop Peggy (Lucille Ball), condemned anarchist Vasquez (Joseph Calleia), Vasquez' detective-captor Crimp (John Carradine), likeable mob henchman Pete (Allen Jenkins), and gangster's son Tommy (Casey Johnson). Eventually, it becomes apparent that the repaired plane can only carry five passengers; the others must remain and fight hostile natives. Suffice to say that the ending is determined by random acts of courage, cowardice, and unexpected self-sacrifice. Scripted by Nathaniel West and Dalton Trumbo and brilliantly directed by John Farrow, Five Came Back was a major critical and financial success for the beleagured RKO. Director Farrow remade the film in 1956 as Back From Eternity.

 
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