Warner

Never one to stay typecast, Rosalind Russell followed three years of prime comedy roles (The Women, His Girl Friday, My sister Eileen and more) into the wild blue yonder of Flight for Freedom, an ambitious drama reverberating with world war II-era heroism and inspired by a real-life legend. Playing "flyer's flyer" Tonie Carter, a competitive aviatrix loosely modeled after Amelia Earhart, she indomitably pushes the aerial envelope, winging from cross-country pilot and champion racer to distance...

From writer Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront, A Face in the Crowd) and director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) comes this colorful turn-of-the-20th-century adventure starring Oscar winners* Burl Ives and Christopher Plummer. When poachers hunt down birds so they can sell the feathers for women's hats, newly hired Everglades warden Walt Murdock (Plummer in his second film role) is ordered to bring in Cottonmouth (Ives), the brutal leader of the gang. Captured deep within the swamps,...

Early 1930s tabloids screamed out the nefarious activities of the Purple Gang, the Detroit mob that viciously controlled regional bootlegging and vice rackets. By 1935, when the Purple leadership had finally come to justice, Hollywood's gritty, hard-hitting answer to true events came in this rough-and-tumble (if fictionalized) action tale with a lineup of intriguing elements both likely (tough guys Chester Morris -- veteran of The Big House -- and Paul Kelly) and unlikely (leading lady Jean...

When a rodeo cowpuncher lassos a Park Avenue pigeon, and weds and whisks the sophisticated lady to his ramshackle Wyoming ranch, there's Never a Dull Moment -- and many funny ones in this unabashedly corny but charming roundup. As a Broadway songwriter swapping city lights for country chores, Irene Dunne supplies her timetested gift for physical comedy -- and her lovely voice gives sass and class to three tunes by legendary composer Kay Swift, whose source memoir for the script chronicled her...

Shopgirl Mary Brown and newspaperman Rollo Porter agree "It's a swell night for a cry." When they meet after their respective sweethearts marry others, all they seek is a convenient shoulder for consolation. Fresh off early career breakthroughs in her Cimarron and his The Front Page, Irene Dunne and Pat O'Brien make an odd and oddly affecting couple in this wisecracking but adult romance that christened Dunne's reign as "queen of the weepies." Drawn together by a sense of humor and shared...

From Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winner Sinclair Lewis, creator of Babbitt, Dodsworth and Elmer Gantry, comes a progressive modern heroine who opts for self-fulfillment in social causes rather than via "women's wiles." The role of Ann Vickers is a smart fit for Irene Dunne, who wowed audiences in similar long-suffering plum roles in Cimarron, Symphony of Six Million and Back Street. Here she enters daring -- and significantly nonjudgmental -- pre-Code territory. Left pregnant by a soldier who is...

The lecherous boss, the hot secretary, an era that proclaims anything goes -- The Wild Affair captures the mid 60s in all its groovy glory. The story follows beautiful Marjorie Lee, who's looking for a bit of fun before she settles down to married life. She finds it at her company's Christmas orgy er, party. As partygoers twist and shout, propositions flow. Will virtuous Marjorie accept one? This time capsule of a film fascinates not just for its mirror on the '60s, but for its unexpected and...

He's got a lawless reputation, a coiled temper and a score to settle. Handsome 19505 Western stalwart Keith Larsen plays the smoldering title role - here simply called "The Kid" - in this fanciful yarn about a corrupt sheriff's plan to ensnare The Kid by tempting him into a gold-hijacking scheme. However, The Kid enters into the plot wide-eyed, because he's after the mastermind pulling the lawman's strings, the one who framed him for another theft a year earlier. The Kid also captures the eye...

After covering a golf tournament in Los Angeles, sportswriter Mike Hagen returns to his New York home with a tan. And with a fashion designer wife he barely knows. Romantic pitfalls surface gleefully in this Vincente Minnelli-directed comedy featuring an Oscar -winning* script and Manhattanites -- an ex-flame (Dolores Gray), lowlife hustlers (Chuck Connors, Jesse White) and an addled palooka (Mickey Shaughnessy) among them -- who rub elbows and funny bones. Lauren Bacall plays the stylish...

Oscar -winner* William Holden made his first major TV appearance in decades with this landmark adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh's depiction of life on the LAPD beat. Nominated for five Emmys and winning three (including an acting award for Holden), The Blue Knight pioneered "novels for television" and told the story of LA cop Bumper Morgan (Holden) and his final week before retirement. The years have taken their toll on Bumper, both within and without, but this tarnished chevalier of the streets...

A suave, self-centered thief learns to give instead of steal. A fear-fraught shut-in finds the courage to brave fate. A cold-blooded killer finds something worth dying for. An all-powerful prison warden discovers how small and weak he is. These four souls are condemned to be forever transformed within the crucible of Devil's Island. Michel (Ronald Colman), sent to Devil's Island for bank robbery, catches the attention of the warden (Dudley Digges) thanks to his Parisian sophistication. Eager...

The saucer eyes, dithering voice and jittery mannerisms are unmistakable -- and grew on audiences over a beloved 63-year showbiz career. Only the great Ed Wynn could bumble his way into becoming the hero of the Bowery with nimbly nitwitted, sunnily slapstick style as The Chief, bringing his popular radio persona of "The Perfect Fool" to delighted movie audiences. Starting with young legend-in-the-making Mickey Rooney tossing some firecrackers, the hodgepodge plot -- the mother-pampered son of...