It was the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive military conflict in history. It ended as it began, with a shocking rain of fire from the sky. Military deaths exceeded 2,000,000; civilian casualties were more than five times higher. Though similar numbers were being simultaneously racked up in Europe, the Pacific War was in many ways much more complicated and difficult, as its theater of engagement encompassed over 100,000 square miles of open sea dotted with hundreds of contested islands. After...

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944, Color): A thunderous rumble echoes from the horizon. The 324th Bomb Squadron of the US Army Air Corps is conducting a daring daylight bombing raid on the Nazi submarine base at Wilhelmshaven. Among the giant steel birds is a B-17 bomber christened the Memphis Belle. Accompanying the Belle's crew is an army film unit, assigned to record this dangerous flight through the deadly skies over Germany.This documentary, selected for the National...

With the fate of democracy and freedom at stake, Hollywood's biggest stars and studios line up to bring home the message that it will take the sacrifice, determination and hard work of all Americans at home to enable our battlefield troops to achieve victory.Women In Defense: American women arise, alert to the dangers facing our way of life. Katherine Hepburn demonstrates that every women has an important place in the national defense effort. Written by Eleanor Roosevelt and narrated by...

Bombing Of The USS Panay: The despicable Japanese bombing of the USS Panay, on a humanitarian mission in the China Seas, is documented in this 1938 Universal newsreel.Hitting The Beach: This War Department film produced by the Signal Corps covers the wide spectrum of force and logistics brought to bear in a U.S. invasion. Amphibious landing craft, LSTs, (tank landing craft), air support, rapid railroad construction and paratroop landings are some of the many topics depicted in archival...

The sister of crime reporter Ted Lloyd mysteriously appears in a hospital bed, her body mangled almost beyond recognition. Without a cent to his name, Lloyd agrees to withdraw his expose of gangster Edward Riggs in exchange for cash to pay for an operation that will save her life. The newsman's guilty conscience eats away at him, especially when he finds evidence that Riggs is responsible for the death of showgirl Vivian Parker. His sense of obligation to the racketeer prevents him from saying...

On the trail of his father's killers, private-eye Eddie Delaney (Damian O' Flynn) seeks to uncover the events that led to his father's death.Eddie is drawn into the world of shady nightclub impresario and bootlegger Marty Clark, a one-time underworld vice baron who has "gone straight" since prohibition's repeal.Syndicate operator John Underwood (Neil Hamilton) is also employing Eddie to ferret out the murderer. Eddie's web of misplaced loyalties and harbored grudges threatens to erupt into...

Yakima Canutt "created the profession of stuntman as it exists today," according to Charlton Heston as he presented him with a special Oscar in 1967. But before Canutt's days of stunt-doubling for top stars and second-unit directing filmdom's greatest action scenes, the rodeo world champion was a movie cowboy hero himself, as seen in these two Westerns from his silent-era prime.Bad Men's Money (1929, B&W, Silent): Landgrabbers are using every dirty trick in the book to force Helen Saunders'...

Yakima Canutt "created the profession of stuntman as it exists today," according to the Special Oscar presented to him by Charlton Heston at the Academy Awards in 1967. But before Canutt's days of stunt-doubling for top stars and second-unit directing filmdom's greatest action scenes, the rodeo world champion was a movie cowboy hero himself, as seen in these two Westerns from his silent-era prime.The Outlaw Breaker (1926, B&W, Silent): When sheepherders invade cattle territory, bloodshed...

After Raquel Welch conquered the screen in One Million Years B.C., Hammer Studios followed up with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, written and directed by Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment) and based on a story by J.G. Ballard (Crash). Victoria Vetri stars as Sanna, rescued from ritual sacrifice by Tara (Robin Hawdon), a member of a rival tribe. Her survival coincides with the mysterious formation of a new "fire" in the sky: the moon! Sanna's old tribe blames her for this affront to the sun;...

High school football star Tim Dennis has big plans for his future: the University of Notre Dame and gridiron glory! Instead, his mother marries an Englishman, and Tim and his sister are summoned to live with their new family across the Atlantic. There, Tim becomes a student at the distinguished British boys' school Eton, and his free-spirited ways run headlong into time-honored tradition. Mickey Rooney portrays Tim in this fish-out-of-water tale co-scripted by and based on a story by A Yank at...

Robert Taylor wins track meets, friends and Maureen O'Sullivan in this smashing British collegiate comedy costarring Vivien Leigh. Arriving in England to attend Oxford's Cardinal College, cocky American athlete Lee Sheridan (Taylor) soon learns his boasts have earned him more enemies than mates. Dating Molly Beaumont (O'Sullivan), his rival Paul's (Griffith Jones) lovely sister, Lee becomes BMOC when her brother is wrongfully accused of striking a proctor's assistant. Determined to make amends...

While traveling through the deserts of Libya, Mike Malone (Walter Woolf King), a brash and cocky newspaper reporter, uncovers a Nazi plot to incite the Arab tribes to arise and murder all Americans. When he tries to report the imminent danger to the British consul, no one wants to listen. He decides to investigate on his own. Posing as an Arab merchant selling razor blades and shoelaces, Brooklyn native Parkyakarkus befriends the Yankee reporter. He assists him in a series of dangerous...

Jeff Chandler stars as a Navy Commander on a secret mission in the thrilling pirate adventure Yankee Buccaneer. Rather than going to shore for a year as expected, David Porter (Chandler) finds himself charged with a dangerous, covert operation: disguise his vessel and her crew as a pirate outfit to help capture the criminal masterminds who have been attacking America's merchant fleet. Faced with punishing weather, shark-infested waters, ruthless natives and his irresponsible second-in command...

Legendary actor James Cagney stars in the role for which he won an Academy Award--the life of singer, dancer and songwriter George M. Cohan, a true Yankee Doodle Dandy. This non-stop musical tour de force sings, dances and celebrates the life and career of a music man who lifted a nation, the first entertainer awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor for his contribution to morale. From his early days as a vaudeville performer to his stardom on Broadway, George M. Cohan composed...

A nostalgic view of the golden era of show business and the man who made it glitter--George M. Cohan. His early days, triumphs, songs, musicals and romances.

Yankee Davis is a traveling snake oil salesman who arrives in the peaceful town of Mystic, Arizona looking for new rubes to con. Instead, he falls in love with an innocent small-town girl, Mary Mason. When Mary's father, a border patrolman, is shot, Davis decides to catch the killer to prove his worthiness to her. He asks an eccentric old prospector, "Shaggy" Hartley, to pose as a rich man and offer a reward for clues about the murder. The unusual pair then learn of a vast conspiracy that they...

Modest budgeted comedy mystery.... Yarn revolves around... an itinerant salesman, who wanders into a western town around the turn of the century and falls for the daughter of the sheriff. After latter is killed by a gang of smugglers [he] sets about tracking down the varmint through a complicated series of ruses. Expose of the varmints in the end takes place when a local youngster simply identifies the killer and his boss who happens to be the town banker. (Variety, April 9, 1947)

Brian Cox, Leonard Rossiter, Suzanne Neve, Tony Vogel. Bizarre drama about Earth in the distant future. Overpopulation is a big problem so television has been filled with gluttony and porno programs in order to put people off food and sex. It is also the year of the Sex Olympics. However, when TV ratings fail, a reality-based show is introduced in which a real-life couple is deposited on a remote island with no modern conveniences. Considering this was a British TV feature, itOs amazing to see...

Life abounds in the 1870s Florida scrubland that's home to young Jody Baxter. There are bears to hunt, cash crops to plant, evenings of storytelling with Pa and Ma. And there are timeless lessons of love and letting go that Jody learns from Flag, the orphaned pet fawn that follows him around with devotion.

Life abounds in the 1870s Florida scrubland that's home to young Jody Baxter. There are bears to hunt, cash crops to plant, evenings of storytelling with Pa and Ma. And there are timeless lessons of love and letting go that Jody learns from Flag, the orphaned pet fawn that follows him around with devotion. From Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and sensitively directed by Clarence Brown (National Velvet), The Yearling is superb family entertainment that knows well what a...

Sheer, utter madness is the order of the day in this laugh riot on wheels that features one of America's all-time favorite funnymen, Red Skelton. In a story ranging from the weird to the whimsical, Skelton plays "Red," an accident-prone inventor of safety gadgets (no one can bump his head any funnier) who winds up driving a cab to prove the worth of his latest brainchild, Elastiglass. But while he is falling in love with the cab company's claims adjuster (Gloria De Haven), a crooked lawyer...

The Spanish-American War is over, but not the scourge of death. Yellow fever has killed more U.S. soldiers deployed to Cuba than battle -- and a medical team led by Dr. Walter Reed (Lewis Stone) is determined to defeat the microbial enemy. The secret to wiping it out may lie in the once-discredited theory of a dedicated researcher (Charles Coburn): an infected mosquito. Proving it will put more lives on the line: volunteers to be bitten and treated. From Sidney Howard's esteemed 1934 play (a...

Set in the days of Civil War, several confederate soldiers dessert the army and fight through the Florida Everglades. Coming from hellish Civil War into the unfortunates of nature fighting off poisonous snakes, insects and alligators.

Location shooting in the Florida Everglades add to this dramatic tale of five Confederate deserters trying to get to Cuba. First, they must overcome snake bites, unfriendly Seminoles, and their own conflicts with each other. How many of the five will actually make it out alive? Lin McCarthy, Stephen Courtleigh, and Berry Kroeger star in this little known example of 1950s independent filmmaking.