With boundless enthusiasm and enough jive to meld '20s flapper giddiness with '40s swing, 1947's Good News - the feature directing debut of Charles Walters (Easter Parade, The Unsinkable Molly Brown) and screenwriting debut of Betty Comden and Adolph Gree

Bravo, Enrico! Bravo, Mario! Renowned tenor Mario Lanza portrays his longtime singing idol Enrico Caruso in the crowd-pleasing musical that was 1951's #4 box-office hit. Suggested by Dorothy Caruso's biography of her husband, The Great Caruso rings out with aural pleasures (27 musical selections) and shines with the grandeur of a life lovingly refracted through the Hollywood biopic lens. The music (by Puccini, Donizetti, Verdi and more) emphasizes works most closely associated with Caruso. The...

The young town of Denver, CO, right before the outbreak of the Civil War, is the setting for this Western drama from acclaimed director Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past, Stars in My Crown). Recently rescued from an Indian ambush, laconic Southern loner Owen Pentecost (Robert Stack) rides into town and into the hearts of saloon girl Boston (Ruth Roman) and frontier entrepreneur Ann Merry (a pants-wearing and liberated Virginia Mayo). With Boston's aid, Owen wins the deed to the local saloon in...

The Academy Award winner about star-crossed love that spans the years -- and the globe. After her triumph as the lunchroom temptress in the crime classic The Postman Always Rings Twice, Lana Turner expanded her range with Green Dolphin Street. Set in 19thcentury Europe and New Zealand, this sweeping romance tells the story of two beautiful sisters, one headstrong (Turner) and one gentle (Donna Reed), and of the man (Richard Hart) who marries one even though he loves the other. The film's...

When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr's sideshow sharpshooting act, he's a dead-bang goner. He and she go together, as Bart ultimately says, "like guns and ammunition." The two become bank robbers on the run, eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller, selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star, meeting...

Anthony Quinn and Charles Bronson star in an action-packed Western that explodes with passion, excitement and fiery intensity. Leon Alastray (Quinn), a rebel on the run from the Mexican Army, escapes to the remote village of San Sebastian, where the locals believe he's a holy man. But when Leon discovers that the area has been devastated by savage Yaqui attacks, he knows he cannot hide the warrior within himself. Revealing his true identity, he leads villagers against the deadly threat, while...

Paul Newman memorably plays the title role in this box-office hit based on Ross MacDonald's The Moving Target. The first detective film in Newman's then 23-film career, Harper revitalized the genre. Newman's sleuth chews gum fast and slips out of jams ever faster as he unravels a twisted case of kidnapping and murder. William Goldman's clever script throws quips and a parade of LA-LA-Land characters Harper's way. There's a woman of means (Lauren Bacall), a gun-toting attorney (Arthur Hill), a...

Vittles, songs and dance are amply ladled out when Judy Garland headlines The Harvey Girls, a joyous musical slice of Americana celebrating the restaurants that brought extra helpings of civilization to Old West rail passengers. Highlights include Garland holding saloon patrons at jittery gunpoint to retrieve stolen beefsteaks, Ray Bolger's loose-limbed comic hoofing, Virginia O'Brien's sure-shot comic timing, Angela Lansbury's stylish wickedness as a saloon singer and the "On the Atchison,...

Screen icon Alan Ladd produces and stars in this crime spectacle, shot on location in noir central -- San Francisco. Steve Rollins (Ladd) is both ex-cop and ex-con, recently sprung from the stir. Spurning both love (Joanne Dru, as a songstress spouse who strayed) and friendship (William Demarest as his ex-police partner), Steve has one singular quest: Kill whoever set him up for murder, or die trying. Blending adult drama, detective story and noir, Hell on Frisco Bay is a cinema stew that's...

Anchors Aweigh. On the Town. Hit the Deck. Hollywood has always known what to do with sailors on leave: Give 'em some pretty girls and some great songs and watch the fans line up to enlist! Hit the Deck hits all the right notes as three sailors (Tony Martin, Vic Damone, Russ Tamblyn) and three cuties (Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds and Ann Miller) squabble, run afoul of shore patrol and, of course, fail in love to hit a parade of Vincent Youmans' tunes. Highlights include Miller's polishing the...

Even though he recently lost his job as a department-store clerk, Steve Mason buys an electric train set for a child he scarcely knows. It must be Christmastime. Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh are warmly matched in Holiday Affair, a seasonal favorite scripted by Isobel Lennart (later to adapt Mitchum's The Sundowners) and directed by Hope/Crosby "road movies" veteran Don Hartman. Mitchum plays Mason, who helps a child who'd otherwise find disappointment under the Christmas tree. The boy's...

Wade Hunnicutt is a big man who casts a big shadow, one that looms over the Texas backwoodsmen who work his land over the beautiful, embittered wife he cheats on and over the sons -- one from marriage and one illegitimate -- who strive for their father's respect. Robert Mitchum "gives one of his greatest performances" (Michael Barson, The Illustrated Who's Who of Hollywood Directors) as Wade, and Vincente Minnelli directs this sprawling, emotionally volatile tale of an epic clash between...

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Britain's premier masters of the macabre, bring the Horror of Dracula to vivid, full-color death in this retelling of Bram Stoker's spellbinding vampire tale. Dracula (Lee), a centuries-old Transylvanian nobleman damned to an eternal half-life, regularly finds new victims. He also finds Dr. Van Helsing (Cushing), a scientist who becomes the Count's implacable foe in a deadly game of bat-and-mouse. The dread is here -- as are the power and pathos of this genre...

In Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess, Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift), apparently a model of clerical piety, hears a killer's confession. Eyewitnesses point to a priest as the murderer, and the sacrament of penance forbids Logan to speak out -- even in his own defense -- when circumstantial evidence targets Logan as the prime suspect! Academy Award winners* Anne Baxter and Karl Malden costar as a former f lame and a police inspector whose attempts to clear Logan only entrap him further....

Future Oscar -winning producer Walter Mirisch (In the Heat of the Night) broke into the film business at poverty-row studio Monogram Pictures, with his first film "FALL GUY" in 1947, based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich. The next year Mirisch brought another production derived from a Woolrich work to the studio, with this 1948 Film-noir with a modest budget, a little-known cast, and directed by screen veteran William Nigh. The result was "I WOULDN'T BE IN YOUR SHOES", a captivating tale...

Judy Garland, Van Johnson and silent comedy icon Buster Keaton star in this delightful musical when love can bloom between the most unlikely of couples In the Good Old Summertime.

"You're Gonna Hear from Me," 15-year-old gamine Daisy Clover sings from the silver screen to an adoring public, although in the 1930s, "star treatment" can go all the way from being discovered to being discarded. Natalie Wood plays the title role with gusto in this blend of Hollywood stardust and melodrama from the producer/director team (Alan J. Pakula and Robert Mulligan) that had already sublimely showcased her in Love with the Proper Stranger. Also heard from are Wood's costars Robert...

Once you visit the Isle of the Dead, there's no hope of returning to the land of the living. A small island off the coast of Greece holds a secret so dreadful that once you step onto its soil you must remain there forever. General Pherides (master of horror Boris Karloff) is one such a visitor. Going to the island to honor the grave of his late wife, Pherides discovers that it's held in the grip of a terrifying plague -- a sickness that enters the victim's mind and drives them insane! Pherides...

Fun, music and Elvis all happen in this romp boasting one of the best backdrops of any Elvis Presley movie: the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, with its showpiece Space Needle, monorail and more. The King plays pilot-for-hire Mike, whose hope of starting his own flying business is grounded by the gambling of his co-pilot Danny (Gary Lockwood). The pair hitch to Seattle, where Mike finds romance, Danny finds easy marks and both find problems prior to a Happy Ending. Kurt Russell, star of 1979's...

No one is inside that boarded-up mansion on Manhattan's ritzy 5th Avenue, right? Wrong. Its secret inhabitants include a philosophizing hobo and some GI families who are unable to find apartments during the post-World War II housing crunch. They set up residence in the posh brownstone while the owner, the second richest man in the world, winters in Virginia. Except the owner isn't in Virginia. He's there in disguise and discovering a lot about how the average Joe and Jane think and live. It...

No sex, please -- we're on our honeymoon! After a showgirl (Debbie Reynolds) and an Air Force sergeant (Glenn Ford) head to the altar on the basis of one torrid smooch, the bride begins having second thoughts. After all, marriage can't be based on sexual chemistry alone. So she decrees a month of connubial celibacy to test if the newlyweds are really meant for each other. Think they'll make the whole 30 days? Funny, frisky and (just a bit) risque, Reynolds and Ford aren't the only joys in this...

When Gene Kelly teams with Arthur Freed, Stanley Donen, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the result is pure movie-musical alchemy: On the Town, Singin' in the Rain and It's Always Fair Weather. Sparkling with wit and exuberant numbers, It's Always Fair Weather centers on three World War II buddies (Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd) who vow to reunite for old time's sake in 10 years. They do. And find their friendship has fizzled until a day of tangling with romance, the fight game, the ad biz...

Stand and pledge loyalty -- or prepare to lie cold beneath your shields. Chivalrous knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe is determined to restore Richard the Lion-Hearted to England's throne. Gallantry and costumed pageantry combine in this crowd-pleasing nominee for 3 Academy Awards , including Best Picture. Robert Taylor plays the title role, and Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine also star in a rousing adaption of Sir Walter Scott's novel. The film's jousting tournament is a galloping display of...

While movie fans were abuzz over who might play Scarlett O'Hara in the upcoming Gone with the Wind, Bette Davis got another Southern-belle role -- and gave a fiery performance that won the 1938 Best Actress Academy Award . Davis plays Julie, a New Orleans beauty whose constant attempts to goad fiance Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda) to jealousy backfire. Angry and disgraced, Pres breaks their engagement and leaves town. Julie endures a year of remorse until Pres comes home -- married. Then her...