Burt Lancaster
The story of actor Kirk Douglas, the man and the legend, one of the last stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. An epic journey through the 20th century and the entire history of Hollywood. A testimony of the huge scope of his life and the scale of the myth. The untameable Kirk Douglas, the ragman's son.
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
How the cinema industry does not respect the author's work as it was conceived, how manipulates the motion pictures in order to make them easier to watch by an undemanding audience or even how mutilates them to adapt the original formats and runtimes to the restrictive frame of the television screen and the abusive requirements of advertising. (Followed by “Filmmakers in Action.”)
Born November 2, 1913, he went from street-wise tough to art-collector liberal-activist, from circus-acrobat hunk to Academy Award winner. Burton Stephen Lancaster - later Burt Lancaster - was one of five children of a New York City postal worker. Burt recalled family life as warm and mutually supportive. At the Union Settlement House, he and boyhood friend Nick Cravat formed an acrobatic team. By eighteen, Burt was 6'2" and blessed with the athletic physique and dynamic good looks that helped make him famous. A basketball scholarship was not enough to keep him in NYU beyond his sophomore year. That's when he and the 5'2" Cravat joined a circus, earning $3 weekly between them. A stint in the Army introduced Burt to acting and led him to Hollywood where his first release, The Killers (1946), propelled him to stardom at age 32. He took control of his own career and seldom faltered.
George Abitbol, the classiest man in the world, dies tragically during a cruise. With his last breath, he whispers: “Shitty world.” The director of an American newspaper, wondering about the meaning of these intriguing final words, asks his three best investigators, Dave, Peter and Steven, to solve the mystery… (16 French actors dub scenes from various Warner Bros. films to create a parody of “Citizen Kane,” 1941.)
Actress Sally Field looks at the dramatic life and career of Barbara Stanwyck, a Hollywood legend.
Genua, 3rd October 1985. Together with over 500 other passengers Margot and Pierre Bergeron, a married couple from France, the Serafinis, an Italian family, Anne Higgins, an Englishwoman, Gitta and Helmut Holzer from Germany and an American couple called Marilyn and Leon Klinghoffer board the 'Achille Lauro'. The mood is cheerful and relaxed, everyone is looking forward to twelve days of sun, sea and peace. No one suspects that there are four Palestinian terrorists among the passengers: Al Assadi, Fatayer, Al Ashker and Molqi, their leader. The ship puts to sea in perfect weather. Three marvellous days follow. Everyone appears to be happy and contented. But in the case of some of the passengers appearances are deceiving. Marilyn Klinghoffer, for example, only pretends to her crippled husband that she is well and happy; in reality she is seriously ill with cancer and knows that this will be her last voyage. She does not want to upset her husband, however. A crisis is brewing between ...
Burt Lancaster stars as the titular merchant in this classic adaptation of Pope John Paul II's best-selling play "The Jeweller's Shop," an inspiring drama about three married couples and their ups and downs in holy matrimony. With a faithful jeweler acting as their spiritual adviser, three sets of husbands and wives struggle to live their lives with love, steering clear of avarice and infidelity. Olivia Hussey and Ben Cross also star.
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
Colorful, outspoken, a man of many contradictions, Ralph McGill emerged during the troubled years of the 1950s and '60s as a prominent and influential Southern white opponent of segregation and one of America's most revered newspaper editors. As he became convinced of the injustice of segregation and the inevitability of change, McGill used his front-page editorial column in the Atlanta Constitution as a Southern forum for his distinctive blend of moral outrage and pragmatic moderation. McGill's life is a touchstone for understanding the complex array of forces that dramatically reshaped the South and America in the quarter-century after World War II. These elements are blended with rare archival film, compelling contemporary images and a rich musical score to create an unusually moving and evocative film.
A man's family comes for his 77th birthday and while he loves all of his children and their children, he and his children don't exactly connect. However, he connects with his grandchildren. And he tells them what he wants for his birthday and they do what they can to give it to him.
This one-hour film, narrated by Actor BURT LANCASTER, explores the lingering effects of The Hollywood Blacklist, which occurred in the late forties and early fifties as part of the Anti-Communist witch-hunts that terrorized the nation. This film is seen through the eyes of the wives and children of the now deceased Hollywood figures whose careers were destroyed when studio bosses, along with guild and union officials capitulated to the demands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
A TV special on the 100th anniversary of the birth of film.
On Wings of Eagles is a NBC TV mini-series, starring Burt Lancaster - Richard Crenna and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. The TV series was adapted from Ken Follet's novel of the same name. The plot is set during the Iranian revolution. During the takeover of Iran, the king is overthrown, and two executives of Electronic Data Systems are imprisoned on false charges. The head of the company, Mr. Perot, travels to Tehran to negotiate for their release. Meanwhile, a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel, Arthur Simons, is hired to develop a rescue plan at any cost.
Harry Doyle (Lancaster) and Archie Lang (Douglas) are two old-time train robbers, who held up a train in 1956 and have been incarcerated for thirty years. After serving their time, they are released from jail and have to adjust to a new life of freedom. Harry and Archie realize that they still have the pizzazz when, picking up their prison checks at a bank, they foil a robbery attempt. Archie, who spent his prison time pumping himself up, easily picks up a 20-year-old aerobics instructor. Harry, on the other hand, has to waste away his days in a nursing home. They both have festering resentments -- Archie for having to endure a humiliating job as a busboy; Harry for having to endure patronizing attitudes toward senior citizens. The two old pals finally go back to what they know best. After successfully robbing an armored car, they decide to rob the same train that they robbed thirty years ago.
This 1986 documentary features interviews with director Alexander Mackendrick, actor Burt Lancaster, producer James Hill, and others.
Margo is an ex-stripper who meets her long, lost father in Mexico. She looks after him in the waning days of his life, with the help of a traveling projectionist. The father passes away, telling of the loot from a botched bank robbery that he buried years earlier. The two get jobs in town as their relationship grows and they search for the treasure on the weekends. But while the treasure seems to bring them together, it also seems to be tearing them apart.
The publisher of a celebrity gossip tabloid sets out to destroy an aging actor, whose career is foundering and who is also facing a battle with alcoholism.
A documentary about the making of Bill Forsyth's 1983 film LOCAL HERO
An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.
The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a weekend in the country are engaged in a conspiracy that threatens national security in this adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel.
Marco Polo is an American-Italian television miniseries originally broadcast by NBC in the United States, by Antenne 2 in France and by RAI in Italy in 1982. It starred Kenneth Marshall as Marco Polo, the 13th-century Venetian merchant and explorer. The series also featured appearances by Denholm Elliott, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Ian McShane, Leonard Nimoy, and others. It was originally broadcast in four episodes, where episodes 1 and 4 were twice as long as episodes 2 and 3. The series is sometimes divided into six equally long episodes.
Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.
Documentation about the dangers of the nuclear arms race, including an interview with an witness of the bomb drop of Hiroshima and scientific statements describing the devastating consequences of a nuclear war.
In nineteenth century Oklahoma, two teen girls, fans of stories about outlaws, are on a quest to meet and join up with them. They find a shadow of a former gang and although disappointed, still try to help them escape from a vigorous Marshal.
In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.
Sesame Street celebrated its 10th anniversary in the spring of 1979 with a half-hour PBS special hosted by James Earl Jones titled A Walking Tour of Sesame Street. The special aired on individual PBS stations at various times between March and May 1979. (Muppet Wiki)
Go Tell the Spartans is a 1978 American war film based on Daniel Ford's 1967 novel "Incident at Muc Wa." It tells the story about U.S. Army military advisers during the early part of the Vietnam War. Led my Major Asa Barker, these advisers and their South Vietnamese counterparts defend the village of Muc Wa against multiple attacks by Viet-Cong guerrillas.
The Unknown War is an American documentary television series. The 20-part series documents the World War II conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Each episode is about 48 minutes long, similar in format to The World at War. The footage was edited from over 3.5 million feet of film taken by Soviet camera crews from the first day of the war, 22 June 1941, to the Soviet entry into Berlin in May 1945. Most of these films have never been seen outside this documentary series. The series is hosted by Academy Award Winner Burt Lancaster, who spent three weeks in eight cities in the USSR for location filming. Film footage from Soviet archives comprises a major portion of the series, supplemented by film from both the United States and British archives. Appearing in exclusive interviews would be Russian Commanders like Georgi Zhukov and Vasily Chuikov. The series was produced with Soviet cooperation after the release of The World at War, which the Soviet government felt paid insufficient attention to their part in World War II. Released in 1978, The Unknown War is sympathetic to the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany. It was quickly withdrawn from TV airings after it ran in 1978, possibly because its tone was at odds with the growing tensions between East and West after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Later it returned to airings on cable, including A&E, the History Channel and YouTube.
A renegade USAF general, Lawrence Dell, escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana and threatens to provoke World War 3 unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War between Dell and the then President's most trusted advisors.
A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.
Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.
Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease. Nobody will let them off the train. So what happens next?
The film is based on an actual event: Operation Entebbe and the freeing of Israeli hostages at Entebbe Airport (now Entebbe International Airport) in Uganda.
An ITC/RAI co-production, shooting took place in Rome and on location in Morocco and Israel in 1973–74. The 360-minute long mini-series was later edited into a 141-minute theatrical version of the same name.
An ex-convict, and ex-cop, finds himself in the midst of drama as a murder, of a female student, is commited at the university where he works as a night watchman. He is reluctantly drawn into the criminal investigation and eventually becomes a suspect in the case. Will he be able to find the real murderer and clear his own name, or not?
A retired professor of American origin lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. He is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her lover, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and forced to rent to them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. From this point on his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.
Rogue intelligence agents, right-wing politicians, greedy capitalists, and free-lance assassins plot and carry out the JFK assassination in this speculative agitprop.
Report reaches the US cavalry that the Apache leader Ulzana has left his reservation with a band of followers. A compassionate young officer, Lieutenant DeBuin, is given a small company to find him and bring him back; accompanying the troop is McIntosh, an experienced scout, and Ke-Ni-Tay, an Apache guide. Ulzana massacres, rapes and loots across the countryside; and as DeBuin encounters the remains of his victims, he is compelled to learn from McIntosh and to confront his own naivity and hidden prejudices.
While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.
Old Mexican-American sheriff Bob Valdez has always been a haven of sanity in a land of madmen when it came to defending law and order. But the weapon smuggler Frank Tanner is greedy and impulsive. When Tanner provokes a shooting that causes the death of an innocent man and Valdez asks him to financially compensate the widow, Tanner refuses to do so and severely humiliates Valdez, who will do justice and avenge his honor, no matter what it takes.
A 1970 American documentary film biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., presented in the form of newsreel footage and segments of recordings by Dr. King, framed by celebrity narrators, including Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ruby Dee, James Earl Jones, Clarence Williams III, Burt Lancaster, Ben Gazzara, Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, The movie was produced by Richard Kaplan and Ely Landau.
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
Three skydivers and their travelling thrill show barnstorm through a small midwestern town one Fourth of July weekend.
A mysterious Polaroid-filmed short that showcases depth in stereo photography.
Neddy Merrill has been away for most of the summer. He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pools spanning the entire valley. He decided to jog from pool to pool to swim the whole valley. As he stops in each pool his interactions tell his life story.
Trapper Joe is on his way to the town with all of his gain of hides of the last winter. However a group of Indians stops him and takes all of his hides, leaving him the escaped slave Joseph instead. But Joe has no use for Joseph and is determined to get his property back and follows them. Before he can do anything, the Indians are raided themselves by a group of scalphunters under the greedy Howie. Not only the hides, but also Joseph falls into their hands. Now Joe follows them alone and tries to trick the numerical superior group out of his hides
The Professionals is a 1966 American Western film directed by Richard Brooks. A kidnap-rescue adventure set in about 1917, it features a small group of experts heading into Mexico to free the Mexican-born wife of a wealthy Texan from several hundred bandits. The film is based on the novel A Mule for the Marquesa by Frank O'Rourke.
Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
A wagon train heads for Denver with a cargo of whisky for the miners. Chaos ensues as the Temperance League, the US cavalry, the miners and the local Indians all try to take control of the valuable cargo.
A U.S. Army colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for mentally retarded children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.
Adrian Messenger, a famous writer, asks his friend Anthony Gethryn, a former British agent, to help him investigate the whereabouts of the people who appear on a list, without asking him the reason why he should do so.
After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
A district attorney investigates the racially charged case of three teenagers accused of the murder of a blind Puerto Rican boy.
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
When hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. The two make a successful onstage pair, and their chemistry extends to romance. Both the show and their relationship are threatened, however, when one of Gantry's ex-lovers decides that she has a score to settle with the charismatic performer.
The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their adopted daughter was stolen from the local Kiawa tribe.
The Devil's Disciple is a 1959 film adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title. The Anglo-American film was directed by Guy Hamilton who replaced Alexander Mackendrick and starred Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Laurence Olivier. Mary Grant designed the film's costumes.
The captain of a submarine sunk by the Japanese during WWII is finally given a chance to skipper another sub after a year of working a desk job. His singleminded determination for revenge against the destroyer that sunk his previous vessel puts his new crew in unneccessary danger.
Lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday form an unlikely alliance which culminates in their participation in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.
Lizzie Curry is on the verge of becoming a hopeless old maid. Her wit and intelligence and skills as a homemaker can't make up for the fact that she's just plain plain! Even the town sheriff, File, for whom she harbors a secrect yen, won't take a chance --- until the town suffers a drought and into the lives of Lizzie and her brothers and father comes one Bill Starbuck ... profession: Rainmaker!
A grieving widow embarks on a new romance when she discovers her late husband had been cheating on her.
Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward he faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married but has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. Marty meets Clara, an unattractive school teacher, realising their emotional connection, he promises to call but family and friends try to convince him not to.
After the American Civil War, mercenaries travel to Mexico to fight in their revolution for money. The former soldier and gentleman Benjamin Trane meets the gunman and killer Joe Erin and his men, and together they are hired by the Emperor Maximillian and the Marquis Henri de Labordere to escort the Countess Marie Duvarre to the harbor of Vera Cruz.
Men steal for it. Nations go to war for it. The it is oil - and it grows on trees. Coconut oil is the precious lifeblood of 1870s South Seas traders. And lots of real blood will be spilled to get it! Screen royalty Burt Lancaster ist His Majesty O'Keefe in this last of three adventures that (along with The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate) blew a revitalizing wind into the sails of the swashbucker genre. Action, cunning and derring-do are watchwords of the title seafarer as he befriends, defends and ultimately rules the islanders of exotic Yap. Lensed on gorgeus Fiji locations, grandly scored by Robert Farnon and rousingly directed by Byron Haskin, His Majesty O'Keefe delivers heroics of regal proportions.
Following the surrender of Geronimo, Massai, the last Apache warrior is captured and scheduled for transportation to a Florida reservation. On the way he manages to escape and heads for his homeland to win back his girl and settle down to grow crops. His pursuers have other ideas though.
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.
Marine Sergeant James O'Hearn is being tried at the San Diego Marine base for desertion, theft, scandalous conduct and destruction of property in time of war. He refuses to testify or plead guilty or not guilty to the charges. Showgirl Ginger Martin takes the stand against his protest. She testifies O'Hearn won't talk because he is protecting the name of his pal, Marine Private Davey White. Ginger tells how she, broke and stranded, met the two marines in Shanghai two weeks before Pearl Harbor.
Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics who involves himself in the goings on of a revolution in the Caribbean in the late 1700s. A light hearted adventure involving prison breaks, an oddball Scientist, sailing ships, naval fights, and tons of swordplay.
A mismatched couple's marital problems come to the surface when the husband develops an interest in their pretty boarder.
A cattle baron takes in an orphaned boy and raises him, causing his own son to resent the boy. As they get older the resentment festers into hatred, and eventually the real son frames his stepbrother for fathering an illegitimate child that is actually his, seeing it as an opportunity to get his half-brother out of the way so he can have his father's empire all to himself.
A documentary short film depicting the work of the motion picture director. An anonymous director is shown preparing the various aspects of a film for production, meeting with the writer and producer, approving wardrobe and set design, rehearsing scenes with the actors and camera crew, shooting the scenes, watching dailies, working with the editor and composer, and attending the first preview. Then a number of real directors are shown in archive footage (as well as a predominance of staged 'archive' footage) working with actors and crew.
Sgt. Mike Kincaid of the French Foreign Legion learns, from a Riff prisoner, that an attack will soon be made by the villainous Hussin on the Legion's outpost of Tarfa. Kincaid volunteers to lead nine other Legionnaires on a mission to delay Hussin's attack till reinforcements arrive. When he discovers that Hussin plans to marry Mahla, a girl from a rival tribe, in order to build a coalition against the French, Kincaid kidnaps Mahla. Hussin forcefully takes her back, but by now his planned attack on Tarfa is crumbling and Mahla has begun to fall in love with Kincaid.
The triumph and tragedy of Native Anerican Jim Thorpe, who, after winning both the pentathlon and decathlon in the same Olympics, is stripped of his medals on a technicality.
Dardo, a Robin Hood-like figure, and his loyal followers use a Roman ruin in Medieval Lombardy as their headquarters as they conduct an insurgency against their Hessian conquerors.
The Skipper is a charming old man loved by all his neighbors. What they don't know is that he is also Mr. 880, an amateurish counterfeiter who has amazingly managed to elude the Secret Service for 20 years.
Story of a South African diamond mine watched over by a sadistic policeman tasked with looking out for smugglers.
Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.
Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.
Two families, related by friendship and love, face up to the consequences of greed and avarice in the post-war years.
Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.
Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.
The daughter of a Nevada casino owner gets involved with a racketeer, despite everyone's efforts to separate them.
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
Frankie Madison returns to New York after 14 years in prison. Noll Turner, Frankie's former partner in bootlegging, is now a wealthy nightclub manager, and Frankie is expecting him to honor a verbal '50:50' agreement they made when he was caught and Noll got away. Fat chance! Can Frankie, who knows only the strong-arm methods of Prohibition, win out against Big Business? It'll be tough...even with the unlikely alliance of torch singer Kay (Noll's ex-girlfriend).
Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.
Burt Lancaster narrates this overview of the incredible career of jazz saxophonist Benny Carter, one of the chief architects of the Big Band sound. COMMENTARY BY CLINT EASTWOOD W/ QUINCY JONES, DIZZY GILLESPIE, ELLA FITZGERALD, LENA HORNE AND MORE
