Hattie McDaniel
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.
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year is a once-over-lightly evocation of a slate of classic films unmatched before or since. In a year permitting 10 Best Picture nominees, the final cut included Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Love Affair. Shut out: The Roaring '20s, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Intermezzo, Destry Rides Again, Idiot's Delight, Young Mr. Lincoln, Gunga Din. This hour-long film finds room to acknowledge a few of these non-starters, but its brevity means a lot gets left out. This includes the absence of anything that doesn't celebrate the studio system, including the practices of the shrewd tyrants who ran them, seen in brief archival footage.
“I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry,” McDaniel said as she accepted the 1st Academy Award given to an African-American for her performance in the film Gone with the Wind. “Analysis” of a continuity error in a clip from a film of the 1939 Oscars ceremony suggests that the “documentary” footage and McDaniel’s speech were re-staged.
This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.
Biography of the legendary filmmaker directed by his son.
Sylvia Fine hosts this musical show featuring some great American singing and dancing stars, featuring music by Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart, Berlin and Kern.
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
The ambitious son of an accomplished race driver struggles to outrun his father's legacy and achieve his own successes.
Grant Jordan, bachelor botany professor, marries Katie, a widow with three kids, despite the machinations of Grant's former girlfriend Minna. But on the wedding day, Aunt Jo, who was to babysit, breaks a leg; so the kids come along on the honeymoon.
George McAllister (John Carroll), the black sheep of a wealthy family who has squandered his share of the family inheritance, and lives in constant jealousy, hatred and resentment of his half-brother Barry (Robert Paige), who has been supporting him. George gets his girl friend, Carlotta Duval (Vera Ralston), a job as Barry's nurse with the plan of eventually marrying him. She does, but instead of going ahead with the original plan or getting rid of Barry, inheriting his money and marrying George, she finds that she is really in love with Barry.
Uncle Remus draws upon his tales of Br'er Rabbit to help little Johnny deal with his confusion over his parents' separation as well as his new life on the plantation.
Phil and Ellen Gayley have been divorced for a year, and their 8-year old daughter, Flip, is very unhappy that her parents are not together. Flip starts a correspondence with a marine, sending a picture of her beautiful mother as the author of Flip's flirtatious letters. When the marine shows up to meet his pen pal, Ellen takes the opportunity to make her ex-husband jealous.
Margie and her daughter reminisce about Margie's girlhood in the roaring twenties. In flashback, Margie, a smarter, less popular girl at Central High, meets handsome new French teacher Ralph Fontayne. Circumstances keep throwing them together and Margie, in company with every other girl in school, develops a crush on him. Margie's date for the prom gets sick, and what happens next surprises everyone.
Newlywed Janie's (Joan Leslie) World War II-veteran husband (Robert Hutton) goes to work at her father's (Edward Arnold) newspaper.
Part of the series of Universal B-musicals teaming Martha O'Driscoll and Noah Beery Jr., this film is also a remake of the 1937 comedy Love in a Bungalow. Patty Callahan (O'Driscoll) offers residence in a model home to soldier Jeff (Beery) and soon falls in love with him. Although the pair are unmarried, they enter a marital contest intended to celebrate the "Happiest G.I. Couple." Winning the contest brings on all sorts of farcical troubles until the couple are able to be united for real. Songs include "Don't Sweetheart Me" and "Best of All."
While husband Tim is away during World War II, Anne Hilton copes with problems on the homefront. Taking in a lodger, Colonel Smollett, to help make ends meet and dealing with shortages and rationing are minor inconveniences compared to the love affair daughter Jane and the Colonel's grandson conduct.
Based on a play by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, Three Is a Family is a 1940s farce that frequently substitutes noise for humor. Charlie Ruggles plays a hubby whose bungled business schemes force his wife Fay Bainter to enter the workplace. The couple's daughter Marjorie Reynolds shows up with her twin babies in tow. Son Arthur Lake arrives with his pregnant wife (Jeff Donnell). And overbearing maiden aunt Helen Broderick also decides to move in. Because his wife is away at work, poor old Charlie Ruggles is not only housekeeper, but nursemaid and servant as well. If you like diaper and bottle-warmer jokes, you'll love Three is a Family.
Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died.
An Eddie Cantor look-alike organizes an all-star show to help the war effort.
New Yorkers Bill and Connie Fuller have to move from their apartment. Without Bill's knowledge, Connie purchases a delapidated old farmhouse in Pennsylvania, where George Washington was supposed to have actually slept during the American Revolution.
A young woman dumps her fiancée and runs off with her sister's husband. They marry, settle in Baltimore, and Stanley ultimately drives Peter to drink and suicide. Stanley returns home to Richmond only to learn that her sister Roy and old flame Craig have fallen in love and plan to marry. The jealous and selfish Stanley attempts to win back Craig's affections, but her true character is revealed when, rather than take the rap herself, she attempts to pin a hit and run accident on the young black clerk who works in Craig's law office.
The trustees of Midwestern University have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild mannered English Professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, the football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the homecoming weekend. He takes Ellen out dancing after the football rally, causing Tommy to worry that he will lose her to Joe.
Days after Sandra and Pete elope, they discover their consummated union isn't valid since, unbeknownst to them, Sandra's divorce isn't yet final. They decide to not stay together, but, by then, Sandra is pregnant. She doesn't learn that fact until after Pete marries his former fiancee Maggie. Pete, unaware of the baby, flies to South America on business. While there, a flight he is on goes missing and all onboard are presumed dead. Maggie persuades Sandra to let her adopt the baby, so she can raise it as Pete's legitimate child. Months later Pete - alive after all - returns. Sandra and Maggie contend for him and the baby.
A married reporter's assignments carry him all over the world, which gives him ample opportunity to put the moves on the local females.
The story follows General George Armstrong Custer's adventures from his West Point days to his death. He defies orders during the Civil War, trains the 7th Cavalry, appeases Chief Crazy Horse and later engages in bloody battle with the Sioux nation.
This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Fay Bainter, Mickey Rooney, Thomas Mitchell, Sinclair Lewis, and more, with host Bob Hope.
The Jones family encounters new theories of childrearing when an author arrives in town to lecture on the topic.
The spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner is forced to use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty, following Maj. Gen. William Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea,” during the American Civil War.
The wealthy owner of a Pennsylvania steel business travels to New York to break up his son's romance with a showgirl. Director George Marshall's 1938 comedy stars Victor McLaglen, Brian Donlevy, Gypsy Rose Lee, Raymond Walburn, Hattie McDaniel, Lynn Bari, Robert Kellard, Jane Darwell, Andrew Tombes, Esther Muir and Frank Moran.
A nightclub dancer shakes the foundations of a wealthy farming family after she marries into it.
When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she proves them wrong.
During WWI Bill Pettigrew, a naive young Texan soldier is sent to New York for basic training. He meets worldly wise actress Daisy Heath when her car nearly runs him over.
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
After being released from prison, con man Thurston Hall gathers his gang of cronies--along with innocent chump Guy Kibbee--to help him sell worthless stock in a New Mexico gold mine.
Bluford H. Smythe, who has made it big in the big city, has returned to his small hometown of Glenwood after being away for twenty years. Accompanying him is his personal secretary, Ambrose Ames. Despite it being purely a vacation to get some rest and relaxation, the leading citizens of the town welcome him back with some official gatherings. Mayor Jonas Tompkins, who never liked Bluford, holds no grudges against him and too welcomes him with open arms. Although Bluford had no intention of making the news public, the townsfolk learn that he has indeed come back to do business, specifically develop a summer resort in Glenwood to rival that of the best summer resorts worldwide.
When a small-town girl is diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an ambitious newspaper man turns her into a national heroine.
A government agent sets out to capture a gang of airmail bandits who use a death ray to blow planes out of the sky.
Three playwrights (Lew Ayres, Eugene Pallette, Benny Baker) develop a plot around a drunk who gets killed in their apartment.
Helen and Ken are a pretty strange couple. She is a pathological liar, and he is a scrupulously honest, and therefore unsuccessful lawyer. Helen starts a new job, and when her employer is found dead, all the circumstantial evidence points at her. She is put on trial for murder, and her husband defends her. He thinks she is lying again when she says she didn't do it, and insists she plead that she did, but in self defense. Charlie, a shady, odd character who may or may not know something about what really happened, hangs around the courtroom and jail making rude comments and noises. After Helen is acquitted, he tries to blackmail them.
A shrewd millionaire who owns races horses for publicity for his automobile business, claims ownership of a female horse trainer's thoroughbred in order to get the trainer.
The Carlton State star quarterback is wrongly thrown in jail, almost guaranteeing a major loss as well as costing the college a donation which would save the school from closing.
Eager to take advantage of a new oil boom, "Lucky" Conlon leaves his gas station and diner for Texas, with his wife Helen's blessing. In Texas, Lucky wins enough money in roulette to lease a parcel of land, and he and his friend "Smiley" begin drilling. Julia Frayne, whom Lucky met while gambling, turns out to be the daughter of oil tycoon Tom Frayne, who is eager to buy out the leases of the growing number of independent drillers, called "wildcatters," in order to hold a monopoly on the local oil fields.
Carrie Snyder is a prostitute, who is forced out of the fictional southern town of Crebillon, after forming a friendship with a young boy named Paul, whose dying mother is unable to protest against her son visiting such a woman. After Carrie has left town Paul runs away from his abusive father, and meets a girl named Lady who has run away from a burning trainwreck, not wanting to go back to the people she was with. Carrie comes back for Paul and ends up taking Paul and Lady to New York with her.
Blind Mrs. Lind comes to American to visit her three children whom she thinks are successful.
When a couple become parents for the first time, they discover grandmothers can be almost as demanding as a newborn.
Brawling cable layer Steve Reardon doesn't want to marry girlfriend Edith but he also doesn't want her to date other men.
When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.
A young married couple's relationship becomes strained when he is assigned overseas as a foreign correspondent and she becomes a major stage star.
Carolyn Martin is a fashion model who hastily marries her boyfriend, engineer Michael Martin. But part of the marriage arrangement requires that Carolyn quit her $50-per-week modeling job to be a full-time housewife; the couple will instead live on Michael’s $35-per-week job.
Neurotic Broadway star Al Jackson faces professional ruin when he loses his voice. While recuperating in the country, he falls in love with farm girl Ruth Haines, the pretty aunt of precocious little Sybil Haines.
Newspapers around the world proclaim the birth in Moosetown, Canada of the 3,000th baby brought into the world by the doctor, John Luke, known for delivering the famous Wyatt quintuplets. To honor the doctor on his retirement and to publicize their town, the Moosetown chamber of commerce decides to hold a reunion of all the babies delivered by the doctor, some of whom have become famous.
Charley Chase, a stockbroker, gets rich by mistake, has parking trouble, then at home finds his wife Toots seeing a psychic who apparently causes husband and wife to switch bodies!
After Southern belle Elizabeth Lloyd runs off to marry Yankee Jack Sherman, her father, a former Confederate colonel during the Civil War, vows to never speak to her again. Several years pass and Elizabeth returns to her home town with her husband and young daughter. The little girl charms her crusty grandfather and tries to patch things up between him and her mother.
The surgeon who did the job was dead. Only the nurse knew what this gangster looked like in his new face. He learned about women from her!
Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!
A toothpaste magnate's mischievous daughter, tired of her father's traditional ways of conducting business, joins forces with her father's rival and a crazy inventor. Together they create "Cocktail Toothpaste". The new concoction tastes like whiskey in the morning, a martini at suppertime, and champagne at night.
An aging star finally recognizes the truth when she is replaced in her new movie by a girl from the chorus.
In the lower-middle-class Adams family, father and son are happy to work in a drugstore, but mother and daughter Alice try every possible social-climbing stratagem despite snubs and embarrassment. When Alice finally meets her dream man Arthur, mother nags father into a risky business venture and plans to impress Alice's beau with an "upscale" family dinner. Will the excruciating results drive Arthur away?
James Houghland, inventor of a new method by which television signals can be instantaneously sent anywhere in the world, refuses to sell the process to television companies, who then send agents to acquire the invention any way they can. On the night of his initial broadcast Houghland is mysteriously murdered in the middle of his demonstration and it falls to Police Chief Nelson to determine who the murderer is from the many suspects present.
American Civil War, 1862. After the disaster of the Second Battle of Bull Run, Major Allen, chief of the Secret Service of the Union, asks actress Gail Loveless to become one of his operators and infiltrate enemy territory.
Middle aged George F. Babbitt is a leading citizen in the town of Zenith, the fastest growing community in America according to its town sign. George is a large part of that growth as a property developer and realtor. He is lovingly married to his wife Myra, the two who have two children, Ted and Verona who are approaching adulthood. George has always had a fearless attitude, much like that of a naive child, which has led to his business success. He encounters some personal stresses when he faces what he believes is a potential home-wrecking issue, and when his oldest friend Paul and his wife Zilla deal with domestic problems. These stresses make George want to provide even more to his own family, leading to George agreeing to participate in a less than scrupulous but lucrative business dealing. George's bravura gets him into a potential scandal. This situation makes him question his general behavior, especially toward his family.
The old men meet a young girl, broke, hungry and discouraged, in the park. Colonel Henry Randolph Ransome (Henry B. Walthall) bluffs his way into obtaining enough money to support the welfare of the girl,Rose Wentworth (Sally Blane), and his two cronies. He sends for the girl's former sweetheart, who turns out to be a crook.
A naive farmer encounters a beautiful burlesque dancer on the streets of New York and agrees to pose as her husband during her mother's visit.
A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
When Billy get adopted by a rich couple, Mickey and the gang spring into action to bring their pal back home.
This 1934 Warner Bros. screwball comedy-- featuring three Manhattan couples, two lost overcoats, and one sheep named Eloise--all converging in a hotel in Reno. With Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee, Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh, Louise Beavers and Hobart Cavanaugh.
Judge Priest, a proud Confederate veteran, restores the justice in a small town in the Post-Bellum Kentucky using his common sense and his great sense of humanity.
A theatrical troupe headed by a flashy showman finds itself in the tiny--and bankrupt--kingdom of Belgardia. The showman falls in love with the daughter of the dotty king, who has promised her to another.
Accidental meetings and misconceptions lead a blissfully happy couple to fight and squabble.
The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into a lion's muzzle! With this attraction the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her dearest occupation: flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.
A sexy golddigger lands who she thinks is a wealthy big-game hunter from a royal family. What she doesn't know is that not only is he not wealthy, nor a big-game hunter nor from a royal family, but he's only a butler. Complications ensue as he tries to keep up the pretense.
Peggy and her friend Millie are strolling down Broadway while Jimmy and Mac are trolling Broadway, and the four get together...
Jimmy's uncle gives him 30 days probation on Kirk's ranch to control his temper or lose his inheritance. There he gets tangled up with a gang of robbers whose boss is his rival for Kirk's daughter. With one day left in his probation, they goad him into a fight.
American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However, he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance at being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner, she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend.
An honest, talented and well respected attorney defeats a corrupt incumbent U.S. Senator. After a very good start he has to face the subtle temptations and innocent looking traps of Washington.
WBLA is on the air, presenting the live music, the sudsy dramas and the sell-sell-sell of commercial interludes that keep consumers buying and sponsors smiling. But one sponsor, a producer of plumbing supplies, isn’t happy. So WBLA scriptwriter Bill Grimes is bounced from his job, setting in motion this movie’s turn from comedic to darkly tragic. William Haines, two years removed from being Tinseltown’s top male star, plays Grimes in a melodrama noted for its glimpses of live radio production and for a Depression-era ethos that includes peroxide cuties eager to land a job, a sugar daddy or both.
Short subject from Pathe based on the writings of Grantland Rice, primarily remembered for his elegant approach to sportswriting. This was one of the last of the Van Beuren Corporation's "Song Sketches," along with another "The Voice of the Sea."
