Joseph L. Mankiewicz
This documentary, hosted by actor Burgess Meredith, explores the life and career of movie director Otto Preminger, whose body of work includes such memorable films as Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Laura, Forever Amber, Advise and Consent, In Harm's Way, The Moon Is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, and many other movies made from the '30s through the '70s. Interviews with actors Frank Sinatra, Vincent Price, James Stewart, Michael Caine, and others who worked with the flamboyant and sometimes control-obsessed director add information and insight to the story.
In this tribute to her frequent co-star and longtime love, Katharine Hepburn hosts a behind-the-scenes look at Spencer Tracy's personal and professional life that features intimate personal accounts, interviews and clips from his most acclaimed work on the silver screen.
Biography of the legendary filmmaker directed by his son.
A documentary about and an interview with Hollywood actress Bette Davis about her life and career from the late 1920s to the 1980s on stage and mostly before the camera.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz discusses his career in a feature-length interview recorded at his New England home and the 1983 Berlin Film Festival.
Jane Fonda hosts the AFI Life Achievement Awards ceremony honoring Bette Davis featuring clips from her films and the reminiscences of many co-workers.
Charismatic criminal Paris Pitman ends up in prison, then attempts to escape.
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.
Director Joseph Mankiewicz's first work for television, the 90-minute ABC drama was publicized as having an all-star cast (which meant that names of some supporting cast members were not officially released). In Rod Serling's update of Charles Dickens, industrial tycoon Daniel Grudge has never recovered from the loss of his 22-year-old son Marley, killed in action during Christmas Eve of 1944. The embittered Grudge has only scorn for any American involvement in international affairs. But then the Ghost of Christmas Past takes him back through time to a World War I troopship. Grudge also is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future gives him a tour across a desolate landscape where he sees the ruins of a once-great civilization.
The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.
Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman, but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for the girl’s attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.
Gambler Nathan Detroit has few options for the location of his big craps game. Needing $1,000 to pay a garage owner to host the game, Nathan bets Sky Masterson that Sky cannot get virtuous Sarah Brown out on a date. Despite some resistance, Sky negotiates a date with her in exchange for bringing people into her mission. Meanwhile, Nathan's longtime fiancée, Adelaide, wants him to go legit and marry her.
Has-been director Harry Dawes gets a new lease on his career when independently wealthy Kirk Edwards hires him to write and direct a film. They go to Madrid to find Maria Vargas, a dancer who will star in the film. Millionaire Alberto Bravano takes Maria from Kirk. Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini takes Maria from Alberto.
The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for the idealist and the republic.
Successful and well-liked, Dr. Noah Praetorius becomes the victim of a witchhunt at the hands of Professor Elwell, who disdains Praetorius's unorthodox medical views and also questions his relationship with the mysterious, ever-present Mr. Shunderson.
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.
The Biddle brothers, shot while robbing a gas station, are taken to the prison ward of the County Hospital; Ray Biddle, a rabid racist, wants no treatment from black resident Dr. Luther Brooks. When brother John dies while Luther tries to save him, Ray is certain it's murder and becomes obsessed with vengeance. But there are black racists around too, and the situation slides rapidly toward violence.
From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.
Gino Monetti is a ruthless Italian-American banker who engaged in a number of criminal activities. Three of his four grown sons, refuse to help their father stay out of prison after he's arrested for his questionable business practices. Three of the sons take over the business but kick their father out. Max, a lawyer, is the only son that stays loyal to his father.
Lora May Hollingsway, who grew up next to the wrong side of the tracks, married her boss who thinks she is just a gold digger. Rita Phipps makes as much money writing radio scripts at night as her school teacher husband does. Deborah Bishop looked great in a Navy uniform in WWII but fears she'll never be dressed just right for the Country Club set. These three wives are boarding a boat filled with children going on a picnic when a messenger on a bicycle hands them a letter addressed to all three from Addie who has just left town with one of their husbands. They won't know which one until that night.
In 1900, strong-willed widow Lucy Muir goes to live in Gull Cottage by the British seaside, even though it appears to be haunted. Sure enough, that very night she meets the ghost of crusty former owner Captain Gregg...and refuses to be scared off. Indeed, they become friends and allies, after Lucy gets used to the idea of a man's ghost haunting her bedroom. But when a charming live man comes courting, Lucy and the captain must deal with their feelings for each other.
George and Catherine Apley of Boston lead a proper life in the proper social circle, as did the Apleys before them. When grown daughter Eleanor falls in love with Howard (from New York!), and son John with Myrtle (from Worcester!), the ordered life of the Apley home on Beacon Street is threatened, as is the hoped-for union of John and Apley-cousin Agnes.
For Miranda Wells, moving to New York to live in Dragonwyck Manor with her rich cousin, Nicholas, seems like a dream. However, the situation gradually becomes nightmarish. She observes Nicholas' troubled relationship with his tenant farmers, as well as with his daughter, to whom Miranda serves as governess. Her relationship with Nicholas intensifies after his wife dies, but his mental imbalance threatens any hope of happiness.
George Taylor returns from the WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, he tries to track down his old identity, stumbling into a 3-year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Rival reporters Sam and Tess fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.
Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed American flyer, Pat Talbot, and attempts to get him safely out of the country.
Convicts escaping from Devil's Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure.
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River.
Classic Charles Dickens holiday tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser's miser who has a huge change of heart after spirits whisk him into the past, present, and future.
A nightclub dancer shakes the foundations of a wealthy farming family after she marries into it.
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.
A love story centered on the lives of three young German soldiers in the years following World War I. Their close friendship is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman who is dying of tuberculosis.
A poor singer in a bar masquerades a rich society woman thanks to a rich benefactor.
A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
A runaway bride and an undercover reporter get caught up in political intrigue as they lead a merry chase across Europe and uncover a spy plot.
Four outlaws come to New Jerusalem, a town full of courteous and religious people, to rob the bank. After shooting the president of the bank, only three make it out of town followed by the posse. By the time they get to the second desert water hole, they find it dry and also find a wagon with a dying mother and baby. When the horses are dead the next morning, the three outlaws have no choice but to try to walk back to New Jerusalem and only two want to take the baby.
It's the early nineteenth century Washington. Young adult Margaret O'Neal, Peggy to most that know her, is the daughter of Major William O'Neal, who is the innkeeper of the establishment where most out-of-town politicians and military men stay when they're in Washington. Peggy is pretty and politically aware. She is courted by several of those politicians and military men who all want to marry her, except for the one with who she is truly in love.
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
John and Mary sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society based upon the teachings of Edward Gallafent. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.
A socialite only realises that her friend is in love with her when she falls for the wrong man.
Barbers Willy Nilly and Hercules Glub have opened a barbershop in an Indian reservation, where they have no customers. When suddenly a white man asks for a shave, several Indians of the Oopadoop nation also enter, hearing the usual barbershop banter about foreign debts, they force them to be ambassadors of their nation at the Peace conference in Geneva. Ammunition industry executive Winkelreid is scheming to prevent their mission becoming an success, but the vamp Dolores aboard the ship fails, falling in love with Nilly, and so does Fifi, the toughest person of the world in Paris, falling for Glub. Although Winkelreid is able to steal their secret papers, Nilly and Glub don't give up after being reminded by constant observation of their Indians and enter the Peace conference, which turns out to be a battlefield...
A surgeon and an ambulance driver fight racketeers who take over their hospital.
In this version of the Lewis Carroll classic, Alice (Charlotte Henry) discovers that an ordinary library mirror is actually a portal into another world. As she adjusts to her constantly changing size, thanks to some mysterious cookies, she follows a rabbit with a pocket watch, stumbles upon a deranged tea party and seeks advice from the shadowy Cheshire Cat (Richard Arlen). Later, Alice runs into Humpty Dumpty (W. C. Fields), whose unfortunate tumble sets even stranger events in motion.
A singer is involved with two women in his life, one a "good" girl and one a "bad" one."
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
Donald Ingals and his wife Eunice are conventional and loving parents who are shocked when their son Bradley comes home from college with ideas that they consider to be outrageous. His parents would like him to get involved with Mary Burke, a prim and proper young lady. More complications ensue because Bradley's sister Lois is attracted to the flapper lifestyle, but she isn't sure whether she can handle its emotional demands.
An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.
Two small town widows bring their children to Hollywood, where their children become competing film stars. The girl is sweet, the boy is a killjoy sissy. For publicity, the rival families go to London to meet a middle European boy King. The three kids decide they need to escape their stifling lives and run away to the docks and join a gang.
The Haddocks are going on a European vacation and from their reception at the station, where the whole town goes to see them off, it is clear who wears the pants in the family - it's their daughter Mildred. Her parents often proclaim she is a genius - but she is just smarter than them, which wouldn't be too hard! On the train, Finn meets shyster Harry who sizes Finn up as a sucker and quickly wires his partner Bessie, aka "The Princess" to make Finn's acquaintance and take him for everything he has.
Naïve insurance agent 'Cyclone' Case falls in love with Sylvia Martine, whose father has a dispute with gangster Mike Slade. When Sylvia is kidnapped by Slade and his gang, 'Cyclone' decides to save her and wanders straight into a gang war without even realizing it.
Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett.
A friend of Dick Bailey is killed by a mysterious assailant, whom Dick suspects to be Stack, who is in league with the crooked sheriff. Out on a spree Dick swears he will marry the first woman he sees, who happens to be Ruth Hammond, sister of his dead friend, arriving to take charge of the Hammond ranch. Revolted by his rough proposal,she fires him as the Hammond foreman and she proceeds to the ranch. Stack informs her he has purchased the ranch for the payment of the back-due taxes, and she relents and rehires Dick and his friends to aid her in her fight against Stack.
This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors (including Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Schertzinger and Edmund Goulding). The cast features Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, William Powell, Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers, Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin and Nancy Carroll.
Mayme and sister Janie are salesgirls in Ginsberg's Department Store. Mayme is in love with store clerk Bill, but Janie tries to steal him from her. Hazel, another salesgirl, is Jean Harlow's first credited role.
In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans (Evelyn Brent), the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter.
Tony Palmer's award-winning feature-length documentary profile of Richard Burton.
