The War of the Worlds is one of those movies that many who grew up in the '50s remember fondly as a mix of science-fiction melodrama and crashingly good mayhem. Nostalgia goes a long way toward appreciating it today. [13 Aug 1992, p.15]

Norman Taurog's The Caddy is a sometimes subpar 1953 Martin & Lewis golfing comedy enlivened by a Dean and Jerry duet on "That's Amore" and a snatch of their great stage act. [22 Jul 1988, p.23]

The film was originally shot to be shown in 3-D and its low-key use of the technology makes it one of the most effective 3-D films of the era. [24 Dec 1993, p.F12]

Directed by Henry Hathaway and co-written by Charles Brackett, the picture, about a femme fatale who wants to kill her husband, could be seen as a "House of Gucci" predecessor -- starring Marilyn Monroe as she was coming into herself as a performer and star, and featuring Joseph Cotten with his blend of the suave and the sleazy. [25 Nov 2021, p.E1]

This slice of (Hollywood) life is among the director's greatest works -- and among the best incisive-yet-affectionate examinations of the movie industry's dark side. [18 Nov 1988, p.25]

Scenes of the Irish countryside are dazzling and Ford’s version of Ireland is all homey and warm-hearted, with a distinct Hollywood glaze.

Made by Disney, this version starring Richard Todd and a youthful Peter Finch isn't quite up to its predecessor, but zippy nonetheless. Action dominates, sometimes at the expense of the characters. [02 Sep 1993, p.18]

The triumph of aesthetics, of artistic filmmaking of a high order, is the victory to be celebrated here, and it is something you are not going to see every day. [13 Mar 2015, p.E7]

The strangest and most delightful of the many collaborations of those joint exemplars of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini: a Chaplinesque fable about a purely innocent and good young orphan who leads the inhabitants of a Roman shantytown in angelic revolt against their cruel evictors. [10 Nov 1996, p.4]

William Wyler directed this hard-hitting, beautifully acted 1951 adaptation of Sidney Kingsley's Broadway hit. Kirk Douglas is remarkable as a tough-nosed, moralistic police detective who is accused of roughing up a shady doctor. [25 Oct 2005, p.E3]

Forget the wan 1994 remake and check out the sweet 1951 original. The great Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh and Donna Corcoran star in this fantasy about how the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates get help at bat from angels who were former baseball players. [27 Dec 1996, p.F24]

Only one demerit might be charged against the picture and that is its dalliance, either with beautiful scenery, or mood, or special situation. Off and on the story is halted for peculiar and eccentric excursions of this kind. These sequences are peculiarly interesting and individual in themselves, even though Pandora and the Flying Dutchman might be a stronger film without them.

This anti-nuclear war, science-fiction parable is something of a minor legend, beloved by '50s buffs and cinephiles. Robert Wise directed what turned out to be one of his best-liked movies and a personal favorite of his. [04 Jun 1995, p.66]

Of the great American films -- and make no mistake, it belongs in that group -- A Streetcar Named Desire remains one of the most misunderstood, underappreciated and surprisingly forgotten. [26 Sept 1993, p7]

Terrific aerial footage and fine performances. [24 Dec 1998, p.F12]

Despite some silliness and Jimmy Stewart's occasional tendency to cross the line between sweet and cloying, the movie still holds up. It is one of Stewart's best, as it was also for Henry Koster. [11 Oct 1990, p.13]

Sunset Blvd., directed by Billy Wilder, is an attack on Hollywood, especially its image-making fickleness and casual exploitation of all things shimmery. [20 Apr 1995, p.14]

Of the six "adult Westerns" James Stewart and director Anthony Mann made together in the '50s, this 1950 film was the first and one of the best. [24 Jun 1986]

The atmosphere is unremittingly tense, the undercurrents poignant and grim. It's the best movie ever made by pastoralist Henry King. [26 July 1988, p.21]

What gives this slender movie its appeal is how Minnelli and writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett check out all the huge and tiny steps in the complicated process with such gleeful, and usually wry, detail. [23 Jul 1992, p.13]

On the surface, a lace of flirtations, insinuations and rejections compose the basic plotting. But Renoir uses flashes of accelerating drama to amplify his bigger points.

Lightweight but enjoyable. [11 Dec 1997, p.F48]

As splendid as John Wayne is in these films, the elegiac She Wore a Yellow Ribbon provides him with one of his finest roles. [19 May 1996, p.72]

What makes the famous 1949 Raoul Walsh gangster film White Heat a classic is its crackling tension that derives from Walsh's breakneck pace and the developing psychological complexity of James Cagney's Cody Jarrett. [21 Oct 1990, p.6]

This one, directed by Mervyn LeRoy for MGM, can get more than a little sappy as we watch this house of pretty adolescents take pretty steps toward their destinies, but it's also affectionately rendered. [15 Dec 1994, p.20]

A slight but high-spirited musical that entertains without ever really grabbing you. [29 Jan 1988, p.21]

What really sets The Bishop's Wife apart is its subtlety; it never resorts to "what-might-have-been" magic to convey its message. [16 Jan 1992, p.11]

A major cult film, but a bit much, to put it mildly. [23 Sep 1991, p.F12]

The players acquit themselves histrionically if not morally. Mitchum, [Kirk] Douglas and the Misses [Jane] Greer and [Rhonda] Fleming are all commendable.

Jules Furthman penned the uncompromising script; Edmund Goulding directed with a master hand. [05 Jun 2005, p.E12]

A gritty, powerfully acted drama set in an overcrowded maximum-security prison. [04 Feb 1999, p.F48]

In a string of awful '30s movies, MacMurray refined his light touch, so he was ready when he finally got some decent comic material to work with. As a struggling chicken farmer, he's the prefect foil for Claudette Colbert's urban sophisticate in this comedy pitting city life against country life. [08 Nov 1991, p.F24]

What makes Odd Man Out effective is Reed's love of detail, especially when it comes to the mix of characters Johnny encounters along the way. With economical cinematic strokes, Reed describes these people, getting us to wonder about them and, ultimately, to have a sense of who they are. [19 Jan 1995, p.14]

Song of the South is essentially a nostalgic valentine to a past that never existed, and within those limits, it offers a pleasant, family diversion for holiday afternoons when the children get restless.

This 1946 version became a key film in postwar Hollywood film noir. Directed by Tay Garnett, it remains one of Lana Turner's (right) very best films. [02 Feb 1997, p.78]

Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce remains a rip-roaring entertainment.

Judy Garland is luminous in her first non-singing role in this lovely 1945 romantic drama. [14 Feb 2001, p.D3]

More than 45 years after it was released, the movie made of Oscar Wilde's tale of the price of eternal youth is still well worth seeing. [05 Sep 1991, p.11]

It’s a pretty arduous journey, complete with personal revelations, melodramatic suspense, a grand finale and all the Hollywood hokum MGM could get away with.

Hawks' direction is his very best: crisp, humane and full of humor. [26 Jul 1998, p.4]

Dated, but rousing 1944 dramatization of the planning and execution of first bombing raid over Tokyo. [24 Dec 1998, p.F12]

What keeps "Gaslight" burning is its tantalizing aura of mystery. [10 Feb 1994, p.5]

German director Robert Siodmak gives this juicy 1943 entry terrific gothic style. [06 Jun 2004, p.E13]

Arthur Lubin's elegant 1942 color version of the Gaston Leroux chiller remains one of the best, with a chilling yet poignant Claude Rains prowling a Paris Opera house, wreaking hideous revenge. [20 Oct 1996, p.4]

This film does have its layers of propaganda, but it also (quite remarkably for its time) shows that people with thick German accents are not necessarily Nazis. They, too, have families and loves -- and some a hatred for fascism. [21 Mar 1991, p.12]

Victor Young’s score is glorious and soaring and Ray Rennanhan’s cinematography is breathtakingly lush and vibrant. Equally vibrant are Cooper and Bergman, who both received Oscar nominations. Two of the most beautiful people to ever grace the silver screen, their love scenes are sexy, touching and sweet.

Cat People sinks its claws into the psyche for an erotically tinged horror-thriller. [29 Oct 1998, p.F7]

Who doesn't love a good amnesia movie, and this one, starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, pulls out more stops than one would have thought possible. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Road to Morocco is light and airy family entertainment, yet at a time when the Production Code was at its height of power, it is surprising what Crosby and especially Hope, of course, manage to suggest. [07 Jun 2001, p.34]

A high-grade Bette Davis soap opera that finds her playing a repressed Boston spinster rescued by her suave psychiatrist (Paul Henried, who figures in the film's famous cigarette-lighting scene). [18 Dec 1988, p.5]

Tons of fun. [28 May 1998, p.F39]

The 1942 musical-comedy Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and featuring the music of Irving Berlin, has been overshadowed by Crosby-Berlin's 1954 hit "White Christmas." Holiday Inn is the superior film, thanks to Mark Sandrich's light-hearted direction, Astaire's dance numbers and Crosby crooning "White Christmas" and "Be Careful, It's My Heart." [20 Nov 1992, p.11]

Despite all the good fun, Bambi remains a potent story that touches deep fears and emotions. Few scenes in animation--or live action film--match the poignancy of the death of Bambi's mother, a sequence that still moves children (and adults) to tears.

An elegiac saga of the decline and fall of a rich small-town American family, based on a Booth Tarkington novel.

Of course, Yankee Doodle Dandy is short on answers -- picture biographies from the '40s tended to ignore facts, opting instead for more emotional entertainment -- but that doesn't dissuade us. Curtiz and Cagney make their point, that dreamland America can be a helluva place, especially for gutter snipes (like Cagney) turned glitter stars (like Cohan). [30 Jun 1994, p.16]

1942's Mrs. Miniver seems dated in today's contemporary world. Nevertheless, it's still an inspiring, well-made, patriotic drama. [05 Jan 1997, p.4]

It’s the sort of verbally dexterous farce you’d have to be a total Crabapple Annie not to enjoy.

Suspicion is not quite as strong as, possibly, some of the director’s best preceding films. In one respect, though, it must be reckoned especially notable — the portrayal of Joan Fontaine.

Its sentimentality is ragged at times, but the overall quilt of the film is well constructed. [09 Apr 1992, p.15]

Jack Conway's direction is slow and ponderous, which is characteristic of so many of MGM's painstakingly crafted melodramas of the 1940s. [02 Sep 1991, p.F14]

Citizen Kane does occasionally sink to dullness because of its reiterations, notwithstanding it can be classified as, in a number of aspects, one of the most arresting pictures ever produced.

An absolute delight. [29 Dec 1996, p.78]

We know who's going to triumph by the hokey, tearful conclusion, but that doesn't blunt the satisfaction. [28 Jul 1994, p.16]

Preston Sturges was arguably the most gifted writer-director of sound comedies Hollywood has ever produced, and this Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda standoff is his masterpiece. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Fantasia is caviar to the general, ambrosia and nectar for the intelligentsia. It makes no compromises; it is the noblest experiment of a wizard in his bright field of artistry and creativeness. [30 Jan 1941, p. 9]

It's one of Hitchcock's most inventive works, a great favorite of French director Jean Renoir. [24 Sep 1995, p.71]

As the current Emma testifies, Jane Austen continues to knock them dead but nothing beats the high gloss of impeccable studio craftsmanship that elevates this Laurence Olivier-Greer Garson vehicle. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Sanders is perfectly cast as the oily, conniving family member who sends one of his relatives (Price) to jail on a trumped-up murder charge. [28 May 1998, p.F39]

Every element in Pinocchio shimmers with the energy of young artists reveling in their newly discovered powers of creation.

Stanwyck deftly handles the film’s mix of pathos, comedy and romance. Remember the Night also demonstrates how capable MacMurray could be as leading man.

The older it gets, and we with it, the more we're able to see in it. As few American films have, Gone With the Wind succeeds both as historical epic and as intimate drama.

The onscreen chemistry between James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan was the stuff of legend, never better displayed than in this Ernst Lubitsch romantic charmer. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Directed by George Marshall, Destry revived Dietrich's waning screen career, and her barroom brawl with Una Merkel is a classic. [25 Aug 1996, p.74]

Third in the series, the effortlessly effervescent Powell and Loy and a sharp supporting cast are all but overwhelmed by a tedious, impenetrably complicated plot, involving the murder of Nora's late father's business partner (C. Aubrey Smith). [14 Jul 1996, p.4]

Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne are perfectly cast in this four-hankie weepie. [03 Dec 1998, p.F48]

This 1939 William Wyler version of Emily Bronte's passionate and inspired novel of l'amour on the lightning-lashed moors and gloomy heaths is the best and most successful on screen. [16 Oct 1994, p.65]

Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue, as does a largeness of spirit that typifies Leisen's approach. [15 Nov 2012, p.D3]

The wonderful British character actor Reginald Owen hits all the right notes as the ultimate miser, Scrooge. Equally fine are Gene Lockhart and his real-life wife, Kathleen, as Bob and Mrs. Crachit. [21 Dec 2000, p.F36]

Some of the subsequent Disney features--notably "Pinocchio"--are technically superior, but the animators never surpassed the emotional depth they achieved in Walt's "folly." "Snow White" carries her 50 years very lightly.

McCarey and his team of Dunne and Grant bring a patina of slapstick to this high-society story based on Arthur Richman's play and adapted for the screen by Vina Delmar. [03 Oct 1991, p.12]

The production values are incredible; in both drama and visuals, I'd put this sea tale up against the unsinkable "Titanic" any day. It's emotionally engaging too, though it's a different kind of love story. Director Victor Fleming (before "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind") makes chopping fish heads seem romantic. [04 Mar 1999, p.F18]

Michael Curtiz directed this enjoyable story starring Wayne Norris in his film debut as a naive young man who is turned into a top fighter by a promoter (Edward G. Robinson). [27 Dec 2001, p.22]

This movie is as wrenching as it is eruptive. Hitchcock never went further beyond pop than he did with Sabotage.

While After the Thin Man offers Powell and Loy plenty to drink and lots of fine banter, it doesn't hold up as well as the first picture. [13 Nov 1997, p.F15]

Anyone who loves a classic 1930s-style screwball comedy should check out My Man Godfrey. [25 Feb 1999, p.F16]

When Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers go into their dance, everything else fades into insignificance. The pair made 10 films together, and, with sequences like Pick Yourself Up and Never Gonna Dance, this is the consensus pick for their best. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

It is a stylish, durable piece of epic Americana, replete with some of the most beloved songs in musical theater and rich in its sense of period. [15 Jul 1985, p.2]

Desire represents Hollywood at its timeless, beloved best. A stunning blend of European and American sensibilities -- Marlene Dietrich and producer Ernst Lubitsch on the one hand, Gary Cooper and director Frank Borzage on the other -- it is the epitome of glittery escapist entertainment. Yet the emotional honesty at its core gives it a reality that is deeply involving. [12 May 1986, p.2]

In an era when AIDS research still seems in its infancy and bacteria and viruses seem to now be able to outwit science's most powerful arsenal, there may be lessons to be learned here. And they're told with great feeling and fine craftsmanship. [15 Apr 1994, p.F24]