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.

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.