The third, and along with Road to Utopia, probably the best in a series which began in 1940.

The women's weepie angle gets to be a bit of a slog later on, but it is all wrapped up as a mesmerically glittering package by Rapper's direction, Sol Polito's camerawork, and Max Steiner's lushly romantic score.

Though not top-notch Powell & Pressburger, an ambitious low-key wartime thriller that totally transcends any propaganda considerations, thanks to sharp characterisation and imaginative scripting.

Pretty irresistible, nevertheless, with Rogers doing a beautiful job of dovetailing sexual provocation and demure innocence.

The Irving Berlin score, including 'Easter Parade' and 'Let's Say It with Firecrackers' (which gives Fred his best moment) makes up for the thin story about a love triangle at the eponymous vacation resort.

From Disney's richest period, interleaving splendid animation with vulgar Americana.

With immaculate period reconstruction, and virtuoso acting shot in long, elegant takes, it remains the director's most moving film, despite the artificiality of the sentimental tacked-on ending.

Now it seems raucous, vulgar, over long; but if you like slick jobs, this is certainly one of the slickest.

Classic soap opera in which good old British understatement has a field day, everybody is frightfully nice, and sentimentality is wrapped up in yards of tasteful gloss.

A little on the bland side in its two leads, though suave Kruger and sweaty Lloyd compensate with their vivid villainies. Lots of echoes of earlier British Hitchcock, plus the charmingly bizarre encounter with the caravan-load of circus freaks, the charity ball from which there appears to be no exit, and the classic climax atop the Statue of Liberty.

Fred Zinnemann's feature debut, a neat, unpretentious and really rather enjoyable whodunit about the hunt for the killer of the town's crusading mayor.

It's certainly one of the finest comedies ever to come out of Paramount, the allegations of dubious taste missing the point of Lubitsch's satire - not so much the general nastiness of the Nazis as their unforgiveable bad manners.

Sullivan's Travels is a gem, an almost serious comedy not taken entirely seriously, with wonderful dialogue, eccentric characterisations, and superlative performances throughout.

The comic byplay between opposites - everyday guy Spence and haughty Kate - is a consistent pleasure, even if its sexual politics are ambiguous.

Marvellous performance from Stanwyck, all snap, crackle and pop as the brassy nightclub entertainer Sugarpuss O'Shea.

Absolutely irresistible.

Marred by a blatantly artificial English countryside and by a somewhat clichéd story, it's nevertheless a supreme example of Grant's ability to be simultaneously charming and sinister, and of the director's skill with neat expressionistic touches (most notably, the glass of milk).

One of the best of Disney's animated features. An ugly duckling variation, lifted by those unforgettable characters.

An elegant and eloquent film, nevertheless, even if the characteristically laconic Fordian poetry seems more contrived here (not least in the uncharacteristic use of an offscreen narration).

What makes it a prototype film noir is the vein of unease missing from the two earlier versions of Hammett's novel. Filmed almost entirely in interiors, it presents a claustrophobic world animated by betrayal, perversion and pain, never - even at its most irresistibly funny, as when Cook listens in outraged disbelief while his fat sugar daddy proposes to sell him down the line - quite losing sight of this central abyss of darkness, ultimately embodied by Mary Astor's sadly duplicitous siren.

This romantic weepie is both moving and effectively stylish.

Lovely supporting performances from Rains, Horton (the anxiously over-zealous heavenly messenger who made the mistake in the first place) and Gleason (a hopelessly bemused fight manager); but the comedy of errors as Montgomery casts around for a new body in which to pursue his championship ambitions is rather uncomfortably tinged with the fey archness which so often came over Hollywood when envisaging an afterlife.

Despite some rather silly dialogue, scripted by the usually reliable Donald Ogden Stewart from a French play, Cukor's civilised handling of the actors and his often expressionist visuals lend credence to the tale, with atmosphere thick and juicy enough to cut with a knife.

There is plenty to relish, notably Newton and Morley hamming it up (as, respectively, the rumbustious Bill Walker and the overbearing tycoon), and Deborah Kerr in her debut; but it does tend to just sit there.

After a bright start, this hunkers down to serious hand-wringing... Coop's hick (none too convincingly hinted at as the new Messiah) turns out to be a bore, and Capra strains to accommodate political chicanery and his own half-baked idealism.