Although the script (by Faulkner, among others) gets stranded with the usual slightly wooden dialogue considered necessary for ancient times, the story moves along at a stately but never sluggish pace, and is scattered with lovely moments, most notably the grim finale when Collins gets her ironic come-uppance.

Happily the cameo lowlife, an excellent manic beaver, the famously villainous Siamese, and classic songs rescue the film from dumb animal sentiment.

Overrated at the time, largely because its teleplay origins (by Paddy Chayefsky) brought a veneer of naturalism and close-up intimacy to the Hollywood of the day. But it does have doggy charm and a certain perceptiveness (the butcher's continuing doubts as to what his mates will think; his mother's jealousy despite constant nagging about marriage).

As long-winded and bloated with biblical allegory as the original. That said, it's a film of great performances, atmospheric photography, and a sure sense of period and place (the California farmlands at the time of World War I).

It's based on Evan Hunter's moralistic bestseller about a young New York teacher at a tough school, and is very worthy in its intentions. Highlights include Vic Morrow as a confused knife-wielding delinquent, but the studied pseudo-documentary atmosphere never quite convinces.

Despite a very corny script from Julius and Philip Epstein which borrows clichés from Casablanca and countless 'American in Paris' yarns, this remains an enjoyable (if heavy-handed) melodrama.

The somewhat heavy-handed direction and the ultimately two-dimensional characters leave you admiring the workmanship without plucking at the necessary emotional/romantic heart-strings.

The acting honours belong to Mason: whether idly cruising the LA dance-halls for a new woman, sliding into alcoholism, or embarrassing everyone at an Oscar ceremony, he gives a performance which is as good as any actor is ever allowed.

It’s as sickly-sweet as an eggnog tsunami, but Bing’s brandy-butter baritone and Kaye’s incessant, proto-Jim Carrey clowning always manage to raise a smile.

Not as incisive as Minnelli's film, but still a heady Mankiewicz brew of Hollywood trash and wit.

A classic - if not the classic - Minnelli musical, Brigadoon is an explicit statement about (and partial criticism of) the notion that an artist only lives through his art, preferring its reality to the world's.

Quite aside from the violation of intimacy, which is shocking enough, Hitchcock has nowhere else come so close to pure misanthropy, nor given us so disturbing a definition of what it is to watch the 'silent film' of other people's lives, whether across a courtyard or up on a screen.

Sirk turns all this into an extraordinary film about vision: sight, destiny, blindness (literal and figurative), colour and light; the convoluted, rather absurd actions (a magnificent repression?) tellingly counterpointed by the clean compositions and the straight lines and space of modern architecture.

Circuitously derived from the tale of the rape of the Sabine women, this rather archly symmetrical movie musical is best seen as a dance-fest, with Michael Kidd's acrobatic, pas d'action choreography well complemented by ex-choreographer Donen's camera.

Politics apart, though, it's pretty electrifying.

Bogie's considerable charisma is visibly weakened by his tired appearance, and the strong cast is never really allowed full rein by Dmytryk, whose abiding concern that fair play be seen to be done, with regard to all the characters' various motivations, makes for a stodgily liberal courtroom drama.

By far the best of the '50s cycle of 'creature features', Them! and its story of a nest of giant radioactive ants (the result of an atomic test in the New Mexico desert) retains a good part of its power today.

The quiet, delicately observed slapstick here works with far more hits than misses, although in comparison with, say, Keaton, Tati's cold detachment from his characters seems to result in a decided lack of insight into human behaviour.

Its trick is to generate considerable suspense while withholding nothing from the audience. Its pleasures are not profound ones, but there’s enough dimensionality up on the screen to compensate. [2013 3D Release]

The film's targets multiply - workers' rights, racism, feminism - and for 1953 this is pretty amazing.

The routine story - members of a scientific expedition exploring the Amazon discover and are menaced by an amphibious gill man - is mightily improved by Arnold's sure sense of atmospheric locations and by the often sympathetic portrait of the monster.

Effectively banned in Britain until 1968, Brando's biker seems disarmingly tame by comparison with the wild angels he spawned. Yet the film isn't half bad as it sets up characters and situation with neat economy, tracing the seeds of explosion when the Black Rebels ride into town, are detained by a minor accident, and hang around trading insults with a rival gang.

Page won an Oscar nomination for this, her first film role, but Wayne's guileless performance is even better: gently self-mocking, while still every inch the embodiment of the conviction that "a man ought to do what he thinks is best."

The energy of the music and of the supercharged Day just about prevail over the lethargy of Butler's (non-)direction.

Half-hearted, half-baked, and at least half-watchable.

This covers much the same ground as Robert Rossen's earlier feature, All the King's Men, and Robert Collins' later telemovie, The Life and Assassination of the Kingfish. In decidedly more idiosyncratic style, however, with Cagney's aggressive energy suggesting the particular populist allure of the Southern shyster/demagogue.

The film is anonymously directed, functionally paced and hysterical at times, though it seduces as a hot-blooded spectacle that stitches emotional detail onto the epic canvas of history.

Updated from London 1890 to contemporary California, George Pal's version of the HG Wells novel still works pretty well, thanks to its attractive special effects.