Uncanny coincidental parallels with La Règle du Jeu abound, and although the film echoes Renoir's bark more than his bite, it has a superbly malicious script by Brackett and Wilder, gorgeous sets and camerawork, and a matchless cast.

The contrast between the innocence of the wilderness and the ambiguous 'blessings of civilisation' are brilliantly stitched into a smoothly developed narrative, which climaxes with the famous Indian attack on the stagecoach.

Making her radiant Hollywood debut in a part she had played in Sweden, Bergman almost makes you believe the tosh, but Howard (dubbed on violin by Jascha Heifetz) comes on like a smarmy elocution teacher, enunciating atrocious dialogue full of arch emptinesses.

Funny, creepy (in a way already peculiar to Hitchcock) and always entertaining, both in the moment and in the realisation that you’re enjoying a particularly witty and playful script.

The movie takes risks that Hollywood isn't even aware of anymore.

Not top-notch Hitchcock, but engrossing enough.

the animation itself is top-notch, and in a number of darker sequences (Snow White's terrified entry into the forest, for example), Disney's adoption of Expressionist visual devices makes for genuinely powerful drama.

Delightful screwball comedy.

Ben Hecht's sparkling script occasionally loses its way between the satire and the screwball romance, but is even more caustic about newspapermen than The Front Page.

A routine story perhaps, but McCarey transforms it , through his customary affection for his characters and taut pacing, into delightfully effective entertainment.

Sleek direction and excellent performances keep it enjoyable.

What really makes the film stand out is its focus on the women, identifying Davis and her girlfriends as the unsung heroines of a cruel economic and social trap; even at their moment of triumph, the girls' future is defined by an uncertain and unsettling fog.

The narrative's a bit perfunctory, but is neatly overbalanced by the joyously rule-breaking sequence of a boy, a bus and a time bomb.

Surprisingly successful sequel to the delightful, Dashiell Hammett-based comedy-mystery, The Thin Man, with Powell and Loy as charmingly witty as ever as the bibulous sophisticates Nick and Nora Charles, revelling in sparkling dialogue as they solve a murder.

The film has lost some of its allure over the years, but it's still streets and streets ahead of the addled whimsy favoured by latter-day Hollywood.

If plot, script and supporters are below par, the score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields is peerless.

It has enormous charm in its folklorish fancies, and a performance of great gentleness and good humour from Ingram which is never tainted by the mawkish religiosity that creeps in towards the end. What is offensive is the way in which the depths of plangent suffering that inspired the spirituals are totally ignored.

Based loosely on a couple of Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories, this thriller may not be one of Hitchcock's best English films, but it is full of startling set pieces and quirky characterisation.

Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall.

Marlene's best movie away from Sternberg, it's relaxed, funny and charming.

An exotic and gripping piece of Hollywood mythology, made with all the technical skill and gloss one associates with Irving Thalberg's MGM.

The third Astaire-Rogers movie (not counting Flying Down to Rio) and one of the best, with a superlative Irving Berlin score, and equally superlative Hermes Pan routines which spark a distinct sexual electricity between the pair.

Other English Hitchcocks may be more provocative, but few offer such a ripping good yarn.

An absurd script, without a hint of self-parody, and a nicely equipped set (moving walls, a razor-sharp pendulum that slowly lowers itself on to victims) make for entertaining if undemanding viewing.

Heavy-handed, humourless and patronising.

Whale's most perfectly realised movie, a delight from start to finish.

Vintage Hitchcock, with sheer wit and verve masking an implausible plot.

Fred'n'Ginge fans won't need a nudge, but the uninitiated should start with almost any of their other movies.