Although a passable war film, Flying Leathernecks must be considered something of a disappointment for fans of Wayne, Ryan, and director Nick Ray.

Clift fell in love with his leading lady and helped her through her most difficult scenes, with spellbinding results.

Maybe not Oscar material but a very enjoyable piece of entertainment.

The sets are as much a part of the story as the dialogue, and set designer John Bryan's work is effectively photographed by Guy Green. All the acting is first-rate, and there is not a false note from the cast.

Adapted from Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories and his Alice Adams, the Warner Bros. production suffuses its folksy story in nostalgia but never completely warms the hearts it aims for.

Strangers on a Train ranks at the top of Hitchcock's most accomplished works, a masterpiece that is so carefully constructed and its characters so well developed that the viewer is quickly intimate and comfortable with the story long before Bruno turns killer.

Spencer Tracy could hold his own acting opposite anyone, and in this excellent sequel to FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950), he proves that not even a baby can upstage him.

Though the mystery is a little thin and sometimes muddled, there are some nice moments here, and the cast is not bad despite troubles with the script. Vidor's direction is okay, though his fans will surely be disappointed, knowing full well that he had done much better earlier work.

This is a happy movie and leaves a long, lingering warm glow.

It's a spectacular adventure story with romance, because while they fight with wild animals and cannibals, they fall in love.

ALL ABOUT EVE is the consummate backstage story, a film that holds a magnifying glass up to theatrical environs and exposes all the egos, tempers, conspiracies and backstage back-biting that make up the world of make-believe on Broadway.

No other motion picture about Hollywood comes near Billy Wilder's searing, uncompromising and utterly fascinating portrait of the film community.

Disney's first totally live-action movie, and it is, by far, the best film version of the familiar Stevenson story. Disney regular Bobby Driscoll takes on the coveted role of Jim Hawkins, and a number of reliable British actors round out the cast. This version has a marvelous full-bodied visual style that never appears to be studio-bound.

Played out against breathtaking landscapes that reflect the emotional turmoil of the main characters, Mann's film gives us one of Stewart's greatest performances, his manic intensity evoking both terror and pathos.

An arresting, superbly produced and downbeat Western photographed in stark black and white, The Gunfighter presents an unglorified view of the Old West as a grim, dirty and decidedly desperate place.

One of the best comedies MGM made in the 1950s. Although Taylor perfectly embodies an idealized vision of the demure but spirited young bride, this fine film is foremost a showcase for the supple comic drollery of Spencer Tracy.

Rosson's moody photography and Rozsa's moving score further enhance this film noir masterpiece.

The standard British murder mystery is raised to a higher plateau by Hitchcock in STAGE FRIGHT, but still falters in comparison to the best of the master's works.

One of cinema's most monumental achievements, Renoir's RULES OF THE GAME passionately tackles the pre-WWII French class system, and succeeds in bringing forth the complexities and frailties underlying bourgeois civility.

Excellent animation, marvelous color, and lovely music make Cinderella a delight all the way around.

This is one of Wayne's finest performances, earning him an Oscar nomination.

Young Man With A Horn suffers from excessive melodrama, but boasts several fine performances and plenty of enjoyable jazz.

Split into two sequences, this feature-length cartoon is one of Disney's finest efforts, with attention paid to every animated detail.

There may have been better songs and even better performances in other musicals, but for effervescent energy nothing has yet come close to the joyous, influential On The Town.

Mitchum gives a surprisingly strong performance as a character-type he normally steered away from.

Delightful, sophisticated comedy sparked by the famous chemistry between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Beautifully acted, They Live By Night stands today as one of the most poignant and unforgettable noirs ever made.

The second film in John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" features John Wayne at his best and boasts some incredible, Oscar-winning Technicolor photography of Monument Valley.

UNDER CAPRICORN is talky and static, with little of Hitchcock's trademark suspense.

A gripping, beautifully structured picture and a tour de force from British director Carol Reed...It's hard to choose just one scene to sum up this poetic thriller, but the legendary scene on the ferris wheel may best represent its perfect blend of great writing, acting, and directing. The fadeout, too, is unforgettable.

WHITE HEAT is primal, flamboyant stuff--close your eyes and you could be watching a 30s picture. But don't close them more than momentarily; the film's visuals make it linger in the mind's eye.

Though produced by the same people responsible for the classic King Kong, Mighty Joe Young is a pale imitation.

The thin story line of NEPTUNE'S DAUGHTER revolves around swimming star Esther Williams as Eve Barrett, a partner in a bathing suit company (with Keenan Wynn), who must continually fight off the advances of millionaire playboy Jose O'Rourke (Ricardo Montalban).

An exceptional film.

This version is a well-handled retelling of the classic Louisa May Alcott tale.

While there's not much baseball played here, this is an amiable film, marked by the enjoyable cast and some lively, if not memorable, music.

At its best, Force achieves a style at once brutal and poetic, documentarian and noir.

A mighty strange movie, one that updates Chaucer's story to wartime Britain.

A wonderful, sentimental western about a bad man who redeems himself.

This remains one of the best screen explorations of mental illness and its treatment.

At 155 minutes, this screen adaptation of Shakespeare's most celebrated play bears scars from deep cuts in the text.

Stewart seems uncomfortable playing an intellectual; his dull performance never displays the disturbance or authority that it needs.

There have been many classic westerns but this Hawks masterpiece certainly ranks among the best of the genre.

This is Wilder at his most acerbic and cynical, and the film was originally attacked by critics who considered it a monument to tastelessness. But the hypnotic performance he draws from sultry Dietrich shows his continuing mastery of the medium.

Hitchcock tried mightily but didn't quite overcome the rambling, overlong script of this film--much of which was penned by producer Selznick, who sent the director scenes as he finished writing them, a practice Hitchcock hated.

A great premise which doesn't quite deliver what it promises but it's fun anyway.

Hilarious spoof of the classic Universal horror films of the 1930s and early 40s, with Abbott and Costello playing railway porters who unwittingly deliver the "undead" bodies of Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) and Dracula (Bela Lugosi) to a wax museum, where the bodies are revived.

Essentially a compendium of unrelated shorts, the delightful Melody Time incorporates visual styles as varied as the subjects of its segments.

This one has more talk than a Senate filibuster and is only a tenth as interesting.

This superior movie made the world aware of the plight of these children and money poured in to the UNRRA to help their plight.

This superlative film set the pattern for myriad documentary-type dramas to come.

The picture runs on a bit long and it does pale by comparison to the book, but it was a welcome smile in 1947 and has the same effect today.

Arguably John Huston's greatest film, this powerful study of masculinity under pressure retains its power.

The plot is a bit busy but the performances are solid, even though Douglas seems to be doing a reprise of his role in OUT OF THE PAST (1947) as a cruel, unfeeling villain.

New songs--"Pass That Peace Pipe" and "The French Lesson"--and sensational choreography contributed to making this an impressive debut for director Charles Walters and a big hit for MGM in 1947.

Lots of laughs.

An odd, unsettling film which suggests the dangers of both emotional restraint and unchecked passion, Black Narcissus is also one of the most visually beautiful films ever made in color.

This quintessential film noir catapulted contract player Robert Mitchum into superstardom and set the standard for the genre for years to come.

Carefully constructing Power's rise and fall, director Goulding is merciless in his inspection of a character who is rotten through and through

A relatively minor work in the Disney oeuvre, but it's still quite entertaining, and it also marks the last time that Walt Disney himself would provide the voice of Mickey Mouse.

An example of how star power can compensate plot, this is the least electric of the Bogart-Bacall pairings; luckily, there's Agnes Moorehead, the screen's best hornet, to intervene whenever the going gets too lackadasical.

Pretty melodramatic stuff, given poor technical production by the studio, but saved by Quinn's bravura performance.

Powell is nothing less than magnificent as the mustached philosophizing patriarch, and Dunne casts a warm glow beside him. Elizabeth Taylor, Martin Milner, Jimmy Lydon, and Edmund Gwenn all contribute strong supporting performances; Michael Curtiz provides his usual sure-handed direction.

Silly premise allows sophisticated Grant to explode into side-splitting antics, aping the teenaged set. If you adore Grant, you'll enjoy this farce, but Loy's breezy charm is wasted and Temple has reached that age where her preciousness can be irritating to behold.

The last entries of series are, as a rule, bad. This one breaks the mold and, while hardly in a league with the earlier films, can hold its own against any B movie mystery of the period.

Rozsa's pounding score and a savage climax make Brute Force first rate all the way.

A touch labored but lovable.

A masterful realization of Charles Dickens's novel, this may be the best cinematic translation of the author's work, as well as director David Lean's greatest achievement.

Amusing if slightly bland comedy in which Colbert and MacMurray uproot themselves from city living after MacMurray decides he can't stand the brokerage business.

Reed, one of Britain's finest directors, made his name with this haunting, lyrical masterpiece about a doomed fugitive.

Fun at times, but somewhat long.

Few filmmakers have rivaled director Frank Capra when it comes to examining the human heart, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a masterfully crafted exercise in sentiment, augmented by Capra's undying faith in community. Reed and Barrymore give excellent performances, as does a superb cast of character players, but this is Stewart's film--heart-stirring as the dreamer who sacrifices all for his fellow man.

This tricky film noir entry would have been routine had it not been for Bogart's magic.

The best coming home movie ever made. "I don't care if it doesn't make a nickel," Sam Goldwyn reportedly said of THE BEST YEARS, "I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it."

Song of the South's cartoon sequences are as fine as anything produced by the Disney animators.

I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! is a beautiful film about the profound effects of nature on people, and that fact that the universe can be a wondrous and magical place if one keeps oneself open to its vast mysteries.

Paul Muni gives another classic performance in this wonderful fantasy about a notorious gangster who is murdered by a double-crossing partner.

This brilliant Hitchcock offering combines romance, suspense, and international intrigue with unforgettable performances from Grant and Bergman.

THE BIG SLEEP comes magically alive through Hawks's careful direction and Bogart's persona, which is twin to his character of Philip Marlowe.

A touching, exquisitely handled film dealing with two ordinary people who accidentally fall in love.

An uneven, but generally well done and entertaining, potpourri of 10 cartoons set to disparate musical styles, ranging from jazz to classical, and performed by such artists as Benny Goodman, The Andrews Sisters, Dinah Shore, and Nelson Eddy.

The Stranger is not as wildly creative as his other films, but all the Welles trademarks are present, including superior lighting, inventive camera angles, strong transitions, and characters silhouetted in darkness.

A post-WW II drama that would have been more effective if the US had not seen THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. It suffered by comparison but had enough stuff to make it ring the cash registers.

The best version of James M. Cain's torrid, hard-hitting romance comes to startling life under Garnett's shrewd direction.

Once again, animals talk, sight gags abound, and the complementing temperaments of Hope and Crosby are mined to great advantage.

What might have been a trite soap opera is elevated to the status of superior emotional drama by a wise script, sensitive direction, and an Oscar-winning performance by de Havilland.

THE HARVEY GIRLS has a little of everything: songs, dance, action, romance, and the triumph of virtue and chastity over the forces of saloondom.

In direct contrast to the flag-waving, jingoistic propaganda films typical of Hollywood during WWII, John Ford's They Were Expendable is a somber and moving account of America's defeat in the Philippines early in the war.

An intriguing Hitchcock thriller which probes the dark recesses of a man's mind through psychoanalytic treatment and the love of a woman.

Impeccable, bleak gloss, with the supreme Crawford engineering the greatest comeback of them all. Mildred Pierce is one of the finest noir soap operas ever, with the queen of pathos shouldering the storm alone; her efforts snagged the golden statuette as 1945's Best Actress.

Like Night and Day and Words and Music--film biographies about Cole Porter and Rogers and Hart, respectively--Rhapsody In Blue has little to do with the real life of its subject, but, as is the case with those films, its subject's wonderful songs are the main attraction.

Claustrophobic and nightmarishly atmospheric, ISLE OF THE DEAD is kept moving along by director Mark Robson at a deliberate pace which becomes more and more creepy until the moment of the premature burial.

This is a fast-paced movie with a bright and witty script and plenty of scary adventures which Durbin cleverly manages to survive.

A sometimes hilarious farce and a holiday favorite.

A pleasant, mindless diversion.

One of the most celebrated films from the extraordinary director-writer partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP is a warm and wise work that displays extraordinary generosity of spirit.

Not one of the team's best, but enough fun flowed from the combined pens of Barry (who wrote the play) and Stewart (who wrote the screenplay) to make it a pleasant comedy.

Although Benny used this film as a running gag on his radio show for years (claiming it had ruined his movie career), there are some comic gems here, especially in the smash finale.