THE APPALOOSA (1965) Horseplay and gunplay in Old Mexico

In THE APPALOOSA, a bandito kingpin (John Saxon) steals a rancher's (Marlon Brando) prize stud stallion. Brando gets it back and tries to vamoose ... with Saxon's unhappy runaway wife along for the ride. Needless to say, Saxon isn't happy with either loss, and the struggle between the two powerful men quickly escalates. Watch for an early "Ouch!" scene when Brando and Saxon arm wrestle, with the loser getting his forearm ground down onto the stinger of a deadly scorpion. Not a great film, but great fun watching Brando masquerade as a Mexican with coffee ground stain on his face. Saxon won a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance - and deservedly. (Trivia note: In his younger days, Saxon often appeared in parts which emphasized his "beefcake" appeal. In 1959's THE BIG FISHERMAN, for example, he was stripped to the waist and flogged in a scene which ranked 39th in the book "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies." Sadly, Brando is gone, but Saxon is still going strong. Not long ago he appeared in an episode of CSI: Las Vegas, directed by Quentin Tarantino.)

THE NAKED PREY (1966) Wilde prey

A group on safari crosses paths with a Zulu tribe and offends the chief by refusing to gift him. As punishment, the men are chased down one by one time by and each killed in a particularly gruesome, hard-to-watch way. Only one man is spared from immediate death (Cornel Wilde, who also directed) because he had tried to talk his s.o.b. companion into giving the gift. Nevertheless, he’s sentenced to be hunted down like an animal by a party of tribal warriors. Naked and weaponless he’s set loose, the hunters hot on his heels, and so begins a life-or-death hunt for Wilde through the wild. To find out the hell he goes through and how it all turns out, I pray you see THE NAKED PREY. It's about as tense and exciting a chase movie as you’ll ever see.

DETECTIVE STORY (1951) Tough day in the squad room

"Homicide: Life on the Street," "Barney Miller" and many other TV shows and movies owe their look and feel to DETECTIVE STORY. Based play, this is a gritty and well-acted film spans one day in a police station in which we meet a variety of good buys and bad guys. There's a batty old lady; a petty embezzler and his adoring girlfriend; a pair of slightly comical but ultimately lethal burglars; and a charmingly naïve shoplifter played by Lee Grant who, along with one of the burglars, Joseph Wiseman, had been in the Broadway cast - and the title character, a hard-nosed, by-the-book detective named Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas). McLeod has no mercy for lawbreakers and discovers, ironically, that his obsessive pursuit of an abortionist leads him to personal crisis. Great cast, great writing, directed by the great William Wyler - and though dated, repeatedly watchable.

THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955) Bogie pays an uninvited house call on the Cleavers

A tale about armed and dangerous escapees terrorizing a suburban family isn't novel today – neither in reel or real life – but 54 years ago, THE DESPERATE HOURS was genuinely shocking. All the more so because it was based on a true incident. After years of playing good guys, Humphrey Bogart reprises the hard-bitten gangster type he had created in PETRIFIED FOREST (1936), also about a gang of baddies holding a group of people (in a café). Bogie’s character in DESPERATE HOURS is marginally a more articulate and sensitive version of FOREST's Duke Mantee, you still wouldn't want him dropping by. Ditto one of his two cohorts, lumbering Sam Kobish (Ray Middleton), a psychopath if ever there was one. Trust me, this one’s a nail-biter. (Trivia note: The exterior of the house used in the film is the same set used in the TV's "Leave It to Beaver" two years later.)

12 ANGRY MEN (1957, 1997) x 2

Both versions of the classic jury room drama 12 ANGRY MEN are top-notch and full of suspense, despite the fact there's basically only one set, no sex or violence, and not one single special effect. Twelve male jurors, clearly mirroring a cross-section of society, must determine the guilt or innocence of a young Latino accused of killing his father. Eleven of the men are positive it's an open-and-shut case of guilt. But one man (Henry Fonda in '57, Jack Lemmon in '97) isn't sure; and over the course of a steamy day and into the rainy night, turning each piece of evidence inside and out and introducing some of his own, he finally convinces all but one of his fellow jurors of reasonable doubt. It is a powerful moment when these 11 men voting for acquittal stare at the lone holdout for conviction, which is exactly how the day started – in reverse.

MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981) Delicious!

In MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, directed by Louis Malle and co-starring director/actors André Gregory and Wallace Shawn (who together wrote the unscripted-sounding script), two men reunite in a chic restaurant and, over a fine and many-coursed meal, talk about their lives. Some say the film is deadly boring; others find it thoroughly engaging. I'm in the second camp. André and Wally could not be more different, yet I see them as two sides of one person: dreamer, pragmatist. Over the course of the evening, interrupted occasionally by an elderly, cadaverous waiter (whose tics and blinks suggest that he is bewildered by the men he's serving), each diner does his best to explain how he’s coping with the world – André talks to trees and Wally is happy if there’s not a dead fly in his cold cup of coffee. When they finally part, Wally treats himself to a taxi ride home. It’s nighttime. Gazing out the window, he narrates that he remembers every block, every shop front from his childhood, it's if he’s seeing the world for the very first time. It's as if, over his dinner with André, Wally had somehow been, in a tiny way, reborn.

JACOB'S LADDER (1990) Long hard climb

Is Jacob Singer a soldier or vet? Alive or dead? Awake or hallucinating? Married or divorced? Living in the past or present? Sane or nuts? In heaven or hell? Watch the eerie JACOB'S LADDER and you may learn the answers - but it's sure to take you more than one viewing. Tim Robbins stars.

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955) Never underestimate a one-armed man. Or a lousy movie title

One blazingly hot day, a one-armed stranger dressed almost comically in tie, white shirt and rumpled black suit deboards off a train in a pothole-of-a town in Arizona, and thus begins a suspenseful movie called BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK – and for both the stranger and blue-jeaned townspeople, a very bad day indeed. Determined to solve the mystery of the town's missing citizen, a Japanese man, government man John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) quickly discovers in various unpleasant ways how equally determined the town is to prevent his doing so. Risking life and remaining limbs at the four hands of two very nasty town bullies (Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine), McCready winds up arresting half the town and re-energizing hope to the other half. Watch for the barroom scene when McCready is forced to reveal his karate moves.

ON THE BEACH (1959)Armageddon in Australia

A palpable air of bleak inevitability hangs over ON THE BEACH, a film both entertaining and cautionary. A U.S. Sub Commander (Greg Peck), a tower of stoicism, solidness and sensitivity, arrives in Australia just as nuclear fallout has killed the populations of most of the rest of the globe. His busywork orders are to ascertain how long before radiation arrives to put everybody Down Under, under. Each character deals with rapidly oncoming doom differently: Ava Gardener, playing her a cynical broad, tries to lose herself in booze and her crush on the Greg; Fred Astaire, a cocky, devil-may-care race car driver, decides to go out pressing pedal to metal; Anthony Perkins, a sub officer, opts to help his family avoid a slow death with a fast-acting capsule; and Peck, momentarily misplacing a marble or two, angrily refuses to accept the loss of his family back home but of course just keeps goin’ and goin’ and goin’. After all, orders is orders - even when your superiors back home have been A-vaporated.

HARD EIGHT (1996) Gambling and gamboling in Vegas

In HARD EIGHT, everything is hard: the characters, the dialogue, the lessons learned, and the string of violent acts that lead to young man's rebirth and an old hood's atonement. A mysterious black-suited man (Philip Baker Hall) walks into a diner and commits a seemingly random act of kindess for a down-and-out young man (John C. Reilly) that starts with a cigarette and cup of coffee and turns out to be a priceless education on how to win in Vegas and in life. Along the way we learn the secret of what binds the two men. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, this film is about mentoring, love, casino life and sweet revenge. Watch for a brief but absolutely unforgettable cameo by Philip Seymour Hoffman (another of Anderson's regulars) as a loud-mouthed high roller. (Trivia note: Philip Baker Hall played the trench-coated, humorously fascistic library cop Bookman in a Seinfeld episode, and a fictionally suicidal Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's riveting one-man film SECRET HONOR (1985).

INVADERS FROM MARS (1953) Hey Pop, does that thing in your neck get FM?

Comic booky title notwithstanding, INVADERS FROM MARS is a real sci-find – not only because of excellent special effects and stunning art direction (by legendary production designer William Cameron Menzies), but also because we see the action from a kid's point of view. David wakes up to see a flying saucer land behind his house, but of course nobody believes him. But then, starting with David’s dad, people start getting their minds and hearts snatched by Martian invaders, and only David, his teacher and an astronomer are left to alert the Army. Just as David is about to get his mind zapped and the U.S. miliary are preparing to blow up the Martians, David wakes up and realizes it was all a dream ... and then he wakes to the sound of a flying saucer.

THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (1966) Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy desert

  The only woman who appears (very briefly) in THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX is a mirage – but thanks to an action-packed survival-in-the-sand plot, there isn’t much interest in dates – except the dried kind. A planeload of men, piloted by James Stewart, crashes in the Sahara. Chances of survival look pretty slim until one of the passengers, an arrogant young German, announces he's an aircraft designer and can build a smaller plane out of the wreckage. A skeptical Stewart reluctantly agrees to the plan, and then angrily cancels it when he finds out the man actually designs model planes! A war of egos ensues. Does the cobblecraft, dubbed "The Phoenix," eventually rise? You bet your ashes! (Forget the 2004 remake.)

THE QUIET EARTH (1985)/DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) Two really bad ways to start the day

What if you woke up one morning and discovered you might be the last person on earth? That’s the basic premise of two terrific sci-fi thrillers, THE QUIET EARTH and THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. In the first, an Aussie scientist figures out that the project he was leading to create a worldwide energy grid has misfired and caused a fundamental change in the basic structure of all matter. In the second, a man in a London hospital, his eyes bandaged from surgery, discovers that while he was asleep a meteor blinded the entire world population and spawned people-munching plants. In both movies, it turns out there are a few other survivors still around, but way too few to rate a zip code! And each of these movies is saved from being a time waster by imaginative plotting and interesting, if not always sophisticated, special effects.

THE COUNTRY GIRL (1954) Bing goes dramatic - Grace goes without makeup

The bravado of Bing Crosby’s performance as a washed up, alcoholic singer/actor partially offsets the dreadful miscasting of Grace Kelly as his plain, unhappy wife, THE COUNTRY GIRL. When veteran actor Frank Elgin (Crosby) gets a chance to make a big comeback in a new musical but drops out during tough rehearsals to co-star again with the bottle, wife (Kelly) gets him back on the wagon and the boards. Thanks to her pushing, prodding, cajoling and threats, he triumphs. Even though COUNTRY GIRL is Hollywooded up from Clifford Odets' original play, the film is still pretty potent, owing not only to Der Bingle's Oscar-nominated acting, but also to William Holden’s as the no-nonsense director. But oh my, the spectacle of the future Princess Grace made down to look deadly drab, complete with thick glasses and a woolly sweater - and then, when she falls in love with Holden, she's suddenly Graceful and glam. Got an Oscar, though!

ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980) The family next door in silent crisis

In 1980, movie screens were ruled by extraordinary people, including a hunk from Krypton (SUPERMAN II), a spinach-popping sailor (POPEYE), and a galaxy of aliens from the fertile imagination of George Lucas (STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). Only one of the 10 top grossers for that year was about ... ORDINARY PEOPLE. Robert Redford’s debut, Oscar winning directorial effort focused on a family in trouble and in denial, and 26 years later it’s still compelling, still at times painful to watch (as the scene when the father admits to his wife that he can't love her anymore). The three leads are superb: Timothy Hutton as the suicidal son, a deserving Oscar winner; Mary Tyler Moore, bravely cast directly against type as the emotion-suppressed mother; and as the sad dad, Donald Sutherland. Only Judd Hirsch playing the psychiatrist falls short - it's a pivotal role, and he’s good in it, but stereotypical. What makes this movie so extraordinary is how well it tells the stories of ordinary people - people we all know

ONE-EYED JACKS (1961) Better smile when you call somebody that

Five years back, Rio (Marlon Brando) and his best pal “Dad” Longworth (Karl Malden) rob a bank in Mexico. With a single horse between them and a posse closing in fast, Dad volunteers to ride off with the gold to fetch ammo and bring back another horse. Being a crooked pragmatist, however, he just keeps riding. Rio gets nabbed and goes to jail while Dad goes straight, marries, and gets himself elected town sheriff. Now Rio’s free and come to pay Dad a little visit. Does Rio just want to get back in touch base get even? Hint: Dad doesn't want him around to mess up his new life. Many critics panned Brando's first and only directorial effort, but I love ONE-EYED JACKS. Brando and Malden had co-starred six years earlier in ON THE WATERFRONT and are terrific, as are Slim Pickens and Ben Johnson as bad guys. (Trivia notes: A novice behind the camera and at editing, Brando delivered such a long movie and so late that Paramount was forced to take over and recut it themselves. There are two endings floating around: Brando's, in which Dad misses Rio and kills his step-daughter Louisa, and the studio's, in which Rio and Louisa have an emotional parting at the beach and Rio rides away. I've seen both, and without doubt Brando's is the right one.)

RED PLANET (2000) Stranded in space

While I hesitate to recommend either its plot (space jocks stranded on Mars) or acting (by, among others, puffy-faced Val Kilmer; perennial bad boy Tom Sizemore; and Sigorney's successor as Underwear Queen of Outer Space, Carrie Ann-Moss), RED PLANET is a lot of sci-fi fun, with terrific futuristic gadgets and special effects and a clever combination of the two in the form of the nastiest robot villain since SATURN 3 (1980).

SERPICO (1973)/PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981) Good cops, bad cops

Real-life NYC Blueboys Frank Serpico and Danny Ciello both fought police corruption, and both were portrayed by actors who brought them to life on-screen.

In SERPICO, Al Pacino is the young officer who, to maintain his individuality, splits his passion and energy between bohemian living and good police work. Refusing to take bribes, he is ostracized by his already skeptical fellow officers. Sickened by the extent of police corruption, he goes to his superiors, but when he discovers they are ignoring his charges, he takes the potentially fatal step of breaking the blue wall of silence and going public with his exposé.

Eight years later, Pacino passed on the role of Ciello in PRINCE OF THE CITY, thinking the character too similar to Serpico. Lucky for us Treat Williams got the part of the conflicted New York cop who goes undercover for the feds in order to ferret out police corruption. At first, Ciello recklessly gets off on the danger, believing himself invincible. But as trial dates near and various screws tighten, the guilt-wracked Ciello is forced to give up his partners and friends, and the house of cards comes tumbling down. Danny Ciello is arguably the best role of Williams’ career, just as Frank Serpico was one of Pacino’s. Must-see performances, both.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (1993) Three men and Adena

 This intense episode is one of the very best of many intensely fine episodes of TV's HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (1993-99), packing as much top-notch writing, direction and acting into 50 minutes as any critically acclaimed motion picture. Eleven-year old Adena Watson has been brutally murdered, and Dets. Pembleton and Bayliss have only 12 hours to get a confession out of their prime suspect, a sly old produce vendor named Risley Tucker. Good-bad copped for hours in the “box,” Tucker (Moses Gunn) keeps his accusers – and us – guessing whether he's guilty or innocent, even after he's released for lack of hard evidence. Watch for Tucker's bitter exchange with Pembleton (Andre Braugher) accusing him of being one of the 500 ("a white nigger"), and one with Bayliss (Kyle Secor) in which he spits, "You got your dark side, and it terrifies you, and it frightens you. It scares you ‘cause it's powerful and it makes you capable of doing anything. Anything. Without it, you look in the mirror, and all you see is an am-a-toor." In both instances, Tucker pushes exactly the right button, and it’s great fun to watch Gunn out-gun the two. Better acting you'll never see than Gunn's (in one of his last roles), Braugher and Secor in this regularly repeated Sleuth cable station rerun. Tom Fontana deservedly won Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Single Episode) and for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Single Episode).

ARLINGTON ROAD (1999) Imagine if Ozzie and Harriet were terrorists

In the three years since his FBI agent-wife's murder in a botched anti-terrorist operation, a college history professor (Jeff Bridges) has grown increasingly obsessed with subversive groups. His bitterness and paranoia momentarily ease when new neighbors (Jim Robbins, Joan Cusack) befriend him and his young son. But soon, he begins to suspect they really are terrorists and begins a pursuit for the truth that leads to a horrific revelation you won't see coming. Too-timely a topic, unfortunately.

SNEAKERS (1992)/SPY GAME (2001)

I enjoy Robert Redford's performances in two spy-cy little films made a decade apart. In the fun and fast-moving SNEAKERS, he’s the leader of a tight team of unorthodox security specialists (Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix) tricked into finding a mysterious box that can break into any encrypted computer system in the US. And in a more serious and even faster-moving SPY GAME, he’s a retiring CIA agent spending his last day recalling for superiors his recruitment and training of a young spy (Brad Pitt), while secretly working against them to free his protégé from Chinese captors. Both movies feature good casts and dialogue.

CAPTAIN NEWMAN, M.D. (1963) Attorney Atticus Finch Turns M.D.

Amidst a mishmash of comedy, drama, melodrama and scene chewing in CAPTAIN NEWMAN, M.D., one actor gives a particularly moving performance. It’s not Greg Peck as the title character who runs the psychiatric unit in a U.S. Military Hospital during WWII, although he's very good playing a medical version of lawyer Atticus Finch; and it's not Bobby Darin, who won well-deserved rave notices and was nominated for an Academy Award but whose performance I think is hammy. The stand-out is Eddie Albert, who really did see action in some of the South Pacific war's bloodiest battles. Albert (yes, Green Acres Albert) is an officer who breaks under the strain of having sent one too many men off to die. The several intense encounters between him and Peck are electic. (They were also greatl together 10 years earlier in ROMAN HOLIDAY). (Trivia note: Even though the story takes place in 1944, hairstyles, uniforms and clothes are clearly those of '63.)

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) Bogie and Bacall's first film together

Legend persists that 17-year old Andy Williams dubbed 19-year old Lauren Bacall's singing voice in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Ain’t so. But what's true is that the legendary public and private relationship of Bacall and Bogie began during filming, and their onscreen chemistry is impossible not to see. Bogart is an American ex-pat living in the Vichy-controlled French colony of Martinique in 1940, trying to eke out a living as a fishing boat captain and mind his own business while the war rages outside the movie frame. But thanks to a snappy screenplay by William Faulkner and Jules Forthman, he falls into both love and trouble. Directed by Howard Hawks, this is a sexy, old-fashioned wartime picture with some great dialogue and a ton of style. (Trivia note: This is the one in which Bacall as “Slim” trims Bogie down to size with the classic come-hither line, "You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.")

SHIP OF FOOLS (1965)

"It's a ship of fools!" wryly observes the philosophical dwarf and one-man Greek chorus (Michael Dunn) of the luxury vessel he and others are sailing to a pre-Hitler Germany – giving us both a preview of what's to come and a succinct commentary on life. The fateful cruise of Stanley Kramer’s SHIP OF FOOLS follows the intersecting lives of its passengers on a 36-day voyage. From the sad love affair between the ship's dying doctor (Oskar Werner) and a heroin-addicted passenger (Simone Signoret), to the fading relationship of two young American artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley), the characters represent a cross-section of pre-war society including disciples of Nazism, wealthy Jewish men, sleazy dance troupers and the aforementioned bitter lovers, well played by such A-list actors as Vivian Leigh, Jose Ferrer and Lee Marvin. Especially fine is Werner, a respected stage actor who also graced such films as JULES AND JIM (1962), THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965), and FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966) before his too-early death.

Teresa Wright (1918 - 2005)

  Teresa Wright was a natural and lovely talent upon whom I've had a crush my entire life. She was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn and distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films.

Born Muriel Teresa Wright in the Harlem district of New York City on October 27, 1918, her parents divorced when she was quite young and she lived with various relatives in New York and New Jersey. An uncle of hers was a stage actor. She attended the exclusive Rosehaven School in Tenafly, New Jersey. The acting bug revealed itself when she saw the legendary Helen Hayes perform in a production of "Victoria Regina." After performing in school plays and graduating from Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, she made the decision to pursue acting professionally.

Apprenticing at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the summers of 1937 and 1938 in such plays as "The Vinegar Tree" and "Susan and God", she moved to New York and changed her name to Teresa after she discovered there was already a Muriel Wright in Actors Equity. Her first New York play was Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" wherein she played a small part but also understudied the lead ingénue role of Emily. She eventually replaced Martha Scott in the lead after the actress was escorted to Hollywood to make pictures and recreate the Emily role on film. It was during her year-long run in "Life with Father" that Teresa was seen by Goldwyn talent scouts, was tested, and ultimately won the coveted role of Alexandra in the film The Little Foxes (1941). She also accepted an MGM starlet contract on the condition that she not be forced to endure cheesecake publicity or photos for any type of promotion and could return to the theater at least once a year. Oscar-nominated for her work alongside fellow cast members Bette Davis (as calculating mother Regina) and Patricia Collinge (recreating her scene-stealing Broadway role as the flighty, dipsomaniac Aunt Birdie), Teresa's star rose even higher with her next pictures.

Playing the good-hearted roles of the granddaughter in the war-era tearjerker Mrs. Miniver (1942) and baseball icon Lou Gehrig's altruistic wife in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) opposite Gary Cooper, the pretty newcomer won both "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Actress" nods respectively in the same year, ultimately taking home the supporting trophy. Teresa's fourth huge picture in a row was Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and she even received top-billing over established star Joseph Cotten who played a murdering uncle to her suspecting niece. Wed to screenwriter Niven Busch in 1942, she had a slip with her fifth picture Casanova Brown (1944) but bounced right back as part of the ensemble cast in the "Best Picture" of the year The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) portraying the assuaging daughter of Fredric March and Myrna Loy who falls in love with damaged soldier-turned-civilian Dana Andrews.

With that film, however, her MGM contract ended. Remarkably, she made only one movie for the studio (Mrs. Miniver) during all that time. The rest were all loanouts. As a freelancing agent, the quality of her films began to dramatically decline. Pictures such as Enchantment (1948), Something to Live For (1952), California Conquest (1952), Count the Hours (1953), Track of the Cat (1954) and Escapade in Japan (1957) pretty much came and went. For her screenwriter husband she appeared in the above-average western thriller Pursued (1947) and crime drama The Capture (1950). Her most inspired films of that post-war era were The Men (1950) opposite film newcomer Marlon Brando and the low-budgeted but intriguing The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956) which chronicled the fascinating story of an American housewife who claimed she lived a previous life.

The "Golden Age" of TV was her salvation during these lean film years in which she appeared in fine form in a number of dramatic showcases. She recreated for TV the perennial holiday classic "The 20th Century-Fox Hour: The Miracle on 34th Street (#1.6)" (1955) in which she played the Maureen O'Hara role opposite Macdonald Carey and Thomas Mitchell. Divorced from Busch, the father of her two children, in 1952, Teresa made a concentrated effort to return to the stage and found consistency in such plays as "Salt of the Earth" (1952), "Bell, Book and Candle" (1953), "The Country Girl" (1953), "The Heiress" (1954), "The Rainmaker" (1955) and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1957) opposite Pat Hingle, in which she made a successful Broadway return. Marrying renowned playwright Robert Anderson in 1959, stage and TV continued to be her primary focuses, notably appearing under the theater lights in her husband's emotive drama "I Never Sang for My Father" in 1968. The couple lived on a farm in upstate New York until their divorce in 1978.

By this time a mature actress now in her 50s, challenging stage work came in the form of "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "Morning's at Seven" and "Ah, Wilderness!" Teresa also graced the stage alongside George C. Scott's Willy Loman (as wife Linda) in an acclaimed presentation of "Death of a Salesman" in 1975, played a small but pivotal role in Somewhere in Time in 1980, and then and appeared opposite Scott again in her very last play, "On Borrowed Time" (1991). In her final film, in 1997, she played the touching role of an elderly landlady opposite Matt Damon in The Rainmaker.

 

Teresa passed away of a heart attack in 2005. She was 87.

I’ve seen every film with Orson Welles' name attached, whether as actor, writer or director. One of my favorites is THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, his second feature film. Welles adapted Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1918 novel about the declining fortunates of a proud Midwestern family and the social changes brought by the automobile age. The novel is a dark and tragic one, and many of those elements remain intact in the film. But the studio was worried about Welles' version, so while he was working on another project in South America, the studio reshot the ending (as well as several scenes) to be upbeat. Despite that, AMBERSONS is hailed as one of the finest American motion pictures ever made. The film stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, with Welles providing the narration.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)

Long before Auric Goldfinger menaced James Bond and world economy, there was Henry Holland. Goldfinger wanted to corner the world market on gold and smelted anyone who got in his way, but Mr. Holland, a meek British bank clerk, wants only to smuggle some gold bars from London to Paris as payback to the company who is retiring him after so many years of loyal service. And the way he and his crony do it  - in the form of souvenir Eifle towers - is a joy to watch. If you only know Sir Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi, you'll see why light years before STAR WARS he was Britain's gold standard for character acting and why this witty movie with all its plot twists (and nary one killing!) still works today. (Trivia note: Five minutes into the film, as Holland is about to tell his restaurant companion (and us) the story of his adventures via flashback, a lovely young woman walks up to the table, kisses him, says one line, and walks away, not to be seen again. Look closely, it’s Audrey Hepburn in her film debut.)

THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) It's okay with me!

Mix together Robert Altman, Raymond Chandler and Elliot Gould, and you’ve got a hip '70s reincarnation of the hardboiled P.I. born on paper in '39, Philip Marlowe. The plot of THE LONG GOODBYE sounds simple enough, Marlowe trying to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife. But oh, the twists and turns, not to mention commentary on life in the '70s, along the way – and oh, what an unexpected ending. Gould's a hoot as the mumbling Marlowe who at one point tries (unsuccessfully) to trick his cat into eating a can of cheap brand of food by switching labels. Altman's trademarks are rife: dense, overlapping dialogue; sudden jolts in action; and quirky characters played by such quirky character actors as Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell and Henry Gibson. (Trivia note: The soundtrack of the film consists of two songs, Hooray for Hollywood and a song titled The Long Goodbye, composed by John Williams. Each time the latter song is used it's played in a very different arrangement and instrumentation, making it at times almost unrecognizable.)

ROPE QUOTES

Rupert Cadell: (James Stewart): “Brandon's spoken of you.”
Janet Walker (Joan Chandler): “Did he do me justice?”
Rupert, teasingly: “Do you deserve justice?”
__________

Janet: “Well, now, you don't really approve of murder, Rupert? If I may?”
Rupert, joking but deadpan: “You may... and I do. Think of the problems it would solve: unemployment, poverty, standing in line for theatre tickets. After all, murder is - or should be - an art. Not one of the 'seven lively', perhaps, but an art nevertheless. And, as such, the privilege of committing it should be reserved for those few who are really superior individuals.”
Brandon (John Dall), not joking: “...And the victims: inferior beings whose lives are unimportant anyway.”
Rupert, still having fun: “Obviously. Now, mind you, I don't hold with the extremists who feel that there should be open season for murder all year round. No, personally, I would prefer to have...'Cut a Throat Week'... or, uh, 'Strangulation Day.'"

THE BIG COMBO (1955)

Police Lieutenant Lou Diamond (Cornell Wilde) is obsessed with bringing down gangster and murderer Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). He’s also obsessed with Mr. Brown’s girl toy Susan (Jean Wallace). Rough Diamond employs every tactic at his disposal, but the calm, sadistic Mr. Brown eludes him at every turn. The film is surprisingly violent for its day - in one very graphic scene, Mr. Brown tortures Diamond in a way that, if described here, would make every male reader squirm. But that was nothing new to the films of Joseph Lewis, whose GUN CRAZY features a remarkable real-time bank heist that's years ahead of its time and has never been equaled. In THE BIG COMBO, John Alton did the cinetography. The entire film is rich with textured darknesses, and the climax is dazzling, almost experimental. Lewis matches Alton's images with a frenetic jazz score. But perhaps most striking about this film is how modern it seems. Admittedly, some elements are dated, but its approach to crime and criminals seems more akin to the crime films of the ‘70s or ‘90s (like RESERVOIR DOGS) than it does to the mainstream of '50s film noir.

A DOUBLE LIFE (1947) Grappling with the green-eyed monster

A DOUBLE LIFE spotlights Broadway stage actor Sir Anthony John (Ronald Coleman), whose life and sanity are hijacked by his stage character, the insanely jealous Othello. Directed by a theater pro (George Cukor) and written by theater pros (Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon), this film noir gives us a harrowing peek behind the stage curtain. Coleman won an Oscar, and you can see why every second he's onscreen, thanks in part to the wonderful supporting cast. Only Edmond O'Brien seems miscast as the press agent. O'Brien was a major noir star, but his manic acting style clashes with Coleman's highly sophisticated one. It's the flack's love for John’s ex-wife/leading lady drives Sir Anthony to – well, if you know "Othello," you know the outcome. Watch for a slim, sexy and sassy Shelley Winters at the dawn of her long film career.

D.O.A. (1950) 24 hours to find his own murderer

Told by a doctor he's been fatally poisoned and has only a few days to live, Frank Bigelow spends his last 24 hours - the entire movie - trying to find out who murdered him and why. In D.O.A., noir superstar Edmond O'Brien plays Bigelow with his customary manic energy. Fast-paced, suspenseful, improved not a whit by the 1988 remake.

KISS ME DEADLY (1954) ... and leave me a voicemail in about 16 years!

Some (though not I) consider KISS ME DEADLY the ultimate American film noir. Based on Mickey Spillane's rough-and-tumble book, it stars Ralph Meeker as the anti-social, anti-hero P.I. Mike Hammer. Tooling along in his convertible, Ham picks up a hysterical blonde hitchhiker dressed only in a raincoat (Cloris Leachman). He figures she’s a nutjob, but changes his mind when they're abducted by thugs. Hammer watches helplessly as the girl is tortured to death, but he escapes and sets out to untangle the mystery behind the girl's murder, crossing paths with, among others, a slimy gangster (Paul Stewart) and a turncoat scientist (Albert Dekker). Clues lead to a mysterious box – the "Great Whatsit," as Hammer's secretary Velda describes it. Both the box and Velda are snatched, and Hammer discovers the "Whatsit" contains radioactive material of awesome powers. The apocalyptic climax leaves us unsure whether Hammer survives. But since he’s only a hundred yards from the explosion and radiation, it’s a fair guess he’s soon bald - or gelatin. (Trivia note: Hammer’s ‘55 office is equipped with a cool, wall-mounted gadget that wasn’t patented and marketed until ’71 – a telephone answering machine!)

THE BIG SLEEP (1946) A puzzling plot but no yawner

Having so ably filled Sam Spade’s gumshoes in THE MALTESE FALCON five years earlier, Bogart made a perfect Philip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP. Hired by the wealthy father of two spoiled daughters - one, a haughty Lauren Bacall; the other, a flirty woman-child who, Marlowe says tried to sit in his lap while he was standing up – Marlowe tackles a complex and convoluted case involving blackmail and murder. It’s fun, but all very confusing. Even Ray Chandler, who wrote THE BIG SLEEP, is supposed to have told the film's director, Howard Hawks, that he didn't have the slightest idea what the story is about! One thing's sure: even though THE BIG SLEEP might keep you awake trying to figure it out, it's worth the tossing and turning just to see Bogart seduced, in an odd scene in a bookstore, by a clerk (Dorothy Malone) he's met for the first time.THE BIG SLEEP was reawakened in 1978 with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe, whom he had played three years earlier in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (1975), itself originally made in 1946 with former song-and-dance man-turned hard-boiled character actor, Dick Powell. Got all that? (Trivia note: Powell's version, which has great acting, dialog and noir photography, was retitled MURDER, MY SWEET because producers were afraid "Lovely" in the title might remind audiences of Powell's earlier song-and-dance career. It worked. Powell kept the tough guy image for the rest of his life, even on TV.)

FROM THE TERRACE (1960) Sixties soap at its slickest

Philadelphia, 1946. Navy pilot Alfred Eden returns from war, tires of fighting with his disapproving father and enters into a marriage that turns into one long battle. A chance encounter with a Wall Street tycoon catapaults him into a high-stakes career in high finance – talk about war! But between the corporate corruption he's forced into and his wife’s philandering with an old beau, Alfred walks out of the rat race and into the arms of a business acquaintence's daughter, with whom he starts a better life. Sound like a melodrama? You bet! But FROM THE TERRACE is as good as melodrama gets, with young Paul Newman and his real-wife Joanne Woodward, he at his cockiest and she at her loveliest and sassiest.

HOLLYWOODLAND (2006) Superman plummets

I was nine when I discovered that my favorite flying hero had landed on TV, and in the eons since, little on the tube has thrilled me as much. I’m talking of course about Superman - for my generation, the real one, George Reeves. A decade earlier, Reeves' career had taken off when he appeared in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), and over the next few years he played a variety of roles at the major studios, usually to praise from fans and reviewers. But after he returned from WWII service, roles shrank in number and importance, and by 1950 his career was pretty much gone with the wind. Then in 1951, the 37-year old Reeves reluctantly accepted the Man of Steel role in a budget film, SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE PEOPLE (1951) and saw his career soared to great heights of success. The movie spawned the TV series THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1952-58), which brought Reeves six years of small-screen fame until his shocking death in 1958. Was it suicide or murder? That’s the question posed in HOLLYWOODLAND, starring Adrien Brody as the second-rate dick trying to find out which, and Ben Affleck as George Reeves/Clark Kent/Superman. Affleck doesn't sound anything like Reeves, but decked out in wig, built-up nose and extra poundage, he looks a lot like him in some scenes. The film meanders through several time periods and is often confusing in its editing. But it gets the look and feel of the Fifties right, and the performances are good – especially Diane Lane's as Reeves’ clingy, married girlfriend. Watch for one particularly unnerving scene when Reeves, outfitted as Superman, talks an adoring kid fan out of shooting him with a real gun (based on a true incident). At the movie's end, we still don't know how Reeves really died, but whatever the cause – suicide, murder or kryptonite – his life seems to have started ending the moment he first donned the Superman costume.

CONTRABAND (1940) Hitchcockian romp through nighttime, wartime London

In 1940, when they brought CONTRABAND to the screen, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger hadn't quite yet jelled into the writer-director-producing team they would be within a few years. But with Pressberger scripting and Powell directing this delightful romantic wartime espionage thriller, which takes place mostly in the inky darkness of the London blackout, The Archers' touch is apparent. Hawk-faced Conrad Veidt, the Austrian actor best known for playing villains (the evil vizier in the Powell-directed portions of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and the nasty Nazi in CASABLANCA) delivers a rare heroic, romantic and comic turn as the no-nonsense Danish captain of a neutral freighter delayed overnight by British authorities checking for wartime contraband. That night, two of the ship's passengers - the beautiful, headstrong Mrs. Sorensen and the mousy Mr. Pidgeon – sneak ashore to nighttime London. The captain tags along to learn their game and stumbles into a nest of Nazis being pursued by British agents. Oh, and the agents are Mrs. S and Mr. P? I won't give away more about the plot except to say how much I like the film’s refreshingly mature angle on romantic sparring between the Captain and the Lady Agent:
Mrs.S: Did you ever try being married? That can be quite a big adventure.
Captain: [sighs] Why do women always say that? Marriage ends adventure.
Mrs.S: [copies sigh] Why do men always say that?

THE DAY AFTER (1983) / TESTAMENT (1983) / THREADS (1984) Two films about nuclear war you don't want to watch - but should

1983 was the year of World War III – but thankfully, only on TV. In THE DAY AFTER, destruction, illness and death in the aftermath of a nuclear war rain down upon small-town residents in Missouri (portrayed by, among others, Jason Robards, John Lithgow and Steve Guttenberg). One of the most chilling images in the film – besides the flame-tailed, nuclear warheaded missiles rocketing from silos up over houses, churches and a baseball field – is the simple disclaimer at the end warning that the events depicted in the film, terrible as they are, are far less severe than would be the real thing. TESTAMENT also deals with the effects of A-war in a small suburban town outside San Francisco. The focus is on a widowed woman (Jane Alexander) struggling to take care of her children. Though less graphic than THE DAY AFTER, it too is filled with painful images and a sense of hopelessness. Far more graphic and unsettling than either of these films is THREADS, an unblinking look, docudrama style, at life and much death after World War III in a small town in Britain, started, ironically, by military action in Iran. Far more graphically than TESTAMENT and DAY AFTER, THREADS shows us the fallout from fallout, focusing in retching detail on oft-undiscussed issues as corpses, sanitation, disease, government breakdown, and much more we'd rather not watch. But unpleasant as it might be to to watch, these movies, it’s important to do so, for these films preach to us what mankind is capable of causing - or averting. Especially now, with sociopathic governments waving their A-bombs in the world’s face. (Watch for a young Kevin Costner in a small but memorable role in TESTAMENT, and be sure to read my reviews below of two other movies about nuclear insanity, FAIL SAFE and ON THE BEACH.)

LANTANA (2001) Entanglements

Under the opening credits of LANTANA we watch a long, slow tracking shot through a grove of tangled, thorny lantana vines that ends on the crumpled body of a woman. The lantana is a metaphor for the prickly, intertwined relationships we are about to discover in this low-key Australian mystery-thriller. Its central plot is a flashback to the disappearace of the woman, and our cinematic journey to the resolution of that mystery and the revelations it produces, is, like the lantana vines in the opening shot, full of twists and turns. Engaging plot and superb acting by Anthony LaPaglia, Barbara Hershey, Geoffrey Rush and others.

FARGO (1996) A winter wonderland of black humor

Virtually everything about FARGO is cold: the cold, cruel plan concocted by a sleazy, in-debt car salesman (William H. Macy) to have his wife kidnapped for ransom; the cold-hearted treatment by his boss/father-in-law (Harve Prenell); the cold, senseless killings by the two not-too-bright kidnappers (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare); and of course, the cold, relentless winter of North Dakota where the tale takes place. Only the warmth of the indomitable (and pregnant) policewoman Madge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and her loving, supportive relationship with husband Norm manage to peek through the cold, ugly gray -- that, and random moments of macabre humor, including the famous wood chipper scene.

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984)

In all of eight dimensions you won’t find an odder sci-fi movie - or character. BUCKAROO BANZAI (Peter Weller) is a physicist, philosopher, marshal artist, speed freak, and rock musician. And, with the help his posse, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, he's out ridding the world of aliens from the 8th dimension. Co-starring an Einstein-wigged, scene-chomping John Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin/Dr. Emilio Lizardo, Ellen Barkin as Penny Priddy, and Jeff Goldblum (in a cowboy outfit) as New Jersey, this is one cult film not to be missed – or taken too seriously. My favorite quote:
Buckaroo Banzai: "Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are."

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960) Quintessential Existential Man

A famous classical pianist drives his wife to suicide, loses his career, is chased by two thugs, kills his boss, rescues his kidnapped brother, dumps his girlfriend, and winds up alone and forlorn playing silly ditties in a bar – and that doesn’t begin to describe SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, François Truffaut’s classic French New Wave mélange of drama, tragedy, comedy, mystery, film noir, slapstick and film homage. You just gotta love the playful dialogue and editing, the music, and all the loopy characters, especially poor little Edouard Saroyan /Charlie Kohler, the quintessential Existential Piano Man, played wonderfully by the “French Sinatra,” Charles Aznavour. French New Wave cinema was all about experimentation, and in the case of of this film, the experiment was a total success! Be sure to watch for all the nuggets of nonsense, as when one of the goofy hoodlums swears that if he's lying, may his own mother drop dead - and suddenly we see a silent movie-styled clip of an old woman clutching her heart and collapsing on the floor. Be sure to catch this New Wave masterpiece.

THEY ALL LAUGHED (1981)

A shoestring outfit called Odyssey Detective Agency (“We Never Sleep”) specializes in philandering wife cases, and the three gumshoes in its employ are about as different from one another as men can be: a middle-aged divorced father and babe magnet (Ben Gazarra); a young, sweet-natured bumbler (John Ritter); and a roller-skating hipster whose shades come off and long curly locks come out from under his hat at night (Blaine Novak). But what they do have in common is a warm camaraderie, plus a not-overly-professional propensity for falling in love with the women they’ve been paid by wealthy husbands to shadow. Gazarra falls quick and hard and for an elegant, unhappy trophy wife (Audrey Hepburn), while Ritter sets his horn-rimmed sights on a sweet young thing in the last throes of divorce (Dorothy Stratten, in her final film). Charmer Novak hits on everybody in a skirt. One detective wins then loses his lady, while another wins then marries his. And along the way, they cross and crisscross paths and plotlines with a variety of lively characters, including a kooky C&W singer (Colleen Camp), a hack-driving free spirit (model Patty Hansen), and a young English-impaired Latin lover (Sean Ferrer, Audrey's real-life son). Skillfully directed - nay, choreographed - by Peter Bogdanovich, THEY ALL LAUGHED is rapid-fire romantic romp that mixes screwball comedy and old-fashioned sentiment. Watch for an early scene when John Ritter, gloriously high on pot, roller skates in a public rink, trying to keep up with Stratten, to the pounding drums of Gene Krupa in Benny Goodman's "Swing, Swing, Swing." I think this film is the best thing Ritter ever did.

JANE WYATT (1910 - 2006)

Only two days after I wrote in "All About Me" about my lifelong affection for the film LOST HORIZON, the last of its cast, Jane Wyatt, passed away at 96. She was 26 when she played Ronald Coleman’s love interest, a woman who, thanks to the preservative powers of Shangri-la, looks about a century younger than she actually is. The actress herself continued to look youthful and lovely throughout her long career, which included both movies and TV. The two roles for which she’s best remembered are Margaret Anderson, the wise and patient mother who always knew best in the ‘50s TV series, “Father Knows Best” – and as Amanda Grayson, Mr. Spock's Earthling mother on Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Trivia note: Jane appeared in 207 half-hour episodes of "Father Knows Best" from 1954 to 1960 and won three Emmys as best actress in a dramatic series in the years 1958 to 1960.)

Groucho Speaks

"MARRY ME, EMILY, AND I'LL NEVER LOOK AT ANOTHER HORSE."

Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx)
to Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont) in
A DAY AT THE RACES (1937).

 

"I SAW MRS. CLAYPOOL FIRST. OF COURSE, HER MOTHER REALLY SAW HER FIRST, BUT THERE'S NO POINT BRINGING THE CIVIL WAR INTO THIS."

Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) in NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)

MAN OF THE WEST (1958) The white sheep in a family of black ones

James Stewart and director Anthony Mann made five classic "adult" Westerns together in the ‘50s. But after a quarrel they never teamed again, and the plum role of Link Jones went to Gary Cooper, another of Mann's trademark flawed heroes, in MAN OF THE WEST. I can't imagine better casting. A respectable husband and father with a checkered past, Link is headed to Fort Worth (my home town!) toting the town's savings to hire a school teacher. His train is held up by the Dock Tobin gang, and though Link temporarily alludes them, he and his two fellow passengers later run into the outlaws holed up in a cabin. The unsavory quintet turn out to be his former compatriots in crime – and not just that, his family. From Link’s bellowing, half-mad uncle Dock (Lee J. Cobb) to his mute, murdering cousin Trout (Dano Royal), the Tobins are the Bizarro World opposites of Bonanza's Cartwights, and despite Dock's best efforts to draw Link back in, the latter resists - gently at first, later with necessary violence. The film is littered with memorable scenes and images, as when Jones whups one of his cousins and then forces him to strip down to his longjohns, humiliating him back for having done similar to the woman he's taken under his wing, Billie (the splendidly endowed Julie London); and when Trout, after being plugged by Link in self defense, staggers along a dusty street, mortally wounded and howling like an animal. By film's end, Link's black sheep uncle and cousins are all dead, and as he and Billie ride toward the sunset in a covered wagon, she declares both her love for him and resignation that he belongs to another. As stories go, a downer; as a noir Western, a great film, with stunning widescreen landscape photography (also a Mann trademark) such as when Uncle Dock, standing on a peak above the gang's camp watching for Link, is silhouetted against the sky.

Fun to see a familiar face

I love spotting familiar actors in an early screen appearance. In the first 10 minutes of HERE COMES MR. JORDON (1941), the original version of Warren Beatty’s HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978) about a man prematurely taken out his body by an over-zealous angel, a young airman leans out of a heavenly airplane and delivers a few lines of dialog. It’s Lloyd Bridges (1913-98), then 27. It was his seventh movie - his first was in 1936.

KILLER BAIT (1949) Money - the root of all film noir

KILLER BAIT (aka TOO LATE FOR TEARS) is about money, greed and murder - the stuff film noir is made of. Driving one night on a lonely stretch of highway, a bickering married couple passes a speeding motorist, who dumps a satchel full of cash intended for somebody else into their back seat. A debate ensues. The goody two-shoed husband (Arthur Kennedy) wants to turn the 60 grand over to the cops, while his money-starved spouse (Lizabeth Scott) considers it rightfully hers and stakes her claim with a bullet, i.e., instant divorce. Promising start, but alas, a combination of bad direction, bad acting, bad dialogue and goofy storyline sinks KILLER BAIT. But even stinker noirs can be fun. Watch for a revealing exchange between the greedy wife and the sleazy hoodlum (Dan Duryea): After searching her apartment for his lost dough, he asks her, “You haven't anything to hide, have you?” As she sits down and crosses her legs, he answers his own question. “No, I can see you haven't.” HehHehHeh.

HENRI LANGLOIS: CINEMATHEQUE (2005) Saving Cinema on the Seine

With videos and DVDs available from so many sources nowadays, we take for granted our ability to find and see any movie anytime from anywhere. Thank goodness for that! And thank Henri Langlois (1914-77), who in 1936 founded the Cinémathèque Française, a Paris-based film preservation theater and museum whose inventory grew from 10 films to more than 60,000 films by the early '70s, thus creating both French film heritage and a model for film preservation for the U.S. and entire world. Operating with a minuscule budget, staff and government support, Langlois located saved, restored, showed and lectured on countless films that otherise would have been destroyed by men and nature - including Marlene Dietrich's THE BLUE ANGEL. How he did it – and was undone doing it – is the subject of the fascinating, English-subtitled documentary HENRI LANGLOIS: CINEMATHEQUE. If you've never heard of the godfather to modern film preservation, this is an absolute must-see for cinema lovers.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) The rise and fall of a badboy bootlegger

A mere four years after silent movies became talkies, James Cagney hit the screen in THE PUBLIC ENEMY talking faster than the machine gun his character totes. The film traces the short, violent career of Roaring Twenties gangster Tom Powers (Cagney), who powers his way to the top as a bootleg kingpin only to fall face forward, wrapped like a mummy and dead as one, in his mummy’s doorway. Lots of great scenes, as when Cagney famously pushes a grapefruit half into Mae Clark’s face. But it's that final one you remember - as powerful today as it surely was 75 years ago.

LITTLE CAESAR (1930) Grandfather of all Godfather movies

LITTLE CAESAR, the first bigtime gangster talkie, is still considered the model for all crime movies, dated though it looks and sounds today. In fact, watch Pacino in the GODFATHER series or in SCARFACE (1983) and you see shades of Edward G. Robinson's mini-monster Rico Massara alternately seething and raging and prophetically and nicknamed Little Caesar by the gang leader whose power Rico grabs for himself. “Grab” is the operative word in all of LC’s dealings, and he never stops grabbing until a policeman's machine gun puts an end to Rico. The film's violence is tame by today’s standards, but in 1930 it must have brought moviegoers out of their seats. (Trivia note: Director LeRoy, whose final film was THE GREEN BERETS in 1967, filmed two versions of Rico's famous final words: "Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?" and "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" Although "God" comes directly from the novel, "mercy" was used to avoid offending moviegoing churchgoers.)

THE INFORMER (1935)

Living in 1920s Ireland, flat-broke Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is part of an underground rebellion against the oppressive Brits. His childhood friend, a fellow rebel wanted by the English for murder, arrives back into town secretly. He thinks he can trust his friend Gypo, but to the latter, the £20 reward proves too tempting. Gypo gets his friend killed and sinks into despair and drunkenness. Meanwhile, the other Irish rebels are searching for the informer. Gypo, spending money left and right, is their main suspect, but they, who are his friends, don't want to believe it. The story is simple in plot, but complex in moral and emotional issues. What Gypo did was wrong, but we can understand his motives. We also understand his sorry character, and we feel sympathy – up the point. We're pretty sure how everything will end up, so all we can do is grit our teeth and bear along with it. The acting is remarkable. Victor McLaglen, who acted in many of Ford's films, probably gave his best performance here (and won an Oscar for it). THE INFORMER is one of John Ford's most expressionistic films and well worth look. (Trivia note: The day before shooting Gypo's trial scene, Ford told McLaglen that he wouldn't be needed the next day so he could take a break, enjoy himself, not worry about his lines. McLaglen proceeded to go on a bender, which the director knew he would do, and the next day was forced to film the scene with a terrible hangover - precisely the effect Ford wanted.)

Trivia

Mother Nature pays homage to Dorothy

The big scary twister in THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) was actually a 35-foot long muslin stocking, photographed with miniatures of a Kansas farm and fields. Amazingly, on the day Judy Garland died - June 22, 1969 - a real tornado struck in Kansas.

Song plug

In a bar scene in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946), young WWII vet Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) asks his uncle Butch to play 'Lazy River' on the piano. It's a song the actor/songwriter portraying Butch, Hoagy Carmichael, knew well - he composed it 14 years earlier.

A rose(bud) by any other name

CITIZEN KANE (1941) was based partially on the life of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, who despised what he called the blasphemous depiction and wouldn't let the movie be advertised in any of his newspapers. One reason for the publisher's pique: Kane's dying word, "Rosebud," is widely reputed to have been Hearst's private name for mistress Marion Davies' private parts.

DEAD END (1937) MEAN STREETS, Depression era-style

DEAD END is about class, poverty and dead-ended lives and loves on New York’s East Side. Gangster "Baby Face" Martin (Humphrey Bogart), whose freshly plasticized face looks nothing like a baby's, returns to his concrete roots to see his mother (Marjorie Main, in a dramatic role a far cry from the comedic one that later made her famous – Ma Kettle). At first she doesn’t recognize him, but when she does she curses his birth and banishes him from her tenement building and her life. Crushed by the rejection, Martin seeks out his childhood sweetheart (Claire Trevor), whom he discovers is now a streetwalker. Oh, and later the cops shoot him dead. All in all, not what you’d call a great visit. A great film, though, directed by William Wyler and, co-starring in one of its several subplots, good guy and gal Joel McCrea and Sylvia Sydney - plus, lending welcome bits of comic relief, a gang in their film debut, the Dead End Kids (later called the Bowery Boys). One of the great flicks of the '30s, full of truths for all time. (Trivia note: DEAD END was adapted by Lillian Hellman from a Broadway play. Wyler originally intended to film it on location on the streets of NYC, but producer Sam Goldwyn insisted that a set be built in the studio - and it turned out to be one of the most convincing and elaborate ones in film history.)

OLEANNA (1994) Teacher gets taught a lesson

My introduction to David Mamet's unique style of writing and direction was a very cool flick about the art of the con called HOUSE OF GAMES (1987). If you like plots with twists and turns, you gotta see this movie! My next Mamet experience was OLEANNA, based on the director’s own two-character play. I love dramatic pieces in which characters reveal themselves through dialogue, and nobody’s dialogue is more revealing, and at the same time enigmatic, than Mamet’s, especially in OLEANNA. It’s about tha battle of wit and intellect between a university professor John (William H. Macy) and a highly intelligent, articulate female student Carol (Debra Eisenstadt) who is failing his class. Following a series of conversations in the professor’s office which go from harmless to brutal, Carol files charges against John, including sexual harassment, thus wrecking his chance for tenure. This forces the distraught professor to go on a brutal offensive, which  leada to a shattering finale. The final six-word exchange is pure Mamet: (John) “Oh, my God.” (Carol) “Yes, that's right.” (Trivia note: The woman singing over the end credits is Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, who originated the role of Carol on stage alongside Macy, and co-stars in several of her spouse's films, including HOMICIDE, THE SPANISH PRISONER and Samuel Beckett's CATASTROPHE.)

THE WHISTLER (1944) He knows many things, for he walks by night

THE WHISTLER was the first of an eight-film series (1944-48) based on one of radio's most popular mystery drama shows (1942-55). All but one starred Richard Dix, who had started out in silent Westerns and is perhaps best-remembered for DeMille's silent version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1923). Dix is not “The Whistler," who is an unbilled narrator seen only in shadow; rather, he plays a principal character in each story, sometimes a good guy, sometimes not. In this first entry, he’s a despondent industrialist who, believing his wife dead, hires a professional killer (J. Carroll Naish) to put him out of his misery. When he learns that his wife is still alive (or is she?), he tries to disemploy his assassin. THE WHISTLER is a great example of how, with clever direction (William Castle) and strong if not highly well-known players, a B-grade picture from a poverty row studio can rise above its budgetary limitations. Don't get me wrong. THE WHISTLER is only a few cuts above Saturday matinée fare. But I love the economy with which the story is told, without needless lines or scenes but with lots of great bits - for example, in his spare time the assassin reads from a book on necrophobia (fear of death). (Trivia notes: Each film begins with The Whistler ominously intoning: “I am the Whistler ... and I know many things, for I walk by night." Dix retired from acting after making the second to last movie in the Whistler series, THE THIRTEENTH HOUR. He died two years later.)

Hat's off!

TWO RODE TOGETHER (1962) was the last film in which James Stewart wore the brown, sweat-stained cowboy hat he'd worn in all but one of his ‘50’s westerns starting with WINCHESTER 73 (BROKEN ARROW was the exception). This was Stewart's first film with John Ford, who didn’t want him to wear the hat, pronouncing it the worst looking one he'd ever seen. The famously crusty director finally relented – but in their next film together, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE, Stewart went hatless.

THE KILLING (1956)

In film noir, the best laid plans of rats and cons oft goes awry, as in Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING. Fresh out of prison, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) masterminds a brilliant and complex scheme to heist $2 million from a local racetrace. He and his cohorts make off with a duffle of bag of money, but Fate intervenes in some nasty guises including one shrewish wife (Marie Windsor) and her ruthless boyfriend (a pre-Dr. Ben Casey Vince Edwards); an immutable airport regulation, and one small dog. Result: a hotel room littered with bodies and a runway littered with fives, tens and twenties. This is a really interesting plot, complex but thoroughly engaging. Watch for some familiar noir faces, including Elisha Cook (Sydney Greenstreet's wormy gunsel in THE MALTESE FALCON).