Movie Classics: Dramas

Private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love (Lauren Bacall).

Two young men meet at Oxford. Charles Ryder, though of no family or money, becomes friends with Sebastian Flyte when Sebastian throws up in his college room through an open window. He then invites Charles to dinner after his teddy bear Aloysius 'refuses to talk to him' unless he is forgiven. Charles becomes involved with Sebastian's family, Catholic peers of the realm in Protestant England. The story is told in flashback as Charles, now an officer in the British Army, is moved with his company to an English country house that he discovers to be Brideshead, Sebastian's family home where Charles has a series of memories of his youth and young manhood, his loves, life, and a journey of faith and anguish.

Great performances by Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.

A drama of the problems of a wealthy but decadent family in the South. Members of the family gather to face the impending death of their patriarch, Big Daddy, and battle over the inheritance of his vast estate.

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

JJ 'Jake' Gittes is a private detective who seems to specialize in matrimonial cases. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city's water supply system, of having an affair. Gittes does what he does best and photographs him with a young girl but in the ensuing scandal, it seems he was hired by an impersonator and not the real Mrs. Mulwray. When Mr. Mulwray is found dead, Jake is plunged into a complex web of deceit involving murder, incest and municipal corruption all related to the city's water supply.

Orson Welles

An all-powerful press magnate, Kane, dies in his fabulous castle Xanadu, his last word being "Rosebud", which leads a reporter to seek the meaning behind the word and find the meaning of Kane. Prominant publisher, William Randolph Hearst, saw the film as a thinly disguised version of his career and attempted to suppress it.

Feeling remorse for the accidental death of a woman's husband and then causing the woman to become blind, a playboy becomes a surgeon and tries to restore her sight.

Historical drama about the opposition of Sir Thomas More to the divorce of King Henry VIII and the events which led to More's execution.

When his boss demands more speed and efficiency, Chaplin goes crazy from his repetitious assembly line job.

A defrocked, alcoholic, American minister becomes a tour guide, and while travelling in Mexico with a bus-load of school teachers and their 18-year old charge, becomes entangled with the girl, with a woman of eloquence and wisdom, and with an earthy and beautiful former love.

Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist is about an orphan boy who runs away from a workhouse and meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. Oliver is taken in by the pickpocket and he joins a household of young boys who are trained to steal for their master.

The World War II phase of the controversial American general's career is depicted.

Jane Austen's classic novel about the prejudice that occurred between the 19th century classes and the pride which would keep lovers apart.

Based on the book by Charles Dickens.

In Victorian England, a young orphan fights against those trying to abuse the poor.

Three classic early Hollywood films.

Red-headed woman based on the novel by Katharine Brush; Waterloo Bridge based on the play by Robert E. Sherwood.
Originally released as motion pictures from 1931-1933.
Features: original and restored versions of Baby face, new introduction by Robert Osborne, Baby face theatrical trailer.
Contents:
Red-headed woman (1932, 79 min.) / directed by Jack Conway -- Waterloo Bridge (1931, 81 min.) / directed by James Whale -- Baby face (1933, 71 min.) / directed by Alfred E. Green.
Abstract:
A woman uses powerful men to get what she wants in life; a soldier falls in love with a woman during World War I; an amoral woman sleeps her way to the top floor of an office.

Five classic early Hollywood films.

The divorcee based on the novel "Ex-wife" by Ursula Parrott; A free soul based on the novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns; Night nurse based on the novel by Dora Macy.
Originally released as motion pictures from 1930-1933.
Features: "Thou shalt not sin : sex, sin, and censorship in pre-code Hollywood" documentary, commentaries on The divorcee and Night nurse by film historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta, theatrical trailers for Female, Night nurse, and Three on a match.
Contents:
The divorcee (1930, 82 min.) / directed by Robert Z. Leonard -- A free soul (1931, 93 min.) / directed by Clarence Brown -- Three on a match (1932, 63 min.) / directed by Mervyn LeRoy -- Female (1933, 60 min.) / directed by Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, William A. Wellman -- Night nurse (1931, 72 min.) / directed by William A. Wellman.

In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.

Marlon Brando

Based on the play "Orpheus descending" by Tennessee Williams.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1959.
Features: new video interview with Lumet; new documentary featuring Tennessee Williams scholar Robert Bray and film historian R. Barton Palmer discussing Williams's work in Hollywood and "The fugitive kind"; "Three plays by Tennessee Williams" an hour-long television presentation of three one-act plays by Williams, directed by Lumet in 1958; booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Thomson.
Abstract:
Trying to settle down, a drifter takes a job in a small Southern town and becomes involved with two women.

The complete saga of the Corleone family, from Don Vito Corleone's childhood in Sicily to his son Michael's rise to power, and the organization's eventual downfall.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 are also avalable separately.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh

Focuses on the life and loves of the beautiful and selfish Scarlett O'Hara. The story begins on the O'Haras' Georgia plantation of Tara in antebellum days and moves through the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly

When a killer he had sent to jail vows revenge, a retired marshal takes up his badge and guns again, alienating his new Quaker bride.

Five movies:

"Night after night": A successful ex-boxer buys a high-class speakeasy and falls for a rich society girl.

"I'm no angel": The bold Tira works as a dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair.

"Goin' to town": Cleo Borden is a former dance hall queen who has become newly rich and falls for and pursues an upper-crust Englishman.

"Go west young man": A movie star, stranded in the country, trifles with a young man's affections.

"My little chickadee": Rightly suspected of illicit relations with the Masked Bandit, Flower Belle Lee is run out of Little Bend.

In 1787, the HMS Bounty sets out on a journey that will take it through perilous seas to a tropical paradise--and into history as one of the most ill-fated vessels ever to sail for King and country.

After the death of his father, Nicholas Nickleby along with his sister Kate and their mother find themselves in difficult conditions. They relocate to London in the hope that Uncle Ralph Nickleby, a successful businessman, will help them out but he proves to be difficult and cold towards his relatives. Nicholas sets off on a series of adventures starting as a school master for the one-eyed Wackford Squeers. He soon escapes the school and in the company of his new friend Smike, joins a theater group in Portsmouth. Good fortune befalls him when he meets the Cheerybles who offer him stable employment. His uncle has taken a severe dislike to the boy however and goes out of his way to make life difficult for him.

When a posse catches up three men suspected of killing a local farmer, some of them become strongly divided on whether or not to lynch the men.

Allison MacKenzie looks back on life in the New England town where she grew up around the time of Pearl Harbor. Beneath the town's placid god-fearing exterior lay any number of dark secrets.

After unwittingly aiding assassin John Wilkes Booth, Dr. Samuel Mudd is imprisoned at a harsh outpost in the Florida Keys in the midst of a yellow fever epidemic.

Follows the emotional disintegration of a Southern woman whose last chance for happiness is destroyed by her vindictive brother-in-law.

Based on the play by Tennessee Williams.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1951.
Features: commentary by Karl Malden and film historians Rudy Behlmer and Jeff Young, Elia Kazan movie trailer gallery, movie and audio outtakes, Marlon Brando screen test, featurette: Elia Kazan, a director's journey, documentaries.

In this comedic masterpiece, a wealthy director (Joel McCrea) wants to find 'real' people for his next great film.

Chance Wayne returns to his southern home with faded, alcoholic movie star Alexandra Del Lago. He hopes to capitalize on her fame but is regarded by others as a cheap hustler who is not welcome back in town, especially by the father of his previous girlfriend.

Based on a story by Sidney Harmon.
DVD of the 1942 motion picture by Columbia Pictures.

A fugitive, falsely accused of murder, is aided by a schoolteacher and a Supreme Court nominee in George Stevens' serio-comic look at law and justice in America.

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.

Gangster hoods take over a hotel during a hurricane.

Robert Louis Stevenson's coming-of-age adventure is back and breathtaking, in this widely heralded presentation bursting with scoundrels and scallywags, villains and heroines, and two memorable heroes who will stop at nothing in their quest for justice.

Delicious Americana showing reactions of three women who receive a letter from the town flirt who has run off with one of their husbands. Based on John Klempner's novel.

Based on the novel The longest day, June 6, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan.

The story of the Allied invasion in Normandy during World War II. Details D-Day landing from the points of view of those who participated: the Germans, the French, the English and the Americans.

In this heart-pounding suspense story, spies kidnap a young girl, in an attempt to prevent her parents from revealing what they know about an assassination plot. The action takes you from the Swiss Alps to Britain's Albert Hall and London's East End.

Based on the play written by Robert Bolt.

Dramatization of the life of the 16th-century English scholar and statesman Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded by King Henry VIII for refusing to recognize him as the head of the Church of England.

Karen Stone, a lonely, aging actress, lives in a luxurious apartment in Rome where she has a romantic fling with a young gigolo

Ginger Rogers is a snobbish musical comedy star who couldn't care less that ballet star Fred Astaire has fallen for her, until they dance together.

A Hollywood actor who has risen from vaudeville to become a silent film star must make the difficult transition to sound films.

Remy Marco tries to transition from being a pre-Prohibition bootlegger to a post-Prohibition legitimate beer seller with humorous results.

A successful, but disillusioned, writer (Peck) who is near death from gangrene in his leg, reviews his life in an attempt to find meaning in the sum of his experiences.

A movie star declining in popularity marries a shy young actress whose fame grows to eclipse his.

A day at the fair becomes a sunny serenade of laughter and love.

Originally released as a motion picture in 1939.
Features: audio commentary by noted western authority Jim Kitses; Bucking Broadway (1917), a fifty-four-minute silent western by John Ford, with new music by Donald Sosin; extensive video interview with Ford from 1968; new video interview with Dan Ford, biographer and grandson of the director, about Ford's home movies; new video interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; new video essay by writer Tag Gallagher; new video feature about Monument Valley; new video interview with stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong about Stagecoach's stuntman Yakima Canutt; radio dramatization of Stagecoach from 1949; theatrical trailer; booklet featuring an essay by David Cairns and the short story that inspired the film.
Abstract:
Nine passengers board a Cheyenne-bound stagecoach, in spite of the dangerous trip through Indian territory.