Charles Laughton

The story of the insane scandals related to the remake of “Island of Dr. Moreau” —originally a novel by H. G. Wells—, which was brought to the big screen in 1996. How director Richard Stanley spent four years developing the project just to find an abrupt end to his work while leading actor Marlon Brando pulled the strings in the shadows. Now for the first time, the living key players recount what really happened and why it all went so spectacularly wrong.

Join foremost experts discussing true Horror Classics - Frankenstein, Dracula, The Black Cat, Wolfman, King Kong, Bride of Frankenstein, and more. Grab the popcorn and take a deep breath as we conjure up the thrills, chills and magic of Monster Madness!

This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.

Jerry Seinfeld celebrates the lives and careers of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Featured are clips from their movies and TV shows, plus home movies, newsreel footage and their trademark "Who's on First?" routine, shown in its entirety.

Starting with "The Wolf Man" (in 1941), Universal Studios made five movies featuring The Wolf Man, a character portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr. Monster by Moonlight! explores these movies. Rick Baker explains how the make-up was done on Chaney's character. Screenwriter Curtis Siodmak took very little from earlier werewolf legends, providing his own story for some of the films. This documentary displays clips from several other movies, including "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "House of Dracula" (1945).

This documentary, hosted by actor Burgess Meredith, explores the life and career of movie director Otto Preminger, whose body of work includes such memorable films as Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Laura, Forever Amber, Advise and Consent, In Harm's Way, The Moon Is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, and many other movies made from the '30s through the '70s. Interviews with actors Frank Sinatra, Vincent Price, James Stewart, Michael Caine, and others who worked with the flamboyant and sometimes control-obsessed director add information and insight to the story.

Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.

Famous Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies

A collection of bloopers and outtakes from an enormous selection of Hollywood classic productions spanning from the 1930s through the 1980s.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

A history of horror movies.

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

Proposed by the President of the United States to fill the post of Secretary of State, Robert Leffingwell appears before a Senate committee, chaired by the idealistic Senator Brig Anderson, which must decide whether he is the right person for the job.

"Under Ten Flags" is a WWII movie loosely based on the true story of the German navy commerce raider Atlantis, a converted Auxilliary Cruiser, and her Captain Bernhard Rogge. Atlantis, camouflaged as a merchant ship, cruised the South Seas ( Atlantic, Indian & Pacific) and sank or captured 22 merchant ships from May 1940 through November 22, 1941 when she was sunk by the British Cruiser HMS Devonshire. Rogge was one of the few German officers of flag rank who were not arrested by the Allies after the war ended. This was due to the very proper and ethical way he exercised his command of Atlantis. After the war he advanced to Rear Admiral in the West German Navy and became a high-ranking NATO commander.

Rod Serling's teleplay depicting the struggles of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto in the months before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The story of the aborted 1937 filming of "I, Claudius", starring Charles Laughton, with all of its surviving footage.

An ailing barrister is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder cases of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending a man being tried for the murder of a socialite.

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

Two hapless waiters in a tavern on the Spanish Main play cupid between aristocratic Lady Jane and tavern co-worker Bruce Martindale, but the two bumpkins mix-up a love letter with Captain Kidd's treasure map of Skull Island, leading to them being kidnapped and taken off to the notorious pirate's island.

In the reign of emperor Tiberius, Gallilean prophet John the Baptist preaches against King Herod and Queen Herodias. The latter wants John dead, but Herod fears to harm him due to a prophecy. Enter beautiful Princess Salome, Herod's long-absent stepdaughter. Herodias sees the king's dawning lust for Salome as her means of bending him to her will. But Salome and her lover Claudius are–contrary to Scripture–nearing conversion to the new religion.

The wicked Alain plots an elaborate revenge against his younger brother Edmund, leading to a deadly confrontation in his dungeon deathtrap.

The mother died under the executioner's axe; the daughter rose to become England's greatest monarch -- the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I. Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth's birth to her unexpected ascension to the throne at a mere 25. Charles Laughton reprises his Academy Award®-winning* role as her formidable father Henry VIII. Deborah Kerr plays her last stepmother (and Henry's last of six wives), gentle Catherine Parr. And Simmons' then real-life husband, Stewart Granger, adds heroics as Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour. In a resplendent world of adventure, romance and court intrigue, Young Bess reigns.

Five O. Henry stories, each separate. The primary one from the critics' acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem". Soapy tells fellow bum Horace that he is going to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a nice jail cell. He fails. He can't even accost a woman; she turns out to be a streetwalker. The other stories are "The Clarion Call", "The Last Leaf", "The Ransom of Red Chief", and "The Gift of the Magi".

A World War I widow loses her only child and spends the rest of her life as a children's nurse.

In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgment, they become involved in a doomed affair.

In London, barrister Anthony Keane takes the case of Maddalena Paradine, a beautiful woman accused of poisoning her blind husband. Though happily married, Keane becomes infatuated with his enigmatic client and convinced of her innocence. His obsession clouds his judgment as he builds a defense implicating her servant, André Latour—an act that leads to devastating consequences both in court and at home.

Cutthroat pirate William Kidd captures Admiral Blayne's treasure ship and hides the bounty in a cave. Three years later, Kidd, posing as a respectable merchant captain, offers his services to the King of England. Seeking a social position, Kidd also negotiates for Blayne's title and lands, provided he can prove Blayne was associated with piracy. Launched upon his royal mission, Kidd is unaware that Blayne's son Adam is among the crew, determined to clear his father's name.

George Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor, has to postpone a vacation with his wife - again - when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence that he is the killer.

Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

Genial shopkeeper Philip has to endure the constant nagging of a shrewish wife while he secretly yearns for a pretty young stenographer. When the henpecking gets to be too much, Philip murders his wife and manages to make her death look like an accident. A ruthless blackmailer and a low-key detective both discover Philip's secret, and he has to decide which of them poses the more dangerous threat.

A young man asks a hat check girl to pose as his fiancée in order to make his dying father's last moments happy. However, the old man's health takes a turn for the better and now his son doesn't know how to break the news that he's engaged to someone else, especially since his father is so taken with the impostor.

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.

Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?

United States Federal agent Rigby travels to the Central American island Carlotta to investigate a stolen aircraft engines smuggling racket.

The descendent of a ghost imprisoned for cowardice hopes to free the spirit by displaying courage when under duress.

After a long absense from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Uncle Jonas, would rather dance and romance than earn a living. When Jonas loses the family plantation in a cockfight, Chester saves the day by towing in a large ship abandoned at sea and claiming the salvage. But opening a joint bank account in the name of the Tuttle clan may not have been a wise decision.

U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yacht. He climbs swiftly in rank, and is now Junior Aide to Rear Admiral Stephen Thomas.

A down-and-out student is hired to kill a wealthy woman. When someone else is suspected of the crime, the student taunts police until they realize that they may have to wrong man.

While courting a young woman by mail, a rich farmer sends a photograph of his foreman instead of his own, which leads to complications when she accepts his marriage proposal.

A small-town girl who's made it big in New York as a fashion model returns home, only to find that her somewhat dotty uncle has mortgaged his boarding house to the hilt. In her efforts to help him keep his boarding house, she becomes involved with a handsome young minister and his superior, an older bishop.

In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.

Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.

Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.

In early 19th-century Cornwall, young Mary Yellan travels to live with her aunt and uncle at the remote Jamaica Inn, where she discovers the inn is a front for a violent gang of wreckers who lure ships to their doom along the coast. As she becomes entangled in their crimes, Mary must fight to survive and uncover the truth behind the terror that haunts the moors.

A Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero.

Naval commander Charles Sturm has made life miserable for his wife Diana due to his insane jealousy over every man she speaks to. His obsessive behavior soon drives her to the arms of a handsome lieutenant. When Charles learns of their affair, he plots revenge.

In a remote region of Wales, five travelers beset by a relentless storm find shelter in an old mansion.

An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations.

Renowned for his excess, King Henry VIII goes through a series of wives during his rule. With Anne Boleyn, his second betrothed, executed on charges of treason, Henry weds maid Jane Seymour, but that wedded bliss also ends in tragedy. Not one to be single for long, the tyrannical king chooses German-born Anne of Cleves, but their union lasts only months before an annulment is granted, and so Henry's reign of spousal terror continues.

Remarkable poet Elizabeth Barrett is slowly recovering from a crippling illness with the help of her siblings, especially her youngest sister, Henrietta, but feels stifled by the domestic tyranny of her wealthy widowed father. When she meets fellow poet Robert Browning in a romantic first encounter, her heart belongs to him. However, her controlling father has no intention of allowing her out of his sight.

In this comedy of an Englishman stranded in a sea of barbaric Americans, Marmaduke Ruggles – a gentleman's gentleman and butler to an Earl – is lost in a poker game to an uncouth American cattle baron. Ruggles' life is turned upside down as he's taken to the USA, is gradually assimilated into American life, accidentally becomes a local celebrity, and falls in love along the way.

Pickpocket Libby is protected by aging street performer Charles, who takes her into his troupe. Libby's dancing leads her to meet songwriter Harley and launch a stage career, while Charles is seemingly spurned by the waif he has helped.

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

A character study depicting the life of Rembrandt Van Rijn at the height of his fame in the mid 1600s. Beginning with the death of his wife, Rembrandt's work takes a dark turn, which offends many of his patrons.

A nightclub singer marries the rich owner of a rubber plantation. When she returns with him to his estate in Malaysia, she finds out that he is cruel, vicious and insanely jealous. She and the plantation's overseer develop a mutual attraction, but are terrified at what will happen if her husband finds out.

A young Chinese woman, working in the kitchen at a London dance club, is given the chance to become the club's main act.

A young cleaning woman in a boarding-house relieves the drudgery of her job by daydreaming that a foreign student at the house, who she believes is interested in her, is actually a wealthy nobleman who sweeps her off on a romantic journey.