Spencer Tracy

In the 1950s, a small group of artists monopolized the attention of the cameras and the public. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford together form the "rat pack": they sing the most popular hits of the moment, star in the most profitable Hollywood films and are already making a splash on television . This documentary, produced by a recognized specialist in the history of Hollywood, recounts the exceptional destiny of this informal group which flirted with the greats of this world, notably through Sinatra, personal friend of American President Kennedy.

Gene Kelly is a legend of the heyday of the Hollywood musical. His name stands for masterpieces such as "Singin' in the Rain" and "An American in Paris". As a singer, dancer, actor, choreographer and director, he was a true all-round artist who revolutionized the world of dance in particular. Kelly, who loved to experiment, explored new forms of dance expression and helped a whole generation of young talents to fame. From his beginnings in cabarets and on Broadway to his recognition as a choreographer and director, the documentary shows how the good-looking star with a charming smile expanded the boundaries of dance expression: He danced in the open air in the streets of New York, with a cartoon character or his own reflection. But this dazzling entertainer image should not obscure the fact that Kelly, as a staunch supporter of the American civil rights movement, also saw dancing as a political statement.

Originally formed amidst the chaos of the 1970 Kent State anti-Vietnam War protest killings, the not quite new wave band Devo scored a hit with "Whip It" and gained mainstream success with their message of societal "de-evolution."

A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.

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

George Abitbol, the classiest man in the world, dies tragically during a cruise. The director of an American newspaper, wondering about the meaning of these intriguing final words, asks his three best investigators, Dave, Peter and Steven, to solve the mystery. (Sixteen French actors dub scenes from various Warner Bros. films to create a parody of Citizen Kane, 1941.)

Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

A crusty, eccentric priest recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony from a Pacific island menaced by a smoldering volcano.

Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s.

When Fred asked for Mary's hand in marriage, she thought she had the happy ending she only read about in fairy tales. Now it's 16 years later; Fred has had an affair, and Mary drowns her sorrows in pills and booze, a dangerous combination that nearly resulted in her death the year before. As Mary rushes off to the Bahamas for a relaxing escape from her crumbling marriage, she reflects on the past and wonders just where it all went wrong.

One-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy steps off a train at the sleepy little town of Black Rock. Once there, he begins to unravel a web of lies, secrecy, and murder.

Newly married Kay Dunstan announces that she and her husband are having a baby, leaving her father to come to grips with the fact that he will soon be a granddad.

Pat Pemberton is a brilliant athlete, except when her domineering fiancé is around. The ladies golf championship is in her reach until she gets flustered by his presence at the final holes. He wants them to get married and forget the whole thing, but she cannot give up on herself that easily. She enlists the help of Mike Conovan, a slightly shady sports promoter. Together they face mobsters, a jealous boxer, and a growing mutual attraction.

Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.

Santiago is an aging, down-on-his-luck, Cuban fisherman who, after catching nothing for nearly 3 months, hooks a huge Marlin and struggles to land it far out in the Gulf Stream.

Selfish Chris Teller pressures his older brother, a retired climber, to accompany him on a treacherous Alpine climb to loot the bodies of plane crash victims.

Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself, we learn of all the surprises and disasters along the way.

During the Mayflower pilgrims' long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on their way to America, Captain Christopher Jones falls in love with William Bradford's wife Dorothy.

A defense attorney jeopardizes his career to save his client.

In a changing world where television has become the main source of information, Adam Caulfield, a young sports journalist, witnesses how his uncle, Frank Skeffington, a veteran and honest politician, mayor of a New England town, tries to be reelected while bankers and captains of industry conspire in the shadows to place a weak and manageable candidate in the city hall.

The true story of Ruth Gordon's early struggles on the road to stage stardom.

Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run amok.

Rival reporters Sam Craig and Tess Harding fall in love and get married, only to find their relationship strained when Sam comes to resent Tess' hectic lifestyle.

A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.

Father Flanagan raises funds, helps a disabled boy, and saves an older boy from reform school.

Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

Famed reporter Stephen O'Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a national hero.

Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a twenty year period both love the same woman. McMasters and Sand come to oil towns to get rich. Betsy comes West intending to marry Sand but marries McMasters instead. Getting rich and losing it all teaches McMasters and Sand the value of personal ties.

Following the death of his only son, a ruthless businessman reflects on his life, his unhappy marriage and his questionable parenting skills.

An industrialist is urged to run for President, but this requires uncomfortable compromises on both political and marital levels.

A cocky U.S. Army Air Force pilot stationed in England during World War II falls for a daring female flier. After he's killed on a mission, he's sent back to Earth by a heavenly General with a new assignment.

On return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic in the slums.

In Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up seven crosses and, as the Gestapo returns each escapee he is put to death on a cross. The seventh cross is still empty as George Heisler attempts an escape to freedom in Holland.

On America's frontier, a St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals.

Danny, a poor northern Californian Mexican-American, inherits two houses from his grandfather and is quickly taken advantage of by his vagabond friends.

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.

Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. A baby is stillborn and she turns more and more to attorney friend of of Cass' Brad Criley. While quarreling the Judge tells Virginia to stay with Brad, but when she becomes sick he brings her home.

A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.

Jim is a test pilot. His wife Ann and best friend Gunner try their best to keep him sober. But the life of a test pilot is anything but safe.

Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but his tough but compassionate warden changes him.

When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.

Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wrongly mistaken for a wanted kidnapper and arrested.

Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

On the French coast, unlucky Marie Galante is abducted and forced to board an American cargo ship bound for the Panama Canal. When an escape attempt leaves Marie high and dry in the Yucatan, she takes work as a nightclub singer to earn her safe passage to the Canal region. But Marie faces bigger problems when she gets mixed up in a destructive plot against the U.S. Naval fleet, and so she accepts the kindly assistance of secret agent Dr. Crawbett.

Several behind the scenes aspects of the movie-making business, which results in the enjoyment the movie going public has in going to the theater, are presented. They include: the production of celluloid aka film stock, the materials used in the production of which include cotton and silver; construction crews who build sets including those to look like cities, towns and villages around the world; a visit with Jack Dawn who demonstrates the process of creating a makeup design; the screen testing process, where many an acting hopeful gets his/her start; the work of the candid camera man, the prying eyes behind the movie camera; a visit with Adrian, who designs the clothes worn by many of the stars on screen; and a visit with Herbert Stothart as he conducts his musical score for Conquest (1937). These behind the scenes looks provide the opportunity to get acquainted with the cavalcade of MGM stars and their productions that will grace the silver screen in the 1937/38 movie season.

Fisherman Dutch marries cannery worker Hattie. After he is kicked out of his union and fired from his job he leaves Hattie who steals money for him and goes to jail. He gets a new job, foils a plot to dynamite the ship, and promises to wait for Hattie.

When American newspaperman and adventurer Henry M. Stanley comes back from the western Indian wars, his editor James Gordon Bennett sends him to Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, the missing Scottish missionary. Stanley finds Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume.") blissfully doling out medicine and religion to the happy natives. His story is at first disbelieved.

A two-bit gambler somehow claws his way to the top. His love for riches is only matched by his love for his wife, but he is sometimes confused by which he loves most.

Anna and Joe are newly married, playful and deeply in love. Joe is scraping by as cab driver in New York City during a period of corruption, mob control and violence between cab companies.