Merle Oberon

Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboyant movie tycoons, rose from obscurity in rural Hungary to become a legendary filmmaker. With him were his brothers, Zoltan and Vincent, all living charmed lives in circles that included Vivien Leigh, Sir Laurence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich, H.G. Wells and Merle Oberon, who was soon to be Alex's wife. But along with Alex's flair for success lies an equally powerful impulse for destruction.

Winston Churchill understood the power of films, but the true extent of his use of cinema as a propaganda tool is rarely explored. In 1934, one of Britain's most celebrated film producers, Alexander Korda, signed Churchill up as a screenwriter and historical advisor. It was the start of a unique collaboration. Churchill provided script notes for Korda's productions and penned an epic screenplay. When war broke out, their collaboration took on national importance. Korda was sent on a mission to Hollywood to help bring America into the war, with positive results. With access to previously undiscovered documents, this film documentary examines that mission and a friendship that underpinned a unique, creative partnership.

The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.

Part 1 of a documentary about when Alexander Korda was asked about who might replace him when he has resigned as a chief of the production of the British Lion.

An emotionally fragile older woman embarks on an ill-fated love affair with a handsome young artist while traveling through Mexico's Yucatan peninsula...

An amoral lowlife accidentally stumbles into an acting career that sets him on a trajectory to Hollywood stardom. But everyone on whom he steps on the way to the top remembers when he is nominated for an Oscar and he runs a dirty campaign in an attempt to win.

This is the story of the clocklike movements of a giant, big city New Orleans hotel. The ambitious yet loyal manager wrestles with the round-the-clock drama of its guests. A brazen sneak thief, who nightly relieves the guests of their property, is chased through the underground passages of the hotel. The big business power play for control of the hotel and the VIP diplomat guest with a secret add to the excitement.

American engineer Steve Corey comes to Mexico to work at one of the mining projects owned by Katherine Beckman and her half-brother Paul. He meets Katherine, and the man he is replacing, Bill Maxton, tells him that Katherine is his for the asking..."all you have to do is touch her---she goes off like fireworks. There were plenty of guys before me, and there'll be plenty after me." Steve finds Katherine as advertised but he falls in love with her. Once he sees that the romance is for real, brother Paul is more than a little displeased at this turn of events and brings back one of Katherine's earlier flames, Gus Cole, to tempt Katherine away from Steve.

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

Biographic movie about the American composer Sigmund Romberg.

In Marseilles, France in 1794, Desiree Clary, a young millinery clerk, becomes infatuated with Napoleon Bonaparte, but winds up wedding General Jean-Baptiste Berandotte, an aid to Napoleon who later joins the forces that bring about the Emperor's downfall. Josephine Beauharnais, a worldly courtesan marries Napoleon and becomes Empress of France, but is then cast aside by her spouse when she proves unable to produce an heir to the throne.

A co-owner of a race track goes on the run after witnessing something he shouldn't have at the track.

Following meetings between Spain and the United States a delegation of a mining company arrives to Granada in search of uranium. The company contacted with the landowners, who agree to sell less of them. Such owner refuses because his ground a treasure supposedly hidden Muslim and refuses to sell them to Margaret, representative of the company. When he refused, Margaret convinces the owner to locate the treasure on your own and sell it in case you find it ... but love gets in his plans.

A compulsive gambler stumbles towards losing everything when Merle Oberon decides to save him from himself.

A Boston school teacher fights with a group of impoverished Frenchmen for possession of an inherited château. Elizabeth Rockwell is indignant when she finds her château filled with squatters, a widower with five messy children, who have no regard for private property rights. This was the French language version of Pardon My French (aka The Lady from Boston)

A Boston school teacher fights with a group of impoverished Frenchmen for possession of an inherited château. Elizabeth Rockwell is indignant when she finds her château filled with squatters, a widower with five messy children, who have no regard for private property rights.

In Victorian era London, the inhabitants of a family home with rented rooms upstairs fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.

In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot.

Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.

A married reporter's assignments carry him all over the world, which gives him ample opportunity to put the moves on the local females.

A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of theatre and film appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance.

A happily married woman sees a psychoanalyst and develops doubts about her husband.

After marrying an archaeologist, a Victorian-era woman with a sordid past realizes that she is not ready to settle down with one man.

Leslie Calvin, the sole survivor of a submarine accident, goes to her relatives in order to recover emotionally. Unfortunately, she encounters various scam artists led by Mr. Sydney who intend to kill her and steal the family assets. Dr. George Grover helps Leslie to defeat Sydney.

Lydia MacMillan, a wealthy woman who has never married, invites several men her own age to her home to reminisce about the times when they were young and courted her. In memory, each romance seemed splendid and destined for happiness, but in each case, Lydia realizes, the truth was less romantic, and ill-starred.

Dying Joan Ames meets criminal Dan Hardesty on a luxury liner as he is being transported back to America by policeman Steve Burke to face execution. Joan and Dan fall in love, their fates unbeknownst to one another.

At a convention, medical researcher Michel Touzac goes with colleagues to see stage caricaturist Targel, whose assistant Florence recognizes him...and attempts suicide. Saved by Touzac's new technique, Florence is revealed in a flashback as Michel's abandoned wife Karin, whom their daughter Susette thinks is dead. Can Susette cope if they now reunite?

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.

Aesop of fable fame poses as an old man and woos away a princess who wants a king for his gold.

Merle Oberon plays a Norwegian resistance figure in a small town, married to a Nazi commandant. When his superiors begin to suspect her, the Allies land an assassin to kill him -- an assassin who happens to be her former lover.

A socialite pretends to be poor and blind in her plan to help a blinded pianist.

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1940.

Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.

Mary Smith decides after a lifetime of being a shut-in to do something wild while her father is out campaigning for the presidency, so she takes off for the family's home in West Palm Beach and inadvertently becomes romantically entangled with earnest cowboy Stretch Willoughby. Neither the dalliance nor the cowboy fit with the upper class image projected by her esteemed father, forcing her to choose.

18th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.

In 1921, British Lord Athleigh arrives in Dublin with his daughter, Helen, to engage in peace talks. As wanted Irish rebel leader Dennis Riordan is not recognized in public, he is able to move about freely and saves the Athleighs from an assassination attempt by a radical faction. Dennis and Helen meet again and, unaware of his position, Helen falls in love with him. Later when Dennis admits his identity, Helen must make a fateful decision.

A London barrister believes the woman who spent the night in his hotel suite is the erring wife of his newest client.

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.

What do women want? Don Juan is aging. He's arrived secretly in Seville after a 20 year absence. His wife Dolores, whom he hasn't lived with in five years, still loves him. He refuses to see her; he fears the life of a husband. She has bought his debts and will remand him to jail for two years if he won't come to her. Meanwhile, an impostor is climbing the balconies of Seville claiming to be Don Juan.

Kitty Vane, Alan Trent, and Gerald Shannon have been inseparable friends since childhood. Kitty has always known she would marry one of them, but has waited until the beginning of World War I before finally choosing Alan. Gerald graciously gives them his blessing. Then, Gerald and Alan go to war. Angered over a misunderstanding involving Alan and Kitty, Gerald sends Alan on a dangerous mission that will change all their lives forever.

Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.

Young Jane Benson just about manages to make ends meet running the large family house in Yorkshire. In love with local doctor Freddie Jarvis, she suggests they marry, but almost at once finds she has inherited eighteen million pounds. He makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the money and what it can buy, and Jane sets off alone on a spree pursued by two ardent suitors. Jarvis finds he has gained notoriety for turning down such a catch and his plans for ernest research are soon compromised.

An impersonates look-alike, causing confusion wife girlfriend.

Viewers are provided a visit to Ken Maynard's private circus; Bette Davis poses for her portrait; Frank McHugh plays with his children; a visit to the West Side Tennis Club affords glimpses of many stars.

Story of a vampish actress who comes between a happily married couple in this light-hearted melodrama.

In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, a Japanese naval officer allows his wife to be seduced by a British naval attaché in order to gain access to a secret report he has written, unaware her marital unhappiness has made her vulnerable to falling in love with him. Adapted from a novel by Claude Farrère, and also filmed in a French-language version, LA BATAILLE., q.v.

This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.

Because his father, Lord Grenham, spends more time philandering with attractive women than conducting business, Willie Tatham is forced to interrupt his honeymoon with his wife Margot in the south of France and return to London to get his father to sign an important contract. While Margot, an actress, goes to a small resort where she will not be recognized, Kitty Lake, one of the young women Lord Grenham pursues, flirts with Willie. Two weeks pass and when Willie tells Margot on the telephone that he must stay in town, she threatens to engage in a violent flirtation with the next attractive man she sees. Karl von der Heide, from Vienna, who is waiting to use the telephone, overhears her and begins a flirtation. She identifies herself to him as Mrs. Margaret Spaulding, and they pursue the beginnings of a romance until Margot suddenly returns home.

The grandmother of a British nobleman, reluctant to marry, plays matchmaker. He outmaneuvers her by getting all of the matches married off.

This early, influential propaganda film blends documentary and studio footage to show the valiant efforts of the Royal Air Force to defend the British people against the Nazis.

A useless secretary and his private detective friend try to help an heiress from being swindled by her guardian.

An unfinished 1937 film adaptation of life and times of the Roman Emperor, Claudius. The production was dogged by adverse circumstances, culminating in a car accident involving co-star Merle Oberon that caused filming to cease before completion.

A sailor falls in love with a woman he meets at the dockside, but is deeply conflicted because his former lover is in prison.

In the years after his graduation Allen Shepherd has become a successful novelist and has married Jane Anderson. A firm proponent of traditional sex roles, Shepherd leaves Jane when she accepts a teaching post at Oxford. He later changes his views, and the couple is reunited.

A composer goes to Devil's Island for killing his wife's lover, then writes an opera about it.

This early Gainsborough film is truly a lost treasure and easily one of the most daring and risque films ever made. At least half a dozen different tales seem to be going on at once all finally meeting in the end. The story starts in the Lido hotel where our "Pickles" remarks upon the fact that everyone in the register is called Smith. Hes trying to chat up Mimi so shell split up with her boyfriend as her boyfriends uncle has other plans for his nephew - alas what no one knows is that he and Mimi have already been married for a few months on the sly!

Max Tracey is the head waiter at a London hotel. He falls in love at first sight with Sylvia Robertson, an aristocratic woman, and poses as a prince to win her love. In this venture, he is aided by Mr. Westlake, a Ruritanian monarch who owes him a favour. When Sylvia discovers Max's deception, she is appalled, but the situation is resolved when her father tells her that he was once a hotel dishwasher.

A comedy film directed by Lupino Lane.

A Lord's son aids a seaman's mission but returns to save his sick father's shipyard from strikers.