Robert Donat

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

Focussing on his early career, this profile looks at director Alfred Hitchcock’s breakthrough in silent films, acclaimed thrillers such as “The 39 Steps” (1935) and the influences which prompted his departure for a new life in America in 1939. Featuring Hugh Stewart, editor of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934).

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.

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.

Overview of director King Vidor's filmography.

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.

All her life, Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was where she belonged. Unqualified to be sent as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn to send herself to a poor, remote village. There, she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as 'foot inspector', advising the local Mandarin, and even winning the heart of mixed-race Captain Lin Nan. Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives.

Now old, ill, poor, and largely forgotten, William Freise-Greene was once young and handsome William Green. He changed his name to include his first wife's for the photographic portrait work he excelled at. But he was also an inventor and his search for a way to project moving pictures became an obsession that ultimately changed the life of all those he loved.

William Thorne, vicar of a small village, leads a modest life as a clergyman. Supporting his wife Vera and musically talented daughter Susan with his work, Thorne is also thoroughly devoted to his community. When he finds out that he doesn't have long to live, however, Thorne rethinks his staid existence and develops a more vibrant way of being, affecting all of those around him.

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.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

British Captain Terence Stevenson accepts an assignment even more dangerous than his everyday job of defusing undetonated bombs. Fluent in Romanian and German and having studied chemical engineering, he's parachuted into Romania to assume the identity of Captain Jan Tartu, a member of the fascist Iron Guard. Tartu makes his way to Czechoslovakia to steal the formula of a new Nazi poison gas and sabotage the factory of its manufacturing.

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

In pre-WWI England, a youngster is expelled from a naval academy over a petty theft, but his parents raise a political furor by demanding a trial.

In 1783 England, King George III appoints William Pitt only 24 years old, as PM. When members of Parliament refuse to take Pitt seriously, he calls for a general election and wins. Pitt works to reform England, focusing on rebuilding the navy while across the sea in France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his conquest of Europe.

After World War II service changes them, a married couple dread their postwar reunion.

In 19th-century Ireland, when poverty-stricken tenants dispossessed by greedy landowner Captain Charles Boycott band together to assert their rights, patriotic farmer Hugh Davin leads the rebels. Choosing nonviolent resistance, the villagers ostracise their nemesis, who squanders his fortune to repair his ruined reputation and wagers what's left on a horse race.

A new batch of Army recruits, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of commitment, is shaped into an efficient fighting unit.

A sergeant returns from war to his contemptible fiancée, intending to reconcile with her against all odds. But he falls in love with a charming new lodger instead.

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

Throughout the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, Mr Arthur Chipping rises from a shy, nervous teacher to the beloved, revered headmaster of Brookfield School, with his life and career shaped by his love for his wife and his unwavering dedication to his students.

Peggy Martin, daughter of a wealthy American businessman, persuades her father to buy a haunted Scottish castle from Donald Glourie. As the castle is dismantled and transported to Florida, its ghost tags along. Donald and Peggy fall in love, but the restless apparition proves to unwelcome, and they must find a way to appease the kilt-wearing spirit.

Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.

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.

Young, idealistic, newly qualified Scottish doctor Andrew Manson arrives in Wales and takes his first job in a mining town, and begins to wonder at the persistent cough many of the miners have. When his attempts to prove its cause are thwarted, he moves to London. His new practice does poorly, but when a friend shows him how to make a lucrative practice from rich hypochondriacs, it will take a great shock to show him what the truth of being a doctor really is.

A formerly wealthy man and his daughter try to regain wealth by selling a scheme to some investors, when they come upon a huge amount of unclaimed cash that a young electrician has in his toolbox.

In the last days of Czarist Russia, Russian-speaking Briton A.J. Fothergill is enlisted by his government to go undercover as Bolshevik radical Peter Ouranoff in an attempt to gain access to the revolutionaries' inner circle. Tasked with accompanying lovely aristocrat Alexandra Vladinoff from Moscow to Petrograd to be tried for crimes against the proletariat, Peter attempts to spirit her out of the war-torn country.

A young bank clerk steals £500 and plans to go on a spree before shooting himself but a bad girl turned good tries to convince him to return the money and stay alive

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.