James Cagney

The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.

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

Home movies, photographs, and recited poetry illustrate the life of Tupac Shakur, one of the most beloved, revolutionary, and volatile hip-hop MCs of all time.

Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.

Vaudeville is a 1997 PBS documentary under its American Masters program. Using film clips and photos, the art and history of vaudeville (1890-1930s) is illustrated.

Michael J. Fox hosts this documentary featuring film clips and rare behind-the-scenes footage that traces superstar James Cagney's rise to the top.

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'.

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from its origins after the invention of the movie camera, over the movie musical from the late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, up to the break dance and music videos from the 80s.

The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.

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.

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

A celebration of Hollywood in the 1930s, featuring a compilation of clips from features and newsreels of the era.

In Cold War-era West Berlin, American Coca-Cola executive C.R. 'Mac' MacNamara is tasked with playing babysitter to his boss' spoiled 17-year-old daughter Scarlett, who proves more difficult than anticipated when she reveals that she is pregnant by a Communist.

A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.

An ex-convict drifter and his flawed young partner are made sheriff and deputy of a Western town.

Mr. Roberts is a Navy officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.

The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.

A Broadway director helps the West Point cadets put on a show, aided by two lovely ladies and assorted complications.

Two military men, Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt, who are rivals to begin with, grow more at odds with each other when Quirt is made Flagg's top sergeant. And when a local beauty comes between them, their rivalry escalates even further. But when they discover that the woman has marriage in mind, they now compete to try to avoid marching down the aisle - that is, until they are called upon to march into battle.

A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.

Vaudeville entertainer Eddie Foy, who has vowed to forever keep his act a solo, falls in love with and marries Italian ballerina Madeleine. While they continue to tour the circuit, they begin a family and before long have seven little Foys to clutter the wings. After tragedy threatens to stall Eddie's career, he comes to realize that his little terrors are worth their weight in gold. - Chris Stone

Jeremy Rodock is a tough horse rancher who strings up rustlers as soon as looks at them. Fresh out of Pennsylvania, Steve Miller finds it hard to get used to Rodock’s ways, although he takes an immediate shine to his Greek girl Jocasta.

Ralph Cotter, a ruthless criminal, escapes violently from a farm prison. Then, he seduces a dead inmate’s sister, gets back quickly into the crime business, faces corrupt local cops who run the city’s underworld and meets a powerful tycoon’s whimsical daughter.

In 1921 Dublin, the IRA battles the "Black & Tans," special British forces given to harsh measures. Irish-American medical student Kerry O'Shea hopes to stay aloof, but saving a wounded friend gets him outlawed, and inexorably drawn into the rebel organization by his former professor Sean Lenihan, who has "shaken hands with the devil" and begun to think of fighting as an end in itself. Complications arise when Kerry falls for a beautiful English hostage, and the British offer a peace treaty that is not enough to satisfy Lenihan.

Alcoholic newspaperman Lew Marsh hits bottom, loses his job and is rehabilitated by Charley Dolan. After six years on the wagon he gets his job back and devotes himself to other recovering alcoholics.

To impress a movie star, a U.S. Air Force crewman pretends he is soon to see combat. When his lie gets out, chaos ensues.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.

The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?

A financially-strapped charter pilot hires himself to an oil tycoon to kidnap his madcap daughter and prevent her from marrying a vapid band leader.

Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.

Bob Sharkey, an instructor of would-be spies for the Allied Office of Strategic Services, becomes suspicious of one of the latest batch of students, Bill O'Connell, who is too good at espionage. His boss, Charles Gibson confirms that O'Connell is really a top German agent, but tells Sharkey to pass him, as they intend to feed the mole false information about the impending D-Day invasion.

Nick Condon, an American journalist in 20s Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.

A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan.

Joe spends a lot of his time at Nick's Pacific Street Saloon. Tom, who credits Joe with once saving his life, stops by regularly to run errands for Joe. Today, Tom notices a woman named Kitty when she comes into Nick's, and he quickly falls in love with her. Meanwhile, a distraught young man repeatedly calls his girlfriend, begging her to marry him. Nick himself muses on all the various persons who come into his bar, some to ask for work and others just to pass the time.

A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

Biff Grimes is desperately in love with Virginia, but his best friend Hugo marries her and manipulates Biff into becoming involved in his somewhat nefarious businesses. Hugo appears to have stolen Biff's dreams, and Biff has to deal with the realisation that having what he wants and wanting what another has can be very different things.

Inspired by Churchill's Dunkirk speech, brash, undisciplined Canadian bush pilot Brian MacLean and three friends enlist in the RCAF.

Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, in 2013.

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.

After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.

Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.

McCord's gang robs the stage carrying money to pay Indians for their land, and the notorious outlaw "The Oklahoma Kid" Jim Kincaid takes the money from McCord. McCord stakes a "sooner" claim on land which is to be used for a new town; in exchange for giving it up, he gets control of gambling and saloons. When Kincaid's father runs for mayor, McCord incites a mob to lynch the old man whom McCord has already framed for murder.

Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.

James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.

A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.

Two Marine pilots vie for romance and glory.

An ex-gang member tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal influence after he suddenly becomes a Hollywood movie star.

An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.

An ex-con uses his street smarts to become a successful photojournalist.

Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles. Thompson needs a quick way to discredit him.

Famous auto racing champion Joe Greer returns to his hometown to compete in a local race, discovering that his younger brother has aspirations to become a racing champion.

A hustling public relations man promotes a series of fads.

A boxer and his policeman brother feud over a police captain's daughter.

After a roustabout sailor avoids being shanghaied in 1850s San Francisco, his audacity helps him rise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.

Two brothers' trip to the big city to do a little gambling results in a fateful turn of events.

A cocky guy joins the Navy for the wrong reason but finds romance and twice is cited for heroism.

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1936.