The King and I 1956 - The much-loved family classic

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,5

Director: Walter Lang
Main Cast: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders, Rex Thompson

"The King and I, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's 1951 Broadway musical hit, was based on Margaret Landon's book Anna and the King of Siam. Since 20th-Century-Fox had made a film version of the Landon book in 1946, that studio had first dibs on the movie adaptation of The King and I. It typifies the elaborate Broadway musical adaptations with which Hollywood studios often tried to fight the advance of television of 1950s. In general, The King and I tends to be somewhat stagey, with the notable exception of the matchless 'Small House of Uncle Thomas' ballet, which utilizes the Cinemascope 55 format to best advantage (the process also does a nice job of 'handling' Deborah Kerr's voluminous hoopskirts) to counter the smallness of the TV screen, offering equally grand set design, costumes, and cinematography. Most of the Broadway version's best songs ('Getting to Know You', 'Whistle a Happy Tune', 'A Puzzlement', 'Shall We Dance' etc.) are retained. None of the omissions are particularly regrettable, save for Anna's solo 'Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?' This feisty attack on the King's chauvinism was specially written to suit the talents of Gertrude Lawrence, who played Anna in the original production; the song was cut from the film because it made Deborah Kerr seem 'too bitchy' (Kerr's singing, incidentally, is dubbed for the most part by the ubiquitous Marni Nixon - who had been responsible for Natalie Wood's singing voice in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn's in My Fair Lady). So the songs and performances are equally impressive: Yul Brynner - being the main attraction of the movie - won an Oscar for his career-best performance as the King of Siam, the role that made him a star and with which he will forever be identified." - www.allmovie.com

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A streetcar named Desire 1951 - A milestone Hollywood work with Brando's star-making performance

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Elia Kazan
Main Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

"With the same director (Elia Kazan), a screenplay co-adapted by the playwright (Tennessee Williams), and three-quarters of the Broadway production's stars, A Streetcar Named Desire transcended 'filmed theater' to become a groundbreaking Hollywood work. Battling the stringent Production Code, Kazan and Williams made concessions concerning the 'perverse' sexual elements of Blanche DuBois' past, but they retained the crucial rape of 'delicate', old-fashioned Blanche by brutal, 'modern' Stanley Kowalski, earning the Code's approval for a film definitively aimed toward adults. Marlon Brando's star-making performance as the 'Stella'-howling Stanley burned itself into popular consciousness with its combination of carnality and Method-acting 'naturalness', establishing Brando as the premier purveyor of the then-innovative Method acting style and a striking erotic presence. The more traditional Vivien Leigh, replacing Broadway's Jessica Tandy, similarly flourished as Blanche, while the Oscar-winning art direction, Harry Stradling's photography, and Alex North's moody, influential jazz score enhanced the hothouse atmosphere. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars, including Best Picture, and took home awards for Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter, though Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen." - www.allmovie.com

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Born yesterday 1950 - Judy Holliday's pitch-perfect performance

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden

"Garson Kanin's Broadway hit was transferred to the screen with only a few passing nods to the stricter censorship required by films. Judy Holliday won an Oscar for her portrayal of Billie Dawn, a strident, dim-bulbed ex-chorus girl who is the mistress of millionaire junk tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford). In Washington to put a few senators and congressmen in his pocket (the better to lay the groundwork for an illegal cartel), the rude-and-crude Brock realizes that the unrefined Billie will prove an embarrassment. Thus he hires idealistic but impoverished Paul Verrell (William Holden) to pump some intelligence and 'class' into Billie. Paul does his job too well; by awakening Billie's social and political consciousness, he turns the girl into Brock's most formidable foe in his efforts to buy influence in DC. Along the way Paul and Billie fall in love.
Crooked politicians were nothing new to motion pictures, but the film was released into an era of Anti-Communism when even the smallest criticism of the U.S. government was perceived as serving the Communist cause. So strong was this mood that Holliday was investigated by the FBI - and cleared via a personal message from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to studio chief Harry Cohn." - www.allmovie.com

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All about Eve 1950 - "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night!"

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IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Main Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Ritter

"Based on the story The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, All About Eve is an elegantly bitchy backstage story revolving around aspiring actress Eve Harrington. A skewering satire of the theatre world, All About Eve entertains while it eviscerates. This is a film that really does have it all: Joseph L. Mankiewicz's sure-handed direction and gloriously poisonous screenplay, celluloid diva Bette Davis at her disdainful best, uniformly excellent performances from the supporting cast, and costumes that further demonstrate that designer Edith Head did indeed give good wardrobe. The fact that All About Eve swept the 1950 Academy Awards (receiving six, including Best Picture) speaks to all of these qualities, but a great deal of the film's historical and cinematic importance lies in its content. For years, Broadway had taken aim at Hollywood, and now the tables were turned with considerable venom. Mankiewicz's script summoned into existence a whole array of painfully recognizable theatre types, from the aging, egomaniacal grand dame to the outwardly docile, inwardly scheming ingenue to the powerful critic who reeks of malignant charm." - www.allmovie.com

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On the town 1949 - One of MGM's brightest musicals

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Main Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, Vera-Ellen

"Three sailors on a 24-hour pass - Gabey (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) - decide to soak up the sights and sounds of New York. Each one finds romance within those 24 hours: Gabey with aspiring dancer Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), Chip with lady cabbie Hildy Esterhazy (Betty Garrett), and Ozzie with paleontology student Claire Huddesten (Ann Miller).
Adapted from the Broadway musical by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Leonard Bernstein, On the Town is one of the freshest, most exhilarating musicals turned out by the old MGM regime. The stars' verve and camaraderie are contagious, and the songs are staged by legendary musical director Stanley Donen and Kelly himself with wit and innovation. Highlights include the opening 'New York, New York' number, shot on location and flat-cutting from one image to another at a dizzying pace, and Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen's 'Miss Turnstyles Ballet'." - www.allmovie.com

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The front page 1931 - The first version of the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur Broadway hit

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IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Lewis Milestone
Main Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett, George E. Stone, Mae Clarke

"The original screen version of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's 1928 Broadway hit remains perhaps the most faithful to its theatrical origins - although, as an inside joke, several character names were altered to reflect the change in medium, e.g. 'George Kid Cukor' and 'Judge Mankiewicz'. But Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) is still attempting to keep star reporter Hildy Johnson (Pat O'Brien) from leaving his place at the paper in favor of marrying the upwardly mobile Peggy Grant (Mary Brian). And poor Earl Williams (George E. Stone's), whose upcoming hanging drives the plot, is still more or less ignored while the tough reporters crack wise. The overlapping lines are much in evidence here and obviously not the invention of Howard Hawks, whose gender-switch remake His Girl Friday (1941) may be faster but not nearly as gritty. Menjou, who actually fits his bombastic role better than perhaps expected, was actually a last minute replacement when the original choice, Louis Wolheim, suddenly died. Menjou went on to win an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. Producer Howard Hughes drew mightily from the Warner Bros. stock company and every role, no matter how small, is filled with such notorious scene stealers as Edward Everett Horton as the prissy Bensinger; Clarence H. Wilson as the inane sheriff, and Mae Clarke as the self-sacrificing streetwalker Molly Malloy. In fact; Miss Clarke conveys the character's desperation skillfully. According to Mary Brian, The Front Page was this charming actress' favorite film." - www.allmovie.com

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https://archive.org/download/TheFrontPage1931AdolpheMenjouPatOBrienLewismiles/TheFrontPage1931AdolpheMenjouPatOBrienLewismiles.avi

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Animal crackers 1930 - One of the best Marx Brothers films

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Victor Heerman
Main Cast: Marx Brotheers, Lillian Roth, Margaret Dumont

"Though many critics rank 1933's Duck Soup as the funniest Marx Brothers movie, others may prefer Animal Crackers, released in 1930. Based on the hit Broadway play by George S. Kaufman and Morris Ryskind, Animal Crackers features Groucho Marx as explorer Captain Spaulding, who is the guest of honor at a party hosted by wealthy matron Mrs. Rittenhouse (Groucho's favorite foil Margaret Dumont). The plot is a flimsy excuse for Groucho, Chico, and Harpo to run amok, with Zeppo playing his customary straight-man role. Director Victor Heerman is basically a bystander as the brothers take over, treating film as an extension of vaudeville. Animal Crackers was funnier and a bigger success than its predecessor, The Cocoanuts, and it marked the true beginning of the Marx Brothers' long and successful film careers, establishing their unique blend of physical and verbal mayhem." - www.allmovie.com

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The animal kingdom 1932 - Good mistress vs. bad wife

Ann Harding, Leslie Howard & Myrna Loy in The Animal Kingdom (1932)

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IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: George Cukor, Edward H. Griffith
Main Cast: Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Neil Hamilton, Ilka Chase

"The first film version of Philip Barry's Broadway play The Animal Kingdom stars Ann Harding, Leslie Howard and Myrna Loy. Howard plays a wealthy publisher who decides to marry the socially prominent Loy, leaving his mistress Harding in the lurch. In comically convoluted fashion, Loy behaves like a callous libertine, while Harding is the soul of love and fidelity. The frustrated Howard declares at the end that he is going back to his 'wife' - meaning, of course, the faithful Harding. Animal Kingdom was long withdrawn from public view due to the 1946 remake One More Tomorrow; a pristine 35-millimeter print was discovered in the Warner Bros. vaults in the mid-1980s.
Philip Barry as a playwright was able to find an audience in two distinct eras of American history, the carefree Roaring Twenties and the poorer socially significant Thirties. He did with a clever mixture of social commentary while writing about the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.
The Animal Kingdom had a 183 performance run on Broadway the previous year and its star Leslie Howard was a movie name already on two continents. So Howard, Bill Gargan, and Ilka Chase repeat their Broadway roles here.
Harding was an interesting leading woman - she was attractive but not beautiful and had a very low, distinctive speaking voice. She came from the Broadway stage, and her heyday in films was through the mid-thirties, though she worked consistently in films and television until the mid-60s. As was the case back then, at 31 years of age, her time as a leading lady was drawing to a close, and soon would be turned over to people like the younger Loy. Her performance in The Animal Kingdom is a very honest one. Loy is absolutely ravishing as she essays the part of the glamorous wife beautifully, reminiscent of Gene Tierney later on with the ultra-feminine facade hiding the steel underneath. Howard is handsome and thoughtful in the lead, and one can see it slowly occurring to him that he made a mistake."

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Doctor X 1932 - Beware the full moon!

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IMDB rating: 6,5

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, John Wray

"Michael Curtis's Doctor X is a strange movie by any definition, both in its content and its execution. Based on a mystery/melodrama by Howard Warren Comstock and Allen C. Miller, which ran for 80 performances (a marginally respectable, if not profitable run, in those days) on Broadway in the winter/spring of 1931, the play was mostly set in the offices of a New York newspaper and in East Orange, New Jersey - screenwriter Earl W. Baldwin moved the action entirely to New York and Long Island, effectively creating an old dark house mystery; and Curtiz transposed it all into an eerily stylized mode, shot in two-color Technicolor that gives the whole movie a strangely mixed look of not-quite-verisimilitude and unearthly eeriness. Actually, the main element of New York verisimilitude resides in the presence and performance of Lee Tracy's fast-talking reporter, who propels a lot of the action forward in what is otherwise a surprisingly talkie script; Tracy makes an unconventional but likable hero, and is well matched to Fay Wray as the daughter of Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill), the pathologist called in on the case of the 'Moon Killer'. His casting, and the deliberately overstated performances by his colleagues at the Academy of Surgical Research, fill the movie with potential suspects (some of whom are obvious red herrings). The resolution, such as it is, and the logic of the story, coupled with the talkie nature of the picture, make Doctor X more of a curio than a truly great, or even very good movie. For decades the movie was only available in murky black-and-white prints, which further reduced its value, apart from the eeriness of the plot and resolution, but the renewed availability of Technicolor prints has restored much of its original value. (The movie was successful enough in its time to justify the creation of a low-budget (black-and-white) faux sequel, The Return of Dr. X, seven years later, with a pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart in the title role)." - www.allmovie.com

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The criminal code 1931 - "Somebody's got to pay!"

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021770/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, DeWitt Jennings, Mary Doran

"Howard Hawks' early sound prison melodrama, based on a play by Martin Flavin, already contains his stylistic signature of over-lapping dialogue - a technique he would greatly expand upon in the next ten years. Walter Huston is district attorney Brady, who quickly convicts Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) of murdering a man who was harassing his girlfriend. Brady is later made the warden of the prison where Robert is held. Brady tries to make friends with Robert, but Robert will have no dealings with the new warden. Nevertheless, Brady, who thinks Robert is a decent man who became embroiled in extraordinary circumstances, gives Robert a job as his chauffeur. As he drives with Brady's daughter Mary (Constance Cummings), the two fall in love. Meanwhile, things heat up back at the prison, where crazed killer Ned Galloway (Boris Karloff) kills the squealer Runch (Clark Marshall). Robert knows Ned killed Runch, but refuses to tell Brady. Brady reluctantly sends Robert to solitary confinement to get him to give up the murderer's name, but Robert holds out on him.
Constance Cummins isn't given much as Huston's daughter but she is appealing. However, Boris Karloff gives one of his very finest performances as a tough but decent prisoner.
The Criminal Code is one of Hawks' lesser known films (maybe because he was uncredited as director). It is simply a superlative film that is dominated by powerhouse performances by Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes and Boris Karloff. Holmes acting was occasionally flat in films but when he was given the right role he was fantastic as he definitely was here. The Criminal Code, which opened on Broadway in 1929 and lasted a very respectable 179 performances, was another acting honor for Walter Huston."

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Babes in arms 1939 - Let's put on a show!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031066/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: Busby Berkeley
Main Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee

"Babes in Arms is a prime example of the 'let's put on a show' musical popular in the 1930s and 1940s. The nominal plot is little more than a means of connecting the elaborate production numbers; the supporting cast are little more than props for stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Busby Berkeley's direction is able and functional: like the audience, he's just eager to get to the next dance set. MGM had other priorities at the time of Babes' production - most notably Garland's classic The Wizard of Oz, on which the studio lost money, and the expensive, lucrative Gone With the Wind - so the budget for the Berkeley musical was surprisingly low. What Babes in Arms lacks in production grandeur, however, it amply compensates with the captivating star turns from Rooney and Garland." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/babes-in-arms-v3541/

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Dead end 1937 - What chance have they got?

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028773/?ref_=nv_sr_2
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Allen Jenkins, Marjorie Main

"Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Drina Gordon (Sylvia Sidney) tries to prevent her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from wasting his life as a member of the local street gang. Tommy and the other kids idolize Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), a onetime East- sider who has hit the 'big time' as a notorious gangster. Dodging the cops, Martin makes a sentimental journey to the neighborhood to visit his mother (Marjorie Main) and his old girlfriend Francie (Clare Trevor). But Martin's mother coldly tells him to get lost, while Francie reveals herself to be a consumptive prostitute. Despite his depressed state, Martin is still admired by the local kids; this displeases sign painter Dave Connell (Joel McCrea), who hopes to escape the slums via his romance with wealthy Kay Burton (Wendy Barrie). Attempting to kidnap a rich boy who'd earlier been beaten up by the street kids, Martin is prevented from making the snatch by Dave, who shoots Martin down. Receiving a large reward, Dave decides to give the money to Drina so that she can afford a lawyer to defend her brother Tommy, who has wrongfully been accused of masterminding the beating of the rich kid. His outlook on life altered by this unselfish act, Dave gives up his mercenary romance with Kay Burton, choosing instead the poverty-stricken Drina. The film introduces the Dead End Kids - Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Gabe Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsley and Bobby Jordan - all of whom were veterans of the Broadway version of Dead End and would be metamorphosed into the East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/dead-end-v12692

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(avi, 853 MB):

http://filenuke.com/nena8hf857nc