Friendly persuasion 1956 - Pacifism put to the test during the Civil War

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IMDB Rating: 7,5

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins, Richard Eyer, Robert Middleton, Phyllis Love

"Friendly Persuasion is a charming, sensitive tale of a family of Quakers that attempts to maintain their pacifist ideals amid the turmoil of the U.S. Civil War. Best-known for playing quiet, understated characters who use violence when pushed too far, Gary Cooper gets the opportunity to explore a more peaceful resolution - though the film occasionally suggests that no person can be completely pacifistic. The tech credits are solid, as should be expected for a film directed by William Wyler; of particular note are Dimitri Tiomkin's score and Dorothy Jeakins's costume design. Though the film tends to exaggerate Quaker speech, the performances are convincing, and the screenplay (by blacklisted Michael Wilson) does a good job of transferring Jessamyn West's story to the screen. The film received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, though it did not win in any category." - www.allmovie.com

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Roman holiday 1953 - An enchanting fairy tale that catapulted Audrey into stardom

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IMDB Rating: 8,1

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert

"With Audrey Hepburn at her most appealing, Gregory Peck at his most charismatic, and Rome at its most photogenic, Roman Holiday remains one of the most popular romances that has ever skipped across the screen. Aside from being an enormously enjoyable romp, the film is most notable for two reasons. The first is Hepburn, featured here in her first starring role in a Hollywood film. Her performance won her an Academy Award and established her as an actress whose waifish, delicate beauty presented a viable alternative to the amply proportioned bombshells of the day. With her wide-eyed but cultivated portrayal of Princess Anne, Hepburn kicked off a trend defined by the Audrey Hepburn 'look' - simple, sophisticated, and streamlined. The second reason for the film's importance is its location. Whereas modern-day filmmakers may think nothing of jetting off to remote and exotic locales, in 1953 the idea of traveling beyond a Hollywood soundstage was fairly novel. Director William Wyler's use of Rome is one of the best examples of how a location can become a leading character in a film: without the city's twisted alleyways, bustling crowds, and hulking ruins, Roman Holiday would have had the visual impact of a museum diorama. The effect of using the actual city in the film was eye-popping: audiences saw not just a romance between the two lead characters but a love affair between the camera and the city. In this respect, Roman Holiday goes beyond its status as one of the screen's most enduring romances to become one of history's most thumbed-through travel brochures.
Oscar also went to the screenplay, credited to Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton but actually co-written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo." - www.allmovie.com

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The heiress 1949 - Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-winning performance

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins

"Henry James based his 1881 novella Washington Square on a real-life incident, wherein a young actor of his acquaintance married an unattractive but very wealthy young woman for the express purpose of living the rest of his life in luxury. Washington Square was turned into a stage play in 1946 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; this, in turn was adapted for the movies under the title The Heiress. Olivia DeHavilland won an Academy Award (her second) for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widower Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Catherine is not only unattractive, but lacks most of the social graces, thanks in great part to the domineering attitudes of her father. When Catherine falls in love with handsome young Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she is convinced that her love is reciprocated, else why would Morris be so affectionate towards her? Dr. Sloper sees things differently, correctly perceiving that Morris is a callow fortune hunter. Standing up to her father for the first time in her life, Catherine insists that she will elope with Morris; but when Dr. Sloper threatens to cut off her dowry, Morris disappears. Still, Catherine threatens to run off with the next young man who pays any attention to her; Sloper, belatedly realizing how much he has hurt his only child, arranges to leave her his entire fortune. Years pass: Morris returns, insisting that he'd only left because he didn't want to cause Catherine the 'grief' of being disinherited. Seemingly touched by Morris' 'sincerity', Catherine agrees to elope with him immediately. But when Morris arrives at the appointed hour, he finds the door locked and bolted. Asked how she can treat Morris so cruelly, Catherine replies coldly 'Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters'. Though The Heiress ends on a downbeat note, the audience is gratified to know that Catherine Sloper has matured from ugly-duckling loser to a tower of strength who will never allow herself to be manipulated by anyone ever again. World War II had forever changed the role of women in U.S. society, and The Heiress, in the guise of a period drama, carried the theme of women's increasing power in the postwar years. This is just one of several films from the era that were thus both excellent dramas and interesting allegories. " - www.allmovie.com

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The best years of our lives 1946 - The postwar classic

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Cathy O'Donnell, Hoagy Carmichael

"When Samuel Goldwyn decided to make The Best Years of Our Lives, Hollywood was running away from World War II-related scripts as though the subject itself had the plague -- movies about men in uniform had been box-office poison since early 1945. The assumption was that returning veterans would be even less willing than those who'd stayed on the home front to shell out money to be reminded of their service. Goldwyn, director William Wyler, and screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood (working from MacKinlay Kantor's blank verse novel Glory for Me), and a cast from heaven (some of them, like Dana Andrews and Virginia Mayo, giving the greatest performances of their careers) proved the industry wrong, and they opened up a whole new subject area by focusing on the men giving up their uniforms, the women and children around them, and even the men who hadn't served. They ended up with a 170-minute movie whose every shot was dramatically and psychically spellbinding, embracing the relief, anxiety, pain, joy, and doubts that Americans could now express. The setting of the movie in a small city somewhere in the middle of the country gave it a Norman Rockwell veneer, while the script melded that background with some healthy cynicism and emotional honesty borne out of the movie world's new awareness of modern psychology. Thus, the film had its feet in both pre-war and post-war consciousness, appealing to two generations of filmgoers (or even three, as the World War I-era audience was still around and had hardly been served well in its own time).
Profoundly relevant in 1946, the film still offers a surprisingly intricate and ambivalent exploration of American daily life; and it features landmark deep-focus cinematography from Gregg Toland, who also shot Citizen Kane. The film won Oscars for, among others, Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for March, and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee whose hands had been blown off in a training accident." - www.allmovie.com

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Mrs. Miniver 1942 - A little dated, but still impressive war-time propaganda movie

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney, Henry Wilcoxon

"As Academy Award-winning films go, Mrs. Miniver has not weathered the years all that well. This prettified, idealized view of the upper-class British home front during World War II sometimes seems over-calculated and contrived when seen today. In particular, Greer Garson's Oscar-winning performance in the title role often comes off as artificial, especially when she nobly tends her rose garden while her stalwart husband (Walter Pidgeon) participates in the evacuation at Dunkirk. However, even if the film has lost a good portion of its ability to move and inspire audiences, it is easy to see why it was so popular in 1942 - and why Winston Churchill was moved to comment that its propaganda value was worth a dozen battleships. Everyone in the audience - even English audiences, closer to the events depicted in the film than American filmgoers - liked to believe that he or she was capable of behaving with as much grace under pressure as the Miniver family. The film's setpieces-the Minivers huddling in their bomb shelter during a Luftwaffe attack, Mrs. Miniver confronting a downed Nazi paratrooper in her kitchen, an annual flower show being staged despite the exigencies of bombing raids, cleric Henry Wilcoxon's climactic call to arms from the pulpit of his ruined church-are masterfully staged and acted, allowing one to ever so briefly forget that this is, after all, slick propagandizing.
In addition to Best Picture and Best Actress, Mrs. Miniver garnered Oscars for best supporting actress (Teresa Wright), best director (William Wyler), best script (Arthur Wimperis, George Froschel, James Hilton, Claudine West), best cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg). Garson's Oscar win and lengthy acceptance speech became a long-running joke in Hollywood - for example, the claims that she stayed at the podium for 45 minutes or more. (Her actual acceptance remarks took around 5 minutes, still the longest-ever Oscar acceptance speech.)
Richard Ney, who plays Greer Garson's son, later married the actress and still later became a successful Wall Street financier. Mrs. Miniver was followed by a 1951 sequel, The Miniver Story, but without the wartime setting the bloom was off the rose." - www.allmovie.com

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The letter 1940 - Bette Davis in one of her nastiest roles

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Gale Sondergaard, Cecil Kellaway

"The Letter combines William Wyler's smooth direction and a fine performance from Bette Davis into one of the screen's best melodramas. The film is distinguished by its lush production values, including Tony Gaudio's cinematography and costume gowns by Orry-Kelly, but mostly it is Davis who carries the film. She is ably assisted by her co-stars, particularly Herbert Marshall as her husband and James Stephenson as her lawyer. W. Somerset Maugham's source novel provides a strong framework, which had been filmed before in 1929, with Marshall as the murdered lover. Although the Wyler version scored an impressive seven Oscar nominations, it went home empty-handed." - www.allmovie.com

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Wuthering heights 1939 - Torn with desire, tortured by hate!

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, David Niven, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp, Geraldine Fitzgerald

"William Wyler's Wuthering Heights is one of the earliest screen adaptations of the classic Emily Brontë novel. Together with Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights represents the pinnacle of 1930s Hollywood romanticism. Laurence Olivier's contemptuous treatment of Merle Oberon in the film may have been partly heartfelt: He had wanted the great love of his life, Vivien Leigh, to play Cathy, but producer Samuel Goldwyn didn't see things that way, especially since Gone With the Wind had not yet established Leigh as a star of international magnitude. Though director William Wyler, cinematographer Gregg Toland, and art director James Basevi convincingly re-create the storm-tossed moors of Yorkshire, Wuthering Heights was filmed in California's Conejo Hills with extensive 'exterior' work within studio walls. The last image, of Heathcliffe and Cathy joyously walking hand in hand into the hereafter, is a bit of audience-pleasing idiocy which Wyler was dead set against: Neither he nor stars Olivier and Oberon participated in this scene (the actors were replaced by their stand-ins). Despite this artistic gaffe, Wuthering Heights is a well-nigh perfect example of studio-system moviemaking." - www.allmovie.com

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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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Counsellor at law 1933 - One of the best lawyer films of the 30's

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023911/
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: John Barrymore, Bebe Daniels, Doris Kenyon, Isabel Jewell, Melvyn Douglas, Thelma Todd

"Adapted from the play by Elmer Rice, Counsellor-at-Law is the story of a successful Jewish lawyer George Simon (John Barrymore) who finds it's lonely at the top. Barrymore gives a crackling performance as a dynamic Manhattan lawyer who's worked his way to the top, yet still has the hunger of an immigrant Jew who came over in steerage. Seemingly master of all he surveys - his offices are in the Empire State Building! - he suddenly finds himself facing disbarment, and ditching by the elegant WASP wife (Doris Kenyon) who's always wished he would practice law 'like a gentleman'.
Such a stagy stratagem (Elmer Rice adapting his own play) usually spells static filmmaking, but Wyler (who signaled his readiness to take a big step up in class with this expertly directed movie) brings off a cinematic tour de force, an energetic direction with tensile camerawork, sharp performances, and brilliant set design (Charles D. Hall) that gets great visual excitement out of all the doors, glass walls, and skyscraper windows."

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