Mildred Pierce 1945 - Miss Crawford's tour-de-force performance

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett

"Joan Crawford won an Academy Award for her bravura portrayal of the titular heroine in Mildred Pierce. The original James M. Cain novel concerns a wife and mother who works her way to financial security to provide a rosy future for her beloved daughter, but encounters difficulties and tragedies along the way. Ranald McDougall's screenplay tones down the sexual content, enhancing its film noir value by adding a sordid murder. Under the direction of top Warner Bros. helmer Michael Curtiz, Crawford's glamorously fur-clad Mildred initially appears to be a femme fatale as she walks down a dark, rain-slicked pier after a murdered man dies uttering her name. Evenly lit flashbacks, however, reveal Mildred as an upwardly mobile working mother, bonding with wisecracking co-worker Ida and trying to make a good life for her daughters after her weak husband Bert cheats on her. Ace Warner cinematographer Ernest Haller's noir shadows and skewed angles begin to encroach on Mildred's story as her relationship with hellacious daughter Veda and effete second husband Monte approaches its fateful climax. Crawford's first film for Warners after the end of her MGM contract became her first hit in several years. The film was also nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actress for Eve Arden's scene-stealing Ida and Ann Blyth's sublimely witchy Veda." - www.allmovie.com

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Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942 - A classic biography showcasing Cagney's talents

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston

"Yankee Doodle Dandy was one of the best World War II-era patriotic propaganda films, and it has proven itself enduringly popular in the decades following its release. The film succeeds almost entirely on the performance of James Cagney as legendary song-and-dance performer George M. Cohan, although significant credit should also be given to director Michael Curtiz, who expertly stages each scene to display the talents of his star. The film features an over-the-top framing device in which Cohan tells his life's story in flashback to President Franklin Roosevelt. The story is effectively fiction, using only the outline of Cohan's life and some of his songs as reference points. The musical sequences are among the best in any film of the era. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, including Best Actor for Cagney. The real-life Cohan died shortly after the film's release, living long enough to see it and like it despite, or perhaps because of, its lack of accuracy about his life." - www.allmovie.com

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Casablanca 1942 - A truly classic masterpiece

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IMDB rating: 8,6

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S. Z. Sakall

"One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies standard categorization. It's hard to imagine a movie in which the leads are better cast: Humphrey Bogart's tough, effortless cool gives Rick the ideal balance of honor and cynicism, Ingrid Bergman's luminous beauty makes it seem reasonable that men would fight for Ilsa's affections, and Paul Henreid's Victor is cold enough that you can imagine Ilsa's being tempted by her old flame. The supporting cast is superb down the line; Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Dooley Wilson, and S.Z. Sakall are all so memorable that one tends to forget that none is onscreen for very long. The screenplay often walks the border of cliché, but the story has just enough twists, and the dialogue so much snap, that it stays compelling throughout. And Michael Curtiz knew just when to turn on the schmaltz and when to cut it off. Casablanca blends romance, suspense, humor, and patriotic drama with such skill that one imagines it must have happened by accident, and the movie looks better with each passing year." - www.allmovie.com

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Female 1933 - Fast and amusing comedy with a modern plot

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IMDB rating: 6,8

Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, William Wellman
Main Cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Lois Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Ruth Donnelly

"A fast-paced, funny, and surprisingly frank comedy about sex and power from a woman's point-of-view, Female was one the pictures that helped put director Michael Curtiz on the map early in his career. The screenplay by Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola gets into some very truthful territory in its treatment of Ruth Chatterton's character, Alison Drake, an automobile company president with a libidinal side every bit as pronounced as her considerable professional skills. Drake is all business, and good at it, except when she's at home, and then she's the complete hedonist, right down to the succession of lovers that she recruits from the ranks of her employees. Chatterton is convincing as this brilliant and supremely sensuous woman, presenting those two sides in a compelling portrayal, through which she dominates the entire picture from beginning to end. It's a mark of George Brent's ability as an actor that he rises to the challenge of convincing us that he's her equal, even though he's in barely half the movie. The brisk pacing, the extraordinary art deco design of Drake's home, and the beautifully staged party scene are other highlights in this hour-long jewel of a picture, which is every bit as striking in its way as George Cukor's The Women." - www.allmovie.com

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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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Mammy 1930 - "Let me sing and I'm happy"

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021110/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,3

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Al Jolson, Lois Moran, Lowell Sherman, Louise Dresser, Hobart Bosworth, Tully Marshall

"Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in a small Southern town. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another. One of Jolson's fellow minstrels (Lowell Sherman) is shot backstage, and it is assumed thanks to several plot convolutions that Jolson is guilty of the deed. He heads for the hills, but returns to the show, his reputation restored but his love for the actress unrequited.
Maudlin in the extreme, Mammy is salvaged by several enjoyable songs by Irving Berlin and by its Technicolor photography (though most TV prints are black and white). The film's fascination with modern viewers rests with the presence of Al Jolson - and with the casual use of profanity during his confrontation scene with Lowell Sherman." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/mammy-v101069

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Dodge City 1939 - A landmark early Flynn Western

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031235/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Frank McHugh

"Director Michael Curtiz paints with a wide and colorful brush and Dodge City is the kind of virile entertainment where a mammoth barroom free-for-all rudely interrupts the temperance meeting taking place next door, a situation that allows recently chaste cattle driver Alan Hale to partake in both. There is also a stampede of cattle, a fiery climax on a hi-jacked train and the cowardly killing of little Bobs Watson to keep the action fan happy for a good 104 minutes of so. Which, needless to say, doesn't leave much space for feminine interest, supplied here by Olivia de Havilland (exceedingly good and ultimately brave) and Ann Sheridan (sort of 'bad' by the mere fact that she is in the employ of evil Bruce Cabot). The latter, unfortunately, is completely wasted in the thankless role of the saloon belle but does get to warble a song or two. Overseeing it all with his usual authority, Curtiz has a couple of neat tricks up his sleeve, including a memorable sequence where Miss de Havilland spots an intruder by his shadow. A solid box office hit, Dodge City was the first of a series of westerns for swashbuckling star Flynn; his next oater, Virginia City, followed in 1940." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/dodge-city-v14179/

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Four daughters 1938 - Garfield introduced a new kind of rebellious acting style

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030149/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Claude Rains, John Garfield, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page, Frank McHugh, May Robson

"Fannie Hurst's Sister Act was the source for this money-making Warners weeper. The four daughters of the title are played by the Lane Sisters - Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola - and by Gale Page. All are musical prodigies, and all are daughters of master-musician Claude Rains. John Garfield makes his movie debut (no, he wasn't in 1933's Footlight Parade) as an embittered piano genius. Garfield has us in the palm of his scruffy hand the moment he begins philosophizing about the fates: 'So they flipped a coin... heads he's poor, tails he's rich... they flipped a coin - with two heads'. Aware that he can bring only unhappiness to Priscilla Lane, the daughter who cares most for him, Garfield obligingly drives into a heavy snowstorm and is killed in an auto accident (but it's not staged as a suicide, lest the Hays Office spank). John Garfield made so powerful an impression in Four Daughters that Warners was compelled to write him into the sequel Four Wives, first as a flashback and then as (implicitly) a ghost. Another film, Daughters Courageous, was hastily constructed using the same cast, but with different character names so as to accommodate a happier denouement for Garfield and Lane. Four Daughters was remade in 1954 as Young at Heart, with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day in the John Garfield and Priscilla Lane roles." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/four-daughters-v18310

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Angels with dirty faces 1938 - An impressive cast in a gangster classic

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029870/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft, The Dead End Kids

"Young viewers unfamiliar with 1930s era gangster melodramas might think that this classic is full of well-worn clichés, but Angels with dirty faces is the kind of film that brews up the bromides for others to dispense. Decades of homage, satire, and straight-up rip-offs have ensured generations of folks who have never seen a James Cagney film but always recognize an impersonation ('You dirty rat!'). Angels with dirty faces has aged well, still delivering plenty of excitement and hard-boiled action alongside its touches of hokum: the kindly priest of the ghetto parish, the cold killer with a soft spot for kids, and the long-suffering neighborhood girl who loves them both. The cast is packed with future icons at work. A pre-legend Humphrey Bogart plays against type as a conniving, cowardly lawyer, still three years away from The Maltese falcon, and four years from his defining role in Casablanca (also helmed by Angels director Michael Curtiz). Pat O'Brien had made several films with Cagney prior to Angels in which he often served as his cast mate's foil, but this is the first time O'Brien played a priest, a persona he'd be associated with for years to come. The Dead End Kids didn't premiere with Angels, but they're still in their prime, too raw and tough here to be full-fledged comic relief; it would be a few years before their scrappy personas aged into buffoonery as the Bowery Boys. Then there's Cagney, at the height of his firebrand power, swaggering and sneering with charisma to burn. One never doubts that Cagney could survive a swarm of bullets in the climactic gunfight, as he wages a one-man war against both cops and crooks. Angels with dirty faces seems to acknowledge its star's glamour and the possibility of his gangster image celebrated and worshipped by impressionable youth. When Father Jerry asks Rocky Sullivan to feign cowardice as he walks to the electric chair, it's to prevent the naïve Dead End Kids from hailing him a martyr who spits at authority up to his last seconds on earth. Sullivan finally puts on the act, begging and pleading for life, and loses all credibility in the eyes of his onscreen admirers. Despite the film studio's intention of 'social commentary', however, the audience in the theater watching Angels may feel this final cop-out makes the character even more appealing. After all, Rocky Sullivan shows great fortitude by 'turning yellow' in the face of death; it was something he loathed to do, but chose because of his affection for the Kids and his friendship with the priest. Who wouldn't want to be that cool?" - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/angels-with-dirty-faces-v2391

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The adventures of Robin Hood 1938 - Errol Flynn is the ultimate hero of Sherwood forests

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029843/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Directors: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette

"The adventures of Robin Hood is one of the screen's greatest adventure films and an excellent example of how the studio system's production-by-committee method could create synergistically what, in that era, likely could not have been created by any single force. The hero behind the camera is co-director Michael Curtiz, who was installed by the corporate chiefs at Warner Bros. midway through production. Curtiz had little to do, though, with the impeccably selected cast. Errol Flynn may not have been the studio's first choice, but he is the screen's greatest Robin Hood. Among the film's many pleasures, you can watch for the meticulous attention to detail that was a hallmark of Curtiz's work. Incidentally, if you're wondering how the special effects were done on the split arrow stunt, there were no special effects. The astonishing shot was performed by professional archer Howard Hill who needed only one take.
James Cagney was originally announced for the role of Robin Hood, just before Cagney left Warner Bros. in a salary dispute. William Keighley was the original director, but he worked too slowly to suit the tight production schedule and was replaced by Curtiz (both men receive screen credit). A lengthy opening jousting sequence was shot but removed from the final print; portions of this sequence show up as stock footage in the 1957 Warners film The story of mankind. The chestnut-colored Palomino horse ridden by Olivia de Havilland in the Sherwood Forest scenes later gained screen stardom as Roy Rogers' Trigger."

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The charge of the light brigade 1936 - Fictional version of historical charge

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027438/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patrick Knowles, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce, Donald Crisp, David Niven

"The film that cemented Errol Flynn's reputation as the most dashing leading man in Hollywood, The Charge of the Light Brigade is a notoriously inaccurate recounting of a key battle in the Crimean War. It's very loosely based on the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson that recounts the battle of Balaclava, in which Russian resisters swamped the British. It depicts the charge as the outcome of an old grudge against an Indian leader who has joined the Russians. Most of the film takes place in India and involves a battle for the affections of a character played by Olivia De Havilland. An extremely popular and successful film, this 1936 Hollywood production was directed by the famed Michael Curtiz, whose second wife married Flynn. A sweeping and monumental piece of entertainment despite its inaccuracies, this Charge of the Light Brigade was superior to a 1968 British version.
Animal lovers be warned, however: several horses were killed during the climactic charge, a fact that compelled Hollywood (under the auspices of the ASPCA) to install safer and more stringent standards concerning the treatment of animals." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade-v8927/

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Captain Blood 1935 - The film that transformed the 26-year-old Errol Flynn into a star

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026174/
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone

"Captain Blood adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini, is typical of the better-grade Warner Bros. efforts of the mid-1930s, combining first-rate production values with heavy-duty star power. Directed by Michael Curtiz with his usual economical style and talent for staging complex sequences, the film is among the best of the adventure films of its era, if at times too talkative for a film with only formulaic things to say. The United States was still suffering from the Great Depression in 1935, and films like Captain Blood provided audiences with inexpensive relief from the struggles of the era: the hero is handsome, the beautiful maiden is appealing, good triumphs over evil, and there's a happy ending, all to the stirring music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold
When British actor Robert Donat dropped out of Warner Bros. Captain Blood, the studio took a chance on its new contractee, Tasmania-born Errol Flynn.
The film also represented the cinematic debut of composer Korngold, who wasn't completely happy with his hastily written score and asked that his on-screen credit be diminished to 'musical director'." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/captain-blood-v8083

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Mystery of the wax museum 1933 - Is she woman or wax? Solve it if you dare!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024368/
IMDB rating: 6,9

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh

"One of the talkies' early horror classics, The Mystery of the Wax Museum is a crackling good thriller that's a great deal of fun. Wax Museum has its flaws: the identity of the villain is not especially hard to figure out, and the actors employed to impersonate wax figures (because real wax would have melted under the hot lights) do tend to move, which is certainly distracting. But on the whole, Wax Museum is tremendously effective. Some object to its odd mixture of comedy and horror, but this mixture contributes greatly to the film's unique appeal; rarely in horror films of the period does one find a wise-cracking, gin-slinging girl reporter like Glenda Farrell, whose cynical, hardboiled performance is a delight. Lionel Atwill is even better in what is perhaps his finest screen performance, and there's also good work from Fay Wray and Frank McHugh. Michael Curtiz directs stylishly and atmospherically, aided greatly by the stunning, dizzyingly impressionistic sets by Anton Grot, which are an orgy of distorted angles and contorted surfaces. Throw in some surprising pre-Code frankness in the area of sex and drugs, and you've got a horror flick with a real kick. Long thought lost, The Mystery of the Wax Museum was rediscovered in Jack Warner's personal film collection in 1970. Its two-color Technicolor had faded to the point of monochrome, but fortunately its original hues were preserved by dedicated AFI technicians. The film was remade (and considerably simplified) as the 1953 3-D extravaganza House of Wax, with Vincent Price in the Atwill role." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-mystery-of-the-wax-museum-v34236

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The Kennel murder case 1933 - The model of the whodunit genre

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024210/
IMDB rating: 6,9

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette, Ralph Morgan

"Often (and accurately) described as a model of the whodunit genre, The Kennel Murder Case stars William Powell, making his fourth screen appearance as S. S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance.
Directed with crispness and efficiency by the reliable Michael Curtiz, the film is a good example of the high production standards of Warner Bros. in its post-silent era. The script is a solid whodunit packed with interesting characters, well-performed and impeccably cast. Much of the verbosity of S. S. Van Dine's novel is missing from Kennel Murder Case, making for a briskly told story." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-kennel-murder-case-v27085

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