Hollywood Melodrama and 'Women's Films' 1920-1960: Selected Videos in the Media Resources Center
Race Movies (for the films of Oscar Micheaux and others)
- Melodrama Films (via Filmsite)
- 1920s
- The Blot (1921, silent)
- Directed by Lois Weber. Cast:
Philip Hubbard, Margaret McWade, Claire Windsor, Louis Calhern, Marie Walcamp. A poverty-stricken professor's daughter is admired by a wealthy student. Although fond of the student, the girl maintains her distance because of her differing social status. When the daughter becomes ill, the family's financial hardship causes the teacher's wife to be accused of stealing. 77 min. DVD 2473; vhs 999:3417
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database- Parchesky, Jennifer. "Lois Weber's The Blot: Rewriting Melodrama, Reproducing the Middle Class." Cinema Journal. 39(1):23-53. 1999 Fall
UC users only
- Flesh and the Devil (1927)
- Directed by Clarence Brown. Cast: John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent. When best friends love the same woman sparks begin to fly which ultimately leads from the boudoir to the duelling ground. 103 min. 999:996
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Kiss (1929, silent)
- Directed by Jacques Feyder. Cast:
Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, Lew Ayres, Anders Randolf, Holmes Herbert, George Davis. Irene is unhappily married to an older businessman and is terrified of her husband's jealousy and anger. She is very much in love with a handsome young lawyer who decides to stop seeing her so that he does not add to her unhappiness by ruining her marriage. She then spends her time with a young family friend who has a crush on her. An innocent kiss goodbye as he leaves for college leads to tragedy. Garbo's last silent film. 64 min. 999:3351
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney) (Germany, 1927)
- Directed by G.W. Pabst. Jeanne is the daughter of a French diplomat who is assassinated by Bolsheviks. She falls in love with a young communist, Andreas and has a brief interlude of happiness in Paris until her uncle is murdered and the crime pinned on Andreas. 108 min. DVD 731; Video Disc 149; VHS 999:286 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bathrick, David. "Melodrama, History, and Dickens: The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927)." In: The Films of G. W. Pabst: An Extraterritorial Cinema / edited by
Eric Rentschler. pp: 52-61. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, c1990.(Main Stack PN1998.3.P34.F5 1990;Moffitt PN1998.3.P34.F5 1990)
- My Best Girl (1927)
- Director, Sam Taylor. Cast: Mary Pickford, Charles Rogers, Sunshine Hart, Lucien Littlefield.
Maggie, a shopgirl in a five-and-ten-cent store, falls in love with the owner's son, who gives up his society sweetheart for her. Learning of their relationship, the boy's father unsuccessfully tries to buy Maggie off, but is ultimately convinced of her worth and agrees to their marriage. 83 min. 999:2093
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- 1930s
- Alice Adams (1935)
- Directed by George Stevens. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable, Hattie McDaniel. Social climber Alice tries to push her clodhopper family to the background and assumes airs to win the love of an amiable, wealthy young man. In this tender comedy of Americana and manners each must overcome the obstacles of their backgrounds for their love to flourish. 99 min. DVD 1562
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Baby Face (1933)
- Directed by Alfred E. Green. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Theresa Harris, Margaret Lindsay, Arthur Hohl, John Wayne. It's the age-old story of the girl so mistreated by men that she's determined to get revenge. Lilly (Baby Face) sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building. Bank submanager Jimmy McCoy finds her a job in the bank only to be cast aside as she hooks up with the bank's president. 72 min. DVD 6674; 999:3684 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Born to be Bad (1934)
- Directed by Lowell Sherman. Cast: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, Marion Burns, Henry Travers.
A childless couple agree to take a boy into their home after his mother is declared unfit. The mother is determined to take advantage of the man and tries to blackmail him. In the end, selfless love and charity are celebrated in this heartwarming classic. 61 min. DVD 7621
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Bride Wore Red (1937)
- Directed by Dorothy Arzner. Cast: Joan Crawford; Franchot Tone; Robert Young; Ferenc Molnár An Italian count, seeking to prove that social position is a matter of luck, sends a struggling nightclub singer to a luxury resort to masquerade as a wealthy lady. 103 min. 999:3453
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Camille (1936)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Colin Clive, Billie Burke, Helen Chandler, Ralph Forbes.
In her very first starring role Katharine Hepburn portrays a record-breaking flyer who falls hopelessly in love with a married man. Though madly in love, he can't bring himself to divorce his good natured and caring wife. 110 min. DVD 4281; vhs 999:3492
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Christopher Strong (1933)
- Directed by Dorothy Arzner. Cast: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph, Henry Daniell. A French courtesan with a passion for life and romance sacrifices her happiness to prove her love for a young man whose family disapproves of their relationship. 77 min. 999:3792
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dark Victory (1939)
- Directed by Edmund Goulding . Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, Cora Witherspoon. A beautiful and headstrong heiress suddenly learns that she has only six months to live. Defiant and rebellious at first, she conquers this stroke of fate by the power of great love and ultimately finds peace and happiness in the brief span of life allotted to her. 105 min. DVD 1465; VHS 999:1827
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Kennedy, Matthew. Edmund Goulding's dark victory : Hollywood's genius bad boy Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c2004. (PFA : PN1998.3.G68 K46 2004)
- The Garden of Allah (1936)
- Directed by Richard Boleslawski. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, Tilly Losch, Joseph Schildkraut. A woman decides to begin a new life after spending years caring for her father. She meets a traveler who is actually a monk who has left the monastery after taking his oath. They are married, but she soon learns of his secret. 85 min. DVD 6022 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- Directed by Edmund Goulding. Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt. The glitz and glitter of the most expensive hotel in Berlin furnishes the background for gaiety and sorrow in a multi-layered story portrayed by an all-star cast. 112 min. DVD 4282; vhs 999:1630
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- King, Lynda J. "Grand Hotel: The Sexual Politics of a Popular Culture Classic."
Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature and Culture, vol. 15, pp. 185-200, 2000
- Imitation of Life (1934)
- Directed by John M. Stahl. Cast: Claudette Colbert (Beatrice "Bea" Pullman), Warren William (Stephen Archer), Ned Sparks (Elmer Smith, Louise Beavers (Aunt Delilah). The story of two widows and their troubled daughters. In the search for success as an actress, Lora neglects her daughter. Lora's black housekeeper's daughter repudiates her mother by trying to pass for white. As the years pass, each of the four women realizes that she has been living out an emotionally fruitless existence. 106 min. DVD 5246
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Imitation of Life (1959). Directed by Douglas Sirk.
- Jezebel (1938)
- Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent. Julie Marsden is a Southern belle with a knack for manipulating the men in her life. Although she is to be wed to Preston, the engagement is called off due to her insensitivity and unusual behavior. When Preston returns from the North married, Julie's pride and selfish nature resurfaces and she provokes a duel between Buck (Julie's ardent admirer) and Ted (Preston's brother) to the death. Later when a yellow fever epidemic strikes Preston, Julie goes to his side. 105 min. DVD 1468; vhs 999:46
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Jeter, Ida. "Jezebel and the Emergence of the Hollywood Tradition of a Decadent South." The Southern Quarterly. 19(3-4):31-46. 1981 Spring-Summer
Schatz, Thomas. "'A Triumph of Bitchery': Warner Bros., Bette Davis and Jezebel." Wide Angle-A Quarterly Journal of Film History Theory & Criticism. 10(1):16-29. 1988
- Kept Husband (1931)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea. When a rich man invites an ordinary laborer to his home for dinner his daughter falls in love and marries him. Her father offers the young man an important role in his business but his daughter now feeling neglected, starts flirting around. 76 min. 999:2385
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Magnificent Obsession (1934)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk. Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Gregg Palmer. An irresponsible playboy causes the widowhood and blindness of a beautiful woman. After a later encounter with her, he decides to dedicate his life to becoming a surgeon to try to cure her blindness. 106 min. 999:555 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Marked Woman (1937)
- Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Eduardo Ciannelli, Jane Bryan, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot, Allen Jenkins, John Litelben Welden, Henry O'Neill.
A crusading prosecutor uses a prostitute to indict mobster Johnny Vanning. Inspired by the real-life saga of prostitutes whose testimony put Lucky Luciano behind bars. Special features : New featurette : Marked woman : ripped from the headlines -- 2 classic cartoons : Porky's hero agency ; She was an acrobat's daughter -- Theatrical trailer. 96 min. DVD 7585 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Morning Glory (1933)
- Directed by Lowell Sherman. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Adolphe Menjou, Mary Duncan, C. Aubrey Smith, Don Alvarado, Fred Santley, Richard Carle, Tyler Brooke, Geneva Mitchell, Helen Ware.
Eva Lovelace is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. She is a wildly optimistic chatterbox full of theatrical mannerisms. Her looks, more than her talent, attract the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom or will she fade after her brief blooming? 74 min.DVD 7602
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Millie (1931)
- Directed by John Francis Dillon. Cast: Helen Twelvetrees, Joan Blondell . A divorced woman with a past is put on trial after murdering her former lover for the attempted seduction of her young daughter. 85 min. 999:2385
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Of Human Bondage (1934)
- Directed by John Cromwell. Cast: Leslie Howard, Betty Davis. A young medical student's infatuation with a Cockney waitress in Edwardian London only brings him sorrow and despair. From the novel by W. Somerset Maugham 83 min. DVD 1294
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Old Maid (1939)
- Directed by Edmund Goulding. Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Jane Bryan, Donald Crisp, Louise Fazenda, James Stephenson, Jerome Cowan, William Lundigan, Cecilia Loftus.
A woman gives birth to a daughter after the man both she and a cousin love is killed. The cousin wins the daughter's devotion and the real mother becomes bitter but indomitable. Based on the play by Zoe Akins and the novel by Edith Wharton. 96 min. DVD 4754
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Peter Ibbetson (1935)
- Directed by Henry Hathaway. Cast: Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, John Halliday, Ida Lupino, Virginia Weidler, Dickie Moore. Gifted architect Peter Ibbetson discovers his childhood sweetheart is now the wife of the nobleman he is working for. After being imprisoned for life for an accidental killing, it's only their rekindled love that gives Peter hope. 88 min. DVD 4754
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Pilgrimage (1933)
- Directed by John Ford. Cast: Henrietta Crosman, Heather Angel, Norman Foster, Marian Nixon, Hedda Hopper.
A mother who disapproves of her son's fiancee signs him up for the army not realizing the fiancee is pregnant. The mother, after her son is killed, tries to reconcile with the fiancee and the grandson. 99 min. DVD 9364
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Rain (1932)
- Directed by Lewis Milestone. Cast: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Walter Catlett, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore, Kendall Lee, Ben Hendricks, Frederick Howard. When a fanatical missionary and his wife are marooned in a hut with a former prostitute during a week-long tropical storm in Pago Pago, the conflict swells to explosive proportions in this early talkie version of a much filmed story. Other versions include: Sadie Thompson (1928) and Miss Sadie Thompson (1953). Adapted from the play by John Colton and Clemence Randolph. Original story by W. Somerset Maugham. 76 min. DVD 1152
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Red-headed Woman (1932)
- Directed by Jack Conway. Cast: Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Leila Hyams, Una Merkel.
Precensorship story of gold-digging secretary Lil who works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her. She has another affair with the chauffeur Albert. 79 min.DVD 6674
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Sadie Thompson (1932)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Gloria Swanson, Lionel Barrymore, Raoul Walsh.
Stranded passengers on Pago Pago during an epidemic include Sadie Thompson, a prostitute, and Alfred Davidson, a reformer whose lust for her masquerades as a desire to save her soul. Based on the novella Miss Thompson / by Somerset Maugham. 97 min.DVD 7554; vhs 999:844
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
- Directed by Edgar Selwyn. Cast: Helen Hayes, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton, Cliff Edwards, Jean Hersholt, Marie Prevost. In her first feature film Helen Hayes plays Madelon, a simple country girl who runs away to Paris with a lover who cruelly abandons her and their baby son. Desperate to provide for her child, Madelon becomes the mistress of a jewel thief, a decision that leads her to prison and, finally, the streets. Her descent from radiant girl to brazen tart to bent and defeated old woman is astonishing for its technical brilliance and emotional power. 76 min. Video/C 999:3666
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Star Is Born (1937)
- Directed by William Wellman. Cast: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander. A fading star meets an aspiring actress, falls in love with and marries her. Her career skyrockets, while his continues to fade with tragic results. 111 min. DVD 3284; also vhs 999:737
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Star is Born (1954). Directed by George Cukor.
- Stella Dallas (1937)
- Directed by King Vidor. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley. A mother sacrifices everything for her daughter's happiness and eventually gives up the girl for her own good. 106 min.DVD 3626; vhs 999:202
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Waterloo Bridge (1931)
- Directed by James Whale. Cast: Mae Clarke, Kent Douglass [Douglass Montgomery], Doris Lloyd, Bette Davis, Enid Bennett, Frederick Kerr.
Roy Cronin, a Canadian soldier in London on furlough, falls in love with Myra Deauville, unaware that she is a prostitute. She accepts his proposal of marriage just prior to his being shipped to the front. They visit his uncle, mother and sister for a weekend in the country. Myra realizes she cannot escape her past and, after Roy leaves, tells his mother about herself. Back in London she is killed in an air raid. From the stage play by Robert E. Sherwood. 81 min. DVD 6674
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Wife Versus Secretary (1936)
- Directed by Clarence Brown. Cast: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, May Robson, George Barbier, James Stewart, Hobart Cavanaugh. Of course Linda Stanhope trusts her husband Van. Their marriage is based on love and respect. Who cares if Van's secretary has the face of an angel and the body of a chorus girl? Who says a blonde bombshell can't type and take dictation? But people are whispering. And when Linda calls Van's hotel room late at night during his solo business trip to Havana, guess who answers. 87 min. DVD 5736
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Women (1939)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Virginia Weidler, Lucile Watson, Ruth Hussey, Marjorie Main. Mary Haines (Shearer) loses her husband to ruthless Crystal Allen (Crawford) who is aided and abetted by Sylvia Fowler (Russell) whose own spouse has taken up with another woman. In Reno, in the throes of divorce, all wage war on one another in this scorching, sexy comedy. Includes original theatrical trailer. 133 min. DVD 1459; also vhs 999:1831
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Wuthering Heights(1939)
- Director William Wyler. Cast: Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, David Niven. The story of the impact of the abused waif, Heathcliff, on two Yorkshire families, the Earnshaws and Lintons, at the close of the 18th century. When Heathcliff loses Cathy Earnshaw, the woman he obsessively loves, to the wealthy but inferior Edgar Linton, he plans a savage retaliation upon both families, extending into the second generation.
104 min. Video 999:209
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- For other versions of Wuthering Heights, SEE Literary videography
- 1940s
- Back Street (1941)
- Directed by Robert Stevenson. Cast: Charles Boyer, Margaret Sullavan, Richard Carlson, Frank McHugh, Tim Holt. Pretty Rae Smith and handsome Walter Saxel meet, fall in love and make plans to marry. Unfortunately, their marriage plans get sabotaged when a jealous beau makes Rae miss the ceremony. The two meet many years later in New York, only now Walter is married. Based on the novel by Fannie Hurst. 89 min. 999:3782 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Beyond the Forest (1949)
- Directed by King Vidor. Cast:
Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian, Ruth Roman. Rosa Moline finds marriage to a gentle country doctor in a small town a bore--she wants life in the big city with millionaire Neil Latimer with whom she's having an affair. Entirely devoid of scruples, Rosa will go to any lengths, even murder, to satisfy her desires. 95 min. 999:3433
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Brief Encounter (1946)
- Directed by David Lean. Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everly Gregg, Marjorie Mars, Margaret Barton. Deftly explores the thrill, pain and tenderness of an illicit romance in the dour, gray Britain of 1945. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged married doctor and a suburban housewife enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately doomed love affair, set to a swirling Rachmaninoff score. 86 min. DVD 1182
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Dark Waters (1944)
- Directed by André De Toth. Cast: Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter. In this psychological thriller set in the Louisiana bayous, a nervous young heiress is driven to attempt suicide by a fake aunt and uncle who want to collect her estate. Aided by the oppressive vegetation and stifling heat, the would-be killers methodically implement a series of terrifying ploys to suffocate the young girl in her own madness. 90 min. 999:3432
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Danks, Adrian. "Driftin': In Tribute to André de Toth." Senses of Cinema vol. 25, pp. (no pagination), March 2003
Toth, André de. De Toth on de Toth : putting the drama in front of the camera : a conversation
London : Faber and Faber, 1996. (MAIN: PN1998.3.D385 A3 199)
Silver, Alain. " André de Toth (1913-2002): An Interview." Senses of Cinema vol. 25, pp. (no pagination), March 2003
Thompson, Rick. " André de Toth, Luke Short, Ramrod: Style, Source, Genre." Senses of Cinema vol. 25, pp. (no pagination), March 2003
- Dishonored Lady (1947)
- Directed by Robert Stevenson. Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan.
Hedy Lamarr is Madeleine Damien, a gorgeous and sophisticated fashion editor living life in the fast lane in an age when "good girls didn't." Depressed by her tarnished reputation, she deliberately crashes her car into a tree and lands on a psychiatrist's couch. Encouraged to change her ways, she starts over with a new name and a new career. She falls in love with a young doctor but her past-life returns to haunt her. Dragged into her old party-girl habits by former coworkers, Madeleine goes home one night with an ex-lover. When he turns up murdered, she finds herself the prime suspect. A courtroom trial follows, and Madeleine is forced to fight for her life. 79 min. DVD 7622
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Escape Me Never (1947)
- Directed by Peter Godfrey. Cast: Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino, Eleanor Parker, Gig Young. Melodrama about two musician brothers and the women they love. Features a beautiful ballet sequence and music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. 107 min. DVD 1713
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Gaslight (1944)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Everest, Emil Rameau, Edmund Breon, Halliwell Hobbes, Tom Stevenson. A susceptible young woman marries a suave, romantic man never suspecting that he is a murderous scoundrel, obsessed with finding the jewels hidden in their London home. She becomes the helpless victim as slowly, insidiously, he drives her to the brink of insanity. 114 min. DVD 3830; vhs 999:3012
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Great Lie (1941)
- Directed by Edmund Goulding. Cast: Edmund Goulding; Bette Davis; George Brent; Mary Astor; Polan Banks. Davis plays a good girl Maggie, a genteel Southerner with money, taste, and breeding. Astor plays a bad girl Sandra, an arrogant concert pianist who marries Maggie's one true love (George Brent). When Brent is lost in an airplane accident, the two make a pact that suits each woman's nature: Maggie pays Sandra to let her adopt Pete's baby. Pete returns "from the dead". Sandra and Maggie contend for Pete and the baby. 115 min. 999:3458
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Guest in the House (1944)
- Directed by John Brahm. Cast: Ann Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Warrick, Marie McDonald, Aline MacMahon, Scott McKay, Jerome Cowan, Margaret Hamilton, Percy Kilbride. An emotionally disturbed girl turns an idyllic household into a chaotic nightmare. "Baxter's illness afflicts not so much her heart as her mind. Along with her luggage she unpacks a lovingly tended collection of phobias (the one to birds proves pivotal) and a high-maintenance Borderline Personality Disorder. And, again of course, summer turns into a cold, forbidding fall before any member of the household picks up on the clues and holds her responsible for the dysfunction she has unleashed on the household. But at long last the worms begins to turn...." [Internet Movie Database]120 min. DVD 7597; vhs 999:3385
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Heiress (1949)
- Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Olivia de Haviland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins, Mona Freeman, Vanessa Brown, Selena Royle, Ray Collins. Catherine is the only heir to her stern father's vast estate. When a dashing fortune hunter named Morris Townsend wants her to elope, she is threatened with disinheritance. On the eve of their marriage he deserts her. Seven years later Morris returns, and a wiser Catherine plots her revenge. 115 min. DVD 7561; vhs 999:1187
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Humoresque (1947)
- Directed by Jean Negulesco; screenplay by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold, based on a story by Fannie Hurst. Cast: Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant, J. Carrol Naish. A glamorous but alcoholic socialite, trapped in a marriage to an older man, finds herself falling in love with a young violinist whose performance she is underwriting. 126 min. DVD 4049; vhs 999:1228
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Johnny Belinda (1948)
- Directed by Jean Negulesco. Cast: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead, Stephen McNally, Jan Sterling. Because of her disability, a deaf mute living in a village in Nova Scotia is known as "the dummy," but a compassionate doctor recognizes her innate intelligence and teaches her sign language and lip-reading. 103 min. DVD 7555; vhs 999:3436
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Leff, Leonard J. "What in the World Interests Women? Hollywood, Postwar America, and Johnny Belinda." Journal of American Studies. 31(3):385-405. 1997 Dec
- Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940)
- Directed by Sam Wood. Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig.
"Kitty Foyle works as secretary to Philadelphia socialite Wynnewood Statfford VI, in his attempt to succeed in establishing a magazine during the depression. They fall in love, and she always thinks he will ask her to marry him. The magazine fails, and she leaves for New York and another job in a department store. There she meets Dr. Mark Eisen who loves her, but Wyn Stafford shows up and asks Kitty to marry him. She initially refuses citing the differences in their social backgrounds. She feels that Philadelphia socialites would never accept her. Wyn agrees to leave behind Philadelphia and move to New York. They are married in New York. Weeks later they go to Philadelphia to let family know about the marriage. The family is overbearing and obnoxious to Kitty. She leaves, and eventually divorces Wyn. Kitty finds she is pregnant, and eventually delivers a still-born. Wyn marries a rich socialite, and by chance, Kitty meets his wife and son. This is difficult because she still loves Wyn. Eventually Mark Eisen proposes and Kitty agrees and finally reevaluates her life and decisions, and is able to let Wyn go and be happy" [IMDB] 107 min. vhs 999:197
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
- Directed by John M. Stahl. Cast: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price. Melodrama with Tierney as a psychopathic young wife whose jealous, obsessive love for her husband leads to murder, treachery, and suicide. Includes rare Movietone news footage. 111 min. DVD 3807; vhs 999:1763
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Deutelbaum, Marshall. "Costuming and the Color System of Leave Her to Heaven." Film Criticism. 11(3):11-20. 1987 Spring
- The Letter (1940)
- Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Gale Songergaard. A rubber plantation owner's wife kills a man in what seems to have been self-defense but a letter from her which proves it to have been a crime of passion, becomes an instrument of blackmail. 95 min.DVD 3431; VHS 999:2356
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Heil, Douglas. "The Construction of Racism through Narrative and Cinematography in The Letter." Literature-Film Quarterly. 24(1):17-25. 1996
- Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
- Directed by Max Ophuls. Cast: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet, Art Smith, Carol Yorke. A story of unrequited love in which a woman is obsessed with a self-centered concert pianist. 87 min. DVD 6373; vhs 999:1084 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
- Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, Barbara Lawrence, Jeffrey Lynn. Three small town "society" women get a letter from a mutual acquaintance telling them that she is eloping with one of their husbands--but not which one--which leads each to ponder the state of her marriage. 103 min. DVD 3805; vhs 999:3493 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Love Letters (1945)
- Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Ann Richards, Cecil Kellaway, Gladys Cooper. During WWII Roger persuades his friend Alan to pen passionate love letters to Victoria. Believing that Roger wrote the letters, Victoria marries him which sets in motion a dire chain of events that locks Victoria in a world of fear and clouded memories. Alan returns searching for Victoria, but when he finds her can he risk driving her over the edge with the knowledge of the past? 102 min. 999:3470 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Man I Love (1947)
- Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Bruce (Herman Brix) Bennett, Alan Hale, Dolores Moran, John Ridgely, Don McGuire, Warren Douglas, Craig. A nightclub singer who falls for a no-good mobster and a moody piano genius becomes dangerously involved with her brother's descent into crime. This film inspired Scorsese's film titled New York, New York. 90 min. 999:2869 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Mildred Pierce (1945)
- Directed by Michael Curtiz. Featuring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth. The story of a self-made woman's attempt to provide her daughter with luxuries and social status only to see the daughter become spoiled and unscrupulous and eventually murder her own stepfather. DVD 1689; vhs 999:215
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Mortal Storm (1940)
- Directed by Frank Borzage. Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan. On the same day that Prof. Roth celebrates his birthday, Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. This causes a tragic rift among the guests at the professor's party as loyalties are questioned, innocent people are brutalized and politics come between Roth's daughter, Freya, and her fiance. With all else lost, Freya finds herself falling in love with an old friend, but their only hope for a future together is a perilous escape to freedom across the Austrian border. 100 min. 999:2385
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Mr. Skeffington (1944)
- Directed by Vincent Sherman. Cast: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel, Richard Waring, George Coulouris, Marjorie Riordan. Dealing openly with anti-Semitism and Nazi atrocities, the story spans World War I, Prohibition and the preliminary volley of World War II. Fanny thrives on the adulation of countless suiters before and after she marries Job Skeffington. Ravaged by age and illness, Fanny clings to Job's promise that "a woman is beautiful only when she is loved." 144 min. DVD 4064
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Not Wanted (also known as Shame, and Streets of Sin) (1948)
- Directed by Elmer Clifto and Ida Lupino [uncredited]. Cast: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Leo Penn, Dorothy Adams, Wheaton Chambers. In 1948, legendary screen actress Ida Lupino left Warner Bros. to co-found The Filmmakers, an independent production company conceived as an alternative to the dominant aesthetics of Hollywood. With the low-key, intimate 'Not Wanted' Lupino tackled the 'taboo' topic of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, immediately venturing into terrain where big-budget mainstream fantasy-spinners feared to tread. In many ways this extraordinary first directorial effort, while uncredited, already bears the stamp of Lupino's unique vision: the remarkable empathy felt for the lead character Sally Forrest as the dazed, traumatized young waitress thrust into the world of unwed motherhood, the hallucinatory moments ... of the childbirth sequence, and the deft location-shooting as Forrest wanders through the bus stations and boarding houses of small-town America. DVD 8679; vhs 999:3452
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Now Voyager (1942)
- Directed by Irving Rapper. Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville, Ilka Chase. An irresponsible playboy causes the widowhood and blindness of a beautiful woman. A young woman escapes the smothering influence of her wealthy and very conservative mother through the help of a psychiatrist and an ocean cruise, where she finds love, which helps her to become her own person. 106 min. DVD 925; VHS 999:943
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Old Acquaintance (1943)
- Directed by Vincent Sherman. Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young, John Loder, Dolores Moran, Philip Reed, Roscoe Karns, Ann Revere.
Bette Davis plays established writer Kit Marlowe, whose friend Millie, a melodramatic writer of trashy novels, is envious of Kit's husband and child. The 20-year friendship endures until Kit meets an exciting new man, and their friendship is put to the test. 110 min. DVD 7510
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Portrait of Jennie (1948)
- Directed by William Dieterle. Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne. Timeless, unforgettable and haunting Academy Award winning film about a struggling artist and the strange, enchanting girl he meets in the park. 86 min. DVD 3909; vhs 999:675
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Possessed (1947)
- Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen, Gerald Perreau. Gerald Perreau. A solitary, emotionally unstable private nurse obsessively attempts to regain the love of a callous bachelor, which ultimately drives her into madness--and murder. 108 min. DVD 4047; vhs 999:1085
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Since You Went Away (1944)
- Director: John Cromwell. Cast: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, Lionel Barrymore, Agnes Moorhead, Robert Walker, Guy Madison, Hattie McDaniel. Story of a family during World War II. While her husband is off at war, Anne struggles to be strong for her two daughters. Because money is tight, they take in a boarder and his grandson, and must deal with all sorts of problems trying to keep their spirits up. 179 min. DVD 4599; vhs 999:1764 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Snake Pit. (1948)
- Directed by Anatole Litvak. Performers: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan. A woman finds herself in a state mental institution and must spend several months under the care of her compassionate doctor before she can face the troubling secrets of her past and be cured. 108 min. DVD 7223; vhs 999:922
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Fishbein, Leslie. "The Snake Pit (1948): The Sexist Nature of Sanity."
In: Hollywood as historian : American film in a cultural context / edited by Peter C. Rollins. pp: 134-158. Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, c1983.
(Main Stack PN1995.9.H5.H64 1983)
Semarne, V. "'The snake pit': A woman's serpentine journey towards (w)holeness."
Literature/Film Quarterly Vol XXII nr 3 (July 1994); p 144-150. Feminist analysis of Litvak's "The snake pit", examining the reasons why the mentally ill heroine is not thought to be 'cured' until she succumbs to male authority.
- Spellbound (1945)
- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; Cast: Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, Leo G. Carroll, Norman Lloyd, Rhonda Fleming. An amnesia victim assumes the identity of a noted psychiatrist and is accused of the murder of the man he professes to be. Constance, a fellow psychiatrist, attempts to restore his memory and uncover some lead that would prove his innocence. 111 min. DVD 1458; DVD 364; Video/C 999:2375
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Spiral Staircase (1946)
- Directed by Robert Siodmak. Cast: Cast: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith, Rhonda Fleming, Gordon Oliver, Elsa Lanchester, Sara Allgood, Rhys Williams.
A terrifying melodrama about a mute servant girl in a gloomy house who is threatened by a mysterious killer. Based on the novel Some must watch, by Ethel Lina White. 83 min. DVD 1461
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Stolen Life (1946)
- Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Bette Davis, Glenn ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles. Davis plays identical twins -- one good, one evil -- who are both in love with the same man. When one of the twins marries the man, but then dies in a boating accident, the other twin assumes her identity. 110 min. 999:1227
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Fischer, Lucy. "Two-faced women: the double in women's melodrama of the 1940's." Cinema Journal Vol XXIII nr 1 (Fall 1983); p 24-43.
- Strange Illusion (1947)
- Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: James Lydon, Sally Eilers, Warren William, Regis Toomey, Charles Arnt. A son is haunted by dreams of the mysterious death of his father, dreams which he fears portend future events. The noir tone of the film is accentuated by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the mental hospital where the son is incarcerated with its controlled vision of chaos and corruption. DVD 863; VHS 999:682
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Belton, John. Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Edgar G. Ulmer London : Tantivy Press ; New York : A.S. Barnes, 1974. (MAIN: PN1998.A3 H337 1974)
Bogdanovich, Peter. "Edgar G. Ulmer." In: Who the Devil Made It. New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1997. (Main Stack PN1995.9.P7.B58 1997; Moffitt PN1995.9.P7.B58 1997)
Edgar G. Ulmer the man off-screen [Videorecording] Media Resources Center DVD 6455
Gallagher, Tag. "All lost in wonder: Edgar G.Ulmer." Screening the Past, 1 March 2001 UC users only
- The Strange Woman (1946)
- Directed by Edgar Ulmer. Cast: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart, Hillary Brooke, Rhys Williams, June Storey. Hedy Lamarr plays a shrewish woman in early 19th-century Maine who schemes for the favors of three rich men. 99 min. DVD 4080
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Belton, John. Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Edgar G. Ulmer London : Tantivy Press ; New York : A.S. Barnes, 1974. (MAIN: PN1998.A3 H337 1974)
Bogdanovich, Peter. "Edgar G. Ulmer." In: Who the Devil Made It. New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1997. (Main Stack PN1995.9.P7.B58 1997; Moffitt PN1995.9.P7.B58 1997)
Edgar G. Ulmer the man off-screen [Videorecording] Media Resources Center DVD 6455
Gallagher, Tag. "All lost in wonder: Edgar G.Ulmer." Screening the Past, 1 March 2001 UC users only
- To Each His Own (1946)
- Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Mary Anderson, Roland Culver, Virginia Welles, Phillip Terry. During World War I, small-town girl Josephine Norris has an illegitimate son by an itinerant pilot who dies in the war. To avoid public scandal, she ends up giving him up for adoption and devotes herself to loving him from afar. 122 min. 999:3457
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Undercurrent (1946)
- Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn, Marjorie Main, Jayne Meadows. The young bride of a power hungry husband, who is driven to madness and murder, desperately attempts to unravel the cause of her brooding husband's problems. A desperate search for the key to his unbridled hatred for his missing brother takes her down a dark road of twisted emotions, culminating in an unexpected and unforgettable climactic sequence. 126 min. 999:2350
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Woman's Face (1941)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen, Reginald Owen, Albert Basserman, Marjorie Main, Donald Meek. Anna Holm, a professional blackmailer, despises herself and the world because of a disfiguring facial scar. When a plastic surgeon performs miraculous surgery and restores her beauty, she has a chance to start anew but her soul remains scarred and she finds herself torn between her destructive past and a desire for a new life. 107 min. 999:3428
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- 1950s
- All About Eve (1950)
- Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Marilyn Monroe. An unscrupulous young actress worms her way into the confidence of a fading star and then cheats, blackmails and lies her way to stardom. See also Mankiewicz, Joseph L. All about Eve, a screenplay. Based upon a short story by Mary Orr. New York, Random House [1951] (Main Stack PN1997.M35) 139 min. DVD 247; VHS 999:103 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- All I Desire (1953)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk. Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorhead, Conrad Nagel. Ten years ago, a turn-of-the-century scandal over a lover forced Naomi Murdoch to desert her husband and their children for a stage career. Now, returning to heir small Wisconsin town to see her daughter in a play, she has hopes of a reconciliation. Her appearance is a shock. The town is curious but unforgiving; her high school principle husband is involved with one of his teachers, and her children have mixed feelings about her. When an unexpected turn of events leads to more scandal, Naomi's hopes of starting over are dashed -- until some surprising changes occur. 80 min. 999:3642 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- An Affair to Remember (1957)
- Director, Leo McCarey. Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Cathleen Nesbitt. Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay meet on an ocean liner and fall deeply in love. Though each is engaged to someone else, they agree to meet six months later at the Empire State Building if they still feel the same way about each other. But a tragic accident prevents their rendezvous, and the lovers' future takes an emotional and uncertain turn. 119 min. DVD 1650 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Autumn Leaves (1956)
- Directed by Robert Aldrich. Cast: Joan Crawford, Cliff Robertson, Vera Miles, Lorne Greene. A lonely spinster marries young Burt Hanson. Afterwards she discovers he has an ex-wife whom he never mentioned and a "dead" father who is very much alive. When Milly confronts Burt, he explains that the reasons for his deception stem from a traumatic experience in his previous marriage. Soon Milly's domestic bliss turns into a nightmare of suspicion and terror as Burt enters a world of increasing unreality. In trying to help her mentally unbalanced husband, Milly uncovers the shattering secret which threatens her life. 107 min. 999:3713 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
- Directed by Vincente Minelli. Cast: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Gilbert Roland, Leo G. Carroll, Vanessa Brown. Biting drama that tells the story of a ruthless, manipulatve movie producer who lets nothing and nobody stand in his way. Now he's broke and needs the help of the very people he used and betrayed on his climb to the top. 119 min. DVD 3007
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Best of Everything (1959)
- Directed by Jean Negulesco. Cast: Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer, Diane Baker, Brian Aherne, Robert Evans, Louis Jourdan, David Savage, Joan Crawford.
Multifaceted fabrication about women seeking success and love in the publishing jungle of New York City. Caroline has her sites set on becoming an editor, but Miss Farrow stands in her way. Gregg wants to be an actress but can't seem to get a part, while April just wants to find a good man. 121 min. 999:3562
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Bigamist (1953)
- Directed by Ida Lupino. Cast:
Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund Gwenn, Edmond O'Brien, Kenneth Tobey, Jane Darwell, Peggy Maley. A lonely traveling salesman from San Francisco marries a woman in Los Angeles, without revealing to her that he's already married. Caught between two complementary spouses, an upper-crust lady attached to her dying father and a tough-talking waitress, his dazed indecisiveness dominates the narrative. 80 min. 999:3434
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
- Directed by Otto Preminger. Cast: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg, Mylene Demongeot, Geoffrey Horne, Juliette Greco, Walter Chiari.
Cecile is the spoiled 17-year-old daughter of Raymond, a wealthy Parisian widower vacationing in a villa on the French Riviera. Their pleasure-seeking existence is threatened when Raymond decides to marry Cecile's straitlaced godmother, Anne, who disapproves of the teenager's steamy summer affair with Philippe. 94 min. DVD 5877
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Gibbs, John; Pye, Douglas. "Revisiting Preminger: Bonjour Tristesse and Close Reading." In: Style and meaning : studies in the detailed analysis of film / edited by John Gibbs and Douglas Pye. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2005. (Main Stack PN1995.S778 2005)
- The Damned Don't Cry (1950)
- Directed by Vincent Sherman. Cast: Joan Crawford, David Brian, Steve Cochran, Kent Smith, Selena Royle. Ethel Whitehead moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion in high society one man at a time. Some of those men love her. Some use her. And one, a high-rolling racketeer, abuses her. When the racketeer murders his rival in Ethel's swanky living room, she flees a sure murder rap, right back to the poverty she thought she had escaped. And this time there may not be a man to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. 103 min. DVD 4048
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- Director: Fred Zinnemann. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Ernest Borgnine. A drama about life in the Army in the days just prior to World War II. Shows the effect of Army discipline on an individualistic former boxing champion who defies attempts by officers and men to coerce him into joining the company's boxing team. Includes actual documentary film footage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 118 min. DVD 918; VHS 999:988
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Goble, Mark.
"'Our Country's Black and White Past': Film and the Figures of History in Frank O'Hara."
American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 56-92, March 1999UC users only
Hendler, Jane. Best-sellers and their film adaptations in postwar America : From here to eternity, Sayonara, Giant, Auntie Mame, Peyton Place New York : Peter Lang, c2001.
(MAIN: PN1997.85 .H46 2001)
Simmons, Jerold L. "The Production Code and Precedent: Or, How Hollywood's Censors Sought to Eliminate Brothels and Prostitutes in From Here to Eternity and East of Eden." Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 70-80, Fall 1992
Zinnemann, Fred. "From Here to Eternity." Sight and Sound, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 20-25, Winter 1987
- I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)
- Directed by Daniel Mann. Cast: Susan Hayward, Richard Conte, Eddie Albert, Jo Van Fleet, Don Taylor, Ray Danton.
Biographical film that tells the story of Lillian Roth, who battled alcoholism as she worked her way to Broadway stardom. After her fall from fame to a booze-hazy existence on L.A.'s Skid Row, she fought her way back with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. 110 min. DVD 8930
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Imitation of Life (1959)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk. Cast: Lana Turner (Lora Meredith), John Gavin (Steve Archer). Draws the audience into an underworld of backstairs and neon gutters with the story of an exploited black maid (played by a white actress) and her daughter trying to pass for white. Based on Fannie Hurst's novel. 124 min. DVD 5246; DVD 1737
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Imitation of Life (1934). Directed by John M. Stahl.
- A Life of Her Own (1950)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast:
Lana Turner, Ray Milland, Tom Ewell, Louis Calhern, Ann Dvorak, Barry Sullivan, Margaret Phillips, Jean Hagen. Lily James, a beautiful girl from the Midwest, comes to New York to make it as a model. On her first day in town, she's befriended by Mary Ashlon, an aging former cover girl whose despair haunts Lily as she struggles to the top. Once she's made it, Lily believes that she's transcended her friend's fate-- but then she falls hard for a married man, and her path begins to look much like Mary's. 108 min. 999:3435 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Love is a Many-splendored Thing (1955)
- Directed by Henry King. Cast: William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Torin Thatcher, Isobel Elsom, Virginia Gregg, Murray Matheson. A widowed Eurasian doctor (William Holden) and an American war correspondent stationed in Hong Kong begin an intensely passionate affair, but when the journalist is transferred to Korea where war has broken out, tragedy strikes. Based on the novel: A many-splendored thing / by Han Suyin. 102 min. DVD 4840
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- My Forbidden Past (1950)
- Director, Robert Stevenson. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas. A ne'er-do-well family breaks up their daughter's love affair with a promising young doctor in the hopes that she will marry into wealth and save the clan from financial embarrassment. 70 min. 999:1198
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Peyton Place (1957)
- Directed by Mark Robson. Cast: Lana Turner, Lee Philips, Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy, Russ Tamblyn. The story of coming of age in a small New England village whose peaceful facade hides love and passion, scandal and hypocrisy. Special DVD features: Commentary by Terry Moore and Russ Tamblyn; AMC backstory; movietone news premiere and photoplay magazine awards. 157 min. DVD 7538; vhs 999:971
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Brier, Evan.
"The accidental blockbuster: Peyton Place in literary and institutional context."
Women's Studies Quarterly 33.3-4 (Fall-Winter 2005): p48-65.
Hendler, Jane. Best-sellers and their film adaptations in postwar America : From here to eternity, Sayonara, Giant, Auntie Mame, Peyton Place New York : Peter Lang, c2001.
(MAIN: PN1997.85 .H46 2001)
- Ruby Gentry (1952)
- Directed by King Vidor. Cast: Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden, Tom Tully.
Ruby is a tempestuous girl who lives with her family in the southern swampland who intends to improve her lot by marrying into wealth. When her heart is broken by a local 'refined' man, she is picked up on the rebound by a local businessman. Now she is using his money to ruin the whole town. 82 min.DVD 7623
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Sayonara. (1957)
- Directed by Joshua Logan. Cast: Marlon Brando, Ricardo Montalban, Miiko Taka. Romantic James Michner tale of Korean War pilot Brando falling in love with Japanese entertainer Taka. DVD 8433; vhs 999:1351 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Hendler, Jane. Best-sellers and their film adaptations in postwar America : From here to eternity, Sayonara, Giant, Auntie Mame, Peyton Place New York : Peter Lang, c2001.
(MAIN: PN1997.85 .H46 2001)
- A Star Is Born (1954)
- Directed by George Cukor. Cast: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford. A classic story of fame, innocence and destruction. A matinee idol falls in love with a young girl and propels her to stardom. Her career skyrockets, while his continues to fade with tragic consequences. 176 min. DVD 572; VHS 999:1018
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- A Star is Born (1937). Directed by William Wellman.
- Suddenly Last Summer (1959)
- Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge. A psychological drama about the effects of the sordid death of a decent young man upon his cousin, whose life and sanity are endangered, and upon his mother, a wealthy New Orleans widow whose diseased adoration of her son draws her into his depravity. 114 min. DVD 7553; vhs 999:636
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Ohi, Kevin. "Devouring creation: cannibalism, sodomy, and the scene of analysis in Suddenly, last summer." Cinema Journal Vol XXXVIII nr 3 (Spring 1999); p 27-49.
- A Summer Place (1959)
- Directed by Delmer Daves. Cast: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donahue. As a yacht sails toward the elite Maine resort of Pine Island young Molly peers through binoculars for a close-up view and finds a boy looking back at her from his telescope. This love story of young Molly and John intertwines with the story of Molly's father and Johnny's mother, long-ago sweethearts whose fateful Pine Island reunion brings on old feelings. 130 min. DVD 7552; vhs 999:1482
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- Written on the Wind (1956)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk. Cast: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Harry Shannon. Story of the ne'er-do-well family of a Texas oil magnate whose dynasty begins to crumble due to the family's activities and pleasure-seeking. 99 min. DVD 2710; vhs 999:554
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Young Lovers (aka Never Fear) (1950)
- Directed by Ida Lupino. Cast:Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Hugh O'Brian, Eve Miller, Lawrence Dobkin. Carol, a dancer who has just become engaged to her partner and choreographer and is about to embark on a major career, is devastated to learn that she has contracted polio. Her partner wants to see her through her illness but the embittered Carol prefers to be alone. Eventually she realizes that only by allowing others to share her grief, will she be able to pull herself together and go on with her life. 81 min. 999:3429
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- 1960s --
- All That Heaven Allows (1961)
- Directed by Douglas Sirk. Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorhead, Conrad Nagel. Cary Scott, an attractive and wealthy New England widow, creates a social outcry in her community and within her family when she becomes romantically involved with Ron Kirby, her much younger gardener. 89 min. DVD 1344
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Back Street (1961)
- Directed by David Miller. Cast: Susan Hayward, John Gavin, Vera Miles, Charles Drake, Virginia Grey, Reginald Gardiner. Rae is an ambitious fashion designer who falls in love with Paul, a rich and handsome department store owner at the end of World War II. But Rae opts for a New York career over running off with Paul. Years later, they meet in Rome and resume their forbidden love affair. Based on the novel by Fannie Hurst. 107 min. 999:3430 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
- Directed by Clint Eastwood. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Annie Corley, Victor Slezak.
National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid and Iowa housewife and mother Francesca Johnson find the loves of their lives during a brief encounter in Madison County in 1965. 135 min. DVD 7501
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Brokeback Mountain (2002)
- Directed by Ang Lee; screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana. Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid. It's 1963, a time in the United States when life was simple, straightforward and the lines between the sexes and sex roles were crisply drawn and severely delineated. Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist find themselves thrown together when they are hired to tend sheep in the remote area of Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming. Because of the job, the two are forced to spend many hours together alone in the wild. Ennis and Jack are inexorably drawn to each other through their proximity, loneliness and through a shared lack of tenderness and emotion in their lives and are emotionally, physically and psychically bonded to each other almost from the start. Based on the short story by Annie Proulx. 135 min. DVD 5386
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- Butterfield 8 (1960)
- Directed by Daniel Mann. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, Eddie Fisher, Mildred Dunnock, Betty Field, Dina Merrill. A high-class call girl in New York and a socially prominant man fall in love. However, he can't forget her past and she resents his distrust, so they battle their emotions and each other, leading to a powerful and explosive climax. Based on the novel by John O'Hara. 110 min. DVD 7551; vhs 999:2521
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Far From Heaven (2002)
- Directed by Todd Haynes. Cast: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis, James Rebhorn. Cathy is the perfect 50s housewife, living the perfect 50s life: healthy kids, successful husband, social prominence. Then one night she surprises her husband Frank having sex with another man, and her tidy world starts spinning out of control. In her confusion and grief, she finds consolation in the friendship of their African-American gardener, Raymond--a socially taboo relationship that leads to the further disintegration of life as she knew it. 107 min. DVD 1713
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The Hours (2002)
- Directed by Stephen Daldry. Cast: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Dillane, Allison Janney, John C. Reilly, Miranda Richardson.
In 1929, Virginia Woolf is starting to write her novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway,' under the care of doctors and family. In 1951, Laura Brown is planning for her husband's birthday, but is preoccupied with reading Woolf's novel. In 2001, Clarrisa Vaughn is planning an award party for her friend, an author dying of AIDS. Taking place over one day, all three stories are interconnected with the novel: one is writing it, one is reading it, and one is living it. Based on the book by Michael Cunningham. Special features (ca. 4 hrs): Commentary by Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman; commentary by directorStephen Daldry and novelist Michael Cunningham; introduction by the filmmakers; 4 featurettes: "Three women", "The mind and times of Virginia Woolf", "The music of The hours", "The Lives of Mrs. Dalloway"; theatrical trailer. 114 min. DVD 1717
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- LeBlanc, Michael. "Melancholic Arrangements: Music, Queer Melodrama, and the Seeds of Transformation in The Hours." Camera Obscura, Jan2006, Vol. 21 Issue 61, p104-145, 42p, UC users only
- Love Story (1970)
- Directed by Arthur Hiller. Cast: Ali MacGraw, Ryan O'Neal, John Marley, Ray Milland.
When Oliver, a Harvard law student, falls in love with music student Jenny they cross social barriers to marry, against the wishes of their parents. Despite financial travails, the couple is blissfully happy....until she is diagnosed as having an unnamed disease that consigns her to an early death. 100 min. DVD 7584 Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
- Directed by Taylor Hackford. Cast: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, David Keith, Robert Loggia, Lisa Blount, Lisa Eilbacher, Louis Gossett, Jr.
A timeless tale of romance, friendship, and growth. Loner Zack Mayo enters Officer Candidate School to become a Navy pilot and in thirteen weeks he learns the importance of discipline, love and friendship. 124 min. DVD 7500
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- The Sand Piper (1965)
- Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Eve Marie Saint, Charles Bronson, Robert Webber, and Morgan Mason.
A repressed minister with a devoted wife must come to terms with his adulterous feelings for a beautiful, free-spirited woman living in Big Sur. 117 min. DVD 8541
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- Satan Was a Lady (2001)
- Directed by Doris Wishman. Cast: Honey Lauren, Glyn Styler, Edge Hans Lohl, Laudet Torres.
A melodrama that descends with a hell-bent spiral about a whore who longs for a touch of mink and a way out no matter what... Special features: Wishman unadulterated (behind the scenes) ; Glyn Styler solos ; filmography. 85 min. DVD 8224
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- Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- Directed by Nora Ephron, Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Ross Malinger, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman, Rob Reiner.
After hearing a man confess his love for his dearly departed wife on a call-in radio show, a woman falls deeply, inexplicably in love with him. Deciding he is her destiny, she treks across country on a wildly romantic impulse to meet him. 105 min. DVD 7928
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Splendor in the Grass (1961)
- Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie, Barbara Loden, Zohra Lambert. In this blistering drama of frustrated first love in a small Kansas town in the 1920s the conflict between what caring parents and society advise and what their desires demand pushes Bud to physical collapse and Deanie to madness. 111 min. DVD 7537; vhs 999:1481
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Strangers When We Meet (1960)
- Directed by Richard Quine. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak, Barbara Rush, Ernie Kovacs, Walter Matthau, Virginia Bruce, Kent Smith, Helen Gallagher.
Douglas stars as Larry Coe, a gifted architect who, unhappily married, falls in love with his beautiful neighbor Maggie, whose marriage is also on the rocks. 117 min. DVD 7598
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Terms of Endearment (1983)
- Directed by James L. Brooks. Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny De Vito, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow.
A comedy-drama about the evolving 30+ year relationship between a mother and daughter. Jack Nicholson turns in a great comic performance as their neighbor, a boozy, womanizing former astronaut. 131 min. DVD 5521
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- Two Women (1961)
- Directed by Vittorio De Sica. Cast: Sophia Loren, Jean Paul Belmondo, Raf Vallone, Eleonora Brown.
Portrays an Italian mother who along with her daughter is raped by soldiers during World War II. After regaining consciousness she finds her daughter in a state of shock, and the rest of the film tells how they find their way back to life and survive the horror of war. 105 min. 999:2431
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
- The V.I.P.s (1963)
- Directed by Anthony Asquith. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Elsa Martinelli, Margaret Rutherford, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, Orson Welles, Linda Christian.
Fog delays a group of elite travelers headed to New York. As they wait at the V.I.P. lounge of London Airport, each at a moment of crisis in his or her life, they are forced to deal with their problems rather than run from them. 119 min. DVD 8542
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database
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