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Welcome to Our Generation USA!
Below and based on Box Office Receipts, we cover the Most Popular Movies of the
1950s (1950-1959)
that were not a Prequel or Sequel as covered under the Separate Web Page
"Popular Movie Franchises"
Ben Hur (1959)
YouTube Video: Jesus the Water of Life - Powerful Scene from Ben-Hur
Pictured below: Montage of images from the film.
YouTube Video: Jesus the Water of Life - Powerful Scene from Ben-Hur
Pictured below: Montage of images from the film.
Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic historical drama film, directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Hugh Griffith and Haya Harareet.
A remake of the 1925 silent film with the same name, Ben-Hur was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.
Ben-Hur had the largest budget ($15.175 million) as well as the largest sets built of any film produced at the time. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators to make the costumes, and a workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed in the film. Filming commenced on May 18, 1958 and wrapped on January 7, 1959, with shooting lasting for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week.
Pre-production began at Cinecittà around October 1957, and post-production took six months. Under cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format, which Wyler strongly disliked. More than 200 camels and 2,500 horses were used in the shooting of the film, with some 10,000 extras. The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM Studios in Culver City, California.
The nine-minute chariot race has become one of cinema's most famous sequences, and the film score, composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa, is the longest ever composed for a film and was highly influential on cinema for more than 15 years.
Following a $14.7 million marketing effort, Ben-Hur premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. It was the fastest-grossing as well as the highest grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest grossing film in history at the time after Gone with the Wind.
It won a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Griffith), and Best Cinematography, Color (Surtees), an accomplishment that was not equaled until Titanic in 1997 and then again by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.
Ben-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd. Today, Ben-Hur is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it the 72nd best American film and the 2nd best American epic film in the AFI's 10 Top 10.
In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selectedBen-Hur for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" motion picture.
For more about the 1959 Movie "Ben Hur", click here.
A remake of the 1925 silent film with the same name, Ben-Hur was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.
Ben-Hur had the largest budget ($15.175 million) as well as the largest sets built of any film produced at the time. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators to make the costumes, and a workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed in the film. Filming commenced on May 18, 1958 and wrapped on January 7, 1959, with shooting lasting for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week.
Pre-production began at Cinecittà around October 1957, and post-production took six months. Under cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, MGM executives made the decision to film the picture in a widescreen format, which Wyler strongly disliked. More than 200 camels and 2,500 horses were used in the shooting of the film, with some 10,000 extras. The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM Studios in Culver City, California.
The nine-minute chariot race has become one of cinema's most famous sequences, and the film score, composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa, is the longest ever composed for a film and was highly influential on cinema for more than 15 years.
Following a $14.7 million marketing effort, Ben-Hur premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. It was the fastest-grossing as well as the highest grossing film of 1959, in the process becoming the second-highest grossing film in history at the time after Gone with the Wind.
It won a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Griffith), and Best Cinematography, Color (Surtees), an accomplishment that was not equaled until Titanic in 1997 and then again by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.
Ben-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd. Today, Ben-Hur is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it the 72nd best American film and the 2nd best American epic film in the AFI's 10 Top 10.
In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selectedBen-Hur for preservation by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" motion picture.
For more about the 1959 Movie "Ben Hur", click here.
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
YouTube Video: Bad Day At Black Rock scene
Pictured below: Theatrical Release Poster
YouTube Video: Bad Day At Black Rock scene
Pictured below: Theatrical Release Poster
Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 Eastman Color in CinemaScope thriller directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan that combines elements of the western with that of film noir. The supporting cast includes Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine.
The film tells the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives at a tiny isolated town in a desert of the southwest United States in search of a man. The film was adapted by Don McGuire and Millard Kaufman from the short story "Bad Time at Honda" by Howard Breslin.
The original story had appeared in The American Magazine in January 1947, with full-color illustrations by Robert Fawcett.
Plot
In late 1945, one-armed John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) gets off a passenger train at the isolated desert hamlet of Black Rock. It is the first time in four years that the train has stopped there. Macreedy is looking for a man named Komoko, but the few residents are inexplicably hostile. The young hotel desk clerk, Pete Wirth (John Ericson), claims he has no vacant rooms. Macreedy is threatened by Hector David (Lee Marvin). Later, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) informs Macreedy that Komoko, a Japanese-American, was interned during World War II.
Certain that something is wrong, Macreedy sees the local sheriff, Tim Horn (Dean Jagger), but the alcoholic lawman is clearly afraid of Smith and is impotent to help. The veterinarian and undertaker, Doc Velie (Walter Brennan), advises Macreedy to leave town immediately, but also lets slip that Komoko is dead.
Pete's sister, Liz (Anne Francis), rents Macreedy a Jeep. He drives to nearby Adobe Flat, where he finds a homestead burned to the ground and wildflowers. On the way back, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) tries to run him off the road.
When Smith asks, Macreedy reveals he lost his left arm fighting in Italy. Macreedy says the wildflowers at the Komoko place lead him to suspect that a body is buried there. Smith reveals that he is virulently anti-Japanese; he tried to enlist in the Marines the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but failed the physical.
Macreedy tries to telephone the state police, but Pete refuses to put the call through. Doc Velie admits that something terrible happened four years ago and that Smith has everyone too terrified to speak up. Velie offers Macreedy his hearse to leave town. Hector rips out the distributor cap and spark plug wires. Macreedy goes to Hastings' (Russell Collins) telegraph office and writes a telegram addressed to the state police.
At the town diner, Trimble picks a fight with Macreedy, but Macreedy uses martial arts to beat him up. Macreedy tells Smith that he knows Smith killed Komoko and that he was too cowardly to do it alone, so he involved Hector, Pete, and Coley.
When Macreedy goes to the hotel lobby, Smith and his henchmen are already there, as are Doc Velie and Sheriff Horn. Hastings arrives and tries to give Smith a piece of paper, but Macreedy snatches it away and discovers that it is his own unsent telegram.
Macreedy and Doc Velie demand that Sheriff Horn do something. When Horn tries, Smith just takes away his sheriff's badge and pins it on Hector. Hector tears up the telegram form.
After Smith and Hector leave, Macreedy reveals that the loss of his arm had left him wallowing in self-pity, but Smith's attempt to kill him has reinvigorated him. Macreedy finally reveals why he is there: Komoko's son died in combat while saving Macreedy's life. Macreedy intended to give his posthumous medal to Komoko.
In turn, Macreedy learns that the elder Komoko had leased some farmland from Smith, who was sure there was no water there. Komoko had dug a well and found water. After Smith was turned down for enlistment after Pearl Harbor, he and the other men spent the day drinking, then decided to scare Komoko. The old man barricaded himself inside his home, but the men set the place on fire. When Komoko emerged ablaze, Smith shot him.
Later, Macreedy and Doc Velie devise a plan for Macreedy to escape under the cover of darkness. Hector is standing guard outside the hotel; Pete lures him into the hotel office, where Doc Velie knocks him out. Liz drives Macreedy out of town in her Jeep, but stops in a canyon. Macreedy realizes he has been betrayed. When Smith starts shooting at him, Macreedy hides behind the Jeep.
Liz rushes to Smith despite Macreedy's warning. Smith tells her that she has to die along with the rest of his accomplices. He shoots her in the back as she runs away. Macreedy finds a bottle and fills it with gasoline, creating a Molotov cocktail. When Smith climbs down for a better shot, Macreedy lights and throws it, setting Smith on fire.
Macreedy drives into town with the injured Smith and Liz's body. The state police are called in. As Macreedy is leaving, Doc Velie requests Komoko's medal to help Black Rock heal. Macreedy gives it to him just before boarding the train.
Click here for more about "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955)
The film tells the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives at a tiny isolated town in a desert of the southwest United States in search of a man. The film was adapted by Don McGuire and Millard Kaufman from the short story "Bad Time at Honda" by Howard Breslin.
The original story had appeared in The American Magazine in January 1947, with full-color illustrations by Robert Fawcett.
Plot
In late 1945, one-armed John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) gets off a passenger train at the isolated desert hamlet of Black Rock. It is the first time in four years that the train has stopped there. Macreedy is looking for a man named Komoko, but the few residents are inexplicably hostile. The young hotel desk clerk, Pete Wirth (John Ericson), claims he has no vacant rooms. Macreedy is threatened by Hector David (Lee Marvin). Later, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) informs Macreedy that Komoko, a Japanese-American, was interned during World War II.
Certain that something is wrong, Macreedy sees the local sheriff, Tim Horn (Dean Jagger), but the alcoholic lawman is clearly afraid of Smith and is impotent to help. The veterinarian and undertaker, Doc Velie (Walter Brennan), advises Macreedy to leave town immediately, but also lets slip that Komoko is dead.
Pete's sister, Liz (Anne Francis), rents Macreedy a Jeep. He drives to nearby Adobe Flat, where he finds a homestead burned to the ground and wildflowers. On the way back, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) tries to run him off the road.
When Smith asks, Macreedy reveals he lost his left arm fighting in Italy. Macreedy says the wildflowers at the Komoko place lead him to suspect that a body is buried there. Smith reveals that he is virulently anti-Japanese; he tried to enlist in the Marines the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but failed the physical.
Macreedy tries to telephone the state police, but Pete refuses to put the call through. Doc Velie admits that something terrible happened four years ago and that Smith has everyone too terrified to speak up. Velie offers Macreedy his hearse to leave town. Hector rips out the distributor cap and spark plug wires. Macreedy goes to Hastings' (Russell Collins) telegraph office and writes a telegram addressed to the state police.
At the town diner, Trimble picks a fight with Macreedy, but Macreedy uses martial arts to beat him up. Macreedy tells Smith that he knows Smith killed Komoko and that he was too cowardly to do it alone, so he involved Hector, Pete, and Coley.
When Macreedy goes to the hotel lobby, Smith and his henchmen are already there, as are Doc Velie and Sheriff Horn. Hastings arrives and tries to give Smith a piece of paper, but Macreedy snatches it away and discovers that it is his own unsent telegram.
Macreedy and Doc Velie demand that Sheriff Horn do something. When Horn tries, Smith just takes away his sheriff's badge and pins it on Hector. Hector tears up the telegram form.
After Smith and Hector leave, Macreedy reveals that the loss of his arm had left him wallowing in self-pity, but Smith's attempt to kill him has reinvigorated him. Macreedy finally reveals why he is there: Komoko's son died in combat while saving Macreedy's life. Macreedy intended to give his posthumous medal to Komoko.
In turn, Macreedy learns that the elder Komoko had leased some farmland from Smith, who was sure there was no water there. Komoko had dug a well and found water. After Smith was turned down for enlistment after Pearl Harbor, he and the other men spent the day drinking, then decided to scare Komoko. The old man barricaded himself inside his home, but the men set the place on fire. When Komoko emerged ablaze, Smith shot him.
Later, Macreedy and Doc Velie devise a plan for Macreedy to escape under the cover of darkness. Hector is standing guard outside the hotel; Pete lures him into the hotel office, where Doc Velie knocks him out. Liz drives Macreedy out of town in her Jeep, but stops in a canyon. Macreedy realizes he has been betrayed. When Smith starts shooting at him, Macreedy hides behind the Jeep.
Liz rushes to Smith despite Macreedy's warning. Smith tells her that she has to die along with the rest of his accomplices. He shoots her in the back as she runs away. Macreedy finds a bottle and fills it with gasoline, creating a Molotov cocktail. When Smith climbs down for a better shot, Macreedy lights and throws it, setting Smith on fire.
Macreedy drives into town with the injured Smith and Liz's body. The state police are called in. As Macreedy is leaving, Doc Velie requests Komoko's medal to help Black Rock heal. Macreedy gives it to him just before boarding the train.
Click here for more about "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955)
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
YouTube Video: (Original 1955) Lady And The Tramp Trailer
Pictured: Theatrical poster for Lady and the Tramp. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to Disney. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
YouTube Video: (Original 1955) Lady And The Tramp Trailer
Pictured: Theatrical poster for Lady and the Tramp. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to Disney. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 American animated romantic musical comedy film produced by Walt Disney and released to theaters on 22 June 1955, by Buena Vista Distribution.
The 15th Disney animated feature film, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen film process.
Based on Happy Dan, The Whistling Dog by Ward Greene, Lady and the Tramp tells the story of a female American Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a refined, upper-middle-class family, and a male stray mutt named Tramp.
When the two dogs meet, they embark on many romantic adventures. A direct-to-video sequel, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, was released in 2001.
Plot:
On Christmas morning, 1909, in a quaint Midwestern town, Jim Dear gives his wife Darling an American cocker spaniel puppy which she names Lady. Lady enjoys a happy life with the couple and two local neighborhood dogs, Jock, a Scottish terrier, and Trusty, a bloodhound.
Meanwhile, across town, a stray mutt named Tramp lives on his own, dining on scraps from Tony's restaurant and protecting his friends from the local dogcatcher. One day, Lady is saddened after her owners begin treating her rather coldly.
Jock and Trusty visit her and determine that their change in behavior is due to Darling expecting a baby. While Jock and Trusty try to explain what a baby is, Tramp interrupts the conversation and offers his own thoughts on the matter, making Jock and Trusty take an immediate dislike to the stray and order him out of the yard. As Tramp leaves, he reminds Lady that "when the baby moves in, the dog moves out."
Eventually, the baby arrives and the couple introduces Lady to the infant, whom Lady grows fond of. Soon after, Jim Dear and Darling leave for a trip, with their Aunt Sarah looking after the baby and the house. Aunt Sarah's two trouble-making Siamese cats, Si and Am, trick her into thinking that Lady attacked them with the house a mess.
Aunt Sarah takes Lady to a pet shop to get a muzzle. Lady flees in horror, only to be pursued by a pack of stray dogs. Tramp rescues her and finds a beaver at the local zoo who can remove the muzzle. Later, Tramp shows Lady how he lives "footloose and collar-free", eventually leading into a candlelit Italian dinner at Tony's.
Lady begins to fall in love with Tramp, but she chooses to return home in order to watch over the baby. Tramp offers to escort Lady back home, but when Tramp decides to chase hens around a farmyard for fun, Lady is captured by the dog catcher and brought to the local dog pound.
While at the pound, the other dogs reveal to Lady that Tramp's had multiple girlfriends in the past and they feel it's unlikely he'll ever settle down. She is eventually claimed by Aunt Sarah, who chains her in the backyard as punishment for running away.
Jock and Trusty visit to comfort Lady, but when Tramp arrives to apologize, Lady angrily confronts him about his past girlfriends. Just as Tramp leaves, Lady sees a rat trying to sneak into the house. She barks frantically, but Aunt Sarah tells her to be quiet. Tramp hears her barking and rushes back, entering the house and corners the rat in the nursery.
Lady breaks free and rushes to the nursery, where Tramp inadvertently knocks over the baby's crib before ultimately killing the rat. The commotion alerts Aunt Sarah, who sees both dogs and assumes that they are responsible. She pushes Tramp in a closet and locks Lady in the basement, then calls the pound to get rid of Tramp.
Jim Dear and Darling return home as the dog catcher departs, and when they release Lady, she leads them to the dead rat. Realizing Tramp's true intentions, Jock and Trusty chase after the dog catcher's wagon. The dogs are able to track down the wagon and scare the horses, causing the wagon to crash. Jim Dear arrives in a taxi with Lady, and she reunites with Tramp, but their joy is short-lived when they find Trusty pinned underneath the wagon's wheel, motionless, with Jock howling mournfully.
That Christmas, Tramp's been adopted into the family, and he and Lady have started their own family, with three daughters who look similar to Lady and a son who looks similar to Tramp. Jock comes to see the family along with Trusty, who's still alive and merely suffered from a broken leg, which is still healing. Thanks to the puppies, Trusty has a fresh audience for his old stories, but he has forgotten them.
Cast:
Box Office: $93.6 Million
The 15th Disney animated feature film, it was the first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen film process.
Based on Happy Dan, The Whistling Dog by Ward Greene, Lady and the Tramp tells the story of a female American Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a refined, upper-middle-class family, and a male stray mutt named Tramp.
When the two dogs meet, they embark on many romantic adventures. A direct-to-video sequel, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, was released in 2001.
Plot:
On Christmas morning, 1909, in a quaint Midwestern town, Jim Dear gives his wife Darling an American cocker spaniel puppy which she names Lady. Lady enjoys a happy life with the couple and two local neighborhood dogs, Jock, a Scottish terrier, and Trusty, a bloodhound.
Meanwhile, across town, a stray mutt named Tramp lives on his own, dining on scraps from Tony's restaurant and protecting his friends from the local dogcatcher. One day, Lady is saddened after her owners begin treating her rather coldly.
Jock and Trusty visit her and determine that their change in behavior is due to Darling expecting a baby. While Jock and Trusty try to explain what a baby is, Tramp interrupts the conversation and offers his own thoughts on the matter, making Jock and Trusty take an immediate dislike to the stray and order him out of the yard. As Tramp leaves, he reminds Lady that "when the baby moves in, the dog moves out."
Eventually, the baby arrives and the couple introduces Lady to the infant, whom Lady grows fond of. Soon after, Jim Dear and Darling leave for a trip, with their Aunt Sarah looking after the baby and the house. Aunt Sarah's two trouble-making Siamese cats, Si and Am, trick her into thinking that Lady attacked them with the house a mess.
Aunt Sarah takes Lady to a pet shop to get a muzzle. Lady flees in horror, only to be pursued by a pack of stray dogs. Tramp rescues her and finds a beaver at the local zoo who can remove the muzzle. Later, Tramp shows Lady how he lives "footloose and collar-free", eventually leading into a candlelit Italian dinner at Tony's.
Lady begins to fall in love with Tramp, but she chooses to return home in order to watch over the baby. Tramp offers to escort Lady back home, but when Tramp decides to chase hens around a farmyard for fun, Lady is captured by the dog catcher and brought to the local dog pound.
While at the pound, the other dogs reveal to Lady that Tramp's had multiple girlfriends in the past and they feel it's unlikely he'll ever settle down. She is eventually claimed by Aunt Sarah, who chains her in the backyard as punishment for running away.
Jock and Trusty visit to comfort Lady, but when Tramp arrives to apologize, Lady angrily confronts him about his past girlfriends. Just as Tramp leaves, Lady sees a rat trying to sneak into the house. She barks frantically, but Aunt Sarah tells her to be quiet. Tramp hears her barking and rushes back, entering the house and corners the rat in the nursery.
Lady breaks free and rushes to the nursery, where Tramp inadvertently knocks over the baby's crib before ultimately killing the rat. The commotion alerts Aunt Sarah, who sees both dogs and assumes that they are responsible. She pushes Tramp in a closet and locks Lady in the basement, then calls the pound to get rid of Tramp.
Jim Dear and Darling return home as the dog catcher departs, and when they release Lady, she leads them to the dead rat. Realizing Tramp's true intentions, Jock and Trusty chase after the dog catcher's wagon. The dogs are able to track down the wagon and scare the horses, causing the wagon to crash. Jim Dear arrives in a taxi with Lady, and she reunites with Tramp, but their joy is short-lived when they find Trusty pinned underneath the wagon's wheel, motionless, with Jock howling mournfully.
That Christmas, Tramp's been adopted into the family, and he and Lady have started their own family, with three daughters who look similar to Lady and a son who looks similar to Tramp. Jock comes to see the family along with Trusty, who's still alive and merely suffered from a broken leg, which is still healing. Thanks to the puppies, Trusty has a fresh audience for his old stories, but he has forgotten them.
Cast:
- Barbara Luddy as Lady
- Larry Roberts as Tramp
- Bill Thompson as Jock, Joe, Bulldog, Dachsie, Policeman
- Bill Baucom as Trusty
- Verna Felton as Aunt Sarah
- George Givot as Tony
- Lee Millar as Jim Dear, Dogcatcher
- Peggy Lee as Darling, Si and Am, Peg
- Stan Freberg as the beaver
- Alan Reed as Boris
- Thurl Ravenscroft as Al the alligator
- Dallas McKennon as Toughy, Pedro, Professor, Hyena
- The Mellomen (Thurl Ravenscroft, Bill Lee, Max Smith, Bob Hamlin and Bob Stevens) as Dog Chorus
Box Office: $93.6 Million
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Around the World in 80 Days"
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Around the World in 80 Days"
Around the World in 80 Days (sometimes spelled as Around the World in Eighty Days) is a 1956 American epic adventure-comedy film starring David Niven and Cantinflas, produced by the Michael Todd Company and released by United Artists.
The epic picture was directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Mike Todd, with Kevin McClory and William Cameron Menzies as associate producers.
The screenplay was written by James Poe, John Farrow, and S. J. Perelman based on the classic novel of the same name by Jules Verne.
The music score was composed by Victor Young, and the Todd-AO 70 mm cinematography (shot in Technicolor) was by Lionel Lindon. The film's seven-minute-long animated title sequence, shown at the end of the film, was created by award-winning designer Saul Bass.
The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It grossed $42 million in box office receipts.
Plot:
Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow presents an onscreen prologue, featuring footage from A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès, explaining that it is based loosely on the book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne. Also included is the launching of an unmanned rocket and footage of the earth receding.
Around 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a £20,000 wager (around to £1.6 million today) with four sceptical fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet), that he can arrive back within 80 days before exactly 8:45 pm.
Together with his resourceful valet, Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg goes hopscotching around the globe generously spending money to encourage others to help him get to his destinations faster so he can accommodate tight steamship schedules.
They set out on the journey from Paris by hot air balloon upon learning the mountain train tunnel is blocked. The two pause in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. Next, he goes to Brindisi.
Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen £55,000 (around £4.4 million today) from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by Scotland Yard to trail him (starting in Suez) and keeps waiting for a warrant to arrive so he can arrest Fogg in the British ports they visit.
In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The three visit Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, and the Wild West. After sailing across the Atlantic, and only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested upon arrival at Liverpool, by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix.
At the jail, the humiliated Fix informs Fogg that the real culprit was caught in Brighton. Though he is now exonerated of the charges, he has no time to get to London and has thus lost everything – except the love of the winsome Aouda. Salvation is at hand when, upon returning to London,
Passepartout buys a newspaper and sees it is still Saturday. Fogg then realizes that by traveling east towards the rising sun and by crossing the International Date Line they have gained a day. There is still time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet.
Fogg unexpectedly arrives at the club just before the clock's chime at 8:45 pm. Aouda and Passepartout then arrive, surprising everyone as no woman has entered the Reform Club before.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 1956 movie "Around the World in 80 Days":
The epic picture was directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Mike Todd, with Kevin McClory and William Cameron Menzies as associate producers.
The screenplay was written by James Poe, John Farrow, and S. J. Perelman based on the classic novel of the same name by Jules Verne.
The music score was composed by Victor Young, and the Todd-AO 70 mm cinematography (shot in Technicolor) was by Lionel Lindon. The film's seven-minute-long animated title sequence, shown at the end of the film, was created by award-winning designer Saul Bass.
The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It grossed $42 million in box office receipts.
Plot:
Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow presents an onscreen prologue, featuring footage from A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès, explaining that it is based loosely on the book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne. Also included is the launching of an unmanned rocket and footage of the earth receding.
Around 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a £20,000 wager (around to £1.6 million today) with four sceptical fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet), that he can arrive back within 80 days before exactly 8:45 pm.
Together with his resourceful valet, Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg goes hopscotching around the globe generously spending money to encourage others to help him get to his destinations faster so he can accommodate tight steamship schedules.
They set out on the journey from Paris by hot air balloon upon learning the mountain train tunnel is blocked. The two pause in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. Next, he goes to Brindisi.
Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen £55,000 (around £4.4 million today) from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by Scotland Yard to trail him (starting in Suez) and keeps waiting for a warrant to arrive so he can arrest Fogg in the British ports they visit.
In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The three visit Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, and the Wild West. After sailing across the Atlantic, and only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested upon arrival at Liverpool, by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix.
At the jail, the humiliated Fix informs Fogg that the real culprit was caught in Brighton. Though he is now exonerated of the charges, he has no time to get to London and has thus lost everything – except the love of the winsome Aouda. Salvation is at hand when, upon returning to London,
Passepartout buys a newspaper and sees it is still Saturday. Fogg then realizes that by traveling east towards the rising sun and by crossing the International Date Line they have gained a day. There is still time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet.
Fogg unexpectedly arrives at the club just before the clock's chime at 8:45 pm. Aouda and Passepartout then arrive, surprising everyone as no woman has entered the Reform Club before.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 1956 movie "Around the World in 80 Days":
- Cast
- Cast and Characters
- Production
- Release
- Reception
- Distribution and ownership
- Soundtrack and DVD releases
- See also:
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
YouTube Video of the Trailer for "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)
YouTube Video Marlon Brando ~ 'Hey Stella!'~ A Streetcar Named Desire
YouTube Video of the Trailer for "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)
YouTube Video Marlon Brando ~ 'Hey Stella!'~ A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, adapted from Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. It tells the story of a southern belle, Blanche Dubois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement.
The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with only minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters. Chief among these was Blanche Dubois, who has become a legendary and iconic figure in film history.
Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles.
Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her star power.
Upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play’s casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood movie star. The film marked the first of Marlon Brando's four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and earned an estimated $4,250,000 at the US and Canadian box office in 1951, making it the fifth biggest hit of the year.
In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot:
Under mysterious circumstances, Blanche DuBois, an aging high school teacher, leaves her home in Auriol, Mississippi to travel to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter).
She arrives on the train and boards a streetcar named "Desire" and reaches her sister's home in the French Quarter where she discovers that her sister and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), live in a cramped and dilapidated two-room apartment in an old New Orleans tenement.
Blanche and Stella are all that remain of an old aristocratic family. Blanche discloses that the family estate, Belle Reve, has been lost to creditors, and that she wants to stay with Stella and Stanley for a while. Blanche seems lost and broke, with nowhere to go. Stella welcomes her with an open heart.
From the start, Blanche and Stanley are wary of each other. Blanche has a soft-spoken manner; Stanley is rough and loud. His mere presence seems to threaten her, while her behavior and manner arouse suspicion in him. She is especially adroit at patronizing and criticizing Stella from the start.
When interrogated about her past, struggling to be polite, Blanche says that she was married and widowed at a young age. She says that she has taken a leave of absence from her job due to her nerves. To satisfy Stanley's skepticism about the loss of the estate, Blanche hands over her papers pertaining to Belle Reve.
But Stanley grabs at some of her private papers that she is holding back, and they cascade to the floor. Weeping, she gathers them all back, saying that they are poems from her dead husband. He defends himself by saying that he was just looking out for his family, and then announces that Stella is going to have a baby.
Soon after her arrival, Stanley has a poker night with his friends where Blanche meets Mitch (Karl Malden). His courteous manner sets him apart from Stanley's other friends. They like each other right away. This is the start of their romance. Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella, and sending his friends running, while Blanche and Stella flee to the upstairs neighbor, Eunice.
When his anger subsides, Stanley cries out remorsefully for Stella to come back. "Stella, Stella, hey Stella," he bellows, until she comes down, and Stanley carries her off to bed. In the morning, Blanche tells Stella that she is married to a subhuman animal. In an emotional monologue, she urges her sister to leave Stanley. Stella disagrees with her sister's bluntness and assures Blanche that all is well, and that she does not want to leave.
As the weeks pass into months, the tension rises between Blanche and Stanley. But Blanche has hope in Mitch, telling Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone's problem. She is on the verge of mental collapse, anticipating a marriage proposal from Mitch.
Finally, he tells her that they need each other and should be together. But Stanley, still skeptical, begins to research her past and discovers a closet full of skeletons. He tells Stella what Blanche has been concealing from them, that she has a reputation for mental instability and that she was fired from her teaching job in Auriol for having sexual relations with a minor and practically run out of town.
He then says that Mitch will not be coming around anymore. Stanley has informed Mitch about Blanche's past, and the news of her promiscuity has turned Mitch off from her. Stella erupts in anger that Stanley has ruined Blanche's chances with Mitch. But the fight is cut short, as she tells Stanley to take her to the hospital; the baby is coming.
As Blanche waits at home for news of the baby, Mitch arrives and confronts her with the stories that Stanley has told him. At first, she denies everything. Then, she breaks down in confession, describing, in a lengthy monologue, her troubled past. As she speaks to Mitch, she gives up the Southern belle façade; her voice grows weary and deep; her face becomes drawn and old; she pleads for his forgiveness, but Mitch is hurt and humiliated and rejects her.
Blanche starts screaming, and Mitch runs away. Later that night, while Stella's labor continues, Stanley returns from the hospital to get some sleep, only to find Blanche dressed up in a tattered old gown pretending to be departing on a trip with an old admirer. She disdainfully antagonizes him, asserting her sense of superiority over him, spinning tale after tale about her plans for the future.
He sees that she is delusional, but he feels no pity for her. Instead, he seeks to destroy her illusions. They become engaged in a struggle and the fact that Blanche is shown as having regressed into a psychotic state gives the impression that Stanley has raped her.
Weeks later, at another poker game at the Kowalski apartment, Stella and her neighbor, Eunice, are packing Blanche's belongings.
Stella and Eunice have told Blanche that she is going on a vacation, but, in truth, Blanche is being committed to a mental hospital. She has suffered a complete mental breakdown. She has told Stella what happened, but Stella cannot believe Blanche's story. Stella, under obvious stress, does not know what to do. An older gentleman and lady come to the door; it is the doctor and nurse come to take Blanche away.
Blanche does not recognize them and resists going; she collapses on the floor seized with total confusion. Mitch, present at the poker game, breaks down in tears. The doctor approaches and helps Blanche up. He offers his arm gently to her, and she goes willingly with him, saying, "Whoever you are, I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers." As the car drives away with Blanche, Stella takes the baby upstairs to Eunice's, and says she is never coming back to Stanley again.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 1951 Movie "A Streetcar Named Desire":
The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with only minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters. Chief among these was Blanche Dubois, who has become a legendary and iconic figure in film history.
Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles.
Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her star power.
Upon release of the film, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play’s casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood movie star. The film marked the first of Marlon Brando's four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and earned an estimated $4,250,000 at the US and Canadian box office in 1951, making it the fifth biggest hit of the year.
In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot:
Under mysterious circumstances, Blanche DuBois, an aging high school teacher, leaves her home in Auriol, Mississippi to travel to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter).
She arrives on the train and boards a streetcar named "Desire" and reaches her sister's home in the French Quarter where she discovers that her sister and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), live in a cramped and dilapidated two-room apartment in an old New Orleans tenement.
Blanche and Stella are all that remain of an old aristocratic family. Blanche discloses that the family estate, Belle Reve, has been lost to creditors, and that she wants to stay with Stella and Stanley for a while. Blanche seems lost and broke, with nowhere to go. Stella welcomes her with an open heart.
From the start, Blanche and Stanley are wary of each other. Blanche has a soft-spoken manner; Stanley is rough and loud. His mere presence seems to threaten her, while her behavior and manner arouse suspicion in him. She is especially adroit at patronizing and criticizing Stella from the start.
When interrogated about her past, struggling to be polite, Blanche says that she was married and widowed at a young age. She says that she has taken a leave of absence from her job due to her nerves. To satisfy Stanley's skepticism about the loss of the estate, Blanche hands over her papers pertaining to Belle Reve.
But Stanley grabs at some of her private papers that she is holding back, and they cascade to the floor. Weeping, she gathers them all back, saying that they are poems from her dead husband. He defends himself by saying that he was just looking out for his family, and then announces that Stella is going to have a baby.
Soon after her arrival, Stanley has a poker night with his friends where Blanche meets Mitch (Karl Malden). His courteous manner sets him apart from Stanley's other friends. They like each other right away. This is the start of their romance. Stanley explodes in a drunken rage, striking Stella, and sending his friends running, while Blanche and Stella flee to the upstairs neighbor, Eunice.
When his anger subsides, Stanley cries out remorsefully for Stella to come back. "Stella, Stella, hey Stella," he bellows, until she comes down, and Stanley carries her off to bed. In the morning, Blanche tells Stella that she is married to a subhuman animal. In an emotional monologue, she urges her sister to leave Stanley. Stella disagrees with her sister's bluntness and assures Blanche that all is well, and that she does not want to leave.
As the weeks pass into months, the tension rises between Blanche and Stanley. But Blanche has hope in Mitch, telling Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone's problem. She is on the verge of mental collapse, anticipating a marriage proposal from Mitch.
Finally, he tells her that they need each other and should be together. But Stanley, still skeptical, begins to research her past and discovers a closet full of skeletons. He tells Stella what Blanche has been concealing from them, that she has a reputation for mental instability and that she was fired from her teaching job in Auriol for having sexual relations with a minor and practically run out of town.
He then says that Mitch will not be coming around anymore. Stanley has informed Mitch about Blanche's past, and the news of her promiscuity has turned Mitch off from her. Stella erupts in anger that Stanley has ruined Blanche's chances with Mitch. But the fight is cut short, as she tells Stanley to take her to the hospital; the baby is coming.
As Blanche waits at home for news of the baby, Mitch arrives and confronts her with the stories that Stanley has told him. At first, she denies everything. Then, she breaks down in confession, describing, in a lengthy monologue, her troubled past. As she speaks to Mitch, she gives up the Southern belle façade; her voice grows weary and deep; her face becomes drawn and old; she pleads for his forgiveness, but Mitch is hurt and humiliated and rejects her.
Blanche starts screaming, and Mitch runs away. Later that night, while Stella's labor continues, Stanley returns from the hospital to get some sleep, only to find Blanche dressed up in a tattered old gown pretending to be departing on a trip with an old admirer. She disdainfully antagonizes him, asserting her sense of superiority over him, spinning tale after tale about her plans for the future.
He sees that she is delusional, but he feels no pity for her. Instead, he seeks to destroy her illusions. They become engaged in a struggle and the fact that Blanche is shown as having regressed into a psychotic state gives the impression that Stanley has raped her.
Weeks later, at another poker game at the Kowalski apartment, Stella and her neighbor, Eunice, are packing Blanche's belongings.
Stella and Eunice have told Blanche that she is going on a vacation, but, in truth, Blanche is being committed to a mental hospital. She has suffered a complete mental breakdown. She has told Stella what happened, but Stella cannot believe Blanche's story. Stella, under obvious stress, does not know what to do. An older gentleman and lady come to the door; it is the doctor and nurse come to take Blanche away.
Blanche does not recognize them and resists going; she collapses on the floor seized with total confusion. Mitch, present at the poker game, breaks down in tears. The doctor approaches and helps Blanche up. He offers his arm gently to her, and she goes willingly with him, saying, "Whoever you are, I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers." As the car drives away with Blanche, Stella takes the baby upstairs to Eunice's, and says she is never coming back to Stanley again.
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On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint.
The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film was suggested by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November-December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story.
The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan.
In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time and in AFI's 2007 list it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
In 1989, On the Waterfront was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot:
Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) gloats about his iron-fisted control of the waterfront. The police and the Waterfront Crime Commission know that Friendly is behind a number of murders, but witnesses play "D and D" ("deaf and dumb"), accepting their subservient position rather than risking the danger and shame of informing.
Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a dockworker whose brother Charley "the Gent" (Rod Steiger) is Friendly's right-hand man. Some years earlier, Terry had been a promising boxer, until Friendly had Charley instruct him to deliberately lose a fight that he could have won, so that Friendly could win money betting against him.
Terry is used to coax Joey Doyle (Ben Wagner), a popular dockworker, into an ambush, preventing Joey from testifying against Friendly before the Crime Commission. Terry assumed that Friendly's enforcers were only going to "lean" on Joey to pressure him into silence, and is surprised when Joey is killed.
Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), angry about her brother's death, shames "waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) into fomenting action against the mob-controlled union. Friendly sends Terry to attend and inform on a dockworkers' meeting Father Barry holds in the church, which is broken up by Friendly's men.
Terry helps Edie escape the violence, and is smitten with her. Another dockworker, Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan (Pat Henning), who agrees to testify after Father Barry promises unwavering support, ends up dead after Friendly arranges for him to be crushed by a load of whiskey in a staged accident.
Although Terry resents being used as a tool in Joey's death, and despite Father Barry's impassioned "sermon on the docks" reminding the longshoremen that Christ walks among them and that every murder is a Calvary, Terry is at first willing to remain "D and D", even when subpoenaed to testify. However, when Edie, unaware of Terry's role in her brother's death, begins to return Terry's feelings, Terry is tormented by his awakening conscience and confesses the circumstances of Joey's death to Father Barry and Edie. Horrified, Edie breaks up with him.
As Terry increasingly leans toward testifying, Friendly decides that Terry must be killed unless Charley can coerce him into keeping quiet. Charley tries bribing Terry with a good job and finally threatens Terry by holding a gun against him, but recognizes that he has failed to sway Terry, who blames his own downward spiral on his well-off brother.
In what has become an iconic scene, Terry reminds Charley that had it not been for the fixed fight, Terry's prizefighting career would have bloomed. "I coulda' been a contender," laments Terry to his brother, "Instead of a bum, which is what I am – let's face it." Charley gives Terry the gun and advises him to run. Terry flees to Edie's apartment, where she first refuses to let him in but finally admits her love for him. Friendly, having had Charley watched, has Charley murdered and his body hung in an alley as bait to lure Terry out to his death, but Terry and Edie both escape the attempt on Terry's life.
After finding Charley's body, Terry sets out to shoot Friendly, but Father Barry prevents it by blocking Terry's line of fire and convincing Terry to fight Friendly by testifying instead. Terry proceeds to give damaging testimony implicating Friendly in Joey's murder and other illegal activities, causing Friendly's mob boss to cut him off and Friendly to face indictment.
After the testimony, Friendly announces that Terry will not find employment anywhere on the waterfront. Terry is shunned by his former friends and by a neighborhood boy who had previously looked up to him. Refusing Edie's suggestion that they move away from the waterfront together, Terry shows up during recruitment at the docks. When he is the only man not hired, Terry openly confronts Friendly, calling him out and proclaiming that he is proud of what he did.
The confrontation develops into a vicious brawl, with Terry getting the upper hand until Friendly's thugs gang up on Terry and nearly beat him to death. The dockworkers, who witness the confrontation, show their support for Terry by refusing to work unless Terry is working too and pushing Friendly into the river.
Encouraged by Father Barry and Edie, the badly injured Terry forces himself to his feet and enters the dock, followed by the other workers. A soaking wet and face-scarred Friendly, now left with nothing, swears revenge on them all, but his threats fall on deaf ears as they enter the garage and the door closes behind them.
Cast:
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 1954 movie "On the Waterfront":
The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film was suggested by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November-December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story.
The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received twelve Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan.
In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time and in AFI's 2007 list it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
In 1989, On the Waterfront was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot:
Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) gloats about his iron-fisted control of the waterfront. The police and the Waterfront Crime Commission know that Friendly is behind a number of murders, but witnesses play "D and D" ("deaf and dumb"), accepting their subservient position rather than risking the danger and shame of informing.
Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a dockworker whose brother Charley "the Gent" (Rod Steiger) is Friendly's right-hand man. Some years earlier, Terry had been a promising boxer, until Friendly had Charley instruct him to deliberately lose a fight that he could have won, so that Friendly could win money betting against him.
Terry is used to coax Joey Doyle (Ben Wagner), a popular dockworker, into an ambush, preventing Joey from testifying against Friendly before the Crime Commission. Terry assumed that Friendly's enforcers were only going to "lean" on Joey to pressure him into silence, and is surprised when Joey is killed.
Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), angry about her brother's death, shames "waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) into fomenting action against the mob-controlled union. Friendly sends Terry to attend and inform on a dockworkers' meeting Father Barry holds in the church, which is broken up by Friendly's men.
Terry helps Edie escape the violence, and is smitten with her. Another dockworker, Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan (Pat Henning), who agrees to testify after Father Barry promises unwavering support, ends up dead after Friendly arranges for him to be crushed by a load of whiskey in a staged accident.
Although Terry resents being used as a tool in Joey's death, and despite Father Barry's impassioned "sermon on the docks" reminding the longshoremen that Christ walks among them and that every murder is a Calvary, Terry is at first willing to remain "D and D", even when subpoenaed to testify. However, when Edie, unaware of Terry's role in her brother's death, begins to return Terry's feelings, Terry is tormented by his awakening conscience and confesses the circumstances of Joey's death to Father Barry and Edie. Horrified, Edie breaks up with him.
As Terry increasingly leans toward testifying, Friendly decides that Terry must be killed unless Charley can coerce him into keeping quiet. Charley tries bribing Terry with a good job and finally threatens Terry by holding a gun against him, but recognizes that he has failed to sway Terry, who blames his own downward spiral on his well-off brother.
In what has become an iconic scene, Terry reminds Charley that had it not been for the fixed fight, Terry's prizefighting career would have bloomed. "I coulda' been a contender," laments Terry to his brother, "Instead of a bum, which is what I am – let's face it." Charley gives Terry the gun and advises him to run. Terry flees to Edie's apartment, where she first refuses to let him in but finally admits her love for him. Friendly, having had Charley watched, has Charley murdered and his body hung in an alley as bait to lure Terry out to his death, but Terry and Edie both escape the attempt on Terry's life.
After finding Charley's body, Terry sets out to shoot Friendly, but Father Barry prevents it by blocking Terry's line of fire and convincing Terry to fight Friendly by testifying instead. Terry proceeds to give damaging testimony implicating Friendly in Joey's murder and other illegal activities, causing Friendly's mob boss to cut him off and Friendly to face indictment.
After the testimony, Friendly announces that Terry will not find employment anywhere on the waterfront. Terry is shunned by his former friends and by a neighborhood boy who had previously looked up to him. Refusing Edie's suggestion that they move away from the waterfront together, Terry shows up during recruitment at the docks. When he is the only man not hired, Terry openly confronts Friendly, calling him out and proclaiming that he is proud of what he did.
The confrontation develops into a vicious brawl, with Terry getting the upper hand until Friendly's thugs gang up on Terry and nearly beat him to death. The dockworkers, who witness the confrontation, show their support for Terry by refusing to work unless Terry is working too and pushing Friendly into the river.
Encouraged by Father Barry and Edie, the badly injured Terry forces himself to his feet and enters the dock, followed by the other workers. A soaking wet and face-scarred Friendly, now left with nothing, swears revenge on them all, but his threats fall on deaf ears as they enter the garage and the door closes behind them.
Cast:
- Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy
- Karl Malden as Father Barry
- Lee J. Cobb as Michael J. Skelly aka "Johnny Friendly"
- Rod Steiger as Charley "the Gent" Malloy
- Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle
- Pat Henning as Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan
- John F. Hamilton as 'Pop' Doyle
- Ben Wagner as Joey Doyle
- James Westerfield as Big Mac
- Fred Gwynne as Mladen "Slim" Sekulovich
- Leif Erickson as Lead Investigator for Crime Commission
- Rudy Bond as Moose
- Martin Balsam as Gillette, Secondary Investigator for Crime Commission (uncredited)
- Katherine MacGregor as a Longshoreman's Mother (uncredited)
- Pat Hingle as Bartender (uncredited)
- Nehemiah Persoff as Cab Driver (uncredited)
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The Wild One is a 1953 American film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. It is most noted for the character of Johnny Strabler (Marlon Brando), whose persona became a cultural icon of the 1950s. The Wild One is considered to be the original outlaw biker film, and the first to examine American outlaw motorcycle gang violence.
The film's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney's short story "The Cyclists' Raid", published in the January 1951 Harper's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952. Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalized media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California.
The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947 issue of Life Magazine, with a staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle. The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.
Plot:
The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (BRMC), a gang led by Johnny Strabler (Marlon Brando), rides into Carbonville, California during a motorcycle race and causes trouble.
A member of the gang, Mouse (Gil Stratton), steals the second-place trophy (the first place one being too large to hide) and presents it to Johnny. Stewards and policemen order them to leave.
The bikers head to Wrightsville, which only has one elderly, conciliatory lawman, Chief Harry Bleeker (Robert Keith), to maintain order. The residents are uneasy, but mostly willing to put up with their visitors.
When their antics cause Art Kleiner (Will Wright) to swerve and crash his car, he demands that something be done, but Harry is reluctant to act, a weakness that is not lost on the interlopers. This accident results in the gang having to stay longer in town, as one member injured himself falling off his motorcycle. Although the young men become more and more boisterous, their custom is enthusiastically welcomed by Harry's brother Frank (Ray Teal) who runs the local cafe-bar, employing Harry's daughter, Kathie (Mary Murphy), and the elderly Jimmy.
At Frank's cafe, Johnny meets Kathie and asks her out to a dance being held that night. Kathie politely turns him down, but Johnny's dark, brooding personality visibly intrigues her. When Mildred, another local girl, asks him, "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?", he answers "Whaddaya got?"
Johnny is attracted to Kathie and decides to stay a while. However, when he learns that she is the policeman's daughter, he changes his mind. A rival biker gang, the Beetles, arrive and their leader, Chino (Lee Marvin), bears a grudge against Johnny. Chino reveals the two groups used to be one large gang before Johnny split it up. When Chino takes Johnny's trophy, the two start fighting and Johnny wins.
Meanwhile, local Charlie Thomas (Hugh Sanders) stubbornly tries to drive through, he hits a parked motorcycle and injures Meatball, one of Chino's bikers. Chino pulls Charlie out and leads both gangs to overturn his car.
Harry intervenes and starts arresting Chino and Charlie, but when other townspeople remind Harry that Charlie would cause problems for him in the future, he only takes Chino to the station. Later that night some Beetles members harass the telephone switchboard operator into leaving, thereby disrupting the townspeople's communication, while the BRMC abducts Charlie and puts him in the same jail cell as Chino, who is too drunk to leave with the gang.
Later, as both gangs wreck the town and intimidate the inhabitants, some bikers led by Gringo chase and surround Kathie, but Johnny rescues her and takes her on a long ride in the countryside.
Frightened at first, Kathie comes to see that Johnny is genuinely attracted to her and means her no harm. When she opens up to him and asks to go with him, he rejects her. Crying, she runs away. Johnny drives off to search for her. Art sees and misinterprets this as an attack.
The townspeople have had enough. Johnny's supposed assault on Kathie is the last straw. Vigilantes led by Charlie chase and catch Johnny and beat him mercilessly, but he escapes on his motorcycle when Harry confronts the mob. The mob give chase, but Johnny is hit by a thrown tire iron and falls. His riderless motorcycle strikes and kills Jimmy.
Sheriff Stew Singer arrives with his deputies and restores order. Johnny is initially arrested for Jimmy's death, with Kathie pleading on his behalf. Seeing this, Art and Frank step forward and testify that Johnny was not responsible for the tragedy, with Johnny being unable to thank them.
The motorcyclists are ordered to leave the county, albeit paying for all damage. Returning alone to Wrightsville, however, Johnny re-visits the cafe to say goodbye to Kathie one final time. He acts as though he's leaving after getting a cup of coffee, but he returns, genuinely smiles, and offers her his stolen trophy before exiting.
The Cast:
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The film's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney's short story "The Cyclists' Raid", published in the January 1951 Harper's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952. Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalized media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California.
The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947 issue of Life Magazine, with a staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle. The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.
Plot:
The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (BRMC), a gang led by Johnny Strabler (Marlon Brando), rides into Carbonville, California during a motorcycle race and causes trouble.
A member of the gang, Mouse (Gil Stratton), steals the second-place trophy (the first place one being too large to hide) and presents it to Johnny. Stewards and policemen order them to leave.
The bikers head to Wrightsville, which only has one elderly, conciliatory lawman, Chief Harry Bleeker (Robert Keith), to maintain order. The residents are uneasy, but mostly willing to put up with their visitors.
When their antics cause Art Kleiner (Will Wright) to swerve and crash his car, he demands that something be done, but Harry is reluctant to act, a weakness that is not lost on the interlopers. This accident results in the gang having to stay longer in town, as one member injured himself falling off his motorcycle. Although the young men become more and more boisterous, their custom is enthusiastically welcomed by Harry's brother Frank (Ray Teal) who runs the local cafe-bar, employing Harry's daughter, Kathie (Mary Murphy), and the elderly Jimmy.
At Frank's cafe, Johnny meets Kathie and asks her out to a dance being held that night. Kathie politely turns him down, but Johnny's dark, brooding personality visibly intrigues her. When Mildred, another local girl, asks him, "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?", he answers "Whaddaya got?"
Johnny is attracted to Kathie and decides to stay a while. However, when he learns that she is the policeman's daughter, he changes his mind. A rival biker gang, the Beetles, arrive and their leader, Chino (Lee Marvin), bears a grudge against Johnny. Chino reveals the two groups used to be one large gang before Johnny split it up. When Chino takes Johnny's trophy, the two start fighting and Johnny wins.
Meanwhile, local Charlie Thomas (Hugh Sanders) stubbornly tries to drive through, he hits a parked motorcycle and injures Meatball, one of Chino's bikers. Chino pulls Charlie out and leads both gangs to overturn his car.
Harry intervenes and starts arresting Chino and Charlie, but when other townspeople remind Harry that Charlie would cause problems for him in the future, he only takes Chino to the station. Later that night some Beetles members harass the telephone switchboard operator into leaving, thereby disrupting the townspeople's communication, while the BRMC abducts Charlie and puts him in the same jail cell as Chino, who is too drunk to leave with the gang.
Later, as both gangs wreck the town and intimidate the inhabitants, some bikers led by Gringo chase and surround Kathie, but Johnny rescues her and takes her on a long ride in the countryside.
Frightened at first, Kathie comes to see that Johnny is genuinely attracted to her and means her no harm. When she opens up to him and asks to go with him, he rejects her. Crying, she runs away. Johnny drives off to search for her. Art sees and misinterprets this as an attack.
The townspeople have had enough. Johnny's supposed assault on Kathie is the last straw. Vigilantes led by Charlie chase and catch Johnny and beat him mercilessly, but he escapes on his motorcycle when Harry confronts the mob. The mob give chase, but Johnny is hit by a thrown tire iron and falls. His riderless motorcycle strikes and kills Jimmy.
Sheriff Stew Singer arrives with his deputies and restores order. Johnny is initially arrested for Jimmy's death, with Kathie pleading on his behalf. Seeing this, Art and Frank step forward and testify that Johnny was not responsible for the tragedy, with Johnny being unable to thank them.
The motorcyclists are ordered to leave the county, albeit paying for all damage. Returning alone to Wrightsville, however, Johnny re-visits the cafe to say goodbye to Kathie one final time. He acts as though he's leaving after getting a cup of coffee, but he returns, genuinely smiles, and offers her his stolen trophy before exiting.
The Cast:
- Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler
- Mary Murphy as Kathie Bleeker
- Robert Keith as Police Chief Harry Bleeker
- Lee Marvin as Chino
- Jay C. Flippen as Sheriff Stew Singer
- Peggy Maley as Mildred
- Hugh Sanders as Charlie Thomas
- Ray Teal as Frank Bleeker
- John Brown as Bill Hannegan
- Will Wright as Art Kleiner
- Yvonne Doughty as Britches
- Keith Clarke as Gringo
- Timothy Carey (uncredited) as Vocal Beetles member at fight
- Angela Stevens (uncredited) as Betty
- John Doucette (uncredited) as Sage Valley race steward
- Pat O'Malley (uncredited) as Sawyer
- Robert Bice (uncredited) as Wilson
- Jerry Paris (uncredited) as Dextro
- Alvy Moore (uncredited) as Pidgeon
- Gil Stratton (uncredited) as Mouse
- Harry Landers (uncredited) as GoGo
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It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1945.
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be if he had never been born.
Despite initially performing poorly at the box office because of stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has become regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world.
The film is considered one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box office failure that today everyone believes ... it was initially a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see, money-making events they once were."
It's a Wonderful Life is considered one of the most critically acclaimed films ever made. It was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made, placing number 11 on its initial 1998 greatest movie list, number 20 on its revised 2007 greatest movie list and placing number one on its list of the most inspirational American films of all time. Capra revealed that this was his personal favorite among the films he directed and that he screened it for his family every Christmas season.
Plot:
On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, is assigned to save George, in return for which he will earn his angel wings.
To prepare him for his mission, Clarence is shown flashbacks of George's life. The first is from 1919, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry from drowning at a frozen lake; George loses his hearing in one ear as a result. At his after-school job, George realizes that the druggist, Mr. Gower – distraught over his son's death from the flu – has accidentally added poison to a child's prescription, and intervenes to stop it from causing harm.
In 1928, George plans to leave on a world tour and then attend college. At Harry's high-school graduation party, he is reintroduced to Mary Hatch, who has had a crush on him from childhood.
Their walk home is interrupted by news that George's father, Peter, has died of a stroke. George postpones his travel so he can sort out the family business, Bailey Brothers' Building and Loan.
Henry F. Potter, the richest man in town, wishes to dissolve the Building and Loan to eliminate it as a competitor. The board of directors votes to keep the Building and Loan open, on condition that George stay to run it (along with his absent-minded uncle Billy). George gives his college tuition to Harry on the condition that Harry take over the Building and Loan when he returns.
Four years later, Harry returns from college with a job offer from his father-in-law. George tells Harry to take the job and he will keep running the Building and Loan. George and Mary get married. On their way to their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank and use their honeymoon savings to keep the Building and Loan solvent until the bank reopens.
Eventually, George establishes Bailey Park, a housing development with small houses financed by the Building and Loan, so that people can own their own homes rather than paying rent to live in Potter's overpriced slums. Potter attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant, offering him $20,000 (equivalent to $270,000 in 2017) a year; George is momentarily tempted, but rebukes him.
During World War II, George is ineligible for service because of his bad ear. Harry becomes a Navy pilot and earns the Medal of Honor by shooting down a kamikaze plane headed for a troop transport.
On Christmas Eve morning 1945, as the town prepares a hero's welcome for Harry, Uncle Billy manages to misplace $8000 of the Building and Loan's cash (equivalent to $110,000 in 2017). When a bank examiner arrives to review the Building and Loan's records, George realizes that criminal charges are possible; he berates Uncle Billy, then goes home and takes out his frustration on his family. He soon apologizes to his wife and children, then leaves.
George desperately appeals to Potter for a loan. When George offers his life insurance policy as collateral, Potter says George is worth more dead than alive and phones the police to have him arrested.
George gets drunk at a local bar and is involved in a fight before he leaves and goes to a nearby bridge, thinking of suicide. The film's narrative catches up to the time of the opening scene. Before he can jump, Clarence dives into the river just before George does, causing George to rescue Clarence rather than killing himself. George does not believe Clarence's subsequent claim that he is George's guardian angel.
When George says he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant his wish and show George an alternate timeline in which he never existed. Bedford Falls is named Pottersville and is a less congenial place. Mr. Gower has recently been released from prison for manslaughter, because George was not there to stop him from putting poison in the pills.
The Building and Loan has closed down, as George never took over after Peter's passing.
George's mother does not recognize him; she reveals that Uncle Billy was institutionalized after the collapse of the Building and Loan. In the cemetery where Bailey Park would have been, George discovers the grave of his brother. Clarence tells him all the soldiers on the transport died, as Harry was never there to save them, because George had never saved Harry from drowning. Mary, who works at the library, never married; when George says he is her husband, she screams for the police, causing George to flee and the local policeman to give chase.
George, now convinced that Clarence is really his guardian angel, runs back to the bridge and begs for his life back; the alternate timeline changes back to the original reality. George runs home to await his arrest. Mary and Uncle Billy arrive, having rallied the townspeople, who donate more than enough to cover the missing $8,000 and for Potter's warrant to be torn up.
Harry arrives and toasts George calling him "The richest man in town". A bell on the Christmas tree rings, and his daughter recalls a story that says the sound means that an angel has just earned his wings, signifying Clarence's promotion.
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The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be if he had never been born.
Despite initially performing poorly at the box office because of stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has become regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world.
The film is considered one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box office failure that today everyone believes ... it was initially a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see, money-making events they once were."
It's a Wonderful Life is considered one of the most critically acclaimed films ever made. It was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made, placing number 11 on its initial 1998 greatest movie list, number 20 on its revised 2007 greatest movie list and placing number one on its list of the most inspirational American films of all time. Capra revealed that this was his personal favorite among the films he directed and that he screened it for his family every Christmas season.
Plot:
On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, is assigned to save George, in return for which he will earn his angel wings.
To prepare him for his mission, Clarence is shown flashbacks of George's life. The first is from 1919, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry from drowning at a frozen lake; George loses his hearing in one ear as a result. At his after-school job, George realizes that the druggist, Mr. Gower – distraught over his son's death from the flu – has accidentally added poison to a child's prescription, and intervenes to stop it from causing harm.
In 1928, George plans to leave on a world tour and then attend college. At Harry's high-school graduation party, he is reintroduced to Mary Hatch, who has had a crush on him from childhood.
Their walk home is interrupted by news that George's father, Peter, has died of a stroke. George postpones his travel so he can sort out the family business, Bailey Brothers' Building and Loan.
Henry F. Potter, the richest man in town, wishes to dissolve the Building and Loan to eliminate it as a competitor. The board of directors votes to keep the Building and Loan open, on condition that George stay to run it (along with his absent-minded uncle Billy). George gives his college tuition to Harry on the condition that Harry take over the Building and Loan when he returns.
Four years later, Harry returns from college with a job offer from his father-in-law. George tells Harry to take the job and he will keep running the Building and Loan. George and Mary get married. On their way to their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank and use their honeymoon savings to keep the Building and Loan solvent until the bank reopens.
Eventually, George establishes Bailey Park, a housing development with small houses financed by the Building and Loan, so that people can own their own homes rather than paying rent to live in Potter's overpriced slums. Potter attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant, offering him $20,000 (equivalent to $270,000 in 2017) a year; George is momentarily tempted, but rebukes him.
During World War II, George is ineligible for service because of his bad ear. Harry becomes a Navy pilot and earns the Medal of Honor by shooting down a kamikaze plane headed for a troop transport.
On Christmas Eve morning 1945, as the town prepares a hero's welcome for Harry, Uncle Billy manages to misplace $8000 of the Building and Loan's cash (equivalent to $110,000 in 2017). When a bank examiner arrives to review the Building and Loan's records, George realizes that criminal charges are possible; he berates Uncle Billy, then goes home and takes out his frustration on his family. He soon apologizes to his wife and children, then leaves.
George desperately appeals to Potter for a loan. When George offers his life insurance policy as collateral, Potter says George is worth more dead than alive and phones the police to have him arrested.
George gets drunk at a local bar and is involved in a fight before he leaves and goes to a nearby bridge, thinking of suicide. The film's narrative catches up to the time of the opening scene. Before he can jump, Clarence dives into the river just before George does, causing George to rescue Clarence rather than killing himself. George does not believe Clarence's subsequent claim that he is George's guardian angel.
When George says he wishes he had never been born, Clarence decides to grant his wish and show George an alternate timeline in which he never existed. Bedford Falls is named Pottersville and is a less congenial place. Mr. Gower has recently been released from prison for manslaughter, because George was not there to stop him from putting poison in the pills.
The Building and Loan has closed down, as George never took over after Peter's passing.
George's mother does not recognize him; she reveals that Uncle Billy was institutionalized after the collapse of the Building and Loan. In the cemetery where Bailey Park would have been, George discovers the grave of his brother. Clarence tells him all the soldiers on the transport died, as Harry was never there to save them, because George had never saved Harry from drowning. Mary, who works at the library, never married; when George says he is her husband, she screams for the police, causing George to flee and the local policeman to give chase.
George, now convinced that Clarence is really his guardian angel, runs back to the bridge and begs for his life back; the alternate timeline changes back to the original reality. George runs home to await his arrest. Mary and Uncle Billy arrive, having rallied the townspeople, who donate more than enough to cover the missing $8,000 and for Potter's warrant to be torn up.
Harry arrives and toasts George calling him "The richest man in town". A bell on the Christmas tree rings, and his daughter recalls a story that says the sound means that an angel has just earned his wings, signifying Clarence's promotion.
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- Cast
- Production
- Reception
- Awards and honors
- Release
- Adaptations in other media
- Antecedent
- See also:
- Mr. Destiny a 1990 film
- The Family Man a 2000 film
- Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. (a legal case partially relating to another example of an out of copyright adaption of a work still under copyright)
- Zu Zu Ginger Snaps
- List of films featuring the deaf and hard of hearing
- List of films considered the best
- It's a Wonderful Life on IMDb
- It's a Wonderful Life at Rotten Tomatoes
- It's a Wonderful Life at AllMovie
- The Making of It's A Wonderful Life Frank Capra Online at Eeweems.com
- Dimitri Tiomkin and It's A Wonderful Life at AmericanMusicPreservation.com
- Philip Van Doren Stern, The Greatest Gift, publicly available 1st edition of authenticated reproduction, at sendaframe.com