Mervyn LeRoy
A hilarious and heartfelt military comedy-drama co-directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, Mister Roberts stars Henry Fonda as an officer who’s yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a noncommissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Capt. Morton (James Cagney). Jack Lemmon enjoys a star-making turn as the freewheeling Ensign Pulver, and William Powell stars as the ship’s doctor in his last screen role. Based on the 1946 novel with the same name, by Thomas Heggen, and the 1948 Broadway play, written by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan. Henry Fonda also starred in the original Broadway production. Warner Bros. didn’t want Fonda to star in the film, as they thought he was too old, and had been a stage player for so long (8 years), that he no longer was box office material. However, John Ford insisted on Fonda and the company eventually agreed.
Louisa May Alcott’s autobiographical account of her life with her three sisters in Concord Mass in the 1860s. With their father fighting in the civil war, the sisters: Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth are at home with their mother – a very outspoken women for her time. The story is of how the sisters grow up, find love and find their place in the world.
Set against the back drop of Rome in crisis, General Marcus Vinicius returns to the city from the battle fields and falls in love with a Christian woman, Lygia. Caught in the grip of insanity, Nero’s atrocities become more extreme and he burns Rome, laying the blame on the Christians. Vinicius races to save Lygia from the wrath of Nero as the empire of Rome collapses around them.
Four aspiring musical actresses – Carol, Trixie, Polly and Fay – are struggling to make a living on Broadway in the midst of the Great Depression. When producer Barney Hopkins has the idea of creating a show about the Depression, the girls team up with newly-discovered songwriter Brad Roberts to make it happen. But Brad is not who he seems.
Young Rhoda Penmark is sweet, smart … and inherently evil! After a school chum dies during a picnic, no one suspects Rhoda, except the janitor of her apartment building. But when Rhoda’s mother finds out that her own mother was a cold-blooded killer, she begins to suspect Rhoda might be the victim of some faulty genetics.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn’t killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra’s hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family’s country estate.
