frankie's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List

When a small-town idealist Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) goes to New York to collect a $20 million inheritance, he finds romance with wisecracking journalist Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur), becomes the target of ruthless businessmen and relatives, and finally decides to give his fortune away because it's so much trouble.

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Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the gray morning after. In gambling dens and lavish soirees, men of means exert their wills and women turned courtesans exult in pleasure.

One such woman is Marguerite Gautier (Greta Garbo), the Camille of this sumptuous romance tale based on the enduring Alexandre Dumas story.

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Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka), manager of a London cinema, is secretly involved with a gang of European saboteurs who are plotting a massive bomb attack in Piccadilly Circus.

With the police already suspicious of Verloc, they place an undercover detective on his trail - can he bring the saboteurs to justice before they perpetrate their outrage on London?

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One of the finest films of the 1930's, this classic Samuel Goldwyn production was based upon the hit Broadway play written by Sidney Howard, which had in turn been adapted from the 1929 novel by Sinclair Lewis.

Ahead of it's time in dramatizing the disintegration of a marriage, the story centers on the title character, Samuel 'Sam' Dodsworth (superbly played by Walter Huston, who originated his role onstage), a wealthy automobile manufacturer whose wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton, in her final American film role) desperately craves an aristocratic lifestyle in Europe. 'Dodsworth' indulges her fancies to a degree, but their clashing desires-compounded by her affair with a European baron Tubby Pearson (Harlan Briggs) and his affection for a sympathetic widow Edith Cortright (Mary Astor) - create further tension and mutual rancor. 'Dodsworth' was perhaps the first Hollywood drama of the sound era that maturely addressed the complexity of a failing marriage and impending divorce, made especially compelling since 'Dodsworth' is such an admirable and upstanding character who means well and upholds the ideal of marital commitment.

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It's Christmas 1940 and the people of Everytown, unprepared and ill-equipped, find themselves at war against an enemy who has been planning such a conflict for years.

The land is devastated by the horrors of aerial bombardment as the war drags on for thirty years, causing a period of despair, with feudal tyrants ruling a downtrodden populace suffering famine and pestilence. Can the human race rise above its desperate circumstances and build a scientific utopia?

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Life story of a charming scoundrel, with little dialogue other than the star/director's witty narration. As a boy, only he survives a family tragedy when he's deprived of supper (poisonous mushrooms!) for stealing...concluding that dishonesty pays.

Through years of dabbling in crime and amusing adventures, two women appear and reappear in his life, a dazzling blonde jewel thief and a stunning brunette gambler. Finally, he meets the mysterious Charbonnier who had saved his life in World War I, leading to the surprising next phase in his career...

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The fishing schooner We're Here has just pulled up a different kind of fish: rich, 10-year-old Harvey Cheyne, who tumbled off the side of a sleek ocean liner.

Harvey will have to wait months before the We're Here returns to harbour, months that will transform him from a spoiled whiner into an honorable young man - all because of the life lessons he learns from Manuel, the humble fisherman who befriends him. From Rudyard Kipling's classic, Captains Courageous thrills with its seagoing action, grand scale and all-star cast. But what gives it full-masted magnificence is the chemistry between Freddie Bartholomew (Harvey) and Spencer Tracy (Manuel). Tracy won his first Best Actor Academy Award for his towering portrait of the father we all wish for: virile, patient, wise and protective. Set sail for cinema glory.

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In this Chinese version of 'The Phantom of the Opera', the mysterious Song Danping terrorises the newly rebuilt opera house and it's young star.

After falling in love with the daughter of a wealthy lord, Song was beaten, scarred with acid and left to die years ago in the burning wreckage of the old opera house. Now, he's looking for someone to star in his own private production.

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Set in the German prison camps of WW1, the film stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, and Marcel Dalio as Rosenthal.

Like the charming aristocrat Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), these two French aviators were shot down and now spend most of their time escaping from German prison camps before inevitably being recaptured. Between escapes, they do what they can to amuse themselves, but after a tunnel they've dug is discovered, the three are sent to Wintersborn, a forbidding fortress of a prison commanded by former ace pilot Von Rauffenstein (Erich Von Stroheim). Von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with Captain de Boeldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility.

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True heroines don't always save lives. Sometimes they're simply mothers, with an everlasting devotion to their children. Such is the case in Stella Dallas.

Starring Barbara Stanwyck in an performance that's as courageous as it is fine, this enduring classic is a vivid and authentic cross-section of American life deeply moving emotional power!
Even after her marriage to well-bred Stephen Dallas ends, irrepressible Stella is determined to give their daughter the life she never had. And when it comes down to her child's happiness versus her own, Stella's sacrifice is truly the epitome of bravery.

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Set in the mid through late 19th century, it depicts Zola's friendship with Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne, and his rise to fame through his prolific writing, with particular focus on his involvement late in life in the Dreyfus affair.

Struggling writer Émile Zola (Paul Muni) shares a drafty Paris attic with his friend, painter Paul Cézanne (Vladimir Sokoloff). A chance encounter with a street prostitute (Erin O'Brien-Moore) hiding from a police raid inspires his first bestseller, Nana, an exposé of the steamy underside of Parisian life. Other successful books follow. Zola becomes rich and famous; he marries Alexandrine (Gloria Holden) and settles down to a comfortable life in his mansion. One day, his old friend Cézanne, still poor and unknown, visits him before leaving the city, and tells Zola that with his success he has become complacent, a far cry from the zealous reformer of his youth. Meanwhile, a French secret agent steals a letter addressed to a military officer in the German embassy. The letter confirms there is a spy within the top French army staff. With little thought, the army commanders decide that Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Joseph Schildkraut) is the traitor, is courtmartialed and imprisoned on Devil's Island in then French Guyana...

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Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, two of the great Hollywood character actors, portray the couple whose house the bank has foreclosed upon, and who are forced subsequently to move into their children's homes in the city.

A near-musical restructuring of gratitude and debt ensues once the offspring deem the couple's lodging an imposition: the two are separated, then reunited weeks later... as they glide inexorably into an uncertain future.

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Generations have celebrated the magical story, memorable music and unforgettable characters of Walt Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

Now, this timeless animated classic sparkles like never before with an all-new, state-of-the-art digital restoration and exciting new bonus features! The beautiful and kind-hearted princess Snow White charms every creature in the kingdom except one -her jealous stepmother, the Queen. When the Magic Mirror proclaims Snow White the fairest one of all, she must flee into the forest, where she befriends the lovable seven dwarfs - Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy and Dopey. But when the Queen tricks Snow White with an enchanted apple, only the magic of true love's kiss can save her!

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In this Oscar-winning farce, Cary Grant (in the role that first defined the Cary Grant persona) and Irene Dunne exude charm, cunning, and artless affection as an urbane couple who, fed up with each others infidelities, resolve to file for divorce.

But try as they might to move on, the mischievous Jerry can't help meddling in Lucy's ill-matched engagement to a corn-fed Oklahoma businessman (Ralph Bellamy), and a mortified Lucy begins to realize that she may be saying goodbye to the only dance partner capable of following her lead. Directed by the versatile Leo McCarey, a master of improvisation and slapstick as well as a keen and sympathetic observer of human folly, 'The Awful Truth' is a warm but unsparing comedy about two people whose flaws only make them more irresistible.

In the performance which made him a cinematic icon, Jean Gabin plays Pepe le Moko, a notorious gangster hiding out from the police and his rivals in the Casbah of Algiers. In the labyrinth of the Casbah he is safe; until a Parisian playgirl tempts him out into the open...