Dennis Seuling

Jess Franco directed films in a number of genres but he’s best known for horror and erotic pictures. Usually low-budget or B movies, they tend to prioritize exploitation over plot. In the Spanish-German Death Packs a Suitcase (also known as Der Todesracher von Soho), Franco ventures into the realm of whodunits.

MGM scored big bucks and a Best Picture Oscar with An American in Paris in 1951. They also did well with a remake of Show Boat, with a score by Jerome Kern. Hoping to mine the same vein of box office gold, the studio used the stars of Show Boat, the setting of Paris with sets recycled from An American in Paris, and another Kern score in the lush Technicolor musical Lovely to Look At.

Manhattan Melodrama features three stars in a tale of two boyhood friends who, as adults, go in opposite directions. One becomes a lawyer and prosecutor, the other runs a gambling joint and fraternizes with gangsters. An attractive woman enters their lives and becomes instrumental in shaping their destiny.

Hell’s Angels, Howard Hughes’ homage to World War I fighter pilots, is still revered nearly a century later for its breathtaking sequences of daredevil aerial footage. Production started during the silent era but extensive delays caused the film to be updated for sound and released in 1930. The film is largely in black & white with some impressive scenes in color.

Lulu on the Bridge promises but doesn’t deliver. The film has a slow, listless pace that dilutes suspense and impairs viewer attentiveness. Writer/director Auster must have talked a good talk to get so many A-class actors on board. His script has an air of mystery and danger, but it’s ultimately a series of intriguing moments that, when added together, result in a cinematic hodgepodge.

The Marx Brothers starred in a series of successful pictures at Paramount, then moved to MGM, where they made arguably their best films, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. After a brief switch to RKO for Room Service, the brothers returned to MGM for At the Circus, which gave the zany trio a perfect backdrop for their antics.

Some movies present enigmatic situations that keep viewers guessing. In K-PAX, a man claims he’s from a distant galaxy. Is he delusional or is there truth in his claim? Risking the scorn of his colleagues, a dedicated psychiatrist is determined to delve deeper into the mystery of the man’s identity.

The Bride Came C.O.D. features two of Warner Bros. biggest stars is a slapstick comedy that involves a mismatched couple, an independent heiress, and a pilot fearful of losing his plane and livelihood.

Death has been personified in movies through the years. Whether fearsome, like the pasty-faced specter in The Seventh Seal and the scarlet-shrouded figure in The Masque of the Red Death, or gentle, like Prince Sirki of Death Takes a Holiday the goal is the same—to usher the living into eternity. In On Borrowed Time, Death takes the form of a soft-spoken gentleman.

The French film A Man and a Woman took the world by storm in 1966 with the story of a tender romance between a widow and widower drawn together by grief over their past tragedies. Simple in structure, the film encompasses a range of emotion as it explores the complexities of unexpectedly finding new love while retaining fond memories of the lost love.