Fools for Luck

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...

After the death of a United States Senator, the idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. The naive and earnest new senator soon finds himself battling political corruption.

A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her, but runs afoul of her father when she discovers that her mischief might have found her true love.

Boxer Joe Pendleton, flying to his next fight, crashes...because a Heavenly Messenger, new on the job, snatched Joe's spirit prematurely from his body. Before the matter can be rectified, Joe's body is cremated; so the celestial Mr. Jordan grants him the use of the body of wealthy Bruce Farnsworth, who's just been murdered by his wife. Joe tries to remake Farnsworth's unworthy life in his own clean-cut image, but then falls in love; and what about that murderous wife?

Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to "know trouble" first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion, he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.

Two sailors on shore leave head out for four days of partying – only to become involved in the affairs of an aspiring singer and her precocious nephew.

Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.

A series of vignettes with a loose plot. Featured are Frank Morgan, Groucho Marx, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and The Brian Sisters. Not bad, more interesting for the historical significance than for entertainment.

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.

A naive traveler in Laredo gets involved in a poker game between the richest men in the area, jeopardizing all the money he has saved for the purpose of settling with his wife and child in San Antonio.

After a demonstration of new PT boats, Navy brass are still unconvinced of their viability in combat, leaving Lt. "Rusty" Ryan frustrated. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Ryan and his buddy Lt. Brickley are told they can finally take their squadron into battle. The PT boats quickly prove their worth, successfully shooting down Japanese planes, relaying messages between islands, and picking off a multitude of enemy ships.

A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.

Concentrating on the personal lives of those involved, a war correspondent takes us through the preparations, landing and initial campaign on Guadalcanal during WWII.

During the start of the Pacific campaign in World War II, Lieutenant Janet Davidson is the head of a group of U.S. military nurses who are trapped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Davidson tries to keep up the spirits of her staff, which includes Lieutenants Joan O'Doul and Olivia D'Arcy. They all seek to maintain a sense of normal life, including dating, while under constant danger as they tend to wounded soldiers.

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Vaudeville is a 1997 PBS documentary under its American Masters program. Using film clips and photos, the art and history of vaudeville (1890-1930s) is illustrated.

Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)

A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Alexander Graham Bell falls in love with deaf girl Mabel Hubbard while teaching the deaf and trying to invent means for telegraphing the human voice. She urges him to put off thoughts of marriage until his experiments are complete. He invents the telephone, marries and becomes rich and famous, though his happiness is threatened when a rival company sets out to ruin him.

Charlie Chan's investigation of a blackmail-induced suicide as a case of murder leads him into a world of magick and mysticism peopled with a stage magician, a phoney spiritualist, and a for-real mind reader.

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel and more, with host Bob Hope.

Raoul Leduc is a police inspector trailing a spy who plots to kidnap an important American atomic scientist. Joe Victor a gangster who is hired to carry out the abduction, balks when he learns what is at stake and helps Leduc out instead.

A film scrapbook, images, phrases from our past, hiding their meanings behind veils. Let's lift those veils, one by one, to find how images, at one time seeming innocent, have revealed, after decades, to have homosexual overtones.

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

Marianne falls in love with con man Valentine who uses their relation to get her father's endorsement on a money-raising scheme. He runs off with the money and Marianne, later dumping her. Her sister Laura loves Dr. Lindley although she knows he loves Marianne. Marianne returns and marries a wealthy young man, and Lindley turns his love toward Laura.

The story of a Canadian WWII naval vessel, with a dramatic subplot concerning her first captain.

This classic family drama stars Shirley Temple as young orphan Susannah Sheldon, the sole survivor of a brutal Indian attack who's befriended by Canadian Mountie Angus Montague (Randolph Scott) and his girlfriend, Vicky (Margaret Lockwood). The couple takes Susannah under their wing and soon learn that having a precocious child around can come in handy; when the Indians return, the girl uses her charm to broker peace.Shirley is the orphaned survivor of an Indian attack in the Canadian West. A Mountie and his girlfriend take her in...

The setting is a farm. Kate Smith and Sally Blane play sisters; assorted relatives live with the sisters, but everyone at home, and in the whole town, depends on Kate to hold everything together. The power company wants to build a dam which will require flooding many of the farms; Kate is holding out; if Kate sells, everyone else will sell; if Kate refuses, the rest of the town will refuse as well. Randolph Scott meets Kate's beautiful sister, Sally Blane, at a dance. Randolph Scott, as it turns out, is an agent for the power company. Kate thinks he's just using Sally; Sally believes that he truly likes her. Randolph comes to the farm and appears to woo Kate. Kate remains unconvinced about selling out, but falls for Randolph.

A taxi dancer with a jealous husband finds herself falling for a wealthy client.

An outlaw calling himself Passin' Through halts his "evil" ways long enough to help out some children in difficulty.

She dances- The Dance of Death. She Sings- The song of Life. Scintillating, Fascinating, Desirable, Swifty She Weaves the Web of Destruction and then Regeneration. A Drama of Lights and Shadows.

A young couple marries in secret. Judy's afraid her parents won't approve of Dick and she'll lose her generous allowance. Her parents bring her home from the city where she's been studying art and encourage the attentions of Tom, a persistent suitor. Judy and her jealous husband have an argument that leads her back to the city, a drunken, amorous Tom and a tragedy.

A female journalist travels to a new neighborhood after getting a (false) lead and is surprised by what she finds.

Chorus girl Mary Brown promises to give herself to playboy cad John Duane in exchange for $2500 so she can pay back a theft her brother made from his employers. Her sweetheart, race-car driver Jimmie, learns about it and gives her a check for $2500, but the check is worthless unless he can win the Big Race that afternoon. He leads through every lap but blows a tire on the last lap and finishes fourth. It appears that Duane will soon be hugging sweet Mary, unless Jimmie can find a buyer for a race-car with a flat tire.

John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins leading a life of dissolute habits, which soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he recalls better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.

Hugh Garth hides from the law in the frozen Canadian northwest along with his young brother Pete and Pete's former nurse, Bella, who loves Hugh unrequitedly. When a lost and snowblind girl stumbles into their camp, Hugh falls in love with her and misleads her as to the age and relationship of Pete and Bella, in hopes of keeping the girl's attentions directed at himself. But when the girl's sight returns, she realizes the truth and discovers that Pete has fallen in love with her. But Hugh's cruel nature now threatens them both.

A young man just released from prison can't find work because no employer will hire an ex-convict. Broke and hungry, he steals money off of a painter. The painter, however, takes pity on him and decides to help him get his life back together.