Top Man

In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.

Leslie Zevo is a fun-loving inventor who must save his late father's toy factory from his evil uncle, Leland, a war-mongering general who rules the operation with an iron fist and builds weapons disguised as toys.

Care-free Charlie cons his widower brother-in-law Herb into an expenses-paid luxury cruise in search of rich, lonely ladies. The catch is that they are required to be dance hosts! With a tyrannical cruise director, and the luscious Liz and lovely Vivian, our heroes have lots of mis-adventures before they finally return to port.

Private detective Moses Wine is hired by his former college girlfriend to investigate a political smear campaign and he sets out to find out who is responsible, with deadly results.

A former high school student who always wanted to be a cheerleader decides to reopen the cheerleading program at her former high school after years of closure for being targeted by a serial killer.

Bert, a pitcher for a baseball team in a small town, is given the opportunity to try out for a team in the big leagues. Unfortunately, he incurs the enmity of McRae, the league's leading home-run hitter. In addition, he falls for the team owner's daughter, who McRae has designs on.

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

Three sailors finally get some shore leave, and go in search of fun and girls.

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

Dr. Hohner, theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever.

A young lady named Hilda who works as a servant for the wealthy Clarksons, sheep farmers, and dreams of being a great singer. An upcoming visit by Sir Julian, a famous composer arriving from London, drives jealous Mrs. Clarkson (an interfering biddy who fancies she can sing - but can't) to send away Hilda, so he doesn't hear Hilda has a good voice. Meanwhile, an infamous outlaw named Stingaree has just arrived in town and kidnaps Sir Julian, then poses as him at the Clarksons, where he meets Hilda a few hours before she is to leave.

A rebellious young inductee has trouble toeing the line until he meets a retired officer's lovely daughter. James and his band are also drafted and decide to perk up their camp by putting on a big show.

Molly, her brother, Slats, and his pal, Oliver, are taxi dancers at the Miramar Ballroom. As a publicity stunt, Slats plants an article about Molly claiming her ambition is to earn enough money to attend staid, all-girl Bixby College. Bixby's progressive dean offers Molly a scholarship. Molly accepts on the condition that Slats and Oliver come along too as campus caretakers. But the pompous Chairman threatens to foreclose on the school's mortgage if Molly isn't expelled. Together, the trio, with the help of some new friends, concocts a scheme to raise enough money to save the school. The plan involves a bet on the Bixby basketball team, which is playing in a game rated at 20 to 1 by the local bookie. But the bookie has other plans for their dough and hires a group of ringers to step in for the opponents. All is not lost, at least while Oliver has the chance to turn things around for his friends-one way or another.

During World War II, all the studios put out "all-star" vehicles which featured virtually every star on the lot--often playing themselves--in musical numbers and comedy skits, and were meant as morale-boosters to both the troops overseas and the civilians at home. This was Universal Pictures' effort. It features everyone from Donald O'Connor to the Andrews Sisters to Orson Welles to W.C. Fields to George Raft to Marlene Dietrich, and dozens of other Universal players.

A Gay-Nineties musical set in NYC's Bowery and East-Side explores the life of its inhabitants---an Irish policeman and his tap-dancing daughter and music-hall wife; a German professor of music and his singing daughter; and an Italian café-owner, a kindly priest, a struggling young doctor and a saloon-keeper. And a political ward-heeler, Terrence Dowd, who has a deceptive and dishonest plan to sell them all out in order to build a fight arena. But he meets his match in property-owner Claire Adamson.

J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the classics and won't allow him to replace Professor Bistell and his symphonic orchestra. Conspiring with his daughter Sue and her friends, Marvo the Great, the Andrews Sisters, Anne Payne and bandleader Woody Herman, they devise a sabotage plot that gets rid of Professor Bistell, and a new sound is soon heard on the program.

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

Former child star Jackie Cooper headlines this sentimental behind-the-scenes comedy drama. He plays an ex-child star who now jerks sodas for a living in Hollywood. He gets back into the movie business when he overhears a conversation between producers discussing their newest prodigy. Cooper butts in and suggests the producers remake Skippy (a real-life 1931 film that made young Cooper a star). The bigwigs like the idea and then hire Cooper to become the boy's acting coach. Once back on the backlot, Cooper finds both trouble and romance while helping the young boy adjust to life as a movie star.

Two Bowery vaudevillians find success in producing shows on Broadway, but when one of them suddenly departs to work for a beautiful woman, a feud erupts.

In this musical comedy, a young singer becomes so desperate to appear on Broadway that she goes to a prominent producer and tells him that she is the daughter who resulted from his day-long marriage to a young woman he knew years ago. The producer is delighted and soon puts his daughter up on stage. The trouble begins when the girl's "mother" suddenly pays a call. For her own reasons, the woman decides to play along with the girl's ruse. Fortunately, by the story's end, the truth is revealed, all differences are reconciled and happiness ensues.

18-year-old Angela, reared in a New England town by her Aunt Betsy, receives an inheritance which she uses to go to New York, ostensibly for voice training, but she is pursuing Major Hilary Jarret, an Army surgeon with whom she has become infatuated. Her departure depresses her childhood friend Jimmy Plum. Dr. Plum devises an errand on which to send his love-sick son to New York, where Jimmy discovers Angela thinks she is Jarret's fiancée. Jimmy also renews acquaintances with a group of show people, including Sally McGuire, who attempts to console him. Jimmy meets Jarret's divorced wife, Harriet, famed photographer. Jimmy engineers a meeting of Jarret and Harriet with Angela present, which forms the beginning of an understanding that Jarret is not for her. Jimmy is inducted into the Army.

In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

Following a tragic accident that leaves him disfigured, crazed composer Erique Claudin transformed into a masked phantom who schemes to make beautiful young soprano Christine Dubois the star of the opera and wreak revenge on those who stole his music.

The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.

Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.

This is the story of the historic 1938 flight of Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan. Mr. Corrigan starred in this film, which chronicled his infamous flight. On July 17, 1938, Mr. Corrigan loaded 320 gallons of gasoline (40 hours worth) into the tiny, single engine plane. While expressing his intent to fly west to Long Beach, CA, Mr. Corrigan flew out of Floyd Bennett Field heading east over the Atlantic. Instrumentation in the plane included two compasses (both malfunctioned) and a turn-and-bank indicator. The cabin door was held shut with baling wire. Nearly 29 hours later, he landed in Baldonnel near Dublin. He forever claimed to be surprised at arriving in Ireland rather than California. He returned to the US as a hero, with a ticker tape parade in New York and received numerous medals and awards.

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.

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

Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.

Adventurous Huck Finn prefers rafting on the Mississippi River rather than being a part of civilization.

New York, summer 1983. Jeanne Moreau goes to meet Lillian Gish to film a portrait of her. The star of American silent films invites her to her apartment and discusses her career from its beginnings on film in 1912. She remembers the conditions on stage when she was a child, the first Hollywood blockbuster, D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915), and her passion for cinema guided by an inexhaustible curiosity.

Story of a professional gambler, connoisseur, gourmet and sportsman who sets out to help a Las Vegas hotel-casino owner from losing his controlling interest to a business syndicate but finds his reputation is on the line when he runs into a mystery lady who seems to operate on both sides of the law.

In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.

Landing at a Chinese port, tough sea captain Bucklin and his passengers are threatened by a marauding war lord, who intends to kill the captain and hold the others hostage as part of his campaign of destruction against all white men.

Brothers Beau, John and Digby Geste join the Foreign Legion, where they fall under the rule of tyrannical Sergeant Markoff. Beau and John are assigned to Fort Zinderneuf, where Markoff tries to break their spirit, aware of a dark family secret concerning a fabulous jewel one of them carries. As tensions rise, Arabs attack the fort and rivalries must be thrown aside in a desperate battle for life.

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.

Unguarded Women is a lost 1924 silent film drama. In a battle during the World War, Douglas Albright has a moment of cowardice which causes the death of his friend, Captain Banning. When Albright comes back from the war, his fiancée, Helen Castle and her father, George, can see that something is bothering him. So Castle sends him to take care of business in China -- and to pull himself together. While in China, Albright runs across Bannings' widow, Breta, who has buried her sorrows behind a mask of revelry and fast living. Because he feels responsible for what she has become, Albright attempts to regenerate her and proposes marriage.

Richard Dix as Dan Taylor and Preston S. Foster as Paxton Bryce are two longtime friends seeking their fortune in Texas after the war. The two men decide, not without problems, to establish a cattle empire. Paxton becoming too ambitious, distances himself from Dan and Abby, Paxton's wife. It will only be after a personal tragedy that he will come back to his senses.

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right.

A guilt-ridden man blames himself for his wife's death and secretly pays an assassin to kill him. But then he finds out that his wife isn't dead at all. And now the assassin is on his trail, with no way to call off the hit.

A dying millionaire marries his nurse for companionship, only to experience a miracle cure.

A woman uses a deck of cards to predict death within 24 hours for a stranger sitting at a bar, then tries to help him remember who he is based on items in his pockets.

A documentary from Universal about their Phantom of the Opera movies.