91% (2) Sunset Boulevard 110 min, Not Rated, [Drama, Film-Noir] [Billy Wilder] [29 Sep 1950]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 84%, Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 3 Oscars. Another 15 wins & 18 nominations.
Actors: Erich von Stroheim, Gloria Swanson, Nancy Olson, William Holden
Writer: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr.
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.
Rotten Tomatoes: Aging silent-film star Norma Desmond ensnares a young screenwriter in this poison-pen valentine to Hollywood.
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75% (2) The Absent Minded Professor 92 min, Approved, [Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi, Sport] [Robert Stevenson] [16 Mar 1961]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, Rotten Tomatoes: 82%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 1 win & 5 nominations.
Actors: Fred MacMurray, Keenan Wynn, Nancy Olson, Tommy Kirk
Writer: Bill Walsh (screenplay), Samuel W. Taylor (story)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A bumbling professor accidently invents flying rubber, or "Flubber", an incredible material that gains energy every time it strikes a hard surface. It allows for the invention of shoes that can allow jumps of amazing heights and enables a modified Model-T to fly. Unfortunately, no one is interested in the material except for Alonzo Hawk, a corrupt businessman who wants to steal the material for himself.
Rotten Tomatoes: Fred MacMurray stars in this Walt Disney comedy hit concerning absent-minded professor Ned Brainard (MacMurray), a science teacher at a small-town college, who is so scatterbrained that he has forgotten to show up at his own wedding. Missing his wedding ceremony twice, he is determined not to do it again. But, when he gets involved in some chemical experiments, he leaves he poor bride-to-be Betsy (Nancy Olsen) stranded at the altar again. Although his weddings plans are not successful, his experiments are --he develops a black and rubbery substance that bounces very high and seems to defy gravity. He calls it "flubber." When he substitutes the formula for the motor in his old Model T Ford, he can fly through the sky in his car. Continuing on with practical uses for the substance, he applies it to the college basketball team's sneakers, permitting them to rocket over the heads of the opposing team and win an easy victory. But when word of Brainard's discovery comes to the attention of nefarious alumnus Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn), Hawk plans to steal Barinard's car and his formula to "flubber."
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73% (2) Son of Flubber 100 min, Approved, [Comedy, Sci-Fi, Family] [Robert Stevenson] [16 Jan 1963]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 61%, Rotten Tomatoes: 86%, External Reviews
Awards: 2 nominations.
Actors: Fred MacMurray, Keenan Wynn, Nancy Olson, Tommy Kirk
Writer: Bill Walsh (screenplay), Don DaGradi (screenplay), Samuel W. Taylor (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Professor Ned Brainard's discovery of flubber hasn't quite brought him - or his college - the riches he thought. The Pentagon has declared his discovery to be top secret and the IRS has slapped him with a huge tax bill, even if he has yet to receive a cent. He thinks he may have found the solution in the form of flubbergas, which can change the weather. It also helps Medfield College's football team to win a game. At home, his wife Betsy is jealous of the attention lavished on him by an old high school girlfriend.
Rotten Tomatoes: Son Of Flubber is the first big screen sequel attempted by Walt Disney productions. Professor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) has come up with a new invention called "dry rain." A gun-like devise creates a rain cloud at the desired target. The one drawback is that the gun shatters every piece of glass in the immediate area. Brainard's faithful assistant Biff Hawk (Tommy Kirk) develops a by-product of flubber called flubbergas. Instead of the basketball team as in it's film predecessor, the football team is aided by the new invention to help them win the big game. The Professor faces the judge in court over the damage his dry rain gun leaves in the wake of it's use. The dark storm clouds of justice loom ominously over the inventor before a country agricultural agent produces giant vegetables that prove the value of the rain gun. Virtually the same cast appears in this film as appeared in "The Absent Minded Professor." The Disney sequel brought in over 9 million dollars in the initial release. It didn't take a college professor to prove the numbers added up quite well.
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70% (1) So Big 101 min, APPROVED, [Drama, Romance, Western] [Robert Wise] [31 Oct 1953]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 70%, External Reviews
Actors: Jane Wyman, Nancy Olson, Sterling Hayden, Steve Forrest
Writer: Edna Ferber (novel), John Twist
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: After the death of her father and the loss of his fortune, Selina takes a job teaching school in the Dutch community of New Holland. She stays with the Pools and teaches young Roelf piano. He has a crush on her, but it is Pervus she marries. Dirk is their only child. After a few years Pervus dies. With a young child and only the farm, Selina begins her quest to grow high quality vegetables. She wants more for Dirk and guides his life until he graduates from college as an architect. As her vegetable label prospers, she sees Paula control Dirk's life as he moves away from creating and into sales, which is not where he wants to go.
Rotten Tomatoes: This 1953 tear-jerker is the third film version of the Edna Ferber novel So Big. Stepping into the role previously essayed by Colleen Moore and Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman plays Selina, a girl of wealth who comes to a Dutch community outside Chicago as a schoolteacher. Here Selina falls in love with poor but big-hearted truck farmer Pervus DeJong (Sterling Hayden). When Pervus dies, Selina is left a widow with a small son and little else to her name. Through grit and perseverance, Selina single-handedly raises the boy, who grows up to be architect Dirk DeJong (Steve Forrest). Taking a cue from his self-sacrificing mother, Dirk devotes himself to creativity rather than money-grubbing while pursuing his profession. Meticulously produced, So Big is one of the better "saga" soapers of the 1950s, with Jane Wyman repeating her "aging" process from 1951's The Blue Veil. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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68% (1) Union Station 81 min, Approved, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller] [Rudolph Maté] [01 Jan 1950]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Barry Fitzgerald, Lyle Bettger, Nancy Olson, William Holden
Writer: Sydney Boehm (screenplay), Thomas Walsh (story)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Secretary Joyce Willecombe grows suspicious of two men boarding her train and is referred to 'Tough Willy' Calhoun, head of the Union Station police. The all-seeing, no-nonsense Calhoun is initially skeptical, but the men (who escape) prove to be involved in a kidnap case. Calhoun calls in equally tough police Inspector Donnelly, but the ruthless kidnapper's precision planning stays one jump ahead of them. Most of the action centers around bustling Union Station.
Rotten Tomatoes: Union Station is a tense crime thriller in the tradition of The Naked City that unfolds in Los Angeles. William Holden plays railroad worker Lt. William Calhoun. Calhoun goes into action when Lorna Murchison (Allene Roberts), the sightless daughter of millionaire Henry Murchison (Herbert Heyes), is kidnapped by ruthless Joe Beacon (Lyle Bettger). The abduction is witnessed by Joyce Willecombe (Nancy Olson), Murchison's secretary. Using the handful of clues provided by Joyce, Calhoun and his associate, Inspector Donnelly (Barry Fitzgerald) do their best to second-guess the kidnapper. The film's most harrowing scene finds Beacon abandoning the blind and helpless Lorna in a deserted car barn in the deepest recesses of the titular station. Jan Sterling co-stars as Marge, Beacon's conscience-stricken moll. Former cinematographer Rudolph Mate does a nice, neat job as director, seamlessly matching location shots with studio mockups.
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66% (1) Battle Cry 149 min, Approved, [Drama, Romance, War] [Raoul Walsh] [02 Feb 1955]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Actors: Aldo Ray, Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, Van Heflin
Writer: Leon Uris (screenplay), Leon Uris (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Japanese, Navajo Country: USA
Plot: In 1942, a group of young men join the Marines, leaving loved ones behind. Primed for battle, they are frustrated by many non-combat assignments, as we follow their wartime romances, especially Andy Hookens' involvement with Pat, a New Zealand widow. Andy and Pat have just decided that war requires them to 'live for the moment' when, in 1944, our team finally goes into a real battle...
Rotten Tomatoes: This film follows a group of WWII marines from basic training to the battlefield. Major Van Heflin knows that his men are spoiling for a real fight but must make do with the desultory skirmishes assigned them. All this changes with an onslaught of heavy-duty battling in the South Pacific.
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54% (1) Big Jim McLain 90 min, Approved, [Crime, Drama, History, Romance, Thriller] [Edward Ludwig] [30 Aug 1952]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 54%, External Reviews
Actors: Alan Napier, James Arness, John Wayne, Nancy Olson
Writer: Stephen Vincent Benet (quotes from "The Devil And Dan'l Webster"), James Edward Grant, Richard English, Eric Taylor
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter attempt to break up a ring of Communist Party troublemakers in Hawaii (ignoring somewhat, as do their superiors in the Congress, that membership in the Communist Party was, at the time, legal in the U.S.)
Rotten Tomatoes: In this Cold War film, Big Jim McLain (John Wayne) and his partner Mal Baxter (Jim Arness) head to Hawaii to investigate a subversive pro-Communist organization. Feigning love for suspect Nancy Vallon (Nancy Olson), McLain ferrets out the name of the Big Cheese in charge of operations.
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