Robert Wise

Film noir, which enjoyed particular success in the 1930s and 1940s, is probably the most profound genre of classic Hollywood cinema. Eckhart Schmidt tries to show the background and developments and speaks, among others, with directors such as Richard Fleischer and Robert Wise as well as with "femme fatale" actresses. Filmmakers of the following generations explain how the style and themes of noir continue to shape cinema today.

Even big stars need to stand in front of the director and audition for their roles, and some of the best screen tests are from the early years of legends. See some of Hollywood's top names and greatest talents in their very first appearances on celluloid. From Dustin Hoffman's 1966 stock and personality tests to Raquel Welch and James Coburn cavorting for Our Man Flint, from The Three Stooges to Rock Hudson, see stars trying to get on film.

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

A biography of Darryl F. Zanuck, mogul and the power behind 20th Century Fox throughout the Golden Age.

Documentary about the great 1940s horror movie producer Val Lewton, featured on the 2005 DVD release "The Val Lewton Horror Collection."

Ekchart Schmidt examines the machinery behind the dream factory; the Hollywood myth is unmasked. How does the studio industry work? What role does marketing and the hype surrounding the stars play?

Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula uncovers the life and career of legendary actor Bela Lugosi, examining his early life in Hungary and Germany through his Hollywood successes and eventual decline. The film features a vast array of never-before-seen footage of the actor, ranging from remains of his 1918 film Struggle for Life to behind-the-scenes home movies on the set of RKO Studios. Lugosi is peppered with dozens of rare films clips and photographs, with the story itself coming to life thanks to the vast array of on-camera interviewees.

Join foremost experts discussing true Horror Classics - Frankenstein, Dracula, The Black Cat, Wolfman, King Kong, Bride of Frankenstein, and more. Grab the popcorn and take a deep breath as we conjure up the thrills, chills and magic of Monster Madness!

Documentary about the battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Features interviews with Welles' and Hearst's co-workers also acts as a relatively complete biograph of Hearst's career.

From THINGS to BODY SNATCHERS to CREATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, sci-fi monsters dominated 1950s horror. Take a ride to an era of drive-ins, Red Scares, low budgets and big bugs with SPACE INVADERS AND DRIVE INS.

It was said of him that in more than 70 films, he never once gave a bad performance.

Abandoned by his father, he was a reform school kid with nothing going for him and a giant chip on his shoulder. He joined the Marines but never stayed far from trouble. Then he discovered acting — and the woman who would be with him for most of his meteoric career. He was Steve McQueen, one of Hollywood's highest paid stars — and one of its most difficult, most rebellious and, when he wished, most charming.

A documentary about the 1951 sci-fi film "The Day the Earth Stood Still," featuring clips from the film and interviews with some of the cast and crew about the making of the film.

Among the legends of Hollywood, George Pal takes his place as a true visionary, an innovator and a showman who profoundly shaped the art of motion pictures. A peer of Walt Disney, Pal pioneered stop motion animation and went on to virtually invent the modern science fiction and fantasy film genres. Pal's extraordinary genius molded a dazzling array of films, which earned an incredible total of eight Academy Awards and left a cinematic legacy that served as formative inspiration for the movies of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Gene Roddenberry.

One of the first film noir documentaries, made for British Channel Four, and including interviews with Paul Schrader, Robert Wise, John Dahl, Bryan Singer, Edward Dmytryk, Dennis Hopper, John Alton.

The making of "The Andromeda Strain".

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.

Documentary exploring the career of noted film directer William A. Wellman.

An incredibly dull-witted family unknowingly stumble upon an illegal weapons deal while on the trail of their "stolen" garbage.

A two-and-a-half hour documentary retrospective on the career of Orson Welles.

American Documentary, narrated by Christopher Lee

Documentary attached to the 50th anniversary MGM Blu-ray collection of "West Side Story" (1961). Details how this successful stage production was reared and molded into a beautiful cinematic one. Deep-dives into Jerome Robbins' choreography and Leonard Bernstein's score-making processes.

Shirley MacLaine was the product of a strict middle-class background from which she and her brother, the future actor Warren Beatty, escaped into the fantasy world of show-biz. Her ballet training and her long-legged pixie charm led to rapid success on Broadway in musical comedy. Inevitably, Hollywood called and by 1955 Shirley was cast in Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry." It wasn't too long before the fine dramatic roles also came to her opposite the most popular leading men of the time, like Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum.

As the first "blonde bombshell," Mae West reigned supreme and changed the nation's view of women, sex and race — on stage, in films, on radio and television.

From Star Trek to The Sound of Music, award-winning director Robert Wise was dedicated, inventive, and ready to tackle any genre. He helmed everything from B movies to award-winning blockbusters, all while managing to live a quiet life amid the scandal of Tinsel Town.

Charmian Carr, who played Liesl in The Sound of Music, takes a tour of the Austrian town of Salzburg, where the location shots of the movie were made. Includes behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the movie.

The first half century of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation from its beginnings under Hungarian immigrant William Fox to it emergence as a major studio.

This documentary traces the relationship of Buñuel with American culture and Hollywood. The program proposes a chronological journey through the Aragonese filmmaker stays in the U.S., the characters he met, the films he made and he could never do. The program also includes new material-unpublished until 2012 - the Aragonese director filmed in the U.S. in the early 1940s and where he can be seen playing one of their children or enjoying a short holiday in a cottage.

A look at one hundred years of romance in American cinema.

Profile of Orson Welles, looking at his life and career in theatre, radio and particularly film.

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

When an unidentified alien destroys three powerful Klingon cruisers, Captain James T. Kirk returns to the newly transformed U.S.S. Enterprise to take command.

In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.

An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.

A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.

When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.

When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.

Edinburgh, 1831. Among those who undertake the illegal trade of grave robbery is Gray, ostensibly a cab driver. Formerly a medical student convicted of grave robbery, Gray holds a grudge against Dr. MacFarlane who had escaped detection and punishment.

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.

Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.

Dr. John Markway recruits three strangers for a sleep-disorder study at the eerie and isolated Hill House. It soon becomes clear his real interest lies in the mansion itself and its sinister history, as they are forced to confront the nature of its horror…

Dr. John Markway recruits three strangers for a sleep-disorder study at the eerie and isolated Hill House. It soon becomes clear his real interest lies in the mansion itself and its sinister history, as they are forced to confront the nature of its horror…

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with a hotheaded murderer.

Imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, John "Kit" McKittrick is released when a New York City policeman pulls some strings. Upon returning to America, McKittrick hears that a friend has committed suicide, and he begins to smell a rat. During his investigation, McKittrick questions three beautiful women, one of whom has a tie to his refugee past. Pursued by Nazi operatives, McKittrick learns of the death of another friend, and begins to suspect the dark Dr. Skaas.

Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.

Amy, the young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed, befriends her father's late first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

Brazen perpetual offender Barbara Graham tries to go straight but she finds herself implicated in a murder and sent to death row.

The story of boxer Rocky Graziano's rise from juvenile delinquent to world champ.

In North Africa, German Field Marshal Rommel and his troops have successfully fended off British forces, and now intend to take Tobruk, an important port city. A ramshackle group of Australian reinforcements sent to combat the Germans is put under the command of British Captain MacRoberts. The unruly Aussies immediately clash with MacRoberts, a gruff, strict disciplinarian, however this unorthodox team must band together to protect Tobruk from the German forces.

Down-and-out cowhand Jim Garry is asked by his old friend Tate Riling to help mediate a cattle dispute. When Garry arrives, however, it soon becomes clear that Riling has not been entirely forthright. Garry uncovers Riling's plot to dupe local rancher John Lufton out of a fortune. When Lufton's firecracker of a daughter, Amy, gets involved, Garry must choose between his old loyalties and what he knows to be right.

Prince Paris of Troy, shipwrecked on a mission to the king of Sparta, meets and falls for Queen Helen before he knows who she is. Rudely received by the royal Greeks, he must flee...but fate and their mutual passions lead him to take Helen along. This gives the Greeks just the excuse they need for much-desired war.

In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.

When the head of a large manufacturing firm dies suddenly from a stroke, his vice-presidents vie to see who will replace him.

A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son.

A lawyer who is planning to run for District Attorney accidentally kills a gangster who owns the nightclub where the attorney's girlfriend is a singer. Although he manages to cover up his involvement in the crime, his girlfriend discovers the body and is subsequently charged with the murder.

A small-town newspaper editor defies threats to expose the mob.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.

A man is convinced that 11-year old girl, Ivy, is the reincarnation of his own daughter Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car accident, along with his wife, two minutes before Ivy was born.

The captain of a submarine sunk by the Japanese during WWII is finally given a chance to skipper another sub after a year of working a desk job. His singleminded determination for revenge against the destroyer that sunk his previous vessel puts his new crew in unneccessary danger.

A girl of wealth comes to a Dutch community outside Chicago as a schoolteacher, and while there falls in love with a poor but big-hearted farmer.

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

Jeremy Rodock is a tough horse rancher who strings up rustlers as soon as looks at them. Fresh out of Pennsylvania, Steve Miller finds it hard to get used to Rodock’s ways, although he takes an immediate shine to his Greek girl Jocasta.

After leaving his wife, lawyer Jerry Ryan moves from Omaha, Nebraska to New York City to start a new life. While studying for the New York Bar Examination and working to finalize his divorce, Ryan meets dancer Gittel Mosca, and the two begin a cautious courtship. However, Ryan feels that he must come to terms with his failed marriage and overcome his lingering attachment to his ex-wife before he can redefine himself and embrace his budding romance.

In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War, a young French laundress shares a coach ride with several of her condescending social superiors. But when a Prussian officer holds the coach over, social standings are leveled and integrity and spirit are put to the test.

To earn extra money, a prim schoolteacher takes a second job as secretary to the uncouth owner of a boisterous nightclub.

A group of US Navy weathermen taking measurements in the Gobi desert in World War II are forced to seek the help of Mongol nomads to regain their ship while under attack from the Japanese.

A group of confedarate prisoners is sent to a unionist fort in the west to help the local garrison to fight the indians.

Four sisters in New Zealand fall for soldiers en route to the Pacific theater in WWII.

A shipwrecked Don Rainsford washes up on a homicidal big-game hunter's Caribbean island where the madman hunts human prey for his personal island habitat.

Set in 1969, Abel Shaddick, a crotchety deli owner, has a grudge against virtually everyone in his upstate New York town of Fairview, particularly against his slacker nephew Stanley who lives behind the shop. Without telling his uncle, Stanley agrees to put up a needy city kid for the summer as part of a charity program run by rich debutante Gloria. Abel immediately vetoes the plan, but it is too late. The kid, young Herman Washington, is already on his way...

Insurance detective Steve Hastings is sent by his company to investigate the disappearance of a fellow agent. His first lead is the agent's fetching sister, Victoria, whom he trails to Mexico City. After charming his way into her confidence, Steve helps Vicki unravel the mystery.

Evan Bonner is a deserter from the Vietnam war; he is on his way back to America to give himself up when he meets Deirdre McCluskey, a beautiful if petulant model. The two make an unlikely couple, but once in France the magic of Paris works its charm and these two vulnerable people finally find each other.

Unable to find work after a past felony, graduate John Wisdom and his girlfriend embark on a cross-country bank-robbing spree in order to aid American farmers.

Soldier Johnny Grey is engaged to marry singer Mapy Cortes, but his plans go awry when he learns that he is the heir to $100,000 from his great-grandfather -- a bequest that comes with a catch: before claiming the money, Johnny must marry a descendant of his great-grandfather's Civil War enemy, General Havelock-Allen. Not wanting to disrupt his planned marriage to Mapy, Johnny must figure out how to concoct a temporary marriage-of-convenience with the descendant -- who turns out to be the beautiful Terry Havelock-Allen.

A documentary/drama about the training of bombardiers during WWII. Major Chick Davis proves to the U.S. Army the superiority of high altitude precision bombing, and establishes a school for bombardiers. Training is followed in semi-documentary style, with personal dramas in subplots. The climax is a spectacular sequence.

A conservationist fights to save the habitat of the California condor and to do it she works her way into the affections of a representative of the oil company that wants the land for their own purposes.

T, as most of his friends, lives in a self-constructed 'house', built on top of an old building in the city. Their one passion is 'combat'. Combat is a dance/streetfight during which the contestants try to push each other out of the arena, while not allowed to actually touch each other. When drugdealers move into the neighbourhood and kill T's best friend he embarks on a mission to eradicate the drug-presence in the neigbourhood. His friends are reluctant to help though, knowing what happened to T's friend when he crossed them.

Polly Parrish, a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a foundling. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, David Merlin becomes determined to keep the single woman and "her" baby together.

Tish Gray had a baby and gave it up for adoption. She is contacted by a second childless couple who want her to have the husband's baby because of the wife's inability to have children. She accepts but finds that knowing the parents, and developing a relationship with them for the entire pregnancy complicates the simple arrangement.

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.

Evan Bonner is a deserter from the Vietnam war; he is on his way back to America to give himself up when he meets Deirdre McCluskey, a beautiful if petulant model. The two make an unlikely couple, but once in France the magic of Paris works its charm and these two vulnerable people finally find each other.

Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.

In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.

Farmer Jabez Stone, about to lose his land, agrees to sell his soul to the devil, known as Mr. Scratch, who gives Jabez seven years to enjoy the fruits of his sale before he collects. Over that time, Jabez pays off his debts and helps many neighboring farmers, then becomes an advocate for the upstanding Sen. Daniel Webster. When Jabez's contract with Mr. Scratch concludes, he desperately turns to Webster to represent him in a trial for his soul.

A hunter back from years in the Amazon finds his wife and life changed.

Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Judy O'Brien is an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe. Also in the company is Bubbles, a brash mantrap who leaves the struggling troupe for a career in burlesque. When the company disbands, Bubbles gives Judy a thankless job as her stooge. The two eventually clash when both fall for the same man.

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Years after she was presumed dead in a shipwreck, Ellen Arden returns home to the surprise of her husband recently remarrying. But he too gets a shock when he learns that Ellen spent her time alone on an island with another man.

After leaving his wife, lawyer Jerry Ryan moves from Omaha, Nebraska to New York City to start a new life. While studying for the New York Bar Examination and working to finalize his divorce, Ryan meets dancer Gittel Mosca, and the two begin a cautious courtship. However, Ryan feels that he must come to terms with his failed marriage and overcome his lingering attachment to his ex-wife before he can redefine himself and embrace his budding romance.

Gypo Nolan is a former Irish Republican Army man who drowns his sorrows in the bottle. He's desperate to escape his bleak Dublin life and start over in America with his girlfriend. So when British authorities advertise a reward for information about his best friend, current IRA member Frankie, Gypo cooperates. Now Gypo can buy two tickets on a boat bound for the States, but can he escape the overwhelming guilt he feels for betraying his buddy?