Ava Gardner

Biography of risk-taker and raconteur John Huston from his childhood to become one of the most highly respected filmmakers in the world.

Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.

Dr. Kildare's friend Dr. Gillespie is called in to investigate when a young man suffering from mental problems disappears on a killing spree.

Writer Harry Street reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection while on safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Various interconnected people struggle to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles, California.

A U.S. Marine Corps colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off the train.

On a Kenyan safari, white hunter Victor Marswell has a love triangle with seductive American socialite Eloise Kelly and anthropologist Donald Nordley's cheating wife Linda.

A group of disillusioned American expatriate writers live a dissolute, hedonistic lifestyle in 1920's France and Spain.

United States Federal agent Rigby travels to the Central American island Carlotta to investigate a stolen aircraft engines smuggling racket.

Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.

Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.

A washed-up filmmaker gets a second chance at stardom when he discovers stunning peasant Maria Vargas dancing in a Madrid nightclub. Goaded by his producer, the director convinces Maria to screen test for, and then star in, his next big picture. But as the producer's possessive nature and the realities of stardom weigh on Maria, she seeks a genuine lover with whom she can escape.

In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair. In denial about the loss of his wife and children in the holocaust, American Captain Towers meets careworn but gorgeous Moira Davidson, who begins to fall for him. The sub returns after reconnaissance a month (or less) before the end; will Towers and Moira find comfort with each other?

A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.

High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.

A window dresser's kiss brings a statue of the Roman goddess of love to life.

Rip-roaring big star, big budget semi-historical story about cattle baron Devereaux Burke, who is enlisted by an aging Andrew Jackson to dissuade Sam Houston from establishing Texas as a republic. Burke must fight state senator Thomas Craden, in the process winning the heart of Craden's newspaper-editor girlfriend Martha Ronda.

Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that doesn't realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales, later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief. Rudolf finds refuge from a loveless marriage with Princess Stéphanie by taking a mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. Their untimely demise at Mayerling, the imperial family's hunting lodge, is cloaked in mystery.

Van Heflin stars as the head of a city crime lab who tries to solve the murder of the town mayor by scientifically analyzing evidence.

Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed American flyer, Pat Talbot, and attempts to get him safely out of the country.

Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.

Two Mexican outlaws, Rio and Esqueda, raised as stepbrothers, have a showdown over the issue of whether to evict new settlers from their Texas border territory.

A dashing Mississippi river gambler wins the affections of the daughter of the owner of the Show Boat.

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short explores the origins of various customs such as shaking hands, kissing, and why ships are christened.

As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual exploits. Now an elite fashion model, she moves to a Brooklyn Heights apartment building where she encounters a number of bizarre, eccentric tenants and attempts to uncover the building's sinister secret.

Following the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, move to the United States, and then to Mexico. When Lawrence contracts tuberculosis, they return to England for a short time, then to Italy, where Lawrence writes "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

In Camelot, kingdom of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot is well known for his courage and honor. But one day he must quit Camelot and the Queen Guinevere's love, leaving the Round Table without protection.

A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous sister Jean, unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.

Anglo-Indian Victoria Jones seeks her true identity amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from India.

After the war, Matt Gordon returns to Singapore to retrieve a fortune in smuggled pearls. Arrived, he reminisces in flashback about his prewar fiancée, alluring Linda, and her disappearance during the Japanese attack. But now Linda resurfaces...with amnesia and married to rich planter Van Leyden. Meanwhile, sinister fence Mauribus schemes to get Matt's pearls.

The East Side Kids try to fix up a house for newlyweds, but find the place next door "haunted" by mysterious men.

When beautiful Mary returns to her "whistle stop" hometown, long-standing feelings of animosity between two of her old boyfriends leads to robbery and murder.

Inspired by an exclusive interview and performance footage of Chavela Vargas shot in 1991 and guided by her unique voice, the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.

A historical fiction based on the lives of artist Goya and the Duchess of Alba

Peasant children Mytyl and Tyltyl are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness by the fairy Berylune. On their journey, they're accompanied by the anthropomorphized presences of a Dog, a Cat, Light, Fire, and Bread, among other entities.

A young newlywed (Robert Sterling) finds working for his nasty father-in-law difficult.

A World War II veteran wants to return to advertising on his own terms, but finds it difficult to be successful and maintain his integrity.

An 1890s New Orleans heiress tries to buy a married doctor's love with her tainted family fortune.

A vain businessman puts strains on his happy marriage to a rich, beautiful socialite by allowing himself to be seduced by a former girlfriend.

A South American quasi-revolutionary/guerilla/terrorist and a misled, admiring girl compatriot manage to kidnap the U.S. President during a diplomatic visit to Toronto.

An ex-employee of a city oil refinery creates an explosion at the facility which starts a chain-reaction of fires that engulf the entire city.

Based upon the Celtic legend Tam Lin, a young man is bewitched by a beautiful, heartless, aging sorceress to become her lover. When his attention wanders to a lovely girl, he is doomed to ritual sacrifice by the sorceress.

Western intelligence agents try, by all means necessary, to prevent a Communist-bloc defector from leaving the West in his bid to return home to lead an uprising.

Host Jack Palance explores how Hollywood has depicted Western legends like George Armstrong Custer, Billy the Kid, Crazy Horse and the O.K. Corral

A deliciously scandalous portrait of unsung Hollywood legend Scotty Bowers, whose bestselling memoir chronicled his decades spent as sexual procurer to the stars.

A young man succumbs to gambling fever.

Sir Philip Ashlow (Stewart Granger), his neglected wife, Lady Ashlow (Ava Gardner) and his best friend Henry Brittingham-Brett (David Niven) are shipwrecked on a desert island. This potential ménage à trois where the two men compete for the lady's attention is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a fourth inhabitant of the island.

A clergyman travels to Spain to join the Loyalist side during the Spanish Civil War and finds himself attracted to a beautiful entertainer.

Gillespie has to finally choose his official assistant, or Red and Lee are going to kill themselves in competition. So, it's another diagnosis competition. Lee's assignment is a small girl who falls ill whenever she eats candy. Red has to cure a girl's mother of a debilitating case of arthritis. But when Red needs Lee's help, will either one live with Gillespie's choice?

An aging couple search for peace and family harmony when their only son returns home after a long absence with his fiancee.

A Brooklyn showgirl gets mixed up in a divorce between a soldier and his wife.

A barefoot contessa, a screwed-up princess, an exquisite drunk, a bawdy aristocrat, a nightmare for puritanical America and the moguls of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Ava Gardner never stopped loving those she loved. She turned women green and made men sweat. And rejected with all her force the bulwark of normality.

Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is in love with a poor dancer but wants to marry for money. When Louis wins the Irish Sweepstakes, he asks May to marry him and she accepts even though she doesn't love him. Soon after, Louis has an accident and gets knocked on the head, where he dreams that he's King Louis XV pursuing the infamous Madame Du Barry.

A group of scientists develop a system to pick winners at the racetrack. Comedy.

A middle-aged businessman who has lived a conservative life according to the routine conventions of society, still remembers the beautiful young woman who once brought him out of his shell.

In the 1950s, a small group of artists monopolized the attention of the cameras and the public. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford together form the "rat pack": they sing the most popular hits of the moment, star in the most profitable Hollywood films and are already making a splash on television . This documentary, produced by a recognized specialist in the history of Hollywood, recounts the exceptional destiny of this informal group which flirted with the greats of this world, notably through Sinatra, personal friend of American President Kennedy.

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

Like so many other actors, Ava Gardner hated to watch her films. She said that the woman on the screen wasn't her. But all films tell two stories: the plot and the tale of the bodies filmed. This film narrates what happened between two images: a first shot of 'Pandora' and a first shot of 'Harem', the first and last movie filmed by the actress in Spain. Ava must certainly have thought that neither of these two women had anything in common with herself.

With his mafia wiseguy links and access to entertainment industry star power, Frank Sinatra helped John F. Kennedy into the White House in 1960. But it all came to a bitter end.

A young British woman is kidnapped by an Arabian sheikh and held captive in his harem. At first she frantically tries to escape, but as they slowly get to know and appreciate each other the difference between captor and captive dissolves.

During the 1940s, Nevil Shute had a steady job as an engineer in the British military but in his spare time, he wrote novels that were being well-received. Once the war was over, Shute choose to move to Australia and focus on writing, soon becoming an internationally acclaimed novelist. His novel On The Beach, particularly hit a chord with the international community, depicting the impact of global nuclear destruction. This documentary studies Shute's career and the adaptation of his most famous novel into a feature film in Melbourne, as his predictions of a post-Hiroshima world seem to be foreboding in their accuracy.

Ma Galestrum (Connie Gilchrist) is a boardinghouse owner whose tenants are a group of aspiring boxers. When her young niece, Judy (Jean Rogers), comes to stay for a visit, college dropout Ken Burke (William Lundigan) and Swedish janitor Ole (Dan Dailey Jr.) immediately fall for her charms. Ken considers going back to college for Judy, but his fight promoter is less than thrilled with this idea. Meanwhile, Ole is determined to meet Ken in the ring to vie for Judy's heart.

Frank Sinatra was at rock bottom as far as his career in Hollywood was concerned, but made his way back to the spotlight via Finspångs Folkets park in 1953 in front of 537 local fans. Hollywood no longer wanted to know about Frank Sinatra, he divorced his wife Nancy in 1951 to marry the actress Ava Gardner, "the most beautiful woman in the world" and he went to Las Vegas to get his career going again. But in 1952 he was fired from Columbia Pictures.. A year later he was in Sweden on tour and performed in Finspång. Only 537 turned up.The ticket was a whopping SEK 4 against the normal 1:50. The arrangement backfired.

In 1942, a young paratrooper in the RAF returns to Czechoslovakia to encourage his fellow countrymen to sabotage the German war effort.

A widow's grown children try to break up her romance with a college professor.

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

In this Pete Smith Speciality, the audience is asked a series of multiple-choice questions on various subjects.

Acknowledged as one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Arena explores the rise of the legendary crooner Frank Sinatra from his early family background to overwhelming show business success. Interviews with friends, family and associates reveal a star-studded career in music and film alongside a fascinating private life of four marriages, liaison with the Kennedy family, Las Vegas business interests and an alleged association with the Mafia

Alpha's been raised along scientific principles, and will make Mike Regan a great human interest story for his paper. But when his interview prompts Alpha to run away from the institute and ask him to show her some magic, Mike gets more responsibility than he bargained for. Especially since another story of his, one involving gangsters, has also come home to roost.

Behind the scenes documentary of the filming of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana.

At the height of her fame in 1954, actress Ava Gardner transplanted herself from Hollywood to the country of Spain. As she lovingly stated in her autobiography, “I don’t know if it was the climate, the men, or the music, but as soon as I set foot in Spain, I had a crush on this country.” In this documentary by Sergio Mondelo, the filmmaker explores the motivations behind this move and contrasts Gardner’s glitz and glam lifestyle with the hardships faced by the Spainish people under Franco’s rule.

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Julian Poydras, whose encounter with a girl at Mardi Gras had a profound effect on his later life.

A comic training film designed to help sailors readjust to civilain life after World War II.

The Our Gang gets splashed by mud from a passing car and so using some cleaning fluid to get rid of the mud; they unknowingly created a bad odour among themselves.

Documentary footage (from the 1950s) and accompanying commentary to attempt to answer the existential question, Why are our lives characterized by discontent, anguish, and fear? The film is in two completely separate parts, and the directors of these respective sections, left-wing Pier Paolo Pasolini and conservative Giovanni Guareschi, offer the viewer contrasting analyses of and prescriptions for modern society. Part I, by Pasolini, is a denunciation of the offenses of Western culture, particularly those against colonized Africa. It is at the same time a chronicle of the liberation and independence of the former African colonies, portraying these peoples as the new protagonists of the world stage, holding up Marxism as their "salvation", and suggesting that their "innocent ferocity" will be the new religion of the era. Guareschi's part, by contrast, constitutes a defense of Western civilization and a word of hope, couched in traditional Christian terms, for man's future.

Joe Smith is an ordinary American family man who works in an aircraft factory. Shortly after being a promoted to a much higher position, Joe is kidnapped by enemy agents who are determined to get military secrets out of him by any means possible. Will Joe keep quiet or betray his country...

Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers.

Peter and Delilah are a married couple running a roadside café in Nevada. Their stable partnership turns rocky, though, with the arrival of the sultry Sally, a waitress who catches Peter's wandering eye. Delilah strikes back by hiring Sally's boyfriend as a waiter. Sally is initially dismissive of Peter's advances, but when he wins $40,000 in a lottery, she quickly pounces, turning on the charm and eyeing the easy life.

This short film takes a look at the off-screen personas of screen actors. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.

During the 1950s, musical masterpieces that have yet to be equaled were produced in Cinemascope with stereophonic sound. These two episodes explore how the post-war years were alive with bold experimentation in musical film. Later in the decade, Rock & Roll became the musical choice of the younger generation and movie musicals followed suit. Highlights of this 2-part program include: Films based on smash Broadway musicals become the rage. A pretty starlet with no musical training named Marilyn Monroe takes the country by storm in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." With favorites from the previous decade continue to delight audiences: Rock & Roll films, songs and musical numbers.

1953 - this is the year when Frank Sinatra tours Sweden and Stockholm celebrates 700 years with the entire air force in the air. The American way of life spreads in bottle form, when Coca-Cola makes its entrance. And there will be documentary film in color. The world is troubled with wars in Korea and Indochina. The US participates in both and Sweden has both doctors and nurses in Korea. Sweden becomes world champion in ice hockey for the first time.

I have a lot of interest and respect for classic cinema. I tried to make a film with at least 20 portraits of classical actresses whose films I'm familiar with. Difficult choices from all over the world. They each have their own beauty.