
Hollywood’s brightest stars and movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
At the height of summer, 18-year-old Cécile is relaxing by the French seaside with her father and falling in love with her new boyfriend. However, the arrival of her late mother's enigmatic friend soon turns her world upside down.
War heroes Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and Johnny Drake (William Prince) are sent to Washington, D.C., by train, but are not told why. During the trip, they learn they're about to receive top honors for their service. Johnny, seemingly terrified by the publicity that awaits him, jumps off the train and later turns up dead. Suspecting foul play, Rip begins digging into his pal's past. He encounters cover-ups, threats to his own life and deadly femme fatale Coral Chandler (Lizabeth Scott).
Stand-up comic Mickey One (Warren Beatty) is fearful that the gambling debts he amassed have made him a marked man in the Detroit clubs that he frequents. Assuming a false identity, Mickey flees to Chicago, where he cautiously resumes his career at the upscale Club Xanadu. When club owner Ed Castle (Hurd Hatfield) offers Mickey a shot at auditioning for an unknown man with reputed connections in the Midwest, the increasingly paranoid Mickey fears that the mob has finally closed in on him.
Clerk Freddie Clegg, an avid butterfly collector, wins a football pool and buys a country house with a large basement. He then kidnaps art student Miranda Grey, a longtime crush of his, after trailing her in a van. Freddie locks Miranda in the basement, and buys her clothes and books, so that she can get to know him. They initially agree that she will stay at the house for a month, but Miranda fears what will happen when the time comes for her to leave.
During the Depression, the bank owned by generous Dickson (Walter Huston) is barely staying afloat, and things get worse when $100,000 is lifted from the vault. Fingers are pointed at reformed crook Matt (Pat O'Brien), who got a job and a fresh start from Dickson. The innocent Matt can clear his name by admitting that on the night of the robbery he was breaking up a tryst between Dickson's wife and another teller. But this revelation may crush Dickson, and Matt's conscience plays tug-of-war.
In the Pacific after the war, a U.S. Marine unit that includes Sgt. Phil O'Hara (Aldo Ray) is awaiting discharge when missionary Alfred Davidson (Jose Ferrer), physician Dr. Robert McPhail (Russell Collins) and singer Sadie Thompson (Rita Hayworth) arrive at the base. The soldiers are delighted by the spirited, friendly Sadie, and Phil falls in love with her. Davidson, however, unearths a secret in Sadie's past and, blocking her attempt to leave the island, demands that she repent.
Determined Treasury Department investigator Frank Warren (Glenn Ford) goes after a ruthless mobster known as The Big Fellow. When a key informant is murdered, Warren pursues the gangster on charges of tax evasion. But, with a slick mob lawyer hampering him at every turn, and threats being lobbed toward Warren's wife (Nina Foch), the lawman's chances of achieving a conviction are slim to none. His only hope is that one syndicate bookkeeper will have the courage to turn state's evidence.
Dreamer George Lester (Jerry Lewis) continually focuses on outrageous ways to make cash, and his fed-up wife, Pamela (Jacqueline Pearce), finally decides to leave him. To impress her, he converts their home into a swinging dance club -- but she is mortified when she returns. Undeterred, George enlists his grifter buddy H. William Homer (Terry-Thomas) and concocts a bizarre moneymaking plan that involves secret blueprints, international espionage and crooked dentist Dr. Pinto (John Bluthal).