
Hollywood’s brightest stars and movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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).
A large French-Canadian family suddenly expands when father Jacques (Charles Boyer) invites an out-of-work magician's assistant to be their live-in maid. At the same time, charming ladies' man Uncle Desmond (Louis Jourdan) comes back to town to replace a sales manager who has died, and subsequently begins a romance with the new maid. Jacques' son Bobby watches these interactions with confused curiosity as he makes the tough transition from boyhood to adolescence.
Mary (Hayley Mills) and her friend, Rachel (June Harding), are new students at St. Francis Academy, a boarding school run by the iron fist of Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell). The immature teens grow bored and begin playing pranks on both the unsuspecting nuns and their unpleasant classmates, becoming a constant thorn in Mother Superior's side. However, as the years pass, Mary and Rachel slowly mature and begin to see the nuns in a different light.
Jerry Kingsley (Fredric March) is a wealthy garment manufacturer left lonely in his 60s when his wife dies. Despite the difference in their ages, he strikes up a romance with divorced 24-year-old receptionist Betty (Kim Novak). The relationship is dismissed by his daughter, Lillian (Joan Copeland), discouraged by his sister, Evelyn (Edith Meiser), and denounced by Betty's mother (Glenda Farrell) -- but when Jerry begins to mention marriage, even Betty is forced to confront her ambivalence.
Reformed thief Blackie (Chester Morris) does a magic show in a women's prison, during which an inmate escapes.
In the 1950s American South, the vicious and conniving Eva Phillips (Joan Crawford) makes the lives of those around her miserable -- especially her husband, Avery (Barry Sullivan), who resorts to heavy drinking and becomes an alcoholic. Meanwhile, when Eva discovers her sister-in-law (Betsy Palmer) is to wed her former lover (John Ireland), she really becomes nasty. Witnessing Eva's cruel exploits is Avery's cousin, Jennifer Stewart (Lucy Marlow), who can only stand by, mortified.