Ranald MacDougall

Humphrey Bogart plays one of his rare comedy roles in this jaunty excursion about three convicts - Joseph (Bogart), Albert (Aldo Ray) and Jules (Peter Ustinov) - who are plotting their escape from Devil's Island. Fate intervenes when they hide out with kindly, but inept Felix (Leo G. Carroll) and his family. Felix manages a store for his arrogant cousin Andre (Basil Rathbone), who makes the fatal mistake of stealing Albert's pet, a poisonous snake....

Mildred Pierce is a happily married woman with two kids, living in the suburbs of sunny California. She secretly takes a job as a waitress so that she can pay for piano lessons and expensive clothes for her eldest daughter, Veda. Her growing financial independence permits her to open her own restaurant, and eventually a chain of eateries. She has divorced her intolerant first husband, and married well-connected Monte in order to get Veda into high...

A drama showing how a neurotic, insincere Southern woman brings unhappiness to her husband, family, and friends in an attempt to insure her own security and position of dominance.

Harry Morgan is an honest charter-boat captain who is facing hard times, takes on dangerous cargo to save his boat, support his family, and preserve his dignity. Left in the lurch by a freeloading passenger, Harry starts to entertain the criminal propositions of a sleazy lawyer, as well as the playful come-ons of a cheeky blonde, making a series of compromises that stretch his morality, and his marriage, farther than he₂ll admit.

"Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Its iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a...