A Woman Rebels is the story of Pamela Thistlewaite (Katharine Hepburn), whose mission in life is to defy the restrictive and often hypocritical conventions of Victorian England. Refusing to conform to the status quo, Pamela lives alone, reads, and says whatever she wishes, and even takes a job. Her romantic dalliance with young Gerald (Van Heflin) results in an illegitimate daughter (Doris Dudley), whom Pamela raises as her niece until she decides it's high time to tell the truth in all matters. Faithful suitor Thomas Lane (Herbert Marshall) offers to make an "honest woman" of her, but Pamela refuses until she can stand on her own two feet financially. Fiercely independent to the last, she becomes the crusading editor of a pioneering pro-feminist magazine and an early champion of Women's Suffrage.

Just as he later ridiculed the inanities of American TV in Network, writer Paddy Chayevsky took the Hollywood star system to task in this equally savage satire. He cribbed the story directly from Ava Gardner's life: a small town girl of the Depression marries her way out of her background, abandons her husband, changes her name and sleeps her way to stardom. Once at the top, she can't cope with her fame and becomes increasingy suicidal. Given what happened to Marylin Monroe a few years later, the script seems both cruel and strangely prophetic.

This suspense drama was based on a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Riviere (John Barrymore), who operates an air delivery service, is fanatical in his dedication to service, putting prompt delivery before the safety of his men or his fleet after receiving a contract to help transport the mail. Riviere's risk-taking earns him the contempt of his pilots, including Jules (Clark Gable), who, despite his misgivings, does his best to satisfy Riviere's punishing schedule. When Jules is lost after a dangerous mission, Riviere has to tell his wife (Helen Hayes) that her husband has died, but despite losing another pilot (William Gargan), Riviere responds by demanding that more pilots be called up to ensure that the letters will be delivered on time.

This second of MGM's Thin Man films reteams William Powell and Myrna Loy as, respectively, bibulous private detective Nick Charles and his socialite wife Nora. The Charleses are sucked into another murder case via Nick's lovely cousin Elissa Landi, whose husband Alan Marshall has vanished. Hubby has been conducting an affair with nightclub thrush Dorothy McNulty (later known as Penny Singleton) and is also blackmailing gangsterish Joseph Calleia. When the corpses begin piling up, Nick and Nora try to piece the clues together, with the earnest assistance of Jimmy Stewart, who carries a torch for Landi.

With Return of the Frontiersman, Warner Bros. continued to test the acting abilities of their singing star Gordon MacRae. While he does get to sing two songs, MacRae plays it straight for the most part in his role as Logan Barrett, the son of hard-bitten sheriff Sam Barrett (Jack Holt). Villain Larrabee (Rory Calhoun) frames Logan for a series of robberies, forcing the sheriff to lead a posse after his own son. Our Hero is aided and abetted by the daughter (Julie London, who surprisingly doesn't get to sing) of the town sawbones.

The Glass Key is an early example of film noir and a remarkably successful Dashiell Hammett adaptation. The best sequence by far is the marathon beating-up sustained by Alan Ladd in a bout of sado-masochism as William Bendix coyly begs his 'little rubber ball' to bounce back for more. Shot and played with deceptive casualness, the sequence is central to the film, flaunting an erotic undertow that sows continuing doubts throughout. Playing with his usual deadpan as he weaves warily through a maze of political machinations and underworld snares in the service of his boss, Ladd remains equally frozen whether expressing his love for Lake or his loyalty to Brian Donlevy.

Barbara Stanwyck stars as the lady of the title, a woman forced to keep her recent nuptials to the local district attorney (Warren William) quiet to avoid scandal in the possible dismissal of her father (Arthur Byron), who happens to be the governor. The happiness of the young couple is put on hold after a story breaks that $10,000 was deposited in the Governor’s bank account on behalf of a man he recently pardoned. Her father swears he knows nothing about the transaction, but there’s no way he can prove his claims of innocence since the man behind “the gift” supposedly committed suicide moments after the news hit the street.

Truer to its Ernest Hemingway source than the previous film version, The Breaking Point is a sadly neglected little gem that deserves to be wider known. It's an effecting and often powerful piece of cinema that benefits greatly from both John Garfield's sterling lead performance and Michael Curtiz's assured and imaginative direction. Not that the screenplay isn't worth mentioning, for it does a fine job of getting to the essence of the Hemingway story and transferring one of his flawed, haunted heroes quite effectively to the screen.

The Thin Man works because of the chemistry between stars William Powell and Myrna Loy, and because screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich had the good sense to transfer Dashiell Hammett's source novel to the screen without substantial alterations to the story. Planned by MGM as a lower-profile release, the film nonetheless featured first-rate talent in front of and behind the camera, including director W.S. Van Dyke, cinematographer James Wong Howe, art director Cedric Gibbons, and sound engineer Douglas Shearer.

Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum star as Tony and Felix, co-owners of a tramp-steamer service in the West Indies. Threatening their friendship is itinerant trollop Irena (Rita Hayworth). Tony seethes with jealousy as Irena gravitates towards Felix, leading to a heated confrontation. Felix retaliates by blowing the whistle on Tony's under-the-counter smuggling activities. Tony in turns plots to kill his former partner, but changes his mind when Felix saves his life during a shipwreck.

Don Siegel took over the directing chores from Peter Hyams on this taut cold war action film, based on the novel by Walter Wager. With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union thawing, old KGB hard-liner Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) activates a group of Americans who were brainwashed twenty years earlier to blow up United States defenses when a passage from a Robert Frost poem is recited to them. When bombs go off at an abandoned United States defense installation, the Kremlin realizes that they have a rogue KGB agent on their hands who is trying to re-ignite the cold war. To stop him, the Russians send out KGB agent Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson). Accompanying him is KGB double agent Barbara (Lee Remick).

The Lady From Shanghai, a complex, involving puzzle-within-a-puzzle mystery story, is a showcase for Orson Welles, showing his singular talents and sensibilities as few other films have. The story is superficially simple: a seaman Michael O'Hara (Welles) is hired as a crew member on the yacht of the wealthy Banister (Everett Sloane). His beautiful but mysterious wife Elsa (Rita Hayworth) has met O'Hara earlier, when he saved her from a mugging. What ensues is a complicated and bizarre pattern of deception, fraud and murder, with O'Hara finding himself implicated in a murder, despite his innocence.

The Good Die Young is a psychological crime yarn, exploring the motivations of four participants in an armed robbery. American ex-GI Joe (Richard Basehart) hopes to use his share of the haul to bring his British wife to the US. Professional boxer Mike (Stanley Baker) finds himself unable to work in his chosen profession when his hand is broken, while his life savings are stolen by his disreputable brother-in-law. American airman Eddie (John Ireland) has deserted upon discovering that his wife (Gloria Grahame) is unfaithful. And shabby aristocrat Rave (Laurence Harvey) needs to pay off his wife's gambling debts.

Peter Sellers stars, as the tagline states, "as that cunning matador who flees from the bulls so that he may chase the chicks!" Juan Bautista (Peter Sellers) is an inept matador who wants to be a singer. Francisco Carbonell (Adolfo Celi), the owner of a local Barcelona night spot, offers Juan a singing contract for a week --the only stipulation being that he has three days to seduce Olimpia Segura (Britt Ekland), the "most desirable woman in Barcelona." The bumbling matador tries a series of half-baked lovemaking techniques that, amazingly, get Olimpia to come around.

Claudette Colbert is a young freethinking woman living in Salem, Massachusetts during the notorious 17th century "witch trials". Colbert falls in love with adventurer Fred MacMurray, causing no end of scandal with the Puritan townsfolk. A hateful little girl (Bonita Granville) pretends to be "possessed", thereby convincing the Salemites that Claudette is a witch.