"Marked Woman" (1937)

Warner Brothers was the studio for gangster pictures in the 1930's. Tough, realistic, violent, and fast paced they were hard knuckle entertainments and were often based on the real crime stories of the day, "ripped from the headlines"scenarios. This fine entry was based on the takedown of underworld crime boss Lucky Luciano by a group of women who worked in his prostitution ring and who would turn state's evidence against him. Strong-willed Bette Davis is leader of the "hostesses" who run up against the nasty kingpin played by Eduardo Cianelli. She teams up with the earnest DA, Humphrey Bogart, who plays against his usual bad guy type, to bring down the heavy when her innocent younger sister (Jane Bryan) gets in too deep with him. Davis is just great here, feisty and resilient. It's refreshing to see a woman protagonist in this usually male-dominated genre. And her scenes with Bogart play like two fine tennis players volleying that rat-a-tat dialog between them. The gritty direction is by Lloyd Bacon with some uncredited help by Michael Curtiz.

"The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" (1957)

By all measure of reason, this movie should be unwatchable. But damned if it doesn't suck you in and jerk your tears from one end of the screen to the other. A headstrong youngish British woman (Ingrid Bergman) makes it her heart's desire to become a Christian missionary in 1930's China during the Sino-Japanese war. This despite the fact that she has no training or money to get there. But get there she does. She signs on to work for an elderly missionary woman (Athene Seyler) in a remote northern province who runs a dilapidated inn. With pluck and hard work they begin to turn the place around and to help the local folks and travelers, all the while teaching the word of Christ. As the war heats up and the Japanese infiltrate the territory, Ingrid has to get one hundred--yes, one hundred-- Chinese orphans in a treacherous overland trek to safety. Missionaries, orphans, and a white hero that saves the third world...sound icky? Think again. Bergman's performance is so endearing and she imbues the character with such passion she makes the whole movie. She makes you forget some other questionable casting issues too, like her romance with a half white, half Chinese military officer played by Curt Jurgens and her winning over of the local mandarin,  Robert Donat in his last film role. You could never get away with this white-person-in-native-role business today. If both actors didn't give such sincere performances in their almond eyed makeup you'd be throwing fried rice at the screen. Yeoman director Mark Robson doesn't go in for any flashy direction. He knows where to put the camera to tell the story in solid script by screenwriter Isobel Lennart.  It's a testament to the filmmakers that the whole thing was shot in England! With a nice score by Malcolm Arnold.

"Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)

The poster bills it as "MGM's Love Making Musical!" They weren't lying. This is one of those movie premises that on the surface seems innocent enough, but when you really give some thought to what's going on you clearly see what the filmmakers were trying to slip  by the buttoned-down sensibilities of the 1950's American public (and the censors). Seven hearty red-headed mountain men, all brothers, in the pioneering days of the Oregon territory, fall in love, woo, and marry seven women from the nearby town. Let's be clear, though. They're main motivation is that they're pent up. Really pent up. Something awful. And they need...well, you know. There's a robust swagger in this musical that differentiates it from most of the glossier MGM fare. The groundbreaking choreography, by Michael Kidd, is almost purely acrobatic, giving the proceedings a decidedly lustier feeling. The justly famous barn raising sequence where the brothers are flirting with the girls and trying to fend off local suitors is a thrilling showstopper. A lot of the songs in the fine score by Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul have a big, expansive Copland-esque feel to them. And when they're sung by the full throated baritone of Howard Keel, who's the eldest brother, and the lovely trilling Jane Powell as his intended, it's musical ear candy. But back to the sex. There are two hot scenes in underwear, in one the brothers roust about only in their longjohns, the sexiest bunch of ginger lumberjacks ever put on film, and in another the girls have a whole number wearing only their petticoats and super cinched corsets. And let's not leave out the song and dance number where the brothers are pining for their cloistered girl crushes while they're synchopatedly swing their, ahem, axes. Look for a young Julie Newmar (here billed as 'Julie Newmeyer') as one of the brides. The direction is by Stanley Donen. Filmed in Cinemascope.