"Stella Dallas" (1937)

The first talkie version of Olive Higgins Prouty's popular novel, this is one of the all-time great weepies for movie masochists. Barbara Stanwyck is a blue collar dame from a millworking family in Massachusetts. She's laser focused on landing a man with money to beat her humdrum life and sets her sites on the charming and handsome John Boles. Their eventual marriage fails but they have a daughter who becomes the fulcrum for the rest of the plot. Stanwyck becomes the self-sacrificing mother to beat all comers. She never really shakes her "dem, dese, and dose" accent or her gaudy nouveau riche taste and she's loathe to become a social embarrassment for her teenager (sincere Anne Shirley). To give away more spoils the plot but you soon realize the whole picture is a set-up for one of the most gut-punching, tear-inducing endings in cinema history. And as always, Stanwyck plays it just right, garnering a well-deserved Oscar nod for her performance.

"Hang 'em High" (1968)

This is a more straightforward oater in the Clint Eastwood oeuvre. Sandwiched in between the groundbreaking 'spaghetti westerns' he did with director Sergio Leone and the more experimental genre-bending ones he made in the 1970's like "The Beguiled" and "High Plains Drifter", it feels more like an amped up TV show, "Rawhide" with more sex and violence. Maybe that's because it's directed by a television veteran, Ted Post. That's okay; you can get past the conventional look and feel of it because the story is a grabber. Eastwood is an Oklahoma territory cattleman who survives a trumped up lynching by a gang of nine disreputable ranchers led by nasty Ed Begley. They think he's a rustler.  Big mistake. He becomes a marshal and proceeds to track them down one by one and bring them to justice before trial judge Pat Hingle (who's terrific here). Lovely Inger Stevens is on hand to add some love interest and so is Arlene "Mayberry RFD" Golanka as a cheap harlot with a bad red wig.

"Too Late for Tears" (1949)

There's an old axiom in storytelling: the better the villain, the better the tale. This fascinating little noir has a doozy of a femme fatale at it's core. Played by the raspy voiced Lizabeth Scott, it involves a restless woman stuck in a lackluster marriage to husband Arthur Kennedy. Quite by happenstance they find a satchel of money, so much money that they figure it can only be ill gotten gains. Sure enough the lowlife who's missing his cash, Dan Duryea, shows up and he's not happy. The plot only gets more twisted and tangled (and deadly) from there. Scott and Duryea were mainstays of the genre and they make the backstabbing and double-dealing look easy. Add to the intrigue an old friend of Kennedy's (Don Defore) who may or may not be what he seems and you've got a nifty grab bag of murder and mayhem.

"Bus Stop" (1956)

This amiable film adaptation of William Inge's successful play was turned into a star vehicle for Marilyn Monroe at the height of her popularity. It proved that under all that cleavage and peroxide there really was an actress of some talent. Nevermind that her insecurities and demons made her a difficult handful while filming and that the performance was created in the editing room. The proof is on the screen. Her undeniable star presence is in full throttle. She's a self described 'chanteuse' playing in rowdy Southwest saloons working her way cross country to that big break in Hollywood. She collides with a  bumpkin bronco rider from Montana in town for the big rodeo (Don Murray, who manages not to make a fool of himself given he does a lot of whooping and hollering). For this cowboy it's love at first sight; for her, not so much. The second half of the film is set in the stagebound title location where they (of course) resolve their differences and ride off into the sunset, albeit on a bus. The notable thing about Monroe's performance here is that she's working a convincing accent vastly different from her usual breathy, ditzy delivery. It's clearly patterned on the great Kim Stanley who created the role on Broadway. You can hear Stanley's slurry, drawling cadences in Monroe's mimicking. Grand larceny that works. Rounding out the cast are two dependable character actors as the sparring couple's best friends, Arthur O'Connell as Murray's ranchhand cohort and Eileen Heckart as Monroe's waitress pal. The widescreen direction is by Josh Logan.

"Harriet Craig" (1950)

If you're one to believe the scandalous tell-all book "Mommie Dearest", the one where daughter Christina Crawford completely trashes the life, career, and memory of her beloved screen icon mother Joan Crawford, then this is the movie for you. Joan's character here comes closest to the frightening gorgon depicted in that hatchet job and the subsequent camp-fest film adaptation starring the go-for-broke performance by Faye Dunaway. She's an overbearing domestic control freak living in the suburbs. Her only motivation is to have a spotless house and perfect marriage, no matter the cost. If she has to double-cross her devoted cousin (a sincere K.T.Stevens), terrorize her housekeepers (Viola Roache, Ellen "Grandma Walton" Corby), or deviously manipulate her unsuspecting husband (Wendall Corey), so be it. It's the appearance of the ideal upper middle class life she craves and, goddamit, she'll stop at nothing to get it. Crawford is fascinating to watch, never shying away from being totally unsympathetic. You hate this harridan but you can't stop watching, wondering what jaw-dropping shenanigan she'll pull next. This is melodrama served up piping hot with a healthy side of kitsch to boot. Like Crawford's wardrobe, so gawdawful they look like rejects from a  Charles Busch show. Crawford's roles in the 1950's would get increasingly campier as her looks hardened, the eyebrows and cheekbones getting sharper and more brittle. Was it the best Hollywood could offer an aging star at that time? Who knows. But Crawford sunk her teeth into whatever she was given and she owned the screen whatever the vehicle.

"Woman on the Run" (1950)

A great example of the best kind of film noir: simple tight plot, quick smart dialog, edgy suspense and a twisty plot all set amid a gritty urban setting. Ann Sheridan, looking like the love child of Lucille Ball and Talullah Bankhead, is the title dame. Her estranged husband  (Ross Elliot) witnesses a mob killing and goes on the lam for fear he'll be the next mark for what he saw. She tries to find him while the cops tail her, they need his testimony. There's also a handsome reporter in tow (Dennis O'Keefe) trying to bag the big story, plus the real killer. No wonder she's on the run! But the best reason to see the picture, hands down, is the fantastic use of real locations. The film has Sheridan traipsing all around San Francisco, up and down the hills, around famous landmarks, and thru the crowded streets and throngs. It's a perfect visualization of that city at mid-century. If you love The City by the Bay, take a stroll thru a bygone tour of the way it looked back then in superb black and white, a snapshot that surely no longer exists.