Herself (archive footage)
Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.
Self (archive footage)
Famous Monster takes a fast-paced, colorful look at the life of science fiction's greatest fan - Forrest J. Ackerman, whose 85 year love affair with the genre helped bring it into the mainstream and shape the way we view science fiction today.
(archive footage)
A documentary about the era of classic monster movies that were made at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 1940s.
Self
Documentary about the Yale Puppeteers. A bit eccentric, certainly off beat and creative, the puppeteers and their story - as well as their place in history - is meticulously documented and tugs at the heartstrings.
The Monster's Bride
The video debut of experimental musicians and culture jamming artists Emergency Broadcast Network.
Mary Shelley / Monster's Mate (archive footage) (uncredited)
A non-stop roller coaster ride through the scariest moments of the greatest terror films of all time.
Herself (archive footage)
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
Sophie
A San Francisco cab driver find himself in possession of a monkey that is carrying a formula for turning atomic waste into a plutonium bomb. He finds himself framed for a murder and chased…
Jessica Marbles
Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.
Hester
Karen marries Arnold at his funeral and continues to get his money as long as she stays by his coffin. Meanwhile, various oddball relatives after Arnold's wealth are being killed in a creative variety of ways.
Julia Hawthorn
Terrifying wax figures of renowned personalities, such as Attila the Hun and Jack the Ripper, surround the sale of a London museum.
Henrietta Stiles
A social misfit, Willard is made fun of by his co-workers, and squeezed out of the company started by his deceased father by his boss. His only friends are a couple of rats he raised at home, Ben and Socrates. However, when one of them is killed at work, he goes on a rampage using his rats to attack those who have been tormenting him.
Gertrude Caruso
In this romantic comedy, an unwed couple who run a wedding planning business discover, to their horror, that the Justice of the Peace who had officiated their first three weddings was only an actor. Hilarity ensues as they set about trying to get these marrieds married...again.
Mrs. Formby
As ratings for Jack Crandall's lifeless airborne traffic reports plummet, a super-size St. Bernard on the lam stows away in his chopper. Crandall's new co-pilot helps send ratings sky-high, but the canine's chronic kleptomania generates girl trouble, jewel thievery, and loads of laughs.
Miss Dennison
Since she was a child, Natalie Miller has always thought she was an ugly ducking. Despite her mother's encouragement that she will grow up to be pretty, Natalie has never believed it will happen. She rents a Greenwich Village apartment from an eccentric landlady and gets a job at the Topless Bottom Club. She rides a motorcycle to work, decorates her loft with a moose head, and rides up and down a dumbwaiter to get to her apartment. There Natalie meets David an artist, and the two have a love affair before she discovers he is married.
Mrs. Satterfield
A comedy filled with tenderness as a baby raccoon snuggles his way into the life of a lonely boy. He becomes the boy's only companion during his father's frequent absences. Because of Rascal, both father and son realize their responsibility to each other
Emily Stowecroft
The eponymous wraith returns to Earth to aid his descendant, elderly Emily Stowecroft. The villains want to kick Emily and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Steve Walker gets caught in the middle of the squabble after evoking Blackbeard's ghost.
Madame Neherina
Navy frogman Ted Jackson balances his time between twin careers as a deep-sea diver and nightclub singer. During a dive, Ted spots sunken treasure and returns with the hope to retrieve it.
Mrs. MacDougall
A young woman suspects foul play when her cat comes home wearing a wristwatch. Convincing the FBI, though, and catching the bad guys is tougher than she imagined.
Katie Nanna
Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.
Aunt Wendy
A Martian teenager sent to prepare for an invasion falls in love with an Earth girl.
Chambermaid
A man left at the alter goes on his honeymoon trip anyway, taking his best man along instead.
Noah's wife
Stravinsky and Balanchine's take on the apocalyptic Biblical tale. An opera composed for video.
Aunt Queenie Holroyd
A modern-day witch likes her neighbor but despises his fiancée, so she enchants him to love her instead... only to fall in love with him for real.
Miss Plimsoll
When Leonard Vole is arrested for the sensational murder of a rich, middle-aged widow, the famous Sir Wilfrid Robarts agrees to appear on his behalf. Sir Wilfrid, recovering from a near-fatal heart attack, is supposed to be on a diet of bland, civil suits—but the lure of the criminal courts is too much for him, especially when the case is so difficult.
Red Queen
A young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and finds herself in Wonderland, a fantasy land of strange characters and ideas.
Widow Sonder
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
The Bearded Lady
Jerry and Pete are two friends with no money and are looking for a job. They finally find employment working in a circus, but Jerry has different dreams. He wants to become a clown.
Lida O'Reilly
A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.
Thelma
In the spring of 1945, World War II is coming to a close. Roger Halyard, a dignified, strait-laced Englishmen, lives on a South Sea atoll with his three daughters, Gloria, Hester and Violet, along with the housekeeper, Thelma, who has raised the girls since childhood. Other than their father, the girls have never seen another man. Halyard is informed that 1500 U.S. Marines will soon arrive to establish an air base on the island. Halyard is rather apprehensive over the prospect of his daughters, who have never met another man, being thrown together with 1500 Marines who haven't seen a woman in months.
Megaera
George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.
Madame Magloire
Jean Valjean, a Frenchman of good character, has nevertheless been convicted for the minor crime of stealing bread. A minor infraction leads to his pursuit by the relentless policeman Javert, a pursuit that consumes both men's lives for many years.
Mathilda Coffey
Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor - secretly formerly a silent films romantic action hero - is disturbed, feeling his privacy has been violated, and his professional credibility as a scholar jeopardized, when he learns his old movies have been resurrected and are being aired on TV. He sets out to demand this cease. However, his former co-star is the hostess of the TV show playing the films, and she has other plans.
Countess
Frenchie Fontaine sells her successful business in New Orleans to come West. Her reason? Find the men who killed her father, Frank Dawson. But she only knows one of the two who did and she's determined to find out the other.
Dr. Crutcher
An artist famous for his calendar portraits of beautiful women becomes fascinated by a prim and proper professor and tries to get her to pose for his arwork. She declines his offer, but he's determined not to take no for an answer.
Mrs. Smerrling
When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the woman's identity, how she died, and who killed her.
Madame Brizar
A New Orleans performer loves a pirate who robs only from the shipowner who ruined his father.
Maria
An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.
Martha
When Cholera takes the parents of Mary Lennox, she is shipped from India to England to live with her Uncle Craven. Mary changes the lives of those she encounters at her Uncle's remote estate.
Amelia Potts
Two nuns arrive unannounced in the small New England town of Bethlehem, where they recruit various townspeople to help them build a children's hospital.
Louise Patterson
Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.
Matilda
An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
Princess 'Tanya' Tatiana
US cavalry officer James Laurence (Nelson Eddy) arrives at one of the Russian colonies to pave the way for the eventual American takeover of the territory. He faces resistance in the form of Prince Nikolai Balinin (Hugo Haas), who has no intention of weakening his despotic hold over the local peasants. The plot thickens when Laurence falls in love with Natalie Alanova (Ilona Massey), the wife of disgraced nobleman Count Igor Savin (Joseph Schildkraut).
Miss Keith
An adventurous young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.
Mrs. Oates
On a stormy night, the mute servant to an ailing matriarch is stalked by a serial killer.
Ella Muggins
A British war widow travels to Berlin to assassinate Hitler.
Mrs. Helen Carraclough
Hard times come for the Carraclough family and they are forced to sell their dog, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling. Lassie, however, is unwilling to remain apart from young Carraclough son Joe and sets out on a long and dangerous journey to rejoin him.
Emily "Emmy" Ffinch
In this wartime musical, a feisty singer working in a London dive swears that she will become a star. She gets a job in an airplane plant when she learns that her fiance, a producer, and his partner are looking for new talent at the war factories. While working there, the woman meets a handsome RAF officer and falls in love. This causes some trouble.
Mamie
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
Elsa (Mrs Charles) Smith
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.
Bristol Isabel
Sir Arthur Blake has inherited title and lands from his brother. He also has his orphaned nephew Benjamin working for him as a bonded servant. While he believes the lad was born out of wedlock and so cannot claim the inheritance, he is taking no chances. Benjamin eventually rebels against his uncle and sets sail to try and make his fortune. This may enable him to return to prove his claim to being the rightful heir to the estate.
Emily Creed
Ellen Creed is a housekeeper who looks after Leonora Fiske, a retired actress living in the English countryside. When Ellen's eccentric sisters visit their sibling at Leonora's home, tensions soon lead to murder.
Self
This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Fay Bainter, Mickey Rooney, Thomas Mitchell, Sinclair Lewis, and more, with host Bob Hope.
Martha Jones
Ginger Ted, AKA Edward Claude Wilson, a drunkard and womanizer, and Miss Jones, a missionary, live in the Alas Islands. During a cholera epidemic, Ginger Ted and Miss Jones are sent to an outlying part of the islands to run a hospital; on their return, their motorboat breaks down, and they are marooned overnight on a small island.
Hendrickje Stoffels
This character study joins the painter at the height of his fame in 1642, when his adored wife suddenly dies and his work takes a dark, sardonic turn that offends his patrons. By 1656, he is bankrupt but consoles himself with the company of pretty maid Hendrickje, whom he's unable to marry. Their relationship brings ostracism but also some measure of happiness. The final scenes find him in his last year, 1669, physically enfeebled but his spirit undimmed.
Miss Shepperton
An American businessman's family convinces him to buy a Scottish castle and disassemble it to ship it to America brick by brick, where it will be put it back together. The castle though is not the only part of the deal, with it goes the several-hundred year old ghost who haunts it.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / The Monster's Bride
Dr. Pretorius, a deranged scientist, forces Henry Frankenstein to help him create a companion for the monster.
Madame d'Annard
A French princess flees an arranged marriage and sails for New Orleans, where she is rescued from pirates by a dashing mercenary.
Clickett
Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphaned boy's fight for happiness and the colorful characters who help and hinder him.
Anne of Cleves
Renowned for his excess, King Henry VIII goes through a series of wives during his rule. With Anne Boleyn, his second wife, executed on charges of treason, King Henry weds maid Jane Seymour, but that marriage also ends in tragedy. Not one to be single for long, the king picks German-born Anne of Cleves as his bride, but their union lasts only months before an annulment is granted, and King Henry continues his string of spouses.
Therese
'A good-looking chauffeur, employed by an aristocratic married lady is tempted to misconduct. His indifference arouses her wrath and he is charged with assault at the Assizes. ' (British Film Institute)
Cora Melville
A Lieutenant becomes mixed-up with some stolen jewels.
Matilde
'Paris. Roué poses as secretary to flirt with employer's wife.' (British Film Catalogue)
Thompson
A man rescues his wife's lover during a disaster at a coal mine
Futuristic story about a slow moving cricket match that begins in 1940 (ten years beyond the year when the film was produced) and finally finishes in 2000.
Herself
A Musical Revue featuring a number of prominent vaudeville and theatrical British artists of the day in songs, dances, dramatic and musical sketches.
Elsa
As criminals assemble for a convention, a policeman investigates and is abducted. A young woman finds his whistle and blows it. The full forces of the law assemble. The confrontation between order and disorder ensues, with our heroine caught up in it.
Elsa
The family of the very wealthy but infirm Great Aunt Louisa await her untimely demise in the hopes of inheriting her great fortune.
Elsa / Heroine in Dream Sequence
A young cleaning woman in a boarding-house relieves the drudgery of her job by daydreaming that a foreign student at the house, who she believes is interested in her, is actually a wealthy nobleman who sweeps her off on a romantic journey.
Lady
Sanger, an eccentric expatriate composer, dies in his house in the Austrian Alps, leaving his daughters penniless. The young composer Lewis Dodd, a longstanding friend of the family, falls in love with their cousin Florence when she comes to take the girls back to England. But little Tessa Sanger is in love with Lewis herself, and when she runs away from school and comes to live with Florence and her husband, their already-shaky marriage is further undermined
Beatrice de Carolle
The Pope and Cardinal Montefiasco plot to bring England back within the fold of the Catholic Church. Montefiasco decides to do this by first converting the Prince of Wales, then arranging the murder of leading Protestants on St Bartholomew's day. The Prince falls under the influence of the homosexual Dean of Balliol, an ally of the Cardinal, but may yet be saved by his love for cabaret girl Beatrice...
