Wallace Beery

In this silent romantic comedy-drama, a reality-challenged title writer must navigate the perils and possibilities of two worlds: the one in his head, and the one in which he has a chance at real love.

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In Le Livre d’Image, Jean-Luc Godard recycles existing images (films, documentaries, paintings, television archives, etc.), quotes excerpts from books, uses fragments of music. The driving force is poetic rhyme, the association or opposition of ideas, the aesthetic spark through editing, the keystone. The author performs the work of a sculptor. The hand, for this, is essential. He praises it at the start. “There are the five fingers. The five senses. The five parts of the world (…). The true condition of man is to think with his hands. Jean-Luc Godard composes a dazzling syncopation of sequences, the surge of which evokes the violence of the flows of our contemporary screens, taken to a level of incandescence rarely achieved. Crowned at Cannes, the last Godard is a shock film, with twilight beauty.

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As Hollywood biographies go, Judy Garland's story is one of the saddest success stories you'll ever hear. The sanitized studio version of her life presented a smiling kid with the big voice, who, alongside Mickey Rooney, just wanted to put on a show. But drugs, overwork, even psychological abuse at the hands of the studio is now part of the Garland legend. But despite the number of Garland books and documentaries, one account has always been missing -- Garland herself never managed to write a memoir. She did make several attempts at an autobiography, often recording stories on a tape recorder. Judy Garland: By Myself (2004), finally fills in the blanks - using Judy's personal recordings to tell the story in her own words.

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Until 1932's Grand Hotel, never had there existed an all-star ensemble cast on film. Conceived by MGM's production genius Irving Thalberg, the film boasted names like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John and Lionel Barrymore and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This short documentary takes a look at the making of the classic film.

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Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

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Join all your favorites—Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa, Darla, Butch, Froggy and more—in a jam-packed special covering more than twenty years and 200 episodes of Hal Roach's inimitable brand of childhood magic. This fascinating video offers insight into the Gang's personal lives, as rare footage follows each member's career through the joys and misfortunes that went along with being one of America's most beloved kids. See how the series began in 1922 and changed after the first all-talking release in 1929, why Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney never made the Gang, a fifteenth anniversary reunion, and clips from their only feature.

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Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.

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Rare footage reveals how stars were created and motion pictures sold, and how the the advent of sound and color changed movies.

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Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

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Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

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Overview of director King Vidor's filmography.

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A documentary about the glorious history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and its decline leading to the sale of its back lot and props. By extension this provides a general history of Hollywood's Golden Age and the legendary studio system.

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Brazilian documentary film directed by Salvyano Cavalcanti de Paiva that showcases the evolution of Brazilian artists in the American film industry between the late 1920s and 1950s. Using archive footage, it highlights the contributions of figures like Carmen Miranda.

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Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

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A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.

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The original concept of the show was to allow the viewer to see the inner workings of a movie studio and featured interviews with MGM stars and explanations of how movies were made. Later, the format changed to show edited versions of MGM films.

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Wallace Beery, in his final film, plays a bandit in this period drama set in Colonial America.

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Best friends Judy and Carol compete for the affection of an older man during their high school dance. As Carol tries to rekindle Judy's relationship with Carol's bumbling brother, Oogie, Judy suspects that her father is having an affair with a beautiful dance instructor. The two girls team up to expose Judy's father -- who is only taking innocent dance lessons.

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Aging ex-con tries to stop his daughter from getting involved with shady characters.

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A retired prizefighter becomes the unlikely guardian of a young orphan boy recently arrived from England to New York's Bowery District.

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A western bandit is reformed by his love for a little girl.

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During World War II, Chief Aviation Pilot Ned Trumpet is in charge of an airship at Lakehurst, New Jersey naval base. Trumpet orders an unauthorized and premature attack on a German submarine but the bomb misses and the submarine fires back, hitting the airship. Trumpet takes over the controls and sinks the submarine, The pilot faces a court-martial for disobeying orders but the older man takes the blame for his actions. Weaver transfers to the Ferry Command, and while on assignment in Burma, his aircraft crashes in Japanese territory. Trumpet rushes to the scene with a rescue team. Both are successfully brought out and are decorated for their heroism. Afterward, Weaver indicates that he will be returning to the lighter-than-air service in Lakehurst, to reunite with his "father".

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Honest Plush Brannon is a con-man thrown out of the Barbary Coast in San Francisco in the 1880s and headed for the gold rush region of Nevada. He discovers a real mine which lead to several complications.

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A small-town butcher has problems coping with meat rationing.

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This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

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It is a comic book propaganda film which has Beery as a retired USMC NCO who, when the Japanese invade the Philippines, leads a heroic defense, first by strangling a Nazi agent, and then dying in his dress blues uniform while blowing up a bridge.

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An unknowing orphan idolizes the horse thief/mail robber who has shot his father.

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An old-time cavalry sergeant's resistance to change could cost him his post.

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A fishing boat captain searches for romance in hopes of improving his financial picture.

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Lopez is a bandit who has stolen the herd at Gil's ranch, so Hardy is about to foreclose. But Lucia has come back from New York and Gil is happy until he meets her husband, Morgan.

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This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

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With the army after him and his partner deserting, Reb decides that a change of scenery would be nice so he heads for Wyoming with Dave.

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An MGM short promoting the studio's impact on fashion through film through their chief of costume design, Adrian; in rural America, a mother and daughter are shopping and observe a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie.

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It is 1892 in Death Valley and the yields from the Borax ore are getting so small that refining it is a losing proposition. The only thing that will save the company is a new deposit of high grade Borax, and Skinner Bill Bragg has a pouch of it that he got from a dead prospector he buried on the road. Stag Roper knows the value of the strike could be worth millions, but he needs Bragg to find the prospector's claim so they can record it and become rich partners. While Roper has no intention of cutting Bragg in on the millions, he also has his eye on young Jean Johnson. Josie Johnson, Jean's mother, sees Roper as the scalawag he is, and that means trouble in Furnace Flat.

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A frontier scout, a Boston officer and a Russian girl escape with a map past Confederates.

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A tugboat captain serves under his rival as a U-boat chaser in World War I.

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A janitor finds a piece of jewelry dropped by a young woman, which he in turn gives to his wife. Feeling sorry for the young woman, the janitor tries to straighten things out, with many funny complications.

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John, the janitor, has a pet monkey that accompanies him on his different jobs. Because of the monkey's wonderful ability, John is given a post of janitor in one of the large hotels.

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