The Empire Strikes Back, the second chapter in George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy, is directed by Irvin Kershner from ascnario by vet Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the hero from the first film, is now a space warrior. Luke’s cohorts Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) are also […]

This old-fashioned melodrama is one of the last features from D. W. Griffith. Emanuella  (Mary Philbin) is betrothed to the hunchbacked Duke de Avilia (Lionel Barrymore), but she is in love with his younger handsome brother (Don Alvarado), but their romance is discovered by the Duke’s evil jester. Initially, the film ends with the death […]

In this Cecil B. DeMille production, Kay Johnson marries a convict on death row (Charles Bickford), hoping that he’ll be executed so that she can get his money and marry another man (Conrad Nagel). But he is reprieved, and goes to work as a miner, when he discovers the reasons why she married him. Afraid […]

Disney’s superlative animated classic concerns a baby elephant with unusually large ears. Ostracized from the rest of the circus animals, Dumbo is separated from his mother, who is chained up in a cage after trying to defend her child. Only Timothy Mouse proves to be a friend to Dumbo, encouraging the pouty pachyderm to exploit […]

Euzhan Palcy is the first woman of African descent to ever direct a Hollywood Studio movie, MGM’s “A Dry White Season,” starring Donald Sutherland, Marlon Brando, Susan Sarandon, Janet Suzman, Zakes Mokae and Jurgen Prochnow, and produced by Paula Weinstein. Euzhan Palcy is best known for her films focusing on social change and cultural issues. […]