Mary Astor

Herman Wouk's bestseller about a Kentucky-born writer's spectacular rise and fall among the big-city glitterati gets the big-screen treatment courtesy of Warner Bros. master of melodrama Delmer Daves. Daves, fresh from a string of successes, recruited celebrated and storied composer Max Steiner to score the film, adding gravitas to the glitz. James Franciscus stars as the title character, a truck driver who arrives in New York City intent on making it as a writer. Aided by a friendly editor, Jeanne Green (Suzanne Pleshette), Hawke's star is on the rise, both among the intelligentsia and the jet set. Hawke inevitably succumbs to the lures of high society, breaking Jeanne's heart and eventually seeing his career destroyed by the jealous husband of one of his paramours.

Tim (John Hubbard) and Sally Willows (Carole Landis) are unhappily married. Tim spends his days working at an advertising agency, while Sally lounges around the house. One day a distant relative sends the couple a statue of an Asian deity. When Sally and Tim argue about which of them has the better life, the statue comes alive in the form of Mr. Ram (George Renavent). Hearing their argument, he casts a spell. The next morning Tim wakes up inside Sally's body, and Sally wakes up inside Tim's.

Meet Jo, Beth, Amy and Meg. They're the March sisters, the Little Women of Mervyn LeRoy's Academy Award-winning Technicolor version of the cherished Louisa May Alcott novel. Set during the Civil War, it chronicles the Marches' lives and loves, underscoring the era's expectations about a woman's place in the world.

A decaying plantation is the setting for this macabre tale of two spinsters and a 37-year-old axe murder.