The Lady From Shanghai - 1948

Lady From Shanghai (The) Framed Art Print
33.75 in. x 47.25 in.

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Starring: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders, Ted de Corsia
Director: Orson Welles

Welles' imaginative, complicated, unsettling film noir who-dun-it thriller - a B/W tale of betrayal, lust, greed and murder. With fascinating visuals and tilting compositions, luminous and brilliant camerawork (by Charles Lawton, Jr.), and numerous sub-plots and confounding plot twists. Orson Welles served as director, producer, screenplay writer, and actor, and based his screenplay upon Sherwood King's 1938 novel If I Die Before I Wake. The moody film, originally titled Take This Woman and then Black Irish, was made when major stars Orson Welles and sexy Rita Hayworth (with dyed and bobbed bleached-blonde hair) in her last film under contract to Columbia Pictures) were still married although estranged and drifting apart.

Poor Irish seaman Michael O'Hara (Welles), after rescuing Mrs. Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister (Hayworth) and becoming mesmerized by her - the enigmatic wife of a crippled San Francisco trial lawyer named Arthur Bannister (Sloane), he joins her yachting cruise as a crew member from New York to San Francisco (via the Panama Canal), and finds himself embroiled in a love affair and a mysterious plot (to kill Bannister's creepy business partner George Grisby (Anders)) that turns deadly and implicates him in murder. [The numerous close-ups of Rita Hayworth in the film were later added by Welles in Hollywood upon orders of the studio, to lend strength to her 'star' power.]

The film, told through O'Hara's narration, was shot on locations including Acapulco, San Francisco, and at Columbia Studios sets, and features numerous classic set-pieces including: the aquarium scene, and the funhouse and Hall of Mirrors shoot-out climax. Ultimately, the film's length was severely cut down by one hour, creating an almost incomprehensible, discontinuous, cryptic patchwork from numerous retakes and substantial edits. Although it was filmed in late 1946 and finished in early 1947, it wasn't released until late in 1948. The film was mostly ignored - it failed both at the box-office and as a critical success. This was Welles' last Hollywood film until the making of Touch of Evil (1958) ten years later.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly - 1966

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Framed Poster
30.38 in. x 42.38 in.

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The third and final installment (but actual a prequel) in under-rated Italian director Sergio Leone's The Man with No Name epic trilogy, this is perhaps the best-known "spaghetti western" of all-time. 'The Man with No Name' was Eastwood's star-making role, after appearances in the previous A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). Elements of his character can be found in his later anti-hero cop "Dirty" Harry Callahan character in Dirty Harry (1971). As with Leone's other westerns, this film is viciously violent and machismo in tone, but buoyed by the classic, instantly-recognizable, twanging Ennio Morricone score. In this sweeping, stylistic, and operatic film, The Man with No Name (but dubbed Blondie) (Eastwood) is the unsmiling anti-hero "Good" guy, Angel Eyes Sentenza (Van Cleef) serves as the vile and ruthless "Bad" guy, and Tuco Ramirez (Wallach) provides the greedy, talkative, clownish and self-centered "Ugly". With very little dialogue, lots of closeups, and vast widescreen landscapes, the film's plot, set during the Civil War, concerns the acquisition of a treasure chest of $200,000 in stolen Confederate gold buried in a grave at a faraway location.

All three of the main characters, basically amoral, anti-social bounty hunters, outlaws, and murderers, are forced to form an uneasy partnership or alliance, leading to the film's climactic graveyard shootout in which the opportunistic desperados find themselves facing off one last time for the fortune. [In 2003, a special restored and extended English language version, almost three hours in length with about 15 minutes of previously-cut scenes, was released that used the original Italian release cut, with Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach dubbing in their voices to scenes that were cut from the USA release.]




Clint Eastwood Framed Art Print
21 in. x 17 in.

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East of Eden - 1955

East of Eden, James Dean, 1955 Framed Art Print
24.875 in. x 30.875 in.

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Director Elia Kazan's updated re-telling of the Biblical story of rival brothers, Cain and Abel and a paradise lost. A brooding James Dean - as the unappreciated son (Cain), vies against his dull, but favored stuffy brother (Abel) for the affections of their father. The maligned, misunderstood Cain character, representing the unlikeable and outcast director himself (for naming names before the HUAC Committee in 1952), becomes the sensitive hero of this film. As the poster stated, "Sometimes you can't tell who's good and who's bad!..."

Writer Paul Osborn's screenplay adapted John Steinbeck's 1952 novel with the same title for this dramatic Warner Bros. film. [The film tells only a small portion of Steinbeck's work, leaving out the childhood of the parents and the Chinese character of Lee.] The CinemaScopic film, set in 1917 at a time just before the US entry into World War I, portrays the relationship between insecure, tortured, neurotic loner Caleb "Cal" Trask (Dean, in his first major role and film) and his dutiful, favored brother Aron (Davalos) - twin sons. Their father is a stern, hardened, devoutly religious, self-righteous man named Adam (Massey), a lettuce farmer living with his family in Salinas, California. The plot becomes emotionally charged when Cal expresses a liking for his brother's girlfriend Abra (Harris), and then learns that his mother (Van Fleet) is actually alive and operating a nearby brothel.

American Beauty - 2000

American Beauty Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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The tragic, absurdist, dark domestic tale of Lester Burnham (Spacey), who calmly narrates his own story posthumously a la Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard (1950) - he's a "chronic loser" and American suburbanite family man who is unable to speak his mind or actually feel much of anything. But in a mid-life awakening, he becomes infatuated with his self-loathing daughter Jane's (Birch) under-aged cheerleader friend Angela Hayes (Suvari). After enduring too many years of a demeaning job, and a dysfunctional marriage to his obsessive-compulsive, adulterous realtor wife Carolyn (Bening), while feeling disrepect from Jane -- who has fallen for the drug-peddling, video-voyeur neighbor next door Ricky Fitts (Bentley), Lester decides to make radical, ultimately fatal changes to his suburban life. American Beauty was the first film by longtime English stage director Sam Mendes and playwright Alan Ball, who both won Academy Awards for their work, as did long-time cinematographer Conrad L. Hall.

Unforgiven - 1992

Unforgiven Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Actor / director Clint Eastwood's magnificent Western masterpiece. Circumstances force a retired, poor, notorious ex-bounty hunter William Munny (Eastwood), now a hog farmer, to resume his former occupation. In the 1880s frontier town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, a prostitute's face has been brutally slashed by vicious cowboys, and her fellow co-workers have raised a $500 bounty. Joined by former sidekick partner Ned Logan (Freeman) and aspiring, cocky gunfighter 'The Schofield Kid' (Woolvett), they journey to the town to confront the corrupt, sadistic and autocratic Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Hackman), who has denied justice to the brothel's women. In a deadly and bloody showdown, Munny's nihilistic past is graphically brought back.

To Have and Have Not - 1944

To Have and Have Not Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Adapted from the 1937 novel by Ernest Hemingway, with a script by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman - often considered a sequel to Casablanca. Noted for being the film in which Bogart fell in love with much-younger Bacall. In Vichy-controlled Martinique in 1940 after the fall of France, American charter boat captain Harry 'Steve' Morgan (Bogart), with whiskey-soaked Eddie (Brennan) who continually asks "Was you ever bit by a dead bee?", hires his vessel for professional fishing excursions. Although jaded, Harry reluctantly agrees to become involved and aid the Free French Resistance movement by smuggling an underground leader Paul De Bursac (Molnar) and his wife Helene (Moran) off the island. Living in an upstairs apartment above a cafe where Cricket (Carmichael) plays the piano, Harry meets and falls in love with a sultry and seductive young woman Marie 'Slim' Browning (Bacall in her screen debut) - she teaches him how to whistle.

The Thin Man - 1934

Thin Man, The Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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The first in a series of six charming and sophisticated who-dun-it "Thin Man" films (between 1934 and 1947), teaming William Powell and Myrna Loy as a witty, mystery-solving, sleuthing couple - with delightfully-affectionate, rapid-fire banter and chemistry between the pair, and a wire-haired terrier named Asta. Based on Dashiell Hammett's 1932 novel. Retired and soused detective Nick Charles (Powell), now married to wealthy heiress Nora (Loy), is commissioned by Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O'Sullivan) to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her inventor father (Edward Ellis) - the "thin man" of the film's title. Followed by the sequel, After the Thin Man (1936).

Splendor in the Grass - 1961

Splendor in the Grass Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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A tragic, coming-of-age melodrama set in the mid-1920s in a small, rural Kansas town, from playwright William Inge's original, award-winning script. Star-crossed, teenaged sweethearts, poor HS senior Wilma Dean "Deanie" Loomis (Wood) and rich Bud Stamper (Beatty in his film debut) fall deeply and passionately in love, but are repressed by the sexual mores of the time, their class differences, and disapproval from their parents - especially her prudish, puritanical mother (Christie) and his rigid, domineering father (Hingle).

Deanie's pent-up sexual longings cause her to almost go insane in a memorable bathtub scene. Repercussions cause Bud to chase after slutty girl Juanita Howard (Norris), and eventually marry Italian Angelina (Lampert), while Deanie is institutionalized following a suicidal nervous breakdown. Years later, the two meet again and she resolves her feelings about him.

She Done Him Wrong - 1933

She Done Him Wrong Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Liberated Mae West's first starring film based on her infamous 1928 Broadway stage play Diamond Lil. She stars as buxom, bawdy, double-entrendre-spouting Lady Lou, a diamond-jeweled saloon chanteuse, the 'sweetheart' of owner Gus Jordan (Beery) in the Naughty Gay '90s Bowery region. Handsome Captain Cummings/"Hawk" (Grant), a detective poses as a Salvation Army missionary crusader while investigating a corrupt, white slavery and counterfeiting ring in the saloon. Includes West's singing of "Frankie and Johnny," "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone," and "I Like a Man What Takes His Time," and her most famous line of dialogue: "Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evening."

The Public Enemy - 1931

The Public Enemy Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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A definitive, brutal gangster film from the early 1930s with James Cagney's effective portrayal of the rise and fall of a prohibition-era criminal. Two young punks who grew up on the South Side of Chicago - Tom Powers (Cagney) and Matt Doyle (Woods) - move from petty crimes to armed robbery and bootlegging. They lead violent and lethal lives, slap their blonde girlfriends around, and retaliate against rival hoodlums. (The film is most notable for its scene in which Tom pushes his breakfast grapefruit into the face of his moll girlfriend Kitty (Clarke).) They become associates of mobster Nails Nathan (Fenton), self-destructively engage in gang warfares, and Tom takes a new girlfriend Gwen Allen (Harlow). The final image of the delivery of Tom's 'mummified' bullet-ridden body at his estranged family's door is bone-chilling.

Pinocchio - 1940

Pinocchio and Jiminy - Friendly Fun Framed Art Print
12.5 in. x 15.5 in.

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The second full-length animated feature classic from Walt Disney Studios - about a wooden puppet who yearns to be a real boy. Based on a story written by Carlo Collodi in the 1800's. Beautifully drawn with technically-superior animation and memorable characterizations - Geppetto the kindly woodcarver, Figaro the cat, Cleo the goldfish, Stromboli the puppeteer, Monstro the whale, the Blue Fairy, Lampwick - and obviously Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio. The carver's creation - a puppet boy, is turned into a flesh-and-blood boy, with the stipulation that he must be brave, unselfish, and learn right from wrong in order to earn real life. The boy is accompanied by his conscience, Jiminy Cricket for his adventures. Pinocchio is tempted by a conniving fox J. Worthington Foulfellow, exploited by a puppet master Stromboli, and sent to Pleasure Island (where naughty boys are turned into donkeys) for truly terrifying experiences and a daring rescue from the belly of a monstrous whale. Includes Jiminy Cricket singing the future Disney theme song "When You Wish Upon a Star."

Now, Voyager - 1942

Now, Voyager Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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From the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and enhanced by Max Steiner's score. A classic soap-operaish, melodramatic tearjerker from Hollywood's Golden Era. Repressed, middle-aged, frumpy, 'ugly duckling' spinster Charlotte Vale (Davis), from a wealthy Boston family, is controlled by her domineering, unloving mother (Cooper). During counseling at a sanitarium with a kindly, esteemed psychotherapist Dr. Jaquith (Rains), the frightened, frustrated, introverted woman is restored and transformed into a chic, more attractive, self-confident person. During a suggested South American cruise, she meets a handsome, suave unhappily-married architect Jerry Durrance (Henreid) and finds love through a bittersweet shipboard affair and a befriending of his shy and troubled, withdrawn daughter Tina (Wilson). Concludes with the famous line: "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars" as the two share a cigarette smoke.

My Fair Lady - 1964

My Fair Lady Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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One of the best and most popular musicals of all-time, from Lerner and Loewe - based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion. Arrogant, fastidious, linguistics Professor Henry Higgins (Harrison repeating his Tony Award-winning performance on Broadway) wagers fellow linguist Colonel Hugh Pickering (Hyde-White) that he can transform a Cockney flower-selling, street urchin Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn) - a 'guttersnipe' - into a proper lady with prescribed diction/elocution lessons. The irrepressible 'guttersnipe' is scrubbed, dressed, and tutored, in time to attend the Ascot races and a society ball. In the end, he reluctantly falls in love with Eliza. Includes songs "On the Street Where You Live," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and "I Could Have Danced All Night."

Mildred Pierce - 1945

Mildred Pierce Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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One of the best melodramatic, 'women's pictures' and film noir classics of the 1940s - and Joan Crawford's comeback film. Adapted from James M. Cain's novel. Begins with the murder of Monte Beragon (Scott) in a beach house. Suspect Mildred Pierce (Crawford) is interrogated by police for the killing of her second husband. In flashback, housewife Mildred is divorced from her husband Bert (Bennett). The hardworking, dowdy woman obsessively dotes on her two daughters, especially rotten, spoiled elder daughter Veda (Blyth), so she is forced to become a waitress. Through determination and will-power, she opens up a small restaurant, develops it into a successful chain, receives assistance from realtor/rebuffed beau Wally Fay (Carson), and marries socially-prominent playboy Monte Beragon. The petulant, selfishly-ungrateful Veda romances her own step-father behind the restaurateur's long-suffering back. The murder mystery concludes with a resolution to the question - who murdered Monte?

Metropolis - 1927

Metropolis, 1928 Framed Art Print
20.375 in. x 26.375 in.

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A stylized, visually-compelling, melodramatic silent film set in the 21st century city of Metropolis - Lang's German Expressionistic masterpiece helped develop the science-fiction genre. The luxurious, futuristic city of skyscrapers and bridges is stratified and divided into an upper, elite, privileged class and a subterranean, nameless, oppressed, ant-like worker / slave class. Freder (Frohlich), the young son of a ruling, aristocratic capitalist Master Joh Fredersen (Abel), discovers the miserable life of the proletariat when he notices a beautiful young woman Maria (Helm) with a group of worker children and pursues her into the squalid, labyrinthine underground slums. The wistful, Christ-like young woman urges her comrades to peacefully await their salvation. After discovering their meeting, Freder's father instructs mad scientist Rotwang (Klein-Rogge) to create an evil robotic Maria look-alike that will manipulate the workers, preach rebellion, and cause their elimination. The false Maria goes beserk and incites the workers to revolt, causing a cataclysmic flood. Freder and the real rescued Maria lead the worker children out of danger, and Joh Fredersen is convinced to reconcile with the workers - Capital and Labor united in Love.

Mean Streets - 1973

Mean Streets Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Martin Scorsese's third full-length film with energizing early 60s rock 'n' roll - a low-budget, semi-autobiographical, realistic tale about four struggling, small-time hoods in New York's Little Italy trying to establish themselves. Tony (Proval) owns the neighborhood bar, and Michael (Romanus) makes deals and rips off naive teenagers from Brooklyn. Ambitious punk Charlie Calla (Keitel) befriends violent Johnny Boy (De Niro), who irresponsibly and recklessly incurs gambling debts and becomes dangerously obligated to a loan shark. Charlie's uncle Giovanni (Danova) is the local Mafia boss and grooming his nephew for 'respectable' gang life by having him collect for a protection racket. Unclear and confused about his life's direction and loyalties, Charlie wrestles with his devout Catholic guilt, the temptations of the Mafia, and his feelings for Teresa (Robinson), Johnny Boy's epileptic sister.

The Manchurian Candidate - 1962

The Manchurian Candidate Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Based on Richard Condon's novel, and adapted by George Axelrod. A complex, realistic depiction of brainwashing in a frightening, satirical psychological thriller. An American platoon fighting in the Korean War is captured and brainwashed by Communist North Koreans in Manchuria. Upon their return to the US, one of the veterans Major Bennett Marco (Sinatra) is haunted by recurring nightmares about their frightening incarceration. He slowly realizes that fellow hero and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Harvey), controlled and manipulated by his spy-agent "Queen of Diamonds" ambitious mother (Lansbury) (the wife of right-wing, McCarthyite demagogue Senator John Iselin (Gregory)), is behind the sinister plot to assassinate political enemies. The mind-controlled operative Shaw murders his own wife Jocie (Parrish) and his father-in-law, liberal Senator Thomas Jordon (McGiver). In the tense climax, Marco uncovers the programmed killer's fiendish plans to assassinate the presidential nominee.

Jezebel - 1938

Jezebel Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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Set in the mid-1800s New Orleans, a stylish, classic romantic melodrama about a headstrong, flamboyant Southern belle. To arouse the jealousy of her beau Preston Dillard (Fonda), willful, spiteful, tempestuous Julie Marsden (Davis) thoughtlessly and selfishly insists on wearing a scarlet red gown (rather than a virginal white one customarily worn by unmarried women) to the Olympus Ball - a major social function, defying social customs. She disgraces herself and is jilted by her embarrassed fiancee, who returns to Julie's plantation a year later. Without knowing that her estranged man has brought his new Yankee wife Amy (Lindsay), she surrenders to him. In further scheming, she rebounds and marries Southern gentleman Buck Cantrell (Brent), who dies in a duel unintentionally caused by her. Later, when Pres contracts deadly 'yellow jack' (yellow fever), she heroically redeems and atones for her transgressions by pleading with Amy to nurse his illness during the epidemic. In the final scene, she rides off with him in a wagon to certain death.

The Jazz Singer - 1927

Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer Framed Art Print
21.6875 in. x 17.6875 in.

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Legendary, revolutionary film, known as the first sound motion picture - literally, the first feature film to utilize Synchronous Sound. In actuality, it was a part-talkie with only a few musical sequences and one ad-libbed, conversational sequence. With Al Jolson in his film debut. Precipitating a split with his cantor father (Oland) and mother (Besserer), young Jewish son Jakie Rabinowitz (Jolson) leaves his home, takes a new name - Jack Robin - and enters show business as a Broadway singer of popular/secular music.

When his father falls ill on Yom Kippur, Jakie takes his father's place in the synagogue and performs the Kol Nidre. Contains the classic line: "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" Tunes include "My Mammy," "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face," "Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye" and "Blue Skies." Academy Award Nominations: 2, including Best Adapted Writing, Best Engineering Effects. Special Award to "Warner Bros., for producing... the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry."

The Hustler - 1961

Paul Newman in The Hustler Framed Art Print
11 in. x 13 in.

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A dramatic, realistic character study based on Walter Tevis' novel. A young, arrogantly-cocky, anti-hero, pool-hall hustler, "Fast Eddie" Felson (Newman), challenges acclaimed, cool, professional Minnesota Fats (Gleason) in Ames Billiards Room in New York City. The naive, talented, and ultimately self-destructive challenger loses. Defeated and self-pitying, he meets and falls in love with another loner - alcoholic, desperate, waifish cripple Sarah Packard (Laurie) - whom he ultimately forsakes. He attracts the attention of slimy, calculating, venal, and repulsive promoter Bert Gordon (Scott). With financial backing from the pimpish entrepreneur, Felson struggles to get back on top - at a great cost to his own self-esteem and soul. Reprised twenty-five years later, with Paul Newman as an older, wiser Eddie Felson in director Martin Scorsese's Color of Money.