One of Hollywood's earliest -- and most peculiar -- musicals, The Great Gabbo stars von Stroheim as an egotistical ventriloquist who casts a Svengali-like spell upon an ingenue (Betty Compson), against a backdrop of singularly strange numbers (including "Icky" and the spider-and-fly-themed "Caught in a Web"). Director James Cruze (The Covered Wagon) allowed von Stroheim to endow the character with his signature flourishes, resulting in a wicked cocktail...

Eleven films designed to influence, including a vintage promotional film of a French-dubbed Laurel & Hardy, theatrical advertisements featuring Michel Simon and Jacques Tati, a 1938 George Pal puppet animation, three WW-II era musical shorts, two political campaign films, and the National Film registry selection Master Hands, a paean to the 1936 Chevrolet automobile.

A musical interpretation of the George Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"

Based on the long-running comic strip created by E.C. Segar, POPEYE follows the sailor with the mighty arms (played by Robin Williams in his first major film role) as he arrives in the seaside community of Sweethaven in search of his long-lost father. Popeye meets and quickly falls for the slender Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), but Olive's hand has already been promised to the hulking Bluto. Eventually, Popeye and Olive are brought together by Swee'...

Silver-tongued con artist Harold Hill hoodwinks the stubborn townsfolk of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boy's band, but his game ultimately and romantically backfires.

Raymond Knapp is professor of musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity (Princeton), winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. He has also published books on Brahms and Mahler. The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact...

Return to rockin’ Rydell High for a whole new term! It’s 1961, two years after the original Grease™ gang graduated, and there’s a new crop of seniors – and new members of the coolest cliques on campus, the Pink Ladies and T-Birds. Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) is the new kid in school – but he’s been branded a brainiac. Can he fix up an old motorcycle, don a leather jacket, avoid a rumble with the leader of the T-Birds (Adrian...

Martin Scorsese’s contribution to the Century of Cinema series is a fascinating exploration of some of the landmarks of American cinema, as well as some of its lesser known byways. Under chapter headings such as The Director’s Dilemma or The Director as Iconoclast, Scorsese analyses the work of filmmakers as diverse as DW Griffith, FW Murnau, Sam Fuller and John Cassavetes. This is no academic history, but a declaration of passion for cinema from...

As Santa prepares for his trip in his sleigh, the Wiggles will help you count down the days until Christmas. Its a time of joy and a time of cheer, so dance and sing your way through the Christmas season.