Movies: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money....

Rubber-legged comedian Leon Errol made his talkie starring bow in Paramount's Only Saps Work. Based on a play by Owen Davis Sr., the film casts Errol as James Wilson, a kleptomaniac who starts with picking pockets and ends up robbing a bank. Wilso...

Skippy, son of Dr. Herbert and Mrs. Skinner, adamantly stands by his poor friend, Sooky Wayne, who lives in Shantytown with his sickly mother. The Boone Boys, a boys' club that costs thirty dollars to join and has uniforms that Sooky admires, refuses...

The younger brother of a police captain is a wanted fugitive, so when the captain railroads his brother's former criminal partner, the partner's sister devises a plan to get back at the captain where it will hurt the most....

Barnstorming pilots Speed Condon, Bill Adams, and Eddie Smith travel the country with their manager, Alec Dugan, performing at fairs and air shows and hawking rides for the locals. But when Speed's rambunctious flying results in tragedy, he gives up ...

Two small town widows bring their children to Hollywood, where their children become competing film stars. The girl is sweet, the boy is a killjoy sissy. For publicity, the rival families go to London to meet a middle European boy King. The three kid...

Three women are going on a trip that leaves them incommunicado with the rest of the world, but before they leave, a woman who either has a history or relationship with each of their husbands leaves them a letter that says that she is leaving with one...

Mayme and sister Janie are salesgirls in Ginsberg's Department Store. Mayme is in love with store clerk Bill, but Janie tries to steal him from her. Hazel, another salesgirl, is Jean Harlow's first credited role....

A poor singer in a bar masquerades as a rich society woman thanks to a rich benefactor....

A documentary about and an interview with Hollywood actress Bette Davis about her life and career from the late 1920s to the 1980s on stage and mostly before the camera....

A friend of Dick Bailey is killed by a mysterious assailant, whom Dick suspects to be Stack, who is in league with the crooked sheriff. Out on a spree Dick swears he will marry the first woman he sees, who happens to be Ruth Hammond, sister of his de...

An ordinary Joe has ambitions to become a Tin Pan Alley writer....

Donald Ingals and his wife Eunice are conventional and loving parents who are shocked when their son Bradley comes home from college with ideas that they consider to be outrageous. His parents would like him to get involved with Mary Burke, a prim an...

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wif...

A documentary about the making of the 1950 film "All About Eve."...

Naïve insurance agent 'Cyclone' Case falls in love with Sylvia Martine, whose father has a dispute with gangster Mike Slade. When Sylvia is kidnapped by Slade and his gang, 'Cyclone' decides to save her and wanders straight into a gang war without ev...

George and Catherine Apley of Boston lead a proper life in the proper social circle, as did the Apleys before them. When grown daughter Eleanor falls in love with Howard (from New York!), and son John with Myrtle (from Worcester!), the ordered life o...

Marco Perkins is a garage mechanic and a would-be-prizefighter who gets a place on the ritzy country club's polo team because he is the town's most proficient mallet-wielder, having learned to play polo while serving in the U.S. army. His hobnobbing ...

Joseph L. Mankiewicz discusses his career in a feature-length interview recorded at his New England home and the 1983 Berlin Film Festival....

Egomaniacal baseball slugger Elmer Kane is not only good, he enjoys telling everybody how good he is. A professional scout, Bert Wade, takes an interest in Elmer, who in turn takes an interest in Evelyn Corey, an attractive actress....