Movie Recommendations

Great sendup of the classic Westerns, with James Garner as a drifter reluctantly recruited to be sheriff in a lawless gold town.

See it on the big screen if at all possible. Then go beyond the obvious plot of a computer-controlled mutiny in space to explore the questions of human origin and our destiny in the cosmos.

Alec Guinness plays a POW officer whose severe sense of duty goads him into building an engineering marvel that will benefit his captors; William Holden is the American soldier sent to destroy the bridge.

A young mail courier with a crush on an opera diva becomes a pawn in the police’s war against an international drug and prostitution ring.

Harold (Bud Cort) is a death-obsessed teen; Maude (Ruth Gordon) is a 79-year-old free spirit. Offbeat classic with Cat Stevens soundtrack.

Dana Andrews begins to fall in love with the woman whose death he’s investigating. Clifton Webb is a terrifically snobbish critic, and Vincent Price adds to the noir.

Carole Lombard finds forgotten man William Powell in a scavenger hunt and brings him home to butle for the high-society Bullocks.

Atypically dark Western about the quest to find the truth about a young girl kidnapped or killed by Indian raiders. Wayne’s hatred of Native Americans is played as bigotry, not heroism.

The best of the Astaire-Rogers outings. The “Pick Yourself Up” and “Never Gonna Dance” numbers are screen magic; only a weak ending mars this masterpiece.

Errol Flynn only! Simply the best costume epic ever: stars, direction, script, and music all come together perfectly in glorious Technicolor.