Movies: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

A documentary short film depicting the work of the motion picture director. An anonymous director is shown preparing the various aspects of a film for production, meeting with the writer and producer, approving wardrobe and set design, rehearsing sce...

A society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist....

Barbers Willy Nilly and Hercules Glub have opened a barbershop in an Indian reservation, where they have no customers. When suddenly a white man asks for a shave, several Indians of the Oopadoop nation also enter, hearing the usual barbershop banter ...

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 ...

The Haddocks are going on a European vacation and from their reception at the station, where the whole town goes to see them off, it is clear who wears the pants in the family - it's their daughter Mildred. Her parents often proclaim she is a genius ...

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...

In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resol...

Chester Carr, owner of a dude ranch in the Rockies, caters to guests seeking the thrill of the Wild West. Among his guests are the wealthy Spruce Meadows and his daughter Susan. But the West isn't wild anymore and most of Carr's guests are bored and ...

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

Mississippi, 1830's. Tom Rumsford comes back to Magnolia Landing, his parents'estate. Having been brought up in the North by Quaker relatives, he just hates violence and accordingly refuses a duel. As this is the only way in the South to settle a dis...

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...

A college professor who believes there's no place for jealousy in modern marriage, John Hathaway (Don Ameche) moves with his wife, Julie (Rosalind Russell), to New York where he plans to publish a book on the subject. Meeting with publisher Elliott M...

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

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...

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...

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....

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....

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...

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 ...

A famous actress learns the hard way that the devotion of a young admirer is not what it seems....