Secluded castles, musty hallways, tree branches that reach like hands, mist-shrouded forests, stranded travelers, duplicitous lovers who conspire to murder, secret passageways that descend to deteriorating crypts--this is the stuff of Italian gothic horror, one of the most exciting and atmospheric sub-genres of film, and Mario Bava was one of its greatest practitioners.

Men never ruin themselves – it’s always the fault of manipulative and conniving women. At least that’s the impression you get from some of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. An example: The Paradine Case, in which star lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) is all but ruined by a near-fatal attraction to the mysterious Mrs. Paradine (Alida Valli).

Ernst Lubitsch's black comedy details the efforts of a Polish theatrical company to help the resistance effort. All-round star of vaudeville, stage, radio, screen and television, Jack Benny, is the star with Carole Lombard as his unfaithful but heroic wife. The real trouble starts when a Professor Siletsky arrives in Warsaw supposedly to spy on the Nazis, but in reality to help the Gestapo destroy the Resistance. The theatre group use their skills to impersonate Nazi officers, Gestapo agents, and even Hitler, yet nothing goes to plan...

On its initial release this film was a flop, deemed as bad taste since America had just gone to war. Also, 33 year old Carole Lombard was killed one month previous to the premiere, in a plane crash whilst selling U.S. war bonds, tragically cutting off her distinguished career of screwball comedies asnl light dramas. But as time has passed, the film has received much praise from film historians and has finally made a profit, if belatedly. It is, admittedly, riddled with wartime propaganda, as the Nazis are all bungling incompetents arresting each other and the RAF flyers are all high spirited heroes, but these touches add to the comic value of the piece. Note too that Lubitsch was himself a Berliner of Jewish descent and keen to show his opposition to the Nazis.

Jack Benny as Josef Tura is excellent as the ham actor delivering his one-liners with proficiency, as is comedienn Carole Lombard as Maria Tura ("What a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife"). Sig Ruman, German in real life, puts his accent to good use as "Concentration Camp" Errhard, and Robert Stack is the airman who destroys Tura's life by walking out on his Hamlet soliloquy. (Martin Hunt)

When thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets his true love in pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), they embark on a scam to rob lovely perfume company executive Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). But when Gaston becomes romantically entangled with Mme. Colet, their larcenous ruse is jeopardized and Gaston is forced to choose between two beautiful women. Legendary director Ernst Lubitsch’s masterful touch is in full flower in Trouble in Paradise, a pinnacle of the sophisticated romantic comedy, loaded with sparkling dialogue, witty innuendo, and elegant comic invention.

A trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American (Audrey Hepburn) through Paris to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is a suave, mysterious stranger (Cary Grant). A deliciously dark comedic thriller, Stanley Donen’s Charade dazzles with style and macabre wit to spare.

Soon after the liberation of Italy in 1945, Roberto Rossellini broke new cinematic ground on the war-torn streets of Rome by filming his incredible Open City, about the life-affirming struggles of ordinary Roman citizens who defied fascist forces. Forced to use whatever film stock he could salvage and to use amateurs to fill in necessary roles, Open City stands as an historic landmark—an introduction to a new film movement termed Italian neo-realism. Significantly, it also marks the first time Federico Fellini ever worked on a film: He had been approached by a chance meeting with the elder Rossellini. Because of the immediate post-war conditions in ravaged Rome, Rossellini was forced to use whatever resources he could muster to make any film at all, considering he had a total budget of only $20,000. The rough cinéma vérité appearance achieved in Open City, with its natural lighting and uneven film stock, was more due to economic and pragmatic considerations than it was a deliberate attempt to found the new Italian art form of neo-realism. (John Nesbit)

Roberto Rossellini's finest fiction film, and unmistakably one of the great achievements of the art. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play a long-married British couple grown restless and uncommunicative. On a trip to Italy to dispose of a piece of property, they find their boredom thrown into relief by the Mediterranean landscape--its vitality (Naples) and its desolation (Pompeii). But suddenly, in one of the moments that only Rossellini can film, something lights inside them, and their love is renewed as a bond of the spirit. A crucial work, truthful and mysterious. (Dave Kehr)