Michael Curtiz

A good early effort by Michael Curtiz concerning the "Moon Killer" murders in which the victims are strangled, cannibalized and surgically dissected under the light of the full moon. Wise-cracking reporter Lee Tracy traces the clues to a spooky seaside mansion, where Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill) and his colleagues are conducting strange experiments. Made in early two-strip Technicolor, the film is wonderfully atmospheric, and the sets themselves will linger in your mind. Aside from the irritating Lee Tracy as reporter Lee Taylor, the acting is crisp and to the point.

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband.

Dashing Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in the most gloriously swashbuckling version of the legendary story. Warner Brothers reunited Michael Curtiz, their top-action director, with the winning team of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian) and perennial villain Basil Rathbone as the aristocratic Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and pulled out all stops for the production. It became their costliest film to date, a grandly handsome, glowing Technicolor adventure set to a stirring, Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.