Frank McHugh

The Last Hurrah -- Spencer Tracy portrays a down-to-earth big city mayor ruthlessly thwarted by political enemies.

There's No Business Like Show Business -- A priest rejoins his showbiz family for a benefit performance and their lives, loves, and conflicts of twenty years are chronicled in this Cinemascope musical marvel.

The Last Hurrah is a comedy filmed in a single continuous shot. Set at a graduation party in Los Angeles, an eclectic group of brainy philosophy students, train-hopping hippies, aspiring prophets and drug-addled hipsters come together for one wild night. At the eye of the storm are three best friends, all with the same problem - women. Jason can't get enough of them, Steve can't let go of the one he's got and Will can't understand them at all. The brainy grad students will have to work through their issues fast, because tonight's house party is their last crack at the women of the philosophy department. In the spirit of Richard Linklater and Woody Allen, The Last Hurrah is a smart, witty, ensemble-driven comedy that wonders if the over examined life is really worth living.

Ex-Golden Gloves fighter Danny Kenny has it all worked out. He'll turn pro to bankroll his brother's dream of writing a symphonic paean to the teeming city where they both live: New York. But life pulls the sidewalk out from under Danny when he's blinded during a brutal 15-round welterweight title bout. James Cagney plays Danny in this heart-tugging melodrama co-starring Ann Sheridan, Anthony Quinn, film-debuting Arthur Kennedy and in a rare acting turn before becoming a director, Elia Kazan. Among familiar studio players, there's an unbilled one: a vivid backlot and rear-screen Manhattan. "Sometimes we wonder," The New York Times' Bosley Crowther wrote, "whether it wasn't really the Warner brothers who got New York from the Indians, so diligent and devoted have they been in feeling the great city's pulse."