Howard da Silva

Police try to crack down on a gang that is exploiting illegal Mexican immigrants in this well-done drama that examines the realities of immigrant smuggling. Ricardo Montalban ("Star Trek 2," TV's "Fantasy Island") and Oscar-honoree George Murphy ("Battleground") star in this well-directed film by Anthony Mann. Co-starring the enjoyable and talented Howard Da Silva ("The Great Gatsby").

Nevada Smith is a rugged innocent boy born in the 1890s during California's gold rush days to a Native American mother and white father. When he finds his parents have been murdered by vicious killers, he sets out to track them down. While the film is a western, and has plenty of action, it is also a powerful and revealing study of the regeneration of a man, in this case a lone gunslinger who is so blinded by his compulsion that it obscures any other motive for living. Steve McQueen's dynamic presence as Nevada Smith is memorable.

It's a mad, mad, mad mad farcical return to the days of the Keystone Cop comedies, on an Ultra Panavision scale, in this star-studded extravaganza. A multitude of people have been given a clue by a dying man (Jimmy Durante) as to the location of $350,000 in stolen bank money that he has buried. They cannot come to an agreement to seek out the loot as a cooperative unit, so they set out separately in a mad race to get to it first. They do not know that the state police are on to them and are simply allowing the loot-seekers to lead them to the stolen bucks. The loot-chasers are ruthless, devious, crackpot and very often dimwitted in their frantic, hilarious race. Stanley Kramer took an intermission from socially conscious subjects to direct this riotous comedy. Photography by Ernest Laszlo.

Anne Bancroft stars as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife yearns to move back to her home state of California, Gilbert cannot quite cut the silver cord that binds him to his mother. Upon learning that Estelle is dying, her dutiful son offers to honor her last request to meet the reclusive actress Greta Garbo. Also stars Harvey Fierstein, and Hermione Gingold.