Mervyn LeRoy

[6] James Cagney stars as a career con artist who keeps trying to prove his worth to his girlfriend (Mary Brian) and her mother (Ruth Donnelly) through a series of promotional scams. From a rigged dance marathon and a bogus ocean pier treasure hunt, to a fat-reducing cream and a grapefruit-growing buy-in, Cagney’s character gets into one jam after another, all while his would-be mother-in-law’s …

[7] Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon reteam in Mervyn LeRoy’s biopic of Madame Curie. Garson plays the title character, Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to ever win two of them. This film version of her life story splits its focus between her private life with husband Pierre Curie (Pidgeon) and their joint discovery of radium. Madame …

[6] Greer Garson, Richard Hart, and Robert Mitchum star in this twisted romantic drama about a woman who learns of her husband’s death from his visiting WWII buddy. She and the man then strike up their own romantic relationship, but everything unravels when the deceased husband shows up in town still very much alive. Desire Me was plagued with production problems, not the least of …

[6] Henry Fonda is caught between a beleaguered WWII cargo crew and their vindictive captain in this oddly cheerful, lightweight drama directed by John Ford and Mervyn Leroy. James Cagney hams it up as the nutcase captain while William Powell makes a graceful big screen exit as the ship’s doctor. Jack Lemmon won the first of his two Oscars for his supporting role as an …

[8] A man is wrongly convicted and sentenced to a brutal chain gang in this gripping tragedy from Mervyn LeRoy (The Wizard of Oz). Paul Muni (Scarface, Life of Emile Zola) stars as the innocent prisoner who succeeds in a daring escape and becomes a well-respected member of society before the law catches up with him. State extradition laws offer him some sanctuary, but Muni …