Irene Dunne

A straitlaced 1880s New York stockbroker runs his household with the same rigid discipline he applies to business, while his warm-hearted wife quietly gets her way. William Powell and Irene Dunne star in this Technicolor adaptation of the long-running play. A young Elizabeth Taylor appears as the houseguest. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Family

A French playboy and an American singer meet aboard an ocean liner and fall in love, though both are engaged to others. They agree to reunite in six months atop the Empire State Building to test their love. Leo McCarey's original was remade by him as An Affair to Remember and later by Warren Beatty. The 1939 version lapsed into the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · Drama

A newspaperman and a former shop girl meet over a phonograph record in a San Francisco music store, and their marriage plays out through the songs that bookend it. As Julie packs to leave Roger, she plays each record and remembers: the courtship, the move to Japan, the earthquake that costs them everything, the long wait to adopt a child, and the strain of Roger's failing newspaper that pulls them apart. George Stevens directs with a gentle, unhurried hand, letting the music carry the emotion the dialogue will not. Cary Grant, in one of his two Oscar-nominated dramatic performances, is loose and wounded as Roger, and Irene Dunne matches him with a performance built on small, precise gestures. The film is a melodrama in the old sense, earned by patience rather than contrivance. Its copyright was not renewed at the end of its first 28-year term, and it entered the public domain in 1970.

Romance · Drama