Movies: Janet Gaynor

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Les...

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife....

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as...

The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of th...

In 1910s Paris, a sewer worker disillusioned with Christianity feels his prayers have been answered when he chances upon a street waif and they fall in love....

This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Ha...

Mary, a poor farm girl, meets Tim just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary, and they are power...

The children of Iowa farmers find love, with mixed results, at the state fair....

A young man visiting Hollywood on family business gets into trouble when he sees a bank robbery in progress, and thinks it is a movie scene....

Waterfront rivals George Darcy and Big Tim Ryan are both in love with Rose Kelly, and continue their feud when they join the Navy. After the war, they call a temporary truce to take on dope peddlers who are destroying their neighborhood....

A family of confidence tricksters sets their sights on a very rich, very lonely old lady named Miss Fortune....

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the ...

Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s....

A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter....

Kay is a girl living in a small rural town whose life is just too dull and repetitious to bear. One night, she meets young, handsome, and rich Bob Dakin, who asks her for directions while drunk and then proceeds to take her out on a night on the town...

The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan who had bor...

A farmer tries to convince a girl to leave her life on a canal boat to live with him on his farm....

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression....

A spoiled carefree rich kid gets into too much trouble for his father who sends him out on his own to prove himself capable of making a respectable man of himself....

Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work....