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the screen

Beauty and the Beast. A remarkable and poetic fantasy created in 1946 by the versatile French writer, Jean Cocteau, an occasional, but master, film-maker. This luxurious fairy tale dream dances and mimes to George Auric's score and has sets and make-up by the finest artists of French theater. A great film of striking beauty.

Nosferatu. F.W. Murnau's 1921 film was the first screen version of Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, and one of the more intriguing works of German Expressionism. Special effects within a natural setting create a macabre atmosphere unmatched by the remakes but Max Schreek, as the vampire, doesn't approach Bela Lugosi, Petrified Forest. Robert Sherwood's broadway hit about innocent people held captive by a futhless gang at a desert diner was transferred to the screen with little visual imagination, but retained its fine performances by idealist Leslie Howard, romantic Bette Davis, and killer Humphrey Bogart in his first major role, 1936. Key Largo, Maxwell Anderson's mediocre play about innocent people held captive by a ruthless gang at a Florida hotel is a showpiece for John Huston's direction of a star-studded cast: Bogart and Bacall, Claire Trevor, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, even Jay Silverheels, 1948.

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