In My Best Girl, Mary Pickford demonstrates the winsome charm that won her the title "America's Sweetheart. " She plays Maggie Johnson, a sensible stockroom girl at Merrill's, a five-and-ten-cent store. This is the heyday of the big five-and-dimes and Robert Merrill (Hobart Bosworth), the store's wealthy owner, is clearly a stand-in for F. W. Woolworth. The opening shot of Maggie displays Pickford's prodigious gift for physical comedy. She stumbles onto the selling floor laden with pots and pans, kicking them out of her way and wearing them like shoes. Then, when a salesgirl takes a break, Maggie is given the chance to be a salesgirl herself for a fateful few moments. Maggie's first and only customer is the owner's son, Joe Merrill, (fresh-faced and sunny Charles "Buddy" Rogers). Maggie has no clue of the young man's pedigree, as he is slumming as "Joe Grant. [+]

Back before her two Oscars, before "You like me, you really like me," Sally Field was the young darling of TV sitcoms, first as the beach bunny Gidget, and then, improbably, as the young nun Sister Bertrille whose starched cornette doubled as an aerodynamic apparatus. In the first of the two Christmas episodes included here, Sister Bertrille and the other nuns at the Sisters of Convent San Tanco in Puerto Rico are preparing for their holiday gift exchange. An ailing Norwegian nun, Sister Olaf, allows that her one Christmas wish is for snow like she experienced as a girl, an impossibility in tropical San Juan. Or is it? Sister Bertrille employs her gift of flight to ensure everyone has a memorable Christmas. The second episode involves a young Jewish girl who becomes so enthralled with the nuns that she decides she wants to become one herself; it's up to Sister Bertrille to gently dissuade her from her hasty career decision. As with most 1960s sitcoms, logic and deep character development are not strong suits, but Field's determination and winning chirpiness, as well as a tart supporting cast (especially Marge Redmond as sidekick Sister Jaqueline), make watching these episodes a cozy exercise in nostalgia. -Anne Hurley.

Director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) took home every Oscar in the book (well, okay, all the major ones) for this seminal 1934 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten reporter who stays close to a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) rather than lose a good story. Funny and sexy, the film is full of memorable scenes often referred to in other films, such as the "walls of Jericho" (a mere bedcover hung on a line down the middle of a room so opposite-sex roommates can get undressed), and Colbert's famous flash of thigh to stop a speeding car in its tracks. Capra's brisk, urbane brand of wit was a perfect complement to his populist faith in the common man (in this case, Gable's character), and that inspired combination makes this film both a spirited entertainment and an uplifting experience. -Tom Keogh.

The Heat's On is the last film Mae West made before essentially being forced out of Hollywood by censorship, and she wouldn't make another movie for 27 years. As actress Fay Lawrence, she opens the film singing "I'm Just a Stranger in Town," but her famous saucy smirk seems dimmed. Fed up with performing in a dying Broadway show, Fay gives notice, announcing, "I have a tradition of success to live up to. " The film's plot actually involves censorship: the show is raided and Fay is blacklisted by a watchdog group. It's all poignantly close to West's real life. Unfortunately, the film never comes together and Mae West is not at the center of it. She didn't write the screenplay, as she did for most of her other films, and it's obvious. For one thing, there are no handsome hombres for her to romance. Only excruciatingly pitiful Hubert Bainbridge (Victor Moore) woos Fay, his toupee falling off. She lets him down gently but firmly: "Don't look now, honey, but your hair's skiddin'. [+]

Paris, 1943. Three Allied parachutists land unexpectedly and turn upside down the peaceful lives of Stanislas, a conductor, and Augustin, a decorator. The only way to get rid of their unwanted guests is to lead them to the free zone! Louis De Funès, Terry-Thomas, Bourvil-if these names don't mean anything to you, your credentials as a cosmopolitan might be extremely suspect. Three of the biggest figures in the history of European filmed comedy signed on to Gérard Oury's La Grande Vadrouille (The Big Stroll) , and the resulting alchemy brought forth box-office gold: $17. 2 million in ticket sales, a French national record which stood for 30 years until Titanic, the very symbol of the ugly American film industry if there ever was one, knocked it from its perch. Terry-Thomas sparkles as an English pilot lost in occupied France during the Second World War; Bourvil and Louis De Funès play Parisians who somewhat involuntarily aid the ubiquitous Resistance by smuggling a British major across German lines. De Funès, best known for his portrayal of the wacky French police officer in the highly popular series of Gendarme films, is a manic, elastic comic genius, a proto-Rowan Atkinson with a rubbery face and a knack for physical humor. Here, his portrayal of conductor Stanislas LeFort remains alert, witty and moving-even when he's spazzing out. The antic script, cowritten by the intelligent and able Danièle Thompson (Cousin, Cousine), plays more like Hogan's Heroes than any war movie really ought to-the stodgy, autocratic Germans are perpetually undermined by those scruffy, resourceful French scalawags-but humor is Vadrouille's, and Oury's, justification, and almost all of the jokes work. It would be another few years before French cinema could muster up the courage to treat the Vichy period, and France's wartime complicity, with anything like genuine honesty. [+]

Independent still-life painting made a dramatic appearance at the end of the 16th century, in Golden Age Spain. Filmed on location and featuring original paintings, this program traces the traditions of Spanish still life from its origins through the early 19th-century works of Goya.