Based on the hit Broadway play, this wacky, sight-gag filled romp stars Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson as a pair of actors whose attempt to stage a musical at a swanky estate is hampered when the show's producer begins to romance one of the venue's upscale residents, the female lead is mistaken for a wealthy femme fatale, and the whole production arouses the suspicion of a bumbling private eye. With Martha Raye, Robert Paige, Elisha Cook, Jr. , and Shemp Howard. 84 min.

Mickey Spillane plays his own creation, street-thug-turned-PI Mike Hammer, in this 1963 adaptation of his novel. The film opens with Hammer on the downside of a years-long bender, scooped out of the gutter by a bitter cop intent on prying information from a dying man. Inspired to clean up his act by the secrets he hears, Hammer hits the streets on a personal crusade to find the love of his life. Future Bond girl Shirley Earton costars as a glamorous society widow who goes slumming with Hammer. Spillane, who brings the grace of a trained monkey and the sex appeal of a Bronx cheer to the role, is less a stoic, tarnished street knight than a street bum at a cocktail party, but it works for the working-class pug. The low-budget production is a rare black-and-white CinemaScope picture, rough and messy but lacking the raw edge and gritty look of more accomplished crime pictures. B-movie veteran Roy Rowland directs with a lazy pace and a prosaic style that drags until he takes his camera to streets of New York City. The definitive Hammer remains Ralph Meeker in Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, but Spillane makes a respectable runner-up. -Sean Axmaker It's outrageous good fun! Writer Mickey Spillane stars as his hard-boiled private detective Mike Hammer in this action-packed murder mystery. After seven years on a drunken binge over the disappearance of Velda, his former secretary, Hammer is picked up out of the gutter by the police and dropped smack-dab in the middle of a political bombshell where every lead seems to end in murder. [+]

NBC-TV. ANDY DEVINE the successor to Smilin Ed McConnell, hosts one of the least sophisticated but popular Saturday morning kid shows. Andy tells the story of Little Fox, a Sioux Indian Boy, called "The Bee Hunter. " Little Fox is captured by the evil Cree tribe, but is freed with the help of a beautiful Indian maiden. The best part of the show has got to be "Froggy The Gremlin" who plunks his magic twanger and invites a harmonica-playing orangutan to join in the fun! The Buster Brown commercials and other parts of the show are missing, but Froggy The Gremlin was the star of Andys Gang! 24 minutes.

Technically ambitious but artistically underwhelming, this 1961 epic by Anthony Mann (Man of the West) stars Charlton Heston as an 11th-century hero who drives the Moors from Spain. The film has been described as "glum," and that is indeed apt for a story that focuses so much on its central character's losses in the face of his simultaneous, mythic approbation. Then again, Mann has always been interested in the hidden weaknesses in prevailing myths, so that's not unusual. What is unusual in El Cid is the degree to which technology takes over his filmmaking, as it does here with so many grandiose and bravura moments with a roving camera that don't add up to anything beyond spectacle. As an achievement of Hollywood's technical advancements in the postwar years, and also as part of the filmographies of Mann and Heston, the film is well worth a look. But it is not the artistic equal of other epics of its day, such as Lawrence of Arabia. -Tom Keogh.

This 1961 version of Jesus' story gives historical context to the best-known Biblical tale and features many memorable moments, such as a moving Sermon on the Mount and a vixenish Salome dancing for her stepfather in a performance that rivals today's MTV video offerings. Orson Welles keeps the 168-minute film moving along with informative narration helpful to those who haven't read the New Testament in a while. Made with backgrounds that resemble Southern California more than Palestine and a European and American cast-including a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus and an Irish-accented Mary-this movie has the definite stamp of Hollywood. -Kimberly Heinrichs.

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. -Tom Keogh A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. [+]