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While movie fans were abuzz over who might play Scarlett O'Hara in the upcoming Gone with the Wind, Bette Davis got another Southern-belle role -- and gave a fiery performance that won the 1938 Best Actress Academy Award . Davis plays Julie, a New Orleans beauty whose constant attempts to goad fiance Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda) to jealousy backfire. Angry and disgraced, Pres breaks their engagement and leaves town. Julie endures a year of remorse until Pres comes home -- married. Then her vengeance explodes. Jezebel is also noted for its sumptuous sets and costumes, Fay Bainter's Oscar -winning* performance and William Wyler's vivid direction, highlighted by a horrifying re-creation of a yellow fever epidemic. But the film's greatest strength is Davis, whose titanic talent has never been better displayed than in Jezebel.

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As long as young hearts endure, so will National Velvet and movies like it. in her star-making role, Elizabeth Taylor plays Velvet Brown, a wide-eyed adolescent who, assisted by her jockey pal (Mickey Rooney), trains Pie, a horse she won in a raffle, for the Grand National Steeplechase. Of course, no girl can ride in the National, can she? Yet Velvet, posing as a boy, assuredly does. Superbly directed by Clarence Brown, this exciting winner of two Academy Awards * (one to Anne Revere for her performance as Velvet's mother) costars a young Angela Lansbury and veteran Donald Crisp. The film has an off-screen postscript as winning as the on-screen finale: The studio gave Pie to Taylor after filming wrapped.

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A millionaire and his girlfriend drift alone at sea in a condemned steamship. Silent.

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Bette Davis and Errol Flynn made The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex fascinatingly public, striking sparks in this lavish Technicolor tale of the ill-fated love between the aging Elizabeth I and the dashing Earl of Essex. Thoroughly unglamorous here -- eyes and hairline shaved, face painted chalky white -- double Academy Award winner* Davis exudes such intelligence, energy and ardor that her romance with the decades-younger Essex (Flynn at the peak of his remarkable good looks and athletic verve) is completely believable. Based on Maxwell Anderson's play Elizabeth the Queen and directed by Michael Curtiz, this nominee for five Oscars takes liberties with historical accuracy, but none with dramatic impact. Long may these tempestuous, titled lovers reign! SPECIAL FEATURES: Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1939 with Newsreel, Musical Short "The Royal Rodeo", Cartoon "Old Glory" and Theatrical Trailer; Featurette "Elizabeth and Essex: Battle Royale"

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Cannons thunder, blades clatter and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's incomparable music swirls and flourishes in The Sea Hawk. In one of his best roles, Errol Flynn plays Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, who commandeers a 40-gun galleon, endures captivity, then boldly escapes to warn England of Spain's armada. Working on his 10th of 12 movies with Flynn, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) masterfully directs the film's blend of royal intrigue and derring-do heroics -- made on a then-lavish $1.7-million scale that included construction of two full-sized ships. The film was stirringly topical in its day. When Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson) exhorts her country to maintain fighting readiness against tyranny "now and forever," audiences knew forever had come: Hitler had launched his World War II air siege of England.

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Grandpa Spencer fathered nine boys in the shadow of the Grand Teton mountain bearing their name. His son Clay (Henry Fonda) married Olivia (Maureen O’Hara) and had nine more kids, “all thoroughbreds.” Now the eldest son is out of high school, eager for more in life. But college money is hard to come by. Spencer’s Mountain has deep roots too. It’s based on the Earl Hamner Jr. novel that later inspired TV’s The Waltons. The pleasures of Delmer Daves’ film are as plentiful as trout in its swirling streams. Fonda and O’Hara shine in a cast that includes Wally Cox, Donald Crisp and James MacArthur. Max Steiner supplies an evocative score. Breathtaking fields and forests add visual splendor. All enhance this beloved story of human values – and reaching for your dreams.

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Steel separates 1873 Pittsburgh into rich and poor, master and worker, powerful and powerless. On one side is Paul Scott, the progressive son of a steel mill owner. On the other is Mary Rafferty, daughter of an embittered laborer who was crippled in a mill accident. When Mary takes a post as a housemaid at the Scott mansion, she and Paul fall desperately in love. But a bloody strike may tear the city -- and the lovers apart.