'Pinocchio,' Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, 1940 — Photo by Everett Collection
Pinocchio, 1940
Animation as Art
Painstakingly animated, lovingly rendered, Walt Disney's tale of the puppet who wants to be a boy may well be animation's supreme accomplishment. Sentimental? Sure. But was there ever a scene more blood-chilling than the transformation of Pinocchio's pal Lampwick into a donkey?
'The Searchers,' from left, John Qualen, John Wayne, 1956 — Photo by Everett Collection
The Searchers, 1956
The Western That Hated Itself
John Ford courageously builds upon the cowboys-and-Indians genre — and strips it down to its racist roots. John Wayne is chilling as a man seeking his grown niece (Natalie Wood), kidnapped as a child by Indians, to kill her in an insanely misguided act of mercy.
'The Music Box,' Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy [Laurel & Hardy], 1932 — Photo by Everett Collection
The Music Box, 1932
The Perfect Comedy Short
It's simple: Laurel and Hardy must lug a heavy crate from street level up a seemingly endless stairway. Faced with every imaginable obstacle — primarily their shared imbecility — they tackle the task with grim, relentless determination. The music box itself is, of course, doomed. But Stan and Ollie won an Oscar.
'Vertigo,' Director Alfred Hitchcock on set with Kim Novak, 1958 — Photo by Everett Collection
Vertigo, 1958
The Thriller in Your Head
Jimmy Stewart just knows that mysterious blonde Kim Novak couldn't possibly be the woman he loved: She's dead. But his obsession with their similarities nearly drives him mad. In his masterpiece, Alfred Hitchcock proves again that the scariest monsters are the ones that we imagine.
'Battleship Potemkin' (USSR 1925) — Photo by Mary Evans/Goskino/Ronald Grant Archive/Everett Collection
The Battleship Potemkin, 1925
The Language of Film
Film-school junkies revere silent-era director Sergei Eisenstein for his revolution in film editing, but his story of a brutal Czarist attack in the Black Sea port of Odessa is also a flat-out great action film. Turn down the added soundtrack and "feel" the rhythm of his cuts. Your mind will write its own music.
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