D: Elia Kazan. Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, Nina Mae McKinney, William Lundigan. Pioneer racial drama of black girl passing for white, returning to Southern home; still has impact, with fine support from Mmes. Waters and Barrymore.

D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Bill Walker. Violent tale of racial hatred involving bigot Widmark, who has gangster pals avenge his brother's death by creating race riots. Once-provocative film is still engrossing but seems a bit artificial at times. Film debuts of Poitier, Dee, and Davis.

D: Jean Negulesco. Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner, Richard Basehart, Audrey Dalton, Thelma Ritter, Brian Aherne. Hollywoodized version of sea tragedy centers on shipboard story. Not bad, but events better told in A NIGHT TO REMEMBER... and more spectacularly in the 1997 film. Oscar-winning script by producer Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Richard Breen.

D: Henry Koster. Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie, Richard Boone, Jay Robinson, Dawn Addams, Dean Jagger, Jeff Morrow, Ernest Thesiger. Earnest but episodic costume drama from Lloyd C. Douglas novel about Roman centurion who presides over Christ's crucifixion. Burton's Oscar-nominated performance seems stiff and superficial today, while Mature (as his slave Demetrius) comes off quite well! Famed as first movie in CinemaScope, though it was simultaneously shot "flat.'' Sequel: DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS.

D: Nunnally Johnson. Joanne Woodward, David Wayne, Lee J. Cobb, Nancy Kulp, Vince Edwards. Narrated by Alistair Cooke. Academy Award tour de force by Woodward as young woman with multiple personalities and three separate lives. Cobb is psychiatrist who tries to cure her. Johnson also produced and wrote the screenplay. CinemaScope.

D: Anatole Litvak. Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan, Helen Craig, Leif Erickson, Beulah Bondi, Lee Patrick, Natalie Schafer, Ruth Donnelly, Frank Conroy, Minna Gombell, Ann Doran, Betsy Blair, Isabel Jewell. One of the first films to deal intelligently with mental breakdowns and the painstakingly slow recovery process. Gripping film set in mental institution lacks original shock value but still packs a good punch, with de Havilland superb. Screenplay by Frank Partos and Millen Brand, from the Mary Jane Ward novel.