D: William A. Wellman. Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Dickie Moore, Guy Kibbee, Bette Davis, Mac Madison, Hardie Albright, Alan Hale. Disappointing adaptation of Edna Ferber's saga of an orphaned girl who becomes a schoolteacher in the midst of a farming community and raises her son to aspire to big things. Abrupt continuity and sudden aging of its lead character keep this from amounting to very much. Stanwyck and Davis are both in the final scene--but never appear on screen together! Filmed before in 1925, remade in 1953.

D: Alfred Green. Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Margaret Lindsay, Douglass Dumbrille, John Wayne. Pre-Production Code item has Stanwyck bartending at a speakeasy, then literally sleeping her way floor by floor to the top of a N.Y.C. office building. Great first half gives way to sappily moralistic conclusion. Wayne's coat-and-tie bit--as one of the office help used by the heroine--is a hoot. Even harsher version discovered in 2004 runs about 5m. longer.

D: Rouben Mamoulian. Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, William Holden, Lee J. Cobb, Joseph Calleia, Sam Levene, Don Beddoe. Clifford Odets' narrative of music-minded boy who becomes prizefighter dates badly; Holden, in starring debut, still good, but Cobb blows the works with his Henry Armetta imitation.

D: Frank Capra. Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington, James Gleason, Gene Lockhart. Overlong but interesting social commentary, with naive Cooper hired to spearhead national goodwill drive benefitting corrupt politician Arnold. Wordy idealism can't bury good characterizations; usual Capra touches exulting populism. Virtually all existing prints (from reissue) run 123m. Also shown in computer-colored version.

D: Robert Wise. William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, Walter Pidgeon, Louis Calhern, Shelley Winters, Paul Douglas, Nina Foch, Dean Jagger. Slick, multifaceted story of company power struggle with top cast, from Cameron Hawley novel . . . though similar film PATTERNS is much better. Later a TV series.