Murderous Melodramas
15 Episodes
In its midcentury heyday, Hollywood melodrama wallowed in blazing Technicolor, operatic plot twists, gloriously bad behavior, and even foul play. These films’ surging emotions push their characters toward outright violence, infusing the women’s picture with noirish thrills. In the hands of masters such as Douglas Sirk (WRITTEN ON THE WIND) and Vincente Minnelli (SOME CAME RUNNING), melodrama became a vehicle for subversive critiques of American life, using stylization and excess to reveal the dark currents beneath a repressed, conformist society. Above all, the genre was a gift that kept giving to women stars like Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, and Dorothy Malone, who sank their teeth into juicy parts that let them “do a little exploding,” as Mary Astor said of her role in the deliciously perverse DESERT FURY.
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01:04Episode 1Murderous Melodramas Teaser
Episode 1
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1:50:19Episode 2Leave Her to Heaven
Episode 2
Directed by John M. Stahl • 1945 • United States
Starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne CrainNovelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) seems to have found the perfect woman in Ellen (Gene Tierney), a beautiful socialite who initiates a whirlwind romance and steers him into marriage before he...
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1:36:00Episode 3Desert Fury
Episode 3
Directed by Lewis Allen • 1947 • United States
Starring John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, Burt LancasterLurid Technicolor, deep-dish melodrama, and gay subtext abound in this pulpy noir firecracker. In the desert town of Chuckawalla, Nevada, tempers flare, passions spark, and violence erupts when Pa...
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Niagara
Episode 4
Directed by Henry Hathaway • 1953 • United States
Starring Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean PetersMarilyn Monroe dazzles in her star-making turn as a devious femme fatale in this sultry tale of seduction and murder. While on vacation at Niagara Falls, Rose Loomis (Monroe) plots to murder her...
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Queen Bee
Episode 5
Directed by Ranald MacDougall • 1955 • United States
Starring Joan Crawford, John Ireland, Betsy PalmerJoan Crawford delivers a ferocious performance in this scorching domestic melodrama. She stars as Eva Phillips, a Southern socialite who, though she appears to be the epitome of grace and char...
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1:48:57Episode 6The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
Episode 6
Directed by Richard Fleischer • 1955 • United States
Starring Ray Milland, Joan Collins, Farley GrangerInspired by one of the most notorious scandals of the early twentieth century, this lavishly mounted crime melodrama recounts the perverse love triangle that unfolded between Evelyn Nesbit (Jo...
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1:30:32Episode 7Violent Saturday
Episode 7
Directed by Richard Fleischer • 1955 • United States
Starring Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNallyBoth a precision-crafted thriller and a shattering plunge into the neurotic heart of 1950s America, this Southwest-set sunshine noir from genre expert Richard Fleischer charts the intersect...
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1:34:49Episode 8A Kiss Before Dying
Episode 8
Directed by Gerd Oswald • 1956 • United States
Starring Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia LeithHe had looks, charm, and killer instinct! This Sirkian noir stars Robert Wagner as Bud Corliss, a handsome college boy so obsessed with wealth that he’d do anything to get it. When his rich girl...
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1:35:25Episode 9Bigger Than Life
Episode 9
Directed by Nicholas Ray • 1956 • United States
Starring James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter MatthauThough ignored at the time of its release, Nicholas Ray’s BIGGER THAN LIFE is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father...
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1:39:47Episode 10Written on the Wind
Episode 10
Directed by Douglas Sirk • 1956 • United States
Starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert StackThe Technicolor expressionism of Douglas Sirk reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their sub...
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1:41:14Episode 11No Down Payment
Episode 11
Directed by Martin Ritt • 1957 • United States
Starring Joanne Woodward, Sheree North, Tony RandallSex, alcoholism, and racial tensions roil a suburban California subdivision in this subversive deconstruction of 1950s conformity, which combines deep-dish melodrama with the socially conscious se...
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2:15:46Episode 12Some Came Running
Episode 12
Directed by Vincente Minnelli • 1958 • United States
Starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaineMaster stylist Vincente Minnelli applies his spectacular visual flair to this feverish melodrama, a scorching indictment of small-town hypocrisy that sets every inch of the CinemaScope fram...
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1:56:48Episode 13The Long, Hot Summer
Episode 13
Directed by Martin Ritt • 1958 • United States
Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson WellesSex, pyromania, and epic family drama heat up this southern-gothic scorcher adapted from three works by William Faulkner. In his first screen pairing opposite his soon-to-be wife Joanne Woodward, P...
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2:30:02Episode 14Home from the Hill
Episode 14
Directed by Vincente Minnelli • 1960 • United States
Starring Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George PeppardVincente Minnelli’s baroquely stylized melodrama casts Robert Mitchum as the patriarch of a wealthy Texas family who must confront their hidden secrets when his philandering ways come bac...
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1:52:48Episode 15Portrait in Black
Episode 15
Directed by Michael Gordon • 1960 • United States
Starring Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Richard BasehartIn this lavishly entertaining noir melodrama, bored, glamorous housewife Sheila Cabot (Lana Turner, swathed in luxe couture), wishing to be free of her crippled husband but not his enormous fo...
