Dorothy Dandridge Ranked

Contemporary version of the Bizet opera, with new lyrics and an African-American cast.

A woman whose past is scorned by nearly everyone around her meets a man who'd love her regardlessly - if only everyone else would allow them to.

Based on the story, See How They Run (The Ladies' Home Journal June 51), and subsequently won that year's Christopher award. The story was written by Mary Elizabeth Vroman, a 4th generation schoolteacher from the British West Indies. Jane Richards, a young 4th grade teacher in the South, faces a challenge in the form of 11 year-old C.T. Young, a backward boy, whose pride has made him a stubborn rebel and liar. Jane believes in him, then discovers his interest in nature when he spends his time watching a caterpillar in a tree trunk as it develops a cocoon. C. T.'s devoted to his family and especially to Tanya, who adores him. When Tanya dies, despite Dr. Mitchell's efforts to save her, the embittered C.T. stays away from school; when he returns, he gets into a fight and gets sent to Coventry. But when a swarm of bees invades the classroom and panics the students, C.T. takes charge, captures the queen bee, and leads the swarm outside, earning the school principal's praise. But C.T. has urgent business: the cocoon's splitting and a butterfly's ready to emerge. He had meant it for Tanya, but he now presents it to Jane, who calls the other children to watch the unfolding miracle of nature.

A Dutch slave captain, on a voyage to Cuba, faces a revolt fomented by a newly captured African slave, Tamango. The slaves capture the captain's mistress, forcing a showdown.

A band of dishonest seamen plan a murderous mutiny aboard the S.S. Berwind.

A female former OSS agent is sent to Tangiers, Morocco, to infiltrate and destroy an international smuggling ring.

Abe Saperstein, owner/manager of the world-famous "Harlem Globetrotters", an all-Negro professional basketball team, signs Billy Townsend, an All-American, to play with the "Globetrotters." Saperstein wants Billy to finish school first and get his degree but, despite the good advice, Billy quits college and joins the team. He becomes the team star, gets married after sneaking out of a hotel contrary to Saperstein's instructions, and is injured when returning to the hotel. As a result, the team loses an important game, and Billy is fired. He signs a big-money contract to play with another team in the following season, but after a heart-to-heart talk with his wife about caring for others instead of just himself, he asks his old team to take him back. By rejoining the "Globetrotters," he invalidated the big money contract.

This drama set during the 1950s on a British-ruled Caribbean island deals with local politics, interracial relationships, social inequality, racism, adultery, and murder.

Escaped convicts are selling weapons to a warlike native tribe.

A safari sets out to find a meteorite that fell in the African jungle.

A girl, Carol Delbridge (Madeleine Carroll), whom the audience is quickly informed has been around, and her father arrive to take over the business management of an island in the Bahamas owned by Adrian Ainsworth (Sterling Hayden), descendant of many ancestors who have handled it over the years to the satisfaction of its two hundred and fifty native residents. He is married to a woman who stays away from the island because she is lonely when she's there. Adrian doesn't want Carol or her father there, and they don't want to be either. Romance can't be lurking far behind the beautiful sunset.

Heiress Helen Fielding has dumped the shady Lew Covey for reporter Bill Summers. Chomping at the bit to get his hands on Helen's inheritance, Covey comes up with a scheme to do just that, involving spiritualists, fortune tellers and "visits" from Helen's dead father. However, when Covey winds up dead in Helen's room, suspicion falls on Bill Summers as the killer. Complications ensue.

Connie Ward is in seventh heaven when Gene Morrison's band rolls into town. She is swept off her feet by trumpeter Bill Abbot. After marrying him, she joins the bands tour and learns about life as an orchestra wife, weathering the catty attacks of the other band wives.