The gals reign ---

---recently I have watched:

All on TCM:

Words & Music (1948) Mickey Rooney, Tom Drake, Janet Leigh. Highly fictionalized story of Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart's collaboration on musicals. Rooney is Hart, and Drake is Rogers. Leigh is the girl Rogers marries. The rest of the story is mainly about songs they wrote for shows, and are performed by various stars. Not well done and a bore, really, of the "and then they wrote" variety. 5/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040976/

The Moon Is Blue (1953) Maggie McNamara, William Holden, David Niven. Controversial when it came out because of the word "virgin" being uttered. Condemned by the Legion Of Decency and other religious groups, it is just a cute romantic comedy about two men, who get involved with a kinda wacky girl. Sweet. actually. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046094/combined

Flamingo Road (1949) Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sidney Greenstreet. Joan being tough and bad as a carnival dancer, Lane Bellamy, who is stranded in a small town when the show goes broke. She gets involved with the deputy sheriff, Fielding Carlisle, who is the protegee of the counties mover and shaker, Sheriff Titus Semple, who wants to back him for Governor. But he takes a fancy to Lane and Titus gets Lane fired for the waitress job Fielding has got her. Lane finds out there is one person who isn't afraid of Titus, Road House owner Lute Mae Sanders, and gets a job with her. There she meets state powerhouse Dan Reynolds, (David Brian in his first leading role) and eventually marries him. Now she has her house on Flamingo Road and thinks no one can harm her, but Titus isn't through yet. Greenstreet is superb as the mean corrupt sheriff. Rest of the cast are adequate to very good. Very enjoyable. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041373/combined

Caged (1950) Eleanor Parker, Hope Daniels. Agnes Moorhead. Parker is sweet innocent Marie Allen, who gets involved with a robbery her husband tries to pull off. Sentenced to prison, she goes through hell at the hand of sadistic matron Evelyn Harper (the 6'2" Hope Emerson); and by the time she is released, is as hardened and corrupted as the other prisoners. She has been recruited by vice queen Elvira Powell (Lee Patrick) and leaves in a car with men who will put her to work boosting, among other crimes. Warden Benton (Moorhead) tells her assistant to keep the file handy, because "she'll be back." In 1950 there were great female performances from Judy Holiday, Bette Davis, and Gloria Swanson, but Parker's performance here is right up there with them. And Emerson superb, as always. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042296/combined

Have more films I have watched to catch up on. Hopefully I'll get them all done this weekend.