With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, Sidney Poitier helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented. Combining boisterous buddy comedy with blistering, Black Power-era political fury, Poitier and a marvelously mischievous Harry Belafonte star as a tough and taciturn wagon master and an unscrupulous, pistol-packing "preacher," who join forces to take on...

Blonde crazy: A bellhop and chambermaid are out to enjoy each other, while conning criminals. Strangers may kiss: A desperate lady is on a love trek across the continent. Hi, Nellie: A newspaperman gets demoted to being a column writer, and finds comfort in a glass. Dark hazard: A gambling addict is torn between a good girl and a glamour girl who bets it all on one special pooch.

After the dawn of sound and before the Production Code, Hollywood ran wild and free. Fearlessly and frankly tackling subjects and scenes that would quickly become forbidden to a generation of filmmakers, these seldom-seen pre-Code wonders are both revelatory and sin-sational. This fifth volume takes a walk on the wild side. Hard to handle: Con leads to con when the prize money for a rigged dance marathon is stolen. Ladies they talk about: "Nan Taylor,...

Manhattan melodrama: The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman. Evelyn Prentice: John Prentice is a successful Manhattan defense attorney. When his wife Evelyn ends an affair, her ex-lover blackmails her and he is murdered. Another woman is accused of the crime and Evelyn begs John to defend her. Double wedding: A bohemian painter butts heads with his girlfriend's...

Big city blues: A free-wheeling chorus girl hooks up with the ultimate hick. Hell's highway: A cool convict works the road crew for a corrupt warden. The cabin in the cotton: Sharecroppers are taken advantage of by the planter who keeps them as virtual slaves. When ladies meet: A female novelist whose latest work extols the virtues of extramarital amour has a fling with her married publisher. I sell anything: A Second Avenue auctioneer gets played...

A Princeton graduate student, Richie, believes he has been tricked online by a fellow gambler. He travels to Costa Rica to meet Ivan Block, an online gambling tycoon. When the FBI tries to pressure Richie to help bring down Block, Richie faces his biggest gamble ever.