Watch on the Rhine

Lillian Hellman's hit 1941 play came to the screen directed by Herman Shumlin, responsible for the Broadway production, and retained much of its original stage cast. One of the most powerful and impassioned pleas for resistance to fascism in modern drama, the action takes place before the outbreak of the Second World War and involves a German (Paul Lukas), his American wife (Bette Davis) and their children, who, while staying with Davis's mother (Lucille Watson), encounter a dispossessed Rumanian count (George Coulouris). The count discovers Lukas's true identity as an anti-Nazi resistance worker and prepares to sell the information to the Germans. The film combines politics, heroism, poignancy, suspense and sophisticated wit to gripping effect. Lukas won the best actor Oscar, with picture, screenplay and Watson nominated.