Three of my most favorite movies are "The Big Country," "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "The Uninvited."

"The Big Country" has every cliché in every Western, but it's done with such flair, and each with an unusual twist, that it comes off beautifully. Two cattle ranchers, Charles Bickford as the wealthy rancher and Burl Ives as the poor rancher involved in a tussle over water rights—the Big Muddy river. The Big Muddy runs through property owned by the single schoolmarm, Jean Simmons. Each rancher wants to prevent the other from watering their cattle in the Big Muddy, and both of them are pressuring the schoolmarm to sell to them.

Enter the hero, the "mysterious stranger." Not a cowboy, but a sea captain (Gregory Peck), who met the rich rancher's daughter when she was back East. He comes to the ranch to marry her. Immediate strife between the sea captain and the ranch foreman (Charlton Heston), who is also in love with the rancher's daughter. Punch-out between the two of them. Epic knock-down-dragout! Ends in a unique manner, but not what one would expect. But she turns out to be pretty shallow, and the disillusioned sea captain becomes interested in the schoolmarm

Problem! The poor rancher's (Burl Ives) wild son (Chuck Connors) is hot for the pretty schoolmarm too! He kidnaps the schoolmarm. He and his father (Burl Ives) try to intimidate her into selling her property to them. And the son tries to "put the moves" on her. The sea captain appears, to rescue her. And—there is a face-to-face shoot-out, like no shoot-out you've ever seen in any Western.

Range war breaks out between the two ranchers, each determined to settle things once and for all.

Like I said, all the clichés. But each handled with an unpredictable twist.

GREAT Western!!

By the way, most people assume that Burl Ives got his Oscar for playing "Big Daddy" in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," but he actually got it for playing Rufus Hannassey in "The Big Country," which came out the same year.

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"To Kill a Mockingbird" also stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, an attorney in a small town in Alabama. A widower, he has two children, Scout (Mary Louise) played by 10-year-old Mary Badham (who received a special Oscar for the role), and Jem. A character lurking in the background is "Boo" Radley, Robert Duvall in, perhaps, his first movie. Tom Robinson, a black man, played by Brock Peters, is accused of raping a young white woman. Atticus Finch decides to defend him and incurs the animosity of the whole town—but he believes Robinson to be innocent. And a man of impeccable integrity, he wants to set a good example for his children. Do what's right, no matter what it might cost you.

During the trial, it becomes obvious that she had the hots for Tom, and when he refused her advances, she decided to take her revenge by accusing him of raping her.

The outcome is not nice, and one of the more rabid townspeople tries to take revenge on Atticus by attacking his children, but help comes from a surprisingly unexpected source.

A portrait of Southern racial prejudice and a quiet man of integrity.

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Another movie—a horror movie—was 1944's "The Uninvited" (not talking about the 2009 movie with the same name, which I haven't seen). An American composer (Ray Milland) and his sister (Ruth Hussey) buy a large Gothic mansion on the south coast of England (Cornwall?). The house, which has been empty for a long time, sells unbelievably cheaply, and they soon learn that nobody else wants it—because it's haunted. They are dubious, but soon—odd manifestations, strange unexplained noises in the middle of the night—the plot centers around learning what happened at that house and why it's haunted.

The movie is downright chilling. The special effects are quite primitive compared to what can be done now, but they're just as scary, if not moreso!

At one point early in the movie, the composer and his sister are in an upstairs "solarium" where he has his piano. Plenty of light, nice view, but the room seems unnaturally chilly. The sister is carrying a rose, which at one point she puts down on the piano, then forgets when they leave the room. The camera zeroes in on the rose, which, within a few seconds, wilts and falls apart. Time lapse photography, but very effective. Suddenly you feel chilly too!

And later in the movie, the ghost of a woman clad in blowing chiffon appears—or almost appears—on the stairs. Startling! Downright scary!

Double exposure. But again, very effective!

One of the most effectively scary horror movies I've ever seen!

Don Firth