Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Set in 1927, Don Lockwood (Kelly) has worked his way up from being a song-and-dance man with partner Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) to become a top movie star. His on-screen partner, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who believes that Don loves her for real, needs to have her awful singing voice dubbed with the arrival of talkies. The girl selected is 'serious' actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), for whom Don soon falls. Musical numbers include the famous title song, as well as 'Make 'Em Laugh', 'Good Morning' and 'You Were Meant for Me'.

An American in Paris (1951)
American G.I. Jerry Mulligan (Kelly) has remained in Paris after the war to become a painter. There he falls in love with Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron), only to discover that she is engaged to his friend, Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary). With music and songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including 'I Got Rhythm' and 'Embraceable You', the film went on to win six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Kelly and Frank Sinatra star as two sailors looking for female companionship while on a four-day pass in Los Angeles. They meet a Hollywood extra (Kathryn Grayson) and try to help her realise her dream of being a star. The film features a famous sequence where Kelly dances with Jerry, the cartoon mouse of 'Tom and Jerry' fame.

On the Town (1949)
Three sailors (Kelly, Sinatra and Jules Munshin) hit New York City for a 24-hour shore leave. The first order of business is to find some women to spend it with and the boys hook up with Ivy (Vera-Ellen), an aspiring dancer, Hildy (Betty Garrett), a lady cab-driver, and Claire (Ann Miller), a paleontology student, causing mayhem across Manhattan. This was the first musical to make extensive use of location shooting rather than studio bound sets and includes the song-and-dance numbers 'New York, New York' and 'Miss Turnstiles Ballet'.

Few cinematographers have had as decisive an impact on the cinematic medium as John Alton. Best known for his highly stylized film noir classics "T-Men", "He Walked by Night", and "The Big Combo", Alton earned a reputation during the 1940s and 1950s as one of Hollywood's consummate craftsmen through his visual signature of crisp shadows and sculpted beams of light. No less renowned for his virtuoso color cinematography and deft appropriation of widescreen and Technicolor, he earned an Academy Award in 1951 for his work on the musical "An American in Paris". First published in 1949, "Painting With Light" remains one of the few truly canonical statements on the art of motion picture photography, an unrivaled historical document on the workings of postwar American cinema. In simple, non-technical language, Alton explains the job of the cinematographer and explores how lighting, camera techniques, and choice of locations determine the visual mood of film. Todd McCarthy's introduction provides an overview of Alton's biography and career and explores the influence of his work on contemporary cinematography and the foreword, written expressly for this edition by award-winning cinematographer John Bailey, explores Alton's often contentious relationships with colleagues, the American Society of Cinematographers, and the movie industry itself.

"On Sunday 9 April 1865, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's brick home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, to negotiate the conclusion of the Civil War. That same day, far to the west, a handful of Mormons and northern Utes met in the central Utah town of Manti in an attempt to achieve a peace of their own. Unlike the negotiations at Appomattox, however, those in Manti failed, and the events that transpired there are viewed as the beginning of Utah's Black Hawk War, the longest and most serious Indian-white conflict in Utah history." -From the book So begins the story of Black Hawk, Ute Indian warrior chief and brilliant strategist, and Brigham Young, sagacious religious and political leader of the Mormons. Two powerful and unyielding men forged by hardship and conviction, both revered and both reviled in their times. One, orchestrating a remarkable campaign to turn back the tide of white expansion and prevent the extinction of his people, the other, attempting to keep his exiled church and its thriving utopian society sovereign and intact. Two men of distinct races, beliefs, and cultures, but sharing a determination to keep U.S. soldiers out of their bloody conflict for control of land and other resources in the Utah territory. From 1865 to 1867, the warrior Black Hawk, also known as Antonga, led a combined force of Utes, Navajos, and Paiutes in a series of intense stock raids on the Mormon settlements in Utah territory. Black Hawk astutely judged that political conflict between the federal government and Mormon Utah would keep U.S. soldiers from chastising his band. Moreover, the antagonism of Washington toward Utah's polygamy, theocracy, and isolationism made Mormon leader Brigham Young wary of seeking federal help. In fact, to keep the government from using the war as a pretext for sending more troops to Utah, the Mormons withheld information, making the Black Hawk War an almost secret war as far as the rest of the nation was concerned. As directed by Brigham Young, Utah's Latter-day Saint citizens mobilized a church militia, the Nauvoo Legion, to repel Indian attacks. Yet Black Hawk and others were able to carry on their activities for almost eight years without incurring the federal military reprisals that Indians on all four sides of the Mormon heartland experienced. Bloodshed on both sides plunged Mormons and Indians into a war of vengeance-years of killing and raiding that continued until federal troops stepped in 1872. In this unprecedented volume, historian John Peterson provides the first comprehensive analysis of a unique and compelling chapter of western history and of the violent and protracted conflict it engendered. Utah's Black Hawk War not only explores political intricacies and broader implications, scrutinizing the Mormons' Indian policies-most notably Brigham Young's extraordinary "better to feed them than fight them" teachings-but also presents vivid narrative accounts of various raids and battles. The result is a masterfully researched and engagingly written account of Utah's secret war, a war largely unknown among western history students, scholars, and enthusiasts-until now. Winner of the Mormon History Association Francis M. and Emily S. Chipman Best First Book Award.