1001 Classic Movies: 2016 Summer Under the Stars

The August theme coincided with TCM's Summer Under the Stars film festival, which celebrates a different actor each day in August. I featured five great films from each Monday's honorees starting with Edward G. Robinson (above).

Scarlet Street (1945): Robinson plays a meek artist who gets entangled with femme fatale Joan Bennett and her slimy boyfriend (Dan Duryea) in this Fritz Lang-directed film noir.

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952): Esther Williams plays aquatic star Annette Kellerman in this biopic that features several elaborate Busby Berkeley numbers.

How Green Was My Valley (1941): Roddy McDowall is superb as the youngest son of a Welsh coal-mining family in director John Ford's elegiac masterpiece.

They Were Expendable (1945): Navy veteran Robert Montgomery co-stars with John Wayne and Donna Reed in this story of a PT boat crew stationed in The Philippines during World War II.

Algiers (1938): Charles Boyer rocks the Casbah as jewel thief Pepe le Moko, who is hiding out from the authorities while also romancing Hedy Lamarr.