The best Jay Novello’s drama movies

Marcellus is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' homespun robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.

Boozy, brassy Apple Annie, a beggar with a basket of apples, is as much a part of downtown New York as old Broadway itself. Bootlegger Dave the Dude is a sucker for her apples -- he thinks they bring him luck. But Dave and girlfriend Queenie Martin need a lot more than luck when it turns out that Annie is in a jam and only they can help: Annie's daughter Louise, who has lived all her life in a Spanish convent, is coming to America with a Count and his son. The count's son wants to marry Louise, who thinks her mother is part of New York society. It's up to Dave and Queenie and their cronies to turn Annie into a lady and convince the Count and his son that they are hobnobbing with New York's elite.

During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.

The devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Eddie Miller struggles with his hatred of women, he's especially bothered by seeing women with their lovers. He starts a killing spree as a sniper by shooting women from far distances. In an attempt to get caught, he writes an anonymous letter to the police begging them to stop him.

Roy Tucker, a Vietnam war veteran with excellent shooting skills, is serving a long prison sentence when a mysterious visitor promises him that he will be released if he agrees to carry out a dangerous assignment.

Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.

In 1917, three shepherd children living just outside Fatima, Portugal have visions of a lovely lady in a cloud. The anticlerical government wishes to squelch the Church; reports of religious experiences are cause for serious concern. Yet the children stand by their story, and the message of peace and hope the Lady brings. In the last vision, attended by thousands of people, the Lady proves her reality with a spectacular miracle that is seen by everyone present. Based on actual events at Fatima in the summer of 1917.

Mike and Tony Petrakis are a Greek father and son team who dive for sponges off the coast of Florida. After they are robbed by crooks, Arnold and the Rhys brothers, Mike decides to take his men to the dangerous 12-mile reef to dive for more sponges. Mike suffers a fatal accident when he falls from the reef leaving Tony to carry on the business. But now he has a companion, Gwyneth Rhys.

Sylvia West (Carroll Baker) may not be who she says she is. Her fiancé, the very well-to-do Frederick Summers (Peter Lawford), hires an investigator named Alan Maklin (George Maharis) to do some digging, and what he finds out about her life prior to becoming a writer is quite shocking. Will the newfound knowledge ruin the marriage? Gordon Douglas (Young at Heart) directs this drama, which is based on E.V. Cunningham's book.

Yul Brynner plays political leader Sharif who is sprung from a police van on his way to a firing squad by young loyalists led by Sal Mineo. Yul and the other prisoners kidnap an ambulance and head into the Arabian desert with the police in hot pursuit. All the performances are magnificent: Sal Mineo showing his acting talents, Jack Warden in a wiseguy performance as an employee of Zahrain oil who was involved in embezzlement, Anthony Caruso as a slimy psychotic and the underrated Madlyn Rhue as a nurse who becomes emotionally involved in the proceedings.

In this biopic, Jim Bowie goes to New Orleans, where he falls for Judalon and befriends her brother, Narcisse. Soon, Jim is forced to avenge Narcisse's murder, but Judalon takes up with another man. Jim eventually has another romantic interlude with Judalon and is forced to kill one of her suitors in self-defense. Jim leaves town, and falls for the daughter of a Texas politician, but his entanglement with Judalon continues to bedevil him.

A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.

An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.

A jewel thief and a con artist are rivals in the theft of a valuable gem as the Japanese army invades China.

Gangsters, nightclubs and the Roaring '20s.

A secretary sends a coded plea for help in her monthly report; two detectives investigate and find out that men are jailed on phony charges, forced to work in oil fields and then murdered if they try to escape.

Wanted by the law in New York, Dr. Steve Kells heads west and arrives in an area controlled by an outlaw gang known as the Border Legion. When the gang's boss is wounded, they kidnap Kells and force him to remove the bullet. Not allowed to leave and being a wanted man, he joins the gang. Now wanted as a gang member also, he nevertheless plans a raid that will lead the entire gang into a trap.