Cari Beauchamp

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

In the mid-1950s, Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, young composers and romantic partners, are hired by legendary silent film star Gloria Swanson to write a musical based on her film Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder in 1950.

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.

The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.

Blonde, beautiful and talented, Marion Davies was the first and funniest screwball comedienne. As star of two of the best comedies ever made, Show People and The Patsy, she combined zany slapstick and exuberant mimicry. Glamorous, witty and kind, both on screen and off, Davies was also famous for her 35-year-long love affair with William Randolph Hearst.

Martin Scorsese is among those paying tribute to Gene Tierney, the Academy Award-nominated American actress who was a leading lady in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and '50s.

Each installment focuses on a different era of American movie history, from the invention of the first moving pictures to the revolutionary, cutting-edge films of the 1960s.