Come Back, Little Sheba

Little Sheba is a dog that's gone AWOL, and its owner, Shirley Booth, has also lost her looks and her love. She's married to a reformed alcoholic (Lancaster), and has a lodger (Moore) whose incessant bonking with Richard Jaeckel drives Burt back to the bottle and Booth into self-pity. Dated now, it's still a classic slice of '50s Americana, based on a play by William Inge and treading gracefully between tragedy and comedy. But unlike Picnic, it doesn't score heavily as a movie. Daniel Mann refuses to get off his tripod, and the camera seems transfixed by Booth's screen debut (she had played the part on Broadway), which won her an Oscar and the Cannes prize.