Vincent Minelli directs this biopic that, unusually for Hollywood, doesn't subsume the subject's achievements in a fictionalised life-story, explaining one not in terms of the other, but fully celebrating both. Douglas is superb as the artist living on the edge. Not just for art aficionados.

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...