Grand Hotel in a psychiatric hospital, with MGM lavishing its legendary gloss on Minnelli’s star-studded melodrama. Adapted from the novel by playwright William Gibson (The Miracle Worker), The Cobweb details a deluxe clinic whose disturbed patients are no match for its dysfunctional staff. Richard Widmark is the dedicated psychiatrist tasked with putting out the fires of philandering doctor Charles Boyer. When Widmark’s wife (Gloria Grahame) orders new drapes for the library—a typically Minnellian focus on set design—everyone from administrator Lillian Gish to artist-patient John Kerr (in a role meant for James Dean) is thrown into turmoil. Bacall affectingly co-stars as Widmark’s widowed colleague and possible love interest, an oasis of sanity in this colorful and eccentric CinemaScope soap.

Photo courtesy of MGM / The Kobal Collection