Joan Crawford: The Signature Collection

Five films featuring Joan Crawford as leading lady. 'Mildred Pierce' (1945) is based on a James M Cain novel.

Crawford stars as an estranged wife fighting to make her restaurant a success.

She won an Oscar for Best Actress, and the film was nominated for a further four. 'Grand Hotel' (1932) is an MGM classic focussing on the intertwining lives of the inhabitants of a Berlin hotel.

A lonely ballerina (Greta Garbo) contemplates suicide; a ruthless industrialist (Wallace Beery) makes a last ditch attempt to save his company; a fallen aristocrat (John Barrymore) resorts to thievery; an ambitious young woman (Crawford) is about to trade her virtue for success; and a terminally-ill clerk (Lionel Barrymore) has a final fling.

All five residents are unaware that their lives are about to change dramatically.

The film won an Oscar for Best Picture. In 'Humoresque' (1947), a talented young violinist (John Garfield) becomes patronised by a wealthy alcoholic (Crawford).

Despite the difference in their social standing, the pair embark on a romance.

However, the affair ends in tragedy, and the violinist ends up having to choose between his music and the woman he loves.

In 'Possessed' (1947, a nurse (Crawford) collapses in an LA diner and is admitted to a psychiatric ward.

From her hospital bed, she recalls the events that have led not only to her breakdown, but also to romantic obsession and murder.

Finally, in 'The Damned Don't Cry' (1950), Crawford stars as Ethel Whitehead, an ambitious young woman who makes her way from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion and finally into high society one man at a time.

The film is told in flashback following the murder of gangster Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran), which leads to an investigation of the mysterious socialite Lorna Hansen Forbes (Crawford), who appears to have no discernible past and has now vanished altogether...