Paulette Goddard in the Tramp's (Charlie Chaplin) dream of a middle-class life in Modern Times.
Credit Warner Brothers/The Kobal Collection/McCarty, Floyd
In Giant, James Dean plays Jett Rink, a poor ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes one of the richest men in Texas. Elizabeth Taylor plays Leslie Benedict, part of the wealthy ranching family that Rink feuds with.
Credit The Kobal Collection/RAI Cinemafiction
Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato) arrives at Ellis Island with his family in Golden Door.
Tinseltown didn't invent the American dream, but it sure put it out there for the world to see — a dream lit by the perpetual sunshine of Southern California, steeped in the values of the immigrant filmmakers who moved there in the early 1900s and got enormously rich.
It was their own outsider experience these Italian, Irish, German and often Jewish moviemakers were putting on screen, each optimistic, escapist fantasy a virtual American dream checklist:
Hard work carries the day in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress while delivering his State of the Union speech in 2011. During his first two years in office, Obama used big Democratic majorities in Congress to muscle through major legislation, but since the 2010 midterm elections, he's increasingly been stymied by a wall of GOP opposition.
Credit Pete Souza / White House
President Obama meets with members of Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House in 2010.
Credit Pete Souza / The White House
President Obama meets with congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House to discuss the debt limit and deficit reduction in July 2011.
From now until November, President Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney will emphasize their differences. But the two men's lives actually coincide in a striking number of ways. That includes struggling with their respective legislatures. Earlier, NPR's David Welna explored Romney's time as governor of Massachusetts. In this installment of "Parallel Lives," a look at Obama and Congress.
Lisa Donovan spoofs the film 300 in a 2007 YouTube video that pits her against a FedEx guy. Donovan's videos became so successful, she was able to make a living off selling ads on them.
Credit Cindy Ord / Getty Images
Lisa Donovan (aka LisaNova) co-founded Maker Studios with her fiance, Dan Zappin, after she started making a living off her YouTube videos.
Former pitcher Roger Clemens, center, and his attorneys Rusty Hardin, right, and Michael Attanasio arrive on the courthouse steps after Clemens was found not guilty on all charges in his perjury trial at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
A federal jury acquitted pitching ace Roger Clemens of all charges on Monday. The jury found Clemens not guilty of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.
Say the word Tijuana, and many people automatically think of a city riddled with drug violence. But native son Javier Plascencia is hoping to change all that by cooking up high-quality cuisine that focuses on the region's diverse ingredients.
Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, wears a "Dressage is no. 1" foam finger at a competition on Saturday. Romney's horse, Rafalca, qualified for the 2012 Olympic dressage team.
Credit Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is introduced by his wife, Ann, during a campaign event at Scamman Farm on June 15, in Stratham, N.H.
As part of a new tech segment, we're starting a social media advice column in which we'll ask experts your questions about how to behave online. This week's experts are Baratunde Thurston, former digital director of The Onion and author of How to Be Black; and Deanna Zandt, author of Share This!
Research scientist Leila Takayama poses with a PR2 robot at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park, Calif., that produces programmable robots.
Credit Melissa Block / NPR
A PR2 robot named Jake opens a refrigerator at Willow Garage's office.
The Italian Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio, shown here at the Syrian Maronite monastery of Deir Mar Musa in 2007, lived in Syria for 30 years before he was expelled Saturday. Dall'Oglio has spoken out in support of protesters who oppose President Bashar Assad.
Syria has expelled an Italian Jesuit priest for his outspoken criticism of the government's crackdown on a popular uprising. The Rev. Paolo Dall'Oglio has lived in Syria for 30 years, helping to restore a 1,000-year-old monastery that became a center for Muslim and Christian understanding.
Dall'Oglio's departure from Damascus on Saturday was sudden. More than a year ago, the government ordered him out, but a campaign on Facebook — "No to the Exile of Father Paolo" — delayed his expulsion.
Across the U.S., temperatures are creeping higher, kids are out of school and the days are longer. This can only mean that summer is upon us.
For many, summer also means travel season. Whether you're traveling by plane, train or automobile for that vacation, you're likely to feel the pinch of rising travel costs.
