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The Heiress (Universal Cinema Classics)

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Miriam Hopkins, Ralph Richardson
ASIN : B000KGGJ1I
Sales Rank : 4583
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Dolby, Full Screen, Original recording remastered, Restored, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0025193236722
UPC : 025193236722
Release Date : December 06, 2007
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
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Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 116

Description

Academy Award winner Olivia De Havilland and Montgomery Clift light up the screen in this spellbinding, landmark drama. De Havilland is Catherine Sloper, an aristocratic young woman living under the scrutiny of her malevolent father. When a handsome but penniless suitor proposes, her father believes he could only be after her vast estate and threatens disinheritance. Can she be rich in love and money? Based on the stage version of Henry James' renowned novel Washington Square, this is the "****" (Leonard Maltin) winner of four Academy Awards, featuring an all-new, digitally remastered picture. A masterpiece of love, deception and betrayal, The Heiress remains a shining example of a true cinematic achievement.

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Olivia de Havilland's Oscar®-winning performance in The Heiress is so good that even hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael hailed it as de Havilland's "finest work ever." Like director William Wyler's previous masterpiece The Best Years of Our Lives, this tightly controlled drama is an all-time classic (it was added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry in 1996), and as Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne observes in his DVD introduction, its reputation has steadily improved with the passage of time. It was de Havilland who sought the services of director William Wyler for this superlative film adaptation of Henry James' 1881 novel Washington Square, after director Lewis Milestone urged her to see the acclaimed stage adaptation by married playwrights Ruth and Augustus Goetz. De Havilland had already won her first Oscar (for her role in the 1946 drama To Each His Own), and recognized a prestigious opportunity when she saw one. Wyler enthusiastically agreed, and The Heiress was fast-tracked for production in early 1949. Released on October 6 of that year, the film eventually earned eight Academy Award nominations, winning the Oscar® for Best Actress, Art Direction, Costume Design, and Music (the last for Aaron Copland's splendid score). When Martin Scorsese was preparing to film The Age of Innocence in 1992, he cited Wyler's film as a primary influence. (Washington Square was filmed again in 1997, with its original title and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Catherine.)

De Havilland is heartbreaking, docile, victimized, and ultimately cruel as Catherine Sloper, a plain-looking aristocrat who stands to inherit a fortune from her ailing physician father (Ralph Richardson), as well as his well-meaning but cold-hearted demeanor. Dr. Sloper disapproves of Catherine's passionate suitor Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift, perfectly cast), certain that the penniless young man has proposed marriage to win Catherine's inheritance. Catherine's too much in love to consider this potential betrayal, and when circumstances lead her to misinterpret Morris's intentions, The Heiress reaches an unforgettable conclusion that brilliantly supports the richly psychological nuance that Wyler brings to the preceding romance. Universal's "Cinema Classics" DVD is skimpy on extras, but Osborne's introduction is informative (as always), and despite a grainy quality of some scenes (typical with films of this vintage), the DVD transfer impeccably captures the mood-setting excellence of Leo Tover's flawless cinematography. The film's original theatrical trailer is also included. --Jeff Shannon

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The Hepburn & Tracy Signature Collection (Woman of the Year / Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / The Spencer Tracy Legacy)

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell
ASIN : B0002Y4TJM
Sales Rank : 6784
Director : David Heeley, George Cukor, George Stevens
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790797168
ISBN : 079079716X
UPC : 012569703827
Release Date : December 12, 2004
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
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Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 393

Description

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy: The Signature Collection. The films included are Woman of the Year, Pat and Mike, Adam's Rib and The Spencer Tracy Legacy. Woman of the Year (1942) was the first collaboration between Hepburn and Tracy, and you can see why it was the spark that ignited the flame that lasted 25 years, in this classic battle of the sexes. In Adam's Rib (1949), the duo are back at it again, except this time they are in the courtroom battling it out as two married lawyers - on opposite sides of a case! Pat and Mike (1952) was George Cukor's eighth and final collaboration with Katharine Hepburn, but this magnificent film about the improbable relationship between a female golfer and a sports promoter was a movie that proved to be ahead of its time in terms of sexual politics, and earned the production two Academy Award? Nominations: Best Story and Best Screenplay. For the first time on DVD and sold exclusively in this collection is the very special The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn (1986) in which Katharine Hepburn looks back on the life of her former co-star and best friend, Spencer Tracy, in a touching and insightful look at one of the great American actors.

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Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection (Manhattan Melodrama / Evelyn Prentice / Double Wedding / I Love You Again / Love Crazy)

Actors: Myrna Loy, William Powell, Jack Carson, Clark Gable
ASIN : B000Q7ZLUG
Sales Rank : 5256
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Subtitled, Color
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569798229
UPC : 012569798229
Release Date : December 07, 2007
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 9 to 12 days
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 454

Product Description

Contains: double wedding evelyn prentice i love you again love crazy and manhattan melodrama. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 08/07/2007

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The Thin Man was just the beginning. Myrna Loy and William Powell were one of Hollywood's best-matched screen teams, with the chemistry fairly bubbling in their scenes together, as this Warner treasure trove boxed set shows. Audiences in the '30s and '40s delighted in the fact that Loy's urbane sophisticate characters could match Powell's quip for quip, martini for martini.

Manhattan Melodrama (1934) showcases Powell and Clark Gable as longtime friends on opposite sides of the law, and is the first pairing of Loy and Powell (and the first of four films they would make in 1934 alone. The film is briskly directed and the crackling screenplay won an Oscar the next year. Evelyn Prentice (1934) is the troubled wife (Loy) of a preoccupied attorney (Powell) who appears oblivious. The story isn't one of the strongest in the collection, but the cast sparkles nonetheless. A witchy Rosalind Russell makes her memorable film debut as a femme fatale.

Double Wedding (1937) lets Loy and Powell flex their comedic chops. The plot is full of switchbacks and misunderstandings, but the key point is that their pal Waldo (John Beal) is that dreaded '30s male screen archetype, the milquetoast. Much of the film's fun is watching Powell's character coach poor Waldo to grow a backbone: "Women don't like noble, self-sacrificing men. Women are not civilized like we are. They like bloodshed!"

I Love You Again (1940) is one of the top screwball comedies of all time. George (Powell) is bonked on the head and realizes he's had amnesia for the past several years, has been terribly boring and has been, yes, a milquetoast--who's about to be divorced by his fed-up wife, Kay (Loy). The crazy plot is lofted by the brilliant screenplay and the delivery of the two leads, who spar like expert fencers: George: "You be careful, madam, or you'll turn my pretty head with your flattery!" Kay: "I often wished I could turn your head--on a spit, over a slow fire." Divine! Love Crazy (1941) is another classic farce, featuring Powell in drag, Powell faking insanity, Powell conniving to win back Loy's love--all in a witty, urbane way, of course.

The set is also chockfull of great extras, with each feature paired with a classic comedy or musical short, plus cartoon or audio radio interviews. The icing on the cake: The fabulous packaging, including an image from the original movie posters on the discs themselves. Film lovers won't want to miss this splendid collection. --A.T. Hurley

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TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 1 (Waterloo Bridge [1931] / Baby Face / Red-Headed Woman)

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker
ASIN : B000I2JDF8
Sales Rank : 5804
Director : Alfred E. Green, Jack Conway, James Whale
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569679641
UPC : 012569679641
Release Date : December 05, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 308

Product description

Includes: Waterloo Bridge (1931), Baby Face (1933), and Red-Headed Woman (1932).

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Here are three films that couldn't and wouldn't have been made at any other time. Contrary to popular belief, the history of Hollywood permissiveness, what filmmakers could "get away with" on screen, is not a steadily rising graph from puritanical early days to the party-hearty present. In the early 1930s, a national mood of shock over the stock market crash and impatience with Prohibition licensed a relaxation of the movie industry's self-censorship policies. Sexuality--always a driving force in movie plots and characterizations, even when repressed--became a more explicit presence, with costuming that sometimes pushed the envelope for exposure of epidermis and dialogue that could be shockingly blunt.

Baby Face (1933) was made at Warner Bros., the golden-age studio with the grittiest style and the most street cred. The gutsy Barbara Stanwyck stars as a young woman from a factory town who hops a boxcar to the big city and sleeps her way to the top--a progress famously indexed by a camera ascending floor by floor outside a Gotham office building as she trades up, one corporate suitor after another. No other major-studio film was more explicit about sex as a tool and a commodity, yetBaby Face is curiously less sexy than any number of movies that weren't so outspoken about it. This TCM collection features both the theatrical-release version familiar for decades and a recently rediscovered preview version that is markedly superior, runs five minutes longer, and includes more sexual liaisons. It also happily lacks an absurd final scene that got tacked onto the release version to explain how the heroine learned to be content with a modest lifestyle.

Red-Headed Woman (1932) is arguably the raunchiest movie Jean Harlow made at MGM (though not as raunchy as her scenes in Howard Hughes' 1930 Hell's Angels). Unlike Stanwyck in Baby Face--a proletarian heroine grimly selling herself to beat capitalism and the patriarchy at their own game--Harlow's character brazenly relishes both the sex and the posh life it wins for her. The lion's share of this sardonic comedy, scripted by Anita Loos and an uncredited F. Scott Fitzgerald, focuses on Harlow's seduction of her married boss (Chester Morris) and the havoc she wreaks in his upper-crust world. Charles Boyer has a role (his first Hollywood credit) as a French chauffeur who knows how to give satisfaction, and the film's air of breezy ribaldry even allows the star a casual flash of bare breast.

The rarest item in the collection, the 1931 Universal version of Waterloo Bridge, has long been unseen because MGM bought the film in order to do a 1940 remake (starring Vivien Leigh) and locked the original away in the vault. Directed by James Whale the same year he did Frankenstein (1931), the picture charts the romance of a chorus-girl-turned-streetwalker (Mae Clarke) and a well-born young soldier (Kent Douglass) on brief furlough from the trenches during WWI. Apart from a zesty prelude in a London music hall and two scenes on the titular bridge, the film remains yoked to its talky theatrical source, a Robert E. Sherwood play flogging the hoary conceit that no fallen woman, however pure of heart, could be permitted to marry into a good family. Unlike the Hays Code-compliant remake, the film leaves no doubt how the heroine makes her living. --Richard T. Jameson

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Lilies of the Field

Actors: Stanley Adams, Pamela Branch, Isa Crino, Dan Frazer, Francesca Jarvis
ASIN : B000056HEH
Sales Rank : 4873
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792849193
ISBN : 0792849191
UPC : 027616858962
Release Date : December 06, 2001
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
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Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 94

Description

Featuring an Academy AwardÂ(r)-winning performance by Poitier*, and nominated** for four additional OscarsÂ(r), including Best Picture, Lilies of the Field is a funny, sentimental, charming and uplifting film (The Hollywood Reporter). Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier), an itinerant handyman, is driving through the Arizona desert when he meets five impoverished nuns. Stopping to fix their leaky farmhouse roof, Homer discovers that not only will the Mother Superior not pay him for the job, but she also wants him to build their chapelfor free! Hesitant at first, Homer soon finds himself single-handedly raising the chapel and the financing. But although hewill not receive a monetary reward, Homer knows that when his work is done, he'll leave that dusty desert town a much better place than when he found it. *1963: Actor **1963: Supporting Actress (Skala), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography (B&W)

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Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for this endearing movie about a handyman who thinks he's just passing through a little town in New Mexico, and ends up staying awhile to build a chapel for a cluster of German-speaking nuns. The renowned actor is highly entertaining in his combative exchanges with Lilia Skala, playing a Mother Superior who survived Hitler and makes no bones about bullying the goodhearted, itinerant worker into doing more and more for her. The film has an ambling, easygoing style with several memorable moments, not least of all is Poitier leading his holy hostesses through verses of the gospel song "Amen." Lilies is directed by the late Ralph Nelson, a pioneering director of live television who also made a number of popular feature films with notable performances (Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight, Cary Grant in Father Goose, Cliff Robertson in Charly) in the 1960s and 1970s. --Tom Keogh

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It Happened One Night

Actors: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas
ASIN : B000022TSL
Sales Rank : 3367
Director : Frank Capra
Brand : Sony
Studio : Sony Pictures
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Special Edition, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780767836609
ISBN : 076783660X
UPC : 043396039490
Release Date : December 28, 1999
Publisher : Sony Pictures
Manufacturer : Sony Pictures
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Label : Sony Pictures
Running Time : 105

Product Description

A lovely screwball comedy about an heiress who runs away after a tiff with daddy & the reporter who tracks her down. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 12/28/1999 Starring: Clark Gable Roscoe Karns Run time: 105 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Frank Capra

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Director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) took home every Oscar in the book (well, okay, all the major ones) for this seminal 1934 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten reporter who stays close to a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) rather than lose a good story. Funny and sexy, the film is full of memorable scenes often referred to in other films, such as the "walls of Jericho" (a mere bedcover hung on a line down the middle of a room so opposite-sex roommates can get undressed), and Colbert's famous flash of thigh to stop a speeding car in its tracks. Capra's brisk, urbane brand of wit was a perfect complement to his populist faith in the common man (in this case, Gable's character), and that inspired combination makes this film both a spirited entertainment and an uplifting experience. --Tom Keogh

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Spellbound

Actors: Jean Acker, Irving Bacon, Art Baker, Ingrid Bergman, Leo G. Carroll
ASIN : B001D8W7F4
Sales Rank : 3043
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Restored, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0883904109914
UPC : 883904109914
Release Date : December 14, 2008
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
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Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 111

Product Description

While suffering from amnesia a mental patient assumes the identity of the director of the mental hospital. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 02/10/2009 Starring: Gregory Peck Leo G Carroll Run time: 118 minutes Director: Alfred Hitchcock

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Alfred Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in this thriller in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali--complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Although the film is in black and white, the original release contained one subliminal blood-red frame, appearing when a gun pointed directly at the camera goes off. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"--i.e., the power of pure visual associations. Miklós Rózsa's haunting score (which features a creepy theremin) won an Oscar, and the movie was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (Michael Chekhov), cinematography, and special visual effects. --Jim Emerson

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Roman Holiday - The Centennial Collection

Actors: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams
ASIN : B001EXE2ZQ
Sales Rank : 4863
Director : William Wyler
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097361389943
UPC : 097361389943
Release Date : December 11, 2008
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
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Label : Paramount
Running Time : 118

Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 11/11/2008 Run time: 118 minutes Rating: Nr

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Maybe it doesn't quite live up to its sterling reputation, and maybe the leading man and director were slightly miscast. But who cares? Roman Holiday is the film that brought Audrey Hepburn to prominence, and the world movie audience went weak at the knees. The endlessly charming Hepburn had her first starring role in this sweet romance, playing a European princess on an official tour through Rome. Frustrated by her lack of connection to the real world, she slips away from her protective handlers and goes on a spree, aided by a tough-guy news reporter (Gregory Peck). Director William Wyler, more at home with such heavy-going, Oscar-winning classics as The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben- Hur, doesn't always keep the champagne bubbles afloat, and the Peck role would have fit Cary Grant like a silk glove. But the film is great fun, the location shooting is irresistible, and Hepburn embodies an image of chic style that would rule for the rest of the fifties. No coincidence: she won an Oscar, and so did veteran costume designer Edith Head. --Robert Horton

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Humphrey Bogart - The Signature Collection, Vol. 1 (Casablanca Two-Disc Special Edition / The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Two-Disc Special Edition / They Drive by Night / High Sierra)

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Ida Lupino
ASIN : B000GIXLUW
Sales Rank : 6971
Director : John Huston, Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569794702
UPC : 012569794702
Release Date : December 03, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
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Label : Warner Home Video

Product description

Includes: Casablanca (Two-Disc Special Edition), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Two-Disc Special Edition), They Drive by Night, and High Sierra.

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Splendor in the Grass

Actors: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie, Barbara Loden
ASIN : B00002ND7B
Sales Rank : 5670
Director : Elia Kazan
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790748658
ISBN : 0790748657
UPC : 085391573920
Release Date : December 13, 2001
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
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Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 124

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 07/12/2005 Run time: 124 minutes Rating: Nr

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Elia Kazan's pedal-to-the-metal approach to psychosexual melodrama paid off handsomely when he had layered material by Tennessee Williams or John Steinbeck to work with. The very raw material here is an original by hot-blooded playwright William Inge, about a pair of teenagers in the American Midwest in the 1920s whose lives are ruined by the repressive sexual climate of the period. The girl, played by Natalie Wood, is literally driven batty by her pent-up adolescent lust and ends up in the bin---which admittedly plays better than sounds, because the hunk she yearns for is the young and almost impossibly handsome Warren Beatty. This is a very lush and beautiful movie, but also a deeply silly one. It's grade-A American cheese, with a pinch of dime-store Freud on top.--David Chute

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The Heiress (Universal Cinema Classics)

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The Hepburn & Tracy Signature Collection (Woman of the Year / Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / The Spencer Tracy Legacy)

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Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection (Manhattan Melodrama / Evelyn Prentice / Double Wedding / I Love You Again / Love Crazy)

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TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 1 (Waterloo Bridge [1931] / Baby Face / Red-Headed Woman)

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Lilies of the Field

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It Happened One Night

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Spellbound

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Roman Holiday - The Centennial Collection

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Humphrey Bogart - The Signature Collection, Vol. 1 (Casablanca Two-Disc Special Edition / The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Two-Disc Special Edition / They Drive by Night / High Sierra)

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Splendor in the Grass

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