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Marilyn Monroe Special Anniversary Collection (The Seven Year Itch / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Niagara / River of No Return / Let's Make Love / Marilyn - The Final Days)

Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn, Yves Montand
ASIN : B000EMGJAY
Sales Rank : 3335
Director : Billy Wilder, George Cukor, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Jean Negulesco
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543247791
UPC : 024543247791
Release Date : December 30, 2006
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 609

Description

Collection Includes the following Titles:

**SEVEN YEAR ITCH **GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES **NIAGARA **RIVER OF NO RETURN **LET'S MAKE LOVE **MARILYN: THE FINAL DAYS

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The Marilyn Monroe Special Anniversary Collection consists of five Marilyn Monroe films plus the documentary The Final Days. Howard Hawks's 1953 musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes stars Monroe and Jane Russell as friends who go to Paris looking for mates. The film is charged by Hawks's stylish snap, a famous set piece or two (including Monroe descending that staircase while singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"), Russell's wit, and songs by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The Seven Year Itch (1955) is a memorable laugh machine. As a married man left alone during a hot summer, Tom Ewell shows off crack timing matched by Monroe's zesty comic flair, and the scene in which her white dress is blown skyward by a passing subway train has entered the encyclopedia of great movie images. In Niagara, Monroe is a full-fledged sex goddess, a scheming wife tormenting husband Joseph Cotten in their cabin by the falls. This Technicolor slice of pseudo-Hitchcock is a fun location picture with a genuinely exciting climax. Otto Preminger's River of No Return has Monroe livened up by the presence of costar Robert Mitchum, in a strong outdoorsy Western that catches the two stars in appealing form. By the time of 1960's Let's Make Love, Monroe looks tired. This backstage musical is more interesting as a time capsule than as a romance, although one number shines: "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

In The Final Days, producer-director Patty Ivins chronicles Monroe's final, aborted feature film, Something's Got to Give, which was ultimately shut down after the star was dismissed from the production. Beyond Monroe's fragile emotional and physical health, this well-crafted profile examines the financial crisis facing her studio as well as the mounting frustration of meticulous director George Cukor and his cast, including costar Dean Martin, as Monroe's absences drove the shoot over budget. The documentary concludes with a 40-minute reconstruction of footage completed for the feature, which would subsequently be reshot as a vehicle for Doris Day and James Garner, Move Over, Darling.

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James Stewart - The Signature Collection (The Cheyenne Social Club / Firecreek / The FBI Story / The Naked Spur / The Spirit of St. Louis / The Stratton Story)

Actors: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Henry Fonda, June Allyson
ASIN : B000FTCLRQ
Sales Rank : 11978
Director : Anthony Mann, Billy Wilder, Dave O'Brien, Gene Kelly, Mervyn LeRoy
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569816183
UPC : 012569816183
Release Date : December 15, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 683

Description

In his early years, Jimmy Stewart came to personify the Everyman. "Hollywood dishes out too much praise for small things,'' Jimmy once said. "I won't let it get me, but too much praise can turn a fellow's head if he doesn't watch his step.'' - Through a Hollywood career spanning 50 years James Stewart has thrilled, touched and delighted audiences with over 80 films. Six of those films are now available on DVD in the all new James Stewart: The Signature Collection.

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Few Hollywood stars have the reservoir of goodwill that James Stewart enjoys; even in his so-so vehicles he's delightfully worth watching. That premise is tested by James Stewart: The Signature Collection which, with one exception, contains none of Stewart's really important pictures. The box does present a collection of movies mostly new to DVD, which gives the set whatever urgency it has from an otherwise mixed bag.

The one important Stewart title is The Naked Spur, arguably the best of the superb series of Westerns the actor made in collaboration with director Anthony Mann in the 1950s (which also include Winchester 73 and The Man from Laramie). The nervous, hard character who emerged in those films is perfected in Stewart's amazingly raw performance in The Naked Spur. He plays an embittered bounty hunter attempting to bring captured outlaw Robert Ryan to the authorities while also dealing with Ryan's companion (Janet Leigh) and two associates who want in on the reward (Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell). Mann's command of locations that reflect the emotional lives of the characters is unerring, and Stewart goes all the way with a performance that suggests he is as unbalanced as his villainous quarry.

Two other Westerns are included, both teaming Stewart with Henry Fonda: Firecreek, a grim 1968 High Noon imitator with Jimmy as a small-town farmer defending the place from Hank's band of desperadoes; and The Cheyenne Social Club, a comedy that has Stewart inheriting a bordello, as saddle pal Fonda tags along for the laughs. If director Gene Kelly's approach weren't so crass, the movie might be a lot funnier than it is.

The Stratton Story, a big hit from 1949, casts Stewart in the true tale of pitcher Monty Stratton, who enjoyed some big-league success before a hunting accident cost him his leg. The cornball script is rife with baseball nostalgia, and audiences loved the gee-whiz chemistry of lanky Stewart and tiny, indomitably perky June Allyson. Equally square is The FBI Story, an account of the Bureau's growth from the 1920s onward, with especially lavish reverence for J. Edgar Hoover (who appears in a cameo). Stewart is the agent through whose eyes we see the decades roll by.

The Spirit of St. Louis is one of the most atypical titles in Billy Wilder's career, standing as a straightforward account of Charles Lindbergh's legendary solo flight from the U.S. to Europe. Stewart may have been apt casting for the Lone Eagle in some ways, but he looked far too old to play the young aviator in this 1957 picture. The film has some nagging storytelling problems, but the aviation footage--especially Lindbergh's thrilling liftoff for his record flight--is beautifully shot. Taken together, this set does provide different angles on James Stewart's American Hero (a more complex personality than he's usually given credit for). But it's not his top-drawer work. --Robert Horton

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Evil Roy Slade

Actors: Edie Adams, John Astin, Pamela Austin, Leonard Barr, Jr. Ed Begley
ASIN : B000XJD3HA
Sales Rank : 3792
Director : n/a
Studio : Timeless Media Group
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0011301635648
UPC : 011301635648
Release Date : December 08, 2008
Publisher : Timeless Media Group
Manufacturer : Timeless Media Group
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Timeless Media Group
Running Time : 97

Product Description

An all-star cast headlines this hilarious made-for-television movie spoof on the western genre. John Astin (The Addams Family) plays Evil Roy Slade, the meanest villain in the West. The good guys do not have a chance, as Evil Roy turns the tables on the classic western story of good triumphing over evil. Western veteran Pat Butram narrates, the Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Henry Gibson, Edie Adams, Pamela Austin, Milton Berle, Pat Morita, Ed Begley, Jr., Dom DeLuise and Penny Marshall co-star.

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The James Stewart Hollywood Legend Collection (Vertigo / Rear Window / Harvey / Winchester '73 / Destry Rides Again)

Actors: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Shelley Winters, Marlene Dietrich
ASIN : B00023P4RY
Sales Rank : 8349
Director : Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Mann, George Marshall, Henry Koster
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781417014354
ISBN : 1417014350
UPC : 025192558627
Release Date : December 07, 2004
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 536

List Price: $99.99
Price: $74.99
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The John Wayne Century Collection (Big Jake, Donovan's Reef, El Dorado, Hatari!, Hondo, In Harm's Way, Island in the Sky, McLintock!, Rio Lobo, The High and the Mighty, etc.)

Actors: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Lauren Bacall, Geraldine Page, James Stewart
ASIN : B000O179G8
Sales Rank : 11849
Director : John Wayne, Andrew V. McLaglen, Don Siegel, George Sherman, Henry Hathaway
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097361230344
UPC : 097361230344
Release Date : December 22, 2007
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 1717

Product Description

DONOVAN'S REEF
Acclaimed director John Ford and screen legend John Wayne team up for what would be their final collaboration in this boisterous, rowdy South Seas escapade. The Duke, Lee Marvin and Jack Warden play World War II navy buddies who have made the French Polynesian island of Haleakaloha their post-war paradise. Local headquarters is Donovan’s Reef, Wayne’s rough-and-tumble watering hole where bragging, brawling, and full-blown misbehavior are the order of the day. But destined to create more turmoil than any barroom fisticuffs is the sudden arrival of Elizabeth Allen, a straight-laced Boston blue blood. She’s hoping to locate her long-estranged father (Warden), affirm that he is "not of good moral character," and then assume control of the family’s shipping dynasty back home in the States. Suave, debonair Cesar Romero and a sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour add to the laughs – and mayhem – in this tropical comedy treat.

IN HARM'S WAY
In Harm's Way, based on James Bassett's novel Harm's Way, has enough plot in it for four movies or a good miniseries (when it was shown on network television in prime time, it was broken into two very full nights). On the morning of December 7, 1941, a heavy cruiser, commanded by Captain Rockwell Torrey (John Wayne), and the destroyer Cassidy, under acting commander Lieutenant (jg) William McConnell (Thomas Tryon), are two of a handful of ships that escape the destruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Under Torrey's command, the tiny fleet of a dozen ships carries out its orders to seek out and engage the enemy fleet. But lack of fuel and a daring maneuver (but tragic miscalculation) by Torrey causes his ship to be seriously damaged. He's relieved of command and assigned to a desk job routing convoys in the shakeup following the attack, and his exec and oldest friend, Commander Paul Eddington (Kirk Douglas), is reassigned after a brawl, the result of his anger after identifying the body of his wife (Barbara Bouchet) who was killed during the attack while cavorting with an Marine Corps officer. Torrey's shore assignment leads him to reestablish contact on a very hostile level with his estranged son, Ensign Jere Torrey (Brandon de Wilde), his estranged son from a long-ended marriage, who is also serving at Pearl Harbor; he also establishes a romantic relationship with Lt. Maggie Haines (Patricia Neal), a navy nurse; he also befriends Commander Egan Powell (Burgess Meredith), a special-intelligence officer. Through his son's boasting during their bitter first meeting, Torrey learns of a top-secret offensive called Sky Hook — he figures out enough of it to impress Powell, and when Sky Hook gets bogged down by the indecisiveness of its commander, Vice Admiral Broderick (Dana Andrews), Powell convinces the commander of the Pacific Fleet (Adm. Chester Nimitz, unnamed here but played by Henry Fonda) that Torrey is the man to salvage the operation. Promoted to rear admiral, with Eddington — who'd been rotting away on a shore assignment, drunk most of the time — assigned as his chief of staff, Torrey gets Sky Hook rolling and finally finds his purpose in this war, gaining the belated admiration of his son in the process. Eddington is similarly motivated but is still haunted by the violent, ultimately self-destructive demons that blighted his marriage and his life — he is particularly attracted to a young nurse, Annalee Dohrn (Jill Haworth), not knowing that she is already involved romantically with Jere Torrey. Meanwhile, McConnell survives the sinking of his ship and is ordered to join Torrey's staff. Matters all come to a head when the Japanese begin a counter-offensive to Torrey's planned troop landing. And just at the time Torrey needs his men at their best, Eddington's violence and rage boil to the surface in a way that will destroy him and blight both men's lives. In a final attempt at redemption, Eddington provides Torrey with the information he needs to set up a battle that he has at least a chance of winning, pitting his small task group of destroyers and cruisers against the Japanese task force led by the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built.

HATARI!
Hatari! is Swahili for "danger"—and also the word for action, adventure and broad comedy in this two-fisted Howard Hawks effort. John Wayne stars as the head of a daring Tanganyka-based group which captures wild animals on behalf of the world's zoos. Hardy Kruger, Gérard Blain and Red Buttons are members of Wayne's men-only contingent, all of whom are reduced to jello when the curvaceous Elsa Martinelli enters the scene. In tried and true Howard Hawks fashion, Martinelli quickly becomes "one of the guys," though Wayne apparently can't say two words to her without sparking an argument. The second half of this amazingly long (159 minute) film concerns the care and maintenance of a baby elephant; the barely credible finale is devoted to a comic pachyderm stampede down an urban African street, ending literally at the foot of Martinelli's bed. The other scene worth mentioning involves comedy-relief Red Buttons' efforts to create a fireworks-powered animal trap. Not to be taken seriously for a minute, Hatari is attractively packaged and neatly tied up with a danceable-pranceable theme song by Henry Mancini.

RIO LOBO
After the Civil War, a Union Colonel goes to Rio Lobo to take revenge on two traitors.

BIG JAKE
An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson and wound his son. He returns to his estranged family to help them in the search for Little Jake.

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance—but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne.

THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER
Henry Hathaway directs the 1965 psychological Western The Sons of Katie Elder. Four sons reunite in their Texas hometown to attend their mother's funeral. John (John Wayne) is the gunfighter, Tom (Dean Martin) is the gambler, Matt (Earl Holliman) is the quiet one, and Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.) is the youngest. They soon learn that their father gambled away the family ranch, leading to his own murder. The brothers decide to find their father's killer and get back the ranch, even though they are discouraged to do so by local Sheriff Billy Wilson (Paul Fix). When the sheriff turns up dead, the Elder boys are blamed for the murder. Deputy Sheriff Ben Latta (Jeremy Slate) joins forces with the only witnesses of the murder: Morgan Hastings (James Gregory) and his son Dave (Dennis Hopper). A gunfight breaks out between the Hastings gang and the Elder gang. After his brother Matt is killed, John decides to settle the ranch dispute in a court of law with a judge (Sheldon Allman). However, Tom decides to take matters into his own hands by kidnapping Dave. After the final climactic gunfight, John and the wounded Bud retreat to a rooming house owned by Mary Gordon (Martha Hyer).

TRUE GRIT
In 1970, John Wayne won an Academy Award. for his larger-than-life performance as the drunken, uncouth and totally fearless one-eyed U.S. Marshall, Rooster Cogburn. The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings. When Cogburn's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter, sparks fly. And the situation goes from troubled to disastrous when an inexperienced but enthusiastic Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) joins the party. Laughter and tears punctuate the wild action in this extraordinary Western which features performances by Robert Duvall and Strother Martin.

THE SHOOTIST
About ten minutes into The Shootist, Doctor Hostetler (James Stewart) tells aging western gunfighter John Bernard Books (John Wayne) "You have a cancer." Knowing that his death will be painful and lingering, Books is determined to be shot in the line of "duty". In his remaining two months, Books settles scores with old enemies, including gambler Pulford (Hugh O'Brian) and Marshall Thibido (Harry Morgan) and reaches out to new friends (including feisty widow Lauren Bacall and her hero-worshipping son Ron Howard). In the end, is shot to death, but in so doing he is able to dissuade another from following his blood-stained example. Throughout the film, Book's imminent demise is compared with the decline of the west, as represented by the automobiles and streetcars that have begun to blight the main street of Wayne's home town. It is unknown if John Wayne was aware that he was dying of cancer when he agreed to film The Shootist; whatever the case, the film is a powerful valedictory to a remarkable man and a fabulous career.

EL DORADO
Legendary producer-director Howard Hawks teams with two equally legendary stars, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, in this classic Western drama. Mitchum plays to perfection an alcoholic but gutsy sheriff who relentlessly battles the dark side of the wild West, ruthless cattle barons and crooked "businessmen." The Duke gives an equally adept performance as the sheriff's old friend who knows his way around a gunfight. Filled with brawling action and humor, El Dorado delivers the goods. James Caan and Ed Asner co-star.

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY
When a commercial airliner developes engine problems on a trans- Pacific flight and the pilot loses his nerve, it is up to the washed-up co-pilot Dan Roman to bring the plane in safely.

ISLAND IN THE SKY
A transport plane crash-lands in the frozen wastes of Labrador, and the plane's pilot, Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while waiting for rescue.

HONDO
Based on the Louis L'Amour story "The Gift of Cochise," this sparkling western has Wayne as a half-Indian Cavalry scout who, with his feral dog companion, finds a young woman and her son living on a isolated ranch in unfriendly Apache country. A poetic and exciting script, outstanding performances, and breathtaking scenery make this an indisputable classic. Page's debut.

MCLINTOCK!
Wayne shows off his funny side in this 1963 western, a comedy inspired by The Taming of the Shrew. Starring as wealthy cattle baron G.W. McLintock, Wayne shows a real sense of comic timing in several scenes filled with slapstick humor. After his wife (Maureen O'Hara) and daughter leave him for the East, McLintock attempts to win them back. The dynamics between O'Hara and Wayne are the strong suit of this film, the actors having worked together previously on

THE QUIET MAN
As this is by no means a revisionist western, McLintock's chauvinistic attempts to "tame" his wife fit within the problematic ideology of the larger western genre. The ultimate example of this comes at the end of the film when McLintock settles his marital dispute by publicly "spanking" his wife in what is now a notorious cinematic moment.

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Crossfire Trail

Actors: Tom Selleck, Virginia Madsen, Wilford Brimley, David O'Hara, Christian Kane
ASIN : B00005JXI9
Sales Rank : 7277
Director : Simon Wincer
Studio : Warner Brothers
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780634640
ISBN : 0780634640
UPC : 053939662221
Release Date : December 10, 2001
Publisher : Warner Brothers
Manufacturer : Warner Brothers
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Brothers
Running Time : 92

Description

A restless wanderer makes a promise to a dying friend to help the man's widow and daughter hold onto their ranch in the lush but lawless Wyoming Territory. But when oil is discovered on the land, the unsuspecting hero must contend not only with the two women who are suspicious of his motives, but also with ruthless men plotting to seize the ranch. Based on the novel by Louis L'Amour.

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There are unmistakable pleasures to an old-fashioned Western, and Crossfire Trail has 'em. Tom Selleck has a lean, weathered face that sits nicely atop a horse and beneath a broad-brimmed hat; he plays a canny cowboy who's come to make good on a promise to a dying man and ends up caught between a beautiful woman (Virginia Madsen) and a wicked man in black--a couple of them, actually. Crossfire Trail has just about every element you could ask for (a Sioux war party, a cruel hired gun, a shootout in the street, even a cattle stampede), but it spins them out with such clean efficiency that you can't help but enjoy it. Directed skillfully and with heart, Crossfire Trail will satisfy any Western fan. Based on the novel by Louis L'Amour; also featuring Wilford Brimley and Mark Harmon. --Bret Fetzer

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Return to Lonesome Dove

Actors: Jon Voight, Barbara Hershey, Rick Schroder, Louis Gossett Jr., William Petersen
ASIN : B00008RV0B
Sales Rank : 6931
Director : Mike Robe
Brand : LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
Studio : Lions Gate
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0707729140481
UPC : 707729140481
Release Date : December 20, 2003
Publisher : Lions Gate
Manufacturer : Lions Gate
Label : Lions Gate
Running Time : 322

Description

Return to the story that captured both the spirit of the Old West and the hearts of America. Return to the breathtaking locations, dramatic confrontations, stirring romance and thrilling action. RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE. Jon Voight, Barbara Hershey, Rick Schroeder, Louis Gossett, Jr., William Peterson and Oliver Reed star in the sweeping story of three ex-Texas Rangers, based on characters created by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry. After returning the body of Gus McCrae to Lonesome Dove, Woodrow Call takes on the challenge of driving a herd of wild mustangs 2500 miles north to the Hat Creek Ranch in Montana. But tragedy, triumph, despair and deceit will greet him before he ever gets there. From Indian battles and deadly gunfights, to broken hearts and broken dreams, it's another incredible adventure you'll be able to treasure time and again. RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE continues a classic tradition: to perfectly capture and preserve the pioneer spirit of the American West for generations to come.

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Hondo (Full Screen)

Actors: John Wayne, Geraldine Page, Ward Bond, Michael Pate, James Arness
ASIN : B000ANVPP6
Sales Rank : 5285
Director : John Farrow
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Collector's Edition, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Special Edition, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781415709009
ISBN : 1415709009
UPC : 097368876149
Release Date : December 11, 2005
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 2 days
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 83

Description

Based on the Louis L'Amour story "The Gift of Cochise," this sparkling western has Wayne as a half-Indian Cavalry scout who, with his feral dog companion, finds a young woman and her son living on a isolated ranch in unfriendly Apache country. A poetic and exciting script, outstanding performances, and breathtaking scenery make this an indisputable classic. Page's debut.

Amazon.com

Although scarcely seen in its original 3-D, and entirely out of sight for a decade and a half after its producer-star died, Hondo has maintained a high rep among John Wayne fans--and it wasn't even directed by Howard Hawks or John Ford. (Actually, Ford did shoot some second-unit stuff while visiting Wayne on location.) Half-breed Hondo, companioned only by an antisocial dog, tends to be more sympathetic toward the Apaches than toward the white society he occasionally scouts for. He falls into uneasy friendship with a New Mexico farmwoman (Geraldine Page) whose husband deserts her for long stretches, and whose son (Lee Aaker) is blood brother to the local Apache chieftain. A good, spare frontier tale--Louis L'Amour via James Edward (Angel and the Badman) Grant--in which danger and solace come in unexpected ways. John Farrow, who did direct, brings it in at a lean 84 minutes. Page was Oscar^®-nominated for this first film role. --Richard T. Jameson

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The Harvey Girls

Actors: Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, John Hodiak, Angela Lansbury, Preston Foster
ASIN : B00005Y71M
Sales Rank : 5087
Director : George Sidney
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Turner Home Ent
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790749525
ISBN : 0790749521
UPC : 012569534827
Release Date : December 30, 2001
Publisher : Turner Home Ent
Manufacturer : Turner Home Ent
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Turner Home Ent
Running Time : 102

Description

Musical western about a mail order bride who ditches her bashful suitor and joins a group of women intent on opening a remote whistle stop restaurant.

Amazon.com

Sometimes lively, sometimes pokey, this Technicolor MGM musical inspires mixed feelings in aficionados of the form--except on one point. No viewer will question why "On the Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe" won the best song Oscar for 1946. This is a brilliant, inventive song given an epic staging. Director George Sidney pulls out all the stops for this wowser--even Marjorie Main sings, an eardrum-testing sound. The real-life Harvey Girls were waitresses imported to the far-flung Fred Harvey Hotels, civilizing oases along the railroad lines out west. The fictional Harvey Girls is set in Sandrock, where the traveling waitresses are joined by a sort of mail-order bride (Judy Garland) whose prospective husband is a bust--he's a roughhewn rancher played by Chill Wills. Garland is in fine spunky form; unfortunately, her romance is with John Hodiak (as the owner of a dance hall), that uninspiring World War II-era lead. The film's other great Johnny Mercer-Harry Warren song is the unexpectedly melancholy "It's a Great Big World," performed in a lovely trio by Garland, Virginia O'Brien, and the young Cyd Charisse. The tall, deadpan O'Brien also does a comic take on "The Wild, Wild West" while shoeing a horse. With kewpie-faced Angela Lansbury as a bespangled dance-hall gal and Ray Bolger high-stepping through a dance solo, there are enough good people on board to keep the wheels a-turning "all the way to Californ-eye-yay." --Robert Horton

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The Errol Flynn Signature Collection, Vol. 1 (Captain Blood / The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex / The Sea Hawk / They Died with Their Boots On / Dodge City / The Adventures of Errol Flynn)

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Brenda Marshall, Bette Davis
ASIN : B0007OY2PS
Sales Rank : 7929
Director : B. Reeves Eason, Chuck Jones, David Heeley, Friz Freleng, Jean Negulesco
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Black & White, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790797199
ISBN : 0790797194
UPC : 012569704022
Release Date : December 19, 2005
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 678

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 04/19/2005

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Errol Flynn is one of those names that define movie stardom. Chiseled good looks that stopped just short of being preposterous. A brash and jaunty manner that charmed men and women alike. Whiffs of bad-boy scandal offscreen that only enhanced his legend (not for nothing did "In like Flynn" become a national catchphrase!). And enough marquee-worthy titles that in memory's ear ring like classics.

Flynn's stardom wasn't on a par with the richly ambiguous artistry of Cary Grant, or the deep, enduring heroic legacy of John Wayne, or the indelible character work amassed by Flynn's Warner Bros. contemporaries Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. Still, this most celebrated of Tasmanian devils was a one-of-a-kind, often raffishly entertaining icon of Hollywood in the '30s and '40s who played a big part in making the golden age glow. And for most of us, to say "swashbuckler" is to conjure up Flynn's wolfish grin above a rapier, director Mike Curtiz's wall-filling shadows of dueling men, and the symphonic, trumpet-filled music scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Stardom came swiftly. After two small-part assignments at Warners, the studio awarded Flynn the title role in Captain Blood (1935)--in retrospect, a sort of rough draft for his most beloved movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938; not in this collection). The hero, an Irish-born physician wrongly convicted of treason during the reign of King James, is sentenced to a life of slavery in Jamaica. In short order he's charmed his new master's niece (the bright-eyed Olivia De Havilland, Maid Marian-to-be) and contrived an escape with his rebel comrades to become lusty, albeit passionately populist, buccaneers. The film's budget was clearly limited (there's a stark absence of horizons in the tropic and seagoing scenes), but director Curtiz's camerawork cunningly evokes the ever-present tilting and rolling of life aboard ship. Much-Oscar-nominated, the movie certified Flynn as the Douglas Fairbanks of the sound era--even in blond tresses and without what would become his signatory mustache.

If Captain Blood became the Flynn-Curtiz prototype for swashbucklers, The Sea Hawk was the last, luxury model off the line. Warners was always wired in to the zeitgeist, and this 1940 movie about English privateers saving Queen Elizabeth's island nation from the Spanish Armada does double duty as an in-Der-Fuehrer's-face allegory of the looming world war. No blank horizons here, and every wall sports a towering map of a world ripe for conquest. Slickness is all: Claude Rains and Henry Daniell are impeccably devious diplomats, and Sol Polito's black-and-white cinematography shifts into sultry sepiatone when the Sea Hawks sneak off to the tropics on a transatlantic espionage mission. (As for Flynn's mission, his swashbuckling would hereafter be confined to contemporary war pictures for the duration.)

He also saddled up for some lively Westerns. Dodge City (1939) is a knock-down, drag-out barn-burner in brassy Technicolor, with Flynn as a trail boss reluctantly turned town marshal. Curtiz directs yet again, with flair if not necessarily historical conviction, and the presence of Robin Hood costars Olivia De Havilland and Alan Hale (Little John) is virtually mandatory by this point. Ripe villainy is supplied by Bruce Cabot and--substituting, perhaps, for the un-frontier-worthy Basil Rathbone--the fox-faced Victor Jory.

They Died with Their Boots On (1942) is filled with spectacular Civil War and cavalry action, though its hagiographic treatment of George Armstrong Custer should set historically enlightened viewers on the warpath. Nonetheless, it features Flynn's most interesting performance in the collection. Whereas Curtiz was the ideal director for the star in boy's-own-adventure mode, Raoul Walsh elicited more nuanced work from him (see especially their wonderful Gentleman Jim, not included in this collection), and the scenes between Flynn and Olivia De Havilland achieve a tenderness that deepens with each reel. The magic-hour cinematography is by veteran John Ford cameraman Bert Glennon.

And that--apart from a new documentary feature, The Adventures of Errol Flynn--leaves The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Sad to say, that doesn't leave much. Bette Davis (taking the role Flora Robson played in The Sea Hawk) and Flynn (as the English knight the not-so-Virgin Queen loved but feared as a rival) have zero chemistry; she delivers a mannered performance only a Bette Davis impersonator could love, and Flynn demonstrates how stiff he could be (no pun intended) when clueless about his material. In fairness to both, the movie is a static adaptation of a very repetitious and declamatory Maxwell Anderson play. Its inclusion here is notable only as a vast technical improvement on the long-ago VHS release. --Richard T. Jameson