Cowboy in Sweden (1970)
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Directed by: Torbjörn Axelman
Cast:
Lee Hazlewood
Nina Lizell
Review:
In light of the current resurgence in Lee Hazlewood's popularity, including (finally) some rereleases, it's curious that his films remain unavailable.
After finally getting my grubby little hands on a copy of the COWBOY IN Sweden film, I realize how much of a shame it is that these films are not (or haven't yet) been made more available. The film itself serves as a fine, albeit sometimes bizarre, compliment to the album itself.
Primarily, this film is a music video featuring each of the songs from the album, another by Lee that didn't make it to the album, and a couple of obscure psychedelic bands. The natural beauty of Sweden serves as the setting for much of this film, although we do catch a glimpse of Lee in the studio at the start of the "Leather and Lace" segment.
As for Lee himself, the man is at the top of his game. In his black stetson and cowboy boots, he wanders about a series of dreamscapes and entertains with songs from the album (sometimes the mix is a bit different, too, which keeps things interesting). Lee is usually accompanied by at least one Swedish girl (total eye candy, of course). My favorite video in the collection, however, must be the uber-surreal "The Night Before". Remember the album cover? That image comes from this video. The video itself enacts the song, somewhat, only on a rocky beach. Including a long tracking shot of a Swedish girl dancing across the beach, the video capitalizes upon the hazy, dreamlike element of the song.
Between songs, sometimes, Lee tells a bit about Swedish culture. Nothing very profound... he speaks of the ever-changing weather, midsummer festivals (and how Sweden is dark for half of the year), The Nobel Prize (and how he should win one for "No Train to Stockholm"), Ingmar Bergman, etc. These scenes are usually infused with an element of comedy, contrasting to the seriousness of the music itself.
The other bands featured in the film are pretty typical for late-60's obscuro rock fare. In other words, they aren't great, but they do lend to a feeling of the times.
As hard as the film is to find, for Hazlewood fans, it is worth it to see the man in action on the coattails of arguably one of his finest albums. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 60 minutes
Country: Sweden
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Moonshine War, The (1970)
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Directed by: Richard Quine
Cast:
Patrick McGoohan - Frank Long
Richard Widmark - Dr. Taulbee
Alan Alda - Son Martin
Lee Hazlewood - Dual Metters
Melodie Johnson - Lizann Simpson
Will Geer - Mr. Baylor
Review:
I only watched this film because of Patrick McGoohan, but found it to be a particularly nice strange little film indeed. The Moonshine War is a simple story of a bunch of people trying to get their hands on some hidden whiskey during the last months of prohibition. And what a weird bunch they are. Richard Widmark plays a disgusting former dentist-rapist and McGoohan is at his most neurotic as a dirty G-man, with a weird growling accent. Tom Skerritt and Teri Garr can be spotted in small roles. The film is written by Elmore Leonard, from his own book. It is easy to see why Quentin Tarantino digs him. The scene where Dual (singer Lee Hazlewood) develops a liking for "that boy´s nice suit" could be straight from a Tarantino film. Just about every character in this film is greedy, selfish and freaky. Unfortunately Alan Alda is pretty bland as the central character. He is probably supposed to be likeable, but he just seems boring surrounded by the other oddballs. Alda is not the right man for the role. Also Richard Quine is not a very exciting director, and there are a couple of really awful bubblegum tunes on the soundtrack. The script and some great characters, however, make it a pleasure to watch. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 101 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
New Print 09/09! |
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Smoke (1971)
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Directed by: Torbjörn Axelman
Cast:
Lee Hazlewood ... Smoke
Christina Lindberg ... Annie
Axelle Axell ... Ms. Larsson
Ulf Brunnberg ... Eric
Lena Edling ... Gypsy
Synopsis:
Smoke (Lee Hazlewood) lives in a house with a group of young radicals, and has become the de facto leader of all radicals in the community. During their many late night rap & reefer sessions, Smoke goads the impressionable kids into replacing mere talk with violent actions. Once started, the violence spirals out of control with tragic results.
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 95 minutes
Country: Sweden
Language: English w/ Swedish subtitles, Swedish w/ English subtitles
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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27th Day, The (1957)
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Directed by: William Asher
Cast:
Gene Barry - Jonathan Clark
Valerie French - Eve Wingate
George Voskovec - Prof. Klaus Bechner
Arnold Moss - The Alien
Stefan Schnabel - Leader
Emil Sitka - Newsboy
Synopsis:
A locked-in-the-fifties science fiction film, The 27th Day begins with five different people from five different countries suddenly disappearing from view. They have been gently abducted by the agent (Arnold Moss) of a faraway dying planet, who gives each of the five earthlings a "killing capsule" that will destroy everything on Earth and allow the residents of the alien planet to re-colonize the planet--but which will be ineffective if not used after 27 days.
In typical Cold War fashion, the representatives of the "good" countries (including Gene Barry) refuse to utilize the capsules, while the Soviets, (personified by Azemat Janti and Stefan Schnabel) intend to deploy the capsules for their own nefarious purposes. Their perfidy only results in the utter decimation of the USSR. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Amerika (1987) (TV)
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Directed by: Donald Wrye
Cast:
Kris Kristofferson
Sam Neill
Mariel Hemingway
Dorian Harewood
Ford Rainey
Christine Lahti
Cindy Pickett
Robert Urich
Kelly Proctor
Wendy Hughes
Graham Beckel
Lara Flynn Boyle
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Synopsis:
A seven-part miniseries set ten years after a hypothetical Soviet takeover of the United States. The story relates how the release of a political dissident from prison triggers strong reactions from his estranged family, his childhood friend (now a rising figure in the new regime), the leaders of the occupying forces, and the newly-formed underground movement seeking to oust the Russian invaders. (hollywood.com)
FIVE DVD Set
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 870 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Atomic City, The (1952)
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Directed by: Jerry Hopper
Cast:
Gene Barry - Dr. Addison
Lydia Clarke - Martha Addison
Michael Moore - Russ Farley
Nancy Gates - Ellen
Lee Aaker - Tommy Addison
Houseley Stevenson, Jr. - Gregson
Synopsis:
The city of the title is Los Alamos, where nuclear physicist Gene Barry lives and works. Terrorists kidnap Barry's son and demand that the physicist turn over the H-bomb formula. It's cat-and-mouse for a while, but when the FBI gets on the case, the criminals haven't got a chance. Outdated almost before its release, The Atomic City is still effective on a purely melodramatic level. There's a particularly tense climax played out along the mountain mesas surrounding Los Alamos.(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bamboo Saucer, The (1968)
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Directed by: Frank Telford
Cast:
Dan Duryea - Hank Peters
John Ericson - Fred Norwood
Lois Nettleton - Anna Karachev
Bob Hastings - Garson
Vincent Beck - Zagorsky
Synopsis:
A veteran cast gives the 1968 cheapie The Bamboo Saucer what little credibility it has. In his last role, Dan Duryea plays the head man of an expeditionary force in search of a missing UFO. Since the craft was last sighted in the mountains of Red China, the search takes on political significance. Duryea's American team is eventually forced to align itself with a similarly-purposed group of Soviet researchers (this being a 1968 film, the real bad guys are the Red Chinese). Lois Nettelton has some wonderfully campy moments as a Russian scientist. Bamboo Saucer was produced by Jerry Fairbanks, of "Speaking of Animals" and "Crusader Rabbit" fame. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Day Mars Invaded Earth, The (1963)
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Directed by: Maury Dexter
Cast:
Betty Beall - Judi Fielding
Lowell Brown - Frank
Troy Melton
William Mims - Dr. Web Spencer
George Riley
Gregg Shank - Rocky Fielding
Kent Taylor - Dr. David Fielding
Marie Windsor - Claire Fielding
Synopsis:
Those ever-sneaky Martians are at it again in this sci-fi horror outing that closely resembles Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This time, the crafty invaders are in the process of making exact doubles of an entire town and then killing the original models. The terrifying facts are discovered by a scientist working at Cape Canaveral who is trying to figure out why a recent Martian probe simply exploded after landing on the Red Planet. The fellow has been in Florida working on the project for so long that his wife in California is about to divorce him. Wanting to save his marriage and see his family, he goes home and suddenly ends up fighting for not only his own life, but for all Humanity. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 70 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Fearmakers, The (1958)
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Directed by: Jacques Tourneur
Cast:
Dana Andrews - Alan Eaton
Dick Foran - Jim McGinnis
Mel Tormé - Barney Bond
Marilee Earle - Lorraine Dennis
Veda Ann Borg - Vivian Loder
Joel Marston - Rodney Hillyer
Synopsis:
In this drama, a Korean war veteran, a victim of brainwashing while he was a POW, finally goes back to his home in Washington, DC, where he resumes his job at a public relations-opinion research firm. He soon discovers that his company is being run by communists after his partner mysteriously died. Now pro-communist propaganda seems to be their primary business. To stop them, the vet begins cooperating in a full-scale Senate investigation.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Five Steps to Danger (1957)
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Directed by: Henry S. Kesler
Cast:
Ruth Roman - Ann Nicholson
Sterling Hayden - John Emmett
Werner Klemperer - Dr. Simmons
Richard Gaines - Dean Brant
Charles Davis - Kirk
Jeanne Cooper - Helen Bethke
Synopsis:
Five Steps to Danger was adapted from the novel "The Steel Mirror" by Donald Hamilton. When her scientist brother is killed in East Berlin, Ruth Roman finds herself in possession of a secret code, engraved on the back of a mirror. To prevent Ruth from delivering the secret information to the authorities, double agent Werner Klemperer has her committed to a mental institution. She finds an unlikely savior in the form of misanthropic drifter Sterling Hayden. Producer-director Henry S. Kesler also penned the numbingly complicated screenplay. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C- (From a somewhat worn 16mm print)
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I Married A Communist (1949)
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aka "Woman on Pier 13"
Directed by: Robert Stevenson
Cast:
Laraine Day - Nan Collins
Robert Ryan - Brad Collins
John Agar - Don Lowry
Thomas Gomez - Vanning
Janis Carter - Christine
Synopsis:
There's propaganda aplenty in RKO's I Married a Communist, the first of producer Howard R. Hughes' many anti-Red broadsides. Robert Ryan plays shipping executive Brad Collins, whose youthful flirtations with certain left-wing causes have made him ripe for plucking by Commie cell leader Vanning (Thomas Gomez). Threatening to reveal Collins' "pinko" past, Vanning orders the executive to deliberately sabotage the shipping industry in the Frisco Bay area. Other characters essential to the plotline are Collins' wife Nan (Laraine Day), who knows nothing of her husband's politics, and his idealistic brother-in-law Don (John Agar) who spouts Marxist dogma at the drop of a hat. Apparently at a loss as to how to depict communist villainy, the screenwriters hark back on the gangster films of the 1930s, notably in the scene where a hapless stoolie (the inevitable Paul Guilfoyle) is taken for a ride. When the title I Married a Communist proved an audience turn-off during previews, the film was rechristened The Woman on Pier 13. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 73minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Journey, The (1959)
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Directed by: Anatole Litvak
Cast:
Yul Brynner - Maj. Surov
Deborah Kerr - Lady Diana Ashmore
Jason Robards, Jr. - Paul Kedes/Fleming
Robert Morley - Hugh Deverill
E.G. Marshall - Harold Rhinelander
Review:
Very literate, intelligent drama about a group of international travelers held virtual prisoners in the Hungary of 1956 by invading Russian Communist regime. Kerr and Robards play lovers, she a British baroness, he a Hungarian freedom fighter trying to do his bit for his country. Other New York theater stars of the period Anne Jackson & E G Marshall play an American couple traveling with their two young sons, including Ronny Howard in his screen debut. Jackson's character is hugely pregnant and not anxious to give birth in a soon-to-be communist country; she gives an impassioned plea in the third act of this film which presages the naturalistic acting styles we've come to know today from Redgrave, Fonda, & Streep. Leading the pack of Soviet wolves is Yul Brynner, magnificent as a commandant and at his sexiest since he played opposite Kerr in "The King and I". He is mean and nasty and terribly conflicted by his attraction to the lovely, patrician, & heroic Kerr. This is one of the great transition films of the latter part of the Golden Era of American film. Do not miss it. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 125 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A-
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Kremlin Letter, The (1970)
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Directed by: John Huston
Cast:
Bibi Andersson - Erika
Richard Boone - Ward
Nigel Green - Janis
Dean Jagger - Highwayman
Lila Kedrova - Sophie
Michael MacLiammoir - Sweet Alice
Synopsis:
When American agents in Moscow try to recover a stolen letter implicating America in an anti-Red China plot, they discover a hornet's nest of treason, double agents, murder, and betrayal. The plot has as many switchbacks as a Formula One racetrack, and a pad and paper to keep track of the agents and their code names wouldn't hurt. Still, The Kremlin Letter is an interesting espionage movie with some good performances. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 125 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C+
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Ladybug, Ladybug (1963)
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Directed by: Frank Perry
Cast:
Jane Connell - Mrs. Maxton
William Daniels - Mr. Calkins
James Frawley - Truck driver
Richard Hamilton - JoAnn's father
Kathryn Hays - Mrs. Forbes
Synopsis:
During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, teachers at a secluded countryside elementary school are asked to walk their pupils home after a nuclear bomb warning alarm goes off. What they don't know is that, in fact, the alarm was tripped by accident and there is no danger; but the adults and children have by this point fully accepted the dread of the oncoming nuclear holocaust.
The anxiety builds as they are led home by their teachers along endless dirt roads and isolated fields. When the children gain access to a bomb shelter, they refuse entry to a less popular girl, claiming there isn't enough room. The child searches for a place to hide from the assumed oncoming attack. The result of undue panic and paranoia caused by the Cold War.
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 82 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: B&W
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B-
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My Son John (1952)
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Directed by: Leo McCarey
Cast:
Helen Hayes - Lucille Jefferson
Van Heflin - Stedman of the FBI
Robert Walker - John Jefferson
Dean Jagger - Dan Jefferson
Minor Watson - Dr. Carvey
Synopsis:
Filled with the kind of Red Scare propaganda that must have delighted members of McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee, this drama chronicles the attempts of two All-American parents to save their son from the temptations of Communism. Unfortunately, they are too late. The arrogant and intellectual young man, a worker in a federal agency, returns home from a long absence spouting pro-Ruskie doctrine and deriding the beliefs of capitalism and US at every opportunity. Enraged at his son's mocking ways, he beans him with the family bible. Things get worse when an FBI agent shows up to tell the horrified parents that their son is an enemy spy. The mother blows a gasket and flies to Washington, DC where her son works to make him swear on the same book that the FBI agent is wrong. The son does so, but its a lie. The mother soon finds this out. She also learns that her treacherous son's girlfriend is a Commie. What's a mother to do?
Fortunately, before it is too late, her son realizes the error of his ways and tries to double-cross his Pinko superiors. Unfortunately, it is too late and they shoot him and just before he gaspingly dies upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he tapes his final confession and gives American youth everywhere a potent message about honor. The star of the film, Walker, best remembered for his gripping portrayal of a psychopath in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, died before production finished and so scenes from that film were spliced into My Son, John. (allmovie.com)
NEW UPDATED PRINT!
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 122 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A-
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Red Menace, The (1949)
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Directed by: R. G. Springsteen
Cast:
Robert Rockwell - Bill Jones
Hannelore Axman - Nina Petrovka
Shepard Menken - Henry Solomon
Barbara Fuller - Mollie O'Flaherty
Betty Lou Gerson - Yvonne Kraus
Lester Luther - Earl Partridge
Synopsis:
One of the most famous of the anti-communist tracts of the late 1940s, Republic's The Red Menace plays like a merciless lampoon of the genre when seen today. After a portentous introduction by one Lloyd G. Davies, described as a member of the Los Angeles City Council, the film concentrates on disgruntled ex-GI Bill Jones (Robert Rockwell). Having been victimized by crooked real estate agents, Jones turns to the government for help, only to come away empty-handed and mad as a wet hen. Obviously, the susceptible Jones is ripe for plucking by the American Communist Party. Using slogans, bribes and even sex to recruit disenfranchised souls like Jones, the dirty Reds hope to spread their poison to the entire U.S. of A. Fortunately, Jones and another commie dupe, schoolteacher Nina Petrovka (Hanne Axman), smarten up just in time.
The HUAC and Joe McCarthy needn't have searched so diligently for subversives: according to The Red Menace, all they would have had to do was arrest anyone wearing a baggy suit or sporting a bad haircut. Some modern-day viewers begin laughing the moment the opening title of Red Menace, wherein an animated octopus wraps its tentacles around the Free World, fades into view. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 87 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Shack Out On 101 (1955)
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Directed by: Edward Dein
Cast:
Terry Moore
Frank Lovejoy
Kennan Wynn
Lee Marvin
Synopsis:
It is all but impossible to dislike this ultra-cheap "Cold War paranoia" melodrama. Virtually the entire picture takes place on a single set, representing a rundown roadside diner. Lee Marvin plays the aptly named Slob, a lecherous short-order cook who lusts after shapely waitress Kotty (Terry Moore). Also interested in Kotty is a scientist known only as The Professor (Frank Lovejoy), who spends the better part of his free time at the diner's counter. It turns out that the Professor is a traitor, exchanging top-secret information with Slob, who's actually a commie agent. Only the Professor isn't a traitor, see, he's really . . . But why spoil the film for the uninitiated? For the record, Keenan Wynn and Whit Bissell are also in Shack Out on 101. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Split Second (1953)
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Directed by: Dick Powell
Cast:
Stephen McNally
Alexis Smith
Jan Sterling
Synopsis:
Actor Dick Powell made an impressive film debut with the taut atomic-age suspenser Split Second. Convicts Stephen McNally, Paul Kelly and Frank DeKova escape to a ghost town in the Nevada desert. Only it isn't exactly a ghost town, but a "dummy village" constructed for the purpose of A-bomb testing. The criminals hold several hostages, including reporter Keith Andes, nightclub singer Jan Sterling, selfish socialite Alexis Smith, her doctor-husband Richard Egan and her newest boyfriend Robert Paige.
Andes suspects that the deserted town is at Ground Zero of the latest bomb test, but he can't convince the convicts until it's almost too late. The best and most horrifying sequence occurs near the end, when the criminals, accompanied by the duplicitous Ms. Smith, discover that they're driving towards the A-bomb target instead of away from it. Novelist Irving Wallace collaborated on the script of Split Second with Chester Erskine and William Bowers. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Storm Center (1956)
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Directed by: Daniel Taradash
Cast:
Bette Davis - Alicia Hull
Kim Hunter - Martha Lockridge
Paul Kelly - Judge Robert Ellerbe
Kevin Coughlin - Freddie Slater
Synopsis:
Trouble brews when a widowed, small town librarian takes a stand against censorship. The trouble begins when the town fathers ask that she remove a book from the shelf because they deem it a pro-communist tract and fear it will taint susceptible young minds. She sees the idiocy of their request and defies them. They in turn fire her and replace her with her old friend and assistant. The town judge considers the whole mess a gross miscarriage of justice and demands a trial. This gives an ambitious young lawyer, the boyfriend of the new librarian the opportunity to do a little grandstanding by publicly proclaiming the highly-principled widow a communist. The poor woman suddenly finds herself the town pariah; her only remaining friend is a small boy she used to talk to in the library. He plays a key role in restoring her good name. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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To the Ends of the Earth (1948)
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Directed by: Robert Stevenson
Cast:
Dick Powell - Michael Barrows
Signe Hasso - Ann Grant
Ludwig Donath - Commissioner Lum Chi Chow
Vladimir Sokoloff - Nicholas Sokim
Synopsis:
The relatively relaxed movie censorship in the postwar years enabled Columbia to produce To the Ends of the Earth, a film which dealt with the previously taboo subject of drug smuggling. T-man Dick Powell is sent to several foreign locales to track down an Opium ring. The villains are subversives (Red? Fascist?) who plan to take over the world by hooking everyone on the "hard stuff." The film is chock full of mysterious European and Oriental types like Vladimir Sokoloff, Ludwig Donath and Fritz Leiber; even leading lady Signe Hasso speaks with an accent, which in 1948 was enough to immediately put her under suspicion. Lending credence to this sprawling adventure yarn is the presence of several actual treasury agents in bit parts, including commissioner Harry J. Anslinger. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 109 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Walk East on Beacon! (1952)
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Directed by: Alfred L. Werker
Cast:
George Murphy - Inspector Belden
Finlay Currie - Prof. Kafer
Virginia Gilmore - Millie
Karel Stepanek - Alex
Louisa Horton - Elaine
Peter Capell - Gino
Synopsis:
Louis de Rochemont, former March of Time producer whose "docudrama" films proved so popular in the 1940s, offers more of the same in Walk East on Beacon. Based on an article written (or ghostwritten) by J. Edgar Hoover, the film concerns the efforts by the FBI to plug up a dangerous security leak. Federal agent Belden (George Murphy) is assigned to locate the communist mastermind behind the leak, and to trace all avenues of informational access utilized by the Bad Guys. Finlay Currie co-stars as an Einstein-like scientist who is being blackmailed by the Reds into cooperating with them, while Karel Stepanek is slime personified as the top Eastern-Bloc spy. Largely filmed on location in New York, Walk East on Beacon makes good use of several Manhattan-based actors, few of whom were seen in films either before or since. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 98 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Alyssa Milano's Teen Steam (1988)
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Cast:
Alyssa Milano ... Herself
Tiffanie Poston ... Herself
Michelle Simms ... Herself
Christie Furuka ... Dancer
Cheryl Richardson ... Dancer
Synopsis:
Guys, if you can only own ONE VIDEO, this is the one.
TRUST ME. I have been addicted to Alyssa for over a decade, and this is the HOTTEST video she ever released (DANCE TILL DAWN Is a close second). She does these laughable workout routines, which if you try to duplicate will probably not grow your biceps or anything, but watch the scenes where she bounces up and down in incredibly tight and low cut spandex outfits over and over again in super slow mo and you'll get a whole different, and far superior, kind of workout. Alyssa was about 16 when she filmed this, before that... hairdresser cut her beautiful hair.
She looks incredible - does anything else matter? (amazon.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 45 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Warm-Up with Traci Lords (1988)
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Cast:
Traci Lords
Synopsis:
The post-porn actress becomes a physical fitness advocate, leading the viewer through this non-impact "Jazzthetics" workout designed to be completely safe with no stress on any body joints. An easy to follow, cardiovascular workout with emphasis on burning off cellulite. (rottentomatoes.com)
Made just after Traci turned 18, legend has it that most copies were sold to men who used it's exercises to increase wrist and grip strength.
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 50 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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13 West Street (1962)
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Directed by: Philip Leacock
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Walt Sherill
Rod Steiger - Detective Sgt. Koleski
Michael Callan - Chuck Landry
Dolores Dorn - Tracey Sherill
Kenneth MacKenna - Paul Logan
Synopsis:
Leaning heavily on violence to ostensibly deliver a pacifist message, this standard drama by Philip Leacock looks at the problem of teen gangs from a slightly different angle -- these teens are all wealthy. Everything starts off when aerospace engineer Walt Sherill (Alan Ladd) is accosted and severely beaten by a group of young punks. The victimized man decides to hunt down the thugs on his own, at first just for curiosity and then increasingly for vengeance. His actions spark retaliatory measures, and before the credits roll, the body count is elevated by a few more victims in what amounts to nothing more than a blood feud. In the end, justice of the legal and politically correct sort makes a token appearance. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Appointment with Danger (1951)
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Directed by: Lewis Allen
Cast:
Alan Ladd
Phyllis Calvert
Paul Stewart
Jan Sterling
Jack Webb
Review:
Al Goddard, (Alan Ladd) special investigator for the U.S. post office, is assigned to collar two criminals who've murdered a postal detective. Goddard must first locate the only witness to the crime, attractive young nun, Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert). Posing as a crook, Goddard gains the confidence of the murderers' boss Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), who has worked out a scheme to defraud the post office of one million dollars. Once they've tumbled to the deception, the crooks take Goddard and the nun prisoner, leading to a fight to the finish in a lonely industrial district. Appointment with Danger tends to draw chuckles rather than shivers nowadays, thanks to the casting of future Dragnet co-stars Jack Webb and Harry Morgan as the murderers -- and as icing to the cake, viewers are treated to a scene in which Webb bumps off Morgan! As a whole, the film, the last of Alan Ladd's series of film noir, is uneven and generally unsuccessful. However, it contains some crisp, tough dialogue and some terrific action sequences which make it worthwhile.(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 89 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B+
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Blue Dahlia, The (1946)
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Directed by: George Marshall
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Johnny Morrison
Veronica Lake - Joyce Harwood
William Bendix - Buzz Wanchek
Howard Da Silva - Eddie Harwood
Doris Dowling - Helen Morrison
Synopsis:
This neat, fast-paced perfectly cast film noir reflects the hard-boiled, grim wit of the author of its screenplay, Raymond Chandler. Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) returns from the war to find his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) having a party and in the arms of another man. Johnny and Helen have a terrible fight, and later Helen is found dead. Johnny must prove his innocence and he enlists the aid of Joyce Haywood (Veronica Lake), the ex-wife of Helen's lover. Pursued by the cops, and never sure if he is being set-up for the murder, Johnny finally solves the murder and clears his name. Alan Ladd is at his hard-boiled, no-nonsense best as Johnny and Veronica Lake is, as always, the perfect noir femme-fatale, mysterious and alluring. Nicely directed by George Marshall, the film moves with great pace to an exciting, satisfying conclusion. The screenplay, the only one written by Chandler directly for the screen, was nominated for an Academy Award. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Botany Bay (1953)
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Directed by: John Farrow
Cast:
Mark Stevens - Rocky Barnes
Edmond O'Brien - Dan Purvis
Gale Storm - Kate Mallory
Donald Buka - Richie Garris
Gale Robbins - Terry Romaine
Synopsis:
Framed for robbery, 18th century medical student Alan Ladd is sentenced to a New South Wales penal colony. En route to the prison, Ladd is tormented by sadistic ship's captain James Mason, while Mason's beloved Patricia Medina takes a fancy to the new prisoner. Once at the colony, Ladd is befriended by governor Sir Cedric Hardwicke, since the populace is in desperate need of a qualified physician. Mason's efforts to continue persecuting Ladd are foiled when Mason is killed by a group of disgruntled aborigines. Though it sounds a lot like Captain Blood, Botany Bay was based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Boy on a Dolphin, The (1957)
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Directed by: Jean Negulesco
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Dr. James Calder
Sophia Loren - Phaedra
Clifton Webb - Victor Parmalee
Alexis Minotis - Government Man
Laurence Naismith - Dr. Hawkins
Jorge Mistral - Rhif
Synopsis:
Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren made her American film debut with this glossy romantic adventure set (and partially filmed) on the Greek island of Hydra. Phaedra (Loren) is a female sponge diver who, while combing the waters, discovers the wreckage of a sunken ship with a number of fascinating artifacts, including a statue of a boy astride a dolphin. When Phaedra tells her boyfriend Rhif (Jorge Mistral) about the find, he is convinced that the statue is valuable, and he begins making plans to bring it to dry land for sale.
Looking for help, they approach Dr. James Calder (Alan Ladd), an American archeologist working on a project for a Greek museum. Calder wants the statue but can't pay for it -- he wants Phaedra and Rhif to donate it to his museum as a remarkable example of Greek statuary. This is hardly what Rhif had in mind, so he turns to Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), a wealthy American art collector intrigued by the statue and other valuables that might be in the ship. Rhif and Victor make plans to salvage the ship's contents and send them back to America, for which Rhif will be paid handsomely. But Phaedra finds herself attracted to Calder, especially after she is disgusted by Victor's blunt offer to make her his mistress, and she begins a romance with the principled American. Now Phaedra and Calder must try to rescue the ship's valuables before Rhif and Parmalee can get to them.
The love scenes between Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd presented something of a problem for director Jean Negulesco and his crew -- Ladd was 5' 4" and Loren was 5' 8", requiring him to stand on a box for two shots; for a scene where the two walked together along the beach, the crew dug a trench for Loren to walk in, so Ladd would appear taller. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 120 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops, Widescreen
Print Quality: B- (Slightly fuzzy)
If you would prefer a somewhat sharper fullscreen version of this film, please mention it while ordering. |
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Calcutta (1947)
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Directed by: John Farrow
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Neale Gordon
Gail Russell - Virginia Moore
William Bendix - Pedro Blake
June Duprez - Marina Tanev
Lowell Gilmore - Eric Lasser
Synopsis:
Alan Ladd stars in Calcutta as devil-may-care pilot Neale Gordon. With his equally fearless partners Pedro Blake (William Bendix) and Bill Cunningham (John Whitney), Gordon handles the air-freight route between Calcutta and Chungking. When Cunningham meets his death at the hands of jewel smugglers, Gordon vows to play judge and jury and bring the criminals to justice himself. Among the suspects are the film's two gorgeous leading ladies, sweetie-pie Virginia Moore (Gail Russell) and sultry nightclub singer Merina Tanev (June Duprez). Once Gordon figures out who his real friends are, he relies on his fists to mete out retribution, resulting in one sequence that's guaranteed to raise the hackles of every feminist in the crowd. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Chicago Deadline (1949)
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Directed by: Lewis Allen
Cast:
Alan Ladd
Donna Reed
June Havoc
Irene Hervey
Arthur Kennedy
Synopsis:
Tough reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) wants to get the full story behind the apparent suicide of a young woman. It seems that the girl left behind a notebook with a list of seemingly unrelated names. Adams tracks down each one of the persons cited in the notebook, slowly but surely putting the pieces together. Once the basic mystery is solved, however, there's one surprising loose end left to be tied up. June Havoc co-stars as Leona, self-styled best friend of the decedent, who helps Adams in his quest. As the victim, Donna Reed appears exclusively in flashbacks. Based on a story by veteran suspense scrivener Tiffany Thayer (of Thirteen Women fame). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 86 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Glass Key, The (1942)
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Directed by: Stuart Heisler
Cast:
Brian Donlevy - Paul Madvig
Veronica Lake - Janet Henry
Alan Ladd - Ed Beaumont
Bonita Granville - Opal Madvig
William Bendix - Jeff
Richard Denning - Taylor Henry
Synopsis:
Dashiel Hammett's The Glass Key, a tale of big-city political corruption, was first filmed in 1935, with Edward Arnold as a duplicitous political boss and George Raft as his loyal lieutenant. This 1942 remake improves on the original, especially in replacing the stolid Raft with the charismatic Alan Ladd. Brian Donlevy essays the role of the boss, who is determined to back reform candidate Moroni Olsen, despite Ladd's gut feeling that this move is a mistake. Ladd knows that Donlevy is doing a political about-face merely to get in solid with Olsen's pretty daughter Veronica Lake.
It is Ladd who is left to clean up the mess when crime lord Joseph Calleila murders Olsen's wastrel son Richard Denning and pins the rap on Donlevy. As Ladd struggles to clear Donlevy's name, he falls in love with Lake--when he's not being pummeled about by Calleila's psychopathic henchman William Bendix. Far less complex than the Dashiel Hammett original (and far less damning of the American political system), The Glass Key further increased the box-office pull of Paramount's new team of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Great Gatsby, The (1949)
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Directed by: Elliot Nugent
Cast:
Alan Ladd
Betty Field
Ruth Hussey
Barry Sullivan
Howard Da Silva
Shelly Winters
Synopsis:
This second film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's definitive jazz-age novel The Great Gatsby stars Alan Ladd in the title role. Jay Gatsby, formerly Jake Gatz, is a successful bootlegger with aspirations of being accepted in the highest social circles of Long Island. Once he's done this, Gatsby devotes his time to winning back the love of his former lady friend Daisy (Betty Field), now married to boorish "old-money" millionaire Tom Buchanan (Barry Sullivan). Gatsby's obsession with rekindling old flames results in disillusionment and, ultimately, tragedy. Sidelines observer Nick Carraway, the narrator of the original Fitzgerald novel, is expertly played by MacDonald Carey, while Shelley Winters makes an excellent impression as Buchanan's slatternly mistress Myrtle Wilson. Cast as Myrtle's dour optometrist husband is Howard Da Silva, who essayed a minor role in the 1974 remake of Great Gatsby. That 1974 version has unfortunately kept the 1949 Gatsby from being released to television. (allmovie.com)
"A Great Cast... A Great Novel... A Great Motion Picture!"
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 91 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black & White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Island of Lost Souls (1932)
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Directed by: Erle C. Kenton
Cast:
Charles Laughton - Dr. Moreau
Bela Lugosi - Sayer of the Law
Richard Arlen - Edward Parker
Leila Hyams - Ruth Thomas
Kathleen Burke - Lota, the Panther Woman
Alan Ladd - Ape Man
Synopsis:
An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. Despite the more graphic fright movies of recent vintage--including at least two remakes of this title--this film retains its ability to horrify even the most discriminating of fans, and remains possibly the greatest and most shattering monster movie ever made, with perhaps the finest career performance from an almost-unrecognizable Bela Lugosi. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 71 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lucky Jordan (1942)
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Directed by: Frank Tuttle
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Lucky Jordan
Helen Walker - Jill Evans
Sheldon Leonard - Slip Moran
Mabel Paige - Annie
Marie McDonald - Pearl
Lloyd Corrigan - Ernest Higgins
Synopsis:
Lucky Jordan (Alan Ladd) is a tough but good-natured New York racketeer who tries to finagle his way out of Army service. Despite his efforts, Jordan is drafted, but soon goes AWOL, with a lovely USO worker (Helen Walker) dogging his heels. She tries to arouse Jordan's patriotism, but he is unmoved until a gang of enemy spies beat up an old lady con artist (Mabel Paige) whom Lucky regards as a surrogate mother. Using his underhanded "street smarts," Jordan rounds up the spies and agrees to complete his military servitude. Lucky Jordan was one of several wartime films in which otherwise larcenous individuals are redeemed by channelling their talents for the good of Uncle Sam. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Cause For Alarm (1951)
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Directed by: Tay Garnett
Cast:
Loretta Young
Barry Sullivan
with Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer
Review:
CAUSE FOR ALARM boasts a fine leading lady in the talented Loretta Young who is believable in the everywoman role she plays here. Barry Sullivan as her sick and mentally unbalanced husband George Jones hits just the right note as well. While the film is somewhat dated in terms of the here and now, it has some very gripping and suspenseful moments especially involving the very real panic surrounding the letter George sent the district attorney due to his psychotic delusion that his wife and his doctor (her old friend) were plotting to kill him. In fact the ending here does cast a little doubt in the viewer's mind making this film even more intriguing. Any fan of suspense thrillers should enjoy this one. (imdb.com)
"This Girl Is In Trouble!"
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 74 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Framed (1947)
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Directed by: Richard Wallace
Cast:
Glenn Ford - Mike Lambert
Janis Carter - Paula Craig
Barry Sullivan - Stephen Price
Edgar Buchanan - Jeff Cunningham
Karen Morley - Mrs. Price
Kenneth MacDonald - Policeman
Harry "Snub" Pollard - Dishwasher
Synopsis:
A man down on his luck runs afoul of a beautiful but dangerous woman in this superior low-budget film noir. Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford), while trained as a mining engineer, has fallen on hard times and is driving a truck when his rig breaks down in a small town. He soon meets the seductive Paula Craig (Janis Carter) at a cafe and is quickly drawn into her web of larceny. Paula encourages her lover, Stephen Price (Barry Sullivan), to rob the bank that he manages, then kills Stephen and takes the ill-gotten money. Paula confesses the killing to Mike and begs him to run away with her, claiming she murdered Price in a fit of passion while she was drunk. Mike considers her offer until he learns that his close friend Jeff Cunningham (Edgar Buchanan) has been accused of killing Stephen -- and that Paula intends to pin the robbery that Stephen committed on Mike. Femme Fatale Janis Carter originally studied to be a classical musician before her career as an actress took off, while Edgar Buchanan's big break would come 16 years down the road, when he was cast as "Uncle Joe" on the television series Petticoat Junction. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 82 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Gangster, The (1947)
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Directed by: Gordon Wiles
Cast:
Barry Sullivan - Shubunka
Belita - Nancy Starr
Joan Lorring - Dorothy
Akim Tamiroff - Nick Jammey
John Ireland - Karty
Leif Erickson - Beaumont
Charles McGraw - Dugas
Shelley Winters - Hazel
Elisha Cook, Jr. - Oval
Synopsis:
Having struck gold with the previous season's Dillinger, the King Brothers returned to Monogram as producers of The Gangster. Adapted by Daniel Fuchs from his own novel Low Company, the film stars Barry Sullivan as flint-faced racketeer Shubunka. Shown to be a product of the slums, Shubunka spends his adulthood in pursuit of power and riches, with no time for friendship or romance. Wounded in a gangland shootout, Shubunka ruminates on his past, present and (unlikely) future, wondering if it's all been worth it.
Promoted as a "psychological" drama, The Gangster has plenty of gunplay and bloodshed to satiate action fans, and a surfeit of sex appeal in the form of gangster's moll Nancy (played by Monogram's resident skating star Belita). Prominent in the supporting cast is the ineluctable Sheldon Leonard as Shubunka's chief rival, delivering a subtler variation on his patented tough-guy screen persona. The Gangster was directed by Oscar-winning art director Gordon Wiles, later a mainstay of such TV series as Land of the Lost and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Great Gatsby, The (1949)
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Directed by: Elliot Nugent
Cast:
Alan Ladd
Betty Field
Ruth Hussey
Barry Sullivan
Howard Da Silva
Shelly Winters
Synopsis:
This second film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's definitive jazz-age novel The Great Gatsby stars Alan Ladd in the title role. Jay Gatsby, formerly Jake Gatz, is a successful bootlegger with aspirations of being accepted in the highest social circles of Long Island. Once he's done this, Gatsby devotes his time to winning back the love of his former lady friend Daisy (Betty Field), now married to boorish "old-money" millionaire Tom Buchanan (Barry Sullivan). Gatsby's obsession with rekindling old flames results in disillusionment and, ultimately, tragedy. Sidelines observer Nick Carraway, the narrator of the original Fitzgerald novel, is expertly played by MacDonald Carey, while Shelley Winters makes an excellent impression as Buchanan's slatternly mistress Myrtle Wilson. Cast as Myrtle's dour optometrist husband is Howard Da Silva, who essayed a minor role in the 1974 remake of Great Gatsby. That 1974 version has unfortunately kept the 1949 Gatsby from being released to television. (allmovie.com)
"A Great Cast... A Great Novel... A Great Motion Picture!"
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 91 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black & White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Miami Story, The (1954)
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Directed by: Fred Sears
Cast:
Barry Sullivan - Mick Flagg
Luther Adler - Tony Brill
John Baer - Ted Delacorte
Adele Jergens - Gwen Abbott
Beverly Garland - Holly Abbott
Dan Riss - Frank Alton
Synopsis:
In this Miami-set crime drama, a secret society of residents united against the ever-encroaching Mafia, hire a reform mobster to help them stop the violence by exposing the Mafia to public scrutiny. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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No Questions Asked (1951)
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Directed by: Harold Kress
Cast:
Barry Sullivan - Steve Kelyer
Arlene Dahl - Ellen Sayburn
George Murphy - Inspector Matt Duggan
Jean Hagen - Joan Brenson
Richard Anderson - Detective Walter O'Bannion
Synopsis:
Steve Keiver, young lawyer working for an insurance company, hears his boss remark that he'd pay a large sum "no questions asked" for return of stolen property to avoid paying a much larger claim. On his own initiative, Steve arranges such a deal, earning a nice commission. But he catches the eye of gangsters who think he's the ideal middleman for future similar deals...many of them. As Steve is drawn in deeper, the police take an interest in him, and he's ripe for a doublecross (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Purple Gang, The (1959)
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Directed by: Frank McDonald
Cast:
Barry Sullivan
Robert Blake
Elaine Edwards
Synopsis:
Although this story of the making of a gangland hoodlum reflects only some of the real history of the Detroit Purple Gang in it, the violence portrayed is completely truthful. The sense of reality here is increased by the use of newsreel footage. Robert Blake is "Honeyboy" Willard, a juvenile delinquent always in trouble for petty thefts and similar deeds. (The actual Purple Gang started that way just before 1920, led by the youthful Bernstein brothers.) Cop Bill Harley (Barry Sullivan) is convinced that Willard's violent side can only be tamed by a stint behind bars. Opposing him is a social worker who wants to use modern methods of therapy to correct the teen's problems. When the social worker is found brutally murdered, the cop knows that Willard is responsible. He decides to stick with the case -- in spite of the fact that the gang eventually has a lot of city and union brass in its pocket. Just as a note, the gang got their name because one citizen commented that they were tainted, like the purple color of bad meat. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Unknown Man, The (1951)
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Directed by: Richard Thorpe
Cast:
Walter Pidgeon - Dwight Bradley Mason
Ann Harding - Stella Mason
Barry Sullivan - Joe Buckner
Keefe Brasselle - Rudi Wallchek
Lewis Stone - Judge Holbrook
Eduard Franz - Andrew Jason Layford
Synopsis:
Highly respected defense attorney Dwight Bradley Mason (Walter Pidgeon) is able to clear young Rudi Wallchek (Keefe Brasselle) of a murder rap. When it's all over, however, Rudi lets slip a careless comment which leads Mason to believe that his client was guilty after all. Using the evidence at hand, the attorney retraces his steps, only to discover that one of the town's leading citizens is a criminal mastermind. The solution to this ethical dilemma is straight out of the "postman always rings twice" school of crime fiction. Even after justice has been served, however, Mason's conscience dictates that everyone responsible for all previous legal miscarriages be punished -- including himself! (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 86 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C (some pixelation)
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America Screams (1990) w/ Vincent Price
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Cast:
Vincent Price
Synopsis:
Vincent Price gives a great history of rollercoasters starting with La Marcus Thomson and Coney Island to modern day (late 70's) rides. Includes construction footage of Colossus at Magic Mountain, video of Arrow's suspended prototype, an interview with Karl Bacon of Arrow, plus lots of ride footage of coasters from around the country.
(amazon.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 30 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bigamist, The (1953)
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Directed by: Ida Lupino
Cast:
Edmond O'Brien - Harry Graham
Joan Fontaine - Eve Graham
Ida Lupino - Phyllis Martin
Edmund Gwenn - Mr. Jordan
Jane Darwell - Mrs. Connelly
Synopsis:
The title character is Edmond O'Brien, a lonely travelling salesman looking for love. He finds it by marrying an eligible young woman (Joan Fontaine)--and then by marrying another eligible young woman (Ida Lupino) in another city. When one of the wives becomes suspicious of O'Brien's frequent "business trips", she takes a journey of her own and learns the truth. Directed by costar Ida Lupino, The Bigamist manages to evoke a certain amount of sympathy for Edmond O'Brien, without in any way advocating or excusing his lifestyle. It's worth noting that an Italian film made around the same time, also titled The Bigamist, is a comedy.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 79 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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C-Man (1949)
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Directed by: Joseph Lerner
Cast:
Dean Jagger - Cliff Holden
John Carradine - Doc Spencer
Harry Landers - Owney
Rene Paul - Matty Royal
Adelaide Klein - Mrs. Hoffman
Edith Atwater - Lydia Brundage
Walter Brooke - Joe
Synopsis:
In the tradition of such big-budget "docudramas" as House on 92nd Street and Call Northside 777, the modestly budgeted C-Man adopts a quasi-documentary approach to its subject matter. The "C" stands for Customs, and indeed the leading character, Cliff Holden (Dean Jagger), is a detective for the U.S. Customs Department. Against a backdrop of genuine New York locations (with a few rather obvious back-projected shots thrown in), Holden puts the heat on a homicidal jewelry smuggler. John Carradine steals the show as an alcoholic doctor, reduced to fronting for the smugglers. The rest of the cast is populated with such Broadway regulars as Edith Atwater and Walter Brooke. Though it obviously cost next to nothing to produce, C-Man is far more atmospheric and suspenseful than many a major-studio effort. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Capture, The (1950)
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Directed by: John Sturges
Cast:
Lew Ayres - Vanner
Teresa Wright - Ellen Vanner
Victor Jory - Father Gomez
Jacqueline White - Luana
Jimmy Hunt - Mike
Synopsis:
Virtually ignored at the time of its release, Capture has built up a small but enthusiastic following since its lapse into public domain. American oil man Lew Ayres kills a coworker whom he suspects of robbery. Thinking it over, Ayres wonders whether or not the man was innocent. He seeks out his victim's widow, played by Teresa Wright. They fall in love and marry, which does nothing to soothe Ayres' guilty conscience. When he discovers who was actually behind the robbery, Ayres goes after the real culprit, who is accidentally killed before justice can be done. Falsely accused of murder, Ayres now fully understands the untenable position of the man he'd killed so long before. The Capture was produced by Niven Busch, the then-husband of Teresa Wright (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 63 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Cause For Alarm (1951)
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Directed by: Tay Garnett
Cast:
Loretta Young
Barry Sullivan
with Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer
Review:
CAUSE FOR ALARM boasts a fine leading lady in the talented Loretta Young who is believable in the everywoman role she plays here. Barry Sullivan as her sick and mentally unbalanced husband George Jones hits just the right note as well. While the film is somewhat dated in terms of the here and now, it has some very gripping and suspenseful moments especially involving the very real panic surrounding the letter George sent the district attorney due to his psychotic delusion that his wife and his doctor (her old friend) were plotting to kill him. In fact the ending here does cast a little doubt in the viewer's mind making this film even more intriguing. Any fan of suspense thrillers should enjoy this one. (imdb.com)
"This Girl Is In Trouble!"
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 74 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Turkish Star Wars (with English Subs) (1982)
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Directed by: Çetin Inanç
Cast:
Cüneyt Arkin ... Murat
Aytekin Akkaya ... Ali
Füsun Uçar ... Bilgin'in Kizi
Hüseyin Peyda ... Bilgin
Necla Fide ... Kraliçe
Why do we sell this when many other underground film sites do?
Because you have to see it! No, really! There are two distinct advantedges to owning our version:
1 - English subtitles custom created by our friend in Turkey (many other sell copies with no subs at all!).
2 - Our Price! You won't find it for less anywhere in the galaxy.
Review:
At a meeting between Romanian President Traian Basescu and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Basescu bluntly told Gates that Windows piracy practically built the Romanian IT industry. One can imagine Star Wars Inc. founder George Lucas’s reaction to news that this 1982 film--assembled from original footage by Turkish filmmakers, a print of Lucas’s Star Wars, and copious soundtrack excerpts from other American films--had become a bona fide underground classic.
Titled "The Man Who Saves the World" in Turkish, this kung fu-laced space epic opens with a Lucasian torrent of backstory. Whether or not the English subtitles of this bootleg are accurate, the prologue, set against a mash-up of reappropriated Star Wars footage, remains a stunning and completely impenetrable garble of postapocalyptic rhetoric (“Earth was facing the danger of extinction as a result of a crazy nuclear armament”). Having crash landed on a desert planet, Turkish heroes Murat and Ali must dust off their kung fu chops for use against a brigade of skeleton horsemen; they also have to defend a blonde beauty and outwit a thousand-year-old wizard who feasts on human blood.
Though it clocks in at a mere 91 minutes, the film feels like an eternity in B movie purgatory. However, the constant looping and re-looping of martial arts footage occasionally approaches Eisensteinian levels. When Murat and Ali pull the same skeleton-suited men off their horses again (and again and again), while the Indiana Jones theme blares triumphantly, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, Turkish Andy Warhol is looking on in catatonic bliss. (John Behling)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: Turkey
Language: Turkish
Subtitles: English burned-in
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
Two great reviews with lots of pictures:
Wave Magazine
TarsTarkas.Net |
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Two Dollar Bettor (1951)
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Directed by: Edward L. Cahn
Cast:
John Litel - John Hewitt
Marie Windsor - Mary Slate
Steve Brodie - Rick Bowers
Barbara Logan - Nancy Hewitt
Robert Sherwood - Phillip Adams
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer - Chuck Norlinger
Synopsis:
Dependable supporting actor John Litel is top-billed in the independently produced Two Dollar Bettor. Litel plays John Hewitt, a respectable widower who takes the first step on the road to depravation when he makes his first-ever bet at the race track. Consumed by gambling fever, Hewitt is reduced to committing embezzlement to satisfy his urge. Things don't end too well for Our Hero, but redemption of sorts is provided from an unexpected corner. Marie Windsor steals the show in the atypical role of a con artist who is willing to take the hapless Hewitt for everything he's got. Two Dollar Bettor was directed by Edward L. Cahn with his usual ten-day-schedule efficiency. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Abandon Ship (1957)
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Directed by: Richard Sale
Cast:
Tyrone Power - Alec Holmes
Mai Zetterling - Julie White
Lloyd Nolan - Frank Kelly
Stephen Boyd - Will McKinley
Moira Lister - Edith Middleton
James Hayter - Cookie Morrow
Synopsis:
In this supenseful and provocative high-seas drama, the captain of a luxury liner is suddenly faced with life or death decisions when his ship sinks, leaving himself and a few survivors floating at sea in an overcrowded lifeboat that does not contain enough food, water and medical supplies to support them all. The captain, Alec Holmes (Tyrone Power) is a decent fellow, and initially intends to save everyone. But it soon becomes clear to one of the ship's men, Frank Kelly (Lloyd Nolan) that this is impossible. As Kelly sacrifices himself by leaping overboard and into the sea, he shouts out a warning to Holmes that it will be necessary to rid the boat of its ill passengers if the rest are to survive, as not enough food and water exists to provide for everyone. Defying the requests of his sweetheart, Nurse Julie White (director Mai Zetterling), and his buddy and fellow officer, Will McKinley (Stephen Boyd), Holmes disposes of the sick individuals on board. He initially gains the support of the rest of the passengers, but when a rescue ship finally turns up, their support turns to contempt and hostility. In Great Britain the story is titled Seven Waves Away. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)
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Directed by: Charles Lamont
Cast:
Bud Abbott - Rocky Stonebridge
Lou Costello - Oliver Puddin' Head Johnson
Charles Laughton - Capt. Kidd
Hillary Brooke - Capt. Bonney
Bill Shirley - Bruce Martingale
Leif Erickson - Morgan
Synopsis:
Though out of favor with many Abbott and Costello buffs, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd is actually a lot of fun, so long as the viewer parks logic and dignity at the door. Captain Kidd is played by no less than Charles Laughton, who reportedly agreed to sign up for this film because he wanted to learn how to perform a comedy double-take. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are cast as Rocky and Puddn'head, waiters at a pirate hangout on the island of Tortuga. Entrusted with a love letter written by the beautiful Lady Jane (Fran Warren) to cabaret singer Bruce Martingale (Bill Shirley), Puddn'head manages to get this missive mixed up with a treasure map coveted by both Captain Kidd and his rival, lady pirate Captain Bonney (Hillary Brooke).
The upshot of all this finds Rocky, Pudd'nhead, Lady Jane and Bruce being shanghaied by Kidd, setting the stage for a climactic treasure hunt and chase on a faraway island. Laughton takes to broad slapstick comedy like a fish to water; indeed, at times he's a lot funnier than Bud and Lou! Filmed in Cinecolor, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd was the second of the team's independent productions for Warner Bros. release; like the first, Jack and the Beanstalk, it was well received by the public, even while critics tore their hair and gnashed their teeth. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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About Mrs. Leslie (1954)
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Directed by: Daniel Mann
Cast:
Shirley Booth - Mrs. Vivien Leslie
Robert Ryan - George Leslie
Marjie Millar - Nadine Roland
Alex Nicol - Lan McKay
Sammy White - Harry Willey
James Bell - Mr. Poole
Synopsis:
Shirley Booth followed up her Oscar-winning performance in Come Back Little Sheba with the high-gloss soap opera About Mrs. Leslie. Based on a novel by Vina Delmar, the film casts Booth as a philosophical boarding house keeper who recalls her life and loves in a long, long flashback. Born on the wrong side of the tracks, Vivien (Booth) escapes her surroundings by becoming a cabaret singer. She meets and falls in love with handsome, secretive George Leslie (Robert Ryan), then becomes his mistress, assuming his last name in the interests of propriety. Upon Leslie's death, Vivien discovers that her lover was actually a fabulously wealthy industrialist. Her experiences are placed in context with the present-day travails of her boarders, notably young sweethearts Nadine (Marjie Millar) and Ian (Alex Nicol). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 104 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Abroad with Two Yanks (1944)
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Directed by: Allan Dwan
Cast:
William Bendix - Bitt Koraski
Dennis O'Keefe - Jeff Reardon
John Loder - Cyril North
George Cleveland - Roderick Stuart
Janet Lambert - Alice
Synopsis:
an Dwan directed this light-hearted service comedy starring William Bendix (best known from the television series The Life of Riley) and Dennis O'Keefe as a pair of Marines stationed in Australia. As might be expected, the two soldiers fall for the same woman, a pretty Australian named Joyce Stuart (Helen Walker), and comic misadventures ensue. John Loder, James Flavin and Arthur Hunnicutt are among the familiar faces in the cast.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The
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Directed by:Norman Taurog
Cast:
Tommy Kelly - Tom Sawyer
Jackie Moran - Huckleberry Finn
Ann Gillis - Becky Thatcher
May Robson - Aunt Polly
Walter Brennan - Muff Potter
Synopsis:
The 1938 version of Adventures of Tom Sawyer appears to be producer David O. Selznick's dry run for Gone with the Wind, what with its similarities in period, costumes, color scheme and production design (both films shared the services of the great Hollywood art director William Cameron Menzies). Selected from hundreds of applicants (a precursor to Selznick's upcoming search for Wind's Scarlet O'Hara), Tommy Kelly is visually perfect as Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer though his acting varies from scene to scene. Better cast is Jackie Moran as the laconic, pipe-smoking Huck Finn (Moran would show up in Wind as Dr. Meade's son).
Never forcing its pace, the film manages to include most of Twain's classic sequences, including the fence-whitewashing episode, Tom's rescue of Becky Thatcher (Anne Gillis) from the wrath of their schoolmaster (Olin Howlin), Tom and Huck's "death and resurrection" after the boys briefly skipped town for an idyll on a remote island, the murder trial of town drunk Muff Potter (Walter Brennan) and ultimately unmasking of the vicious Injun Joe (Victor Jory) as the real killer, and of course the chilling climax in the cave, wherein Tom protects Becky from the fugitive Injun Joe.
Originally released at 93 minutes, Adventures of Tom Sawyer was trimmed to 77 minutes for a 1959 reissue; it has since been restored to its full length on videotape. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1943)
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Directed by: Arthur Lubin
Cast:
Jon Hall - Ali Baba
Maria Montez - Amara
Turhan Bey - Jamiel
Andy Devine - Abdullah
Kurt Katch - Hulaga Khan
Synopsis:
Ali Baba, son of the murdered Caliph, returns with his posse of forty thieves to save Baghdad, free his captured love, and reclaim the throne. This Arabian adventure is pure Technicolor escapism and the second pairing of Hall and Montez.
The general perception of the Technicolor costume adventure movies that Maria Montez and Jon Hall made for Universal in the early 1940's is that they were pure escapist entertainment, intended to make people forget for an hour or so about the Second World War and the general world situation. And generally that is true about them -- they were mostly no "about" much more than having fun for 90 minutes or so amid pretty sets with lots of action and some pretty women in exotic outfits.
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 87 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Technicolor
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Always A Bride (1953)
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Directed by: Ralph Smart
Cast:
Peggy Cummins - Clare Hemsley
Terence Morgan - Terence Winch
Ronald Squire - Victor Hemsley
James Hayter - Dutton
Marie Lohr - Dowager
Synopsis:
Always a Bride stars Terence Morgan as an officer of the British Treasury who tells himself he's a honest man. Then he falls in love with Peggy Cummins, the daughter of a jovial swindler (Ronald Squire). Using privileged information, Morgan conspires with the father to separate several people from their earnings, then abscond with the swag. Things get sticky when tougher criminals who play for keeps become involved in the scheme. Always a Bride is consistently fun to watch, even when the plot threatens to overwhelm the comedy.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Angel Wore Red, The (1960)
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Directed by: Nunally Johnson
Cast:
Ava Gardner - Soledad
Dirk Bogarde - Arturo Carrera
Joseph Cotten - Hawthorne
Vittorio De Sica - Gen. Clave
Aldo Fabrizi - Canon Rota
Arnoldo Foa - Insurgent Major
Synopsis:
This is an indecisive, ultimately unconvincing wartime drama set in the 1930s when Spain was caught in a bloody civil war, a situation that is never clearly delineated in that the story supports the fascists without specifically saying so. The hero is a voluntarily defrocked priest, Arturo Carrera (Dirk Bogarde) who is being hunted by the leftist, anti-clerical, and anti-fascist forces. While on the run himself, he encounters a beautiful prostitute, Soledad (Ava Gardner) and as sure as the sun rises, the two fall in love and stay together. Eventually, they are both caught by the anti-Franco fighters who are trying to get their hands on a precious holy relic. The ex-priest is trapped into making a no-win decision between his love for Soledad and his love for the church while she has a similar but more tragic decision to make on her own. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA / Italy
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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B.F.'s Daughter (1948)
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Directed by: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast:
Barbara Stanwyck - Polly Fulton
Van Heflin - Thomas W. Brett
Charles Coburn - B.F. Fulton
Keenan Wynn - Martin Delwyn Ainsley
Richard Hart - Robert S. Tasmin
Margaret Lindsay - Apples Sandler
Synopsis:
Barbara Stanwyck plays Polly Fulton, rebellious daughter of a wealthy industrialist (Charles Coburn). Polly marries a conservative economist professor (Richard Hart), but she chafes at his values and leaves him for socialist professor Van Heflin. Polly nearly ruins both her father's reputation and her own by embracing Heflin's radicalism. Based on a novel by J. P. Marquand, B.F.'s Daughter emerges as an unsubtle swipe at the policies of the late president Franklin Roosevelt; perhaps this was at the behest of MGM's arch-Republican head man Louis B. Mayer. In England, where the letters "B. F." comprise a euphemism for "bloody fool", the film was retitled Polly Fulton. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 107 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Baboona (1935)
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Directed by: Johnson, Martin
Cast:
Martin Johnson
Osa Johnson
Synopsis:
Famed explorer-documentarians Martin and Osa Johnson devoted two years to the production of their 1935 Baboona. Covering 60,000 miles by air, land and water, the Johnsons ventured deep, deep into the darkest jungles of Africa. The images range from the spectacular (a huge herd of elephants filmed from overhead, an enormous flock of birds literally blanketing an inland lake) to the dangerous (a charging rhino, a battle between a warthog and a leopard) to the touching (a family of baboons looking out for one another in the midst of marauding predators). As usual, Martin and Osa seldom let the facts get in the way of a good story: If a scene can be "hypoed" with slick editing and contrived close-ups, the Johnson never miss the opportunity. Co-edited by newsreel specialist Lew Lehr (ironically best known for his short-subject series "Monkeys Iss the Cwaziest People"), Baboona was released in the U.S. by Fox Studios.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 78 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B-
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Bachelor in Paradise (1961)
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Directed by: Jack Arnold
Cast:
Bob Hope - Adam J. Niles
Lana Turner - Rosemary Howard
Janis Paige - Dolores Jynson
Jim Hutton - Larry Delavane
Paula Prentiss - Linda Delavane
Agnes Moorehead - Judge Peterson
Synopsis:
Bob Hope was in the first stages of his cinematic decline when he starred in Bachelor in Paradise. Hope plays a "romance expert" who is contracted to write an expose on the sexual habits of suburban California housewives. For research purposes, he moves into a subdivision called Paradise, populated exclusively by good-looking young newlyweds. Much to the dismay of the men in the community, all of the gorgeous young wives gravitate to Hope-especially Paula Prentiss, the sexy bride of nonplussed Jim Hutton.
Fortunately for all concerned, Hope is "claimed" by the only other single resident of Paradise, the glamorous Lana Turner. Frequent Bob Hope collaborator Hal Kanter cowrote the screenplay of Bachelor of Paradise with Valentine Davies; the script was based on a story by Vera Caspary, who in better days wrote Laura. Henry Mancini and Mack Davis' Oscar-nominated title song is the only true distinction of this lesser Hope farce. He seems to be sleepwalking while the rest of the cast is trying way too hard. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 109 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bad Little Angel (1939)
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Directed by: William Thiele
Cast:
Virginia Weidler - Patsy
Gene Reynolds - Tommy Wilks
Guy Kibbee - Luther Marvin
Ian Hunter - Jim Creighton
Elizabeth Patterson - Mrs. Perkins
Synopsis:
A plucky orphan girl runs away from the orphanage. Her only possession is her beloved Bible in which she has complete faith and this helps her cope with the often cruel realities of life on the run. Eventually the young fugitive teams up with a street-wise shoe-shine boy who takes her to a kindly newspaper editor who provides her with the home she has searched for.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Battle Circus (1953)
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Directed by: Richard Brooks
Cast:
Humphrey Bogart - Maj. Jeb Webbe
June Allyson - Lt. Ruth McCara
Keenan Wynn - Sgt. Orvil Statt
Robert Keith - Lt. Col. Hillary Whalters
William Campbell - Capt. John Rustford
Synopsis:
In his only MGM film, Humphrey Bogart plays the commanding officer of a M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War. Bogart runs his operation by the book, though he can take time out now and again for compassion. When nurse June Allyson shows up, Bogie is irritated by her foolhardiness and misplaced idealism. Need we tell you that the two "opposites" eventually fall in love?
Keenan Wynn steals the show as the camp's wheeler-dealer, a sort of ancestor for such future insouciant M*A*S*H characters as Hawkeye, Trapper John and B.J. Hunnicutt. According to Hollywood scuttlebutt, Humphrey Bogart liked writer/director Richard Brooks because he could walk all over him. Brooks doesn't appear too servile in his disciplined handling of the film, though one can detect a slight lack of enthusiasm on his part. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 90 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Because They're Young (1960)
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Directed by: Paul Wendkos
Cast:
Dick Clark - Neil
Michael Callan - Graff
Victoria Shaw - Joan
Roberta Shore - Ricky
Warren Berlinger - Buddy
Doug McClure - Jim
Synopsis:
This fast-paced, entertaining drama set in a high school is directed by Paul Wendkos who has a talent for turning teen-oriented movies into hits, as proven just before this release (his 1959 Gidget). The ever-young Dick Clark plays Neil, a new, dedicated history teacher who becomes involved with the lives of his students and always for the better. He also becomes involved with Joan (Victoria Shaw) the attractive secretary in the principal's office. In an era before cocaine, crack, and school shootings would destroy the nation's image of high schools forever, the problems of "delinquents" like Griff (Michael Callan), or Buddy (Warren Berlinger), whose mother is unfaithful, may seem archaic to some audiences. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 102 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Between Two Worlds (1944)
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Directed by: Edward A. Blatt
Cast:
John Garfield - Tom Prior
Paul Henreid - Henry
Sydney Greenstreet - Thompson
Eleanor Parker - Ann
Edmund Gwenn - Scrubby
George Tobias - Pete Musick
Synopsis:
In this remake of Outward Bound, which updated the story to include topical refences to the war still raging in Europe, Henry (Paul Henreid) and Ann (Eleanor Parker) are a couple from Austria hoping to escape Nazi bombings. They are en route to a ship leaving Europe when an explosion throws them from their car and leaves many passersby dead. Despondent and unable to meet the ship, the couple return to their apartment and decide to commit suicide by turning on the gas.
They awake to find themselves on a ship shrouded in fog and carrying many passengers, among them Tom Prior (John Garfield), a wisecracking reporter who was also a witness to the earlier bombing. Henry and Ann discover that the ship is actually Limbo, a waiting station between Heaven and Hell, where Mr. Thompson (Sydney Greenstreet) will determine their final destination for eternity. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 112 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Beyond The Blue Horizon (1942)
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Directed by: Alfred Santell
Cast:
Dorothy Lamour - Tama
Richard Denning - Jakra
Jack Haley - Squidge
Walter Abel - Thornton
Helen Gilbert - Carol
Patricia Morison - Sylvia
Synopsis:
It's Dorothy Lamour again, sarong and all, in the South Seas wish-dream Beyond the Blue Horizon. Lamour plays Tama, a daughter of the jungle who heads to the US to claim an inheritance. For publicity purposes, press agent Squidge (Jack Haley) tries to team Tama with his client, circus lion tamer Jakra (Richard Denning). As it turns out, Jakra is compelled to return to the South Seas with Tama to obtain positive proof that she is indeed sole heir to her family's fortune. The climax finds Jakra putting his animal-taming skills to practical use when a rogue elephant goes on a rampage. One suspects that audiences in 1942 didn't believe this one either. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 76 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B-
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Blithe Spirit (1945)
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Directed by: David Lean
Cast:
Rex Harrison - Charles Condomine
Constance Cummings - Ruth Condomine
Kay Hammond - Elvira Condomine
Margaret Rutherford - Madame Arcati
Hugh Wakefield - George Bradman
Synopsis:
The Noel Coward/David Lean combination which turned out such dramas as Brief Encounter and This Happy Breed sets its sights on the viewer's funny bone with Blithe Spirit. Rex Harrison plays a novelist, newly married to straight-laced Constance Cummings. Via a seance, Harrison accidentally summons the spirit of his first wife, Kay Hammond. Believing that Hammond wants to ruin his marriage, Harrison enlists the services of local medium Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford) to exorcise Hammond's spirit. She fails, and in time, Harrison's second wife is killed; now he has two playful spirits on his hands! Technicolor is used throughout Blithe Spirit, with the ghosts' shimmering paleness providing contrast to the plain, everyday colors of Harrison's conservative country home. Blithe Spirit was later transformed into the Broadway musical High Spirits, with the original script bent out of shape to turn the character of Madame Arcati (played by Beatrice Lillie) into the leading role. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A
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Blonde Fever (1944)
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Directed by: Richard Whorf
Cast:
Philip Dorn - Peter Donay
Mary Astor - Delilah Donay
Felix Bressart - Johnny
Gloria Grahame - Sally Murfin
Marshall Thompson - Freddie Bilson
Curt Bois - Brillon
Synopsis:
MGM's notion of a "B" picture would be an "A" production at any other studio, and Blonde Fever is no exception. Philip Dorn heads the cast as restauranteur Peter Donay, happily married to the pleasant but plain Delilah (Mary Astor). Approaching "that certain age", Donay's head is turned by curvaceous waitress Sally Murfin (Gloria Grahame, in her first important film role). At first only mildly amused by the flirtatious Donay, Sally begins turning on the charms herself when she finds out that he's won a $40000 lottery. It takes six reels, but Donay finally realizes how much he loves and needs his faithful wife, and how little Sally truly cares about him.
Blonde Fever is based on a play by Ferenc Molnar, though it must have taken a lot of cutting to cram the original into 65 minutes' running time. PS: Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, personal friends of director Richard Whorf, show up in unbilled cameos. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 60 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Blue Veil, The (1951)
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Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast:
Jane Wyman - Louise Mason
Charles Laughton - Fred K. Begley
Joan Blondell - Annie Rawlins
Richard Carlson - Gerald Kean
Agnes Moorehead - Mrs. Palfrey
Audrey Totter - Helen Williams
Cyril Cusack - Frank Hutchins
Natalie Wood - Stephanie Rawlins
Synopsis:
The Blue Veil was the single most successful effort from the production team of Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna. Jane Wyman pulls out all the emotional stops as a young Frenchwoman named Louise, who, after losing her husband and child in WW I, devotes the rest of her life to selflessly caring for other people's children. In true "woman's story" fashion, Louise ages and ages beautifully, sacrificing all for the sake of others. On the brink of destitution, she is rescued by her former charges, all nicely grown up and boundlessly grateful. A remake of the French Le Voile Bleu, The Blue Veil was adapted for the American screen by radio's Norman Corwin. The sterling supporting cast includes Charles Laughton as a widowed manufacturer, Joan Blondell as a blowsy actress, Natalie Wood as Blondell's neglected daughter, and Richard Carlson, Audrey Totter, Agnes Moorehead and Don Taylor. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 113 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Botany Bay (1953)
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Directed by: John Farrow
Cast:
Mark Stevens - Rocky Barnes
Edmond O'Brien - Dan Purvis
Gale Storm - Kate Mallory
Donald Buka - Richie Garris
Gale Robbins - Terry Romaine
Synopsis:
Framed for robbery, 18th century medical student Alan Ladd is sentenced to a New South Wales penal colony. En route to the prison, Ladd is tormented by sadistic ship's captain James Mason, while Mason's beloved Patricia Medina takes a fancy to the new prisoner. Once at the colony, Ladd is befriended by governor Sir Cedric Hardwicke, since the populace is in desperate need of a qualified physician. Mason's efforts to continue persecuting Ladd are foiled when Mason is killed by a group of disgruntled aborigines. Though it sounds a lot like Captain Blood, Botany Bay was based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bottom of the Bottle, The (1956)
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Directed by: Henry Hathaway
Cast:
Van Johnson - Donald Martin
Joseph Cotten - Martin
Ruth Roman - Nora Martin
Jack Carson - Hal Breckinridge
Maggie Hayes - Lil Breckinridge
Margaret Lindsay - Hannah Cady
Henry Morgan - Bartender
Frank Puglia - Carlo Sabballera
Synopsis:
Two brothers face their personal demons in this crime melodrama. Donald Martin (Van Johnson) is an alcoholic criminal who has escaped from prison and needs help crossing the Mexican border to freedom. Desperate, he arrives at the ranch of his lawyer brother Martin (Joseph Cotten). Martin has little respect for his brother and would prefer his neighbors not know he's housing a fugitive, so he tries to convince people that Donald is actually someone else. Donald is crushed by his brother's shame and rejection, and, after a drinking binge, he decides that he should try to make the journey into Mexico on his own. Martin's wife Nora (Ruth Roman), who has her own issues with Martin, convinces him to put his differences aside and help Donald however he can. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 88 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
CinemaScope, Letterboxed |
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Boy on a Dolphin, The (1957)
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Directed by: Jean Negulesco
Cast:
Alan Ladd - Dr. James Calder
Sophia Loren - Phaedra
Clifton Webb - Victor Parmalee
Alexis Minotis - Government Man
Laurence Naismith - Dr. Hawkins
Jorge Mistral - Rhif
Synopsis:
Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren made her American film debut with this glossy romantic adventure set (and partially filmed) on the Greek island of Hydra. Phaedra (Loren) is a female sponge diver who, while combing the waters, discovers the wreckage of a sunken ship with a number of fascinating artifacts, including a statue of a boy astride a dolphin. When Phaedra tells her boyfriend Rhif (Jorge Mistral) about the find, he is convinced that the statue is valuable, and he begins making plans to bring it to dry land for sale.
Looking for help, they approach Dr. James Calder (Alan Ladd), an American archeologist working on a project for a Greek museum. Calder wants the statue but can't pay for it -- he wants Phaedra and Rhif to donate it to his museum as a remarkable example of Greek statuary. This is hardly what Rhif had in mind, so he turns to Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), a wealthy American art collector intrigued by the statue and other valuables that might be in the ship. Rhif and Victor make plans to salvage the ship's contents and send them back to America, for which Rhif will be paid handsomely. But Phaedra finds herself attracted to Calder, especially after she is disgusted by Victor's blunt offer to make her his mistress, and she begins a romance with the principled American. Now Phaedra and Calder must try to rescue the ship's valuables before Rhif and Parmalee can get to them.
The love scenes between Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd presented something of a problem for director Jean Negulesco and his crew -- Ladd was 5' 4" and Loren was 5' 8", requiring him to stand on a box for two shots; for a scene where the two walked together along the beach, the crew dug a trench for Loren to walk in, so Ladd would appear taller. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 120 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops, Widescreen
Print Quality: B- (Slightly fuzzy)
If you would prefer a somewhat sharper fullscreen version of this film, please mention it while ordering. |
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Boy Ten Feet Tall, A (1963)
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Directed by: Alexander MacKendrick
Cast:
Edward G. Robinson - Cocky Wainwright
Fergus McClelland - Sammy Hartland
Constance Cummings - Gloria van Imhoff
Harry H. Corbett - Lem
Paul Stassino - Spyros Dracondopolous
Synopsis:
A Boy Ten Feet Tall is a rugged youngster's-eye-view adventure set in South Africa. 10-year-old orphan Sammy (Fergus McClelland), who resides in Port Said, tries to locate his only relative, who lives 5000 miles away across the desert in Durban. After the death of his first guide, an erstwhile peddler, Sammy is rescued by a wealthy tourist (Constance Cummings). Not anxious to return to Port Said, Sammy escapes his benefactress and links up with a crafty old hunter/diamond smuggler (Edward G. Robinson), whose life is saved by the boy. When the police search for Sammy, they arrest the old man, who has been a fugitive for years. When Sammy is finally united with his Aunt (Zena Walker), he learns that the old smuggler has willed him his fortune. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 128 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bride Goes Wild, The (1948)
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Directed by: Norman Taurog
Cast:
Van Johnson - Greg Rawlings
June Allyson - Martha Terryton
Hume Cronyn - John McGrath
Una Merkel - Miss Doberly
Arlene Dahl - Tillie Smith-Oliver
Lloyd Corrigan - 'Pops'
Synopsis:
In this funny tale of deception and romantic fireworks, a rather prissy New England school marm finally gets a chance to achieve her dream and become a commercial artist when she is hired to illustrate the beloved "Uncle Bump's" latest children's book. She adores Bump's earlier works and is anxious to meet this gentle fellow in New York. Imagine her shock to discover that Bump is actually a boozy, cynical, young man who despises all children. Appalled, she decides to expose him as a fraud. The author's publisher nearly goes bazinga when he thinks of all the money to be lost and so tells the teacher a whopper about how the writer became bitter after his wife died and left him with a troublesome son. This melts the teacher's heart and she decides to help out. But first she wants to speak to the boy.
In desperation, the publisher pays a tough, wiseacre urchin to impersonate the nonexistent son. This tough little cookie helps to bring the two opponents closer and love blooms until she learns the truth. Broken-hearted and angry, the teacher returns to New England to marry an old beau. Fortunately, the cagey orphan, who has come to love them both, has a few aces up his sleeve and insures that the two are reunited. A happy family is born and romantic bliss ensues. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 97 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bride of Vengence (1949)
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Directed by: Mitchell Leisen
Cast:
Paulette Goddard - Lucretia Borgia
John Lund - Alfonso D'Este
MacDonald Carey - Cesare Borgia
Raymond Burr - Michelotto
Albert Dekker - Vanetti
John Sutton - Bisceglie
Synopsis:
After Ray Milland turned down the leading role in Bride of Vengeance, Paramount contractee John Lund stepped into the role of Alfonso D'Este, second husband of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia. The ruthlessly ambitious Lucrezia is played by Paulette Goddard, who seems ill at ease in the role. MacDonald Carey is better suited to his assignment as Cesar Borgia, the real villain of the piece. The plot proper gets under way when Lucrezia seeks revenge for her first husband's murder. The supporting cast is an odd lot, especially Billy Gilbert as Beppo, a wandering minstrel. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Bridge to the Sun (1961)
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Directed by: Etienne Perier
Cast:
Carroll Baker - Gwen Terasaki
James Shigeta - Hidenari Terasaki
James Yagi - Hara
Tetsuro Tamba - Jiro
Ruth Masters - Aunt Peggy
Synopsis:
This combination romance and wartime drama by Etienne Perier was unusual at the time it was released because it portrayed World War II in the Pacific from the perspective of Gwen Terasaki, a woman from the Southern U.S., married to a Japanese diplomat. Based on her autobiography, the interesting story relates how the couple left for Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and remained in Japan throughout the duration of the war. Their experiences and hardships during the war are detailed, as well as the tragedy that separated them once the war was over. Since the suffering of the ordinary Japanese citizen at this time and the racial undercurrents connected to the Pacific war are brought forward, the film stirred some controversy when it was released. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 112 minutes
Country: USA/France
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Broadway Limited (1941)
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Directed by: Gordon M. Douglas
Cast:
Victor McLaglen - Mike
Marjorie Woodworth - Apri
l
Dennis O'Keefe - Dr. Harvey North
Patsy Kelly - Patsy
ZaSu Pitts - Myra
Leonid Kinskey - Ivan
Synopsis:
Two of Hal Roach's short-subject stalwarts, Patsy Kelly and ZaSu Pitts, are teamed in the Roach-produced feature Broadway Limited. The whole story unfolds on a Chicago-to-Manhattan express train; among the passengers are Hollywood starlet April (Marjorie Woodworth), her producer Ivan (Leonid Kinskey) and her wisecracking secretary Patsy (Kelly). Hoping to stir up publicity for April, Patsy and Ivan conspire to adopt a baby for their client.
Trouble is, the authorities are convinced that the child has been kidnapped, causing no end of trouble for such innocent bystanders as engineer Mike (Victor McLaglen), bookish young doctor Harvey North (Dennis O'Keefe) and garrulous clubwoman Myra (Pitts). The film is stolen by infant performer Gay Ellen Dakins, who spends most of her scenes smiling at the camera, oblivious of the adult slapstickery. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Buccaneer, The (1958)
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Directed by: Anthony Quinn
Cast:
Yul Brynner - Jean Lafitte
Charlton Heston - Gen. Andrew Jackson
Claire Bloom - Bonnie Brown
Charles Boyer - Dominique You
Inger Stevens - Annette Claiborne
Synopsis:
When Cecil B. DeMille was set to direct a re-make of his 1938 swashbuckler The Buccaneer and suddenly became ill, his son-in-law, Anthony Quinn, jumped into DeMille's jodhpurs. In this version, Yul Brynner plays the starring role of debonair pirate Jean Lafitte, who is contacted by General Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) to come to the aid of the United States when the British attack New Orleans during the War of 1812. Lafitte immediately falls in love with Annette Claiborne (Inger Stevens), the daughter of William Claiborne (E.G. Marshall), the first governor of Louisiana. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 121 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Buster Keaton Story, The (1957)
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Directed by: Sidney Sheldon
Cast:
Donald O'Connor - Buster Keaton
Ann Blyth - Gloria
Rhonda Fleming - Peggy Courtney
Peter Lorre - Kurt Bergner
Larry Keating - Larry Winters
Richard Anderson - Tom McAffee
Dave Willock - Joe Keaton
Synopsis:
The Buster Keaton Story is the sublimely inaccurate life story of immortal film comedian Buster Keaton, played by Donald O'Connor. The film begins with young Buster appearing in his parents' circus acrobatic act (the real Keatons never appeared in a circus, but were vaudevillians instead). After Buster's dad dies (an event that actually occurred when Keaton was in his 30s and already a star), the boy strikes out on his own. He makes it into silent films as a top slapstick comic (this much is accurate), but his private life is complicated by two loves, a "sweet" girl (Ann Blyth) and a wealthy temptress (Rhonda Fleming) (Buster was married three times, but not to either one of the ladies depicted in this film).
When talkies come in, Buster is browbeaten by autocratic director Peter Lorre (all of Keaton's talkies were directed by Eddie Sedgwick, one of his best friends) and finds himself unable to handle dialogue (no comment). He turns to drink (true) and destroys himself in Hollywood (partly true). But through the love of good girl Ann Blyth, Buster makes a comeback in vaudeville, and finally decides to get married and settle down for the first time in his life (Buster did tour in vaudeville with wife Eleanor Norris, who was wife number three and whom he met nine years after the advent of talkies). The nicest thing about The Buster Keaton Story was that the amount Paramount paid Keaton for permission to film his "life story" ($50,000) was large enough for Buster to remain financially solvent for the rest of his life. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 91 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C-
Audio is also a bit sub-par, but print is watchable. This is a very rare film.
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Buy Me That Town (1941)
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Directed by: Eugene J. Forde
Cast:
Lloyd Nolan - Rickey
Constance Moore - Virginia
Albert Dekker - Louie
Sheldon Leonard - Chink Moran
Edward S. Brophy - Ziggy
Synopsis:
A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl. He decides to use the "protection money" his gang has been pocketing to benefit the townsfolk. This feels good to the tough and thug-like gangsters who begin embracing the ideals of good citizenship in favor of a life of crime. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 68 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Call Me Bwana (1963)
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Directed by: Gordon M. Douglas
Cast:
Bob Hope - Matt Merryweather
Anita Ekberg - Luba
Edie Adams - Frederica Larsen
Lionel Jeffries - Dr. Ezra Mungo
Percy Herbert - Henchman
Paul Carpenter - Col. Spencer
Synopsis:
It's Bob Hope as phony explorer Matt Merriwether, who promotes himself as an expert on the dark continent, basing his exploration of the African subcontinent on old diaries of his uncle. When an American space capsule crashes in an uncharted region of Africa, Merriwether, based on his alleged expert knowledge of the region, is selected to recover the capsule. Joining Merriwether and his pre-Kervorkian suicide kit, is security agent Frederica Larsen (Edie Adams). Hot on their heels are Russian agents Luba (Anita Ekberg) and Dr. Ezra Mungo (Lionel Jeffries), who want to get to the space capsule first. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Campus Honeymoon (1948)
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Directed by: Richard Sale
Cast:
Lynn Wilde - Skipper Hughes
Lee Wilde - Patricia Hughes
Adele Mara - Bessie Ormsbee
Richard Crane - Robert Watson
Hal Hackett - Richard Adams
Wilson Wood - Busby Ormsbee
Synopsis:
The beauteous blonde Wilde Twins -- Lynn and Lee -- star in the Republic musical programmer Campus Honeymoon. Richard Crane and Hal Hackett co-star as a pair of GIs who offer to pose as the sisters' husbands so as to qualify for a couple of bungalows in a Veterans' housing project. The relationship is supposed to be platonic, of course, but it doesn't remain that way for long. The laughs really begin to roll in when the ersatz honeymooners are obliged to produce their marriage licenses. Republic contractee Adele Mara contributes a zesty performance as a former WAC sergeant. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 61 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Cat and the Canary, The (1939)
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Directed by: Elliott Nugent
Cast:
Bob Hope - Wallie Campbell
Paulette Goddard - Joyce Norman
John Beal - Fred Blythe
Douglass Montgomery - Charlie Wilder
Gale Sondergaard - Miss Lu
Elizabeth Patterson - Aunt Susan
Synopsis:
The classic "old dark house" motif is given sterling treatment in this second filmed version of the hit play. Bob Hope's status as a star was assured with his role as Wallie Campbell, the cowardly protector of Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard), who must spend one night in the eerie mansion of her late, eccentric, millionaire uncle. If she can make it through the night without losing her mind, Joyce stands to inherit her uncle's entire fortune. Of course, all the other potential heirs now have a motive to drive her insane. The frights are nonstop as hands reach out from nowhere, people disappear between trap doors, the halls echo with terrifying sounds, and secret doorways lead to hidden passageways. Three people are murdered before Wallie solves the mystery and sees Goddard through the night. Hope integrates his wiseacre comedic style into a essentially straight role, with the humor well-placed in the otherwise moody material. Creepy lighting and music also aid director Elliott Nugent in crafting an effective and fun version of one the genre's archetypal stories. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Chalk Garden, The (1964)
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Directed by: Ronald Neame
Cast:
Deborah Kerr - Miss Madrigal
Hayley Mills - Laurel
John Mills - Maitland
Edith Evans - Mrs. StMaugham
Elizabeth Sellars - Olivia
Felix Aylmer - Judge McWhirrey
Synopsis:
This film adaptation of Edith Bagnold's play stars Deborah Kerr as Miss Madrigal, the secretive new governess of British "problem child" Laurel (Hayley Mills). Both Madrigal and faithful butler Maitland (John Mills) are aware that Laurel's atrocious behavior stems from her belief that her oft-married mother (Elizabeth Sellars) does not love her. Madrigal determines to straighten out Laurel before she becomes totally unmanageable and hurts someone else. She knows what she's doing; Madrigal has just been released from a long prison term, having been charged with the murder of her stepsister.
Dame Edith Evans steals every scene she's in as Laurel's wealthy grandmother, who is pulled away from tending her precious garden only when it appears that she has a murderess in her house (the old lady indicates that she's somewhat thrilled by the prospect). The Chalk Garden represented a "stretch" for Hayley Mills, who previously had been confined to sugary-sweet Disney heroines. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 106 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Cheaters, The (AKA Castaway) (1945)
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Directed by: Joseph Kane
Cast:
Joseph Schildkraut - Mr. M.
Billie Burke - Mrs. Pidgeon
Eugene Pallette - Mr. Pidgeon
Ona Munson - Florie
Raymond Walburn - Willie
Ann Gillis - Angela
Synopsis:
A snooty blue-blooded English family learns a bitter lesson about the realities of lower class living in this British comedy. It all happens because the ditzy wife makes a terrible mistake with their money and loses a fortune. Her husband, a banker is at his wit's end as he scrambles about looking for much-needed cash. He tries his wife's wealthy, ailing uncle, but he has bequeathed his fortune to the actress he loved as a boy, (a woman he has never met). The aging star, who long ago disappeared from the screen, has no idea she is an heiress.
Meanwhile, just before Christmas the daughter of the family brings home a boozy hambone of a fallen theater star who is short on cash. It is he who finds the missing actress and brings her into the house after convincing her that she and the family are related. Things go swimmingly and wealth is restored until the actor gets drunk and tells her the truth. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 87 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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China Girl (1942)
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Directed by: Henry Hathaway
Cast:
Gene Tierney - Miss Young
George Montgomery - Johnny Williams
Lynn Bari - Capt. Fifi
Victor McLaglen - Maj. Bull Weed
Alan Baxter - Chinese Boy
Sig Rumann - Jerobi
Synopsis:
China Girl charts the exploits of two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams (George Montgomery), stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by the Japanese, he escapes from a concentration camp with the aid of beautiful, enigmatic "China Girl" Miss Young (Gene Tierney). The two arduously make their way back to friendly lines so that Johnny can deliver the vital military information he's managed to glean from his captors. Though it probably wasn't supposed to happen this way, Lynn Bari steals the film from official star Gene Tierney. China Girl was scripted by Ben Hecht with his usual blend of sentiment and cynicism. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 95 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Cult of the Cobra (1955)
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Directed by: Francis D. Lyon
Cast:
Faith Domergue - Lisa
Richard Long - Paul Able
Marshall Thompson - Tom Markel
Kathleen Hughes - Julia
Jack Kelly - Carl Turner
Synopsis:
Six GIs stationed in Asia secretly photograph the arcane rituals of a group of cobra worshippers. At the climax of the ceremony, the cult members turn themselves into snakes. The high priestess catches the soldiers spying and throws a curse upon them. This off-beat horror film follows what happens to the men after that. Soon after they return to the US, the vengeful priestess follows them and people begin to die from snake venom poisoning, adding credence to the strange tale told by a surviving GI to the police, who become less skeptical as more evidence is unearthed. More trouble follows when the serpentine goddess falls for the ex-soldier's roomie. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 82 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Dangerous Game, A (1941)
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Directed by: John Rawlins
Cast:
Richard Arlen - Dick
Andy Devine - Andy
Jeanne Kelly - Anne
Edward S. Brophy - Bugs
Marc Lawrence - Joe
Robert O. Davis - Fleming
Synopsis:
Dangerous Game was a 61-minute entry in the off-and-on Universal "B" adventure series starring Richard Arlen and Andy Devine. The emphasis is on laughs as the pair infiltrate a suspicious lunatic asylum. Amidst the genuine assorted nuts (all of whom behave "cuckoo" in 2-reel comedy fashion) are several perfectly sane criminals, using the asylum as headquarters. Arlen and Devine rout out the crooks, winning a huge cache of money in so doing. Jeanne Kelly, who later enjoyed a brief leading-lady career as Jean Brooks, provides the heart interest in A Dangerous Game.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 60 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Death of a Salesman (1951)
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Directed by: László Benedek
Cast:
Fredric March - Willy Loman
Mildred Dunnock - Linda Loman
Kevin McCarthy - Biff Loman
Cameron Mitchell - Happy Lomanr
Review:
An amazingly faithful adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage masterpiece, Death of a Salesman is a powerful, disturbing, and wrenching film experience. Critics have argued for years over whether Miller's work qualifies as a tragedy, but it's impossible to deny the force and passion that pours forth from it. Given the unenviable task of replacing Lee J. Cobb, whose stage performance in the role was legendary, Fredric March more than rises to the occasion, giving what is arguably the finest performance of his career. March offers glimpses of the real humanity that lies deeply buried at the core of his character, but not at the expense of the less pleasant aspects of the character. He is a liar, a fake, and dangerously self-involved, and March's skillful performance doesn't shy away from any of this, while at the same time making the viewer care so deeply that a man could be so terribly afraid and angry and unable to admit to it. Mildred Dunnock is sheer perfection as the wife and mother who constantly tries to support the men in her life and is torn up by their failures, and Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell are aces as the sons. Laslo Benedek's direction is taut and gripping, his only real misfire being a straightforward cinematic translation of the play's commingling of past and present rather than a more imaginative approach. All in all, an excellent adaptation of one of the American theater's greatest plays. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 115 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Deluge, The (1933)
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Directed by: Felix E. Feist
Cast:
Peggy Shannon - Claire
Sidney Blackmer - Martin
Lois Wilson - Helen
Matt Moore - Tom
Fred Kohler, Jr. - Jephson
Synopsis:
This remarkable early-talkie "disaster" flick was the first directorial effort of Felix E. Feist. An enormous tidal wave destroys New York City and most of the Eastern seaboard -- and that's only the beginning of the picture! The rest of the film deals with the aftermath of the deluge. Hero Martin (Sidney Blackmer), certain that his wife Helen (Lois Wilson) and his children have died in the disaster, begins a romance with bathing beauty Claire (Peggy Shannon). They must fight for their lives against Jephson (Fred Kohler Sr.) and his band of outlaws, who are using the apocalyptic crisis as an excuse to rape and pillage. Surviving one peril after another, the couple is forced to face their biggest crisis when it turns out that Martin's family has not perished after all. Claire nobly solves everyone's problem by swimming out to sea, never to be heard from again. Ned Mann's special effects and miniature work are first-rate, resurfacing as stock footage for years afterward (incidentally, some of the earthquake footage was filmed during an actual California quake in early 1933). Also praiseworthy is the superb, wall-to-wall musical score. For years considered a "lost" film, Deluge was found again in 1987 and has since been restored to an approximation of its original form -- though a full-scale videotape release is long overdue. (allmovie.com)
The only surviving print of this film was discovered in Italy. It is dubbed in Italian and contains English subtitles.
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: USA
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Devil with Hitler, The, (1942) / Nazty Nuisance (1943)
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Directed by: Gordon M. Douglas / Glenn Tryon
Cast(s):
Alan Mowbray - The Devil
Bobby Watson - Adolf Hitler
George E. Stone - Suki Yaki
Joe Devlin - Mussolini
Marjorie Woodworth - Linda
Johnny Arthur - Suki Yaki
Jean Porter - Kela
Ian Keith - Chief
Includes three Word War II era shorts!
1. It's Everybody's War (Narrated by Henry Fonda)
2. Make Mine Freedom (Technicolor Cartoon)
3. Mussolini Executed! (Warning - Graphic!)
The Devil with Hitler Review:
The governing committee for hell is so impressed with Adolf Hitler's brutality, they have decided to over throw the devil and place Hitler in charge as soon as the German dictator dies. The devil naturally does not want to give up his reign and attempts to talk the governing body out of their decision, reminding them of all the terrible things in the past he did. But the committee is unimpressed, telling Satan that he has not caught up with the times and Hitler has not done a good deed in his life. As a last attempt to keep his power the devil asks if he is able to go to earth and get Hitler to do one good deed he will be able to keep his job, to which the committee agrees. The devil then goes to earth in an attempt to get Hitler to do one good deed, but the devil soon learns it's not going to be an easy job (imdb.com)
Nazty Nuisance Synopsis:
A sequel to the Hal Roach "streamliner" The Devil with Hitler, That Nazty Nuisance is much funnier, albeit nearly as tasteless as the earlier film. Bobby Watson, Hollywood's foremost Adolf Hitler impersonator, plays Der Fuhrer as a pompous imbecile, and who's to say his interpretation wasn't accurate. The plot requires Hitler to summon his Axis partners Mussolini (Joe Devlin) and Suki Yaki (a Hirohito clone played by comedy foil Johnny Arthur) for a secret meeting. For the purposes of secrecy, the three dictators travel to the island nation of Norom (spell it backwards). Fortunately for Truth, Justice and the American Way, Hitler and his stooges are sabotaged by shipwrecked American sailor Benson (Frank Faylen) and island beauty Kela (Jean Porter). A bit strong for contemporary tastes, That Nazty Nuisance provided 48 minutes of solid laughs for its wartime audience. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 44 Minutes / 48 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Three Bonus Shorts, Menu, Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Devil's Island (1939)
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Directed by: William B. Clemens
Cast:
Boris Karloff - Dr. Charles Gaudet
Nedda Harrigan - Mme. Lucien
James Stephenson - Col. Armand
Adia Kuznetzoff - Pierre
Rolla Gourvitch - Colette
Will Stanton - Bobo
Synopsis:
Veteran movie heavy Boris Karloff plays a sympathetic role in Devil's Island. Karloff portrays a humanitarian physician, arrested for treating the wounds of a treasonous fugitive. Sent to the Devil's Island penal colony, Dr. Karloff runs afoul of sadistic commandant James Stephenson, who seems obsessed by the guillotine (an execution sequence is one of the film's longest scenes).
Stephenson's wife Nedda Harrigan, fed up with her husband's cruelties, aids Karloff in turning the tables on the commandant. Participating in an escape, Karloff makes his way to freedom and clears his name. Devil's Island runs a scant 60 minutes, due to editing demands made by the French consulate in Washington, who felt that the film was detrimental to Franco-American relations.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 62 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Devotion (1945)
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Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast:
Ida Lupino - Emily Bronte
Paul Henreid - Rev. Arthur Nichols
Olivia de Havilland - Charlotte Bronte
Sydney Greenstreet - Thackeray
Arthur Kennedy - Branwell Bronte
Nancy Coleman - Ann Bronte
Dame May Whitty - Lady Thornton
Synopsis:
Roundly blasted upon its release because of the extreme liberties it takes with the truth, Devotion is better as cinema than as history. Not that it's great cinema, mind you, mainly because the filmmakers opted to replace historical fact with either tired dramatic clichés or wild improbabilities. As an example of the latter, the film posits that Paul Henreid's character, who is a standard-issue film romantic hero (troubled, but understandably so), is the inspiration for two of the most passionate, fiery characters in the canon of English literature. Arthur Kennedy as brother Bramwell is much more passionate and fiery, a fact which tends to further muddle things up. The generic setting is also disappointing; these ladies wrote as they wrote because of where they lived and how they lived, but little of this makes it to the screen.
Fortunately, Devotion has Olivia de Havilland and Ida Lupino on hand. De Havilland is quite good, grabbing hold of whatever she can find in the script and milking it for all it's worth. Lupino does even better, often making this standard-issue (at best) writing seem engaging and moving. As indicated, Kennedy also makes things work for him, and Nancy Coleman does what she can with the little she is handed. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score provides plenty of the atmosphere that Curtis Bernhardt's direction often lacks. Ultimately, Devotion's assets, particularly Lupino and de Havilland, manage to squeeze it into the winner's column -- but it's a pretty close call. The film was produced in 1943, hence the presence of Montagu Love, who died that year. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 107 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color, B&W
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Don Juan Quilligan (1945)
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Directed by: Frank Tuttle
Cast:
William Bendix - "Don Juan" Quilligan
Joan Blondell - Marjorie Mossrock
Phil Silvers - MacDenny
Anne Revere - Mrs. Rostigaff
B.S. Pully - Ed Mossrock
Mary Treen - Lucy
John Russell - Howie Mossrock
Synopsis:
In this comedy, a barge captain with an Electra complex marries two women. He married the first because she laughed like his late mother. He married the other because she cooks like his mom. He soon finds himself in over his head. A good friend helps extricate him by devising an ingenious plot. The captain is to be blamed for a murder. He can then escape his wives by pretending to be sent to prison.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 75 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Dreamboat (1952)
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Directed by: Claude Binyon
Cast:
Clifton Webb - Thornton Sayre
Ginger Rogers - Gloria Marlowe
Anne Francis - Carol Sayre
Jeffrey Hunter - Bill Ainslee
Elsa Lanchester - Dr. Coffey
Fred Clark - Sam Levitt
Synopsis:
Dreamboat stars Clifton Webb as Thornton Sayre, the perfectionist professor of literature at a sedate Midwestern university. Widowed and with a pretty daughter (Anne Francis), Sayre has given no clue to his previous life before becoming a teacher. But thanks to television, everyone discovers that Sayre is actually Bruce Blair, a former silent screen star known as "America's Dreamboat." Sayre's onetime leading lady (Ginger Rogers) has made a comeback hosting screenings of her old films on TV, and the result is acute embarrassment for both the professor and his college.
Sayre takes the case all the way to court, where he wangles a compromise agreement: he will permit his films to be televised as long as they're not "doctored" to accommodate commercial endorsements (this was based on a real-life lawsuit involving cowboy Gene Autry -- which Autry lost). The ensuing publicity costs Sayre his college job, but the renewal of interest in his old films results in a new movie contract. Although silent movies and singing commercials are easy satirical targets, Dreamboat still delivers the laughs, and it's fun to see Clifton Webb camping it up as a "Doug Fairbanks" type. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Earl of Chicago, The (1940)
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Directed by: Richard Thorpe
Cast:
Robert Montgomery - Silky Kilmount
Edward Arnold - Doc Ramsey
Reginald Owen - Gervase Gonwell
Edmund Gwenn - Mumsey
E.E. Clive - Redwood
Ronald Sinclair - Gerald Kilmount
Synopsis:
The schizophrenic screenplay of The Earl of Chicago is rendered even more bizarre by the uneven performance by Robert Montgomery. He plays Silky Kilmont, a Runyonesque American gangster who inherits a British title (Earl of Gorley) and mansion. Taking charge of his new estate, Silky has an amusing time trying to acclimate himself to the customs of the "landed gentry". Things take a sinister turn when Silky discovers that his trusted attorney Doc Ramsey (Edward Arnold) is actually a bigger crook than he is. In a rage, Silky murders Ramsey, then goes into what appears to be a catatonic shock, refusing to defend himself at his murder trial. Blood finally tells at the climax when Silky Kilmont, aka the Earl of Gorley, meets his fate with a dignity and decorum worthy of his aristocratic forebears. The queasy atmosphere of the film is heightened by its utter lack of romance; outside of character actress Norma Varden, there are barely any women in the film at all. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Easy to Love (1953)
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Directed by: Charles Walters
Cast:
Esther Williams - Julie Hallerton
Van Johnson - Ray Lloyd
Tony Martin - Barry Gordon
John Bromfield - Hank
Carroll Baker - Clarice
Cyd Charisse
Carroll Baker's first movie role!
Synopsis:
The Cole Porter title tune is but one of the musical highlights in the (literally) splashy Esther Williams musical Easy to Love. Reshuffling plot devices utilized in previous Williams vehicles, the film casts Williams as Julie Hallerton, the star of Ray Lloyd's (Van Johnson) aquacade. She loves Lloyd, but he hardly knows she exists. Only when she inaugurates romances with swimming instructor Hank (John Bromfield) and singer Barry (Tony Martin) does Lloyd wake up and smell the chlorine. The plot's finale is top-heavy with "good sport" behavior involving the three male leads. However, if you've come to an Esther Williams movie for the plot, maybe you'd better try another theatre.
Easy to Love is the film that includes Busby Berkeley's legendary "motorboat/hang-glider" production number, performed at Florida's Cypress Gardens--though, incredibly, this aquatic tour de force is not the end of the picture! (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Edge of Eternity (1959)
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Directed by: Don Siegel
Cast:
Cornel Wilde - Les Martin
Victoria Shaw - Janice Kendon
Mickey Shaughnessy - Scotty O'Brien
Edgar Buchanan - Sheriff Edwards
Rian Garrick - Bob Kendon
Jack Elam - Bill Ward
Synopsis:
A well-dressed older man drives a car along the winding mountain road adjacent to the Grand Canyon. Another man lies in wait for him where the road ends. They fight, and the car and one of the men plunge into the mile-deep gorge. Thus begins a series of four killings that fall into the lap of newly hired Mojave County deputy Les Martin (Cornel Wilde) and his boss, Sheriff Edwards (Edgar Buchanan). Les is an experienced homicide detective trying to redeem himself and his career after a series of personal tragedies and professional disasters, unsteady in his confidence and uncertain of his ability -- the only people he's especially close to are the sheriff who hired him and Scotty (Mickey Shaughnessy), the big-hearted keeper of the local tavern. And complicating his investigation of the murder case at hand is his constant crossing of paths with the beautiful, wealthy Janice Kendon (Victoria Shaw), who seems to have a knack for turning up around every corner of this case. He has to sort out his feelings about her and work out what the murders have to do with the one clue left behind by one of the victims, about the "dancing bucket" that carries men and material more than 7,000 feet across the mile-high chasm. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Excuse My Dust (1951)
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Directed by: Roy Rowland
Cast:
Richard "Red" Skelton - Joe Belden
Sally Forrest - Liz Bullitt
MacDonald Carey - Cyrus Random, Jr.
William Demarest - Harvey Bullitt
Monica Lewis - Daisy Lou Shultzer
Raymond Walburn - Mayor Fred Haskell
Synopsis:
"Excuse My Dust" is one of the few Red Skelton musicals in which Skelton is not obliged to share screen space with the likes of Eleanor Powell, Esther Williams or Fernando Lamas. Set in 1900, the film stars Red as zany inventor Joe Belden. Enchanted by the new-fangled horseless carriages, Belden vows to become the Henry Ford of his small community. The climax finds Joe competing in a cross-country auto race for a $5000 prize.
Though light on slapstick, this closing sequences scores on the nostalgic value of the several genuine vintage autos pressed into service. Sally Forrest co-stars as Skelton's sweetheart, while MacDonald Carey plays his obnoxious rival. The songs for the most part are well-integrated into the story, save for one anachronistically modern production number (explained away as a "dream sequence" wherein Skelton imagines what life will be like in 1950!). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 82 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Farmer's Daughter, The (1947)
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Directed by: H.C. Potter
Cast:
Keith Andes - Sven Holstrom
Loretta Young - Katrin Holstrom
James Arness - Peter Holstrom
Joseph Cotten - Glenn Morley
Art Baker - Anders Finley
Ethel Barrymore - Mrs. Morley
Charles Bickford - Clancy
Harry Davenport - Dr. Matthew Sutven
Synopsis:
When Loretta Young stepped up to accept her Academy Award for The Farmer's Daughter, the ever-youthful leading lady, who'd been in films since 1928, sighed "At long last!" Young is cast as Katie Holstrum, an independently-minded Swedish girl who leaves her family's Minnesota farm to take a domestic job at the Washington DC home of congressman Glenn Morley Joseph Cotten. Katie's outspokeness and Scandanavian common sense immediately endears her to Morley, his mother Ethel Barrymore, and the family's crusty-but-kindly butler Clancy Charles Bickford. Sensing that the political machine backing Morley isn't thoroughly honest, Katie takes an active hand in Washington politics, leading to her own nomination for a congressional seat.
The machine-boss villains (depicted rather provocatively as right-wing reactionaries) try to discredit Katie on the eve of the election, but she is rescued by Morley, who of course has fallen in love with her. Adapted from Juurakon Hulda (Hulda, Daughter of Parliament), a Finnish play written by Hella Wuolijoki (using the pen name Juhani Tervapää), which had originally been optioned as a potential vehicle for Ingrid Bergman, The Farmer's Daughter later matriculated into a weekly TV series, with Inger Stevens as Katie and William Windom as Morley. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 97 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Fast and Loose (1939)
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Directed by: Edward L. Marin
Cast:
Robert Montgomery - Joel Sloane
Rosalind Russell - Garda Sloane
Reginald Owen - Vincent Charlton
Ralph Morgan - Nicholas Torrent
Etienne Girardot - Christopher Gates
Synopsis:
Fast and Loose was the second of MGM's brief "B" series based on Harry Kurnitz' husband-wife team of bookdealing sleuths, Joel and Garda Sloane. In Fast Company, the first of the series, Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice played the Sloanes; in this second entry, the characters are portrayed by Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. The murder victim this time is a celebrated rare book collector, and the motive is a missing first edition of Paradise Lost. The supporting cast included several likely suspects, including old reliable Ralph "Anything I Can Do to Help?" Morgan. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Fate is the Hunter (1964)
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Directed by: Ralph Nelson
Cast:
Glenn Ford - Sam McBane
Nancy Kwan - Sally Fraser
Rod Taylor - Capt.Jack Savage
Suzanne Pleshette - Martha Webster
Jane Russell - Herself
Wally Cox - Ralph Bundy
Nehemiah Persoff - Ben Sawyer
Synopsis:
Suspense builds around the investigation of a plane crash that caused 53 deaths in this dramatic adaption of Ernest K. Gann's novel. Authorities systematically eliminate probable causes, finally placing blame on the pilot, who was seen drinking before the flight. The airline's director of flight operations, Sam McBane (Glen Ford), knowing the pilot's excellent WW II record, refuses to accept the authorities' conclusions and begins his own investigation.
With the help of the only survivor, a stewardess (Suzanne Pleshette), McBane re-creates the events leading to the crash in an attempt to discover the true cause. The character of the incriminated pilot, Captain Jack Savage (Rod Taylor), is revealed through a series of flashbacks, from a wartime army camp (with a cameo by Jane Russell) to the climactic moment of the thrilling crash. Milton Krasner's crisp cinematography earned him an Oscar nomination. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 106 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Fearless Fagan (1952)
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Directed by: Stanley Donen
Cast:
Janet Leigh - Abby Ames
Carleton Carpenter - Pvt. Floyd Hilston
Keenan Wynn - Sgt. Kellwin
Richard Anderson - Capt. Daniels
Ellen Corby - Mrs. Ardley
Barbara Ruick - Nurse
Synopsis:
The unbreakable bond between a young man and his pet lion provides the action in this comedy. The trouble begins when the young man becomes a private in the army. Because he cannot bear to sell his lion Fagan to a mean-spirited circus trainer, the private asks his sergeant to help him find a good home for his pet. Naturally, the sergeant at first disbelieves his charge. He becomes a believer after the big kitty escapes from his cage and the Army must send out search parties to get him back. Thanks to Army publicity, a good home is found for the lion. Unfortunately, the loyal feline again escapes to search for his master. He causes chaos during troop maneuvers. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 79 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Feminine Touch, The (1941)
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Directed by: W.S. Van Dyke
Cast:
Rosalind Russell - Julie Hathaway
Don Ameche - John Hathaway
Kay Francis - Nellie Woods
Van Heflin - Elliott Morgan
Donald Meek - Capt. Makepeace Liveright
Robert Ryan
Synopsis:
An expert cast of farceurs goes through its customary paces in MGM's The Feminine Touch. Don Ameche plays college professor-turned-author John Hathaway, who hits upon a potential best-seller with his book on marital jealousy. He heads to New York with his lovely wife Julie (Rosalind Russell), there to commisserate with publisher Elliot Morgan (Van Heflin), whose job it is to "popularize" Hathaway's scholarly tome. Instead, Morgan falls head over heels in love with Julie, forcing John to consult his own book as a balm to his own jealousy. Meanwhile, Morgan's sweetheart Nellie Woods (Kay Francis) tries to take drastic measures to win back her beau, leading Julie to conclude that Nellie is making a play for John! And that's the name of the tune for the remainder of the film's 97 minute. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 97 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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First Lady (1937)
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Directed by:Stanley Logan
Cast:
Kay Francis - Lady Chase-Wayne
Anita Louise - Emmy Page
Veree Teasdale - Irene Hibbard
Louise Fazenda - Mrs. Greevey
Marjorie Rambeau - Belle Hardwick
Lucille Gleason - Mrs. Ives
Harry Davenport - Charles
Synopsis:
Based on the 1935 Broadway play by George S. Kaufman and Katharine Dayton, First Lady is not, as might be assumed, the story of the first woman president. The central character, played by Kay Francis, is the granddaughter of a president (though clearly inspired by Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice). Ms. Francis is married to Secretary of State Preston S. Foster, whom she hopes to propel into the White House. Her principal rival is the wife (Veree Teasdale) of a mildly corrupt supreme court justice (Walter Connolly). The rival is planning to divorce her husband and promote her own, younger presidential aspirant (Victor Jory). Kay retaliates by mounting a mock campaign for the befuddled justice--which snowballs into the real thing. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 82 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
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Directed by: Billy Wilder
Cast:
Franchot Tone - John J. Bramble
Anne Baxter - Mouche
Erich Von Stroheim - Field Marshal Rommel
Peter Van Eyck - Lt. Schwegler
Akim Tamiroff - Farid
Fortunio Bonanova - Gen. Sebastiano
Review:
Billy Wilder was one of the best directors of his era, so it's no surprise that, in spite of a certain amount of wartime propaganda, 'Five Graves to Cairo' has a fizzy plot, a strain of black humour and a lightness of touch that sets it apart from the majority of films made at this time. It's also interesting as a film made while the war was still going on: far from demonising the enemy, it provides a generous portrait of Rommel, an unpleasant but human German army and a comedy Italian general for light relief.
The plot also features a cynical Frenchwoman and a slightly racist realisation of an Egyptian: in some ways it's surprising to see how little this almost-fresh picture differs from those made later (if anything, since we discovered Auschwitz, it's been harder to make a film that shows that humanises the Nazis). 'Five Graves to Cairo' isn't Citizen Kane, and of course today this sort of thing would be done with much more violence, sex, and swearing: but that's a kind of recommendation in itself.
(imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Flight Angels (1940)
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Directed by: Lewis Seiler
Cast:
Virginia Bruce - Mary
Dennis Morgan - Chick
Wayne Morris - Artie
Ralph Bellamy - Graves
Jane Wyman - Nan Hudson
John Litel - Doc
Margot Stevenson - Rita
Synopsis:
A barely disguised rip-off of 20th Century-Fox's all-female Tail Spin (39), Warner Bros.' Flight Angels is an inexpensive "tribute" to airline stewardesses. Among the angels of the title are haughty Virginia Bruce and hoydenish Jane Wyman, who in one scene actually come to blows over their long-simmering rivalry. Dennis Morgan, Wayne Morris and Ralph Bellamy are among the men who do the "real" work above the clouds.
The climax involves a pilot who loses his sight, compelling the stewardess on board to perform "above and beyond " etc. Keep an eye out for Flight Angels bit players Jan Clayton, later Tommy Rettig's mother on the TV series Lassie; and DeWolfe Hopper Jr., who changed his name to William Hopper and played Paul Drake on Perry Mason.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 74 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Flight For Freedom (1943)
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Directed by: Lothar Mendes
Cast:
Rosalind Russell - Tonie Carter
Fred MacMurray - Randy Britton
Herbert Marshall - Paul Turner
Walter Kingsford - Adm. Graves
Damian O'Flynn - Pete
Jack Carr - Bill
Matt McHugh - Mac
Synopsis:
Flight for Freedom was an "a clef" version of the Amelia Earhart story. Rosalind Russell plays the Earhart-like aviatrix Tonie Carter, who spends the early part of the film fighting against the aviation industry's prejudice against woman pilots. Tonie establishes a reputation as "the Lady Lindbergh", setting flight records on a near-weekly basis. Along the way, she falls in love with an agreeable flying ace (Fred MacMurray), much to the dismay of her conservative flight instructor (Herbert Marshall).
The film's ending expands on speculation regarding Amelia Earhart's disappearance during a 1937 flight; Tonie Carter flies off on a secret mission to aid the Pacific war effort, then vanishes before completing her task. Flight for Freedom was produced for RKO by Floyd Odlum, whose wife Jacqueline Cochran was herself a renowned aviatrix.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Foxfire (1955)
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Directed by: Joseph Pevney
Cast:
Jane Russell - Amanda
Jeff Chandler - Jonathan Dartland
Dan Duryea - Hugh Slater
Mara Corday - Maria
Barton MacLane - Jim Mablett
Synopsis:
For full appreciation of the culture-clash drama Foxfire, it is crucial that the viewer accept Jeff Chandler as a Native American--not much of a stretch, since he'd previously been thoroughly convincing as Cochise in Broken Arrow. Chandler plays Jonathan Dartland, a half-breed Apache mining engineer working in his native Arizona. On a whim, Eastern socialite Amanda (Jane Russell) marries Jonathan. Disdaining "society", Dartland insists that the flighty Amanda remain in Arizona as a "typical" housewife. The rest of the film deals with the problematic period of adjustment for the seemingly mismatched couple. Foxfire earned a footnote in history as the film which was being screened on the Andrea Doria on the day that the ill-fated luxury liner went down. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Free, Blonde and 21 (1940)
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Directed by: Ricardo Cortez, Frances Hyland
Cast:
Lynn Bari - Carol
Mary Beth Hughes - Jerry
Joan Davis - Nellie
Henry Wilcoxon - Dr. Mayberry
Robert Lowery - Dr. Stephen Craig
Synopsis:
Free, Blonde and 21 was one of a handful of films directed by former leading man Ricardo Cortez. Two of 20th Century-Fox's busiest leading ladies, Mary Beth Hughes and Lynn Bari, head the cast of this soap opera-style yarn about life in a hotel catering to women. Hughes plays Jerry, a duplicitious wench who gets involved with gangsters ends up behind bars, while Bari plays Carol, an honest lass who is rewarded at fadeout time with a happy marriage to millionaire Dr. Mayberry (Henry Wilcoxon). Joan Davis injects a few moments of hilarity as the hotel chambermaid, while Alan Baxter is his usual steely-eyed self as a stickup man. For its original New York run, Free, Blonde and 21 was paired with Fox's The Grapes of Wrath, leading several reviewers to note that both films would have been better off with a single-feature presentation. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 67 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Fuller Brush Man, The (1948)
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Directed by:S. Sylvan Simon, Frank Tashlin
Cast:
Richard "Red" Skelton - Red Jones
Janet Blair - Ann Elliot
Don McGuire - Keenan Wallick
Hillary Brooke - Mildred Trist
Adele Jergens - Miss Sharmley
Ross Ford - Freddie Trist
Trudy Marshall - Sara Franzen
Synopsis:
MGM knew it had a valuable property in Red Skelton, but the studio never really knew how to handle his unique talents -- until he was loaned out to Columbia for the hilarious, money-spinning slapstick comedy The Fuller Brush Man. The star plays Red Jones, a born screw-up who can't seem to hold down a job. With the help of his ever-loving girlfriend Ann Elliot (Janet Blair), Red gets a job as a Fuller Brush salesman, intending to take the business world by storm with his can't-fail sales techniques. Unfortunately, when Red isn't messing up on his own, he's being sabotaged by his supervisor Keenan Wallick (Don McGuire) -- who also happens to be sweet on Ann.
While trying to make a sale at the home of Commissioner Trist (Nicholas Joy), poor Red finds himself the Number One Suspect when Trist is murdered. With Ann's help, Red eventually stumbles onto the identity of the actual killer, and the chase is on. And what a chase! Pursued by a battalion of thugs (played by several of Hollywood's top stunt men), Red and Ann hotfoot it through a well-stocked war surplus warehouse, wherein all the props -- rubber rafts, prefabricated houses, camouflage tents, flare guns -- are utilized to their utmost comic potential. A riot from beginning to end, The Fuller Brush Man may well be Skelton's funniest film. It was successful enough in 1948 to spawn a series of imitations -- The Good Humor Man, The Fuller Brush Girl, The Yellow Cab Man, Kill the Umpire - -all of which, like Fuller Brush Man, were co-scripted by the inexhaustibly inventive Frank Tashlin. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Gaby (1956)
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Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast:
Leslie Caron - Gaby
John Kerr - Gregory Y. Wendell
Cedric Hardwicke - Mr. Carrington
Taina Elg - Elsa
Margalo Gillmore - Mrs. Carrington
Scott Marlowe - Jan
Ian Wolfe - Registrar
Synopsis:
The third film version of Robert E. Sherwood's play Waterloo Bridge, Gaby is also the most antiseptic of the three. In the original 1931 film, Mae Clarke is cast as a British streetwalker who falls despearately and tragically in love with aristocratic military officer Douglass Montgomery. In the cleaned-up 1940 version, Vivien Leigh plays a ballerina who becomes a prostitute only after being informed that her lover, British "landed gentry" officer Robert Taylor, was killed in battle. In the 1956 edition, Leslie Caron is once again a ballerina at the outset, who once again turns to the World's Oldest Profession when she believes that her sweetheart, American GI John Kerr, has been killed during the D-Day invasion. The source material has been dry-cleaned to the extent that the heroine is permitted a happy ending, something she was flatly denied in the first two versions. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 97 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Gildersleeve's Ghost (1944)
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Directed by: Gordon M. Douglas
Cast:
Harold Peary - Gildersleeve/Randolph/Jonathan
Marion Martin - Terry Vance
Amelita Ward - Marie
Freddie Mercer - Leroy
Margie Stewart - Margie
Marie Blake - Harriet Morgan
Synopsis:
The last and least of RKO Radio's B-series based on radio's "Great Gildersleeve", Gildersleeve's Ghost is a standard "scare" comedy redeemed by some enthusiastic performances. The barely relevant title comes from the fact that the film opens in a graveyard, where two spectral ancestors of Springfield water commissioner Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) discuss his chances in the upcoming mayoral election.
The rest of the film takes place in a spooky old mansion, where mad scientists Wells (Frank Reicher) and Lennox (Joseph Vitale) are experimenting with an invisibility formula. Their unwilling subject is vivacious blonde Terry Vance (Marion Martin), whose ability to appear and disappear at will causes a lot of embarrassment for poor old Gildersleeve. The film doesn't miss a trick: there's even an extended bit involving a gorilla. Very basic stuff, Gildersleeve's Ghost admittedly delivers plenty of laughs. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 64 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Girl From Manhattan, The (1948)
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Directed by: Alfred E. Green
Cast:
Dorothy Lamour - Carol Maynard
George Montgomery - Reverend Tom Walker
Charles Laughton - The Bishop
Ernest Truex - Homer Purdy
Hugh Herbert - Aaron Goss
Constance Collier - Mrs. Brooke
Synopsis:
The Girl From Manhattan is a minor but watchable variation on the old "mortgage-on-the-farm" plot device. The girl of the title is Carol Maynard (Dorothy Lamour), who after several years in the Big Apple returns to her home town, where her uncle, boarding-house manager Homer Purdy (Ernest Truex) faces eviction.
The villain of the piece at first seems to be brash young minister Tom Walker (Robert Montgomery), who wants to build a church on Truex's property. But after reviewing the sitaution, Carol and Tom figure out that they have a common enemy: dishonest financier Sam Griffin (Howard Freeman), who intends to use the old church property for his own crooked purposes. Saving the film from wallowing in its own bathos is the timely arrival of Charles Laughton as a cherubic Bishop. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Glass Menagerie, The (1950)
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Directed by: Irving Rapper
Cast:
Jane Wyman - Laura Wingfield
Kirk Douglas - Gentleman Caller
Gertrude Lawrence - Amanda Wingfield
Arthur Kennedy - Tom Wingfield
Ralph Sanford - Mendoza
Ann Tyrrell - Clerk
Synopsis:
Adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams, Glass Menagerie centers around four unhappy people living in a rundown section of St. Louis. Tom, the story's narrator (Arthur Kennedy) is a poetic idealist trapped in a dead-end job, drowning his sorrows in booze. Tom lives with his mother Amanda (Gertrude Lawrence), a faded Southern belle who lives in the past, and with his crippled older sister Laura (Jane Wyman), an intensely shy woman who escapes from reality by keeping a "glass menagerie" of small animal figures. Laura is brought out of her shell by the Gentleman Caller (Kirk Douglas), a coworker of Tom's who relies on bravado and charm to get through life. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 106 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Goddess, The (1958)
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Directed by: John Cromwell
Cast:
Kim Stanley - Rita Shawn
Lloyd Bridges - Dutch Seymour
Steven Hill - John Tower
Betty Lou Holland - Mrs. Faulkner
Burt Brinckerhoff - Boy
Gerald Hiken - Uncle
Synopsis:
Screenplay writer Paddy Chayefsky, and indeed everyone involved with the film, insisted that The Goddess wasn't really all about Marilyn Monroe. Nawww. Kim Stanley plays a neglected young woman living in poverty who aspires to be a movie star. She gets a few roles here and there on looks alone. She marries a washed-up athlete (Lloyd Bridges) who becomes fiercely jealous of her sex appeal. She sleeps her way to the top, then finds that her success is hollow. Regarded in many circles as the pinnacle of dramatic art in 1958, The Goddess is more likely to invoke howls of laughter from today's in-the-know audiences. The most famous bit: Patty Duke, playing Kim Stanley as a child, telling her pet cat that she got promoted in school.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 105 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Great Expectations (1934)
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Directed by: Stuart Walker
Cast:
Phillips Holmes - Pip
Henry Hull - Abel Magwitch
Jane Wyatt - Estella
Florence Reed - Miss Havisham
Alan Hale - Joe Gargery
Walter Brennan - Ship Prisoner
Synopsis:
This 1934 Carl Laemmle production of Charles Dickens'great novel is reverent, well acted, and generally faithful to the author's vision. Henry Hull is particularly exceptional as a boorish but affable Magwitch, and of course Jane Wyatt (Estella), Phillip Holmes (Pip), and Florence Reed (Miss Havisham) all play their roles with heart and dignity.
As Hollywood is wont to do, the film makers modified Dickens' original ending to make it less sombre. Though this hardly ruins the picture, it does detract a bit from the story's inherent power. Even so, this version of Great Expectations is more than satisfactory, and well worth watching for anyone who ever wondered, like Pip, if they would ever find their destiny...or their love. (amazon.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Green Dolphin Street (1947)
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Directed by: Victor Saville
Cast:
Patrick Aherne - KapuaManga
Lana Turner - Marianne Patourel
Linda Christian - Hin-Moa
Van Heflin - Timothy Haslam
Gladys Cooper - Sophie Patourel
Donna Reed - Marguerite Patourel
Richard Hart - William Ozanne
Frank Morgan - Dr. Edmund Ozanne
Reginald Owen - Capt. O'Hara
Dame May Whitty - Mother Superior
Synopsis:
Good sister (Donna Reed) battles bad sister (Lana Turner) for possession of a New Zealand plantation. It climaxes, famously, with Turner giving birth in the midst of a spectacular MGM earthquake (which won an Academy Award for special effects). Victor Saville directed; Samson Raphelson adapted the bestseller by Elizabeth Goudge. With Richard Hart, Edmund Gwenn, and Van Heflin. (Chicago Reader)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 161 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Hatter's Castle (1941)
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Directed by: Lance Comfort
Cast:
Robert Newton - James Brodie
Deborah Kerr - Mary Brodie
James Mason - Dr. Renwick
Emlyn Williams - Dennis
Henry Oscar - Grierson
Enid Stamp Taylor - Nancy
Synopsis:
Paramount Pictures' British division was responsible for this adaptation of A.J. Cronin's novel Hatter's Castle. Robert Newton is appropriately mean-spirited as an 1890s hatter, James Brodie, who is anxious to claw his way up from poverty. Desperate to make himself socially acceptable as his income increases, Brodie proceeds to make life miserable for those closest to him: his wife (Beatrice Varley) and daughter (Deborah Kerr).
For all his blinkered social climbing, Brodie can never truly escape his true station in life -- a moral better suited to the class-conscious British audiences than the equal-opportunity Americans. Hatter's Castle was well distributed in the U.S. through Paramount's intimidatingly efficient studio-owned theater circuit. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 101 minutes
Country: UK/USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Hellzapoppin' (1941)
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Directed by: H.C. Potter
Cast:
Ole Olsen - Ole Olsen
Chic Johnson - Chic
Martha Raye - Betty Johnson
Shemp Howard - Louie
Elisha Cook, Jr. - Assistant Director
Synopsis:
Hellzapoppin' is the film version of the "anything goes" Broadway hit starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. The original production was part musical comedy, part "blackout" revue, with wild sight gags, zany props, audience participation sequences, dirty jokes, and never-ending gunshots. There was no plot, and in fact no two performances were exactly alike. When Hellzapoppin' was optioned by Universal, the original intention was to film the play as it stood (minus the more ribald one-liners), but the studio got cold feet and grafted on a conventional plot and romantic interest.
The film's story concerns a musical show being staged at a fancy estate, and the romantic triangle of the show's producer (Robert Paige), the wealthy girl who lives at the estate (Jane Frazee), and the girl's erstwhile fiance (Lewis Howard). The show's stars are Olsen, Johnson, and Martha Raye. Martha is mistaken for the wealthy girl by a penniless Russian aristocrat (Mischa Auer), and the entire proceedings are "investigated" by a goofy private detective (Hugh Herbert). Olsen and Johnson are thus reduced to supporting players in their own film, but when they do manage to command the screen, the results are hilarious. The best moments range from a throwaway gag about Citizen Kane (Johnson finds a sled marked "Rosebud" and mutters "I thought they burned that!") to the more elaborate special-effects routines involving the mixed-up projectionist (Shemp Howard) who's ostensibly running Hellzapoppin for the benefit of the film audience. Hellzapoppin remains one of the few sustained filmic examples of the "nut humor" exemplified by Olsen and Johnson. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA/France
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B-
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Her Jungle Love (1938)
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Directed by: George Archainbaud
Cast:
Dorothy Lamour - Tura
Ray Milland - Bob Mitchell
Lynne Overman - Jimmy Wallace
J. Carrol Naish - Kuasa
Dorothy Howe - Eleanor Martin
Synopsis:
Sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour made her Technicolor debut in this follow-up to her earlier starrer Jungle Princess. After crash-landing on a tropic isle, aviator Bob Mitchell (Ray Milland) and his mechanic Jimmy Wallace (Lynne Overman) make the acquaintance of the lovely Tura (Lamour). While Bob enthusiastically teaches Tura how to kiss, Jimmy tangles with comic-relief chimpanzee Gaga and playful tiger cub Meewa. The villain of the piece is megalomanic witch doctor Kuasa (J. Carroll Naish), who hypnotizes Tura into assisting him with his periodic human sacrifices. Just as Bob, Jimmy and Tura are about to meet their doom at the hands of Kuasa, a timely volcanic eruption saves the day.
Any hints of miscegenation (a big no-no for 1938 movie censors) are swept away when it is revealed that Tura is the daughter of white parents, enabling her to find connubial bliss in the arms of Bob. In his autobiography, Ray Milland recalled the filming of Her Jungle Love in vivid detail, devoting special attention to the time that he relieved himself during a swimming sequence ("No wonder the water was so warm" was Dorothy Lamour's only comment). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Home Before Dark (1958)
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Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast:
Jean Simmons - Charlotte Bronn
Dan O'Herlihy - Arnold Bronn
Rhonda Fleming - Joan Carlisle
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. - Jake Diamond
Mabel Albertson - Inez Winthrop
Stephen Dunne - Hamilton Gregory
Synopsis:
Wearing a curiously (and perhaps deliberately) unattractive blonde wig, Jean Simmons stars in the tense psychological drama Home Before Dark. Having just recovered from a nervous breakdown, Charlotte Bronn (Simmons) returns from a mental institution to the home she shares with her academician husband Arnold (Dan O'Herlihy). Though he tries his best to help Charlotte re-adapt, his efforts are undermined by the insensitive meddling of her stepmother Inez (Mabel Albertson) and stepsister Joan (Rhonda Fleming) who may or may not have been carrying on a romance with Arnold in Charlotte's absence.
The untenable situation at home leads Charlotte into a romance with college professor Jake Diamond (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), who as an ongoing target of anti-semitism has plenty of his own emotional baggage to deal with. What is remarkable about Home Before Dark is that it is a film without a villain: even the most unpleasant characters are drawn as three-dimensional human beings, who behave badly because they really don't know any better. The film was adapted by Robert and Eileen Bassing from Eileen's same-named novel.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 136 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Hot Blood (1956)
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Directed by:Nicholas Ray
Cast:
Jane Russell - Annie Caldash
Cornel Wilde - Stephen Turino
Luther Adler - Mario Torino
Joseph Calleia - Papa Theodore
Mikhail Rasumny - Old Johnny
Helen Westcott - Velma
James Russell - Xano
Synopsis:
If Hot Blood is remembered at all today, it is for its ludicrous advertising blurb "Jane Russell shakes her tambourines and drives Cornel Wilde!" Set in the gypsy community of contemporary Los Angeles, the film stars Wilde as aspiring dancer Stephen Torino, who is tricked by his brother Marco Luther Adler into an arranged marriage with tempestuous Annie Caldash Jane Russell. Annie is willing to give the union a go, but Torino wants none of it. Several risque complications and lively musical numbers later, Torino changes his mind. Nicholas Ray imbues Hot Blood with the same erotic/neurotic energy he brought to such earlier cult favorites as Johnny Guitar and Rebel without a Cause, but the magic just isn't there this time.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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House of the Seven Gables, The (1940)
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Directed by: Joe May
Cast:
George Sanders - Jeffrey Pyncheon
Margaret Lindsay - Hepzibah Pyncheon
Vincent Price - Clifford Pyncheon
Nan Grey - Phoebe Pyncheon
Dick Foran - Matthew Holgrave
Cecil Kellaway - Philip Barton
Alan Napier - Fuller
Synopsis:
This fine adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale about a cursed family opens with a title card that reveals how the Pyncheon family stole, cheated, lied, and murdered their way to wealth. But within the hearts of the family's bloodline lay fear of the curse of Matthew Maule, a man they crossed many years earlier. Jumping to the year 1828, upstart judge Jaffrey Pyncheon (George Sanders) is called to his family's beloved seven-gabled house where he is told by his father (Gilbert Emery) and brother Clifford (Vincent Price) that the home is to be sold in order to pay their debts.
A bitter, loathsome man who deeply believes in Maule's curse -- and the legend that gold is hidden in the house -- Jaffrey takes the opportunity of his father's death to accuse the innocent Clifford of murdering their patriarch. Clifford is sentenced to life in prison, but in a bizarre quirk of legal fate, the house is left in the care of Clifford's lively fiancée Hepzibah (Margaret Lindsay), who immediately boots out the hateful Jaffrey. The passage of 20 years leaves the house in shambles and Hepzibah a bitter spinster. The arrival of two people -- Hepzibah's pretty young cousin Phoebe (Nan Grey) and a mysterious boarder named Matthew Holgrave (Dick Foran) -- spark Hepzibah into opening the old house as a business. Clifford is finally released from prison and returns home for a touching reunion, but after a serious a strange reports about him leak out, Jaffrey plots to have his brother committed. However, Clifford has some plans for his evil brother and a plan to end the family's curse. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 89 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951)
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Directed by: Michael Gordon
Cast:
Susan Hayward - Harriet Boyd
Dan Dailey - Teddy Sherman
George Sanders - J.F. Noble
Sam Jaffe - Cooper
Randy Stuart - Marge Boyd
Marvin Kaplan - Arnold Fisher
Synopsis:
Money, romance, betrayal, double-dealing -- who knew making dresses could be so interesting? Harriet Boyd (Susan Hayward) is a fashion model who has landed plenty of work with a Seventh Avenue dress-making concern. However, Harriet knows that she can't be a model forever, so she is trying to turn her dreams of being a dress designer into reality. She knows that you have to be tough to succeed in the garment industry, but "tough" is practically Harriet's middle name; the ruthless would-be garment mogul lures salesman Teddy Sherman (Dan Dailey) and production whiz Mr. Cooper (Sam Jaffe) from the company and starts her own shop.
Harriet has a genuine talent for designing dresses that look good on ordinary women, and the firm soon develops a solid customer base, but the more luxurious and lucrative department stores are looking for something more upscale. J.F. Noble (George Sanders), who runs one such chain, tells Harriet he'd be interested in carrying her merchandice if she was willing to create a line of designer-style gowns. Teddy is against the idea, feeling it doesn't play on their strengths and would be bad for the company in the long run. Harriet, however, is determined to make a name for herself, and when Teddy and Cooper won't allow her out of their deal, she begins making gowns for Noble on the sly. Once the deal with Noble is sealed, Harriet informs Teddy and Cooper that they have no choice but to go along with her; this does not sit well with either of them, especially Teddy, who has become romantically involved with Harriet, though she toys with Noble out of self-interest.
"I Can Get It for You Wholesale" (also released as Only the Best) was based on a novel by Jerome Weidman; the book was later adapted into a Broadway musical, which is best remembered today for providing Barbra Streisand with her first big break in show biz. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 91 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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In Name Only (1939)
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Directed by: John Cromwell
Cast:
Carole Lombard - Julie Eden
Cary Grant - Alec Walker
Kay Francis - Maida Walker
Charles Coburn - Mr. Richard Walker
Katherine Alexander - Laura Morton
Helen Vinson - Suzanne Duress
Peggy Ann Garner - Ellen Eden
Synopsis:
While out riding in the country, wealthy New Yorker Alec Walker meets young widow Julie Eden, and a relationship quickly develops. However, Alec has not told her that he is already locked into a loveless marriage to the avaricious Maida, who has contrived to convince his parents she is the ideal wife. A completely coincidental car crash alerts the two women to each other's existence, a situation to which they react very differently. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 102 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Inferno (1953)
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Directed by: Roy Ward Baker
Cast:
Robert Ryan - Carson
Rhonda Fleming - Geraldine Carson
William Lundigan - Joseph Duncan
Larry Keating - Emory
Henry Hull - Sam Elby
Synopsis:
Brief and very much to the point, Inferno is a grim, fascinating tale of survival. Breaking his leg on a vacation trip, millionaire Carson (Robert Ryan) is left in the middle of the desert by his wife Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming) and his business partner Joseph Duncan (William Lundigan). Ostensibly, they have driven off to seek medical aid for Carson; in fact, they intend to leave him in the desert to die of thirst and exposure. When the truth of his dilemma is made clear, Carson vows to live long enough to exact revenge against his wife and partner. Virtually a one-man show for the most part, Inferno maintains its level of taut suspense from start to finish -- and what a finish. The first 3D effort from 20th Century-Fox, Inferno was remade for television in 1973 as Ordeal, with Arthur Hill in the Robert Ryan part and Diana Muldaur and James Stacy as his would-be murderers. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 90 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Island of Lost Men (1939)
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Directed by: Kurt Neumann
Cast:
Anna May Wong - Kim Ling
J. Carrol Naish - Gregory Prin
Eric Blore - Herbert
Ernest Truex - Frobenius
Anthony Quinn - Chang Tai
Broderick Crawford - Tex Ballister
Synopsis:
Anna May Wong and J. Carroll Naish, so memorably teamed in Paramount's Dangerous to Know, are costarred once more in Island of Lost Men. Naish plays ruthless jungle plantation owner Gregory Prin, who runs his domain like a dictatorship and treats his workers little better than slaves. Into Prin's world comes Kim Ling (Wong), daughter of a disgraced Chinese general. Kim Ling hopes to clear her father's name by bringing his primary accuser, Prin, to justice. The native-uprising finale is rendered in gloriously gruesome detail.
A remake of the 1931 Charles Laughton-Carole Lombard starrer White Woman, Island of Lost Men also offers early but well-rounded performances by Anthony Quinn (as a Chinese patriot!) and Broderick Crawford. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 63 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Isle of Fury (1936)
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Directed by: Frank McDonald
Cast:
Humphrey Bogart - Val Stevens
Margaret Lindsay - Lucille Gordon
Donald Woods - Eric Blake
Paul Graetz - Capt. Deever
Gordon Hart - Anderson
E.E. Clive - Dr. Hardy
Synopsis:
Based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel "The Narrow Corner", the melodramatic adventure Isle of Fury is one of Humphrey Bogart's early starring roles. Valentine "Val" Stevens (Bogart), a reformed criminal who makes a living by diving for pearls in the south seas, gets married to Lucille Gordon (Margaret Lindsay). Meanwhile, Detective Eric Blake (Donald Woods) is sent to bust Val, but he gets shipwrecked in a terrible storm at sea. Val saves his life and rescues the ship's captain Paul Graetz.
Eric falls in love with Lucille and makes friends with Val through the course of several sea tragedies before he realizes that he is supposed to arrest him. He then has to make a painful decision regarding his assignment and his sweetheart. E.E. Clive stars as Dr. Hardy, a doctor who offers frequent bible quotes and literary parables. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 60 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
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Directed by: Robert Hamer
Cast:
Googie Withers - Rose Sandigate
Edward Chapman - George Sandigate
Susan Shaw - Vi Sandigate
Patricia Plunkett - Doris Sandigate
Sydney Tafler - Morry Hyams
Betty Ann Davies - Sadie Hyams
Synopsis:
After the war, British films began avoiding the heiresses and lordships that had dominated the drama field and began pursuing "realism" -- which often was just as artificial as the earlier white-telephone pictures. John McCallum plays Tommy Swann, a product of the working class who tries to better himself by becoming a criminal. Escaping from prison, Swann hides out in the East London home of his former mistress Rose (Googie Withers), who has since married George Sandigate (Edward Chapman).
The film is told from Swann's point-of-view, and a dismal view that is. Nor does Rose seem any happier with her drab lot in life. Swann's return does nothing but further their misery, tearing Rose' family apart and sending Swann back into the arms of the law. Considered a tension-laden slice of life in 1949, "It Always Rains on Sunday" seems a bit contrived today, though it does full justice to the Arthur La Bern novel on which it is based -- especially when the film leaves the environs of the house and zeroes in on its colorful roster of bit actors.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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It Grows on Trees (1952)
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Directed by: Arthur Lubin
Cast:
Irene Dunne - Polly Baxter
Dean Jagger - Phil Baxter
Richard Crenna - Ralph Bowen
Joan Evans - Diane Baxter
Edith Meiser - Mrs. Pryorv
Sandy Descher - Midge Baxter
Synopsis:
Irene Dunne made her final film appearance in the frothy fantasy It Grows on Trees. Looking at least two decades younger than her 52 years, Dunne plays Polly Baxter, the ebullient wife of Phil Baxter (Dean Jagger). Miracle of miracles, two of the trees in Polly's backyard garden begin sprouting paper currency! Assuming that it's genuine mazumah, Polly goes on a spending spree, and also pays off the long-standing mortgage on the house.
The money-yielding trees soon become a nationwide sensation, drawing thousands of interested parties to the Baxters' tiny backyard. A major setback is inevitable, but the manner in which the dilemma is solved is both clever and logical. When it isn't concentrating on the plot proper, It Grows on Trees offers some amusing jibes at the U.S. Treasury Department, the IRS, and small-town pretentiousness. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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It's a Date (1940)
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Directed by: William Seiter
Cast:
Deanna Durbin - Pamela Drake
Kay Francis - Georgia Drake
Walter Pidgeon - John Arlen
Samuel S. Hinds - Sidney Simpson
Eugene Pallette - Governor
Henry Stephenson - Capt. Andrews
Synopsis:
A teenaged Deanna Durbin is cast as Pamela Drake, the daughter of celebrated stage actress Georgia Drake (Kay Francis). Hoping to find success as an actress herself, Pamela energetically lobbies for the title role in an upcoming play based on the life of St. Bernadette -- a role that has already been promised to her mother. The rivalry between Pamela and Georgia intensifies when both fall in love with handsome middle-ager John Arlen (Walter Pidgeon). Innumerable complications follow, leading to a happy ending for both mother and daughter, though not quite the ending that either one had in mind. Deanna Durbin's musical repertoire this time out includes "Musetta's Street Song" from La Bohème, "Loch Lomond," "Love Is All," and a curious climactic rendition of "Ave Maria." It's a Date was remade in 1950 as Nancy Goes to Rio, with Jane Powell and Ann Sothern. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Jeanne Eagels (1957)
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Directed by: George Sidney
Cast:
Kim Novak - Jeanne Eagels
Jeff Chandler - Sal Satori
Agnes Moorehead - Mme. Neilson
Charles Drake - John Donahue
Larry Gates - Al Brooks
Virginia Grey - Elsie Desmond
Synopsis:
Kim Novak is clearly out of her depth as legendary Broadway actress Jeanne Eagels, but one can't fault her for trying very hard. As this filmed biography gets under way, wide-eyed Eagels finds herself stranded in a tank town by a smooth-talking traveling salesman. Carnival operator Sal Satori hires Eagels as a kootch dancer, but her ambition is to become a serious dramatic actress. When she and Sal reach New York, she signs up for acting lessons under the tutelage of a Mme. Neilson (Agnes Moorehead). Before long, Jeanne is understudying on Broadway, and in 1922 she takes audiences and critics by storm with her unforgettable portrayal of Sadie Thompson in Rain, a role she landed by ruthlessly double-crossing the actress originally slated for the part (Virginia Grey). When her rival commits suicide, the chastened Jeanne turns to booze and drugs to assuage her conscience. The real-life Jeanne Eagels died of narcotics addiction in 1929, a fact that the Hollywood version skims over. Eagels' family sued Columbia Pictures over the "distortions" offered in Jeanne Eagels. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 109 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Johnny Dark (1954)
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Directed by: George Sherman
Cast:
Tony Curtis - Johnny Dark
Piper Laurie - Liz Kent
Don Taylor - Duke Benson
Paul Kelly - Jim "Scotty" Scott
Ilka Chase - Abbie Binns
Sidney Blackmer - James Fielding
Ruth Hampton - Miss Border-to-Border
Synopsis:
Tony Curtis stars as Johnny Dark, a moody automobile designer. Rejected by a major auto firm because of his "radical" notions, Johnny sets out to prove the efficiency of his cars on the racetrack. He is aided and abetted by pretty Piper Laurie and less pretty Paul Kelly, while motor mogul Sidney Blackmer fumes and fusses until he realizes that Johnny's designs will save his company. Most of the film is devoted to a marathon race, pitting Johnny against his friendly enemy Don Taylor. Johnny Dark is a must for racing buffs, as well as a prime example of Tony Curtis in his beefcake period. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 79 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Johnny Guitar (1954)
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Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Cast:
Joan Crawford
Sterling Hayden
Mercedes McCambridge
Synopsis:
One of the strangest westerns on record, Johnny Guitar has less in common with Zane Grey than it does with Sigmund Freud and Krafft-Ebbing. The title character, played by Sterling Hayden, is a guitar-strumming drifter who was once the lover of Arizona saloon-owner Vienna (Joan Crawford). Though her establishment doesn't make a dime, Vienna doesn't care because the railroad is going to come in soon, bringing a whole slew of thirsty new customers. This puts her at odds with bulldyke rancher Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), who doesn't want any new settlers on her land. Hating Vienna with a purple passion, Emma will do anything to drive her out of the territory...and even worse, Emma's got the law and the other ranchers on her side. Hoping to keep Emma at bay, Vienna hires Johnny Guitar, who unbeknownst to everyone else in town is a notorious gunslinger. But Johnny prefers to bide his time, waiting for Emma to strike before he makes his move. As a result, Vienna endures several life-threatening experiences, culminating with a feverish chase through the Arizona wilds with lynch-happy Emma and her minions in hot pursuit.
According to most sources, the animosity between Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge was quite real, added several extra dimensions to their scenes together. Director Nicholas Ray and screenwriter Philip Yordan stuff the film with so much sexual symbolism that one wonders why they left out a train going into a tunnel. Ms. Crawford's vivid red-and-blue wardrobe scheme was later appropriated by Ray for James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause--with equally stunning results. In addition to the stars, Johnny Guitar is well stocked with reliable supporting players, including Ernest Borgnine, Ben Cooper, Royal Dano (superb as a consumptive, book-reading hired gun) and Paul Fix. (allmovie.com)
"Gun-Queen of the Arizona Frontier ! . . . and her kind of men !!!"
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 110 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color (Trucolor)
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Journey, The (1959)
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Directed by: Anatole Litvak
Cast:
Yul Brynner - Maj. Surov
Deborah Kerr - Lady Diana Ashmore
Jason Robards, Jr. - Paul Kedes/Fleming
Robert Morley - Hugh Deverill
E.G. Marshall - Harold Rhinelander
Review:
Very literate, intelligent drama about a group of international travelers held virtual prisoners in the Hungary of 1956 by invading Russian Communist regime. Kerr and Robards play lovers, she a British baroness, he a Hungarian freedom fighter trying to do his bit for his country. Other New York theater stars of the period Anne Jackson & E G Marshall play an American couple traveling with their two young sons, including Ronny Howard in his screen debut. Jackson's character is hugely pregnant and not anxious to give birth in a soon-to-be communist country; she gives an impassioned plea in the third act of this film which presages the naturalistic acting styles we've come to know today from Redgrave, Fonda, & Streep. Leading the pack of Soviet wolves is Yul Brynner, magnificent as a commandant and at his sexiest since he played opposite Kerr in "The King and I". He is mean and nasty and terribly conflicted by his attraction to the lovely, patrician, & heroic Kerr. This is one of the great transition films of the latter part of the Golden Era of American film. Do not miss it. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 125 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A-
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Juggler, The (1953)
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Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Cast:
Kirk Douglas - Hans Muller
Milly Vitale - Ya'El
Paul Stewart - Detective Karni
Alf Kjellin - Daniel
Beverly Washburn - Susy
Charles Lane - Rosenberg
Synopsis:
A man finds himself running from both the police and his own troubling memories in this drama. Hans Muller (Kirk Douglas), a German Jew, was once a well-known juggler before he was committed to a concentration camp; Muller survived, but his wife and children did not. After the war, Muller and many other displaced people found themselves in a temporary camp in Israel; his experiences have left him upset and confused, and several of the guards notice that he's behaving oddly. Muller flees the camp after one day, but while running away, he's stopped by Kogan (Richard Benedict), an Israeli policeman. When Kogan asks to see Muller's papers, he immediately flashes back to an unsetting memory in which a Nazi officer asked the same question; Muller panics, attacks the cop, and flees for Mount Carmel.
In the morning, Muller encounters a group of children who believe the story he tells them: that he's a tourist from the United States. One of them, Yehoshua (Joseph Walsh), is making his way to a kibbutz in Syria, and Muller, who hopes to get to some friends in Egypt, joins him. Muller entertains the young man by teaching him to juggle, and they become close friends. When Yehoshua is injured by a land mine, Muller rushes him to a hospital, where he meets Ya'el (Milly Vitale), a woman who lost her husband to Arabs. A romance soon blossoms between Muller and Ya'el, and he confesses to her that he's on the run from the police; meanwhile, Israeli Detective Karni (Paul Stewart) is combing the nation, searching for the juggler -- not to arrest him, but to convince him that he's not wanted for murder, and that others want to help him. Michael Blankfort, who wrote the original novel upon which The Juggler was based, adapted the screenplay and also served as executive producer. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 86 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B+
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Jungle Goddess (1949)
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Directed by: Lewis D. Collins
Cast:
George Reeves - Mike Patton
Wanda McKay - Greta Vanderhorn
Armida - Wanama
Ralph Byrd - Bob Simpson
Smoki Whitfield - Oolonga the witch doctor
Dolores Castle - Yvonne
Rudy Robles - Nugara
Synopsis:
Superman and Dick Tracy star in Jungle Goddess--or rather, the actors who played Superman and Dick Tracy, George Reeves and Ralph Byrd. When pilots Mike Patton (Reeves) and Bob Simpson (Byrd) learn that the father of long-missing Greta Vanderhorn (Wanda McKay) is offering a huge reward for his daughter's return, they fly off to the African jungle where Greta's plane crashed many years ago. Mike and Bob trace Greta to a supersititious native tribe, where she reigns as queen.
Bob has the misfortune to kill one of the natives, whereupon Greta condemns him to death. Eventually, the more sympathetic of the two pilots manages to make his escape, with Greta by his side. Filmed "in glowing Sepiatone", Jungle Goddess recently resurfaced as an object of derision on TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 61 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality:
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Kathy O' (1958)
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Directed by: Jack Sher
Cast:
Dan Duryea - Harry Johnson
Patty McCormack - Kathy O'Rourke
Jan Sterling - Celeste Saunders
Mary Fickett - Helen Johnson
Sam Levene - Ben Melnick
Ricky Kelman - Robert "Bo" Johnson
Synopsis:
A child star becomes a brat to hide her loneliness in this drama. The popular little actress is quite insolent and refuses to allow anyone to push her around. She becomes quite stubborn when a studio publicist asks her to do an interview with his ex-wife, a prominent columnist. He finally bribes her into it, and when the contrary miss meets the journalist she takes an immediate shine to her. The lonesome girl becomes so enamored with the woman that she runs away from home to be near her. Trouble ensues when the publicist is arrested for kidnapping. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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King of Gamblers (1937)
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Directed by: Robert Florey
Cast:
Claire Trevor - Dixie
Lloyd Nolan - Jim
Akim Tamiroff - Steve Kalkas
Larry "Buster" Crabbe - Eddie
Helen Burgess - Jackie Nolan
Louise Brooks - Joyce Beaton (Scenes Deleted)
Synopsis:
Akim Tamiroff, Paramount Pictures' resident crime lord, runs all illegal gambling activities in a major city. Reporter Lloyd Nolan struggles to get the goods on Tamiroff, but runs up against a stone wall until he meets nightclub singer Claire Trevor. Trevor is anxious to avenge the death of her sister (Helen Burgess), who was done in by Tamiroff's minions. Though only a "B" picture, King of Gamblers was given "A" treatment by director Robert Florey. The film was part of an unofficial Paramount series based on the J. Edgar Hoover book Persons in Hiding. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 77 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lady in the Dark (1944)
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Directed by: Mitchell Leisen
Cast:
Ginger Rogers - Liza Elliott
Ray Milland - Charley Johnson
Jon Hall - Randy Curtis
Warner Baxter - Kendall Nesbitt
Barry Sullivan - Dr. Brooks
Mischa Auer - Russell Paxton
Synopsis:
Freely adapted from a successful Broadway musical by Moss Hart, this story stars Ginger Rogers as Liza Elliott, the editor of a popular fashion magazine. Despite her beauty, wealth, and success in business, Liza is unhappy and out of sorts. And while three men are vying for her affections -- advertising director Charley Johnson (Ray Milland), newly single Kendall Nesbitt (Warner Baxter), and youthful and handsome Randy Curtis (Jon Hall) -- Liza has been unlucky in love, and she feels that she's come to the end of her emotional rope. She begins seeing Dr. Brooks (Barry Sullivan) in hopes of resolving her emotional crises and finding happiness, and her self-searching explorations of her past take the form of a handful of musical numbers.
While the stage version of Lady in the Dark featured songs written by the estimable team of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, several of them were replaced for this screen adaptation; "The Saga of Jenny", "One Life to Love", and "Girl of the Moment" were the most notable among the Weill/Gershwin tunes that survived the editing process. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color, Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lady Takes a Flyer, The (1958)
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Directed by: Jack Arnold
Cast:
Lana Turner - Maggie Colby
Jeff Chandler - Mike Dandridge
Richard Denning - Al Reynolds
Andra Martin - Nikko Taylor
Chuck Connors - Phil Donahue
Reta Shaw - Nurse Kennedy
Synopsis:
According to Universal-International publicity, The Lady Takes a Flyer is partially based on fact. The "lady" is Maggie Colby (Lana Turner) and the "flyer" is former Air Force colonel Mike Dandridge (Jeff Chandler). The two form a partnership when Mike decides to inaugurate an air-ferry service with Maggie as his chief pilot. Mike's wartime buddy Al Reynolds (Richard Denning) also signs on with the new service, though Al's hopes for a romance with Maggie are dashed when she marries Mike. Trouble arises when Maggie becomes pregnant and Mike insists that she give up her perilous lifestyle and become just another housewife. All conflicts are resolved during an exciting finale, wherein a fogbound Maggie is guided across the Atlantic via the radioed instructions of her loving husband. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Land Unknown, The (1957)
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Directed by: Virgil Vogel
Cast:
Jock Mahoney - Cmdr. Harold Roberts
Shawn Smith - Margareth Hathaway
William Reynolds - Lt. Jack Carmen
Henry Brandon - Dr. Carl Hunter
Douglas Kennedy - Capt. Burnham
Phil Harvey - Steve Miller
Synopsis:
Generous portions of The Secret Land, the 1948 documentary on the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, were worked into the action of The Land Unknown. Jock Mahoney and William Reynolds play Hal and Jack, leaders of an expedition to the South Pole. Along for the ride is girl reporter Maggie (Shawn Smith), over whose affections Hal and Jack constantly battle. Making a forced landing in the Antarctic, our intrepid explorers find that they've descended well below sea level. Before long, they are attacked by prehistoric beasts which have been preserved in this heretofore uncharted region. When not fending off Tyrannosauri and Pterodactyls, Hal, Jack, Maggie and copter pilot Steve (Phil Harvey) try to steer clear of an unwieldly carnivorous plant. Further complicating things is the presence of a long-lost, slightly demented scientist (Henry Brandon) who craves companionship...specifically the female companionship of Maggie. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 78 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Libel (1959)
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Directed by: Anthony Asquith
Cast:
Dirk Bogarde - Sir Mark Loddon
Olivia de Havilland - Maggie Loddon
Paul Massie - Jeffrey Buckenham
Robert Morley - Sir Wilfred
Wilfrid Hyde-White - Hubert Foxley
Richard Wattis - Judge
Synopsis:
A man is forced to prove who he really is -- and discovers that it isn't as easy as one might think -- in this drama. Sir Mark Loddon (Dirk Bogarde) is a titled member of the British aristocracy who lives a life of wealth, privilege, and notoriety, until one day Jeffrey Buckenham (Paul Massie), a pilot from Canada, makes a startling accusation. Buckenham and Loddon were both inmates in the same POW camp during WWII, and Buckenham is convinced that Loddon is not the man he claims to be; Frank Welney, an actor who was also a prisoner in the same camp, bore a striking resemblance to Loddon, and he is convinced that the actor has taken Loddon's place.
The press picks up Buckenham's story, and the question of Loddon's identity becomes the talk of all England; Lady Maggie Loddon (Olivia de Havilland), Mark's wife, is deeply offended and insists that he sue for libel to restore his good name. Mark obtains the services of Sir Wilfred (Robert Morley), one of the nation's best-respected attorneys, but it soon becomes evident that proving Mark's identity in court may not be as simple as it might seem; Mark suffered severe head injuries during the war that cause him to stutter at times and also result in periodic spells of amnesia; the testimony of the many witnesses called by Sir Wilfred and his opponent, Hubert Foxley (Wilfrid Hyde-White), establish no clear consensus of who Loddon really is. Libel was based on the popular stage drama by Edward Wooll. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: UK/USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lieutenant Wore Skirts, The (1956)
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Directed by: Frank Tashlin
Cast:
Tom Ewell - Gregory Whitcomb
Sheree North - Katy Whitcomb
Rita Moreno - Sandra Gaxton
Rick Jason - Captain Barney Sloan
Les Tremayne - Henry Gaxton
Alice Reinheart - Capt. Brigg
Synopsis:
Frank Tashlin directed this comedy about a man whose marriage hits the skids when his wife gets caught in the draft. Gregory Whitcomb (Tom Ewell) served with distinction in the Army during WWII, but he now makes his living as a television writer. Gregory's wife Katy (Sheree North), several years his junior, was also a member of the military as a WAC. When the armed forces find themselves strapped for qualified personnel, Gregory and Katy are ordered to return to active duty; after his physical, Gregory is reclassified 4-F for health reasons, but Katy is judged 1-A and put back in camouflage. Now poor Gregory finds himself having to look after the home by himself and waiting for his spouse at the base, while both Katy and Gregory try to figure out how to free her from her military obligations. The Lieutenant Wore Skirts also features Rita Moreno and Rick Jason.(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Life at the Top (1965)
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Directed by: Ted Kotcheff
Cast:
Laurence Harvey - Joe Lampton
Jean Simmons - Susan Lampton
Honor Blackman - Norah Hauxley
Michael Craig - Mark
Donald Wolfit - Abe Brown
Robert Morley - Tiffield
Synopsis:
Life at the Top is a belated sequel to Room at the Top, John Blaine's "angry young man" British novel that was made into a film in 1959. Laurence Harvey is back as Joe Lampton, the man-on-the-rise protagonist who in Room had given up true love in favor of a career-boosting (and antiseptic) marriage to his boss' daughter. Ten years have passed: Lampton is a business success, but utterly bored by his dead-end marital setup. His wife feels the same, and it isn't long before Mr. and Mrs. Lampton begin conducting separate affairs. While the original Room was a fairly accurate evocation of its era, Life at the Top works too hard and too noisily to be "mod," in reflection of the ethereal Swinging London era.
The inclusion of flashbacks from Room at the Top, in which Harvey is seen making love to Simone Signoret, only serves to emphasize the shortcomings of the sequel. The best moments in the later version can be found in the early establishing scenes set in Yorkshire. Life at the Top was followed by a TV series called Man at the Top, starring Kenneth Haigh as Lampton, which in turn was followed by a theatrical feature of the same name. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 117 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lion. The (1962)
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Directed by: Jack Cardiff
Cast:
William Holden - Robert Hayward
Trevor Howard - John Bullitt
Capucine - Christine Bullitt
Pamela Franklin - Tina
Makara Kwaiha Ramadhani - Bogo
Synopsis:
A saga about growing up, relationships, and romantic love, this entertaining drama set in Africa has all the added visual benefits of the African landscape and animals. William Holden is divorced New York lawyer Robert Hayward, now unexpectedly in Kenya because his ex-wife Christine (Capucine) is having some problems with their eleven-year-old daughter Tina (Pamela Franklin). Christine has remarried and her new husband John Bullit, a former big-game hunter, now manages a large Kenyan animal preserve. Several circumstances pile up on top of each other after Robert arrives: first he finds out his daughter has an almost obsessive relationship with a lion, next he realizes he still loves his ex-wife, and finally, he also knows that Christine's husband is not blind to the dynamics of this sudden romantic triangle. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Living Idol, The (1957)
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Directed by:
Albert Lewin
Cast:
Steve Forrest
Liliane Montevecchi
James Robertson Justice
Sara Garcia
Eduardo Noriega
Filmmaker Albert Lewin's fascination with erotic exotica reaches a pinnacle in The Living Idol. James Robertson Justice plays Dr. Alfred Stones, an archeologist working in Mexico. It is Dr. Stones' contention that Indian maiden Juanita (Lilliane Montevecchi) is the reincarnation of an Aztec princess, sacrificed centuries earlier to appease the "jaguar gods". To prove his thesis, the good doctor lets loose a jaguar to see what happens when it sinks its claws into poor Juanita. Coming to the rescue is nominal hero Terry Mathews (Steve Forrest), who, like Juanita, looks as confused as the audience at this point.. -- Hal Erickson (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 101 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: French, Burned-in
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
WideScreen
 Buy the Poster at MovieGoods.com! |
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Lizzie (1957)
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Directed by: Hugo Haas
Cast:
Eleanor Parker - Elizabeth Richmond
Richard Boone - Dr. Neal Wright
Joan Blondell - Aunt Morganv
Hugo Haas - Walter Brenner
Ric Roman - Johnny Valenzo
Dorothy Arnold - Elizabeth's Mother
Synopsis:
Though his staunchest supporters may disagree, Lizzie is arguably director Hugo Haas' best film. Adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Bird's Nest, the film is a tour de force for Eleanor Parker, who plays the schizophrenic title character. Depending on the circumstances, Lizzie adopts one of three distinct personalities--one is good, one is bad and the third is hopelessly neurotic. Psychiatrist Neal Wright (Richard Boone) tries his best to help Lizzie, but he is undercut by the abusive behavior of the girl's drunken floozy of an aunt (Joan Blondell).
Financed by Kirk Douglas' Bryna Productions, Lizzie was overshadowed by the box-office success of the similarly-themed Three Faces of Eve, which was released shortly afterward. Pop crooner Johnny Mathis made his debut as a lounge singer in this film, performing "It's Not for Me To Say." (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Lucky Partners (1940)
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Directed by: Lewis Milestone
Cast:
Ronald Colman - David Grant
Ginger Rogers - Jean Newton
Jack Carson - Freddie Harper
Spring Byington - Aunt Lucy
Cecilia Loftus - Mrs. Sylvester
Harry Davenport - Judge
Hugh O'Connell - Niagara Clerk
Synopsis:
Lewis Milestone directs the lightweight romantic comedy Lucky Partners, based on a story by Sacha Guitry. David Grant (Ronald Colman) is an artist in New York's Greenwich Village. After he wishes good luck to passing ingenue Jean Newton (Ginger Rogers), she is immediately offered a beautiful dress. Thinking that David is lucky, she agrees to go in with him on a ticket for the Irish Sweepstakes. Their horse wins the race, and he asks her to accompany her to Niagara Falls to celebrate their winnings. Jean's fiancé, Freddie Harper (Jack Carson), is not pleased about the arrangement, so he follows them. Eventually Jean and David fall for each other and they end up in the courthouse, where the judge ($Harry Davenport) sorts everything out in favor of the new couple. Lucky Partners was released in 1940, the same year Rogers gave her Oscar-winning performance in Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 101 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Make Mine Mink (1960)
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Directed by: Robert Asher
Cast:
Terry-Thomas - Maj. Albert Rayne
Athene Seyler - Beatrice Appleby
Hattie Jacques - Nanette Parry
Billie Whitelaw - Lily
Elspeth Duxbury - Elizabeth Pinkerton
Irene Handl - Mme. Spolinski
Synopsis:
Terry-Thomas plays the military-officer head of an amiable gang of amateur British thieves. He is recruited for this task by wealthy dowager Athene Seyler, who merely wants to retrieve stolen minks from genuine crooks. Any profits accrued by this undertaking are to be turned over to charity. Once we're aware that everyone's heart is in the right place, we can laugh freely at the film's collection of would-be reprobates, and vicariously hold out hopes for their success. Best bit: Terry-Thomas, backed by Anton Karas' "Third Man" theme, skulking into what appears to be a waterfront dive to make contact with a "fence," only to discover that he's stumbled into a Salvation Army mission. Make Mine Mink was based on Breath of Spring, a play by Peter Coke.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color & Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A-
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Margie (1946)
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Directed by: Henry King
Cast:
Lynn Bari - Miss Isabelle Palmer
Vanessa Brown - Wanda
Hobart Cavanaugh - Mr. McDuff
Jeanne Crain - Margie McDuff
Esther Dale - Grandma McSweeney
Hazel Dawn - Vi
Don Hayden - Boy Charlie
Synopsis:
Nostalgic and sweet, this tuneful comedy centers on a mother's reminiscence of her wild time as a 1920s teenage flapper. Margie is first seen fully grown telling her stories to her own teenage daughter. Back then, Margie was a typical adolescent, crazy about boys (especially those in raccoon coats) and an expert on the day's fashions. Margie was quite the cat's meow back then and found herself pursued by a handsome young man. Unfortuantely for him, Margie and the other girls only have eyes for the dashing new French teacher. Though busy vying for the teacher's affections, the teens still have time to perform many of the 1920's most popular songs. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 94 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW:Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Masquerade In Mexico (1945)
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Directed by: Mitchell Leisen
Cast:
Dorothy Lamour - Angel O'Reilly
Arturo de Cordova - Manolo Segovia
Patric Knowles - Thomas Grant
Ann Dvorak - Helen Grant
Natalie Schafer - Irene Denny
Mikhail Rasumny - Paolo
Synopsis:
"Masquerade in Mexico" is Mitchell Leisen's remake of his own Midnight. Stranded in Mexico City without a dime, glamorous Angel O'Reilly (Dorothy Lamour) is rescued by wealthy Thomas Grant (Patric Knowles). But Grant's motivations are anything but altrustic. In order to get his wife Helen's (Ann Dvorak) mind off handsome bullfighter Manolo Segovia (Arturo de Cordova), Grant passes Angel off as a Contessa at a weekend party, reasoning that Segovia will switch his attentions to our heroine.
Screenwriter Karl Tunberg has added a jewel-theft angle to the original Edwin Justis Mayer/Franz Spencer story, which improves things not at all. Masquerade in Mexico is admittedly a handsomer production than Midnight, but the remake lacks the sparkle of the original film's stars Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Francis Lederer, Mary Astor et. al. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Maze, The (1953)
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Directed by: William Cameron Menzies
Cast:
Richard Carlson - Gerald McTeam
Veronica Hurst - Kitty Murray
Katherine Emery - Mrs. Murray
Michael Pate - William
John Dodsworth - Dr. Bert Dilling
Synopsis:
The hero of The Maze turns out to be a giant frog, but that's hardly the most unbelievable aspect of this one-of-a-kind melodrama. It all begins when Scotsman Gerald McTeam (Richard Carlson) is called away to his ancestral mansion just before his marriage to Kitty (Veronica Hurst). Several weeks pass before it dawns on Kitty and her aunt Mrs. Murray (Katherine Emery, who narrates the film) that Gerald may not be coming back. The two women head to the mansion, where Gerald refuses to see them. The household servants likewise refuse access to Kitty and her aunt, but the two women intend to get to the bottom of the mystery, the solution of which seems to be somewhere in the huge maze in the rear of the castle. And that's all that can be revealed without giving the game away. Lensed in 3D, The Maze was one of two fascinating fantasy films directed in 1953 by production designer William Cameron Menzies: the other was Invaders from Mars. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 80 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force (1965)
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Directed by: Edward J. Montagne Jr.
Cast:
Joe Flynn - Capt. Wallace Burton Binghamton
Tim Conway - Ensign Charles Parker
Bob Hastings - Lt. Carpenter
Gary Vinson - Q.M. George "Christy" Christopher
Billy Sands - Motor Machinist Mate Harrison "Tinker" Bell
Synopsis:
In this comedy, another entry in the slapstick series based on a popular TV show, meek little Ensign Parker finds himself getting promoted for no apparent reason. He gets himself rip-roarin' drunk one night and finds himself wearing an Air Force uniform and mistaken for a big-wig. He continues to mess up, but to no avail, no matter what he does, he continues to get promoted. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 90 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Miranda (1948)
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Directed by: Ken Annakin
Cast:
Glynis Johns - Miranda Trewella
Googie Withers - Clare Marten
Griffith Jones - Paul Marten
John McCallum - Nigel Hood
Margaret Rutherford - Nurse Carey
David Tomlinson - Charles
Synopsis:
Based on the play by Peter Blackmore, Miranda was the first of two British comedies starring Glynis Johns as a mischievous mermaid. Rescued from a watery grave by the finny-tailed Miranda (Johns), handsome doctor Paul Marten (Griffith Jones) agrees under durress to take his lovely rescuer to London. Hiding her scaly lower extremities with a blanket, Miranda pretends to be a patient in Paul's clinic, much to the discomfort of his jealous spouse Clare (Googie Withers). Along the way, two eligible bachelors (David Tomlinson and John McCallum) fall in love with Miranda-and are they in for a surprise! The irreplaceable Margaret Rutherford is a riot as Miranda's befuddled nurse. Incidentally, David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns were reteamed in 1964 as Mr. and Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 79 minutes
Country: UK
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B+
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Miss Susie Slagle's (1945)
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Directed by: John Berry
Cast:
Veronica Lake - Nan Rogers
Sonny Tufts - Pug Prentiss
Joan Caulfield - Margaretta Howe
Ray Collins - Dr. Elijah Howe
Billy De Wolfe - Ben Mead
Bill Edwards - Elijah Howe, Jr.
Lillian Gish
Synopsis:
Based on the novel by Augusta Tucker, the provocatively titled Miss Susie Slagle's is actually a leisurely, sentimental story set in a turn-of-the-century boarding house. The title character, played by Lillian Gish, is the house's landlady, catering exclusively to young doctors and nurses in training. Miss Susie Slagle takes pride in the fact that not one of her boarders has ever failed medical school, but for a while it looks as though this perfect record will be spoiled by Elijah Howe Jr. (Bill Edwards), the seemingly irresponsible son of one of Susie's former tenants (Ray Collins).
The bulk of the storyline is carried by med student Pug Prentiss (Sonny Tufts), who carries on a romance with Howe Jr.'s sister Margaretta (Joan Caulfield, in her film-starring debut). Flamboyant comic actor Billy DeWolfe is uncharacteristically restrained as pragmatic third-year student Ben Mead, though the script contrives to allow DeWolfe to do one of his celebrated female-impersonation routines! In true open-ended fashion, the film ends as it begins, with Miss Susie Slagle welcoming another crop of students to her lodgings. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 88 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Mother is a Freshman (1949)
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Directed by: Lloyd Bacon
Cast:
Loretta Young - Abigail "Abby" Fortitude Abbott
Van Johnson - Prof. Richard Michaels
Rudy Vallee - Prof. John Heaslip
Barbara Lawrence - Louise Sharp
Robert Arthur - Beaumont Jackson
Betty Lynn - Susan
Synopsis:
The same studio that brought forth Father Was a Fullback was responsible for Mother is a Freshman. Loretta Young stars as Abbigail Abbott, the widowed mother of coed Susan Abbott (Betty Lynn). In order to legally validate Susan's scholarship fund (a legacy of her late grandmother), Abigail enrolls in the university as a freshman. Here she is wooed by Professor Richard Michaels (Van Johnson)--much to Susan's dismay, since she'd set her cap for the professor herself.
Rudy Vallee reprises the "stuffy middle-aged suitor" characterization he'd essayed in such previous comedies as The Palm Beach Story and Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Mother is a Freshman afforded audiences the opportunity of glimpsing 20th Century-Fox's familiar "college campus" sets in full Technicolor (these standing sets were also seen in black & white in such 1949 releases as "Mr. Belvedere Goes to College" and "It Happens Every Spring").
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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My Favorite Spy (1951)
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Directed by: Norman Z. McLeod
Cast:
Bob Hope - Peanuts White / Eric Augustine
Hedy Lamarr - Lily Dalbray
Francis L. Sullivan - Karl Brubaker
Arnold Moss - Tasso
John Archer - Henderson
Luis Van Rooten - Hoenig
Synopsis:
Bob Hope is up to his famous nose in danger in this espionage comedy. Second-rate burlesque comic Peanuts White (Hope) is approached by federal agents who think that he's international spy Eric Augustine, to whom Peanuts bears a striking resemblance. When they realize that Peanuts and Eric are two different people, the FBI persuades him to travel to Africa posing as Eric and fetch a batch of microfilm that could prove vital to national security. With reluctance, Peanuts flies to Tangiers and arranges a rendezvous with Lily Dalbray (Hedy Lamarr), Eric's beautiful girlfriend and an agent of shifting alliances herself. However, Lily's superior Karl Brubaker (Francis L. Sullivan) wants the microfilm, and he will stop at nothing to get it. As Peanuts tries to rescue the microfilm, make time with Lily, and avoid Karl, things become even more confused when Eric escapes from hiding and re-enters the picture. Both Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr contribute songs to the soundtrack, though unlike Bob, Hedy's vocals were dubbed in by a studio vocalist. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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My Forbidden Past (1951)
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Directed by: Robert Stevenson
Cast:
Robert Mitchum - Dr. Mark Lucas
Ava Gardner - Barbara Beaurevel
Melvyn Douglas - Paul Beaurevel
Lucile Watson - Aunt Eula
Janis Carter - Corinne
Gordon Oliver - Clay Duchesne
Synopsis:
This period melodrama stars Ava Gardner as Barbara Beaurevel, a woman who inherits a substantial fortune from her grandmother. The source of the Beaurevel estate is a subject much whispered about among polite company, but Barbara hopes to wipe away its stigma by using her money to help others through good works. Barbara is in love with Dr. Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum), but since the good doctor is married, there is little she can do to win his affection. Barbara persuades Paul (Melvyn Douglas) to try to seduce Dr. Lucas' wife Corinne (Janis Carter) in hopes of driving him away from her. Not long after this plan fails, Barbara finds a way to truly prove her love to Dr. Lucas. Corrine is murdered, Dr. Lucas is accused of the crime, and Barbara realizes that the testimony that could save his life would mean having to reveal the truth about her grandmother's shameful past. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Nearly Eighteen (1943)
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Directed by: Arthur Dreifuss
Cast:
Gale Storm - Jane
Rick Vallin - Tony
Bill Henry - Leonard
Luis Alberni - Gus
Ralph Hodges - Tom
Synopsis:
It may be ungentlemanly to say it, but pert leading lady Gale Storm was nearly 21 when she starred in Monogram's Nearly Eighteen. Storm plays teenaged songstress Jane, who is too young to land a nightclub job but too old to enroll in a prestigious academy of music. She poses as a 14-year-old so that she can be tutored by handsome and talented music-professor Leonard (Bill Henry). By and by, Jane falls in love with Leonard, but dares not admit it lest her subterfuge be revealed. The fun really begins when Jane, lying about her age (again!) to secure a nightclub gig, is ardently pursued by handsome bookie Tony (Rick Vallin). (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 61 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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News is Made at Night (1939)
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Directed by: Alfred L. Werker
Cast:
Preston S. Foster - Steve Drum
Lynn Bari - Maxine Thomas
Russell Gleason - Albert Hockman
George Barbier - Clanahan
Eddie Collins - Billiard
Minor Watson - Charles Coulton
Synopsis:
Newspaper editor Steve Drum (Preston Foster) is willing to pull any dirty trick in the book to boost his rag's circulation. Drums's latest escapade is to blame a former criminal, now a respected politician, for a series of murders. Once the damage has been done, Drum puts on his "crusader" hat and stirs up enough public sympathy to save the politician from the electric chair. Only he's been forced to eat a few heaping helpings of humble pie does Drum redeem himself in the eyes of his long-suffering star reporter Maxine Thomas (Lynn Bari). Real-life newspapermen were mildly amused with the liberties taken in this fanciful "stop the presses" seriocomedy. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 73 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
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Directed by: Hugo Haas
Cast:
Julie London - Ginny Nelson
John Drew Barrymore - Roderic "Chuck" Nelson
Nat "King" Cole - Cy Robbin
Anna Kashfi - Maria Robbin
Agnes Moorehead - Cornelia Nelson
Cathy Lee Crosby - The Singer
Jackie Coogan - Sgt. Bragan
Charles Chaplin, Jr. - The Neighbor
Billy Daniels - Headwaiter
Synopsis:
Scripted in another era, the premise for this interesting though conventional drama defending a partially mixed marriage would not be as convincing a few decades later. Chuck Nelson (John Drew Barrymore) is a wealthy young man who travels South of the border and meets and then marries Ginny (Julie London). His new bride is a wonderful woman until Chuck's socialite mother (Agnes Moorehead) discovers that one of Ginny's grandparents was of African ancestry. The imperious mother-in-law lands the new couple in an embittered court battle as she makes every attempt to annul their marriage. Nat "King" Cole plays Ginny's uncle, and Anna Kashfi is Maria, her cousin. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 96 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Night Song (1947)
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Directed by: John Cromwell
Cast:
Dana Andrews - Dan Evans
Merle Oberon - Cathy
Ethel Barrymore - Aunt Willey
Hoagy Carmichael - Chick
Jacqueline White - Connie
Donald Curtis - George
Synopsis:
In this melodrama, a brilliant pianist is struck blind in an accident and stops working on his equally brilliant concerto. A wealthy woman pretends to be poor and blind to help him regain his confidence, and holds a contest with a large prize for the best musical composition. She, as the blind girl, encourages him to finish his work and enter it. He wins the prize, uses the money to have his sight restored, falls in love with the wealthy woman, and is thrilled to find that his two loves are one and the same. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 102 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Night Train to Munich (1940)
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Directed by: Carol Reed
Cast:
Margaret Lockwood - Anna Bomasch
Rex Harrison - Gus Bennett
Paul Henreid - Karl Marsen
Basil Radford - Charters
Naunton Wayne - Caldicott
Synopsis:
Rex Harrison astonished his fans by donning a Nazi uniform in the British suspenser Night Train (originally titled Night Train to Munich). Actually he's a British agent, working undercover to rescue a Czech inventor from the Gestapo. The inventor's daughter (Margaret Lockwood) becomes the unwitting pawn of a genuine Nazi (Paul von Hernreid, just before he became Paul Henreid) during a long train ride from Germany to France and back again. Director Carol Reed never denied that his inspiration for Night Train was Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (both films were written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat). The homage was solidified by the presence in Night Train of two carryovers from the Hitchcock film: those ardent British cricket fans Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne). Night Train was liberally adapted from the Gordon Wellesley novel Report on a Fugitive. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A
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Nitwits, The (1935)
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Directed by: George Stevens
Cast:
Bert Wheeler - Johnny
Robert Woolsey - Newton
Fred Keating - William Darrell
Betty Grable - Mary Roberts
Evelyn Brent - Mrs. Alice Lake
Synopsis:
The Nitwits are Johnny (Bert Wheeler) and Newt (Robert Woolsey), cigar-counter proprietors in the building owned by music publisher Lake (Hale Hamilton). Johnny spends his spare time spooning with his sweetheart, Lake's secretary Mary (Betty Grable), while Newt tinkers with his inventions, the latest of which is an electric chair which compels the occupant to tell the truth. A none too lovable man, Lake has made enemies of several people, including his shifty assistant Lurch (Arthur Aylesworth) and disgruntled songwriter Clark (Erik Rhodes); he is also on the outs with Mrs. Lake (Evelyn Brent), who caught her husband "coming on" to the reluctant Mary. Thus it is that practically anyone could be the dreaded "Black Widow," a mysterious blackmailer-murderer who's been trying to extort money from Lake. Hired at a substantial fee to protect the publisher from the Black Widow is private detective Darrell (Fred Keating), but Lake is murdered in his office all the same. Suspicion immediately falls upon Mary, the last person to see Lake alive. Johnny gallantly takes the blame for the killing to protect Mary, while Newt, believing Johnny to be guilty, does his best to protect his pal from the cops.
All of this seems rather heavy going for a Wheeler & Woolsey vehicle, but be assured that The Nitwits is definitely a comedy, with the stars at their peak under the direction of George Stevens. The beauty of the film is that it sustains its momentum even after Newt's "truth chair" reveals the identity of the killer to the audience (but not to our rather dense heroes); especially hilarious is a nocturnal chase through a costume warehouse, utilizing several gags lifted from Stevens' "Boy Friends" 2-reelers of the early 1930s. Nineteen-year-old Betty Grable doesn't have too much to do, though she proves a charming subject for the film's best song, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh's "Music in My Heart". Co-written by Stuart Palmer, of "Hildegarde Withers" fame, The Nitwits was the last of Wheeler & Woolsey's truly worthwhile films. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 81 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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No Time for Sergeants (1958)
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Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast:
Andy Griffith - Will Stockdale (Narrator)
Myron McCormick - Sgt. King
Nick Adams - Ben Whitledge
Murray Hamilton - Irvin Blanchard
Don Knotts - Corporal Brown
Synopsis:
Brought to the Air Force base in handcuffs because his farmer father has been hiding his draft notices, good-natured Will becomes the target of ridicule for the other transcripts. Especially nasty is Private Irvin (Murray Hamilton), but Will is able to forgive him because he knows that Irvin is suffering from some mysterious disease called ROTC. Will's best pal is hot-headed private Ben (Nick Adams), who wants to be transferred to the Infantry and convinces Will to try for the same goal. Slowly becoming aware that the trusting, naïve Will may prove to be a troublemaker, career sergeant King (Myron McCormick), who wants nothing more out of life than a little peace and quiet, tries to keep Stockdale out of mischief by appointing him "PLO" -- Permanent Latrine Orderly, a dubious distinction in which Will takes enormous pride. Later on, King tries to pull strings to get Will transferred, succeeding only in losing his sergeant's stripes.
Far better seen than described, No Time for Sergeants is a delightful experience for Andy Griffith fans in general and ex-GIs in particular. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 119 minutes
Country: USA/France
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Once More, My Darling (1949)
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Directed by: Robert Montgomery
Cast:
Robert Montgomery - Collier Laing
Ann Blyth - Marita Connell
Jane Cowl - Mrs. Laing
Lillian Randolph - Mamie the Maid
Steven Geray - Kalzac
John Ridgely - Burke, FBI Man
Roland Winters - Col. Head
Synopsis:
After the film-noir melodramatics of Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse, actor/director Robert Montgomery turned to comedy in Once More, My Darling. Montgomery plays a former movie idol hired by the government to woo a young heiress (Ann Blyth). Someone had previously given the girl some jewelry stolen by the Nazis during the war, and the government wants to find out who that someone was. In the grand tradition, Montgomery pursues Blyth until she finally catches him. Produced by longtime Alfred Hitchcock associate Joan Harrison, Once More, My Darling is more conservatively directed than Montgomery's earlier works, though the director earns at least one laugh by playing a clever editing joke. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 94 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Over My Dead Body (1942)
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Directed by: Malcolm St. Clair
Cast:
Milton Berle - Jason Cordry
Mary Beth Hughes - Patricia Cordry
Reginald Denny - Brenner
Frank Orth - Detective
Wonderful Smith - Black boy
George Carleton - Judge
Synopsis:
If MGM's Red Skelton could make the mystery/comedy Whistling in the Dark, 20th Century-Fox's Milton Berle could show up in the mystery/comedy Over My Dead Body (Berle's reputation for lifting gags from other comics now extended to lifting plot material). Berle plays a mystery writer who forever writes himself into corners and is never able to finish a story. While visiting his wife (Mary Beth Hughes) at the office where she works, Berle overhears several men discussing the suicide of a coworker. Struck with a brilliant notion, Berle decides to confess to the murder of the dead man, certain that he'll be able to wriggle out of the situation and thereby have plenty of material for a story. Alas, it turns out that the deceased gentleman was murdered, and Berle is nearly sent to the chair. In emulation of the Bob Hope/Willie Best combination in The Ghost Breakers Milton Berle is teamed with a "scared" black elevator operator, played by a superb African-American radio and vaudeville comedian named Wonderful Smith. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 67 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality:B
New Print 05/09! |
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Remains to be Seen (1953)
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Directed by: Don Weis
Cast:
June Allyson - Jody Revere
Van Johnson - Waldo Williams
Louis Calhern - Benjamin Goodman
Angela Lansbury - Valeska Chauval
John Beal - Dr. Glenson
Dorothy Dandridge - Herself
Synopsis:
June Allyson plays a band singer working in New York City; Van Johnson is the manager of a fancy apartment house where a murder is committed. The victim is Allyson's wealthy uncle, and since she can't account for her actions at the time of the crime, Our Heroine is the principal suspect. The real murderer is an expert in hypnosis, who uses this skill to manipulate Allyson's actions--and to lure the girl to her potential doom. Johnson doesn't figure things out until it's almost too late. Remains to Be Seen was based on the Broadway comedy/mystery by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, which originally starred Jackie Cooper and his then-wife Janis Paige. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 89 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: C
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Revolt of Mamie Stover, The (1956)
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Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Cast:
Jane Russell - Mamie Stover
Richard Egan - Jim
Joan Leslie - Annalea
Agnes Moorehead - Bertha Parchman
Jorja Curtright - Jackie
Michael Pate - Harry Adkins
Synopsis:
Set in the early '40s and directed by Raoul Walsh, The Revolt of Mamie Stover stars Jane Russell as Mamie, a San Francisco prostitute who is run out of town just as the second world war has begun to intensify. Mamie (Russell) settles down in Hawaii, hoping to start a new life. Though her prospects look good when she falls in love with a science-fiction writer (Richard Egan) who treats her with the respect she deserves, the dawning war and the fallacies of her previous lifestyle complicate their budding romance. Mamie cannot fully remove herself from her former profession, and provides some of her old services to the sailors stationed in town.
Searching for another means of financial security, Mamie invests in several pieces of real estate and becomes quite wealthy, though her bad reputation has not been forgotten by the locals. The part of Mamie Stover was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe, but Russell stepped in when Monroe passed up the offer. The Revolt of Mamie Stover also features Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, and Jorja Curtright. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Roots of Heaven (1958)
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Directed by: John Huston
Cast:
Errol Flynn - Maj. Forsythe
Juliette Greco - Minna
Trevor Howard - Merel
Eddie Albert - Abe Fields
Orson Welles - Cy Sedgewick
Herbert Lom - Orsini
Paul Lukas - Saint Denis
Synopsis:
Romain Gary's best-selling novel The Roots of Heaven was adapted to film in Cinemascope and DeLuxe Color by producer Darryl F. Zanuck. Though billed third, Trevor Howard plays the central character, an idealist who has gone into Africa in hopes of saving the elephants from extinction. At first regarded as a crank, Howard shows he's not kidding by taking a shot at the posterior of a pompous news commentator (Orson Welles). As Howard's crusade gains momentum, several opportunists go along with him, among them a disgraced British military officer (Errol Flynn) hoping to redeem himself.
Roots of Heaven represented the last truly worthwhile screen appearance by Errol Flynn, who died less than a year after filming his Roots death scene. The film itself was shot on location in French Equatorial Africa--a grueling experience for its stars and its director (John Huston), one worthy of a book in itself. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 130 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
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Directed by: Leo McCarey
Cast:
Charles Laughton - Marmaduke Ruggles
Mary Boland - Effie Floud
Charlie Ruggles - Egbert Floud
ZaSu Pitts - Mrs. Judson
Roland Young - Earl of Burnstead
Leila Hyams - Nell Kenner
Synopsis:
Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young). During one of the Earl's nocturnal forays, nouveau riche American cattle baron Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles) wins Ruggles in a poker game. Terrified at the prospect of being bundled off to the Wild West, Ruggles' resolve is weakened somewhat when he and the raucous but ingratiating Egbert spend a wild night on the town. (The besotted butler's periodic exclamations of "Whoopee!" are priceless.) Back in the frontier "boom town" of Red Gap, a misunderstanding obliges Egbert's social-climbing wife Effie (Mary Boland) to pass off Ruggles as an aristocratic British army officer, immediately arousing the suspicions of priggish social arbiter Charles Belknap-Jackson (Lucien Littlefield). The longer he spends in America, the more Ruggles grows to like the concept of democracy and self-determination.
Of the film's many highlights, two are standouts: the scene in which Ruggles silences a rowdy saloon crowd with his recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the droll, semi-improvised vignette in which dancehall girl Nell Kenner (Leila Hyams) teaches the Earl of Burnstead how to play the drums. Ruggles of Red Gap was filmed for a fourth time in 1950 as the Bob Hope-Lucille Ball musical Fancy Pants. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 90 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Run for the Sun (1956)
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Directed by: Roy Boulting
Cast:
Richard Widmark - Mike Latimer
Trevor Howard - Browne
Jane Greer - Katy Connors
Peter Van Eyck - Van Anders
Carlos Henning - Jan
Juan Garcia - Fernandez
Synopsis:
Filmed in Mexico, Run for the Sun was the second official remake of Richard Connell's classic suspense yarn "The Most Dangerous Game". This time, Trevor Howard stars as Browne, the wealthy hermit who thrives on hunting down human beings like wild animals. As a means of updating the story, Howard is transformed into a British traitor, hiding in the Mexican jungle with his wartime compatriots, Nazis Van Anders (Peter Van Eyck) and Jan (Carlos Henning). When their plane is forced to land in Browne's domain, Mike Latimer (Richard Widmark) and Katy Conners (Jane Greer) are captured by the villains. Browne offers his captives an hour's head-start to freedom, then sics his hunting dogs on the hapless pair. The rest of the film details the strenuous efforts by Latimer and Conners to escape with their lives. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: UK/USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A
Widescreen |
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Salome (1953)
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Directed by: William Dieterle
Cast:
Rita Hayworth - Princess Salome
Stewart Granger - Commander Claudius
Judith Anderson - Queen Herodias
Cedric Hardwicke - Caesar Tiberius
Alan Badel - John the Baptist
Maurice Schwartz - Ezra
Charles Laughton - King Herod
Synopsis:
"Her Salome Will Steal Your Breath Away" was the classic advertising slogan attached to this opulent Rita Hayworth epic -- a slogan which became laughable whenever a radio announcer would mispronounce Salome as "salami." Using the very sketchy Biblical story of the death of John the Baptist as its springboard, Salome depicts its title character, the stepdaughter of King Herod, as a victim of circumstance rather than a wanton temptress. Banished from Rome because of an unfortunate romance with the nephew of Caesar, Salome (Rita Hayworth) declares that all men are her enemies, but her resolve weakens when she falls in love with Claudius (Stewart Granger), the military commander of Galilee. Meanwhile, Salome's wicked mother, Herodias (Judith Anderson), plots the demise of John the Baptist (Alan Badel), who currently enjoys the protection of the superstitious Herod (Charles Laughton).
At this point, the story departs radically from Scripture. Salome is no longer coerced by Herodias to demand the head of John the Baptist; instead, Herodias, on her own, promises Herod that Salome will perform the "Dance of the Seven Veils" for him -- but only if he beheads John first (Salome has been misinformed that the dance will save John from the headsman's sword). Somehow, scriptwriter Jesse Lasky Jr. even manages to concoct a happy ending for poor Salome, which is a lot more than Oscar Wilde or Richard Strauss were able to do. Considered an artistic flop in 1953, Salome seems somewhat better today, if only because of that powerhouse cast. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A-
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Secret of the Incas (1954)
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Directed by: Jerry Hopper
Cast:
Charlton Heston
Robert Young
Nicole Maurey
Yma Sumac
Synopsis:
Before Indiana Jones there was Harry Steele (Charlton Heston), an idealistic archaeologist determined to return an ancient Incan mask to the society from which it came. A greedy con-artist (Robert Young) has other ideas, though, and the two men race to fund an expedition to find the treasure, which has reportedly been buried by Spanish conquistadores somewhere in Machu Picchu. The con-artist (Young) seduces a beautiful tourist in order to reach his goal, leaving Steele (Heston) to locate the site through more honorable means. Twenty-seven years before directors George Lucas and Steven Spielburg collaborated to create Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jerry Hopper directed Secret of the Incas. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: A
Full Screen
NEW & IMPROVED PRINT! Did you purchase the older (before 07/14/07) print? Please email us for your free upgrade. |
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Serenade (1956)
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Directed by: Anthony Mann
Cast:
Mario Lanza - Damon Vincente
Joan Fontaine - Kendall Hale
Sarita Montiel - Juana Montez
Vincent Price - Charles Winthrop
Joseph Calleia - Prof. Marcatello
Harry Bellaver - Monte
Synopsis:
Loosely based on a novel by James M. Cain, this romantic drama centers on the struggles of a humble vineyard worker (real-life opera star Mario Lanza) who rises to become a renowned opera star. In the original book, Damon, the protagonist, has a homosexual relationship with the patron who boosts his career, but in the film, the patron is a wealthy and manipulative young woman named Kendall (Joan Fontaine). As charming as she is selfish, poor Damon cannot help but fall in love with Kendall. Unfortunately, she is a fickle creature and soon grows bored with him, thereby breaking his heart and causing him to choke during his audition for the Met. Afterward, he flees to Mexico. There he comes down with a mysterious, debilitating movie disease. Fortunately, Juana, a beautiful ex-bullfighter's daughter is there to help him recover. Damon falls in love with her, but just as it looks like happiness will finally be his, conniving Kendall reappears. In addition to singing numerous selections from popular operas, Lanza also sings a pair of Sammy Cahn/Nicholas Brodszky pop tunes: "Serenade" and "My Destiny."
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 121 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Show Off, The (1946)
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Directed by: Harry Beaumont
Cast:
Leon Ames - Frank Hyland
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson - Rochester
George Cleveland - Pop Fisher
Lila Leeds - Flo
Marjorie Main - Mrs. Fisher
Marilyn Maxwell - Amy
Synopsis:
Previously filmed in 1926 and 1934, George Kelly's venerable stage comedy The Show-Off was dusted off as a Red Skelton vehicle in 1946. Skelton is well cast as Aubrey Piper, an inveterate braggart who sorely annoys the family of his wife Amy (Marilyn Maxwell). All talk but no action, Piper gets Amy's family involved in one foredoomed get-rich-quick scheme after another. Through a fluke, the show-off actually makes good towards the end, but though he realizes that he could never have done so without his wife's help he insists upon blowing his own horn well past the fadeout and "end" credits. Only Skelton's inherent likeability saves Aubrey Piper from being a thoroughly obnoxious blowhard. Featured in the cast of The Show-Off is Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, who is given surprisingly little to do. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Sign of the Pagan (1954)
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Directed by: Douglas Sirk
Cast:
Jeff Chandler - Marcian
Jack Palance - Attila the Hun
Ludmilla Tcherina - Princess Pulcheria
Rita Gam - Kubra
Jeff Morrow - Paulinus
George Dolenz - Theodosius
Synopsis:
Jeff Chandler may be the top-billed star of Sign of the Pagan, but the film belongs to Jack Palance, cast as no less than Attila the Hun. As Attila's hordes advance upon Rome, noble centurion Marcian (Chandler) mounts a counteroffensive. Alas, the Scourge of God cannot be stopped by weaponry or sheer brute strength. No, Attila can be halted in his tracks only by the hand of God Himself. Through a deft combination of historical fact and movie magic, this is precisely what happens.
Ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina, her voice dubbed by an anonymous American actress, co-stars as Marcian's lady love, while Rita Gam is sublimely cast as Attila's long-suffering daughter. Also appearing as Attila's slave bride is Allison Hayes, some three years away from her starring turn in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Filmed on a more spectacular scale than one usually associates with Universal-International, Sign of the Pagan loses some of its scope when shown on television.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW:Color,Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B-
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So Well Remembered (1947)
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Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Cast:
John Mills - George Boswell
Martha Scott - Olivia
Patricia Roc - Julie
Trevor Howard - Dr. Whiteside
Richard Carlson - Charles
Review:
A typically well-made British drama (with an Anglo-American cast including John Mills, Martha Scott and Trevor Howard); rarely seen today and deserves a far wider audience. Based on a novel by James Hilton ("Lost Horizon"), who also does the narration, "So Well Remembered" captures perfectly the gloom of a poverty-stricken British village; chronicles the efforts of a newspaper editor (Mills) to fight for better living conditions. Great atmospheric black-and-white photography; good performances by Mills and Martha Scott as his ambitious, class-conscious wife who grows ever resentful of her husband's dedication to his village. A small dramatic gem. (imdb.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 114 minutes
Country: UK/USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Sons and Lovers (1960)
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Directed by: Jack Cardiff
Cast:
Trevor Howard - Walter Morel
Dean Stockwell - Paul Morel
Wendy Hiller - Gertrude Morel
Mary Ure - Clara Dawes
Heather Sears - Miriam Leivers
Donald Pleasence - Pappleworth
Synopsis:
The Motion Picture Production Code was still in effect (albeit weakly) when Sons and Lovers was filmed in 1960, so don't expect a thoroughly frank and faithful adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel. Set in an English mining town, the film focuses on Paul Morel (Dean Stockwell), the sensitive son of a roughhewn, alcoholic miner (Trevor Howard) and his gentle, repressed wife (Wendy Hiller). Intent on becoming an artist, Paul is not above depending upon the financial kindnesses of the young women of the town. Many of the girls carry a torch for him, but his strong bonds to his mother leave him emotionally sapped. Freddie Francis's evocative, grimy industrial-town cinematography won him an Academy Award. Despite censorial restrictions, this admirably captures the essence of the dour Lawrence original. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Soul of a Monster, The (1944)
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Directed by: Will Jason
Cast:
Rose Hobart - Lilyan Gregg
George Macready - Dr. George Winson
Jim Bannon - Dr. Roger Vance
Jeanne Bates - Ann Winson
Ernest Hilliard - Wayne
Erik Rolf - Fred Stevens
Synopsis:
Advertised as a pure-and-simple horror film, Soul of a Monster is actually an adroit variation on the "Faust" legend. George Macready plays Dr. George Winson, who is saved from the brink of death by the intervention of his loving wife Ann (Jeanne Bates). In desperation, Ann had offered to make a deal with the devil to keep her husband alive, whereupon an emissary of Satan, a hypnotist named Lilyan Gregg (Rose Hobart) made an appearance. Upon his recovery, the previously kind-hearted Winson turns evil, doing the Devil's work while under Lilyan's diabolical spell. But Ann and her friends are not susceptible to Lilyan's mesmerizing prowess, enabling them to launch a counteroffensive against the Dark Prince. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 61 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Steel Lady, The (1953)
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Directed by: E.A. Dupont
Cast:
Rod Cameron - Mike Monohan
Tab Hunter - Billy Larsen
John Dehner - Syd Barlow
Richard Erdman - Jim Evans
John Abbott - Mustapha El Melek
Frank Puglia - Sheik Taras
Synopsis:
The Steel Lady in this crazy-quilt actioner is the armored tank commandeered by star Rod Cameron. Marooned in the Sahara desert, airplane pilot Mike Monohan (Cameron) and his melting-pot crew (including a young Tab Hunter) come across a deserted Afrika Korps tank. As they roll across the burning sands in search of civilization, the crew is unaware that hidden within the tank is a fortune in diamonds. But villainous sheik Mustapha El Melek (John Abbott) does know, and he manages to enlist Monohan's drunken co-pilot Barlow (John Dehner) in his scheme to claim the gems for himself. Also released as Treasure of Kalifa, The Steel Lady is an unsteady mixture of war drama and Arabian-Nights escapism. The film was directed by E. A. Dupont, who in his salad days was responsible for the silent German classic Variety.
(allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 84 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Storm Center (1956)
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Directed by: Daniel Taradash
Cast:
Bette Davis - Alicia Hull
Kim Hunter - Martha Lockridge
Paul Kelly - Judge Robert Ellerbe
Kevin Coughlin - Freddie Slater
Synopsis:
Trouble brews when a widowed, small town librarian takes a stand against censorship. The trouble begins when the town fathers ask that she remove a book from the shelf because they deem it a pro-communist tract and fear it will taint susceptible young minds. She sees the idiocy of their request and defies them. They in turn fire her and replace her with her old friend and assistant. The town judge considers the whole mess a gross miscarriage of justice and demands a trial. This gives an ambitious young lawyer, the boyfriend of the new librarian the opportunity to do a little grandstanding by publicly proclaiming the highly-principled widow a communist. The poor woman suddenly finds herself the town pariah; her only remaining friend is a small boy she used to talk to in the library. He plays a key role in restoring her good name. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Story of Esther Costello, The (1957)
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Directed by: David Miller
Cast:
Joan Crawford - Margaret Landi
Rossano Brazzi - Carlo Landi
Heather Sears - Esther Costello
Lee Patterson - Harry Grant
Ron Randell - Frank Wenzel
Synopsis:
Story of Esther Costello is the cinematic equivalent of eating a whole box of potato chips; you may hate yourself, but you'll relish every bite in the meantime. Joan Crawford plays a well-meaning woman who throws herself whole-hog into every charitable cause that comes down the pike. She is married to Rossano Brazzi, who is as greedy as Crawford is generous. Crawford rescues blind deaf-mute Heather Sears from her squalid surroundings, leading to her creation of a charity campaign on behalf of handicapped children, with Sears as "poster child." Brazzi, in league with crooked promoter Ron Randell, seizes upon this as a means to line his own pocket... (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
Do you have a better poster image for this title? Please email us. |
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Story of Will Rogers, The (1952)
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Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Cast:
Will Rogers, Jr. - Will Rogers
Jane Wyman - Betty Rogers
Carl Benton Reid - Clem Rogers
Eve Miller - Cora Marshall
James Gleason - Bert Lynn
Slim Pickens - Dusty Donovan
Noah Beery, Jr. - Wiley Post
Synopsis:
Will Rogers Jr. stars as his own father in this slow, sentimental biopic. The film begins with Rogers' days on his father's ranch in Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). We see Will court his future wife, Betty (Jane Wyman), just before he strikes out on his own as a rodeo performer. Attempting to break into vaudeville with a roping act, Will gets nowhere until he starts cracking extemporaneous jokes about current events. Using the newspapers as his "material," Will rises to the pinnacle of show business in the 1910s and '20s as a star comedian in Flo Ziegfeld's Follies. He matures into a devoted family man, a rancher, a film star, an aviation enthusiast, and America's unofficial goodwill ambassador.
During the darkest days of the Depression, Rogers works long and hard on behalf of poverty-stricken farmers in his own home state and elsewhere. In 1935, Rogers joins his old pal Wiley Post (Noah Beery Jr.) for an airplane trip to Alaska -- from which he never returns. The Story of Will Rogers sticks to the facts, but the film is surprisingly dull and pedantic considering the director (the usually vigorous Michael Curtiz) and the fascinating subject matter. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 109 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Strange Mr. Gregory, The (1945)
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Directed by: Phil Rosen
Cast:
Edmund Lowe - Gregory
Jean Rogers - Ellen Randall
Donald Douglas - John Randall
Frank Reicher - Riker
Marjorie Hoshelle - Sheila Edwards
Robert Emmett Keane - District Attorney
Synopsis:
With Universal nearly out of the "B"-grade horror film business by 1945, it was up to Monogram to take up the slack with projects like The Strange Mr. Gregory. The title character, played by Edmund Lowe, is a famous magician who fakes his own death -- then reappears as his nonexistent twin brother. It's all part of Gregory's master scheme to pin his "murder" on innocent John Randall (Don Douglas), the husband of Ellen (Jean Rogers), the woman Gregory loves. Only the magician's faithful assistant Riker (Frank Reicher) knows the whole story, meaning that his days are numbered. By the time Ellen herself figures out what Gregory is up to, it may be??gasp?..tooo late!!! As Monogram films go, The Strange Mr. Gregory isn't bad; it might have been even better with just a bit more adrenalin in Phil Rosen's direction. (allmovie.com)
DVD Format: NTSC
Region: 0 (all region)
Runtime: 63 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Color/BW: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
DVD Features: Chapter Stops
Print Quality: B
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Summer Storm (1944)
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Directed by: Douglas Sirk
Cast:
George Sanders - Fedor Michailov | | |
