Actors & Directors
- Ron Ormond
- Lee Hysinger
- Kathy Clifton
- Pauletta Leeman
- Patty Kelly (II)
- Curtis Keen
Run time: 91 min.
Price: $19.95
Review Monster and the Stripper / Nashville Cinema Partners:
Actors & Directors
- Tom Davenport
- Helen Stoltzfus
Run time: 18 min.
List Price: $24.95
Price: $24.90
Review The Goose Girl:A treacherous maid, a talking horse, and an innocent princess with a bloodstained handkerchief set off on a journey to meet the princess's arranged bridegroom. Along the way, the maid forces an identity swap, turning her into the bride and the princess into a servant who tends geese. Not to worry, this is an adaptation of a Grimm fairy tale, so the princess will eventually get her man and the maid her just desserts. This publicly funded "From the Brothers Grimm" video is part of a series that moves fairy tales from Central Europe to the United States, and moves them up in time a bit, in this case to the 17th century. Excellent production values and quality performances make this 18-minute movie attractive to children as young as 5 and to adults as old as they come. -Kimberly Heinrichs In this Early Colonial version of the Grimm tale, a careless bride-to-be is forced to change places with her maid servant while en route to her future husban's houseand she is made to swear never to tell anyone about the role reversal. Although the usurper fools everyone for a while, the true bride is eventually restored to her rightful place with the help of a little magic, the head of a talking horse, and a wary father-in-law. from "Young Viewers" 1985 (Vol 8: No 3-4) Winner of a CINE Golden Eagle.
Actors & Directors
- William C. de Mille
- Raymond Hatton
- Sessue Hayakawa
- Mayme Kelso
- Jack Holt
- Florence Vidor
Run time: 167 min.
Price: $19.98
Review World War I Films of the Silent Era / Image Entertainment:The rare fiction and nonfiction films in this compilation offer a time-capsule glimpse of World War I from a variety of fascinating angles. "The Great War" (1914-18) was the first to be extensively recorded by motion picture cameras, and the societal impact of film is keenly evident throughout this international selection. It's amazing, in hindsight, to see Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa cast as an American spy in 1917's "The Secret Game," and even the most inclusive Chaplin collections don't include the bond-drive film included here, featuring Charlie in "Little Tramp" garb, symbolically pummeling the German Kaiser with a giant war-bonds mallet! The filmed log of the German submarine U-35 (from 1917) demonstrates the sub's chilling efficiency at sinking enemy ships, while the 1975 compilation "The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War" puts everything (propaganda, newsreels, authentic battle footage) into sharp historical perspective. Rescued from obscurity, these images are as haunting as they are informative. -Jeff Shannon The astonishing films in this collection show and explain essential news and propaganda functions of the movies during the Great War of 1914-1918. In those days before television and even before radio, fiction films in movie theaters were the most widely shared public experience, while news films were the most potent and detailed public images of armament, military life and even front line action. Some news film was faked and much of it was censored, but some was authentic, obtained at great risk by daredevil combat cameramen. Films include: "Fighting the War" (1916) is the work of 26-year-old American adventurer Donald C. Thompson, who managed to get to France on Canadian credentials with English troops. He photographed some of the most amazing front line films of the entire war. [+]"The Log of the U-35" (1917) is a totally authentic filmed account of sinkings on one Mediterranean cruise in April 1917 by a submarine commanded by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perriere, Germany's U-Boat Ace of Aces, during the period of unrestricted submarine warfare. "The Secret Game" (1917) directed by William C. de Mille and starring Sessue Hayawaka, Florence Vidor, Jack Holt and Charles Ogle. Reported when new as a "timely release," it's a detective story in which representatives of Japan (our ally in 1917-18) and the United States work hand-in-hand to frustrate German agents in their effort to get information about American transport sailings on the Pacific. "The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War" (1975) is a compilation documentary narrated by Lowell Thomas, illustrating changing attitudes toward the war and its participants, as well as toward the movies themselves. Winner, Gold Medal, 1975 Chicago Film Festival.
Actors & Directors
- Billy Wilder
- Jane Russell
- Howard Hawks
- Elliott Reid
- Jean Negulesco
- Charles Coburn
- Marilyn Monroe
- Tommy Noonan
Price: $26.98
Review Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection (Bus Stop / How to Marry a Millionaire / There's No Business Like Show Business / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / The Seven Year Itch / The Final Days) / 20th Century Fox:The Diamond Collection consists of five Marilyn Monroe films plus the documentary The Final Days. Bus Stop (1956) stars Monroe as a singer who finds herself trapped at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) was built around a trio of female stars, Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable, who play friends who come up with a plan to find and marry rich men. Monroe plays an ambitious showgirl in 1954's There's No Business Like Show Business, which brings together two giants of Broadway, Ethel Merman and Irving Berlin, to celebrate the glories that were vaudeville. Howard Hawks's 1953 musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes stars Monroe and Jane Russell as friends who go to Paris looking for mates. The film is charged by Hawks's stylish snap, a famous set piece or two (including Monroe descending that staircase while singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"), Russell's wit, and songs by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The Seven Year Itch (1955) is a memorable laugh machine. As a married man left alone during a hot summer, Tom Ewell shows off crack timing matched by Monroe's zesty comic flair, and the scene in which her white dress is blown skyward by a passing subway train has entered the encyclopedia of great movie images. In The Final Days, producer-director Patty Ivins chronicles Monroe's final, aborted feature film, Something's Got to Give, which was ultimately shut down after the star was dismissed from the production. Beyond Monroe's fragile emotional and physical health, this well-crafted profile examines the financial crisis facing her studio as well as the mounting frustration of meticulous director George Cukor and his cast, including costar Dean Martin, as Monroe's absences drove the shoot over budget. [+]The documentary concludes with a 40-minute reconstruction of footage completed for the feature, which would subsequently be reshot as a vehicle for Doris Day and James Garner, Move Over, Darling. Contains: *Seven Year Itch *Gentlemen Prefer Blondes *How to Marry a Millionaire *There's No Business Like Show Business *Bus Stop *Marilyn Monroe: Final Days.
Release date: 2000-06-27
List Price: $59.95
Price: $25.00
Review The Art of Buster Keaton, Boxed Set 1 (The Saphead / Three Ages / Our Hospitality & Sherlock Jr.) / Kino Video:Before Buster Keaton made his name as one of the silent cinema's most accomplished and creative comics, he starred in this conventional but cute comedy based on the Broadway play The New Henrietta (previously made into the Douglas Fairbanks vehicle The Lamb). Keaton plays the spoiled son of a millionaire unjustly accused of scandalous behavior and tossed into a bustling world that he's completely unprepared for. Apart from the energetic finale, in which he leaps, slides, and wrestles with Wall Street lions on the stock exchange floor, Keaton is given little opportunity for comic gymnastics and the comedy stays safe and conventional. The Saphead is a completely genial and entertaining film carried by Keaton's sweet charm and plucky naiveté and it made him a star, but it's ultimately a footnote to a career that later blossomed in creative inspiration. Keaton revived the figure of the clueless social dandy with his self-directed features The Navigator and Battling Butler. Also featured are Keaton's first two solo shorts: "The High Sign," a knockabout lark in which Keaton infiltrates a secret society of criminals, and "One Week," an inspired gem with newlywed Buster mangling a do-it-yourself house. -Sean Axmaker.
Release date: 1998-07-07
Run time: 30 min.
Price: $4.98
Review Classic Commercials 4 / Madacy Records:
Actors & Directors
- Alexandre Bernard
- Annabella
- Pierre Batcheff
- Henri Baudin
- Antonin Artaud
List Price: $29.98
Price: $99.55
Review Napoleon / Universal Studios:Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece is absolutely indispensable for silent-film buffs or anyone interested in classic world cinema. From the future emperor's first strategic victory, a schoolyard snowball fight, to the climactic invasion of Italy, Napoleon truly rules! This is no static, antiquated relic. Among Gance's innovations was to free the camera (for one battle scene, he had it mounted on horseback!). The film's justly celebrated climax features a triptych of synchronized images that anticipates by more than 30 years Cinerama and widescreen. But more than a triumph of filmmaking, Napoleon is a triumph of film restoration and was a boon to the vital cause of film preservation. Gance's movie was long thought lost. But historian Kevin Brownlow, with the cooperation of film archives from around the world, spent more than a decade painstakingly reassembling it. Francis Ford Coppola's name (not to mention a reported quarter of a million of his dollars) helped find Napoleon the audience this film so richly deserves. The rousing score was composed by Coppola's father, Carmine. Viva la Gance! -Donald Liebenson.
Actors & Directors
- Hector Sarno
- Claire de Lorez
- Joseph Henabery
- Casson Ferguson
- Rudolph Valentino
- Gertrude Olmstead
Run time: 70 min.
List Price: $19.95
Price: $22.88
Review Cobra / Nostalgia Family Video:
Actors & Directors
- Evalyn Knapp
- Arthur Loft
- Lou Gehrig
- Cy Kendall
- Smith Ballew
- Ray Taylor
Run time: 60 min.
List Price: $14.98
Price: $40.99
Review Rawhide / Silver Mine:
Actors & Directors
- Don 'Red' Barry
- Roy Rogers
- George 'Gabby' Hayes
- Harry Woods
- Pauline Moore
- Joseph Kane
Run time: 56 min.
List Price: $24.95
Price: $7.95
Review Days of Jesse James / Diamond Entertainment Corp.:
Actors & Directors
- Belle Chrystall
- Kitty Kirwan
- Finlay Currie
- Eric Berry
- Margaret Greig
List Price: $29.95
Price: $27.50
Review The Edge of the World / Milestone Video:Michael Powell broke with a decade of B movies with this personal project shot on the North Sea island of Foula, a magnificent, primal landscape of high, rocky inland plains and sheer cliffs jutting out of the sea like a dare. He renamed the island Hirta for this fictional story (based on the real-life evacuation of the island of St. Kilda) of an isolated community's traditional way of life slowly dying as the young men are drawn to the modern cities of the mainland. John Laurie and Finlay Currie play the two family patriarchs who struggle over the future of the island community, and Powell himself appears as the yachtsman in a framing sequence. The romantic melodrama at the heart of the tale turns on a breathtaking race up the sheer cliffs and the grudge it sparks when one of the climbers falls to his death. The Edge of the World is more stately and still than Powell's cinematically playful and stylistically vibrant later films like The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. The proud, hard residents of the island are constantly framed against the dramatic sky, the craggy mountains, or the rolling meadows with a dire seriousness. Yet there's a poetry to his images, which are never less than gorgeous, and Powell directs with a sense of tension, urgency, and desperation that pulls at the easy pace of this harsh lifestyle. This edition also features the lovely 1941 short An Airman's Letter to His Mother (narrated by John Gielgud) and the Powells' 1978 documentary Return to the Edge of the World, a 22-minute remembrance organized around a reunion on the island of Foula. -Sean Axmaker One of the great discoveries of the year, Martin Scorsese presents this critical and popular hit shown at the New York Film Festival. [+]Shot entirely on the wild, windswept Outer Hebrides island of Foula, The Edge of the World is beautiful, thrilling, and profoundly moving. For cinema great Powell (who went on the make such enduring masterpieces as The Red Shoes and I Know Where I'm Going!), this was his first important film and one that remained dear to his heart. Film fans will especially enjoy seeing director Powell himself in the role of the yacht owner. And as a special bonus, there is Powell's lovely Return to The Edge of the World and his heartbreaking World War II short, An Airman's Letter to His Mother!.
Actors & Directors
- Lewis Stone
- John Gilbert
- Greta Garbo
- Johnny Mack Brown
- Clarence Brown
- Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Run time: 108 min.
List Price: $29.98
Price: $64.99
Review Woman of Affairs (Silent) / MGM (Warner):
Actors & Directors
- J. Searle Dawley
- William Bechtel
- Shirley Mason
- Charles Ogle
- Viola Dana
- Carey Lee
- Ashley Miller
- Charles Kent
Run time: 121 min.
List Price: $19.95
Price: $29.00
Review Christmas Past - Vintage Holiday Films / Kino Video:
Release date: 2002-05-14
List Price: $26.98
Price: $22.44
Review Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection II (Don't Bother to Knock / Let's Make Love / Monkey Business / Niagara / River of No Return) / 20th Century Fox:Some essential examples of the Marilyn Monroe mystique make up this second collection of titles from MM's years at Twentieth Century Fox. After sparkling in small roles, she burst upon the public consciousness in 1952, thanks to five films and a certain nude calendar. Two of the 1952 pictures, showing very different sides of the new actress, are included here. One is Monkey Business, Howard Hawks's raucous comedy about a youth serum, in which top-lined stars Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers regress to a state of adolescent abandon, with Monroe doing spot-on supporting duty. Don't Bother to Knock gives Marilyn her first lead role, in a tense little film noir; she's a babysitter with an unstable streak, a fine performance hinting at depths rarely touched in her career. In Niagara, Monroe is a full-fledged sex goddess, a scheming wife tormenting husband Joseph Cotten in their cabin by the falls. This Technicolor slice of pseudo-Hitchcock is a fun location picture with a genuinely exciting climax. Otto Preminger's River of No Return has Marilyn livened up by the presence of costar Robert Mitchum, in a strong outdoorsy Western that catches the two stars in appealing form. By the time of 1960's Let's Make Love, MM looks tired. This backstage musical is more interesting as a time capsule than as a romance, although one number shines: "My Heart Belongs to Daddy. [+]" Less urgent for Monroe fans than the first Diamond Collection, this set is still a good one for the die-hards. -Robert Horton Contains: *Don't Bother to Knock *Let's Make it Legal *Monkey Business *Niagra *River of No Return.
Actors & Directors
- Hollywood Silent Classics
List Price: $49.98
Price: $44.44
Review Hollywood Silent Classics Collection / Madacy Records:
Actors & Directors
- Edna May Oliver
- Mark Sandrich
- Lew Fields
- H.C. Potter
- Fred Astaire
- Charles Walters
- Ginger Rogers
- Walter Brennan
Price: $74.98
Review Astaire & Rogers Collection Volume 2 (Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Barkleys of Broadway) / Warner Home Video:Fans of classic movie musicals will be in heaven with two five-video sets of the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the quintessential dancing duo. In this second set, the pair is no longer restricted to frothy comedy revolving around mistaken identities; they occasionally explore deeper emotional threads with a bit of heartbreak. The first film is one many consider their most enjoyable, Swing Time, a dashing combination of great music, dance, and comedy. Favorite musical moments include the spectacular dance-studio number "Pick Yourself Up," the farewell ode "Never Gonna Dance," and the Oscar-winning "Just the Way You Look Tonight," from the team of Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. Shall We Dance features brilliant songs by George and Ira Gershwin ("They Can't Take That Away from Me," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" performed on roller skates) and a complex plot that has Fred and Ginger actually getting married before the final credits roll. The eighth and ninth entries in the series tried some different approaches, with Carefree more of a comedy vehicle for Ginger (yet still including some fine dances and Irving Berlin songs as well as their first onscreen kiss) and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle portraying the pair as historical dancing stars and using a score of turn-of-the-century standards. This set also includes their 10th film, their 1949 reunion at MGM 10 years after their final film at RKO. While The Barkleys of Broadway falls short of their best work, it's a fond remembrance of the most glorious partnership in film history. -David Horiuchi This five-tape set includes Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, and The Barkleys of Broadway.
Actors & Directors
- Charles K. French
- Enid Markey
- Jerome Storm
- Walter Edwards
- Thomas H. Ince
- Jay Hunt
- Howard C. Hickman
- Raymond B. West
- Lola May
- David Hartford
Run time: 86 min.
Price: $29.95
Review Civilization / Kino Video:
Actors & Directors
- Bruce Warren
- Harry L. Fraser
- Rex Lease
- Lane Chandler
- Roger Williams
- Earle Hodgins
- Earle Hodgins
Run time: 75 min.
List Price: $14.95
Price: $24.98
Review Heroes of the Alamo (1937):
Actors & Directors
- Golden Age of Silent Films
Run time: 600 min.
Price: $39.99
Review Golden Age of Silent Films 2 (7pc) (Silent) / Edi Video:
Actors & Directors
- Janet Blair
- Frank Borzage
- Alfred E. Green
- William Lundigan
- Tommy Dorsey
- Paul Whiteman
- Stanley Donen
- Jimmy Dorsey
List Price: $19.99
Price: $24.98
Review Hollywood Musicals (4pc) / Madacy Records:
| Models & Brands:
Monster and the Stripper, The Goose Girl, World War I Films of the Silent Era, Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection (Bus Stop / How to Marry a Millionaire / There's No Business Like Show Business / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / The Seven Year Itch / The Final Days), The Art of Buster Keaton, Boxed Set 1 (The Saphead / Three Ages / Our Hospitality & Sherlock Jr.), Classic Commercials 4, Napoleon, Cobra, Rawhide, Days of Jesse James, The Edge of the World, Woman of Affairs (Silent), Christmas Past - Vintage Holiday Films, Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection II (Don't Bother to Knock / Let's Make Love / Monkey Business / Niagara / River of No Return), Hollywood Silent Classics Collection, Astaire & Rogers Collection Volume 2 (Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Barkleys of Broadway), Civilization, Heroes of the Alamo (1937), Golden Age of Silent Films 2 (7pc) (Silent), Hollywood Musicals (4pc)Top headlines: How to get your girlfriend into gaming: If you want to turn your lady friend into a gaming fan, heres some advice from Xbox Live community manager Christa Phillips: Dont be a jerk. ›13:08 4 Sep, Thu 'Mercenary is a Slanderous Term': The founder of Blackwater defends himselfand his company. ›03:32 13 Oct, Sat Using stolen card? 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