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 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 legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles's The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to E. G. Robinson, who is marvelous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget, and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles the director is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of film is a well-designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. -Sean Axmaker.

Who was the first actor to play James Bond? If you answered Sean Connery, you would be wrong. In 1954, Barry Nelson played Bond in 007's screen debut: a 1954 live t. v version of the first James Bond novel "Casino Royale". Spy Guise Video now makes this amazing and historic program available - complete with the restored ending missing from previous video versions. This deluxe collector's edition also features many extras: an exclusive overview of the life of Ian Fleming and the "Casino Royale" legacy hosted by Lee Pfeiffer, co-author of the best-selling book "The Essential Bond: An Authorized Celebration of 007". Additionally, this version contains rare promotional advertisements, photographs, and information about James Bond clubs, magazines and officially licensed collectibles. No James Bond fan will want to be without this definitive collector's edition of 007's screen debut. Recorded in the SP mode for superior quality.

Essentially a one-joke story line based on Eden Philpotts's comic play, the 1928 silent film The Farmer's Wife makes up for its lack of substantive material with a noticeable leap in Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic skills. Jameson Thomas stars as a rustic farmer named Sweetland whose recently deceased wife has left a hole in his home and life. The subsequent marriage of his daughter inspires Sweetland to contemplate the altar again, and he enlists the aid of his lovely housekeeper, Minta (Lillian Hall-Davies), to draw up a list of available if ill-considered candidates. One by one, Sweetland proposes to the ladies and is rebuffed, then huffs his way home to a warm reception by the woman he should obviously be with: Minta. In almost anyone else's hands, this slight and silly tale would instantly evaporate, but Hitchcock takes it as an opportunity to make a lively, good-looking film full of delightful transitions (this is the kind of movie where a wordless exchanged glance leads us from one world and into another), at least one early experiment with a rapid dolly shot (all roads lead to Vertigo, don't you know), and a remarkable amount of suggestively grim humor. One paving stone on the path to Hitchcock's full, brilliant career, The Farmer's Wife reveals a great talent still growing. Tom Keogh.

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 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.