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Review Criterion / Olivier's Shakespeare [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jean Simmons
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Robert Newton
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Esmond Knight
  • John Laurie
Release date: 2006-08-01
Run time: 448 min.
Creator: William Shakespeare
Price: £36.51

Review Olivier's Shakespeare [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:


Review Image Entertainment / Flesh and Lace/Passion in Hot Hollows (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Norman Lind
  • Joe Santos
  • Heather Hall
  • John Aristedes
  • Joseph W. Sarno
  • Judy Young
Release date: 2004-06-29
Run time: 158 min.
Creator: Peggy Steffans
Price: £7.42

Review Flesh and Lace/Passion in Hot Hollows (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox / All About Eve [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Bette Davis
  • Bess Flowers
  • Anne Baxter
  • Eugene Borden
  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • Barbara Bates
Release date: 2008-04-08
Run time: 138 min.
Creator: Alfred Newman
Price: £9.57

Review All About Eve [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that movies should be more than just picture postcards of people talking. Sometimes, though, dialogue is all that's needed. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's immaculately scripted All About Eve is a case in point. There are no special effects (unless one considers Marilyn Monroe's wiggle or a scene in which a car breaks down). What the movie offers instead is some of the most coruscating one-liners ever committed to celluloid. The top-name cast certainly know how to put Mankiewicz's words across. Anne Baxter is all doe-eyed charm as Eve, the ruthless aspiring actress who passes herself off as a little girl lost. George Sanders (eminent character actor and the voice of Shere Khan the tiger in The Jungle Book) shows his customary mellowness of sneer as Addison De Witt, theatre critic and professional cynic ("a venomous foot louse" as he's characterised) who helps push Eve up the greasy pole toward success, if not happiness. Best of all is Bette Davis, a soured but still resplendent stage diva, who takes Eve under her wing. [+]
("I'll admit I've seen better days but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail-like a salted peanut", she tells her lover. ) The plotting and double-dealing on the screen, described in Sam Staggs' All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made, were matched by what went on behind the scenes. Davis heartily loathed fellow actress Celeste Holm who-ironically enough-plays her best friend. She fell in love with another co-star, the handsome, good-looking Gary Merrill, whom she later married. Backstage dramas are often self-indulgent and stagy affairs, but this one dazzles. -Geoffrey Macnab.

Review Criterion / Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales [1962] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Léonide Kogan
  • Françoise Fabian
  • Jean-Louis Trintignant
  • Marie-Christine Barrault
  • Antoine Vitez
  • Eric Rohmer
Release date: 2006-08-15
Run time: 480 min.
Price: £52.74

Review Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales [1962] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

Audiences love or hate the films of Eric Rohmer. The magnificent Criterion set of the French director's Six Moral Tales, his first film cycle, contains the films that first brought Rohmer to international attention - particularly My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, and Love in the Afternoon - in gorgeous film-to-dvd transfers, accompanied by a bounty of short films and other extras. Watching any of these films, even the short features that begin the series (The Bakery Girl of Monceau and Suzanne's Career), you will discover if Rohmer is for you. To some, his examinations of social mores and the psychology of love are absorbing, subtle, and sublime; to others, they're meandering, talky, and flat. But even his detractors must acknowledge that Rohmer draws out the twists of joy and anguish, brief and ephemeral, that haunt lovers as they grope towards security and happiness; and though his visual approach is rigorously simple, his images - thanks to cinematographer Nestor Almendros - are luminous. The Bakery Girl. , only 23 minutes long, has all the basic elements: A man, infatuated with one woman, flirts with another, all the while comforting himself with self-serving rationalizations and a comic lack of self-knowledge. This film's simplicity makes it more charming and satisfying than the more awkward efforts of Rohmer's next two films, Suzanne's Career (about a student who idolizes a callous older boy and only too late realizes that the girl they've been mocking may have a better grasp on life) and La collectioneusse (about a love triangle at a countryside estate; oddly, though released two years before the next film, it's presented as the fourth in the series), though each has moments of insight and delight. [+]
The remaining three movies are masterpieces: In My Night at Maud's, a Catholic engineer (the superb Jean-Louis Trintignant, Three Colors: Red) wrestles with his morals and his desires while spending the night with the enigmatic and alluring Maud (Francoise Fabian, 5 x 2). Claire's Knee gently mocks Les Liaisons Dangereuse as a man about to be married is goaded by a female friend into pursuing an infatuation with a young nubile nymph. And the last of the series, Love in the Afternoon (also known as Chloe in the Afternoon) follows a husband whose unconsummated affair with an old friend almost capsizes his happy marriage. What's most remarkable about this series is that, though each has virtually the same plot, watching all of these films in close succession only highlights their intricate differences and the complex shadings of delusion and yearning. Rohmer's work grows more fascinating the more familiar his methods become. Some filmgoers consider "nuance" code for "boring," but anyone who finds the collision of hearts and minds more exciting than car crashes will find Six Moral Tales revelatory and rewarding. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Elstree Hill Entertainment / Fighting Caravans [1931]
Actors & Directors
  • Otto Brower;David Burton
  • Fred Kohler
  • Ernest Torrence
  • Lili Damita
  • Gary Cooper
  • Tully Marshall
Release date: 2008-05-19
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £3.97

Review Fighting Caravans [1931] / Elstree Hill Entertainment:


Review Network / Scared To Death [1947]
Actors & Directors
  • Nat Pendleton
  • Molly Lamont
  • Bela Lugosi
  • Angelo Rossitto
  • George Zucco
  • Christy Cabanne
Release date: 2009-01-19
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £3.99
Price: £2.98

Review Scared To Death [1947] / Network:


Review BBC Warner / Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend [2008] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • John Black
  • Tom Baker
  • Patrick Troughton
  • Jon Pertwee
  • William Hartnell
  • Peter Davison
  • Derrick Goodwin
Release date: 2008-09-02
Run time: 143 min.
Creator: Terence Dudley
Price: £18.64

Review Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend [2008] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / BBC Warner:


Review Vci Video / Stronghold [1952]
Actors & Directors
  • Veronica Lake
  • Alfonso Bedoya
  • Zachary Scott
  • Arturo de Córdova
  • Steve Sekely
  • Irene Ajay
Release date: 2005-07-26
Run time: 72 min.
Creator: Wells Root
Price: £6.29

Review Stronghold [1952] / Vci Video:


Review Connoisseur Video / Mamma Roma [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Luisa Loiano
  • Anna Magnani
  • Silvana Corsini
  • Ettore Garofolo
  • Franco Citti
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini
Release date: 1997-09-08
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Alfredo Bini
RRP: £15.99
Price: £29.99

Review Mamma Roma [1962] / Connoisseur Video:


Review 4 Front Video / Bedlam [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Fraser
  • Billy House
  • Anna Lee
  • Mark Robson
  • Ian Wolfe
  • Boris Karloff
Release date: 1998-06-08
Run time: 80 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £8.99

Review Bedlam [1946] / 4 Front Video:


Review Fremantle Home Entertainment / Intermezzo [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • John Halliday
  • Edna Best
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Ingrid Bergman
  • Leslie Howard
  • Gregory Ratoff
Release date: 2003-10-13
Run time: 70 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £10.70

Review Intermezzo [1939] / Fremantle Home Entertainment:


Review Carlton Home Entertainment / The Four Feathers [1939] [1977]
Actors & Directors
  • C.Aubrey Smith
  • Allan Jeayes
  • Ralph Richardson
  • June Duprez
  • John Clements
Release date: 1996-06-17
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £17.95

Review The Four Feathers [1939] [1977] / Carlton Home Entertainment:

Far too many film versions of the The Four Feathers have been made over the years, which is especially surprising considering that this 1939 Korda brothers production is surely definitive. The film simultaneously celebrates and pokes fun at British imperialism, showing the kind of dogged stiff-upper-lippery that forged an empire, but also the blinkered attitudes and crass snobbishness of the ruling classes (and those plummy accents-did people ever really talk like that?). Whatever political subtext may or may not be read into it, though, the film is best celebrated for its magnificent vistas: partially made on location in the Sudan, as well as at the famous Denham Studios, this is British cinema from the days when it thought to rival Hollywood for sheer spectacle. Vincent Korda's production design and the glorious early colour cinematography are helped greatly by fellow Hungarian émigré Miklos Rozsa's epic score. John Clements is the notional hero, the man who is determined to show the world he is not a coward after resigning his commission (even though it would surely have saved everyone a lot of bother if he had just stuck with it) but the film is stolen by Ralph Richardson, magnificent as an officer struck blind and led to safety by Clements' Harry Faversham. The latter scenes when Richardson's Captain Durrance realises the truth and its implications are the most poignant and emotionally truthful in the film. C Aubrey Smith is delightful as the old buffer who relives his battles on the dinner table; to a modern audience, however, the "blackface" casting of John Laurie as the Khalifa strikes a discordant note. But adjusting some expectations for its vintage, this is a triumph of derring-do and far and away the most gripping version of this oft-told story on film. -Mark Walker.

Review Connoisseur Video / Mamma Roma [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini
  • Franco Citti
  • Luisa Loiano
  • Silvana Corsini
  • Ettore Garofolo
  • Anna Magnani
Release date: 1997-09-08
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Alfredo Bini
RRP: £15.99
Price: £29.99

Review Mamma Roma [1962] / Connoisseur Video:


Review MGM / Duel in the Sun [1946] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Josef von Sternberg
  • Otto Brower
  • Herbert Marshall
  • David O. Selznick
  • King Vidor
  • Jennifer Jones
  • Sidney Franklin
  • Joseph Cotten
  • Gregory Peck
  • Lionel Barrymore
Release date: 2004-05-25
Run time: 129 min.
Price: £6.38

Review Duel in the Sun [1946] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:

Before creating Duel in the Sun, legendary producer David O Selznick dreamed of making another magnum opus like his 1939 production of Gone with the Wind; he also proposed to make Jennifer Jones, his ladylove then second wife, a megastar. Thus Duel in the Sun (Lust in the Dust to some) was created as an extravagant Technicolor epic about the collision of the old West with the new, offering wide-open spaces with railroads and barbed wire, and juxtaposing character traits such as hot-blooded outlaws alongside civilised folk who are often wimpy or unwell. The film begins among giant rocks drenched in a blood-red sunset, with velvet-voiced Orson Welles intoning the legend of doomed Pearl Chavez and her demon lover; Duel in the Sun never strays far from lush romanticism, spiced with a dash of S/M. The cast is huge (a lubriciously wicked Gregory Peck, Lillian Gish, Joseph Cotton, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Harry Carey, Herbert Marshall, Charles Bickford, Butterfly McQueen) and there are unforgettable set pieces, the most notable being the lovers' final shootout among those red rocks, as orgiastic a finale as you could ask for. -Kathleen Murphy, Amazon. com.

Review Paramount / Sunset Boulevard [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Billy Wilder
  • Fred Clark
  • William Holden
  • Gloria Swanson
  • Nancy Olson
  • Erich von Stroheim
Release date: 2008-11-11
Run time: 110 min.
Creator: D.M. Marshman Jr.
Price: £11.94

Review Sunset Boulevard [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:

More than half a century after its release in 1950, Sunset Boulevard is still the most pungently unflattering portrait of Hollywood ever committed to celluloid. Billy Wilder, unequalled at combining a literate, sulphurous script with taut direction, hits his target relentlessly. The humour-and the film is rich in this, Wilder's most abundant commodity-is black indeed. Sunset Boulevard is viciously and endlessly clever. William Holden's opportunistic scriptwriter Joe Gillis, whose sellout proves fatal, is from the top drawer of film noir. Gloria Swanson's monstrously deluded Norma Desmond, the benchmark for washed-up divas, transcends parody. And her literal descent down the staircase to madness is one of the all-time great silver-screen moments. Sunset Boulevard isn't without pathos, most notably in Erich von Stroheim's protective butler who wants only to shield his mistress from the stark truths that are massing against her. But its view of human beings at work in a ruthlessly cannibalistic industry is bleak indeed. Nobody, not even Nancy Olson's sparkily ambitious writer Betty Schaefer, is untainted. [+]
And neither are we, "those wonderful people out there in the dark". Norma might be ready for her close-up, but it's really Hollywood that's in the frame. No wonder Wilder incurred the charge of treachery from his peers. It's cinematic perfection. On the DVD: Sunset Boulevard lends itself effortlessly to a collector's edition of this quality. The film itself is presented in full-frame aspect ratio from an excellent print and the quality of the mono soundtrack is faultless: the silver screen comes to life in your living room. The extras are superb, including a commentary from film historian Ed Sikov and a making-of documentary which includes the memories of Nancy Olson. Interactive features such as the Hollywood location map add to the fun. -Piers Ford.

Review Image Entertainment / The Ed Wood Box (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Bela Lugosi
  • Gregory Walcott
  • Edward D. Wood Jr.
  • Mona McKinnon
  • Edward D. Wood Jr.
  • Tom Keene
  • Mark Patrick Carducci
  • Brett Thompson
Release date: 2004-10-12
Run time: 467 min.
Creator: Lee Harris
Price: £13.77

Review The Ed Wood Box (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Song Of Bernadette [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • Jennifer Jones
  • Henry King
  • Charles Bickford
  • Lee J. Cobb
  • Vincent Price
  • William Eythe
Release date: 2004-10-18
Run time: 156 min.
Price: £12.99

Review The Song Of Bernadette [1943] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Network / Deadlier Than The Male [1966] [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Nigel Green
  • Suzanna Leigh
  • Ralph Thomas
  • Sylva Koscina
  • Richard Johnson
  • Elke Sommer
Release date: 2004-02-02
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.96

Review Deadlier Than The Male [1966] [1967] / Network:


Review Turner Home Entertainment / Dance, Girl, Dance [1940] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Dorothy Arzner
  • Lucille Ball
  • Maureen O'Hara
  • Virginia Field
  • Ralph Bellamy
  • Louis Hayward
Release date: 2007-06-19
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Harry E. Edington
Price: £9.14

Review Dance, Girl, Dance [1940] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Turner Home Entertainment:


Review Criterion / Eisenstein: The Sound Years [1938] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Nikolai Cherkasov
  • Andrei Abrikosov
  • Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
  • Dmitri Vasilyev
  • Sergei M. Eisenstein
  • Serafima Birman
  • Nikolai Okhlopkov
  • M. Filimonova
Release date: 2001-04-24
Run time: 292 min.
Creator: Pyotr Pavlenko
Price: £42.61

Review Eisenstein: The Sound Years [1938] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:


Models & Brands:
Olivier's Shakespeare [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Flesh and Lace/Passion in Hot Hollows (REGION 1) (NTSC), All About Eve [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales [1962] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Fighting Caravans [1931], Scared To Death [1947], Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend [2008] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Stronghold [1952], Mamma Roma [1962], Bedlam [1946], Intermezzo [1939], The Four Feathers [1939] [1977], Mamma Roma [1962], Duel in the Sun [1946] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Sunset Boulevard [1950] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Ed Wood Box (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Song Of Bernadette [1943], Deadlier Than The Male [1966] [1967], Dance, Girl, Dance [1940] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Eisenstein: The Sound Years [1938] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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