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Review Warner Home Video / The Big Red One [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Stéphane Audran
  • Samuel Fuller
  • Alain Doutey
  • Robert Carradine
  • Bobby Di Cicco
  • Joseph Clark
Release date: 2005-05-03
Run time: 162 min.
Creator: Dana Kaproff
Price: £7.97

Review The Big Red One [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg depicts the D-day landings with a realism lauded by veterans. The Big Red One depicts the D-day landings, too, and it was made by a veteran. Writer-director Samuel Fuller, who served in the First Infantry Division from North Africa to Czechoslovakia (including the Normandy landings), made a career out of swift, punchy B movies, such as Pickup on South Street and The Naked Kiss. The Big Red One became Fuller's nod to A-movie filmmaking, yet it has the solid, matter-of-fact perspective of the ground-level infantryman. The episodic action ranges all over Europe, as a tough squad of American GIs (including Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine) follow their hard-bitten sergeant (Lee Marvin, at his best) and try to stay alive. Filmed mostly in Israel, the film delivers on the requisite war-movie conventions and tough-guy humour but also introduces notes of poetry. Fuller's D-day doesn't match the pyrotechnics of Spielberg's version, but it creates power from the simple image of a dead soldier's watch, ticking away in blood-soaked surf. A fine and memorable picture, The Big Red One might have been even greater had it been released in Fuller's full-length cut-someday perhaps a restoration will allow the director's vision to be seen for the first time. -Robert Horton.

Actors & Directors
  • Frank Launder
  • Muriel Aked
  • Kathleen Boutall
  • Anne Crawford
  • Wallace Bosco
  • Phyllis Calvert
Release date: 2008-01-08
Run time: 61 min.
Creator: Jack Cox
Price: £2.14

Review House of 1000 Women [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Alpha Video:


Review Westlake Entertainment Group / In Which We Serve [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Gerald Case
  • Noël Coward
  • Kenneth Carton
  • Joyce Carey
  • Ballard Berkeley
  • George Carney
Release date: 2004-02-10
Run time: 114 min.
Creator: Noël Coward
Price: £25.00

Review In Which We Serve [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Westlake Entertainment Group:

Based on the true story of Lord Louis Mountbatten's destroyer HMS Kelly, In Which We Serve is one of the most memorable British films made during World War II. Unfolding in flashback as survivors cling to a dingy, constantly strafed by the Luftwaffe, the film recounts the history of HMS Torrin through various battles to her sinking off the coast of North Africa, interwoven with the onshore lives of her crew. The film was the inspiration of Noel Coward, who desperately wanted to do something for the war effort, and he produced, wrote the screenplay, composed the stirring musical score and starred as Captain Edward Kinross. Coward also officially co-directed, though in reality he soon handed the reigns over to David Lean, whose directorial debut this became. There is a fine performance from Celia Johnson, anticipating her character in Lean and Coward's Brief Encounter (1946) and excellent support from John Mills, as well as a star-making debut from an uncredited Richard Attenborough. The use of real navy and army personal as extras, together with lavish studio production and authentic shipboard location footage lends the film a sense of realism unusual for the time. A landmark in the careers of many of the most important names in British film, this moving and occasionally harrowing classic has a vital place in the development of British cinema. On the DVD: The image is presented in a close approximation of the original 1. 37:1 Academy ratio using a print that is good for its age but which would benefit from some restoration, several scenes showing notable damage. The sound is robust mono, though the main title music is very distorted. [+]
Speech is very clear. Extras are the original trailer, a stills gallery set to music from the film and a 23-minute retrospective documentary. This last is excellent, containing information on how to simulate bullets hitting water using condoms, and interviews with surviving members of the production including Sir John Mills and cinematographer Ronald Neame. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review Image Entertainment / Barefoot Gen [1983] (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Masaki Kôda
  • Takao Inoue
  • Seiko Nakano
  • Yoshie Shimamura
  • Mori Masaki
  • Issei Miyazaki
Release date: 1999-04-27
Run time: 83 min.

Review Barefoot Gen [1983] (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:


Review New Concorde / Beyond the Call of Duty [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Cirio H. Santiago
  • Jillian McWhirter
  • Jan-Michael Vincent
  • Vic Trevino
  • James Gregory Paolleli
  • Eb Lottimer
Release date: 2004-04-20
Run time: 93 min.
Price: £26.23

Review Beyond the Call of Duty [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / New Concorde:


Review 20th Century Fox / Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Toshio Masuda
  • E.G. Marshall
  • Sô Yamamura
  • Martin Balsam
  • Tatsuya Mihashi
  • Joseph Cotten
  • Richard Fleischer
Release date: 2001-05-15
Run time: 149 min.
Price: £4.19

Review Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Here is just one of the many mishaps chronicled in Tora! Tora! Tora!: "Sir, there's a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, 3 degrees east. " "Yeah? Don't worry about it. " The epic film shows the bombing of Pearl Harbour from both sides in the historic first American-Japanese coproduction: American director Richard Fleischer oversaw the complicated production (the Japanese sequences were directed by Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, after Akira Kurosawa withdrew from the film), wrestling a sprawling story with dozens of characters into a manageable, fairly easy-to-follow film. The first half maps out the collapse of diplomacy between the nations and the military blunders that left naval and air forces sitting ducks for the impending attack, while the second half is an amazing re-creation of the devastating battle. While Tora! Tora! Tora! lacks the strong central characters that anchor the best war films, the real star of the film is the climactic 30-minute battle, a massive feat of cinematic engineering that expertly conveys the surprise, the chaos and the immense destruction of the only attack by a foreign power on American soil since the Revolutionary war. The special effects won a well-deserved Oscar, but the film was shut out of every other category by, ironically, the other epic war picture of the year, Patton. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Review MGM / A Bridge Too Far [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Michael Byrne
  • Alun Armstrong
  • Michael Caine
  • Hartmut Becker
Release date: 2005-10-25
Run time: 176 min.
Creator: John Addison
Price: £6.17

Review A Bridge Too Far [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:

This massive 1977 adaptation by director Richard Attenborough (Gandhi) of Cornelius Ryan's novel features an all-star cast in an epic rendering of a daring but ultimately disastrous raid behind enemy lines in Holland during the Second World War. A lengthy and exhaustive look at the mechanics of warfare and the price and futility of war, the film is almost too large for its aims but manages to be both picaresque and affecting, particularly in the performance of James Caan. The impressive cast includes Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, and Liv Ullmann among others. While not a classic war film, it nevertheless manages to be a consistently interesting and exciting adventure. -Robert Lane, Amazon. com.

Actors & Directors
  • Lawrence Monoson
  • Andrew Bowen
  • Frank Sallo
  • Brant Cotton
  • Thomas R. Martin
  • Mark Roper
Release date: 2003-05-27
Run time: 94 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Marines [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lions Gate:


Review 20th Century Fox / Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Toshio Masuda
  • Sô Yamamura
  • Joseph Cotten
  • Martin Balsam
  • Tatsuya Mihashi
  • E.G. Marshall
  • Richard Fleischer
Release date: 2000-11-07
Run time: 145 min.
Price: £32.55

Review Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Here is just one of the many mishaps chronicled in Tora! Tora! Tora!: "Sir, there's a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, 3 degrees east. " "Yeah? Don't worry about it. " The epic film shows the bombing of Pearl Harbour from both sides in the historic first American-Japanese coproduction: American director Richard Fleischer oversaw the complicated production (the Japanese sequences were directed by Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, after Akira Kurosawa withdrew from the film), wrestling a sprawling story with dozens of characters into a manageable, fairly easy-to-follow film. The first half maps out the collapse of diplomacy between the nations and the military blunders that left naval and air forces sitting ducks for the impending attack, while the second half is an amazing re-creation of the devastating battle. While Tora! Tora! Tora! lacks the strong central characters that anchor the best war films, the real star of the film is the climactic 30-minute battle, a massive feat of cinematic engineering that expertly conveys the surprise, the chaos and the immense destruction of the only attack by a foreign power on American soil since the Revolutionary war. The special effects won a well-deserved Oscar, but the film was shut out of every other category by, ironically, the other epic war picture of the year, Patton. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Review Columbia TriStar / Gardens of Stone [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Francis Ford Coppola
  • Anjelica Huston
  • D.B. Sweeney
  • Dean Stockwell
  • James Earl Jones
  • James Caan
Release date: 2002-06-25
Run time: 112 min.
Price: £5.20

Review Gardens of Stone [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:

The subtext of Gardens of Stone, a grim, snail-paced Francis Ford Coppola film, is the death of Coppola's son Giancarlo in a boating accident. Coppola came back with this Vietnam-era military drama about the men assigned to patrol and serve at the funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. James Caan is the world-weary patrol leader with a fatherly interest in a gung-ho cadet (DB Sweeney). Caan tries to show Sweeney the potentially fatal future that awaits him if he volunteers for combat, but he can't break through his young charge's zealousness. The subplot involves crusty Caan's attempts at romance with Anjelica Huston, who can't quite fathom his contradictions. The story is all glum and lumbering, despite a warm, full-bodied performance by James Earl Jones as one of Caan's buddies. -Marshall Fine.

Review Anchor Bay / Hell in the Pacific [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Lee Marvin
  • Toshirô Mifune
  • John Boorman
Release date: 1999-11-16
Run time: 102 min.
Price: £41.46

Review Hell in the Pacific [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Anchor Bay:

Hell in the Pacific is one of the most original and thoughtful war films of the 1960s. Fresh from Point Blank (1967) Lee Marvin reunited with director John Boorman for this elemental story of a US pilot and a Japanese naval officer washed ashore on an otherwise uninhabited Pacific island. Lee Marvin speaks English; Toshiro Mifune (The Seven Samurai) speaks Japanese; and the audience shares their frustrations as they attempt to communicate, as Boorman does not use subtitles. Once the men become aware of each other's presence they move from wary avoidance through conflict to an uneasy truce as they realise they will have to cooperate to survive. The naturalistic acting is key to the film's success, greatly aided by the fact that both stars served their respective countries in the Pacific theatre during the Second World War. Conrad Hall's cinematography is superb, using natural light to evoke the beauty of the island, and the wide Panavision frame to show the men's isolation and their reactions to each another. Boorman developed further his fascination with man against nature in Deliverance (1974) and The Emerald Forest (1985), and there wouldn't be another poetic war film until Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1999). On the DVD: The stereo sound is fine, atmospherically reproducing both the natural sounds of the island and Lalo Schfrin's imaginative score. The picture quality likewise is very good, with the image well focused with strong colours and plenty of detail. Unfortunately the 2. [+]
35:1 image has been panned and scanned to 1. 33:1 TV ratio, destroying the scale and beauty of the compositions and sometimes meaning the viewer sees only one side of the interactions between the two men. Extras are perfunctory, with production notes, biographies of the stars and a "slide show". Considering even BBC2 occasionally shows the film in near full Pavavision and with Boorman's preferred, TS Elliot inspired ending, this DVD is a lost opportunity to bring a modern classic into the digital age. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review Warner Home Video / Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • George Waggner
  • Patricia Neal
  • Scott Forbes (II)
  • Ward Bond
  • John Wayne
  • Philip Carey
Release date: 2007-05-22
Run time: 111 min.
Price: £3.79

Review Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Lions Gate Home Entertainment / Flying Tigers [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • David Miller
  • John Wayne
  • John Carroll
  • Gordon Jones
  • Anna Lee
  • Paul Kelly
Release date: 2000-05-16
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £3.15

Review Flying Tigers [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lions Gate Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Scott Forbes (II)
  • Patricia Neal
  • John Wayne
  • Ward Bond
  • Philip Carey
  • George Waggner
Release date: 2003-05-13
Run time: 111 min.
Price: £9.28

Review Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review delta home entertainment / Final Chapter, The [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Aspel
Release date: 2002-06-24
Run time: 58 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.13

Review Final Chapter, The [2002] / delta home entertainment:


Review Image Entertainment / Destiny of a Man [1959] (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Yevgeny Kudryashov
  • Lev Borisov
  • Sergei Bondarchuk
  • Pavlik Boriskin
  • Zinaida Kirienko
Release date: 2003-04-22
Run time: 103 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Destiny of a Man [1959] (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:


Review Columbia TriStar / Castle Keep [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Sydney Pollack
  • Astrid Heeren
  • Peter Falk
  • Jean-Pierre Aumont
  • Patrick O'Neal
  • Burt Lancaster
Release date: 2004-11-02
Run time: 107 min.
Price: £5.22

Review Castle Keep [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:


Review Alpha Video / State Department File 649 [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jonathan Hale
  • Frank Ferguson
  • William Lundigan
  • Sam Newfield
  • Virginia Bruce
  • Richard Loo
Release date: 2004-02-24
Run time: 86 min.
Price: £1.94

Review State Department File 649 [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Alpha Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Donald Cameron
  • Tommy Cook
  • Mike Bush
  • Janice Carroll
  • Neville Brand
Release date: 2006-03-21
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Franz Waxman
Price: £7.47

Review Stalag 17 [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Paramount:


Review Warner Home Video / Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Miguel Ángel Ferriz
  • Miguel Arenas
  • Álvaro Gálvez y Fuentes
  • Miguel Inclán
  • Pedro Infante
  • Ismael Rodríguez
  • Lina Montes
Release date: 2008-04-22
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £5.00

Review Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Models & Brands:
The Big Red One [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC), House of 1000 Women [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC), In Which We Serve [1942] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Barefoot Gen [1983] (NTSC), Beyond the Call of Duty [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Bridge Too Far [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Marines [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Tora! Tora! Tora! [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Gardens of Stone [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Hell in the Pacific [1968] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Flying Tigers [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Operation Pacific [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Final Chapter, The [2002], Destiny of a Man [1959] (NTSC), Castle Keep [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC), State Department File 649 [1949] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Stalag 17 [1953] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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