TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Best Picture Winners (Casablanca / Gigi / An American in Paris / Mrs. Miniver) (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am 80 years old and saw these films when they were first released. In an age when there were no VCRs, much less DVDs, a film came your way, you saw it and from then on they were memories. These films were considered classics then and seeing them again I would say that they stand up well against current stuff. Different acting style, true, but the dramatic impact and the story lines are as good as any. It is refreshing to see the dancing in American... and Gigi. Is today's stuff really more energetic? The old days were so much more graceful - tell me about Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astair. The great relief? I cannot imagine Mrs. Minniver using the indecent language that we hear in too many films these days. How refreshing!!!

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CASABLANCA Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) "sticks his neck out for nobody." Then she (Ingrid Bergman) walks back into his life…with her Resistance-leader husband. "Our candidate for the best Hollywood movie of all time" (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide), directed by Michael Curtiz.MRS. MINIVER One of Hollywood's most memorable spirit-lifters about an idealized England confronting the terror of World War II. Greer Garson (a formidable Oscar-winning title-role performance), Walter Pidgeon and Teresa Wright star; William Wyler directs.GIGI Thank heaven for the bubbly fun and glorious Lerner and Loewe music! Gigi (Leslie Caron) goes from girlishness to glamour and desires more than the lush life of suitor Louis Jourdan. With Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold.AN AMERICAN IN PARIS Gene Kelly plays an ex-GI who loves Paris and an alluring (but engaged) shop clerk (Leslie Caron in her beguiling screen debut). Dazzling dances and a stunning ballet finale are spun around songs and music by the Gershwins.

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TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby) (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of 27 sets of four movie packs that Warner Home Video plans to release in the next few years. Their purpose is to introduce classic film to people previously unaware of these films via very affordable bare bones versions of these movies. This set has four very good films, all featuring Katharine Hepburn.
Woman of the Year (1941) - The film that introduced Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and sparked a long relationship both on and offscreen. Here Hepburn plays an early feminist who goes around collecting causes. Spencer Tracy is the sportswriter that loves her. They marry, but things go downhill quickly since Kate is really already married to her causes.
Adam's Rib (1951) - Ten years have passed and Hepburn and Tracy have aged a bit, but the spark and the chemistry is still there. This time the pair are married lawyers. He is a prosecutor and she a defense attorney. Problems arise when Hepburn defends a woman who shot her husband when she caught him cheating on her and Tracy is the prosecuting attorney in the same case.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) - One of the original screwball comedies. Stars Cary Grant as an anthropologist who gets mixed up with a very dizzy young woman played by Hepburn. The plot involves a tame leopard - Baby - and a dinosaur bone buried by a dog - the exact whereabouts are unknown.
The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Reteams Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant as a divorced pair of socialites. Hepburn's character is about to marry a man of the people who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and also happens to be one of the most annoying people who has ever lived. James Stewart oddly won a Best Actor award for what is essentially a supporting role. It is especially odd when you think about all of the other great performances in which he was the undisputed lead and he wasn't even nominated.
The only drawback to this set is that - if you want all the extras - you might want to consider Classic Comedies Collection (Bringing Up Baby / The Philadelphia Story Two-Disc Special Edition / Dinner at Eight / Libeled Lady / Stage Door / To Be or Not to Be) in the case of Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. Hepburn and Tracy fans might want to consider The Hepburn & Tracy Signature Collection (Woman of the Year / Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / The Spencer Tracy Legacy). However, both of these sets are considerably more expensive than this basic four-pack, and low cost is really the point of this set in the first place.

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THE PHILADELPHIA STORY Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Best Actor Academy Award winner James Stewart star in the tale of a faultfinding, bride-to-be socialite who gets her come-uppance. George Cukor directs this screen pinnacle of sophisticated romantic comedy.BRINGING UP BABY When scatterbrained heiress Katharine Hepburn meets mild-mannered museum curator Cary Grant, the results are riotous. Howard Hawks directs a giddy romp thats been hailed as the most glorious laughter-inducing movie ever!ADAMS RIB Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play a married prosecutor and defense attorney assigned to the same sensational attempted-murder trial in this clever courtroom battle of the sexes. Judy Holliday co-stars and George Cukor directs.WOMAN OF THE YEAR Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn show what chemistry is all about as George Stevens directs this witty Oscar winner about the bumpy romance of a meat-and-potatoes sportswriter and a world-renowned political pundit.

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The All-Star Christmas Show (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am being generous (the Xmas spirit) giving this DVD
even 1 star !!
This show is NOT a television "spectacular".
What this is, is a compilation of approx. 3 minute
"skits" from a vast variety of 1950's performers
(most of whom you WILL NOT KNOW).
This was spliced together for a 1958 USO tape that
was sent to 750 military bases around the world.
Visual quality is poor at best, and very little
Christmas theme throughout.
There are MUCH BETTER "Christmas DVDs" offered at
lower prices. Very disappointing.

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ALL STAR CHRISTMAS SHOW - DVD Movie

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (TV, 1954) (Plus Bonus ""Lights Out"" Episode) (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is released from Alpha Home Entertainment. The DVD contains two episodes: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (B&W 48 minutes) and "The Lost Will of Dr. Rant" (B&W 22 minutes).
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" stars Michael Rennie as the titular character, whose secret experiment unleashes the "beast" within him. This Robert Louis Stevenson tale is in fact an episode from the anthology TV show "Climax!" (aired on July 28, 1955) and adapted for TV by Gore Vidal. The original music is by Jerry Goldsmith.
Unlike more famous 1931 and 1941 feature-film versions (starring Fredric March and Spencer Tracy respectively), this TV episode dispenses with the good doctor's melodramatic love story and focuses on the consequences of Jekyll's experiment. Only the bare-bone elements of the original story has made it to this version, and despite the efforts of the players (including Cedric Hardwicke and Mary Sinclair), the result is not very impressive. Michael Rennie (perhaps best known for his performance as "Klaatu" in "The Day the Earth Stood Still") is very good as Dr. Jekyll, but his portrayal of the hedonistic Mr. Hyde is a bit disappointing with minimum amount of special make-up. Probably this couldn't be helped because it is said most of the show's episodes were broadcast live, so the crew had to do without elaborate effects.
"The Lost Will of Dr. Rant" is based on M. R. James's short story "The Tractate Middoth" and this short work is in fact from the TV show "Lights Out." The episode was aired on May 7, 1951, starring Leslie Nielsen, Pat Englund, Russell Collins and Eva Condon.
The story begins when John Eldred, an anxious old man looking for a rare edition of the Talmud, arrives at a Boston library. Leslie Nielsen plays a librarian named Bill, who is more than happy to help him find the book, but some mysterious powers intervene in the form of a creepy stranger. The episode has a very interesting premise, a blend of ghost story and detective novel, and the adaptation is fairly faithful to James's original short, but it really needs a better final act that is too short.
As these are from old TV shows, you should expect neither crisp image nor clear sound quality. Still the DVD has a curiosity value with two episodes from the earliest days of American TV shows.


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Gore Vidal wrote the script for this excellentadaptation of Robert Louis Stevensons' classic horror story that first appeared in the legendary anthology series ""Climax.""Includes bonus ""Lights Out"" episode, ""Lost Will of Dr. Rant.""

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