Abel, Walter

Holiday Inn (Special Edition)

Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire sing and dance their way into your heart in the sensational musical comedy Holiday Inn. Nominated for 3 Academy Awards this special edition features 13 holiday songs by famed composer Irving Berlin including White Christmas one of the biggest-selling recordings in music history!Crosby plays a song and dance man who leaves showbiz to run an inn that is open only on holidays. Astaire plays his former partner and rival in love. Follow the two talented pals as they find themselves competing for the affections of the same lovely lady (Marjorie Reynolds). This classic features an all-new digitally remastered picture and never-before-seen bonus material. Tis the season for one of the most enjoyable films of all time!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS UPC: 025192148422 Manufacturer No: 21484

This perennial, Christmas-season favorite from 1942 teamed Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance?) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners. Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" is a movie touchstone. --Tom Keogh

In 1942, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby teamed up at Der Bingle's Paramount Pictures for Holiday Inn, a black-and-white musical that proves more entertaining than Crosby's color semi-remake White Christmas in 1954. Astaire and Crosby play partner/rival song-and-dance men who compete for the hand of their performing partner, played by Virginia Dale. After Crosby loses, he moves to the Connecticut countryside where he creates a resort that is only open on holidays and puts on the shows with the help of Marjorie Reynolds. Dumped by Dale, Astaire makes a drunken arrival at the inn on New Year's Eve and dances with Reynolds. He decides she'll be his new partner, but doesn't remember what she looks like, setting off a frenzied search at every subsequent show while the once-bitten Crosby does his best to steer him off track. The theme gives Irving Berlin an excuse to craft or recycle a number of holiday-themed songs, such as (in the former category) "Washington's Birthday" or (in the latter) "Easter Parade." The most famous of the new material, of course, is "White Christmas," which became one of the bestselling songs of all time and the title song of Crosby's 1954 film. Astaire and Crosby also team up for "I'll Capture Her Heart," which playfully contrasts the stars' specialties, and Astaire's "It's So Easy to Dance with You" became one of the signature songs of his post-Ginger Rogers career. Astaire and Crosby teamed up again for Blue Skies in 1946. --David Horiuchi

Wake Island

Wake Island, a sandbar rising 21 feet out of the South Pacific, was among the first U.S. outposts to be hit by the Japanese, virtually simultaneously with Pearl Harbor. Wake Island the movie was among Hollywood's earliest responses to America's being attacked and drawn into WWII. The Marine Corps defenders of Wake became instant war heroes, akin to the martyrs of the Alamo. Nothing could be done to rescue or even to reinforce and resupply them, and they fought on through air attacks and naval bombardment for two weeks until, finally overrun, they were wiped out.

That searing historical context had a lot to do with the movie's impact in 1942, and the sight of the dark forms of enemy planes coming over the horizon for the first time still carries a shock. Wake Island's a decent film, and it doesn't dishonor its subject with sham heroics and grandstanding. But the New York Film Critics voted John Farrow best director of 1942, and that's a reach. The first half hour sets up the allegory of America as melting pot (there's even a corporal named Goebbels), establishes horseplay as the coin of democratic discourse (especially for gyrenes Robert Preston and the Oscar-nominated William Bendix), and fosters familiar friction between new commander Brian Donlevy and civilian construction supervisor Albert Dekker. Then shortly after a beaming Japanese peace envoy has stopped by for dinner, things get rough. The scenes of warfare are more than adequate, but they'd soon be outdone, sometimes in films much less worthy than Wake Island. --Richard T. Jameson

Going My Way/Holiday Inn

Going My Way
This irresistible Oscar winner from writer-director Leo McCarey (An Affair to Remember) stars Bing Crosby as a low-key, crooning priest who joins the parish of a no-nonsense but sweet old Irish man of the cloth (Barry Fitzgerald). While Bing turns local toughs into a choir, the elder priest worries over the church building fund and whether he'll get a chance to see his old mother back in Ireland before she dies. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be won over by this charmer, with a lovely ending guaranteed to make you bawl for a week. --Tom Keogh

Holiday Inn
This perennial, Christmas-season favorite from 1942 teamed Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It's a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire's frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance) doesn't let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners, with Crosby's warm performance of "White Christmas" a movie touchstone. --Tom Keogh

Island In The Sky (Special Collector's Edition)

Out of circulation for a quarter-century following the death of producer-star John Wayne, Island in the Sky is a tale of survival focused on the pilot (Wayne) and crew of a DC-3 forced to crashland somewhere in the uncharted Canadian wilderness, and the fellow airmen (Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine, Paul Fix) determined to find them before hunger and the 70-below winter do them in. The movie, set in the post-WWII era when military and commercial aviation were still intertwined, was written by bestselling novelist Ernest K. Gann and directed by William A. Wellman, an aviation-movie veteran whose Wings won the first-ever Academy Award (1927-28).

Wellman resolutely downplays the histrionics and conventional heroics; Wayne indulges in none of the macho posturing that his detractors carelessly identify him with, and the crewman who breaks rank in a bid for salvation meets a grim, almost mythically absurd demise. But Wellman also condoned (and himself speaks) the ill-advised narration that aims to tell us what's going on inside the stoic characters. The director does better with throwaway details like the ice pick kept handily embedded in a barracks wall so that pilots can break the frozen skin on their morning wash water. And there's a distinctive war council among the search pilots when no one's quite sure what to do next--the wrong decision could doom the missing crew--and so no one looks anybody else in the face. The black-and-white cinematography by Archie Stout (dramatic scenes) and William H. Clothier (flying scenes) leaves nothing to be desired, and in this crisp restoration it sometimes literally glows.

DVD features
The extras include production reminiscences by William Wellman Jr., assistant director Andrew V. McLaglen, and supporting players Darryl Hickman and Harry Carey Jr.; a short essay on the art of aerial cinematography; and an intriguing profile of Ernest K. Gann, who in his teens directed and starred in a motion picture of sorts. Wayne, Wellman, and Gann reteamed to create The High and the Mighty, much nominated for 1954 Oscars. --Richard T. Jameson

Starring the legendary John Wayne, better known as "The Duke," "Island in the Sky," comes to DVD for the first time and is loaded with special features. This rare classic has been meticulously restored and remastered. A riveting tale of bravery, hope and survival of the human spirit, "Island in the Sky" finds former army pilot Dooley (Wayne) and his men stranded in uncharted sub-arctic terrain when he is forced to crash-land his plane.

Mr. Skeffington

Whose face ravaged grotesque is in the mirror? Surely it's not that of Fanny Skeffington the prettiest woman in New York. Fanny always used her beauty to manipulate her way through life. She's encouraged dozens of suitors even after her marriage. But now diphtheria has robbed her of her only attribute. And without her looks she's lost. Bette Davis earned her eighth Best Actress Oscar nomination portraying Fanny.Running Time: 146 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569673052

Fanny Skeffington, an incorrigible society flirt of the WWI era, was one of the meatiest roles and most exasperating women Bette Davis ever played. Flighty Fanny loves the attention of her male suitors, but marries the steadfast Jewish financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) for security; long after their wedding day, she still enjoys receiving gentlemen callers. Time catches up with Fanny, of course, and the bills are due by the time World War II rolls around.

Mr. Skeffington is a vintage Warner Bros. workout for Davis, who never shied away from playing unsympathetic or physically unappealing roles. (Her main worry here was looking pretty enough in the early reels to justify Fanny's reputation.) Her theatrical performance and Rains's impeccable work carry the handsomely dressed story through its many melodramatic shifts. The dialogue by Julius and Philip Epstein (who were doing Casablanca around this time) has the sprung rhythm of screwball comedy, although director Vincent Sherman and the cast don't always seem to have noticed this. There's also the growing issue of anti-Semitism--a subject rare in Hollywood prior to this--especially as it concerns Fanny and Job's daughter. But mostly the film has Bette Davis, who strides headfirst into the gray areas (her indifferent treatment of her daughter is especially unappetizing), a fearless attitude that looks like the polar opposite of Fanny Skeffington's vanity. --Robert Horton

13 Rue Madeleine

A neat World War II thriller, 13 Rue Madeleine benefits from the postwar craze for shooting outside the studio. With Quebec doubling for occupied France, this is a spy movie with a sense of open air. James Cagney plays an OSS agent, training his recruits for an important pre-D-Day mission. When one of them turns out to be a Nazi spy, Cagney must parachute into France himself and straighten things out. Director Henry Hathaway and producer Louis de Rochemont pioneered the docu-drama approach with The House on 92nd Street, and they again use newsreel footage and stentorian narrator here, blended into the fictional story. The script is slightly muddled, but there are a fistful of suspenseful situations and a gangbusters ending--as well as the typically wired-up Cagney, who is exactly the guy you want on your side if D-Day is hanging in the balance. --Robert Horton

A group of allied agents working undercover in occupied Paris struggle to infiltrate German files in order to discover the location of a rocket launching site before the D-Day invasion. However, in their midst a traitor lurks.

Fury

Film adaptation of Norman Krasna's "Mob Rule". Young lovebirds Joe Wilson and Katherine Grant want to get married but don't have the money. Katherine moves to another city where she can make more money.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569690424

Tough stuff from director Fritz Lang (M), making his first American film with this 1936 story of an innocent man (Spencer Tracy) who escapes a lynch mob and then orchestrates his apparent murder at their hands. Tracy is superb, and the film is uncompromising, until studio interference takes some of the wind out of Lang's sails right at the end. But as the portrait of a character who comes to reflect the destiny he is trying to avoid, this is still essential Lang and a pre-noir classic. --Tom Keogh

Silent Night, Bloody Night

Controversial Classics Collection (Advise and Consent / The Americanization of Emily / Bad Day at Black Rock / Blackboard Jungle / A Face in the Crowd / Fury / I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang)

Otto Preminger expanded his vision in the 1960s with a whole series of ambitious, expansive dramas with huge casts and big themes. Advise and Consent (1962), an examination of deal making, party politics, and congressional diplomacy in Washington's legislative halls (based on the novel by Allen Drury), is one of his best. Preminger broke the blacklist with his previous film, Exodus, and it rings through in this drama about a controversial nominee for secretary of state (a confident, stately Henry Fonda) accused of being a Communist. The nomination process becomes the center ring of the political circus, with fidgety accuser Burgess Meredith in the spotlight; devious, silver-tongued Charles Laughton cracking the whip as a southern senator with a grudge against Fonda; and party whip Walter Pidgeon lining up votes behind the scenes. Arm twisting and diplomatic hardball turns to perjury and blackmail, and a melodramatic twist gives this lesson in party politics a salacious soap opera dimension.

With The Americanization of Emily (1964), screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky (Marty) sinks his satirical fangs into a story of an American naval officer (James Garner) selected to be the first victim at the invasion of Normandy. Julie Andrews plays a prim, British war widow who falls for him. Cynical in tone, the story becomes an interesting collision of manipulative interests and renewed life, the same formula that worked so well in Chayefsky's scripts for Network and Hospital.

One of the first Hollywood films to deal openly with white racism toward Japanese Americans during World War II, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) (directed by action maestro John Sturges, The Great Escape) stars Spencer Tracy as a one-armed stranger named MacReedy, who arrives in the tiny town of Black Rock on a hot day in 1945. Seeking a hotel room and the whereabouts of an ethnic Japanese farmer named Komoko, MacReedy runs smack into a wall of hostility that escalates into serious threats. In time it becomes apparent that Komoko has been murdered by a local, racist chieftain, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), who also plans on dispensing with MacReedy. Tracy's hero is forced to fight his way past Smith's goons (among them Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin) and sundry allies (Anne Francis) to keep alive, setting the stage for memorable suspense crisply orchestrated by Sturges. Casting is the film's principal strength, however: Tracy, the indispensable icon of integrity, and Ryan, the indispensable noir image of spiritual blight, are as creatively unlikely a pairing as Sturges's shotgun marriage of Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven.

Novelist Evan Hunter burst America's postwar bubble when he described an inner-city school terrorized by switchblade-wielding juvenile delinquents. Director-screenwriter Richard Brooks's 1955 adaptation of Blackboard Jungle still packs a tremendous wallop (even if it was shot mostly on the back lot). A forerunner of Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story, this black-and-white classic--set to Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock"--is part exposé, part melodrama, part public-service announcement. Glenn Ford, at his slow-to-rile best, plays Richard Dadier, an incoming English teacher at North Manual High School. An idealist who knows how to handle himself in a dark alley, Dadier stands his ground and earns the begrudging respect of school thugs led by Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier. Anne Francis plays Ford's especially vulnerable wife; Richard Kiley is the timid math teacher with the priceless jazz-record collection; Louis Calhern and John Hoyt are among the more cynical North Manual High veterans. See if you can ID Jamie Farr and director Paul Mazursky as gang members. The film was nominated for four Oscars.

More timely now, perhaps, than when it was first released in 1957, Elia Kazan's overheated political melodrama Face in the Crowd explores the dangerous manipulative power of pop culture. It exposes the underside of Capra-corn populism, as exemplified in the optimistic fable of grassroots punditry Meet John Doe. In Kazan's account, scripted by Budd Schulberg, the common-man pontificator (Andy Griffith) is no Gary Cooper-style aw-shucks paragon. Promoted to national fame as a folksy TV idol by radio producer Patricia Neal, Griffith's Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes turns out to be a megalomaniacal rat bastard. The film turns apocalyptic as Rhodes exploits his power to sway the masses, helping to elect a reactionary presidential candidate. The parodies of television commercials and opinion polling were cutting edge in their day (Face in the Crowd was the Network of the Eisenhower era), and there are some startling, near-documentary sequences shot on location in Arkansas. An extraordinary supporting cast (led by Walter Matthau and Lee Remick) helps keep the energy level high, even when the satire turns shrill and unpersuasive in the final reel.

Fury is tough stuff from director Fritz Lang (M), making his first American film with this 1936 story of an innocent man (Spencer Tracy) who escapes a lynch mob and then orchestrates his apparent murder at their hands. Tracy is superb, and the film is uncompromising, until studio interference takes some of the wind out of Lang's sails right at the end. But as the portrait of a character who comes to reflect the destiny he is trying to avoid, this is still essential Lang and a pre-noir classic.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) is one of the toughest and most uncompromising movies to ever come out of Hollywood. Paul Muni stars as a regular Joe, just back from World War I, who is unjustly convicted of a crime and sentenced to 10 years of bruisingly unfair treatment on a chain gang. Even a successful escape can't shake the spectre of the chains, nor the amazingly fatalistic twists the screenplay has in store. This picture could only have been made at Warner Bros., where social-justice movies flourished in the 1930s and criticism of judicial systems and prisons was sanctioned. Muni's weird acting style (he was recently off Scarface) somehow fits the film's furious tone, and director Mervyn LeRoy--as in his earlier Little Caesar--was dexterous enough to build the action to an unforgettable ending. It's a film that filters the American Dream through Depression realities and noirish pessimism (with a streak of pre-Code sexual frankness--note the one-night "friend" Muni makes the night of his escape). This one holds up, folks; it's a stunner.

The Controversial Classics Collection features the debut DVDs of seven groundbreaking motion pictures, released in America over three decades from the '30s to the '60s that had dramatic social impact, changed attitudes and brought important political and social reforms. The films include A Face in the Crowd, Blackboard Jungle, Fury, Bad Day at Black Rock, Advise and Consent, The Americanization of Emily and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. These films, which all took on hot button -- some even taboo -- topics such as prison injustice, racial tension, juvenile delinquency, homosexuality, mob violence as well as political corruption in Washington, the military and the media, caused America to take notice and do something about the issues the movies raised. Each film features either a commentary or documentary examining the film's historical context and political impact.

Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Richard Dadier, a new teacher at inner city North Manual High, is a man eager to make a difference. Topics such as racial and sexual tensions, gang violence and apathy were topics Blackboard Jungle tackled 50 years ago that are still hot-button issues in schools. Glenn Ford as Dadier clings to his ideals and pays a price vying with teen misfits led by Vic Morrow and, in a star-making performance, a young Sidney Poitier. Featuring Bill Haley's classic "Rock Around the Clock," the film is often remembered as being responsible for the breakthrough of rock 'n' roll to the media and consumer mainstream. Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood) directed, based on Evan Hunter's best seller. DVD special features include: Commentary by co-stars Paul Mazursky and Jamie Farr, Glenn Ford's son Peter Ford and Assistant Director Joel Freeman, Droopy Cartoon Blackboard Jumble, theatrical trailer.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Andy Griffith made a stunning movie debut as Lonesome Rhodes, whose meteoric rise to TV fame is paralleled by his plunge into booze, sex and political corruption. From On the Waterfront's Academy Award. -winning collaborators, director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg, A Face in the Crowd reflects the authenticity of filmmakers who know the media world from the inside out. Lee Remick also made her screen debut in this film which featured cameos from Mike Wallace, Walter Winchell, Betty Furness, Bennett Cerf and Burl Ives as themselves. DVD special features include: New documentary Facing the Past (an all new retrospective with new interviews with stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and screenwriter Budd Schulberg) and theatrical trailer.

Fury (1936)
Joe Wilson, a wrongly jailed man thought to have died in a blaze started by a bloodthirsty lynch mob, is alive. Now, Joe aims to ensure his would-be executioners meet the fate Joe miraculously escaped. Spencer Tracy is Joe, Sylvia Sidney is his bride-to-be and Fury lives up to its volatile name with its searing indictment of mob justice and lynching. In his first American film, director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Big Heat) combines a passion for justice and a sharp visual style into a landmark of social-conscience filmmaking. DVD special features include: Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich, with interview excerpts of director Fritz Lang and theatrical trailer.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Spencer Tracy (a 1955 Best Actor Oscar. nominee for this film) plays World War II veteran John J. Macreedy, who keeps his own counsel about why he's come to Black Rock and who keeps his wits about him when confronted with threats and violence. John Sturges (The Great Escape) directed; Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are among the town's thugs and other denizens. DVD special features include: commentary by film historian Dana Polan and theatrical trailer.

Advise and Consent (1962)
Three years after Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger examined the body politic in Advise and Consent, a story of power and procedure where deals become extortion, closets reveal skeletons and careers are crushed. It was also one of the first mainstream films to deal with homosexuality. History buffs may think they recall real-life counterparts to the characters depicted while movie fans can revel in a rare array of star power: Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, Gene Tierney, Peter Lawford, Franchot Tone and Charles Laughton in his final role. DVD special features include: Commentary by film historian Drew Casper and theatrical trailer.

The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Julie Andrews and James Garner headline this earlier milestone from screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky (Network) and director Arthur Hiller (also teamed later on The Hospital). Garner plays Charlie Madison, a U.S. Naval officer stationed in London, who cares nothing about glory. That attracts war widow Emily Barham (Andrews), who's had her fill of seeing men go to war and never retim. DVD special features include: Commentary by film historian Drew Casper, featurette Action on the Beach, theatrical trailer.

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Paul Muni gives a joltingly realistic performance in this powerhouse classic directed by Mervyn LeRoy (Little Caesar), based on autobiographical writings by chain-gang escapee Robert E. Burns. Like many '30s crime sagas, this deals with gritty realities. Yet it also stands apart as a film that made a difference, igniting protests that led to vital penal reforms and Burns himself received a commuted sentence. DVD special features include: Commentary by film historian Richard B. Jewell, vintage musical short 20,000 Cheers for the Chain Gang, and theatrical trailer.

The Indian Fighter

Kirk Douglas, Walter Matthau and Lon Chaney star in this "exciting account" (Leonard Maltin) about a man who made his name fighting Indians but now must use his peacekeeping skills to keep wronged Sioux warriors from massacring a wagon train and a nearby fort! After the Civil War, Johnny Hawks (Douglas), the Indian Fighter, returns to the West and establishes a treaty with the Sioux Indians. But when two renegade frontiersmen (Matthau and Chaney) seeking a legendary Indian gold mine murder the brother of the Sioux chief, tensions escalate, endangering every man in the territory!