Astor, Gertrude

When Worlds Collide

Winner of the 1951 Academy Award for Best Special Effects, this science fiction extravaganza set a new standard for the realistic depiction of cinematic disasters. Of course, it's a quaint curiosity by today's technological standards, but as produced by visual effects pioneer George Pal, this story of Earth's collision with a runaway star is still a dazzling example of screen sci-fi from the '50s, when special effects were entering a new stage of advancement. Despite scientists' warnings about the star's destructive potential, government officials refuse to take action that could cause international panic, but a consortium of private industrialists prepare for the worst by building a gigantic spaceship--an ark for humanity to begin life anew on a distant planet. Who will be chosen to go, and who left behind? As earthquakes roar and massive tidal waves devastate entire cities, the huge rocket prepares for take-off from its miles-long launching ramp--ready to abandon the shattered Earth! Although it's more enjoyable now as a cinematic museum piece, When Worlds Collide remains a milestone of its kind, leading the way for many more screen disasters that followed this movie's still-worthy example. --Jeff Shannon

A Place in the Sun

George Stevens won an Oscar for his 1951 adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy, though the film seems a little overwrought today and even self-parodying at times. Still, Montgomery Clift's performance as a poor lad so drawn to a rich, beautiful girl (Elizabeth Taylor) that he contemplates killing his lower-class fiancée (Shelley Winters) is powerful, sympathetic, and mesmerizing. Taylor makes a strong impression, but Winters is awfully good in the less-glamorous role. The tone of the film is oppressive--the film doesn't exactly breathe with possibility--but there are lots of good reasons to give this movie a visit. --Tom Keogh

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection stars Basil Rathbone as the legendary Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as the venerable Dr. John H. Watson. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection is comprised of all 14 classic films on 5 discs: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SHERLOCKHOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR SHERLOCK HOMLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE SPIDER WOMAN SHERLOCK HOLMES THE SCARLET CLAW SHERLOCK HOLMES IN PEARL OF DEATH SHERLOCK HOLMES HOUSE OF FEAR SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE WOMAN IN GREEN SHERLOCK HOLMES PURSUIT TO ALGIERS SHERLOCK HOLMES TERROR BY NIGHT SHERLOCK HOLMES DRESSED TO KILL

Jolson Sings Again

One of the greatest musicals ever made THE JOLSON STORY is an electrifying cavalcade of lavish production numbers with an all-star cast. Winning Academy Awards® for Musical Scoring and Sound Recording the film also received four Academy Award® nominations in 1946 including Best Actor for Larry Parks' portrayal of Al Jolson. The film traces the meteoric singing/performing career of Asa Yoelson a talented cantor's son determined to make it big in the "biz." After changing his name to Al Jolson Asa captivates audiences everywhere as a spellbinding minstrel and jazz performer. Featuring 25 songs by Jolson and big hits such as "My Mammy" and "You Made Me Love You" THE JOLSON STORY is a compelling tribute to an incomparable performer once hailed as America's Greatest Entertainer!System Requirements:Running Time: 95 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 043396008632 Manufacturer No: 00863

National Velvet/The Story of Seabiscuit/Black Beauty

Adventure gallops home in three films featuring the speed, power and grace of majestic horses. In two-time Academy Award winner* National Velvet (Disc 1/Side A), Elizabeth Taylor poses as a boy in order to ride her beloved steed in the Grand National. Mickey Rooney co-stars in this all-time thoroughbred of a family-film winner. Real-life racing footage of the legendary "the Biscuit" adds to the drama of The Story of Seabiscuit (Disc 1/Side B), starring Shirley Temple. And the heroic colt in Black Beauty (Disc 2) triumphs over adversity and changes lives as he passes from owner to owner. David Thewlis and Sean Bean lead the two-legged cast members in this splendid version of Anna Sewell's famed tale. Time to ride!

Sherlock Holmes - The Scarlet Claw

Here is another strong entry (beautifully restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive) from the peak of Basil Rathbone's prolific, seven-year run as a definitive Sherlock Holmes for the big screen. The Scarlet Claw (1944) is an original screenplay with elements loosely inspired by Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men." A skeptical Holmes and Watson (Nigel Bruce) attend a meeting of the Royal Canadian Occult Society in Canada, but are soon looking into a killing spree attributed to a fanciful marsh monster. Fantastic events are soon supplanted by an even stranger horror concerning a master actor bent on revenge. --Tom Keogh

The master detective Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his faithful cohort Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back, preserved and digitally restored in 35mm to original condition by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. This newly restored version of the classic film includes the period war bond tag and studio logo and credits from its original theatrical release. Filled with ominous shadows and interesting camera angles, the visual beauty of the film in 35mm is stunning. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson journey to Canada to attend a meeting of the Royal Canadian Occult Society in Quebec. Before long, they find themselves investigating a series of gruesome murders that the locals attribute to the legendary phantom marsh monster of La Morte Rouge. But Holmes suspects a master of disguise is the real killer, who might be anyone in the village. He contrives a clever trap and courageously sets himself up to be the killer's next victim.

The Sherlock Holmes Collection, Vol. 2 (The House of Fear/The Spider Woman/Pearl of Death/The Scarlet Claw)

Here are four strong entries (each beautifully restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive) from the peak of Basil Rathbone's prolific, seven-year run as a definitive Sherlock Holmes for the big screen. Three of these films were released in 1944 alone, beginning with the gripping Pearl of Death, a then-contemporary update (set in the World War II years, as with most of the Rathbone-Holmes features) of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Six Napoleons."

A reluctant Holmes agrees to help a London museum recover a stolen, rare pearl. But the investigation takes a strange turn when the great detective and his sidekick, Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce), find their mystery linked to a series of odd murders involving the destruction of porcelain china. Typically, "Pearl of Death" has its share of inside jokes for true Sherlockians, including Holmes's declaration, "If I'm wrong, I'll move to Sussex and raise bees." Of course, that's exactly what Doyle's most famous character did upon retirement.

The Scarlet Claw is an original screenplay with elements loosely inspired by Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men." A skeptical Holmes and Watson attend a meeting of the Royal Canadian Occult Society in Canada, but are soon looking into a killing spree attributed to a fanciful marsh monster. Fantastic events are soon supplanted by an even stranger horror concerning a master actor bent on revenge.

The Spider Woman employs details of Holmes's apparent death and resurrection between "The Final Problem" and its follow-up, "The Adventure of the Empty House." But the movie takes a different direction when a bizarre series of late-night "pajama suicides" finds Holmes probing the involvement of a femme fatale. Of the quartet of features in this set (all produced and directed by the energetic Roy William Neill) Spider Woman has the most vivacity and familiar textures from Doyle's canon.

Finally, "The House of Fear," adapted from "The Five Orange Pips," is a chamber mystery concerning successive murders of the members of an elite club, the Good Comrades. On film, the tale seems a bit ludicrous, but its conclusion is among the most startling in the Rathbone films. There's also a fair amount of comedy between Watson and Inspector Lestrade's bumbling ways. --Tom Keogh

The master detective Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his faithful cohort Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back, preserved and digitally restored in 35mm to original condition by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. This newly restored version of the classic film includes the period war bond tag and studio logo and credits from its original theatrical release. Filled with ominous shadows and interesting camera angles, the visual beauty of the film in 35mm is stunning. Includes: Sherlock Holmes and The Scarlet Claw Sherlock Holmes and The Spider Woman Sherlock Holmes and The House of Fear Sherlock Holmes and the Pearl of Death

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harry Pollard's epic 1927 version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's landmark novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was one of the most expensive silent films ever made. James B. Lowe, whose composure, dignity, and gentleness suggest a silent-era Danny Glover, stars as kindly Tom, the slave ripped from his family to pay his master's debt, but the film favors the more sensational melodrama of the married light-skinned couple Eliza and George and their son Harry (all played by white performers), split up and sold to the highest bidder. Pollard, a Southerner himself, maintains an uneasy balance between a sentimental portrayal of a happy Dixie with smiling slaves and a land where humans are bought and sold like cattle to wicked, money-grubbing masters. The exaggerated performances and stereotypes have not aged well and Pollard shows a weakness for broad Victorian melodrama, but the film boasts many moving moments and nail-biting sequences, highlighted by Eliza's harrowing escape across the ice floes as hounds literally nip at her heels. (A staple of the many touring stage productions of the play, D.W. Griffith borrowed the scene for the climax of Way Down East.) Uncle Tom's Cabin is more interesting as a product of its era than any serious attempt to explore the evils of slavery, but it's an exciting, handsomely mounted picture. Kino's restored edition features the original Movietone score by Erno Rapee, complete with sound effects and songs.

The DVD also features a detailed and informative essay by historian David Pierce, an extensive collection of stills, promotional materials, and music cue sheets, and details of cuts made to the film, including two deleted scenes that are among the best moments the film has to offer. --Sean Axmaker

Harry Langdon ...The Forgotten Clown

In an exceptional case of good timing, Harry Langdon emerged as a silent-comedy clown just as the careers of Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin were stagnant or (in the case of Chaplin) on extended hiatus. Along came Langdon with his own screen persona--a cherubic, innocent man-child in ill-fitting clothes, his weathered hat at a permanent tilt--and by the mid-'20s he was a critical and box-office smash. The three short features offered here represent the best work of this "forgotten clown," and although Langdon's slapstick was gentler and somewhat derivative, his endearing character was featured in delightful stories that earned his place in the silent-comedy hall of fame.

The Strong Man (1926) was Langdon's second and finest film; it's bracingly ambitious in both scope and story, and marked director Frank Capra's feature-film debut. Harry plays an unlikely World War I hero who immigrates to America to find his pen-pal sweetheart, posing as a vaudeville strongman as his love-struck odyssey spins through a series of increasingly audacious comedy set pieces. Langdon's debut feature, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926), costars Joan Crawford as the woman who's captured Harry's fancy, and he joins a cross-country walking race in an adventurous effort to impress her. The film's climactic cyclone scene is as impressive for its time as anything in Twister--and a whole lot funnier. Finally, 1927's Long Pants follows the familiar formula: Harry's misguided attraction to a brazen vamp (which tempts him to dispatch his unsuspecting fiancée) leads to a series of misadventures, but as always, Harry's innate goodness wins out in the end.

Langdon's career was never again as bright; he directed himself in subsequent, lesser films and his popularity rapidly faded. That makes this collection essential for silent-comedy aficionados; these films are the enduring legacy of Langdon's brief but shining time in the spotlight, and they should not be forgotten. --Jeff Shannon

Three complete features from the rediscovered genius of silent comedy! These classic silent slapstick films are the high points in Harry Langdon and Frank Capra's collaboration during 1926 and 1927, culminating in some of the finest American comedies of all-time! "The Strong Man" (1926, 74 min.) - After a tour of duty in World War I, Paul, a witless young Belgian, comes to America and seeks out the dedicated pen pal (Priscilla Bonner) whose letters lifted his spirits during the heat of battle. But to Paul, the land of opportunity turns out to be a world of confusion, as his quest for Mary Brown leads him from mishap to comic disaster. "Tramp. Tramp, Tramp" (1926, 61 min.) - In an effort to save the family business, a shoemaker's son enters a cross-country foot race with hopes of walking away with the $25,000 prize. During the course of his westward hike, Langdon woos Joan Crawford, is thrown in a chain gang, dangled from the edge of a cliff and caught in a violent tornado. "Long Pants" (1927, 58 min.) - When a sheepish young man yearning for romance is given his first pair of grown-up trousers, he springs into adulthood and is immediately smitten by the wrong woman. When his queen is jailed, Harry abandons his small-town sweetheart and comes to the brazen woman's rescue, ushering his fugitive moll through a series of riotous scrapes.

All In A Night's Work

After the sudden death of magazine publisher Colonel Ryder, his nephew, Tony (Martin) inherits the magazine and has big plans to expand it. While negotiating a loan from the bank, Tony gets a call from a detective surrounding his uncle's death. It turns out Colonel Ryder died in his hotel room with a smile on his face and a young woman (MacLaine) was seen fleeing his room wearing only a towel. Suspicious of this woman and afraid the magazine's wholesome image may be tarnished and their loan denied, Tony asks the detective to stick around and find her. What ensues is a series of misunderstandings.