Duggan, Andrew

The Incredible Mr. Limpet

Ever wonder what would happen if the imaginary worlds of Bedknobs and Broomsticks and SpongeBob SquarePants were to collide? If so, chances are good you've yet to discover The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Starring the irrepressible Don Knotts, this 1964 family feature combines live (land) action and animated (undersea) sequences with delightful results. During World War II, Knotts is mild-mannered, spectacle-sporting bookkeeper Henry Limpet. More than anything--he's a fish fan and a patriot. When the navy rejects him due to poor eyesight, he falls into a funk from which not even his beloved aquarium or loving--if bossy--wife can rescue him. So he makes a wish... to become a fish. Next thing he knows--he is! With a little help from a hermit crab named Crusty and the lovely Ladyfish, it's as a talking, bespectacled fish that Limpet proves himself the war hero he always knew he was meant to be. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Henry Limpet longs to serve his country during World War II but is 4-F, so when his wish to be a fish comes true, he is able to help the Navy fight the Nazis.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story

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Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: PG
Release Date: 23-SEP-2003
Media Type: DVD

A true television classic, The Homecoming was the second movie (after 1963's Spencer's Mountain) based on Earl Hamner's autobiographical writings about love, pride, faith, and survival in rural America during the Great Depression. The Homecoming introduced the Walton family, a 1930s mountain clan living a hardscrabble existence that forces patriarch John Walton (Andrew Duggan) to seek work, far from home, in the city. When John fails to return home, as promised, on Christmas Eve, his iron-willed wife Olivia (Patricia Neal) keeps a lid on their children's worry. Oldest son John-Boy (Richard Thomas), who privately dreams of becoming a writer but worries about disappointing his parents, is dispatched to find his dad. Graceful yet harder-edged than the subsequent TV series The Waltons (which recast several characters and ran for nine years), The Homecoming reveals, albeit understatedly, much about the pain of poverty even as the family draws strength and closeness through endurance. --Tom Keogh

Ultimate Flint Collection (Our Man Flint / In Like Flint)

There's really been only one rival to James Bond: Derek Flint. That's because of James Coburn's special brand of American cool. He's so cool, in fact, that he doesn't care to save the world. That is, until he's personally threatened. He's a true libertarian, with more gadgets and girls than Bond, but with none of his stress or responsibility. In Our Man Flint (1966), he's totally unflappable as he thwarts mad scientists who control the weather--and an island of pleasure drones. Lee J. Cobb costars as Flint's flustered superior, and Edward Mulhare plays a British nemesis with snob appeal. For fans of Austin Powers, incidentally, the funny-sounding phone comes from the Flint films. However, the best gadget remains the watch that enables Flint to feign death. There's a great Jerry Goldsmith score, too.

There was bound to be a Flint sequel, and In Like Flint (1967) delivers the same kind of zany fun as its predecessor. Flint is recruited once again by Lee J. Cobb to be the government's top secret agent, this time to solve a mishap involving the President. Turns out, the Chief Executive has been replaced by an evil duplicate. The new plan for world domination involves feminine aggression, and Flint, with his overpowering charisma, is just the man to turn the hostile forces around. In Like Flint is still over the top, but some of the novelty has worn off, and it doesn't have quite the same edge as the original. Even Jerry Goldsmith's score is a bit more subdued. But the film still has James Coburn and that funny phone. --Bill Desowitz

International spy Derek Flint saves the world with various gadgets and surrounded by beautiful women.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 7-NOV-2006
Media Type: DVD

Merrill's Marauders

The theatrical trailer included in this DVD release of Merrill's Marauders, touting its depiction of "World War II's most fabulous jungle fighters… (as) they showed the world what the American soldier can do," makes director Samuel Fuller's 1962 film sound like jingoistic propaganda, but it's considerably more than that. The year is 1944; the U.S. Army's 5307th Composite Unit, a 3000-strong outfit under the command of Brigadier General Frank Merrill (Jeff Chandler), has already been fighting the occupying Japanese forces in the wilds of Burma for several months when they're assigned to march hundreds of miles through jungles, swamps, and mountains to Myitkyina, a town of considerable strategic importance and the gateway to India, where the Allies fear the Japanese and Nazis will meet and consolidate their forces. Mission impossible? So it would seem, as the men are exhausted, disease-ridden, disheartened, and ill-equipped; his second in command, Lt. Stockton (Ty Hardin), argues that they'll never make it, but Merrill (who has a heart condition that could bring him down at any moment) refuses to let up. There are numerous combat sequences, most of them quite convincing (including a very cool scene in a concrete maze), but the film's strength lies not only in its graphic chronicling of the obvious horrors of war but in its sympathetic (but never condescending) portrayal of the more quotidian aspects of these soldiers' miserable lives, from easy banter to quarrels over food and ammunition, from the interactions with locals to the sheer hell of simply walking another step when you've already passed the limits of human endurance. Grim, gritty, intense, and realistic (Fuller was an Army vet himself), this is an effective precursor to the director's best-known movie, The Big Red One. --Sam Graham

Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill leads the 3000 American volunteers of his 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) aka "Merrill's Marauders" behind Japanese lines across Burma to Myitkyina pushing beyond their limits and fighting pitched battles at every strong-point.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/MILITARY & WAR UPC: 085391188421 Manufacturer No: 118842

Seven Days in May

John Frankenheimer's follow-up to The Manchurian Candidate is as intimate and subdued as its predecessor is flamboyant and energetic. Burt Lancaster is calm and calculating as the steely-eyed military hawk General Scott, who opposes the president's (Fredric March) plan to end the cold war with a bold nuclear disarmament plan. Lancaster's longtime friend and frequent costar Kirk Douglas is his smiling, joking right-hand man, Colonel "Jiggs" Casey, whose easygoing manner is jolted by evidence of a possible plot to overthrow the American government. Scripted by Rod Serling from the novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey, the film plays much like a classic live TV drama (the medium that spawned both Frankenheimer and Serling), with the drama arising from conversations and confrontations and the action largely limited to scenes within the Pentagon and the White House. An ominous undercurrent of danger seeps through the realistic (and often real) settings of the film, conveyed chiefly through the intensity of the excellent ensemble performances. Notable among the supporting cast are Ava Gardner as a lonely Washington socialite who was once the general's mistress, Edmond O'Brien as an amiable alcoholic senator, Martin Balsam as the president's shrewd but skeptical secretary, and underrated character actor George Macready as the wily presidential advisor. --Sean Axmaker

The Streets of San Francisco - Season 1, Vol. 2

Twenty year veteran Detective Lt. Mike Stone is partnered with young college educated Inspector Steve Keller who has a lot to learn about being a police detective on the Streets of San Francisco.System Requirements:TRT: 675 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097361227641 Manufacturer No: 122764

These 13 chronological episodes that concluded season 1 were just the ticket to launching one of the 1970s' most arresting cop shows. The first season of The Streets of San Francisco was nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama Series and its stars, Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. But as this inaugural season unfolded, the veteran cop/rookie cop dynamic that charged the first 14 episodes matured into a more paternal mentor/student relationship (Malden's Mike Stone refers to Douglas's Steve Keller, throughout as "the boy" and "buddy-boy"). These episodes are particularly engrossing, and provide Malden with some of his finest primetime hours. In "Trail of the Serpent," a street gang bent on freeing their captured leader takes Stone hostage. Stone plays it cool, appealing to the humanity of one of the more sensitive gang members, while the more hotheaded Keller almost jeopardizes his rescue. In "Legion of the Lost," Stone goes undercover on skid row to investigate the murders of three homeless men. In two episodes, Stone does not allow personal relationships to compromise his sense of duty. In "Deadline," a newspaper editor tries to cover up the murder of his mistress, and in the process, unwittingly implicates his own son, who was also the victim's lover. In "Shattered Image," a woman from Stone's old neighborhood is now the socialite wife of a murdered senatorial candidate. "Beyond Vengeance" echoes Cape Fear as a vengeful sociopath, freed on parole, seems to be stalking Stone's daughter.

Malden and Douglas are a terrific team, and they are aided and abetted by literate scripts ("Room with a View" alludes to Hemingway's story "The Killers"), with clever twists. In "The Albatross," a killer is freed when it turns out he wasn't wearing his hearing aid and did not hear Keller when he read him his rights. In the Emmy-nominated "The House on Hyde Street," an elderly recluse becomes the prime neighborhood suspect in the death of a young boy. Guest stars in these episodes read like a Hollywood's Most Wanted List, with veteran character actors (Joseph Cotten, Jack Albertson, Leslie Nielsen, Barbara Rush) and future TV Land favorites (Victor French from Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, a pre-Cheers Nicholas "Coach" Colasanto, Jamie Farr, and Clint Howard). Of course, the real star is San Francisco, an intriguing backdrop with its roller coaster hills and funky neighborhoods. For series fans who left their hearts here, Streets still calls to you. --Donald Liebenson

Black Caesar

Shot on the streets of New York, writer-director Larry Cohen captures the bustle and color of the city in this violent, low-budget crime film. Ambitious Tommy Gibbs (a swaggering, self-confident Fred Williamson) has risen from shoeshine boy to Harlem crime lord, but he wants a bigger piece of the pot. With a racist, high-ranking cop (Art Lund) in his pocket, he begins his expansion with a bloody takeover bid but finds himself betrayed from within and the target of both the cops and the mob. Cohen invests this fast-paced tale (partially inspired by the 1930 gangster classic Little Caesar with a touch of Scarface) with colorful characters (notably a hustling religious leader played by D'Urville Martin), high energy, and a scruffy style. Black Caesar is one of the most entertaining movies to come from the 1970s explosion of low-budget black cast genre pictures, more commonly known as "blaxploitation" films. --Sean Axmaker

Fred Williamson is imposing tough and unflappable (The New York Times) as a street kid who muscles his way into the big-time mob racket in this super-slick crime drama which became the smash hit of its genre and spawned a successful sequel (Hell Up In Harlem). Tommy Gibbs (Williamson) has always had it tough. Growing up on the streets without a father and trying to make his mother proud Tommy resorts to running errands for The Man. But when a crooked cop beats him up Tommy realizes there s a better way to live: by making The Man deliver for him! Infiltrating -- and then destroying -- the infamous Cardoza family Tommy takes over Manhattan as the first black Godfather and puts the squeeze on anyone who dares to get in his way -- including the crooked cop! But as he tightens his grip on others he loses his hold on the most important things in his own life making him the vulnerable target of every cutthroat gangster who ever dreamt of ruling an empire!System Requirements: Running Time 94 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 027616857811 Manufacturer No: 1001461

The Bravados

During his Twentieth Century Fox contract years, Gregory Peck looked to veteran director Henry King as something of a father figure and gave two of his best performances--in Twelve O'Clock High (1949) and The Gunfighter (1950)--for him. The Bravados (1958) isn't in that league, but it's a surprisingly tough film from the flabby CinemaScope years when the studio, director, and star all seemed to be floundering.

Peck plays Jim Douglass, a dark, haunted man who rides into a Southwest border town on the eve of a hanging. The bad men set for the drop (Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva) are the same ones he's been pursuing for the rape and murder of his wife. Douglass isn't happy about leaving it to the law to carry out his vengeance--and so there's a certain bleak satisfaction when the quartet busts out of jail, and he becomes the best hope for hunting them down.

Perversity wasn't King's long suit, so Philip Yordan's screenplay about a hero turning more sinister than the outlaws he's chasing never acquires the demonic power or ironic flair that an Anthony Mann, Fritz Lang, or Robert Aldrich might have lent it. Yet the very foursquareness of King's style and approach--and Peck's earnest efforts to fight through his accustomed stolidity to hit the necessary notes of desperation and finally shame--make for a fascination all their own. Joan Collins hovers handsomely on the periphery as an old friend ready to redeem Douglass, and Joe (Curly Joe-to-be) De Rita makes an uncredited appearance as the hangman. --Richard T. Jameson

Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) rides into town the night before the hanging of four outlaws. He's been on their trail, believing they raped and killed his wife. But hours before the execution, the four escape, taking a beautiful young woman hostage. Now it

It's Alive/It's Alive 2/It's Alive 3

It's newborn. It's Alive (Disc 1). And murder is what it knows best! A proud couple's bundle of joy is really a newborn terror in filmmaker Larry Cohen's cautionary cult hit that tapped into environmental fears. The horror grows when multiple child monsters rampage in It Lives Again (Disc 2/Side A) - and as two brave parents try to stop them by becoming the bait for their spree. The now global terrors are rounded up and relocated to a far-flung island (but not for long!) in It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (Disc 2/Side B). Will a parent's greatest nightmare become the world's gravest fear? Find out...if you dare.

Patterns

Fred Staples is a small town plant manager. When a conglomerate swallows up his business, he's given an executive position in the new company. It turns out his promotion has more to do with leverage against his new boss's adversary, the company's vice president. With Fred in a battle between personal loyalty and company loyalty, PATTERNS is a story of cutthroat corporate business.

Written by Twilight Zone and Night Gallery creator Rod Serling, PATTERNS is the made for Television movie based off the successful play.

DVD EXTRAS:

- Informative and intriguing introduction by chief film critic for the New York Post, Lou Luminick!
- Lloyd Kaufman on the depiction of "business" in Hollywood and Independent Cinema.
- Rod Serling scene from "Stuck on You" featuring Prof. Irwin Corey.
- Vincent Sherman on Hollywood and the business of blacklisting.
- Film Background and Production Notes
- A lesson from the "Make Your Own Damn Movie" DVD Box Set.
- …and many exclusive Roan DVD Extras.