Emery, John

Kronos

Astronomer and all-around scientific hero Jeff Morrow (he of the stone face, Cro-Magnon brow, and heavy voice of dire intonation) discovers a new celestial body that suddenly changes course and slams into the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast. Meanwhile a mysterious white light takes over the body of lab director John Emery, who becomes the eyes and ears of the UFO when it emerges days later as a skyscraper-sized robot. Morrow and his crew--including his beauty-with-brains girlfriend, Barbara Lawrence; wisecracking sidekick, George O'Hanlan; and computer, SUSIE, which whirs and blinks but offers little real help--leap to the rescue, but not before the Mexican air force takes on the giant in a scene reminiscent of King Kong. Director Kurt Neumann, best known for the original The Fly, gives this low-budget sci-fi thriller an impressive scope, sending the striking, austerely designed giant robot (a walking battery with piledriver legs) marching across a B&W widescreen frame like a relentless tank and punctuating the drama with an impressively chilling A-bomb blast. Though hardly a classic, this is one of the more interesting alien invasion movies of the paranoid 1950s. --Sean Axmaker

Scientists at a "Top Secret" atomic research laboratory are taken over by strange fantastic control devices launched from an orbiting space ship inhabited by a hostile super-intelligence from beyond the stars. Simultaneously, a gigantic flying saucer crashes in the Gulf of Mexico and Kronos, a giant metallic monolith monster, emerges. Unstoppable, it slashes across the countryside, draining the earth of all it's electrical energy and beaming it into space. Kronos, a weapon so perfect in design it absorbs a direct hit by a Hydrogen bomb and becomes that much more powerful! Atomic age excitement! Atomic age thrills! All in out-of-this-world "Regalscope" format for the first time on DVD.

Joan of Arc

The lavish 1948 production of Joan of Arc may not qualify as a great movie, but it scores a triumphant victory as a great DVD. Thanks to a stunning restoration by the renowned UCLA Film and Television Archive, this relic from Hollywood's golden age can now be appreciated in all its magnificent Technicolor glory, restored to its original theatrical length of 145 minutes after decades of truncated TV broadcasts. Under the direction of Victor Fleming (whose credits include Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz), this is a stodgily respectable mini-epic, adapted from Maxwell Anderson's acclaimed play Joan of Lorraine and giving 33-year-old Ingrid Bergman one of her quirkiest star turns as the 19-year-old "Maid of Lorraine," destined by divinely inspired fate to rescue imperiled France from British occupation, and face trial on charges of witchcraft. Winner of three Oscars (for cinematography and costumes, and an honorary award to Producer Walter Wanger for boosting Hollywood's "moral stature") and five nominations (including acting nods for Bergman and José Ferrer, making his screen debut as the French Dauphin), the film suffers from an abundance of talky exposition and stage-bound incident, but the battle scenes are still rousing, Bergman glowing beatifically in polished armor and surrounded by a seasoned cast of studio-era character players in a rampant case of Hollywood anachronism (somehow, Ward Bond just doesn't belong in medieval France!). If you get bored during the slow parts, you can always marvel at the pristine restoration, full of heavenly sunbeams, masterful matte paintings, and enough colorful detail to make most 1948-vintage films pale by comparison. Frame by gorgeous frame, martyrdom never had a classier showcase. --Jeff Shannon

Academy Award-winner Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) is spellbinding as the 15th century French peasant girl who rouses a nation and inspires the world with her faith and bravery. Fiercely believing that she is directed by God, Joan triumphantly leads an army into battle against the British, who are driven from France. When a new king (Jose Ferrer in a extraordinary film debut) is crowned, Joan's influence grows and makes him wary of her power, ultimately betraying her to martyrdom. This powerful, visually stunning epic of one of history's most fascinating heroines features spectacular action and unforgettable drama! Completely restored, original full-length version with footage not seen in the U.S.,from Victor Fleming, Director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Winner of three Academy Awards®: Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Honorary Award to producer Walter Wanger with Five additional Academy Award®: nominations: Best Actress (Ingrid Bergman), Best Supporting Actor (Jose Ferrer), Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Score.

Rocketship X-M

Before the mid-1950s, science fiction was mostly confined to kid-stuff serials such as Buck Rogers; the things they portrayed were considered pure fantasy, pie in the sky. By 1950, however, things had changed. World War II had brought the German V-2 rocket (the template for many a '50s sci-fi rocket ship), television, and of course, the bomb. Sabrejets and MiGs were doing battle over Korea, and science fiction had become fact. Rocketship X-M (the X-M standing for Expedition: Moon), though primitive and cheap, has a place in film history as being the movie that initiated the '50s science fiction boom. A crew of four men and one woman embark for the moon, but when all are knocked unconscious, the rocket goes into a drift and they wind up on Mars instead. On the pinkish Mars, they encounter a race of extremely ticked-off cavemen who don't want them there and kill off three of their number. Certainly the effects are quaint (the astronauts and ground control communicate via surplus WWII radio equipment), the story a little ridiculous, and the acting stiff--but this was the first serious science fiction movie and was the inspiration for countless films that followed. --Jerry Renshaw

The 50th Anniversary Edition of Kurt Neumann's science fiction classic. Four men and a girl blast into space on mankind's first expedition to the Moon. But due to a cataclysmic event in space, their ship is sent hurling out of control towards the planet Mars. Suspenseful terror as the crew fights for their life on a war-ravaged world with radiation-riddled nightmare creatures! The climax makes this one of the most powerful and unforgettable science fiction movies ever made. "Rocketship X-M" was deftly brought to the screen by famed writer/director Kurt Neumann. Long considered the definitive space exploration film of the 50's, a genuine classic with a power that has spanned the decades. Includes Trailer.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

When a boxer (Robert Montgomery) is accidentally called to Heaven 50 years before his time it's up to celestial executive extraordinaire Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) to straighten out the matter. When Columbia Pictures' financial advisors read the screenplay for the fantasy comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan they had their doubts as to its box-office potential. Screenwriter Sidney Buchman went directly to studio president Harry Cohn in an effort to convince him to make the film. Cohn liked the script's uniqueness and saying that all his bankers wanted was "what sold last year" told Buchman he'd make the picture. To play the saxophone-playing boxer Joe Pendelton Cohn decided to borrow Robert Montgomery from MGM. Although Mongomery had some initial doubts about his part he delivered what was to become an Oscar -nominated performance. The film which received a total of seven 1941 nominations including Best Picture won two (Best Motion Picture Story Best Screenplay). Here Comes Mr. Jordan was so successful it inspired a semi-sequel (1947's Down To Earth which starred Rita Hayworth) and was eventually remade in 1978 as Heaven Can Wait.System Requirements:Run Time: 94 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396050181 Manufacturer No: 05018

Even after two remakes--one a classic (Heaven Can Wait), the other, not so much (Chris Rock's Down to Earth)--this 1941 fantasy, an Oscar-winner for Best Original Story and Screenplay, has lost none of its ethereal charms. Robert Montgomery gives a knockout performance as Joe Pendleton, a boxer "in the pink" and poised to be the next heavyweight champion until a celestial messenger (Edward Everett Horton at his fussy best) pulls him from an impending plane crash and sends him to heaven before his time. Courtesy of Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), Joe resumes his training in the body of a wealthy, unscrupulous businessman whose wife and personal secretary are plotting to murder. James Gleason steals his scenes as Joe's understandably befuddled manager, with lovely Evelyn Keyes as Bette Logan, whose innocent father the real Farnsworth framed and sent to prison, and with whom Joe/Farnsworth falls in love. Though this DVD doesn't even feature a chapter menu, the film itself is, as advertised, "as fantastic a yarn as was ever spun" and will make you feel, as Bette does when she looks into Joe's eyes, "warm, alive, and happy." And they don't make too many like that anymore. --Donald Liebenson

Stills from Here Comes Mr. Jordan (click for larger image)

Beyond Here Comes Mr. Jordan

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The Remake: Heaven Can Wait

Forever Darling

A lot of things can test a marriage but Lorenzo and Susan Vega have unwittingly put their five-year union to the ultimate test: they go camping. And Susan's guardian angel seen only by Susan joins them. TV's I Love Lucy was in its fifth season when this romp gave fans more reasons to love its stars. Desi Arnaz plays Lorenzo who heads for wide-open spaces to test his chemical company's new product. Wife Susan (Lucille Ball) goes too. And soon we're all headed for comedy chaos built on tent-raising forest critters inflatable rafts and other typical elements of roughing it. There's one atypical element: the angel (James Mason) who wants to rescue their troubled union. Marriages may be made in heaven. But the details are worked out here belowRunning Time: 91 min.System Requirements:Run Time: 91 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569679740 Manufacturer No: 67974

The hardworking Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball star in the urbane and witty Forever Darling, a 1956 romantic comedy, made at the height of the couple's popularity as co-stars of I Love Lucy, about the difficulty of forging marital harmony. Arnaz plays unpretentious, visionary chemist Lorenzo "Larry" Vega, whose passion for working on a powerful chemical insecticide for the benefit of humankind means little to his wife, Susan (Ball). A creature of high society, Susan is conflicted about her destiny. Should she be concerned with acquiring a bigger house and socializing with the right people, or should she follow Larry as he takes his insecticide on a two-year field study in tropical jungles? Attempting to guide her toward the right decision is a dapper, guardian angel, who happens to take the form of James Mason because Mason is Susan's fantasy man. The script by Helen Deutsch (I'll Cry Tomorrow) indulges I Love Lucy fans with plenty of slapstick set pieces plugged into an extended camping scene. But there's also some flashy banter--Arnaz is very convincing putting well-heeled snobs in their place--and a very clever sequence in which Susan imagines herself as the heroine in a movie she happens to be watching. (A movie starring, yes, James Mason.) There's a fun, special feature in which Arnaz and Ball take time out from production on their television show to plug Forever Darling and reveal the secret of a truly happy marriage--and then get into a beef. --Tom Keogh

Spellbound - Criterion Collection

Alfred Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in this thriller in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali--complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Although the film is in black and white, the original release contained one subliminal blood-red frame, appearing when a gun pointed directly at the camera goes off. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"--i.e., the power of pure visual associations. Miklós Rózsa's haunting score (which features a creepy theremin) won an Oscar, and the movie was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (Michael Chekhov), cinematography, and special visual effects. --Jim Emerson

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a psychiatrist with a firm understanding of human nature-or so she thinks. When the mysterious Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) becomes the new chief of staff at her institution, the bookish and detached Constance plummets into a whirlwind of tangled identities and feverish psychoanalysis, where the greatest risk is to fall in love. A transcendent love story replete with taut excitement and startling imagery, Spellbound is classic Hitchcock, featuring stunning performances, an Academy Award(r)-winning score by Miklos Rozsa, and a captivating dream sequence by Surrealist icon Salvador Dali.

Spellbound

Alfred Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in this thriller in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali--complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Although the film is in black and white, the original release contained one subliminal blood-red frame, appearing when a gun pointed directly at the camera goes off. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"--i.e., the power of pure visual associations. Miklós Rózsa's haunting score (which features a creepy theremin) won an Oscar, and the movie was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (Michael Chekhov), cinematography, and special visual effects. --Jim Emerson

Eyes in the Night

A Lawless Street

It would be nice to say that hiring Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy, The Big Combo) to direct A Lawless Street led to its becoming a classic Randolph Scott Western. Can't do it. At this point in his career, Randy was cutting corners as star-producer, scoping out his next oil well, and not worrying that a blind grandma could see he was being doubled in the fight scenes. Scott plays a town marshal who's had enough of "taming the beast," just when greedy men are conspiring to destroy him. One of them (Warner Anderson) is also a rival for Scott's onetime music-hall flame (Angela Lansbury). Director Lewis is stuck in a back-lot Western town with a juiceless cast (apart from Jeanette Nolan's frontier widow and Michael Pate's gloved assassin), but his rigorous eye keeps framing scenes as if they had some classical urgency. Every once in a while, through the fierce purity of his style, they do. --Richard T. Jameson

Randolph Scott stars as Marshal Coleen Wave a lawman who moves from town to town in the Colorado Territory ridding each of its outlaws. His dedication to his gob causes his wife played by Angela Lansbury (TV's "Murder She Wrote") to leave him. She will not come back to him until he has hung up his guns for good. But he is determined to clean up one last town run by bandits who don't want to see the territory become a state.System Requirements:Running Time: 77 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 043396091238 Manufacturer No: 09123

Blood on the Sun

Cagney is a crusading newspaper editor in 1930s Japan who's come into possession of the "Tanaka Plan" for world domination. Amidst political intrigue and crossed loyalties, Cagney must now find a way to warn the outside world. A fine, entertaining melodrama that's based in fact, with Cagney as good as ever, but this time with judo chops. If only the Japanese knew some kind of hand-to-hand combat, they might be able to stand a chance against Cagney. Dated only by its condescension toward the Japanese, Blood on the Sun never slacks its pace, providing quick-witted patter all along in the mark of the classic Hollywood style. It seems peculiarly American (in an inadvertent way, of course) that in the film's final moments the day should be saved by none other than Ward Cleaver (Hugh Beaumont). Curiously, this is one DVD from Master Movies that does not contain optional Japanese subtitles. It does, however, have copious bios of the stars and filmmakers, and a crystal-clear picture. --Jim Gay