Fraser, Elisabeth

The Graduate

Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch. --Anne Hurley

Nominated* for seven Academy AwardsÂ(r) and winner for Best Director, this ground breaking and "wildly hilarious" (The Boston Globe) social satire launched the career of two-time OscarÂ(r)-winner** Dustin Hoffman and cemented the reputation of acclaimed director Mike Nichols. Pulsating with the rebellious spirit of the '60s and a haunting score sung by Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate is truly a "landmark film" (Leonard Maltin). Shy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father's business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katharine Ross). But there's one problem: she's Mrs. Robinson's daughter!

The Glass Bottom Boat

Comedy spy spoof in which Day sets her sights on scientist Taylor, but is suspected of leaking secrets about the new project G.I.S.M.O.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 26-APR-2005
Media Type: DVD

A Patch of Blue

One of the first studio films to deal with interracial romance (or even the possibility of it), A Patch of Blue was a huge hit upon its release, appealing to those looking for both social protest and a smart date movie. Sidney Poitier plays Gordon, a compassionate stranger who befriends a blind white girl named Selina (Elizabeth Hartman). Selina, the next thing to a shut-in, can only judge people by their voices, and Gordon's is unusually patient, kind. Troubles ensue when Selina's abusive mother (Shelley Winters in her second Oscar-winning performance) happens upon the pair during one of their park rendezvous. Ivan Dixon plays Poitier's militant brother, and veteran Wallace Ford appears as Selina's kindly lush of a grandfather. Jerry Goldsmith earned an Oscar nomination for his lilting piano theme, surely one of the simplest, most effective pieces of music to grace a Hollywood film. --Glenn Lovell

A black man's burgeoning love affair with a blind white girl is complicated by her racist, controlling mother.

Young at Heart

This 1954 musical remake of Four Daughters stars Doris Day as a well-bred New England woman who marries a chip-on-his-shoulder musician (Frank Sinatra). Lots of tears, yes, but this version of Fannie Hurst's novel is considerably cheered up from the 1938 tearjerker. Dorothy Malone and Elizabeth Fraser play Day's sisters (a fourth sister present in Four Daughters was written out), Robert Keith is the paterfamilias to a bunch of musical prodigies, and Gig Young is entertaining as the composer-boarder who tries deflecting the sisters' interest in him by bringing Sinatra home one day. Both Day and Sinatra really shine in this, and the songs include the Johnny Richards-Caroline Leigh title tune, which became part of Sinatra's standard repertoire. --Tom Keogh

The Man Who Came to Dinner

A radio celebrity and his secretary have dinner with a Midwestern family, but his lifestyle and friends upset their lives when he breaks his hip and has to stay to recuperate.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: DAVIS,BETTE
Title: MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER
Street Release Date: 05/30/2006
Domestic
Genre: COMEDY VIDEO

A legendary Broadway tour de force comes to the screen with Monty Woolley's central performance in The Man Who Came to Dinner. And it's a turn well worth immortalizing. All goatish beard, snapping teeth, and plummy-voiced put-downs, Woolley fully inhabits the role of Sheridan Whiteside, a celebrated author and radio celebrity who gets waylaid by a cracked hip during a visit to small-town Ohio. Bossing the helpless homeowners and bewildered staff from his wheelchair, he quickly fills his hosts' house with his projects (including four penguins) and famous visitors (Ann Sheridan as a self-centered diva, Jimmy Durante as a comedian based on Harpo Marx). Bette Davis goes for a quieter role than usual as Whiteside's assistant; she falls for a local newspaperman, drippily played by Richard Travis. They all revolve around the seated figure of Woolley, his hands drumming on his armrests, his teeth bared as though ready to devour his inferiors. He's delicious. The script is larded with topical references and Broadway-style repartee, not all of which has aged well, and director William Keighley doesn't have a clear grasp of how to shoot jokes. But the basic situation is so durable, and Whiteside's character (based on famed Algonquin Round Table wit Alexander Woollcott) so unusual and nasty, that the movie remains great fun. --Robert Horton

The Way West

Sally Field makes her film debut in this sumptuous epic tale of the brave men and women who left the comfort of the East for the promise of free land in the untamed West. Also stars Kirk Douglas Robert Mitchum and Lola Albright.System Requirements:Running Time: 122 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883904107156 Manufacturer No: M110715

From a year that produced such groundbreaking "New Hollywood" films as Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate, Andrew V. McLaglen's The Way West is an old-fashioned western--grandly shot on location by William Clothier--that did for Oregon what John Ford did for Monument Valley. Based on A.B. Guthrie, Jr.'s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Way West stars a steely Kirk Douglas as widowed senator William J. Tadlock, who is determined to "plant a new Jerusalem in the Oregon wilderness." Robert Mitchum costars as Dick Summers, a weary and grieving scout whom Tadlock persuades to help him lead the disparate group of "greenhorn storekeepers and tenderfoot farmers." A lively Richard Widmark also stars as restless Pennsylvania farmer Lije Evans, who's "got to go where I've not been." Traditional western action, including disastrous river crossings and Indian encounters, takes a backseat to the sudsy human dramas. Tadlock is a stern taskmaster who drives the settlers as mercilessly as John Wayne drove those cattle in Red River. At one point, he even makes a play for Evans' wife (Lola Albright). Sally Field makes a memorable screen debut as sexually precocious Mercy, "all hellfire and sin," and who seduces a newly married man whose wife refuses to consummate their marriage. Throw in the accidental shooting of an Indian boy, plus such welcome faces as Jack Elam and Stubby Kaye, and you have an epic adventure that western buffs will follow all the Way. --Donald Liebenson

The Graduate (Special Edition)

A young man graduates with honors, meets and has an affair with one of his parents' friends, and is urged to date her daughter. He falls in love with the daughter.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 8-JUN-2004
Media Type: DVD

Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch. --Anne Hurley

Tony Rome

The beautiful daughter of a wealthy industrialist turns up drunk and unconscious in a hotel room. To avoid a scandal the hotel house detective hires his former partner, private detective Tony Rome, to sober her up and escort her home. The next day, the girl's diamond pin is mysteriously missing. Arriving back at his houseboat, Tony is greeted by a pair of thugs who knock him out and tear his boat apart, desperate to find the pin. Tony's problems are just beginning, When he gets to his office he's in for a grisly surprise. His ex-partner is waiting for him with a bullet through his head.

Commandos Strike at Dawn

Oscar® - winner Paul Muni (1936 Best Actor The Story of Louis Pasteur) gives a dynamic performance in ths dramatic World War II story that also stars Academy Award® - winner Lillian Gish (1971 Honorary Award) Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Anna Lee. Muni plays Erik Toresen a simple Norwegian fisherman who finds his quiet coastal village shattered by the Nazi invasion. Untrained in the ways of war the villagers use only their cold sullen hatred as defense. But when an elder member of the village community is maimed and tortured Muni mobilizes the villagers and trains them to fight. Eventually discovered by the Germans Muni and four others escape to England to lead British troops against the Germans who intend to attack the Arctic supply lines.System Requirements:Running Time: 100 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 043396100497 Manufacturer No: 10049

Seconds

Rock Hudson stars in this unsettling look at second chances. Banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) lives a comfortable, stifling life until he is contacted by a mysterious caller offering "what every middle-aged man wants: complete freedom." Hamilton, with the help of an enigmatic corporation, fakes his own death and starts over in his new swinging-bachelor persona (now played by Rock Hudson). A change of life, though, is not just a change of scenery, and Seconds, for all its thriller aspects, contains some sad and disturbing meditations on the way we make our own prisons. Director John Frankenheimer uses skewed angles, bizarre close-ups, and fisheye lenses to underscore the film's off-kilter tension, and Rock Hudson gives a performance that is light-years removed from Pillow Talk. Well worth watching twice. --Ali Davis