Knowlden, Marilyn

Marie Antoinette

The lavish, overstuffed house style of MGM in the 1930s gets a fluffy showcase in Marie Antoinette, a preposterous epic about the pampered Queen. One of MGM's longtime queens, Norma Shearer (who had been married to head of production/wonder boy Irving Thalberg until his death in 1936), plays the young Austrian girl imported to marry the man who would become Louis XVI of France. The film covers Marie's girly youth at court, through an affair with suave Tyrone Power (then in his early, dewy prime) and finally to the dark days of the Revolution. Like Sofia Coppola's 2006 version of the Queen's life, this film emphasizes glitz, and leaves the Royals mostly innocent of blame for what happens to the starving peasants. Unlike the Coppola picture, this one takes Marie and diffident husband Louis (Robert Morley, his film debut) through their imprisonment and all the way to the guillotine. The parade of enormous sets and opulent gowns contributes to the general sense of stodginess, even if one might pause to note the rather continental attitude toward Marie's extramarital needs. John Barrymore plays the declining Louis XV, but it's the childlike Morley that steals the show. Shearer's glamorous star turn might leave some viewers puzzled as to her appeal, although the very ordinariness of her personality actually works in concert with Marie's out-of-her-depth character. The project had been a pet of Thalberg's, and MGM went ahead with the film after his death, but it marked the end of Shearer's period of major stardom. The opposite of this film's highbrow literary approach can be found in Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress, with Marlene Dietrich, a delirious and cinematic treatment of a Queen abroad. (This DVD includes overture and entr'acte music.) --Robert Horton

Her eyes shine as brightly as the diamonds at her slender throat or as the countless candles that turn the Palace of Versailles into a light-drenched fantasy world. She is Marie Antoinette, Queen of France: beautiful, imperious, headstrong...and doomed. With an opulence exemplifying Hollywood's Golden Era at its most glamorous, the grandeur and revolutionary fervor of 18th-century France sweeps across the screen in this nominee for 4 Academy Awards?.* Elegant Best Actress Oscar? nominee Norma Shearer stars in the decades-spanning title role, Tyrone Power plays her ardent beloved, John Barrymore is crafty Louis XV and debuting Robert Morley portrays timid Louis XVI. From ballroom to boudoir to guillotine, Marie Antoinette is regal romantic adventure.

DVD Features:
Other:1938 MGM Shorts: Another Romance of Celluloid Hollywood Goes to Town Vintage Short Another Romance of Celluloid Goes Behind the Scenes on This and Other Studio Productions That Year
Theatrical Trailer

Angels With Dirty Faces

Shirley Temple - America's Sweetheart Collection, Vol. 4 (Captain January / Just Around the Corner / Susannah of the Mounties)

Includes:Just Around the CornerCaptain JanuarySusannah Of the MountiesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 024543252993 Manufacturer No: 2235299

Little Women (1933)

Louisa May Alcott's beloved story is one of the most-read novels ever written. It has also proved popular film and telefilm fodder (at least six versions plus a TV series). In addition, Little Women is one of those rare literary projects that can truly be done well on screen. This, the 1933 version, chronicles the lives and loves of sisters Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth (played, respectively, by Katharine Hepburn, Frances Dee, Joan Bennett, and Jean Parker). It's a superior rendering to the amiable, perky 1949 version with June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O'Brien, and Peter Lawford, and comparable to the beautiful, feminist Gillian Armstrong 1994 take. Douglass Montgomery's Laurie isn't nearly as dreamy as Christian Bale's (1994), but the lack of chemistry between him and Hepburn's Jo is perfect for the story, in which Jo loves him like a brother. Jo's real love she offers up to perhaps the finest Professor Bhaer (Paul Lukas). Character actress Edna May Oliver is at her indignant best as Aunt March. Director George Cukor's vision is elegant, warm, and as true to the original source material as 117 minutes allows. This Little Women was a huge box-office hit, and broke all the records to that time. --N.F. Mendoza

Son of Fury

Tyrone Power was on a hot streak at Fox from the late 1930s through the start of WWII, and 1942's Son of Fury catches him in full adventure-hero mode. The story is a typical costume potboiler with one atypical South Seas interlude. Power plays Benjamin Blake, illegitimate son of an aristocrat, raised by his knave of an uncle (George Sanders--commence hissing) as a lowly, humiliated servant. Ben romances a high-class lady (Frances Farmer) and then flees to the South Pacific, where a revenge plan is formed and a fortune in pearls awaits. Seadog John Carradine leads Ben to a remote atoll, and Gene Tierney is a sultry island maiden (do you love this movie yet?) who understands that at some point Blake must return to England to settle his affairs.

Director John Cromwell was deft at putting this kind of thing over (he'd made the splendid Prisoner of Zenda five years earlier) and the violence, especially coming from Sanders' blackguard, is unusually tough. The tasty supporting cast includes Elsa Lanchester, Dudley Digges, and young Roddy McDowall, who plays Ben as a boy. Alfred Newman has fun with the score, which includes a well-nigh irresistible Polynesian-flavored love theme. Power is his usual straightforward self, still at his physical prime; he and Tierney are about as pretty a couple as you could imagine stranded on a lost island--the island of escapism. --Robert Horton

Entitled to inherit his deceased father's estate and title, child aristocrat Benjamin Blake (Roddy McDowall) is instead kept as a bond-servant to his villainous uncle ( George Sanders). When Blake, now a young man (Tyrone Power), is beaten for falling in love with his uncle's daughter (Frances Farmer), he escapes by ship where he learns of a pearl fortune on a South Pacific island. There, he leads an idyllic life with a native girl (Gene Tierney) until he is compelled to return home and recapture what is rightfully owed him.

Just Around the Corner

A wealthy man loses his wife and his fortune and must do repairs to support himself and his daughter. Luckily his daughter is Shirley Temple! She soon finds him not only more money but even a girlfriend. One of Miss Temple's last performances as a child JUST AROUND THE CORNER is also one of her most charming.System Requirements:Running Time: 70 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: G UPC: 024543249313 Manufacturer No: 2234931

Condemned to Live

Show Boat

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Showboat, based on Edna Ferber's 1926 novel, is a seminal American musical, the first to explore serious themes (most notably racism) and to truly integrate song with story and character. The plot follows three generations of a theatrical Mississippi riverboat family from the 1880s to the 1920s. The 1936 film version, directed by Englishman James Whale (Frankenstein), is probably the one that best captures the spirit its creators intended. First and foremost, it features Paul Robeson as Joe. His indelible rendition of "Ol' Man River," delivered strong, straight, and without bathos, is a stunningly powerful anthem about the plight of African Americans in the United States. (The song is set against a fascinating expressionist montage in 1930s social realist style.) Other standout performances include torch singer Helen Morgan as Julie, the actress banished from the showboat for her "mixed race" ancestry. Her "Bill" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" are simply sublime. Hattie McDaniel (Gone With the Wind) is her usual outrageous self. Irene Dunne (The Awful Truth) is spunky and delightful as Magnolia Ravenal. Her most endearing moment occurs early in the film when she leads the company in a funky cakewalk, swinging her hips with joyful abandon. (She also does a number in blackface!) When Dunne and the narrative leave the riverboat for the big bad city, fame, and heartbreak, the movie loses much of its snap and substance and descends into rather conventional melodrama. Still, this film represents an essential moment in the American musical theater, one not to be missed. --Laura Mirsky