Knowles, Patric

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Dashing Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in the most gloriously swashbuckling version of the legendary story. Warner Brothers reunited Michael Curtiz, their top-action director, with the winning team of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian) and perennial villain Basil Rathbone as the aristocratic Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and pulled out all stops for the production. It became their costliest film to date, a grandly handsome, glowing Technicolor adventure set to a stirring, Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The decadent Prince John (a smoothly conniving Claude Rains) takes advantage of King Richard's absence to tax the country into poverty but meets his match in the medieval guerrilla rebel Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, who rise up and, to quote a cliché coined by the film, "steal from the rich and give to the poor." Stocky Alan Hale Sr. plays Robin's loyal friend Little John (a part he played in Douglas Fairbanks's silent version), Eugene Palette the portly Friar Tuck, and Melville Cooper the bumbling Sheriff of Nottingham. Flynn's confidence and cocky charm makes for a perfect Robin Hood, and his easygoing manner is a marvelous counterpoint to Rathbone's regal bearing and courtly diction. The film climaxes in their rousing battle-to-the-finish sword fight, a magnificently choreographed scene highlighted by Curtiz's inventive use of shadows cast upon the castle walls. --Sean Axmaker

Errol Flynn is eternally charming as Robin, defender of the poor, in this rousing family adventure that co-stars Olivia de Havilland and Claude Rains. Year: 1938 Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Alan Hale

Auntie Mame

Remember darlings, "Life's a banquet, and most suckers are starving to death." That tag line sums up this exuberant and immensely amusing 1958 comedy that can be seen repeatedly, as it never grows stale. Rosalind Russell plays the flamboyant aunt who takes in poor, orphaned Patrick, played with sophisticated ease by Jan Handzlik. Mame, all glitter and martinis, raises her nephew in a world filled with acceptance and her oddball literati friends. Nothing is too bohemian. This unfolds in colorful episodic segments that allow us to watch Patrick grow as Mame oversees his unusual upbringing while she juggles a few spouses and an extended household. Russell, who created the title role for the stage, simply shines. She is bright and brassy, but never goes too far over the top. Peggy Cass is a comedic delight as her befuddled secretary, and Coral Browne brings class to the production as her best friend. This was based on the exuberant stage play, which in turn was based on Patrick Dennis's humorous, bittersweet novel. The screen version was written by the clever duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Not to be confused with the pathetically lackluster musical version starring Lucille Ball (1974), simply entitled Mame. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Rosalind Russell recreates her hallmark stage role as the accentric grande dame of highlife, briging up a 10-year-old nephew. A banquet of laughter, nominated for 6 Academy Awards(R).

How Green Was My Valley

John Ford's beautiful, heartfelt drama about a close-knit family of Welsh coal miners is one of the greatest films of Hollywood's golden age--a gentle masterpiece that beat Citizen Kane in the Best Picture race for the 1941 Academy Awards. The picture also won Oscars for Best Director (Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography; all of those awards were richly deserved, even if they came at the expense of Kane and Orson Welles. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, the film focuses its eventful story on 10-year-old Huw (Roddy McDowall), youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp, Sarah Allgood), a hardy couple who've seen the best and worst of times in their South Wales mining town. They're facing one of the worst times as Mr. Morgan refuses to join a miners union whose members have begun a long-term strike. Family tensions grow and Huw must learn many of life's harsher lessons under the tutelage of the local preacher (Walter Pidgeon), who has fallen in love with Huw's sister (Maureen O'Hara). As various crises are confronted and devastating losses endured, How Green Was My Valley unfolds as a rich, moving portrait of family strength and integrity. It's also a nod to a simpler, more innocent time--and to the preciousness of memory and the inevitable passage from youth to adulthood. An all-time classic, not to be missed. --Jeff Shannon

Sixty year-old Huw Morgan looks back on his life as a boy (Roddy McDowall) in a small Welsh mining town. His reminiscences reveal the disintegration of the closely knit Morgans, and his devoted parents (Donald Crisp, Sara Allgood), while capturing the sentiments and issues of their time. Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon co-star in this acclaimed screen classic, the story of one family's dreams, struggles and triumphs.

Chisum

Although Chisum stars John Wayne--playing a benign variation on his Red River empire-builder --he's curiously sidelined in this umpteenth retelling of Pat Garrett, William Bonney, and the Lincoln County War. Sam Peckinpah would direct the world-class version of that götterdämmerung, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, three years later. This version, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen in a slightly less broad vein than usual, is just odd--not least because it omits Garrett and Bonney's celebrated final confrontation. Geoffrey Deuel's Billy is a pleasant juvenile who scarcely seems delinquent, let alone murderously psychotic. Glenn Corbett's characterization of Garrett consists mainly of wearing a seriously BIG hat. There's an irksome rivalry for Chisum's perky niece (Pamela McMyler), and a Dominic Frontiere score that's the Western equivalent of elevator music. Chief scoundrel Forrest Tucker seems bored, but Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel, and Bruce Cabot get some juice into their villainy. --Richard T. Jameson

Chisum showcases John Wayne in the twilight of his remarkable 200+-film career. As John Chisum a real-life cattle king determined to protect his empire against a land-grabbing developer (Forrest Tucker). Wayne's no-nonsense persona snugly fits this lively reworking of the events of New Mexico's 1878 Lincoln County War. "Directed in fine sagebrush style by Andrew V. McLaglen and beautifully photographed by William H. Clothier" (The Warner Bros. Story) Chisum is the kind of sweeping brawling Western that made Wayne endure as a star.Running Time: 111 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: G UPC: 085391158592 Manufacturer No: 115859

The Wolf Man - The Legacy Collection (The Wolf Man / Werewolf of London / Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man / She-Wolf of London)

For the first time ever the original The Wolf Man film comes to DVD in this extraordinary Legacy Collection. Included in the collection is the original classic starring the renowned Lon Chaney Jr. and three timeless sequels featuring legendary actor Bela Lugosi and others. These are the landmark films that inspired an entire genre of movies and continue to be major influences on motion pictures to this day. System Requirements: Running Time 281 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 025192445828 Manufacturer No: 61024458

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

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Why is The Charge of the Light Brigade so rarely even mentioned among Errol Flynn's swashbucklers? It's a terrific movie, something like the peak of spectacular Hollywood action filmmaking and the bravura style of Michael Curtiz. The setting--till the Crimean War climax--is the Indian frontier (impersonated, as so often, by rocky Lone Pine, California), where the 27th Bengal Lancers run afoul of an Oxford-educated slime named Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon). Flynn and Olivia de Havilland bring real tenderness to two-thirds of a romantic triangle (the other corner is the hero's brother, Patric Knowles). There's the fearsome siege of Chukoti, an unspeakable atrocity, and finally the foolhardy, inspired Charge at Balaklava. The camerawork and editing of that grand sequence never cease to astonish. History (and political correctness) is better served by the 1968 Tony Richardson movie, but for unabashed epic sweep and matchless thrills, this is the one you want. --Richard T. Jameson

The reckless lancers sweep on and on - so that a woman's heart might not be broken! You're not fighting a single legion - you're fighting the entire British army Surat Khan! Major Vickers is an officer at the 27th Lancers in India 1856. When the regiment is on maneuver the barracks are attacked by Surat Khan and his soldiers who massacre British women and children. This leaves an inextinguishable memory and Vickers promises to revenge the dead.System Requirements:Run Time: 115 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 012569796263 Manufacturer No: 79626

Three Came Home

Band of Angels

In an attempt to carry on in his great Rhett Butler tradition Gone With The Wind star Clark Gable once again flexes his muscular charms in another Civil War-era movie about the torrid romance between a plantation owner and a half-caste beauty. Directed by Raoul Walsh and also starring Yvonne De Carlo and Sidney Poitier the film is highlighted by a stunning musical score by Gone with the Wind composer Max Steiner.Running Time: 127 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085391111993 Manufacturer No: 111199

Sidney Poitier, in the beginning of his career, fires up the screen in the Civil-War-era bodice-ripper Band of Angels. The movie follows Amantha Starr (Yvonne De Carlo, later on The Munsters), a Southern belle whose fortunes fall when her father dies and family secrets come to light. She ends up under the protection of Hamish Bond (Clark Gable, close to the end of his long, remarkable career and still radiating an easy, charismatic masculinity), a plantation owner with secrets of his own. For much of the movie, slavery and the Civil War are just a colorful backdrop for a turgid romance--but just when you're ready to write the movie off, a scene unexpectedly digs into something more emotionally and politically complex. Poitier plays Bond's plantation foreman; every time he appears, Band of Angels turns into something fierce and promising. That promise never fully takes hold--Clark Gable is the movie's hero, not Poitier--but those crackling scenes (combined with a surprisingly sexual frankness in a 1957 feature) make Band of Angels more than just an embarrassing collection of manly swaggers, flashing eyes, and lugubrious spirituals. --Bret Fetzer

The Wolf Man

Even a man who is pure in heart,
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright.

If you haven't heard this piece of horror-movie doggerel before, you'll never forget it after seeing The Wolf Man for two reasons: it's a spooky piece of rhyme and nearly everybody in the picture recites it at one time or another. Set in a fog-bound studio-built Wales, The Wolf Man tells the doom-laden tale of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), who returns to the estate of his wealthy father (Claude Rains). (Yes, Chaney's American, but the movie explains this, awkwardly.) Bitten by a werewolf, Talbot suffers the classic fate of the victims of lycanthropy: at the full moon, he turns into a werewolf, a transformation ingeniously devised by makeup maestro Jack Pierce. Pierce was the man who turned Boris Karloff into the Frankenstein monster, and his werewolf makeup became equally famous, with its canine snout and bushy hairdo--and, of course, seriously sharp dental work. The Wolf Man was a smash hit, giving Universal Pictures a new monster for their already crowded stable, and Chaney found himself following in the footsteps (or paw prints) of his father, who had essayed a monster or two in the silent era. This is a classy horror outing, with strong atmosphere and a thoughtful script by Curt Siodmak--well, except for the stiff romantic bits between Chaney and Evelyn Ankers. It's also got Bela Lugosi (briefly) and Maria Ouspenskaya, the prunelike Russian actress who foretells doom like nobody's business. --Robert Horton

he original horror classic that introduced one of the screen's most infamous monsters! Lon Chaney, Jr. portrays Larry Talbot, who returns to his father's (Claude Rains) castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman (Evelyn Ankers). One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where Jenny's fate is revealed by a mysterious gypsy fortune teller. The dreamlike atmospheres and elaborate settings combined with a chilling musical score make The World Man a masterpiece not only of the genre, but for all time!