The Enemy Below
by Dick Powell
from 20th Century Fox
In The Enemy Below Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens are respectively captains of a U.S. destroyer and a German U-boat whose vessels come into conflict in the South Atlantic. Both are good men with a job to do, the script noting Jurgens' distaste for Hitler and the Nazis and engaging our sympathy with the German sailors almost as much as the Americans. Made at the height of the cold war of the 1950s, the film delivers a liberal message of co-operation wrapped inside some spectacular action scenes and a story which builds to a tense and exciting, moving finale. --Gary S. Dalkin
It's Mitchum vs. Jurgens as the commanders of an American destroyer and a German U-boat play a deadly game of cat and mouse.
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
by Blake Edwards
from United Artists
Comedy master Blake Edwards weaves his wacky madness in this first-rate WWII story of a by-the-book Captain (Dick Shawn) who is ordered to take over a troop of misfit soldiers led by Lieutenant James Coburn.System Requirements:Running Time: 116 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883904106845 Manufacturer No: M110684
Sahara
by Zoltan Korda
from Sony Pictures
Hollywood made few movies about the desert conflict during World War II--and curiously, two that they did (Five Graves to Cairo is the other) were remakes of films set elsewhere. John Howard Lawson based his script on a prewar Russian film (Lawson would later be blacklisted, incidentally) about a military patrol besieged by Asian bandits. The situation readily lent itself to a wartime parallel and became one of the most engrossing story lines of its era.
A U.S. tank crew and their commander (Humphrey Bogart), separated from the main force, make their way through the desert, accumulating a veritable United Nations of stragglers as they go: a few of Montgomery's tommies (including that old limey Lloyd Bridges) and a towering African (Rex Ingram) and his prisoner--a garrulous Italian (Oscar-nominated J. Carrol Naish) who can't wait to tell his new friends about his relatives in "Peets-a-bourg Pennsylvania." They come upon a ruin, the onetime site of an oasis, and almost immediately find themselves defending it against a small army of Germans who believe there's still water to be had there. Yes and no--there's a biblical wrinkle to this tale--and the standoff between the polyglot democrats and the Nazis who far outnumber them is a fine, sun-baked study in suspense.
For Bogart, this Columbia picture was a rare furlough from Warner Bros., where he always felt embattled. His pleasure must have seeped into his work, because Sgt. Joe Gunn is one of the most sympathetic and heartfelt characterizations the actor ever gave us. This is one good movie. --Richard T. Jameson
Christmas in Connecticut
by Peter Godfrey
from Warner Home Video
Journalist Elizabeth Lane is one of the country's most famous food writer. In her columns she describes herself as a hard working farm woman taking care of her children and being an excellent cook. But this is all lies. In reality she is an umarried New Yorker who can't even boil an egg. The recipes come from her good friend Felix. The owner of the magazine she works for has decided that a heroic sailor will spend his christmas on *her* farm. Miss Lane knows that her career is over if the truth comes out but what can she do?Running Time: 101 min.System Requirements:Running Time 101 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHRISTMAS/CHRISTMAS UPC: 012569677166
Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday film that plays 365 days of the year. Barbara Stanwyck gives a brilliant, sardonic performance as Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for Smart Housekeeping magazine, whose enticing descriptions of the exquisite meals she prepares for her husband and baby on their bucolic Connecticut farm earns her fame as "America's Best Cook." A writer, she is; a cook, she is not. As she types the words, "From my living room window, as I write, the good cedar logs cracking on the fire..." the view is of clothes flapping on the line outside her bachelorette Manhattan apartment. An able supporting cast keeps her lie on life support: her editor, her stuffy and detestable architect suitor, and the wonderful "Uncle" Felix (S.Z. Sakall), an English-garbling Hungarian chef who provides the recipes that fill her column.
Cut to Jefferson Jones, a sailor adrift at sea for weeks after his destroyer is torpedoed. Memories of the food described in Lane's columns are central to his survival. After his rescue, as he's recuperating in a naval hospital, a marriage-minded nurse thinks she might nudge Jones to the altar if he could only experience a real domestic Christmas. And it just so happens that she was nurse to the grandchild of Alexander Yardley, the wealthy and powerful publisher of --you guessed it--Smart Housekeeping magazine. And so, she pens the letter that could unravel Lane's carefully constructed fraud. She writes to Yardley asking that Jones be included in America's ultimate Christmas--the one to be held at the Lane family farm in Connecticut. The pompous Yardley (ably portrayed by Sidney Greenstreet) believes the Lane myth and instantly sniffs a story that will send his magazine's circulation skyrocketing. And staring down a lonely holiday, he decides to join the Lanes for Christmas on the farm, too. Now, all Lane has to do is come up with a farm. And a husband. And let's not forget the baby. Christmas in Connecticut is classic screwball entertainment of the best kind, with its on-target skewering of social convention and house-of- cards-about-to-tumble tension: a perfect farcical vision of domestic blitz. --Susan Benson
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
by Roger Corman
from 20th Century Fox
Jason Robards as Scarface teams with George Segal (in a rare bad-guy role) to battle the Feds. The 1929 massacre is bloody indeed.System Requirements:Features: Widescreen Feature Theatrical Trailers Fox Flix: Compulsion and Murder Inc. Running Time: 109 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543238669 Manufacturer No: 2233866
The Dark Corner (Fox Film Noir)
by Henry Hathaway
from 20th Century Fox
The Dark Corner can't seriously be proposed as a great film noir, but it's one that people cherish. For one thing, it's unique in having Lucille Ball--who has absolutely no "splainin'" to do--as the smart, resourceful, devoted secretary of beleaguered private eye Mark Stevens. Lucy actually rates top billing, with Clifton up-to-his-old-Laura-tricks Webb and William vicious-brute-in-a-white-suit Bendix also getting their names above that of the hero in the credits. In this, there's a certain justice; they all deliver the goods, whereas Stevens seems a tad lightweight as the hardnose, Phil Marlowe type cracking wise and punching his way through the mean streets. His character comes burdened with more backstory than usual for movie detectives; this time, the case the private eye has to solve is his own. The intriguingly convoluted screenplay (by Jay Dratler, who co-wrote Laura, and Bernard Schoenfeld, from a story by Leo Rosten) takes hold like a vise and sustains the tension even though, by rights, its credibility should be shrinking with each passing reel. Henry Hathaway's direction is crisp, and the cinematography by Joe MacDonald (who would next shoot John Ford's My Darling Clementine) is both pungent and gorgeous. With Cathy Downs, Kurt Kreuger, and Reed Hadley, who plays a police detective here but more often supplied the voiceover on Fox's semidocumentary thrillers and Anthony Mann's T-Men. --Richard T. Jameson
Lucille Ball has a change of pace role as the loyal secretary of a private eye in this brooding film noir about a man being set up for a murder rap. Framed by his partner years ago, hard-boiled detective Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) served a two year stretch for manslaughter. Now trying to start over, he spends his time serving his clients and romancing his new secretary, Kathleen (Lucille Ball). But everything changes with the appearance of a sinister man in a whit suit (William Bendix) who's apparently working for Galt's ex-partner, Tony Jardine. When Jardine is killed, the police blame Galt. It's another frame, but if Galt can't prove he's innocent, this time he's headed for death row.
Unfaithfully Yours (Criterion Collection)
by Preston Sturges
from Criterion
Preston Sturges has his great run in 1940-44, with a series of comedy masterpieces unparalleled in Hollywood film. 1948's Unfaithfully Yours proves that he still had the touch, if only he could have found a supportive studio for his genius. (It would've helped if Unfaithfully Yours had been a hit, which it was not.) Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison) is a witty, vain orchestra conductor, a celebrated man married to a beautiful woman (Linda Darnell). He becomes convinced of her infidelity, and while he is on the podium during a concert, he fantasizes three homicidal revenge fantasies--all set to the classics.
The conductor looks suspiciously like a self-portrait by Sturges, and the delicious dialogue comes pouring out of Rex Harrison like pearls from a goblet. The film's main disappointment is that it doesn't feature the teeming stock company of character actors that crowd Sturges's earlier pictures (although Rudy Vallee, Lionel Stander, and Edgar Kennedy come through nicely). The film, while morbid, is often laugh-out-loud funny, but it also has something sneakily brilliant to say about the gulf between art and life: how the exquisite timing and perfect mechanics of Sir Alfred's imagination come a-cropper when he actually tries to enact his fantasies. Unfaithfully Yours was remade in a not-bad version with Dudley Moore in 1984, but this one's the keeper. Too bad it couldn't save Sturges--this is the last worthy film in a too-brief career. --Robert Horton
In this pitch-black comedy from legendary writer-director Preston Sturges, Rex Harrison stars as Sir Alfred De Carter, a world-famous symphony conductor consumed with the suspicion that his wife is having an affair. During a concert, the jealous De Carter entertains elaborate visions of vengeance, set to three separate orchestral works. But when he attempts to put his murderous fantasies into action, nothing works out quite as planned. A brilliantly performed mixture of razor-sharp dialogue and uproarious slapstick, Unfaithfully Yours is a true classic from a grand master of screen comedy.
Classic Crime Collection - Street Justice (Murder Inc., The French Connection, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The Seven-Ups)
by Roger Corman
from 20th Century Fox
Episode Description: GiftSet Includes the Following Titles:
**St. Valentine's Day Massacre **Seven-Ups **Murder, Inc. **French Connection (Single Disc)
Warner Bros. Classic Holiday Collection (Boys Town / A Christmas Carol 1938 / Christmas in Connecticut)
by Peter Godfrey
from Warner Home Video
In Boys Town (1938), Spencer Tracy won an Oscar for his portrayal of Father Flanagan, who dedicates himself to helping juvenile delinquents go straight. Mickey Rooney plays one of the tougher kids, figuring out early on that Flanagan is nobody's fool. Warmhearted and inspiring, the film's inevitable sentimentality is nicely cut by Tracy's performance and a smart script by Eleanore Griffin and Dore Schary (who also won Oscars). A good film for all ages, directed by Norman Taurog (Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Also included is the minor sequel, Men of Boys Town (1941), also starring Tracy and Rooney.
The 1938 MGM version of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol is not the most rewarding of the various adaptations (that honor goes to Biran Desmond Hurst's 1951 film, starring Alistair Sim), but it has a strong if narrow performance by Reginald Owen as the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. Directed by Edward L. Marin, the movie is stiffer and less imaginative than it ought to be, but there are some compensations in the supporting cast, including Leo G. Carroll, and the film debut of little June Lockhart.
Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday film that plays 365 days of the year. Barbara Stanwyck gives a brilliant, sardonic performance as Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for Smart Housekeeping magazine, whose enticing descriptions of the exquisite meals she prepares for her husband and baby on their bucolic Connecticut farm earns her fame as "America's Best Cook." A writer, she is; a cook, she is not. As she types the words, "From my living room window, as I write, the good cedar logs cracking on the fire..." the view is of clothes flapping on the line outside her bachelorette Manhattan apartment. Cut to Jefferson Jones, a sailor adrift at sea for weeks after his destroyer is torpedoed. After his rescue, a marriage-minded nurse thinks she might nudge Jones to the altar if he could only be included in America's ultimate Christmas--the one to be held at the Lane family farm in Connecticut. Now, all Lane has to do is come up with a farm. And a husband. And let's not forget the baby. Christmas in Connecticut is classic screwball entertainment of the best kind, with its on-target skewering of social convention and house-of-cards-about-to-tumble tension: a perfect farcical vision of domestic blitz.
Paris Underground
from Image Entertainment
During the German occupation of World War II, an American wife in Paris, Kitty (Constance Bennett), arranges with her older friend, Emmeline (Gracie Fields), to smuggle a British soldier out of France.
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