The Story of Ruth
by Henry Koster
from 20th Century Fox
The Old Testament story of the pagan idolater Ruth (Elana Eden) who married Mahlon (Tom Tryon) found faith and a great mother-in-law Naomi (Peggy Wood).Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543228936 Manufacturer No: 2232893
Blood Alley
from Warner Home Video
An American merchant marine captain ferries a group of Chinese refugess down the Yangtze River to escape the Communists.Running Time: 115 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 085391158578 Manufacturer No: 115857
Demon Seed
by Donald Cammell
from Warner Home Video
One of the better examples of the mad-computer genre, Demon Seed is a sci-fi nightmare brimming with ideas. Julie Christie dominates the film as an unsuspecting woman whose house has been completely automated by her computer-genius husband (Fritz Weaver). He, in turn, has just completed Proteus, the world's smartest Artificial Intelligence machine. When Proteus traps Christie alone in the house, it--or he--has notions of passing his intellectual power to another generation... by impregnating her. One of the many intriguing things about Donald Cammell's film (based on a Dean Koontz yarn) is that Proteus's dreams are actually visionary and utopian, unlike the commercial uses planned for him by others. Of course, he's also scary as hell; the voice of Proteus, uncredited, unmistakably belongs to Robert Vaughn. Cammell, a fascinating and frustrated talent (he co-directed Performance), completed very few films and ultimately killed himself in 1996. Somewhere around the halfway point Demon Seed begins to break down dramatically and logically, yet it has so many ideas kicking around that it sticks in the mind anyway. A good Jerry Fielding score adds to the overall dread. --Robert Horton
Susan Harris is alone in the house when suddenly doors lock windows slam shut and the phone stops working. Susan is trapped by an intruder - but this is no ordinary thug. Instead the intruder is a computer named Proteus an artificial brain that has learned to reason. And to terrorize. In "one of her finest most vulnerable perfromances" (Danny Peary Guide for the Film Fanatic) Julie Christie plays Susan in this taut techno-thriller based on the Dean Koontz novel. Packed with suspense surprise and special effects Demon Seed follows Susan's desperate attempts to outmaneuver and outthink her captor. Then Susan learns what Proteus wants: its own child conceived in her womb and destined for domination.Running Time: 94 min.System Requirements:Running Time 94 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R UPC: 012569675957
Nanook of the North (Criterion Collection Spine #33)
by Robert J. Flaherty
from Criterion
Robert J. Flaherty, who wrote, directed, produced, shot, and edited this landmark picture, will forever be remembered as the godfather of documentary filmmaking. While this landmark 1922 production, shot on the northeastern shore of Hudson Bay, isn't a true documentary by contemporary conventions, it remains the first great nonfiction film. With the help of Nanook and his friends and family, Flaherty undertook the mission of re-creating an Eskimo culture that no longer existed in a series of staged scenes. Nanook ice fishes, harpoons a walrus, catches a seal, traps, builds an igloo, and trades pelts at a trading post, all captured by Flaherty's inquisitive camera. Though he presents a "happy" culture bordering on primitive innocence (Nanook and his family were in reality quite westernized), his loving portrait is anything but condescending. Ultimately Flaherty shares his tremendous respect and awe for a culture that has learned to not just survive but thrive in such an inhospitable environment. On a purely visual level the film is a beautiful work of cinema, an understated drama in an austere, unblemished landscape of snow and ice. With unerring simplicity and directness, Flaherty re-creates the details and rhythms of a culture long gone and gives the world a glimpse. David Shepard's restoration, which is offered by Kino, shows a cleaner, brighter image than has ever been available on video and restores scenes missing for decades, and he has commissioned a new score by Timothy Brock, which incorporates and expands upon elements of the original score. A short interview with Flaherty's widow concludes the tape. --Sean Axmaker
In 1920, exploring American anthropologist Robert J. Flaherty traveled alone, with camera in hand, to the remote Canadian tundra. There, for over a year, he lived with Eskimos, documenting their daily lives and returning to his editing studio with the raw footage. The result of his rigorous study was groundbreaking; with Nanook of the North, Flaherty pioneered both a new cinematic genre, the narrative documentary, and created a timeless drama of human perseverance under the harshest of conditions. Flaherty obviously understood the charisma of one Eskimo in particular, Nanook, and much of the film's warmth, humor, and charm come from the mutual respect and sympathy between the filmmaker and his subject. Flaherty possessed an acute eye for simple detail and his presentation of the stark climate and unique culture remains breathtaking. Flaherty also had a knack for editing and manipulation, and along with pioneering a new cinematic form, Nanook too raised all of the problematic ethical dilemmas that still face documentarians. Many of the famous sequences--the seal hunt, the building of the igloo--were actually staged for "authenticity" purposes, thus starting debates on whether documentaries could truly capture truth or reality. Then there's the presence of the camera and whether that in itself alters or disrupts the natural behavior of its subjects. Yet, despite Flaherty's tamperings, there's no denying the film's power, its wondrous sense of adventure, and the touching portrait of one of cinema's truly courageous heroes. --Dave McCoy
Robert Flaherty's classic film tells the story of Inuit hunter Nanook and his family as they struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada's Hudson Bay region. Enormously popular when released in 1922, Nanook of the North is a cinematic milestone that continues to enchant audiences. Criterion is proud to present the original director's cut, restored to the proper frame rate and tinted according to Flaherty's personal print.
The Man in the Glass Booth
by Arthur Hiller
from Kino Video
Gun Crazy
by Joseph H. Lewis
from Warner Home Video
One of the most vital of all film noir pictures, Gun Crazy has more cinematic gusto and sexual heat than almost any movie of its time. It's a variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story, but with a bizarre set-up: firearms enthusiasts John Dall and Peggy Cummins (neither of whom were ever this wild again) meet as sharpshooters in a carnival, then turn to crime. The direction, by Joseph H. Lewis, is like a spray of hot lead from a gun barrel, capped by an amazing sequence--shot in one long take--of a bank robbery seen from the backseat of the getaway car. (Billy Wilder himself called up Lewis to find out how he did it.) If most film noirs trace the anxieties of postwar America, Gun Crazy goes directly to sheer madness. Trivia note: the film had a title change, to Deadly Is the Female, for its original release, whereupon it was changed back. --Robert Horton
When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr's sideshow sharpshooting act he's a dead-bang goner. He and she go together as Bart ultimately says "like guns and ammunition." The two become bank robbers on the run eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star meeting in a sexually charged carny shooting contest and soon driven by impulses of violence and arousal they don't fully understand. They're young foolish doomed - and point blank in Gun Crazy's unforgiving sights.Running Time: 87 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 085393197124
Seven Thieves
by Henry Hathaway
from 20th Century Fox
After succeeding in the execution of a daring robbery a motley group of thieves faces failure.Episodes-Bonus Features:**Restoration Comparison**Theatrical Trailer**Still GalleryRuntime: 102 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543446392 Manufacturer No: 2244639
Battles of Chief Pontiac
Guilty of Treason
Agonizing torture at the hands of the secret police threatens any citizen who resists in a Hungary subjugated by the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin. Cardinal Josef Mindszenty (Charles Bickford), taking a courageous open stand against the Communists, is labeled a traitor by the brutal regime bent on crushing all opposition. Intrigued by whispers of what may be going on inside the Soviet-occupied nation, American foreign correspondent Tom Kelly shows up in Budapest to investigate.Shortly after arriving, he is introduced to beautiful Stephanie Varna (Bonita Granville), a Hungarian schoolteacher who is secretly involved with a Russian colonel. She manages to lead Tom to the Cardinal only days before he is thrown into prison, while a wave of false arrests and mysterious disappearances envelops the brave souls who dared to follow the Cardinal's anti-Communist lead.This film showcases gruff-voiced Charles Bickford whose work includes Of Mice and Men (1939) and the acclaimed Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Inspired by the true story of Cardinal Mindszenty's persecution and trial in Hungary, the documentary/propaganda style of Guilty of Treason examines the Hungarian Communist regime which rose to power after Nazi rule.
Man in the Vault
by Andrew V. McLaglen
from Paramount
A film noir set-up unfolds in the opening minutes of Man in the Vault: while relaxing one night at a bowling alley, a humble locksmith named Tommy Dancer (William Campbell) finds himself dragged into a bank heist plot because of his dexterity with lock-picking. It only takes 72 minutes for Tommy's nightmare to unfold, and yet the storyline seems uncommonly convoluted; rival gangsters are involved, Tommy strikes a volatile match with a slumming Beverly Hills dame (Karen Sharpe), and a moll plays a seemingly extraneous role--not that there's anything wrong with that, when the moll is the young Anita Ekberg. The ultra-cheap production values deflate the effort to put some noir atmosphere into the thing, but the main problem is leading man Campbell, who was a cross between Vince Edwards and a young Tony Curtis, but without the attitude. (He had been in The High and the Mighty--like this film produced by John Wayne's Batjac company--and went on to many TV roles.) Still, there are moments, and director Andrew V. McLaglen tries to work some ingenious visual touches into the mix. Berry Kroeger makes a truly decadent villain, while Batjac regular Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez gives comic relief. The film comes very early in the credits of McLaglen and screenwriter Burt Kennedy, both of whom became associated with Westerns later in their long, fruitful careers. The movie keeps returning to the bowling alley ("Art Linkletter's La Cienaga") thereby setting up one of the strangest scenes of noir menace ever filmed. --Robert Horton
In this taut thriller William Campbell stars as a locksmith forced to crack a bank safe deposit box in order to save his girlfriend (Karen Sharpe) from a ruthless mobster (Berry Kroeger). Also stars Anita Ekberg.
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