Luna, Barbara

The Cheyenne Social Club / Firecreek

They can be tough as leather. Or as down-home as any pair of good ol' boys. Either way there's a sense of warm respect between the two stars. The off-camera friendship of James Stewart and Henry Fonda goes back to their days as struggling actors and roommates. The Cheyenne Social Club [Side A] casts them as saddle-weary Texans who surprised to find they've inherited a Wyoming bawdy house feel honor-bound to defend it against a gun-wielding gang. Gene Kelly produces and directs this mix of fun and Western action. Next comes a firestorm of character-driven excitement in Firecreek [Side B]. Fonda plays an outlaw preying on small towns and Stewart is the jittery $2-a-month part-time lawman who must find the courage to stop him. This will be some showdown!Running Time: 228 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC UPC: 012569816121 Manufacturer No: 81612

The teaming of James Stewart and Henry Fonda was a natural: not only were the two men veteran stars of their generation, but they'd actually been friends and even roommates since early in their careers. These two Westerns offer the stars in their relaxed end-of-career mode, with Stewart in the hero roles and Fonda as either villain or burr-under-the-saddle sidekick.

Firecreek is a grim 1968 Western that carries a strong residual aroma of High Noon. Stewart plays a farmer who happens to be the nominal (but rarely needed) sheriff of Firecreek, which means he must go into service when Fonda and his scurvy bunch of desperados (among them Gary Lockwood and Jack Elam) come to town looking for trouble. This slow, stripped-down picture has a philosophical undertone, with Fonda's weary, wounded outlaw trading bitter wisdom with local girl Inger Stevens. It goes on too long and Stewart is in the phase of coasting on his familiar persona, but overall it's a decent little Western fable.

The Cheyenne Social Club, from 1970, gets off to a marvelous start, with a sequence of saddle tramps Stewart and Fonda riding across half the West as Fonda maintains a fractured monologue throughout. Screenwriter James Lee Barrett was a veteran who worked frequently with Stewart (Shenandoah) and John Wayne, and some of the Western flavor is fine, but... things turn crass as soon as the pals realize Stewart has inherited a bordello in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Everybody except Fonda overacts mercilessly, and director Gene Kelly--yes, that Gene Kelly--indulges a leering style that undercuts some of the authentic laughs. Shirley Jones is around to provide comfort at the club; some predictable gunplay is mixed in with the jokes. However middling these two films might be in the filmographies of their formidable stars, it must be said that the widescreen transfer of both films to DVD is very good. --Robert Horton

Ship of Fools

SHIP OF FOOLS is set on a German ocean liner during the Nazi regime of the 1930's. In the high class section are several well-to-do people while below deck are a horde of sugar field workers returning to Spain after a season of work in Cuba. The ship is a hot bed of disillusionment prejudice anddelusions of grandeur.System Requirements:Running Time: 149 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 043396106321 Manufacturer No: 10632

An all-star drama in the grandest of Hollywood traditions, Ship of Fools is now a glossy, Oscar®-nominated relic from a bygone era, when actors were valued more than special effects. "Prestige" is the keyword in describing this high-toned Stanley Kramer production, and the passage of time brings the pros and cons of Kramer's filmmaking into stark relief. In adapting Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Germany, Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann (who shifted the story from 1931 to 1933) attempted to display the oncoming horror of Nazi Germany in microcosm, as represented by the ship's colorful variety of passengers, including maritally combative artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); a has-been baseball star (Lee Marvin); a pair of illicit lovers (Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret); a despondent divorcée (Vivien Leigh, shockingly garish in her final film); and several others who play symbolic roles with varying degrees of obviousness. Porter's potent themes are somewhat deflated by Kramer's pompous, heavy-handed approach, but powerful acting remains. Having lost what relevance it had in 1965, Ship of Fools is still fascinating as a showcase for well-drawn characters (including an observant dwarf, played by the late, great Michael Dunn) whose inner lives and outward interactions reflect a turbulent world irrevocably headed for war. --Jeff Shannon

Five Weeks in a Balloon

Let your spirits soar with this lighter-than-air adaptation of Jules Verne's classic tale. A ragtag crew of such unlikely associates as Fabian and Sir Cedric Hardwicke races across uncharted African territory in a unicorn-shaped balloon. Accompanied by Red Buttons as a playboy American reporter the explorers are sidetracked snared and drawn into battle with slaves sneezing sultans and sandstorms. Along the way they meet up with a beautiful missionary (Barbara Eden). And an equally lovely slave girl (Barbara Luna) whom Fabian takes under his wing. With its excellent cast and breathtaking backdrops Five Weeks In A Balloon is a buoyant blend of romance adventure and laughter that adds up to grand family entertainment. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: NR UPC: 024543228264 Manufacturer No: 2232826

Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 20, Episodes 39 & 40: Mirror Mirror/ The Deadly Years

"Mirror, Mirror"
When their mission to secure a mineral trade ends in failure, a freak ion storm catches Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty in mid-beam-up and sends them to a parallel dimension where Federation leaders are as ruthless as the Klingons, and Star Fleet promotions are attained by assassination. They find themselves on an alternate Enterprise, peopled with evil counterparts to the people they know (all attired in glittery, glam-rock uniforms), including most famously an evil, goateed Spock whom Kirk must convince to overthrow the empire. Kirk and his landing party try to fit in with this crew of villains who are threatening with annihilation the planet where the mineral trade went sour, while searching for a way back to their world and fending off assassination attempts. Mirror, Mirror achieves the best of what Star Trek is capable, which is to say space opera brought to a high pitch by melodrama. Everyone appears to be having great fun turning their characters to the dark side, especially George Takei, whose evil Sulu beams when making his assassination attempt against Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who makes Spock's shift from the meditative logician to the ruthless goateed one seem, well, quite logical. This episode in particular fueled popular culture in such a way that in some circles it is now impossible to sport a goatee without being called "the evil Spock." The story of the evil Spock is continued in the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover. --Jim Gay

"The Deadly Years"
While on the planet Gamma Hydra IV, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty are infected with an unknown disease that causes premature aging. The only member of the party unaffected is Chekov (Walter Koenig), who becomes McCoy's guinea pig while searching for a cure back on the Enterprise. A nifty idea with some poignant overtones, the story by David P. Harmon startles a viewer with the sight of these familiar folks rapidly graying, wrinkling, weakening, and suffering memory loss. At the same time, Harmon is careful to age each character as a unique individual. Kirk slows down more than the longer-lived Spock, while McCoy remains mentally keen, if physically brittle. As for poor Scotty, well...

The dramatic subtext in "The Deadly Years" concerns the perennial conflict over when and how to decide that someone has become too old to execute crucial responsibilities. In that sense, this episode feels constantly relevant and uniquely entertaining: let's just say some of these actors play "old" a little better than others. (Director Joseph Pevney has reported that there was a lot of conflict over who was stealing old-guy moves from whom.) With all this going on, one might not notice that guest star Charles Drake is a truly familiar face, having been cast in The Maltese Falcon and Now, Voyager. --Tom Keogh

"Mirror, Mirror," Ep. 39 - Beamed up during an ion storm, Kirk and the landing party find themselves in a mirror universe aboard a U.S.S. Enterprise run by ruthless barbarians. "The Deadly Years," Ep. 40 - A landing party from the U.S.S. Enterprise becomes ill with a fatal aging disease and Chekov is the only one unaffected. Spock and McCoy search for a remedy using him as a guinea pig.

Winchester '73

John Drew Barrymore, son of legend John Barrymore and father of Drew Barrymore, stars in this TV remake of the 1950's classic James Stewart western. Two brothers, one an officer and the other an ex con, compete for possession of the famed repeating rifle of the title, a Winchester '73. Co-starring Joan Blondell, John Dehner and Dan Duryea.

The Hanged Man

The Devil at 4 O'Clock

The Gatling Gun

GATLING GUN THE (DVD MOVIE)

The Concrete Jungle [Region 2]