Olsen, Moroni

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney Special Platinum Edition)

One of the brightest nuggets from Disney's golden age, this 1937 film is almost dizzying in its meticulous construction of an enchanted world, with scores of major and minor characters (including fauna and fowl), each with a distinct identity. When you watch Snow White's intricate, graceful movements of fingers, arms, and head all in one shot, it is not the technical brilliance of Disney's artists that leaps out at you, but the very spirit of her engaging, girl-woman character. When the wicked queen's poisoned apple turns from killer green to rose red, the effect of knowing something so beautiful can be so terrible is absolutely elemental, so pure it forces one to surrender to the horror of it. Based on the Grimm fairy tale, Snow White is probably the best family film ever to deal, in mythic terms, with the psychological foundation for growing up. It's a crowning achievement and should not be missed. --Tom Keogh

The Fountainhead

Exhibiting a darker edge to his hero persona, the strapping Gary Cooper has the (Frank Lloyd) Wright stuff as architect Harold Roark, a "fool visionary" who refuses to conform his artistic ideas to popular taste. His inflexibility makes enemies out of a tabloid architecture critic and a tycoon (Raymond Massey), who proclaims, "All men can be bought... there are no men of integrity." Keating (Kent Smith), a former classmate, urges Roark to take "the middle of the road so it's sure to please everybody." But Roark will not compromise, and when one of his building designs is radically altered without his consent, he resorts to drastic measures. Adapted for the screen by Ayn Rand from her towering and controversial bestseller, The Fountainhead is about as subtle as that phallic drill Roark wields so impressively, which catches the frenzied eye of the formidable Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal in her film debut). She recognizes Roark's nobility, but fears he has no chance "in a world where beauty, genius and greatness have no chance." Rand did little to dilute her polemics for the screen, resulting in melodramatic scenes that border on high camp, such as Roark and Francon's rather sexually charged discussion about limestone. Rand practiced what she preached. According to a bonus featurette about the making of the film, she refused to trim Roark's then-unprecedented six-minute courtroom speech in which he defends his actions. Even for those who don't adhere to her philosophy, The Fountainhead does offer something rarely seen on screens these days, a man of unshakable principles. And Hollywood could sure note Rand's object lesson about the perils of mediocrity and catering to "the mob." For Cooper fans, The Fountainhead is an essential addition to your DVD library. --Donald Liebenson

Based on the novel by philosopher Ayn Rand this is the story of architect Howard Roark. An idealist Roark believes he can balance his values with the needs of society. His mentor disagrees - encouraging him to compromise his integrity rather than suffer for his artistic goals.Running Time: 112 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569571624 Manufacturer No: 65716

Mildred Pierce (Keepcase)

What Veda wants her mother Mildred Pierce provides. Even if Mildred must end her middle-class marriage climb atop the male-dominated business world and marry a wealthy man she doesn't love. "I'll do anything" Mildred says in explaining her love for her daughter. But does anything include murder? Just when you think you got this nominee for five other Oscarsincluding Best Picture figured out along comes a shocking twist ending! Director: Michael Curtiz Starring: Joan Crawford Jack Carson Zachary Scott Eve Arden Ann BlythRunning Time: 109 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569675384

For a full dose of pure, unfiltered Joan Crawford, look no further than this slab of scorching film noir. Crawford is in her element as the heroine of James M. Cain's pulp-fiction classic, a ditched wife and mother who is forced to become a waitress. On the strength of Crawford's steely willpower (and maybe those intimidating wide-wing shoulder pads), she constructs an empire of eateries, only to be disappointed by her rotten daughter (Ann Blyth) and a ferret-faced new husband (Zachary Scott). Director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) whips up a storm of atmosphere, and the script is a series of tartly written exchanges. The best lines go to perennial wisecracker Eve Arden, as Crawford's acid-tongued pal--she earned her only Oscar nomination for the role. Commenting on the ungrateful daughter, Arden says, "Alligators have the right idea. They eat their young." Crawford herself took home the best actress Oscar, and the film was a triumphant personal comeback: her longtime studio MGM had released her from her contract before Mildred Pierce came along. Is this great acting? (Pauline Kael called it "heavy breathing.") Whatever Joan Crawford is doing in this movie, it's movie presence at its most formidable. --Robert Horton

The John Ford Film Collection (The Informer / Mary of Scotland / The Lost Patrol / Cheyenne Autumn / Sergeant Rutledge)

John Ford remains the consensus choice as America's greatest director, and his critical eminence dates from two films in this set. By 1934 he had been directing for 17 years, building a solid reputation as a Hollywood professional with maybe the best eye in the movie business. With The Lost Patrol (1934) and The Informer (1935)--made for RKO rather than his accustomed studio base, Fox--he took a decisive step toward establishing himself as a personal, at least semi-independent artist. Both films were stark dramas free of box-office compromise, glib heroics, or any expectation of facile happy endings. They were also more relentlessly stylized than anything Ford had done before ... which both distinguished them in their day and left them vulnerable to dating when some of their experimentation proved rather dead-ended.

The Lost Patrol began Ford's association with producer Merian C. Cooper, a partnership that would lead to the independent production company Argosy and the making of such fine, ultrapersonal films as The Quiet Man, The Searchers, and Ford's celebrated cavalry trilogy. The story, by Philip MacDonald, concerns a handful of British soldiers cornered at an oasis in the Mesopotamian Desert (now Iraq) during World War I and slowly decimated by an unseen enemy. The strong visuals--baking sun, the undulating vastness of the dunes, the drift of ghostly mirages--befit a crucible of character-testing, with an unnamed Sergeant (Victor McLaglen) striving to keep at least one man alive as desperation, madness, and implacable Arab snipers take their toll. This DVD release restores six minutes of footage cut for a 1949 rerelease and rarely seen since.

Ford won the first of his four best-director Oscars for The Informer, an intense tale of "one night in strife-torn Dublin, 1922" when a slow-witted I.R.A. strongman named Gypo Nolan sells out his best friend for 20 British pounds. On a budget that obliged him to obscure canvas sets with deep shadows and a persistent fog that underscores Gypo's mental and spiritual confusion, Ford created a visual world akin to the German Expressionist classics of the 1920s. But the film's inventive use of sound and an ambitious music score (by Max Steiner) commingling leitmotifs for half a dozen key characters also encouraged '30s critics to hail it as the first classic of the sound era. That was overstating it (and more than a little amnesiac on the critics' part!). Overstated, too, was Ford's relentless Christ symbolism paralleling Gypo's betrayal to that of Judas. Still, Victor McLaglen's portrayal of the title character remains a triumph (McLaglen won an Oscar as well), and the film abounds in brilliant strokes: the silhouette of a British soldier shining his flashlight on the wanted poster of Gypo's friend, while Gypo lurks just outside the beam; the giant Nolan forever knocking his head on hanging signs or seeming to be crushed by low ceilings; the cacophony of cries and gunfire, and then crashing silence, as the Black and Tan raid the I.R.A. rebel's home. Initially overrated, then relegated to museum status, The Informer awaits rediscovery as a dynamic motion picture.

The John Ford Collection includes one more mid-'30s RKO endeavor, Mary of Scotland (1936). Although handsome, this adaptation of a Maxwell Anderson blank-verse play about Queen Elizabeth's northern rival never finds credible footing as a movie. Andrew Sarris is dead right in lamenting Ford's version of Mary, Queen of Scots, as "a madonna of the Scottish moors"--Katharine Hepburn, inevitably. The most interesting thing about the production is the offscreen story, that Ford and Hepburn fell passionately in love, yet (perhaps) resisted becoming lovers.

From there we leap to the 1960s and two Westerns made under the aegis of Warner Bros. (Warner now owns the RKO library, hence this rather arbitrary set.) Sergeant Rutledge (1960) has markedly improved with age, with what once seemed creaky dramaturgy now playing as bold stylization. Using a jagged flashback structure occasioned by a court-martial at a Southwest outpost, Ford took an unflinching look at the legacy of race in America. The then-unknown black actor Woody Strode has a showcase role as a magnificent "Buffalo soldier" accused of the rape-murder of his commanding officer's blond, white daughter and the murder of the commandant himself. Unfortunately, Ford's once-masterly handling of character actors had grown lax, and he indulged some tedious bombast from Willis Bouchey and Carleton Young as the presiding judge and prosecutor, respectively; and Jeffrey Hunter, however effective in The Searchers, made a weak protagonist as Rutledge's defense counsel. But the veteran cameraman Bert Glennon almost winds things back to Stagecoach days, occasionally turning the film's Technicolor to very nearly black and white.

Another debt to race relations is addressed in Cheyenne Autumn (1964), a beautiful title to grace John Ford's final Western. The film has moments of grandeur as Ford attempts at long last to "tell the story from the Indians' point of view," and it's a pleasure to report that William H. Clothier's majestic Technicolor compositions have been restored to their Panavision dimensions on the DVD. Ford is unambiguously supportive of the Cheyennes' resolve to bolt their reservation in the desert Southwest and trek north to their ancestral lands. By contrast, most of white society, the military, the bureaucracy, and the sensationalist press are portrayed as insensitive, foolish, or hateful. However, the Cheyenne are nobly wooden, with all key roles played by non-Indians: Ricardo Montalban, Gilbert Roland, Sal Mineo, Victor Jory, and Dolores Del Rio (breathtakingly beautiful as ever). As for point of view, it's sympathetic cavalry officer Richard Widmark and Quaker missionary Carroll Baker through whose eyes most of the epic narrative unfolds. --Richard T. Jameson

WHV celebrates on of the true masters of American cinema with the release of The John Ford Collection. Four-time Academy Award Winning director John Ford is perhaps best known for his Westerns and collaborations with John Wayne however this Ford collection runs the gamut of genres and shows the diversity and genius of John Ford at his most impressive. Featured here will be the DVD debuts of five classic titles - all will be exclusive to the five-disc boxed set.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 085393980429 Manufacturer No: 39804

Father of the Bride (Snap case)

This 1950 Vincente Minnelli classic may show its age here and there, but it's still a far sturdier movie than the 1991 Steve Martin vehicle. Spencer Tracy earned yet another Oscar nomination for his wonderfully well observed portrayal of Stanley Banks, a decent (if occasionally long-winded) fellow who gets caught up and cut up in the rudderless spectacle that is the wedding of his only daughter (Elizabeth Taylor, of course). It's a sage commentary on the class mores of the day--how much does one spend? (Or, more accurately, when does one quit spending?) Does one invite one's work colleagues, even if they don't know the bride? Tracy is simply magnificent, gruffly warm and funny, whether he's getting sloppy drunk and discoursing at length or simply sitting by, silently amazed, as his daughter and her beau make up after a spat. The film inspired a sequel (1951's Father's Little Dividend--try getting that title made nowadays), a remake, and a remake of its sequel, as well as a TV series--all in all, almost as many incarnations as Taylor had weddings. --David Kronke

"I would like to say a few words about weddings" a weary man says from the middle of a muddle of rice and scattered bottles. What follows is a warm witty look at what it means to be Father of the Bride. Spencer Tracy is the father and Elizabeth Taylor the bride in this lively Vincente Minnelli-directed classic. Taylor is glowingly showcased - and reflected in three mirrors when first seen in a wedding gown. Tracy's performance captures every loving father's exasperations and joys as the day approaches. It also captured the fourth of his nine* Best Actor Academy Award* nominations. The film also earned nominations** for Best Picture and Screenplay. Here comes the bride there goes dad's wallet - and everyone's heart. What sparkling fun!Running Time: 93 min.System Requirements: Running Time 93 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 012569508224

Command Decision

World War II drama that shows the battles - on and off the field - that a general must fight in order to win the war. General Casey of the US Forces in England must fight congressional representatives and his own chain of command to be allowed to complete an important mission. He must get his men's planes out during a small window of fair weather in order to prevent the Germans from making more military jet planes. Although the general knows the success of his plan could decide whether the Germans get the upper hand in the war it could also mean suicide for his men. Adapted from the William Wister Haines stage hit.Running Time: 111 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 012569797048 Manufacturer No: 79704

Command Decision (1949) takes on the kind of questions that Hollywood could never have raised during the war--questions about the cruel responsibilities of command, including the responsibility to spend a great many lives to save thousands more in the future. In 1943, from an American airbase in the English countryside, a campaign of daylight bombardment is being waged against aircraft factories in Germany. For much of the way to their targets and back, the bombers are bereft of fighter escort and at the mercy of the Luftwaffe. The mortality rate is shocking--but perhaps, for reasons that are not widely known, necessary. Clark Gable (himself an air war veteran) plays the commandant who has to call the next day's target, and the film never leaves command HQ; the closest we get to combat is a scene of an untrained crewman trying to land a crippled plane. Command Decision is earnest but outshone by the similarly focused Twelve O'Clock High. The main problem is that it's based on--and essentially remains--a play, static in setting and schematic in its arguments. Still, those arguments should be heard. --Richard T. Jameson

Life with Father

Ah, remember those good old days when father ruled the roost, keeping a tight rein on the money, the kids, and the docile wife? Well, neither does Clarence Day (William Powell), the title character in Life with Father. Taking place in New York in 1883, this charming comedy purports to show the life of a strict father managing his house and his family, only to be constantly--and unknowingly--out-manipulated by his somewhat ditzy wife, Vinnie (Irene Dunne). Day is terrifying enough that maids keep quitting, but Vinnie manages to keep Day under control--that is, until she discovers that he was never baptized. A battle ensues as she desperately tries to ensure that they will one day meet in heaven, and all the while he severely maintains that the church has no business messing with a man's soul. Meanwhile, young Clarence Day Jr. (Jimmy Lydon) is busy falling for visiting Mary Skinner (played gigglingly by Elizabeth Taylor), and his brother John concocts a money-making scheme that involves the selling of a rather dubious potion. The costumes, the characters, and the wonderful story line--based on a play that was based on the memoir written by Clarence Day Jr.--make this a delightful movie that's perfect for a family-film night. --Jenny Brown

Air Force

John Garfield John Ridgely and Gig Young star in this hard-hitting realistic story that celebrates America's airborne heroes during WWII. Year: 1943 Director: Howard Hawks Starring: John Garfield John Ridgely Gig YoungRunning Time: 124 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MISCELLANEOUS/SPECIAL INTEREST UPC: 012569599826 Manufacturer No: 65998

Director Howard Hawks casually referred to Air Force (1943) as his "contribution to the war effort." It's also a masterpiece, standing with John Ford's They Were Expendable as the best WWII films Hollywood made while the war was still on. On the evening of December 6, 1941, a B-17 flies out of San Francisco on a routine peacetime training mission to Hickam Field in Hawaii. While en route, the officers and crew overhear radio traffic of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ("Whatcha got there," somebody asks the radio operator, "Orson Welles?"). They touch down in a smoking world like a vision out of Dante, then hop from one Pacific outpost to the next as the clouds of war roil. The plane itself, the Mary Ann, is the movie's main character; the biggest star, John Garfield, actually gets last billing as her newly assigned tail gunner. Air Force is one of Hawks's supreme guys-doing-their-job movies, and the definitive war-movie portrait of America as a melting-pot of diverse individuals and types making common cause. The ensemble (Garfield, Gig Young, John Ridgely, Arthur Kennedy, the great Harry Carey, et al.) is superbly directed, there's a strong Dudley Nichols screenplay (with an uncredited contribution by William Faulkner) and breathtaking editing of the battle scenes (which won George Amy an Oscar), and the camerawork is by James Wong Howe in peak form.

The Joan Crawford Collection (Humoresque / Possessed (1947) / The Damned Don't Cry / The Women / Mildred Pierce)

The Joan Crawford Collection brings together a potent group of films from Crawford's career renaissance: her Warner Bros. run of the late 1940s, beginning with Mildred Pierce. Four of the titles are from that heated, noirish streak, including Crawford's 1945 Oscar-winning turn in Mildred, a great Hollywood example of an actress's persona meeting the zeitgeist moment. In this adaptation of the James M. Cain novel, Crawford plays a sacrificing mother perfectly willing to claw her way to success for the sake of her ingrate daughter. Michael Curtiz directed, snapping Crawford out of a long career slide.

Humoresque (1946) was promptly given the top-drawer treatment, and it's a truly epic melodrama about a restless society woman who takes up the cause of a young violinist (John Garfield) from the slums. Possessed (1947) gave Crawford a thorough workout as a woman in complete obsessive breakdown from various romantic traumas. What Crawford lacks in subtlety she makes up for in sheer will, which suits the character well (and brought another best actress Oscar nomination). The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is a film noir smash-up, with Crawford as a low-rent dame who brazens her way into becoming a fur-lined mobster's moll (it was loosely inspired by the Bugsy Siegel-Virginia Hill story). It's overripe but entertaining.

1939's The Women, an MGM picture, doesn't fit the mood of the collection, although it has its fans. George Cukor directed this catty version of the Clare Booth Luce play, which has an all-female ensemble cast; Crawford is in very good form as a bad girl. The movie's reputation is somewhat beyond its actual witchy charm. (Packaging gaffe: the photo on the back cover is from Seven Women.) DVD extras tend toward smallish documentaries, save the absorbing 90-minute career profile The Ultimate Movie Star on the Mildred Pierce disc, an even-handed study that includes frank revelations from director-lover Vincent Sherman and the "wire hangers" story from adopted daughter Christina. Sherman contributes a commentary on The Damned Don't Cry. --Robert Horton

The Joan Crawford Collection features classics from the star whose career spanned more than 40 years. "I never go out unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door go next door." - Joan CrawfordFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569708105

Call Northside 777 (Fox Film Noir)

The postwar vogue for documentary-style realism, prompted by The March of Time and the critical success of Roberto Rossellini's Open City, cross bred with film noir to create a compelling strain of crime films; this is one of the most low-key and credible, based on the true story of a Chicago reporter (James Stewart) who became convinced of the innocence of a death-row inmate (Richard Conte). Director Henry Hathaway (whose Kiss of Death started the trend) stages the action on the actual Chicago locations, providing a fascinating documentary record of an underfilmed metropolis (the convict's mother is a washerwoman at the Wrigley Building), and leads his cast to appropriately restrained, naturalistic performances. Stewart is just beginning to explore his newfound, postwar maturity here, and there's an undercurrent of obsessiveness in his performance that anticipates the haunted figures he would soon be playing for Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock. --Dave Kehr