Fox Western Classics (Rawhide / The Gunfighter / Garden of Evil)
by Henry Hathaway
from 20th Century Fox
IncludesDisc 1: Garden of Evil (1954) Feature FilmDisc 2: The Gunfighter (1951) Feature FilmDisc 3: Rawhide (1951) Feature FilmFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WAR/CLASSICS UPC: 024543512585 Manufacturer No: 2251258
Witness For the Prosecution
by Billy Wilder
from MGM (Video & DVD)
Billy Wilder cowrote and directed this brilliant 1957 mystery based on Agatha Christie's celebrated play about an aging London barrister (Charles Laughton) who's preparing to retire when he takes the defense in the most vexing murder case of his distinguished career. In his final completed film (he died of a heart attack less than a year later), Tyrone Power plays the prime suspect in the murder of a wealthy widow, and Marlene Dietrich plays the wife of the accused, whose testimony--and true identity--holds the key to solving the case. A classic of courtroom suspense, Witness for the Prosecution is one of those movies with enough double-crossing twists to keep the viewer guessing right up to the very end, when yet another surprise is deftly revealed. This being a Billy Wilder film, the dialogue is first-rate and the acting superb, with both Laughton and his offscreen wife Elsa Lanchester (playing the barrister's pesty nurse) winning Academy Awards for their performances. Although later films would concoct even more complicated courtroom scenarios, this remains one of the best films of its kind and a model for all those films that followed its lead. --Jeff Shannon
Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton star in this brilliantly made courtroom drama (The Film Daily) that left audiences reeling from its surprise twists and shocking climax. Directed by Billy Wilder, scripted by Wilder and Harry Kurnitz and based on Agatha Christie's hit London play, this splendid, six-time Oscar-nominated* classic crackles with emotional electricity (The New York Times) and continues to keep movie lovers riveted until the final, mesmerizing frame. When a wealthy widow is found murdered, her married suitor, Leonard Vole (Power), is accused of the crime. Vole's only hope for acquittal is the testimony of his wife (Dietrich) but his airtightalibi shatters when she reveals some shocking secrets of her own! *1957: Best Picture, Actor (Laughton), Supporting Actress (Elsa Lanchester), Director, Sound, Film Editing
Tyrone Power Matinee Idol Collection (Cafe Metropole/Girls Dormitory/Johnny Apollo/Daytime Wife/Luck of the Irish/Ill Never Forget You/That Wonderful Urge/Love Is News/This Above All/Second Honeymoon)
by Walter Lang
from 20th Century Fox
A new collection of 10 features new to DVD starring Fox's biggest heart-throb Tyrone Power.This FIVE disc collection of NEW TO DVD double-features and new VAM about Hollywood s most handsome leading man.Includes:Disc 1:CAFE METROPOLE '37GIRLS DORMITORY '36Disc 2:JOHNNY APOLLO '40DAYTIME WIFE '39Disc 3:LUCK OF THE IRISH '48I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU '51Disc 4:THAT WONDERFUL URGE '48LOVE IS NEWS '37Disc 5:THIS ABOVE ALL '42SECOND HONEYMOON '37Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS UPC: 024543523444 Manufacturer No: 2252344
The Black Swan
by Henry King
from 20th Century Fox
With a clanging of swords thundering cannons and lots of bravado TYRONE POWER stars in this swashbuckling classic that won an Oscar for its color cinematography.System Requirements:Running Time: 85 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 024543239253 Manufacturer No: 2233925
The Mark of Zorro (Special Edition) (Colorized / Black and White)
by Rouben Mamoulian
from 20th Century Fox
When they say they don't make 'em like they used to, they're talking about 20th Century Fox's exhilarating The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone Power as the caped one, Linda Darnell as his love interest, and Basil Rathbone at his scurrilous best as Zorro's nemesis. More textured than the 1920 original with Douglas Fairbanks, this 1940 version has Don Diego/Zorro (Powers) returning from Madrid to defend his father and rally the caballeros (noblemen) against Los Angeles's corrupt new governor (J. Edward Bromberg), intent on taxing the peons to death.
If this all sounds like an Old California redo of the classic Adventures of Robin Hood, that's because it is. Powers has a field day as Don Diego, the "fancy clown" betrothed to the governor's niece, Lolita (Darnell). Don Diego the effete snob performs silly parlor tricks, peers through pince-nez, and yawns disdainfully at one and all. Power's cowardly alter ego is so believable, his transformation to masked superhero becomes all the more thrilling. Imagine Captain Pasquale's (Rathbone) shock when, in the film's brilliantly choreographed showdown, this annoying fop turns out to be a world-class swordsman.
Director Rouben Mamoulian, known for great period melodramas, does a skillful job of alternating garrison intrigue with big action scenes, including a nighttime ride that climaxes with Zorro on horseback leaping off a bridge. In the romantic highlight, Lolita confides her innermost desires to a suspiciously worldly friar. The first-rate supporting cast includes Gale Sondergaard as the governor's treacherous wife and the frog-voiced Eugene Pallette (Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood) as a padre in cahoots with the masked one. Technically, this retelling rates an unqualified "Wow!" The cinematography, obviously influenced by Goya, makes full use of chiaroscuro shadows, and Alfred Newman's Latin-flavored score is irresistibly rousing and romantic. --Glenn Lovell
This swashbuckling remake of the silent classic stars Tyrone Power as the dashing masked avenger who single-handedly saves Los Angeles from Spanish despots. Don Diego Vega (Power) is summoned home from his elite training corps in Spain to California, where he finds his father deposed and the people living in tyranny. Disguised as Zorro, a sword-wielding mystery man dressed in black, he works to restore his father to power and return the tax money stolen by the villains (J. Edward Bromberg, Basil Rathbone). He even finds time to romance the ruling tyrant's beautiful niece (Linda Darnell).
The Long Gray Line
by John Ford
from Sony Pictures
John Ford pours on the sentiment like syrup in The Long Gray Line, a tribute to the traditions of West Point. Tyrone Power ages 50 years to play real-life West Point legend Martin Maher, the scrappy Irish immigrant who rises from "another Mick waiter" to hot-tempered cadet to one of the best-loved instructors of the institution. Power is at his best as the charming rogue with a thick brogue, who ages into a feisty, gray-haired foster father to the cadets he and his fiery Irish wife (Maureen O'Hara) adopt over the years, among them Harry Carey Jr. (as young Dwight D. Eisenhower). Ford claims he didn't care for CinemaScope, but you wouldn't know it from the handsome, lush images that fill the frame. It lolls along at a lazy 140 minutes, balancing the respectful tributes with boisterous humor and boyish pranks but always centered by the generous heart of Maher. --Sean Axmaker
The Razor's Edge
by Edmund Goulding
from 20th Century Fox
The Somerset Maugham novel should be read by everybody at a certain age (say, early twenties), and this 1946 movie adaptation of The Razor's Edge stays faithful to the book's questing spirit. Despite its apparently uncommercial storyline, it was a pet project of Fox honcho Darryl F. Zanuck, who saw the spiritual journey of Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) as an "adventure" movie. Power, who was newly returned to Hollywood after his military service in World War I, does his most soul-searching work as the WWI vet who needs to find something in life deeper than money and conformity. The search takes him away from fiancee Gene Tierney and her skeptical uncle Clifton Webb and into Parisian streets and Himalayan mountain ranges. Herbert Marshall deftly plays the role of "Somerset Maugham," the observing author, and Anne Baxter picked up the supporting actress Oscar for her brassy turn as a floozy. The picture has the careful, glossy look of the studio system's peak years (you can sense Zanuck "classing it up" and squeezing the life out of it), and Edmund Goulding's tasteful approach is hardly the way to dig deep into the soul of man. If it seems a little staid today, its square sincerity nevertheless holds up well--and it just looks so fabulous. The really amazing thing about the movie is that it was made at all. A 1984 remake, with Bill Murray, is an extremely weird variation on the material. --Robert Horton
Narrated by on-screen observer Maugham (Herbert Marshall), this intriguing tale centers on a soul-searching World War I veteran (Tyrone Power) who finds he can not settle back into the world of the upper class. Shunning his planned marriage and career, he travels abroad to seek the meaning of life and career, he travels abroad to seek the meaning of life and causes his distraght fiancee (GeneTierney) to seek solace with another man (John Payne).
The Eddy Duchin Story
by George Sidney (II)
from Sony Pictures
Tyrone Power Collection (Blood and Sand / Son of Fury / The Black Rose / Prince of Foxes / The Captain from Castile)
from 20th Century Fox
This DVD boxed set shows Tyrone Power as Twentieth Century Fox (that is, Fox head honcho Darryl F. Zanuck) saw him: handsome, dashing, prone to swordplay and adventure. Zanuck's instincts were in tune with what audiences wanted to see from Ty Power, and the athletic actor was one of Hollywood's most popular stars from the late 1930s through his exit for WWII service--and he remained popular in the late 1940s, although he chafed at his limited casting opportunities. The real Tyrone Power may well have been more interesting than these movies suggest, although you wouldn't know it: he comes across as earnest, square, and unfailingly attractive.
The earliest film in the set is the 1941 Blood and Sand, a Technicolor-crazed remake of the old Rudolph Valentino silent picture. Power plays a hotshot matador caught between Linda Darnell's faithful wife and Rita Hayworth's naughty femme fatale (Anthony Quinn scores nicely in a small role as a super-cool rival matador). Director Rouben Mamoulian's operatic style meshes well with the milieu, even if the movie is paced operatically at times. Son of Fury (1942) bounds into the realm of 19th-century costume adventure, with Power out to wrest his rightful inheritance from scoundrel George Sanders, juggling high-class lady Frances Farmer and South Seas maiden Gene Tierney along the way. This crazy plot is ably directed by John Cromwell, and Alfred Newman's Polynesian love theme is well-nigh irresistible.
Captain from Castile is a lavish postwar production that reestablished Power as an adventure hero. Stunning location photography in Mexico (including a real volcano in mid-eruption, which figures evocatively in the late going) makes this one a scenic feast, even if the plot is standard potboiler stuff: Spanish nobleman Power escapes the Inquisition by signing on with Cortez (Cesar Romero) and his New World expedition. Castile was directed by Henry King, and King also made Prince of Foxes (1950), bringing a foursquare approach that emphasizes the somewhat stodgy period feel of both films. However, Prince has a secret weapon: Orson Welles plays power-hungry Cesare Borgia and steals every scene he's in. Tyrone Power already appears older than his 35 years (he would in fact die at age 44, while filming Solomon and Sheba), and he looks dazzled by Welles' prowess.
Welles is back in The Black Rose, a lively Boys' Own Adventure yarn from 1950. Here Power and Jack Hawkins leave 13th-century England for a wild trip to Mongolia and China, signing on to the service of the brutal warlord played by Welles. Director Henry Hathaway gets the most out of the extensive location shooting, and Welles makes a meal of his role. It's a fun movie that shows the appeal, and some of the limitations, of Tyrone Power in his signature style. --Robert Horton
Disc 1: Captain from Castile Disc 2: Black Rose Disc 3: Blood and Sand Disc 4: Prince of Foxes Disc 5: Son of Fury
Jesse James
by Irving Cummings
from 20th Century Fox
The legend of Jesse James stars Tyrone Power as the most infamous bandit in the history of the West. Jesse James was a young Missouri farmer forced outside the law after ruthless agents for the transcontinental railroad kill his ailing mother and steal his family's land. Together with his brother Frank (Henry Fonda) Jesse forms a gang of masked outlaws to strike back at the railroad company and the banks that have joined forces to swindle the oppressed farmers.System Requirements:Running Time: 106 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 024543244424 Manufacturer No: 2234442
No studio was better than Darryl Zanuck's 20th Century-Fox at dishing out lovingly textured Americana, of which this movie is a prime example. The outlaw gets canonized as an American Robin Hood, an honest farmer who, with post-Civil War Missouri overrun by corrupt agents of the Railroad, had no choice but to start robbing banks and trains to achieve a measure of social justice the System wouldn't provide. Tyrone Power as Jesse is quietly out-acted by Fox's emerging star Henry Fonda as brother Frank. The supporting cast is solid--Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, Brian Donlevy, John Carradine (as Bob Ford), Jane Darwell, Donald Meek--but the liveliest thing in the movie is Henry Hull, playing a newspaperman whose editorials invariably prescribe that whomever he's denouncing be "taken out and shot like dawgs." Fonda, Hull, and Carradine re-created their roles the following year in The Return of Frank James. --Richard T. Jameson
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