Rudley, Herbert

The Court Jester

Kaye plays a court jester who becomes involved with outlaws trying to overthrow the king.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 2-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVD

Danny Kaye spoofs Robin Hood and Scaramouche in this inventive slapstick swashbuckler. Portraying the clownish but good-hearted entertainer Hawkins, he infiltrates the court of the corrupt Basil Rathbone (up to his usual brand of cruel villainy) disguised as the legendary king of jesters, Giacomo. After a court sorceress hypnotizes Hawkins into believing he is also a legendary assassin, Hawkins has more identities than he can keep straight, and Kaye zips back and forth between them at, literally, a snap of the fingers. Comic highlights include a wonderful sword fight with Rathbone in which he constantly switches identities, and the classic "chalice from the palace/vessel with pestle" wordplay as Hawkins plays "hide the poison" and forgets where it is. With comely Glynis Johns as his spy-in-arms love interest, Angela Lansbury as the scheming princess, and Mildred Natwick as the dotty spellcaster, this is Danny Kaye at his comic best. --Sean Axmaker

Follow That Dream

Elvis Presley is at his dreamboat peak in this musical comedy that finds the sexy star crooning five original songs in an amusing and fast-paced (Variety) romp boasting a delightful mixture of songs romance humor and good old homespun warmth (Citizen-News)!When his scheming pop decides to homestead the family on a public beach Toby Kwimper (Presley) digs the exotic setting but hates the attention he is suddenly receiving. Though he just wants to play his guitar Toby finds himself up to his baby blues in trouble with government bureaucrats crime bosses and even two smitten kittens an adopted little sister who feels more than sisterly love for him and a social worker with more than his welfare on her mind!System Requirements: Running Time 109 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 027616903969 Manufacturer No: 1006194

Elvis hadn't dyed his hair a permanent midnight black yet in Follow That Dream, which is another way of saying this is still the point in his career when he was making movies, not just Elvis Presley vehicles. Elvis road-trips with his crabby, anti-government pop (Arthur O'Connell) and an adopted brood to a Florida beach, which by a legal quirk they can homestead. The authorities and some fairly unbelievable gangsters would like to stop them. The songs are undistinguished but not awful, the scenery is nice, and Elvis--looking well-fed and relaxed--shows off good comedic chops doing a dumb-guy shtick. Screenwriter Charles Lederer and director Gordon Douglas are a class act by Presley picture standards, keeping the sitcom-style plot moving along. No fancy clothes or cars in this one, just Elvis and some beachcombing and an old git-tar, and not a bad time-killer for all that. --Robert Horton

The Young Lions

One of the most thoughtful films about World War II, this 1958 Edward Dmytryk (The Left Hand of God) drama, based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, tells parallel stories of two American soldiers (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) and one German officer (Marlon Brando), whose war experiences we follow until they intersect outside a concentration camp. Martin plays what he calls "a likable coward," Clift is intense as a Jewish GI, and Brando experiments with the limits of his part as a Nazi reevaluating his beliefs. Legend has it that Clift accused Brando of bleeding-heart excessiveness. Interestingly, the two Method actors share no scenes together. --Tom Keogh

The Bravados

During his Twentieth Century Fox contract years, Gregory Peck looked to veteran director Henry King as something of a father figure and gave two of his best performances--in Twelve O'Clock High (1949) and The Gunfighter (1950)--for him. The Bravados (1958) isn't in that league, but it's a surprisingly tough film from the flabby CinemaScope years when the studio, director, and star all seemed to be floundering.

Peck plays Jim Douglass, a dark, haunted man who rides into a Southwest border town on the eve of a hanging. The bad men set for the drop (Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva) are the same ones he's been pursuing for the rape and murder of his wife. Douglass isn't happy about leaving it to the law to carry out his vengeance--and so there's a certain bleak satisfaction when the quartet busts out of jail, and he becomes the best hope for hunting them down.

Perversity wasn't King's long suit, so Philip Yordan's screenplay about a hero turning more sinister than the outlaws he's chasing never acquires the demonic power or ironic flair that an Anthony Mann, Fritz Lang, or Robert Aldrich might have lent it. Yet the very foursquareness of King's style and approach--and Peck's earnest efforts to fight through his accustomed stolidity to hit the necessary notes of desperation and finally shame--make for a fascination all their own. Joan Collins hovers handsomely on the periphery as an old friend ready to redeem Douglass, and Joe (Curly Joe-to-be) De Rita makes an uncredited appearance as the hangman. --Richard T. Jameson

Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) rides into town the night before the hanging of four outlaws. He's been on their trail, believing they raped and killed his wife. But hours before the execution, the four escape, taking a beautiful young woman hostage. Now it

Elvis Presley MGM Movie Legends Collection (Clambake / Frankie and Johnny / Follow That Dream / Kid Galahad)

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 24-JUL-2007
Media Type: DVD

Walk in Sun (1945) (B&W)

Alongside larger-scaled epics, this 1945 drama looks modest, but director Lewis Milestone achieves a gritty realism that is ultimately closer to the truth of combat. A World War I veteran, Milestone had already created a classic war film--and powerful antiwar statement--in 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front, focusing on German troops in the trenches during "the Great War." For obvious reasons, A Walk in the Sun views the action from the perspective of American troops, but Milestone and a strong cast headed by Dana Andrews and Richard Conte prove remarkably clear-eyed in this chronicle of a platoon moving through the Italian countryside following the successful, but bloody, invasion of Italy. There's little of the cheerleading fervor or reflexive demonizing of the enemy visible in other films from the period; instead, the men's treacherous odyssey captures the sense of random chaos as their bucolic trek is interrupted by sudden skirmishes. We're shown the deep bonds forged between the soldiers, the loss of innocence that is the inevitable price of combat experience, and the capricious fates that can spare one soldier while exterminating another. Milestone would extend his mastery of wartime fiction to include the Korean War, captured in the equally fine, equally sobering Pork Chop Hill. --Sam Sutherland

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  ALPHA VIDEO Packaging:  DVD STYLE BOX Sgt. Tyne (Dana Andrews) becomes the leader of his platoon after their lieutenant is killed in battle near Salerno. Reluctantly he guides his men through combat incurring heavy losses as they see action unlike anything they've known before. The one stumbling block on their march to Rome is a farmhouse where the Germans have holed up to mount a defense. As the platoon repels the enemy in brutal skirmishes the men form a bond between battles that's summed up by their repeated motivational phrase: "Nobody dies." This riveting war drama is considered by many to be the best World War II movie ever made. Director Lewis Milestone (All Quiet On The Western Front) delivers an unsentimental funny first-rate character study framed in action and filled with tense reflection and hard-fought conclusions culminating in the blood-curdling final assault on the German-held farmhouse. Unflinching and honest this is compelling war drama with realistic dialogue and marvelous acting from Andrews and cast. Based on a novel by Harry Brown.Starring: Dana Andrews John Ireland & Lloyd BridgesDirected by: Lewis MilestoneScreenplay by: Robert Rossen DVD Details: Run Time: 117 minutesNumber of Discs: 1Originally Released in 1945Black & WhiteNo region encoding; For global distribution.

Falling in Love Again

The big selling point of this film is spelled out immediately in the credits: "And introducing Michelle Pfeiffer as Sue Wellington." It also gives one pause to consider that Pfeiffer's career may have never evolved had she not had a passing resemblance to a young Susannah York. York, who aided, abetted, and produced this clunker, plays Sue Lewis, wife of Harry Lewis. Harry (Elliott Gould) is a businessman living in the past. The past he's reliving is the New York of 1944, where he and his buddies conspired to get him set up with the best-looking girl in the boroughs, Sue Wellington. It's only a slight moment of prophecy, but the first time Pfeiffer appears on screen she has a halo around her head. The rest is a loping Bowery Boys comedy that tries to turn serious at the end but just ends up the epitome of bathos. The best reason to get this is to fall in love again with the girl who would be Catwoman. --Keith Simanton

Crime Wave / Decoy (Film Noir Double Feature)

A hardboiled cop: Sterling Hayden (The Asphalt Jungle) heads an L.A. manhunt in Crime Wave. A drop-dead dame femme fatale Jean Gille revives her hunk from the dead (!) because he knows where the loot is buried in Decoy.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085391150244 Manufacturer No: 115024

A Walk in the Sun

Alongside larger-scaled epics, this 1945 drama looks modest, but director Lewis Milestone achieves a gritty realism that is ultimately closer to the truth of combat. A World War I veteran, Milestone had already created a classic war film--and powerful antiwar statement--in 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front, focusing on German troops in the trenches during "the Great War." For obvious reasons, A Walk in the Sun views the action from the perspective of American troops, but Milestone and a strong cast headed by Dana Andrews and Richard Conte prove remarkably clear-eyed in this chronicle of a platoon moving through the Italian countryside following the successful, but bloody, invasion of Italy. There's little of the cheerleading fervor or reflexive demonizing of the enemy visible in other films from the period; instead, the men's treacherous odyssey captures the sense of random chaos as their bucolic trek is interrupted by sudden skirmishes. We're shown the deep bonds forged between the soldiers, the loss of innocence that is the inevitable price of combat experience, and the capricious fates that can spare one soldier while exterminating another. Milestone would extend his mastery of wartime fiction to include the Korean War, captured in the equally fine, equally sobering Pork Chop Hill. --Sam Sutherland

The Young Lions

One of the most thoughtful films about World War II, this 1958 Edward Dmytryk (The Left Hand of God) drama, based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, tells parallel stories of two American soldiers (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) and one German officer (Marlon Brando), whose war experiences we follow until they intersect outside a concentration camp. Martin plays what he calls "a likable coward," Clift is intense as a Jewish GI, and Brando experiments with the limits of his part as a Nazi reevaluating his beliefs. Legend has it that Clift accused Brando of bleeding-heart excessiveness. Interestingly, the two Method actors share no scenes together. --Tom Keogh