Tushingham, Rita

Doctor Zhivago (Two-Disc Special Edition)

David Lean focused all his talent as an epic-maker on Boris Pasternak's sweeping novel about a doctor-poet in revolutionary Russia. The results may sometimes veer toward soap opera, especially with the screen frequently filled with adoring close-ups of Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, but Lean's gift for cramming the screen with spectacle is not to be denied. The streets of Moscow, the snowy steppes of Russia, the house in the country taken over by ice; these are re-created with Lean's unerring sense of grandness. The movie is so lush and so long that it becomes an irresistible wallow, even when logic suffers--like Gone with the Wind before it and Titanic after. Sharif, who achieved stardom in Lean's previous film, Lawrence of Arabia, mostly looks noble, but the supporting cast is spiky: Rod Steiger as a fat-cat monster, Tom Courtenay as a self-righteous revolutionary, and Klaus Kinski and Alec Guinness in smaller roles. Geraldine Chaplin, in her adult debut, plays the doctor's compliant wife. Robert Bolt's screenplay won one of the film's five Oscars, with another going to perhaps the most immediately recognizable element of the movie: Maurice Jarre's romantic music, with its hugely popular "Lara's Theme" weaving in and out of a swooning score. --Robert Horton

An Awfully Big Adventure

Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman star in director Mike Newell's (Four Weddings and a Funeral) engaging comedy about a star-struck young girl lured into the grown-up world of the theater. From a crush on the company's heartless director to her first sexual encounter with the show's biggest star young Stella Bradshaw quickly discovers what it takes to make it in the theater. An intriguing blend of comedy and passion this provocative story is a hilarious look at what really goes on when the lights go down.Running Time: 113 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 794043785825

The Knack... and How to Get It

Fresh from the playfully exuberant A Hard Day's Night (1964), director Richard Lester applies the same acrobatic, tongue-in-cheek style to this delightfully frivolous take on swinging London and the sexual revolution. Gawky young Michael Crawford is a meek landlord who vies with his ladies-man lodger Ray Brooks for the attentions of spirited funny-face Rita Tushingham, whom he literally picks up while pushing his new brass bed through the streets of London. Lester floats his sweet nothing of a goofy romance with an offbeat sense of humor, a compendium of sight gags and non sequiturs stirred in with devil-may-care spirit, and a pair of winning leads. Crawford's underdog desperation and endearing naiveté makes for an appealingly nerdish hero, but it's Tushingham's kooky charm and deft comic delivery that steal the film. A lovely score by John Barry balances the energy and invention with a tender romanticism. --Sean Axmaker

You either have it or you don't. The knack, that is, of seduction! From the director of the Beatles movies A Hard Day's Night and Help! comes this inventive and hilarious (Time) romp through love and sex in 1960's London. Featuring Richard Lester's frenetic filmmaking stylecareening from slapstick to serious to avant-gardethis genuinely dazzling (Los Angeles Times) film is a mod masterpiece! Cool and sophisticated Tolen (Ray Brooks) has a monopoly on womanizingwith a long line of conquests to prove itwhile the naïve and awkward Colin (Michael Crawford) desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl (Rita Tushingham), it's not long before the self-assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war, or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?

Gospel According To Harry

Combining the theatrical surrealism of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, the pop-art playfulness of Richard Lester, scathing social critique, genuine pathos and the mind-boggling imagery for which writer-director Lech Majewski (The Garden of Earthly Delights) is renowned, Gospel According to Harry is a wholly original cinematic tour de force. Years before the Lord of the Rings trilogy catapulted him to international superstardom, Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises, A History of Violence) played Wes, a young husband locked in co-dependent discontent with his beautiful and needy wife Karen (Jennifer Rubin The Doors, Nightmare On Elm Street III). Their future prospects as barren as the sun-bleached dunes that are the surreal setting for their one room existence, Wes and Karen go through the dehumanizing motions of a modern life in which happiness is as ephemeral and elusive as the grains of sand beneath their feet. Boasting a remarkable cast, including 60 s British film icon Rita Tushingham (Doctor Zhivago, The Knack and How to Get It), haunting visuals, and incisive wit, Gospel According to Harry which was produced for David Lynch s Propaganda Films is at last ready for discovery, available here for the first time on DVD or any format.

Special Features:
- Feature-length Audio Commentary by Lech Majewski
- Biography of Lech Majewski
- Optional French Subtitles

Girl With Green Eyes

OscarÂ(r) winner* "Peter Finch is excellent" (Judith Crist) and Golden GlobeÂ(r) winner** Rita Tushingham is "entirely captivating" (The Hollywood Reporter) in this bittersweetstory of an extraordinary romance. Beautifully scripted, brilliantly directed and superbly acted, this "charming and rueful movie" (The New Yorker) "goes straight to the heart" (The Herald Examiner)! He barely noticed her the first time they met but with one glance, this naïve Irish farm girl drew him to her side. She's not beautiful, not sophisticated, and far too young for a man of his years, but she has torn him from his solitude and set his soul on fire. Yet now, even as she moves into his Dublin home and he commits to her, he knows he can never fulfill her girlishnotions of love nor satisfy the yearning in those haunting, hungry eyes. *1976: Actor, Network **1962: New Star of the Year, A Taste of Honey

Dream to Believe

Doctor Zhivago

David Lean focused all his talent as an epic-maker on Boris Pasternak's sweeping novel about a doctor-poet in revolutionary Russia. The results may sometimes veer toward soap opera, especially with the screen frequently filled with adoring close-ups of Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, but Lean's gift for cramming the screen with spectacle is not to be denied. The streets of Moscow, the snowy steppes of Russia, the house in the country taken over by ice; these are re-created with Lean's unerring sense of grandness. The movie is so lush and so long that it becomes an irresistible wallow, even when logic suffers--like Gone with the Wind before it and Titanic after. Sharif, who achieved stardom in Lean's previous film, Lawrence of Arabia, mostly looks noble, but the supporting cast is spiky: Rod Steiger as a fat-cat monster, Tom Courtenay as a self-righteous revolutionary, and Klaus Kinski and Alec Guinness in smaller roles. Geraldine Chaplin, in her adult debut, plays the doctor's compliant wife. Robert Bolt's screenplay won one of the film's five Oscars, with another going to perhaps the most immediately recognizable element of the movie: Maurice Jarre's romantic music, with its hugely popular "Lara's Theme" weaving in and out of a swooning score. --Robert Horton

The Human Factor

John Kinsdale (Academy Award winner George Kennedy Cool Hand Luke The Dirty Dozen) is a devout family man working as a NATO computer specialist in Naples Italy. When political terrorists kill his entire family John uses his technological prowess to track and hunt down the cold-blooded killers. Trying to prevent him from taking the law into his own hands are a local police inspector (Raf Vallone) a U.S. military commander (Arthur Franz) and peers MacAllister (Sir John Mills) and Janice (Rita Tushingham). But nothing can prevent John from meting out his bloody brand of grief-stricken revenge.Directed by Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny Mirage) and featuring a haunting soundtrack by legendary composer Ennio Morricone The Human Factor is the violent but emotional saga of an ordinary man pushed beyond the limits.The Kennedy Factor: An Interview with George KennedyTV SpotStill GalleryFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 030306812694 Manufacturer No: 81269-7

Smashing Time

Straight on Till Morning

The gothic horror of Hammer Films gets a mod update in this interesting curio, directed by the erratic Peter Collinson (The Italian Job). Rita Tushingham is a Liverpool girl, slightly soft in the head, who travels to London determined to get pregnant. Unfortunately (or perhaps not), she meets a blond psycho (Shane Briant), who installs her in his mod '60s pad--he calls himself "Peter" and her "Wendy," sustaining the Peter Pan theme of the title. The ideas here seem borrowed from those key British thrillers Peeping Tom and The Collector, and the editing style is clearly influenced by the disorientation of Performance. And yet there's something out of control about this picture, something authentically weird. In one scene Tushingham pretties herself up in what may be the ugliest make-over in screen history. Jazz singer Annie Ross, who also contributes a wispy song, appears in a small role. --Robert Horton