Venable, Evelyn

Pinocchio (Disney Gold Classic Collection)

This Disney masterpiece from 1940 will hold up forever precisely because it doesn't restrain or temper the most elemental emotions and themes germane to its story. Based on the Collodi tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, Pinocchio is among the most magical, mythical, and frightening films to come from the studio in its long history. A number of scenes make permanent impressions on young minds (just ask Steven Spielberg, who quoted the film more than once in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the songs ("When You Wish upon a Star") can't be beat. --Tom Keogh

Disney's second full length movie after Snow White. Delightful, hand-drawn images.

Meet Joe Black (Ultimate Edition)

Meet Joe Black seemed almost fated to fail when it was released in 1998, but this romantic fantasy--a remake of 1934's Death Takes a Holiday--deserves a chance at life after box-office death. Although many moviegoers were turned off by director Martin Brest's overindulgent three-hour running time, those who gear into its deliberate pace will find that Meet Joe Black offers ample reward for your attention.

Brad Pitt plays Death with a capital D, enjoying some time on Earth by inhabiting the body of a young man who'd been killed in a shockingly sudden pedestrian-auto impact. Before long, Death has ingratiated himself with a wealthy industrialist (Anthony Hopkins) and pursues romance with the man's beautiful daughter (newcomer Claire Forlani), whom he'd briefly encountered while still an earthbound human. Under the assumed identity of "Joe Black," he samples all the pleasures that corporeal life has to offer--power, romance, sex, and such enticing pleasures as peanut butter by the spoonful.

But Death has a job to do, and Meet Joe Black addresses the heart-wrenching dilemma that arises when either father or daughter (the plot keeps us guessing) must confront his or her inevitable demise. The film takes its own sweet time to establish this emotional crisis and the love that binds Hopkins's semidysfunctional family so closely together. But if you've stuck with the story this far, you may find yourself surprisingly affected. And if Meet Joe Black has really won you over, you'll more than appreciate the care and affection that gives the film a depth and richness that so many critics chose to ignore. --Jeff Shannon

Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) has it all - success, wealth and power. Days before his 65th birthday, he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger, Joe Black (Brad Pitt), who soon reveals himself as Death. In exchange for extra time, Bill agrees to serve as Joe's earthly guide. But will he regret his choice when Joe unexpectedly falls in love with Bill's beautiful daughter Susan (Claire Forlani).

Alice Adams

Hollywood's ability to conjure up a bittersweet small town (on the studio back lot, to be sure) has rarely been on better display than in Alice Adams, a gentle adaptation of a Booth Tarkington novel. For that matter, Katharine Hepburn rarely had a better chance to radiate her early youthful glow. She plays the title character, a lonely misfit who tries--too hard--to fit in with the snooty debutantes in her class-conscious town. Fred MacMurray is the suitor who miraculously feels comfortable in the front-porch swing of the faded Adams home. In the exquisitely timed comedy of MacMurray's miserable dinner with Alice's family, director George Stevens displays the tools he learned directing Laurel and Hardy two-reelers, and the sequence becomes a funny-painful classic of social embarrassment. Hepburn's performance, whether Alice is chattering pretentiously or briefly lowering her guard and revealing her loneliness, is simply incandescent. --Robert Horton

The Little Colonel

In the post Civil War South an embittered old southern gent (Lionel Barrymore) turns his back on his daughter (Evelyn Venable) when she marries the "wrong man." Years later the daughter returns with her husband and youn daughter (Shirley Temple) the latter of whom manages to mend the broken family ties. She does this by charming him with several charming song and dance numbers as well as her irresistible personality.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: NR UPC: 024543368717 Manufacturer No: 2236871

Shirley Temple is at her plucky peak in this film. She bests legend Lionel Barrymore: literally (her credit is above his) and figuratively (as her character softens his). The Little Colonel is set in the post-Civil War South. Little Lloyd Sherman hopes to reunite her mother, Elizabeth Lloyd (Evelyn Venable), with her stern Confederate Civil War veteran grandfather, Colonel Lloyd (Barrymore). Six years earlier, Lloyd's mother had run away to marry Yankee Jack Sherman (John Lodge). Now the young family hopes to return to Elizabeth's plantation home.

Like The Littlest Rebel, made the same year (1935), the film has questionable politics, featuring a supplicant Mom Becky (the formidable future Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel) and a poor-spelling butler, Walker (Bill "BoJangles" Robinson). But Temple, as sweetly energetic little Lloyd, is affectionate with both, as well as with her African American playmates, May Lily (Avonnie Jackson) and Henry Clay (Nyanza Potts). (Temple apparently shared the sentiment in real life, and once said Robinson was her favorite costar.) The Little Colonel features the amazing dance number with Temple and Robinson merrily tapping up and down a staircase. --N.F. Mendoza

Hollywood Stadium Mystery

A boxing match at the Hollywood Stadium turns into a gripping murder mystery with over 2,000 suspects! As top contender Ace Cummings prepares to take on Madison, the reigning champ, Madison, the house lights dim. Suddenly, a scream echoes through the venue and a peculiar odor fills the air. When the lights come up, Ace is found dead. After witnessing the bizarre event, sassy and beautiful young writer Polly Ward decides to investigate, teaming up with dapper district attorney Bill Devons. Their long list of suspects includes a candy-seller, a gambler, a movie star, two of the victim's girlfriends and the boxer Madison. Clues are scarce, but the sleuths work every angle. As Polly and Bill draw closer to discovering the killer, their lives are threatened and the danger becomes frighteningly real. Rife with snappy dialogue, brisk pacing, and sharp performances, The Hollywood Stadium Mystery (a.k.a. The Stadium Murders) is a tightly-executed whodunit and a fine example of what smaller studios were capable of during Hollywood's golden era. The opening credit sequence is particularly inventive with its clever use of newspaper headlines to kick off the action. Director David Howard handles the mystery genre with panache, despite a career that centered mostly on adventures and western films like Six-Gun Gold, Painted Desert and Daniel Boone. Neil Hamilton later gained fame as white-haired Commissioner Gordon in the 1966 TV-series "Batman." The ringside radio commentator in The Hollywood Stadium Mystery was Jimmy Wallington, a real-life announcer whose voice was heard on such programs as "The Life Of Riley" and "Stranger Than Fiction."

Will Rogers Collection 2 (Ambassador Bill / David Harum / Mr Skitch / Too Busy to Work)

This collection of films featuring the ever-popular entertainer Will Rogers includes the titles AMBASSADOR BILL DAVID HARUM MR. SKITCH and TOO BUSY TO WORK. See individual titles for details.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC UPC: 024543399230 Manufacturer No: 2239923

Movie fans unfamiliar with the great wit of Will Rogers are in for a treat. The second volume of the Will Rogers Collection features some of Rogers' lesser-known talkie titles, but all showcase the humor and plainspokenness that America in the '20s and '30s ate up by the heaping spoonful. Included in this set are Ambassador Bill (1931), a Marx Brothers-esque romp through the world of international relations; David Harum (1934), in which Rogers plays horse race enthusiast betting on revenge against those who've pull fast ones on him; Mr. Skitch (1933), with the bubbly Zazu Pitts as Rogers' wife, a screwball comedy of the highest order; and Too Busy to Work (1932), in which Rogers re-creates his fan-fave role as Jubilo, a '30s-era hobo who tramps from town to town, avoiding work while trying to track down news of his missing family. The films are as valuable for their snapshots of the early years of the Depression as they are as showcases for the humor of Rogers. The boxed set includes several small, not-to-be-missed featurettes, including "Jane Withers Remembers," all of which are a tribute to a golden bygone era. "People are kind of funny," says Rogers as Jubilo. "They'll believe any kind of a lie if it sounds like the truth, but they won't believe the truth if it sounds like a lie." --A.T. Hurley

Female Fugitive

Happy Go Lucky (1936)

A singer (Venable) believes her marine pilot husband, accused of treason, has died in the Pacific. She decides to take a singing job in Shanghai, and finds a man who looks exactly like her husband dancing in a club act. Realizing it is her husband, and thinking he must have amnesia, she sets out to help him recover his memory and clear his name.

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Pinocchio [Region 2]

This Disney masterpiece from 1940 will hold up forever precisely because it doesn't restrain or temper the most elemental emotions and themes germane to its story. Based on the Collodi tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, Pinocchio is among the most magical, mythical, and frightening films to come from the studio in its long history. A number of scenes make permanent impressions on young minds (just ask Steven Spielberg, who quoted the film more than once in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the songs ("When You Wish upon a Star") can't be beat. --Tom Keogh

Pinocchio [Region 2]

This Disney masterpiece from 1940 will hold up forever precisely because it doesn't restrain or temper the most elemental emotions and themes germane to its story. Based on the Collodi tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, Pinocchio is among the most magical, mythical, and frightening films to come from the studio in its long history. A number of scenes make permanent impressions on young minds (just ask Steven Spielberg, who quoted the film more than once in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the songs ("When You Wish upon a Star") can't be beat. --Tom Keogh