Vinson, Helen

The Kennel Murder Case

The Wedding Night

In this Samuel Goldwyn production directed by King Vidor the studio's intent was to make Russian-born Anna Sten a star but it didn't succeed.Sten plays Manya Nowak a Polish farm girl attracted to Tony Barrett (Gary Cooper) a novelist with writer's block who has retreated to a Connecticut farmhouse to find his muse. Barrett's wife Dora (Helen Vinson) misses the city and returns there while Tony decides to use Manya as a character in his next novel.They become friends and Tony learns that her straightlaced father Jan (Sigfried Rumann) has betrothed Manya to Fredrik Sobieski (Ralph Bellamy) whom she does not love. Manya and Tony spend a chaste night together when a blizzard shuts them in. Her father drags her home and demands that she marry Fredrik immediately. Many arguments and disagreements ensueFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 027616075369 Manufacturer No: M107538

One of the lesser-known satisfactions in Gary Cooper's career is this 1935 King Vidor film, an offbeat blend of romance, comedy, and tragedy. It begins in screwball territory: Cooper plays a novelist whose partying ways have stalled his career and made his new manuscript unpublishable. He and wife Helen Vinson like the high life (any resemblance to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is probably intentional), and she doesn't stick around while he tries to write a new book in a quiet Connecticut country house. The isolation puts him into proximity with a heartfelt young immigrant girl (Anna Sten), whose Polish community provides a subject for his new book.

If you think Cooper was a merely the High Noon guy, a lanky Western hero, this is one of the movies (among many) that dispel the idea: his utter naturalness is a gold standard for a certain kind of movie-star acting. Directing him on the set the first day, Vidor worried about the star's mumbling and forgetfulness with dialogue. "Imagine my amazement," Vidor later wrote, "when I watched our first day's work on the screen and observed and heard a performance that overflowed with charm and personality." Anna Sten was another issue: the Russian actress had been brought to the U.S. with great fanfare by producer Samuel Goldwyn, because he wanted to have his own foreign Garbo/Dietrich under contract. Her cool presence failed to generate audience interest, and Goldwyn gave up on her after The Wedding Night. She's a problem, but Cooper keeps it going, and the movie itself is unexpectedly warm. --Robert Horton

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

Classic fact-based drama about an innocent man brutally victimized by the Depression-era criminal justice system.Running Time: 93 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569701021

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is one of the toughest and most uncompromising movies to ever come out of Hollywood. Paul Muni stars as a regular Joe, just back from World War I, who is unjustly convicted of a crime and sentenced to 10 years of bruisingly unfair treatment on a chain gang. Even a successful escape can't shake the spectre of the chains, nor the amazingly fatalistic twists the screenplay has in store. This picture could only have been made at Warner Bros., where social-justice movies flourished in the 1930s and criticism of judicial systems and prisons was sanctioned. Muni's weird acting style (he was recently off Scarface) somehow fits the film's furious tone, and director Mervyn LeRoy--as in his earlier Little Caesar--was dexterous enough to build the action to an unforgettable ending. It's a film that filters the American Dream through Depression realities and noirish pessimism (with a streak of pre-Code sexual frankness--note the one-night "friend" Muni makes the night of his escape). This one holds up, folks; it's a stunner. --Robert Horton

Broadway Bill

Sick of Higgins' controlling nature, Dan finally decides to stand up for himself. Quitting his job as manager of a factory owned by J.L., Dan dedicates all of his time to his racing horse, Broadway Bill, in hopes that he can profit from his trusty steed. Arrested for not repaying a supplier he owed money to, Dan must rely on the success of Broadway Bill to bail him out.

Beyond Christmas (1940)

No Description Available.
Genre: Christmas
Rating: NR
Release Date: 12-OCT-2004
Media Type: DVD

Torrid Zone

Banana Company executive Steve Case on a Caribean plantation group tries to convince his former co-worker Nick Butler to take over the plantation No 7. But he is on his way to Chicago to take over a job as a manager for another company himself. He has also troubles with US night-club singer Lee Donley whom he wants aboard a ship back to the US and rebel Rosario. He is able to get Nick to the plantation but is he able to keep him there or will he leave it in a few days with Gloria the wife of the former exectutive of No 7 Mr. Anderson?System Requirements:Runtime: 88 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 012569796683 Manufacturer No: 79668

If it ain't the heat it's the humidity--and the humor--that makes Torrid Zone one of the funniest movies that James Cagney ever starred in. This one's a real treat, clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes with rapid-fire double-entendres, tropical banana-republic atmosphere (courtesy of the great cinematographer James Wong Howe), and a satirical send-up of just about every south-of-the-border stereotype that Hollywood ever perpetuated. Cagney borrowed Cesar Romero's mustache for his energetic role as Nick Butler, a smooth operator in Honduras (or rather, the Warner Bros. backlot version of Honduras) who's the best banana plantation foreman in the business. Big-shot plantation owner Steve Case (played by Cagney's favorite costar, Pat O'Brien) needs Nick's magic touch to deliver his crop on time, but there's a few complications: Not only is Nick trading gunfire with a local revolutionary (played to the hilt by George Tobias), but he's quite happily distracted by Lee Donley (Ann Sheridan), a savvy chanteuse who can hold her own--and a slick deck of cards--with the big boys. Add some generous comic support from Andy Devine as an incompetent plantation-hand, and additional mischief from Helen Vinson as a sultry seductress (is their any other kind?), and you've got a hot date for fun in the sun.

Cagney's clearly having a blast with his frequent director William Keighley, and Sheridan keeps her costars on their toes, performing a zesty nightclub routine and effortlessly earning her title as Hollywood's "Oomph Girl," a nickname that originated with Warner's well-orchestrated 1939 publicity campaign that made her a star. Available separately or as part of the James Cagney Signature Collection, this first-rate comedy comes with a variety of Warner Bros.' "Night at the Movies 1940" short subjects, recreating the 1940 moviegoing experience with musical short featuring Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra, the historical short "Pony Express Days," and the Oscar-nominated Bugs Bunny cartoon "A Wild Hare." Two 1940 movie trailers are also included, for The Torrid Zone (which critics compared favorably to the comedy classic The Front Page) and the Errol Flynn warped-history adventure Santa Fe Trail. --Jeff Shannon

Beyond Tomorrow

Beyond Tomorrow

Hollywood Sleuths: The Kennel Murder Case/Nancy Drew...Reporter

Scrooge and Beyond Tomorrow

135 minute double feature film DVD.