Young, Robert

Father Knows Best: Season One

Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music) Release Date: 04/01/2008 Run time: 660 minutes

It's telling that this family favorite began on radio as Father Knows Best? When the show came to CBS in 1954, the question mark disappeared. Contrary to popular opinion, however, Springfield, Ohio, insurance agent Jim Anderson (Emmy winner Robert Young) doesn't have all the answers. He and his wife, Margaret (fellow Emmy winner Jane Wyatt), come close, though. Were the show in production now, Anderson wouldn't smoke, but Father Knows Best reflects the standards of its time--separate beds and all. The sweet-natured pilot sets the tone when 14-year-old Bud (Billy Gray) frets about the school dance until Jim arranges for his 17-year-old sister, Betty (Elinor Donahue), to show him some steps. Other storylines revolve around community service and feeling needed, while "Thanksgiving Day" offers a glimpse of Jim's imperfect side when he dismisses a poem written by nine-year-old Kathy (Laurin Chapin), who overhears him; he realizes he was holding Kitten to impossible standards. As Chapin notes in the bonus interview (in which Donahue also features), the primary themes were cooperation and forgiveness. Naysayers can knock Father Knows Best for being square, but it espouses timeless values. And who's to say the lingo wasn't hip for the 1950s? Colorful examples include "goobers," "criminy," "creepers," "knot-head," and "simply utterly."

On the downside, these 26 episodes appear in unrestored, syndicated condition. Fortunately, the show doesn't look too bad for its age and abundant extras compensate, like special 1959 savings bond episode 24 Hours in Tyrantland and Young's home movies and behind-the-scenes footage, both with low-key narration by grandson Bill Proffitt. After Young put Father Knows Best to rest, he segued to 1960's Window on Main Street (this set includes the pilot) before scoring another hit with Marcus Welby, M.D.. Donahue followed suit with The Andy Griffith Show and Wyatt with Star Trek. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 3 (Charlie Chan's Secret / Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo / Charlie Chan on Broadway / The Black Camel)

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 08/14/2007 Run time: 283 minutes

"Hollywood is famous furnisher of mysteries," observes the honorable Honolulu detective, Charlie Chan, in The Black Camel. And few cinematic sleuths are as renowned or beloved as Chan. As the chief of police proclaims in Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo, "All the world knows of Charlie Chan." For devotees of Earl Derr Biggers' literary creation, this is an essential boxed set that marks the beginnings and the end of the franchise's Warner Oland golden era. In addition to vintage treats such as The Black Camel (1931), the earliest known-existing Chan film to star Oland as the iconic sleuth, it also contains intriguing extras, including the 1929 film Behind the Curtain, which features E.L. Park as Chan in this character's first (albeit fleeting) screen appearance in a Fox film (and, like butler Jeeves' mere one-sentence walk-on in the P.G. Wodehouse short story "Extricating Young Gussie," it is a most inauspicious beginning for such a towering figure in popular culture).

The Swedish-born Oland portrayed Chan in 16 films. This set includes his last two as Chan before his untimely death in 1938, Monte Carlo and Charlie Chan on Broadway, both released in 1937. Give your regards to Broadway, in which a dame "still hot enough to blister" is murdered over an incriminating diary. This set also includes the eerie Charlie Chan's Secret (1936). The films are a bit creaky, but that's part of the fun. Each has its charms and delights, from the rat-a-tat New York slang that baffles Chan in Broadway to his signature aphorisms that range from the sage ("Though loved one seem to be taken away, remain always near") to the puzzling ("Sometimes very difficult to pick up pumpkin with one finger"). Keye Luke provides comic relief as enthusiastic No. 1 son in Monte Carlo and Broadway. Camel features Robert Young in his official screen debut and Bela Lugosi, fresh from Dracula, as a sinister mystic with too much influence on an actress with a skeleton in her closet. The audio commentaries on Camel and Secret are efficient and informative (did you know that Goldfinger villain Odd Job was styled on Chan's look?). Other entertaining segments unearth Oland's career, Chan's influence on detective fiction, and those "Chan-isms." Also fascinating is a re-creation of Charlie Chan's Chance, one of four lost Oland/Chan films. For those who have yet to make Charlie's acquaintance, this Chan-tastic collection is an excellent introduction. As one admiring cop states in Broadway, "You just think you have (met a detective). Now, go and meet Charlie Chan." --Donald Liebenson

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel is brought to life by a stellar cast and all-star creative team in this acclaimed production, which has been hailed as the most faithful adaptation of the children's classic. Set in New England during the Civil War, Little Women chronicles the lives and loves of four sister - Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth - who after their father leaves for battle, must rely on each other for strength in the face of tragedies both large and small.

Classic Film Noir, Vol. 3 - 10 Movie Pack

Father Knows Best, Vol. 1

The first 7 classic episodes Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music) Release Date: 09/16/2008 Run time: 180 minutes

Crossfire

Studio: Turner Hm Entertainm Release Date: 07/05/2005 Run time: 86 minutes Rating: Nr

Crossfire was nominated for the 1947 Best Picture Oscar won by Gentleman's Agreement. Gentlemen may propose, if not agree, that Crossfire was better. Like its upscale rival, the film noir raises the specter of anti-Semitism in America: just after World War II, an affable Jew (Sam Levene) is beaten to death by one of several GIs out "crawling." Solving the crime takes all night, but for the audience the killer's identity is scarcely in doubt; Robert Ryan's chilling study in psychopathic bigotry scored him his lone Oscar nomination. He's nearly matched in creepiness by Paul Kelly as an odd nightbird married to sultry Gloria Grahame. Two other worthy Roberts--Young and Mitchum--respectively play the police detective and the Army sergeant wondering which of his guys is a murderer. Incidentally, the hot button in the Richard Brooks novel was not anti-Semitism but homophobia--a sweaty subtext in Edward Dmytryk's film. --Richard T. Jameson

Stowaway (1936)

A little orphan girl must fend for herself on the streets of shanghai. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 04/22/2008 Starring: Shirley Temple Alice Faye Run time: 87 minutes Rating: G

The Second Woman

Secret Agent

One of Alfred Hitchcock's finest pre-Hollywood films, the 1936 Secret Agent stars a young John Gielgud as a British spy whose death is faked by his intelligence superiors. Reinvented with another identity and outfitted with a wife (Madeleine Carroll), Gielgud's character is sent on assignment with a cold-blooded accomplice (Peter Lorre) to assassinate a German agent. En route, the counterfeit couple keeps company with an affable American (Robert Young), who turns out to be more than he seems after the wrong man is murdered by Gielgud and Lorre. Dense with interwoven ideas about false names and real identities, about appearances as lies and the brutality of the hidden, and about the complicity of those who watch the anarchy that others do, Secret Agent declared that Alfred Hitchcock was well along the road to mastery as a filmmaker and, more importantly, knew what it was he wanted to say for the rest of his career. The print of the film used in the DVD release is serviceable and probably comparable to an average 16mm classroom or museum presentation. The DVD also includes a Hitchcock filmography, trivia questions, a director biography, and scene access. --Tom Keogh

Alfred Hitchcock Collection - 13 Films