Cromwell, John

Since You Went Away

A three-hour weepy extraordinaire, this 1944 offering from producer David O. Selznick (who also wrote the screenplay) was a tribute to all the families who stayed behind while their men went off to fight in World War II. Claudette Colbert is the mother of daughters Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple; first seen coming home after dropping her war-bound husband at the train, she becomes the model of courage and strength on the homefront. The plot has a Saturday Evening Post feel today, as it follows the family's day-to-day life and struggles, whether with a crotchety boarder (a delightfully starchy Monty Woolley) or oldest daughter Jones's doomed romance with departing serviceman Robert Walker. They don't make them like this anymore and it's too bad. Nominated for a fistful of Oscars, it took only one, for its shadow-drenched black-and-white cinematography. --Marshall Fine

Nominated* for nine Academy Awards® this heart-warming soul-stirring (Variety) portrait of life on the homefront during World War II is a magnificent picture rich in humor and poignant with heartbreak (The Hollywood Reporter). Claudette Colbert heads an all-star cast including Jennifer Jones Joseph Cotten and Shirley Temple in this beautifully produced picture that gets into your heart (Los Angeles Examiner). With her husband Tim off at war Anne Hilton (Colbert) struggles to be a pillar of strength for her daughters Jane (Jones) and Bridget (Temple). During America s darkest hours she bravely steers her girls through heartbreak and hardships as she eagerly awaits news from overseas and wonders if life will ever be the same.System Requirements: Running Time 177 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 027616912022 Manufacturer No: 1007060

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 and 1952 Versions)

Two versions of Anthony Hope's THE PRISONER OF ZENDA are brought to the screen here. The version from 1952 stars Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr while the 1937 adaptation features Ronald Colman in a dual role as dead ringers Rudolph Rassendyll a commoner and Rudolf V the crown prince of Ruritania.System Requirements:Running Time: 201 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 012569795082 Manufacturer No: 79508

Of Human Bondage

The interior life of a natural-born introvert is a tricky thing to convey in any story medium, but perhaps nowhere more than in feature films. Fortunately for this 1934 version of Of Human Bondage (the first of three), the introverted young doctor at the center of the story is played by Leslie Howard, who makes a slack spirit and puppet-of-destiny ennui look like a GQ ad from the age of Romanticism. Howard's character, well liked by peers and facing a promising future, becomes a slave to self-destructive impulse when he grows obsessed with a mercurial, promiscuous waitress (Bette Davis). She stands him up, she lets him down, she sleeps around--basically doing anything she can think of to humiliate the plaintive, puppyish Howard. The good doctor's prospects soon sink... and then sink again and again every time she reappears, usually in dire circumstances, after prolonged absences. Much of Howard's performance borders on monotony, but how many ways can an actor show what it's like to lean against desks and ponder the enigma of himself? At least he looks classy while doing so. Meanwhile, Davis's electric performance, one of her best, gives director John Cromwell's slow pacing a shot in the arm. The supporting cast is very good: Alan Hale, Frances Dee, and Cromwell's then-wife, Kay Johnson, do a fine job helping to fill in the silences. Adapted from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. --Tom Keogh

Caged!

Frightened 19-year-old Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker) gets sent to an Illinois penitentiary for being an accomplice in an armed robbery. A sympathetic prison head (Agnes Moorehead) tries to help but her efforts are subverted by cruel matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson). Marie's harsh experiences turn her from doe-eyed innocent to hard-nosed con.Runtime: 96 minFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 085391145073 Manufacturer No: 114507

Dead Reckoning

The shadow of World War II falls over this stateside film noir thriller about a GI paratrooper (Humphrey Bogart) who trails his AWOL war buddy to a treacherous city populated by gamblers, goons, pug cops, and the smoky, suspicious Lizabeth Scott, a seductive femme who may be fatale. Bogie's tight lipped, war hardened intensity dominates the B roster of supporting actors (Morris Carnovsky as a finicky nightclub owner with a gambling sideline, Marvin Miller as his brutal baby-faced thug) and the plot echoes with elements of earlier Bogie classics The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon recast on a low budget. Scott is, for all her fog-voiced sultriness, no Lauren Bacall, but her mannered performance is appropriately ambiguous and the film's cynical edge, ruthless desperation, and tarnished view of small-time hoodlums with big dreams casts a darker shadow unique to Hollywood's postwar funk. --Sean Axmaker

Bogart stars as a GI who becomes involved with his murdered buddy's girlfriend when he sets out to prove his friend's innocence in a frame-up.
Genre: Mystery
Rating: UN
Release Date: 14-JAN-2003
Media Type: DVD

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) (B&W)

Set in the late 19th century, this David O. Selznick masterpiece brings Burnett's classic literary tale to life with a refreshing flair. Cedric "Ceddie" Erroll is an endearing Brooklyn boy who can hold his own in a street fight, often aided by r

Anna and the King of Siam

The story of British teacher Anna Leonowens and her sojourn to the court of 19th century Siam has proved irresistible to many generations--as book, movie, or Broadway show. Arguably the most beloved version of the story is the 1946 Fox film Anna and the King of Siam, an elegant and bittersweet drama. Irene Dunne plays the widow Anna, who arrives in Siam in 1862 with her young son in tow. Her ostensible job, to teach the many children of the polygamous King (Rex Harrison, in his first Hollywood picture), soon broadens into an unofficial court advisor. The most amusing sequences in the first half of the picture are the battles of manners between feisty Anna and the intellectually curious but tradition-bound king--a battle that engenders great mutual respect. John Farrow directed, with his customary sympathy for the female heroine and eye for handsome spaces (the film won Oscars for art direction and Arthur Miller's cinematography). The main Asian characters are played by white actors, with Lee J. Cobb especially startling as the prime minister. The affecting story leaves no doubt to why Rodgers and Hammerstein saw the future musical The King and I in the material, and indeed you may find yourself humming "Getting to Know You" or "Something Wonderful" beneath certain scenes. It was remade in 1999 with Jodie Foster as Anna and the King, with more cultural correctness but less charm. --Robert Horton

This "magnificent spectacle" with "matchless pageantry" and "frequent moments of high comedy," (Hollywood Reporter) stars Rex Harrison as the King of Siam and Irene Dunne as Anna, the charming, strong-willed English widow who teaches him how to live in a modern world. Accompanied by her son, Anna Owens arrives in Siam to educate the king's harem and his sixty-seven children. She soon discovers there are many obstacles to overcome and it is only through her ingenuity, wit and dedication that she is able to continue her work. Slowly, she sees the effect of her influence on the court, but it is not until the stubborn king realizes he need's Ana's wisdom and guidance that her difficult mission is a success.

Son of Fury

Tyrone Power was on a hot streak at Fox from the late 1930s through the start of WWII, and 1942's Son of Fury catches him in full adventure-hero mode. The story is a typical costume potboiler with one atypical South Seas interlude. Power plays Benjamin Blake, illegitimate son of an aristocrat, raised by his knave of an uncle (George Sanders--commence hissing) as a lowly, humiliated servant. Ben romances a high-class lady (Frances Farmer) and then flees to the South Pacific, where a revenge plan is formed and a fortune in pearls awaits. Seadog John Carradine leads Ben to a remote atoll, and Gene Tierney is a sultry island maiden (do you love this movie yet?) who understands that at some point Blake must return to England to settle his affairs.

Director John Cromwell was deft at putting this kind of thing over (he'd made the splendid Prisoner of Zenda five years earlier) and the violence, especially coming from Sanders' blackguard, is unusually tough. The tasty supporting cast includes Elsa Lanchester, Dudley Digges, and young Roddy McDowall, who plays Ben as a boy. Alfred Newman has fun with the score, which includes a well-nigh irresistible Polynesian-flavored love theme. Power is his usual straightforward self, still at his physical prime; he and Tierney are about as pretty a couple as you could imagine stranded on a lost island--the island of escapism. --Robert Horton

Entitled to inherit his deceased father's estate and title, child aristocrat Benjamin Blake (Roddy McDowall) is instead kept as a bond-servant to his villainous uncle ( George Sanders). When Blake, now a young man (Tyrone Power), is beaten for falling in love with his uncle's daughter (Frances Farmer), he escapes by ship where he learns of a pearl fortune on a South Pacific island. There, he leads an idyllic life with a native girl (Gene Tierney) until he is compelled to return home and recapture what is rightfully owed him.

Algiers

Made For Each Other

Oscar® winner* James Stewart earns himself a place among the screen s most notable actors (Hollywood Spectator) and Carole Lombard delivers the best performance of her career (Newsweek) in this humor-laced marital drama as refreshing as a breath of spring (Motion Picture Herald). Attorney John Mason (Stewart) marries Jane (Lombard) after a blissful one-day courtship. Life is wonderful until they are overwhelmed by the demands of John s hard-hearted boss a meddlesome mother-in-law and the birth of a baby. Just when the marriage is at the breaking point a crisis turns their world upside down. Will their newfound love falter or are the young newlyweds truly made for each other?System Requirements: Running Time 93 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 027616903839 Manufacturer No: 1006181

Produced in a time when films were both literally and figuratively black and white, Made for Each Other was unique in its effective blending of the comedic, the dramatic, and, as perhaps some would insensitively say, the melodramatic. Beautiful Carole Lombard and likeable James Stewart are Jane and John Mason, a couple who meet, fall madly in love, marry, and quickly have a baby. But while they--and the audience--are confident that they are meant for each other, life intercedes and the couple must meet with disapproving in-laws, job stress, financial challenges and, finally, a devastating illness.

Lombard and Stewart--and the genuinely good people they portray--are utterly compelling and charming. Say yawningly what you will about tradition, but the Masons' is a path many, if not most, go down. And unlike the wonderful but wholly fantasy world of peer Preston Sturges, director John Cromwell's universe is, like real life, full of ups and downs. It's an accessible, sensitive portrayal. He gives the audience characters they want to see succeed, and to see stay together in the process. It may be a tale of triumph of the human spirit, but its ultimate sentiment--one that celebrates the kindness of strangers--is thoroughly sweet, though in no way saccharine.

Look for a great supporting cast, including a blustery Charles Coburn as John Mason's boss, and Lucile Watson as Mason's interfering mother. --N.F. Mendoza