Duvivier, Julien

Don Camillo & The Return of Don Camillo

Internationally beloved actor Fernandel stars as Don Camillo a Catholic priest trying to protect his poor village from the desires of its Communist mayor in these charmingly reconstructed tales based on the popular works of Giovanni Guareschi.System Requirements:Running Time: 207 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/ITALIAN Rating: NR UPC: 741952316091 Manufacturer No: KLF-DV3160

Anna Karenina (1948)

Vivien Leigh in the most magnificent love story every written ! Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a little spat and Stefan has asked his sister Anna Karenina to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna's companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it's love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet. Back in St. Petersburg they keep running into each other at parties. Since she has a husband and small son they must be very discreet if they are going to see each other alone.System Requirements:Run Time: 111 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543425717 Manufacturer No: 2242571

Vivien Leigh is a "Scarlett" woman as tragic heroine Anna Karenina, unhappily married to "colossal bore" Alexei (Ralph Richardson), who neglects her to attend to affairs of state. When Anna meets the dashing Count Vronsky (Kieron Moore), she begins an affair of her own that scandalizes St. Petersburg and leads to her ostracization from high-society circles and, in a heartbreaking scene, her beloved son. Pepe Le Moko director Julien Duvivier's 1948 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's oft-filmed book has stretches that make the film seem as long and cold as a Russian winter night, but the ravishing Leigh as the doomed Anna keeps the fires burning. The "thoughtless and selfish" Anna is a distant relation of the willfull Ms. O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, although her ultimate comeuppance leaves no hope for "another day." This is a high-minded prestige production (Tolstoy gets his name above the title), but it offers the more simple, old fashioned pleasures of a Hollywood melodrama. --Donald Liebenson

Pepe Le Moko - Criterion Collection

Jean Gabin was a brooding, rough, working-class antihero in France when his role as cool master criminal Pepe Le Moko made him an international star. In the Casbah of French Morocco, an underworld slum of winding alleys dotted with tiny rooms, bars, and hideouts, Gabin's Pepe is the prince of the criminal jungle while at the same time its prisoner. He's safe only as long as he remains in this world the local gendarmes can't penetrate. During a clumsy police raid, he meets a lovely Parisian (the exotic Mirielle Balin) adorned in expensive jewelry, but in the midst of flirting, his eyes leave her baubles and meet her gaze. Pepe falls in love and Moroccan Inspector Slimane, the only cop to have earned his respect, makes this new chink in Pepe's armor the center of his plan to capture the Casbah's most notorious gentleman thief. Gabin is marvelous as the confident yet restless Pepe, a cultured man--equal parts elegance and edgy brutality; at home in this urban jungle, but restless to escape. Julien Divivier's romantic crime classic is a prime example of French poetic realism (a precursor to American film noir, shot in a shadowy style enhanced by the claustrophobic rooms and crowded streets. It's a world where friendship and trust are everything, yet betrayal and duplicity await around every dark corner, and Pepe exacts a harsh justice on those who defy his code. Hollywood remade the film as Algiers with continental heartthrob Charles Boyer in Gabin's role. --Sean Axmaker

The notorious Pepe le Moko (Jean Gabin, in a truly iconic performance) is a wanted man: women long for him, rivals hope to destroy him, and the law is breathing down his neck at every turn. On the lam in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers, Pepe is safe from the clutches of the police--until a Parisian playgirl compels him to risk his life and leave its confines once and for all. Once of the most influential films of the 20th century and a landmark of French poetic realism.

Anna Karenina (1948)

Vivien Leigh is a "Scarlett" woman as tragic heroine Anna Karenina, unhappily married to "colossal bore" Alexei (Ralph Richardson), who neglects her to attend to affairs of state. When Anna meets the dashing Count Vronsky (Kieron Moore), she begins an affair of her own that scandalizes St. Petersburg and leads to her ostracization from high-society circles and, in a heartbreaking scene, her beloved son. Pepe Le Moko director Julien Duvivier's 1948 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's oft-filmed book has stretches that make the film seem as long and cold as a Russian winter night, but the ravishing Leigh as the doomed Anna keeps the fires burning. The "thoughtless and selfish" Anna is a distant relation of the willfull Ms. O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, although her ultimate comeuppance leaves no hope for "another day." This is a high-minded prestige production (Tolstoy gets his name above the title), but it offers the more simple, old fashioned pleasures of a Hollywood melodrama. --Donald Liebenson

The Heart of a Nation

Diabolically Yours

Georges Campo has a very serious problem. After a near-fatal car crash and three weeks in a coma he has awakened to a strange new life and he cant remember a thing including his own name or his loving and beautiful wife. As fragments of his life are revealed to him he begins to question his own sanity. Is that woman really his wife? Is that man really his friend Freddie? And is he really Georges Campo or merely an unwitting victim in some sensational secret conspiracy? Hearing strange voices in the night Georges thinks someone is trying to drive him crazy. And when bizarre accidents begin to occur he is convinced that someone actually wants him dead. System Requirements:Running Time: 93 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS UPC: 018619567005 Manufacturer No: 56700DVD

The Little World of Don Camillo [Region 2]

La Bandera

Chair de poule [Region 2]

Pépé le Moko [Region 2]

Jean Gabin was a brooding, rough, working-class antihero in France when his role as cool master criminal Pepe Le Moko made him an international star. In the Casbah of French Morocco, an underworld slum of winding alleys dotted with tiny rooms, bars, and hideouts, Gabin's Pepe is the prince of the criminal jungle while at the same time its prisoner. He's safe only as long as he remains in this world the local gendarmes can't penetrate. During a clumsy police raid, he meets a lovely Parisian (the exotic Mirielle Balin) adorned in expensive jewelry, but in the midst of flirting, his eyes leave her baubles and meet her gaze. Pepe falls in love and Moroccan Inspector Slimane, the only cop to have earned his respect, makes this new chink in Pepe's armor the center of his plan to capture the Casbah's most notorious gentleman thief. Gabin is marvelous as the confident yet restless Pepe, a cultured man--equal parts elegance and edgy brutality; at home in this urban jungle, but restless to escape. Julien Divivier's romantic crime classic is a prime example of French poetic realism (a precursor to American film noir, shot in a shadowy style enhanced by the claustrophobic rooms and crowded streets. It's a world where friendship and trust are everything, yet betrayal and duplicity await around every dark corner, and Pepe exacts a harsh justice on those who defy his code. Hollywood remade the film as Algiers with continental heartthrob Charles Boyer in Gabin's role. --Sean Axmaker