Tashlin, Frank

Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Four

More Looney Tunes. Your wish is our command. Because in this 4-disc set are 60 more of the most looneytic Looney Tunes ever unleashed on rabbits pigs mice or cats. Indeed some have never before been on home video! Disc 1 features the tall gray and haresome one. Disc 2 is all pig. Disc 3 is all about Speedy. And Disc 4 is the cats meow. One thing: to watch these you must be as tall as this sign. Wrong disclaimer. Read the one in the box below. Got the idea? Now have funRunning Time: 414 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 012569802728 Manufacturer No: 80272

Like previous installments, the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 mixes favorites from the Warner Bros. archives with relatively obscure older works. Chuck Jones' "Mississippi Hare" and Friz Freleng's "Sahara Hare" and "Knighty-Knight Bugs" (which won an Oscar) offer hilarious performances by Bugs. Two of Jones' earliest films, "The Night Watchman" and "Conrad the Sailor" prefigure his use of subtle expressions in his later cartoons. The disc of shorts by Frank Tashlin includes "Plane Daffy": pigeon see-duck-tress Hatta Mari anticipates Jayne Mansfield in such later Tashlin live-action comedies as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Not all of these films have aged as gracefully. Younger viewers will probably not catch the references to Charlie McCarthy, Bill Robinson, and other old film and radio stars. The Speedy Gonzalez cartoons feature ethnic humor that seems embarrassing today; it's also crashingly unfunny. Each disc offers a disclaimer about stereotypes, noting, "they were wrong then and are wrong today."

The discs are loaded with extras that range from a partial set of storyboards for "Sahara Hare" to three of the "Private Snafu" shorts, which were made for the "Army-Navy Screen Magazine" during WW II. The oddest extra is the documentary Bugs Bunny Superstar, which infuriated many of the Warner Bros. artists when it was released in 1977. Much of its information should be taken with a grain of salt. (Unrated, suitable for ages 6 and older: cartoon violence, some ethnic stereotypes, mild risqué humor, alcohol & tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

The Glass Bottom Boat

Doris Day stars as a widowed writer who is mistaken for a spy when she is hired to write a biography of handsome research scientist Rod Taylor. A frolicking comic adventure packed with celebrities (including Paul Lynde in drag).Running Time: 110 min.System Requirements:Length: 110 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569519220

Son of Paleface

Four years after his hit comedy The Paleface Bob Hope returned to the screen as Junior Potter son of Painless Peter Potter the hapless hero of the first film. The Harvard-bred Junior heads out west to claim his father's inheritance. Returning for the sequel but in a different role is Jane Russell (The Outlaw) as an outlaw named Mike who continually has to save our hapless hero. Also starring in the sequel is the King of the Cowboys himself Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger who portray themselves. Hope teams with the pair to help get to the sequel is the Oscar-winning song "Buttons and Bows." Co-writer and director Frank Tashlin a former cartoonist and screenwriter of the first Paleface also worked with Hope on The Private Navy of Sgt O'Farrell and wrote and directed several Jerry Lewis films such as Cinderfella and The Geisha Boy.System Requirements:Starring: Bob Hope Jane Russell Roy Rogers Iron Eyes Cody and Trigger. Running Time: (approx.) 95 mins/color. Copyright: l952 Columbia Pictures Television.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 090096098296 Manufacturer No: 60982-9

Bob Hope returned to the wild West in Son of Paleface, mining the rootin' shootin' genre for gag after gag. Hope plays Junior Potter--another variation on his lascivious, cowardly, yet somehow endearing persona--a college boy who's come to California seeking his father's hidden gold. What he finds is an empty treasure chest, a pile of unpaid bills, vengeful Indians, buxom Jane Russell (as a saloon girl by day, wily bandit by night), and singing cowboy Roy Rogers. It's prime silliness, an ancestor to movies like Airplane! that never let a moment go by without an absurd joke. Russell sashays about in spectacular form-fitting outfits, Rogers yodels a few tunes, and Hope snivels and wheedles his way out of endless scrapes. Good-natured slapstick (though its depiction of Native Americans will raise the hackles on politically correct viewers). --Bret Fetzer

Caprice

Plunge into a world of high-flying adventure, pulse-pounding excitement Â- and outright hilarityÂ- in this captivating comedy-thriller starring Doris Day and Richard Harris. Featuring breathtaking stunts, tantalizing romance and exotic locales from the Swiss Alps to the shores of Southern California, this ingenious spy spoof is a gorgeous "kaleidoscope of international intrigue" (The Hollywood Reporter)!

Industrial spy Patricia Fowler (Day) is hot on the trail of a secret formula with the power to change the world...by keeping ladies' hair dry in the water! So important is this miracle hair spray that cosmetics operatives everywhere have mobilized to find it. But when Patricia crosses paths with sexy spy Christopher White (Harris), she discovers something much more sinister behind her quest...a plot that could cause bad-hair days the world over!

Cinderfella

The team of Jerry Lewis and director Frank Tashlin (The Geisha Boy) were at the peak of their hit-making prowess with Cinderfella, a klutzy take on the fairy tale. Jerry is the stepson in a snooty family, dominated by wicked stepmother Judith Anderson and lounge-lizard brothers Henry Silva and Robert Hutton. Fairy godfather Ed Wynn turns up one day, not only promising "Fella" a happy-ever-after but basically accusing the old fairy tale of ruining the lives of countless married couples by raising unrealistic expectations of Prince Charmings in every home. (Tashlin always had a nose for psychoanalytic explanations along with the pratfalls.) The movie's very slow--especially whenever Ed Wynn is around--and has a strange taste for "interior monologue" songs, emphasizing the mawkish side of Lewis's personality. The good comic scenes are worth it, especially a lengthy sequence at an elongated dinner table, which Lewis must navigate repeatedly. His physical skills are showcased in a musical mime to Count Basie's "Cute" (Basie and his orchestra also appear in the big ballroom scene) and some violently geeky dancing. This one is unlikely to win over non-Jerry fans, but the already initiated will be fine with it. --Robert Horton

In CINDERFELLA, Lewis plays Fella, a good natured klutz left to take care of his stepmother and her two spoiled sons in a fabulous mansion. Fantasy provides Fella with a way of coping with his life until the day his fairy godmother appears and helps him win the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Disorderly Orderly

The hugely successful collaboration between Jerry Lewis and director Frank Tashlin (including Artists and Models and The Geisha Boy) came to an end with this knockabout hospital comedy, which contains a raft of Tashlin's patented sight gags. Jerry plays an orderly with a strange fixation on a depressed patient (Susan Oliver), but the point of the movie is watching Lewis wrestle with laundry bags or contorting with agony as he empathizes with the intestinal maladies of patients. This is one of Lewis's funniest movies for babbling, too ("Oh, friction--burning"). Meanwhile, Tashlin brings his cartoon sensibility to freestanding bits, such as the montage of wind chimes that ends with a skeleton chattering in the breeze, or the inordinately loud crunch of an apple in a hospital quiet zone. All in all, a good laugh-per-minute ratio in the slapstick realm. Plus Sammy Davis Jr. sings the title song, a weirdly Rat Packish number. --Robert Horton

As a result of his severe clumsiness and goofy demeanor, Littlefield fits right in with the patients, and is often mistaken for them.

Jayne Mansfield Collection (The Girl Can't Help It / The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw / Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?)

Episode Description:Disc 1: Girl Can't Help ItDisc 2: Sheriff of Fractured JawDisc 3: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543228318 Manufacturer No: 2232831

The Complete Uncensored Private Snafu

The 28 cartoons in this collection were made by the Warner Bros. artists for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine during World War II, and were rarely--if ever--seen by the general public. The title character's name is an acronym for "Situation Normal: All Fouled Up" (substitute another "F-word" if you must), and most of his adventures are mildly didactic: Snafu ignores an Army regulation and/or common sense, and pays the price. In "Snafu vs. Malaria Mike" and "It's Murder She Says..." (1945), he goes without insect repellent in the tropics and ignores insect netting--and catches malaria. The stories were written by Ted "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, and the meters and rhymes echo his children's books. In "Gripes" (1943), Snafu begins, "If I ran this army...." The shots of Snafu's bare posterior and the occasional "damn" or "hell" were considered risqué during the '40s, but the depictions of buck-toothed Japanese soldiers are more likely to raise eyebrows today. Although obviously made quickly and cheaply--Snafu's appearance varies from film to film and Mel Blanc essentially reused Bugs Bunny's voice for the character--many of these cartoons are still funny. Unfortunately, Bosko Video disfigures these historically significant films by periodically inserting its logo into the frame. What were they thinking? --Charles Solomon

Commissioned by the military during World War II, this collection of propaganda cartoons has not been seen in over fifty years. Created by the famed animators at Warner Bros. from 1943-1946 and voiced by the legendary Mel Blanc, this DVD presents all twenty-eight Private Snafu cartoons ever released.

Snow White and the Three Stooges

Many Stooges fans will find Snow White and the Three Stooges painful going, while some might find it quite charming. The film was conceived as a vehicle for Carol Heiss, the 1960 Olympic figure skating champion, but it was obvious that her limited acting would not carry the classic plot very far. So the Three Stooges were substituted for the Seven Dwarfs, and Prince Charming (Edson Stroll) became their companion. The start and end of the film follow the Disney version fairly closely, with Patricia Medina providing the only real acting as the Wicked Queen, abetted by the reliable villainy of Guy Rolfe.

In fact, Snow White lost in the woods is almost a frame-by-frame copy of the Disney sequence, complete with a live tree out of the 1939 Wizard of Oz. This might grab some youngsters' attention by frightening them and some by amusing them, but the love sequences and the forgettable songs might bore them. The fight sequences are possibly too grisly for some children; Guy Rolfe dies by falling into a vat of boiling oil.

As a Three Stooges vehicle, it differs from their other films. Except for Curly Joe's spoonerisms, there is little humor in the dialogue, a bare minimum of slaps (without the reassuring comic sounds), and no eye pokes. (Moe was sensitive to parental complaints about their television shorts.) There is, however, a touching moment when they are mourning the supposed death of Snow White. And you do get to see them in color. --Frank Behrens

The world's greatest fairy tale is about to get a few new and hilarious wrinkles. For starters, it's all live action as Snow White takes to the ice in the person of 1960 Olympic figure skating champion, Carol Heiss. Then, standing in for the Seven Dwarfs,

The Lemon Drop Kid

Bob Hope stars as Sidney Melbourne (A.K.A. The Lemon Drop Kid named so after his love of the simple candy) a conman who offers a friendly "sure thing" horse tip to the girlfriend of mobster Moose Moran at the race track. When the horse loses and Moose's Original pick wins Moose gives Sidney until Christmas to pay back the money he lost or his thug Sam the Surgeon will "open" Sidney after Christmas. To pay back the money he owes Moose Sidney enlists some pals to hit the street corners of New York dressed as Santa Claus accepting donations for a bogus elderly ladies home. The calamity starts when gagster Oxford Charlie (Lloyd Nolan) tries to move in on Sidney's scam. What follows is vintage Hope shenanigans highlighted by a heart-warming rendition of the Christmas classic "Silver Bells" sung by Hope and Marilyn Maxwell (who appeared with Hope in the l953 film Off Limits). Also starring William Frawley (I Love Lucy) and For Johnson (Plan 9 from Outer Space).System Requirements:Starring: Bob Hope Marilyn Maxwell Lloyd Nolan Jane Darwell William Frawley and Tor Johnson. Running Time (approx.) 91 min. B&W. Copyright 1951 Columbia Pictures Television.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 090096097992 Manufacturer No: 60979-9

Bob Hope plays a small-time con artist with a fondness for lemon candy in this film based on a Damon Runyon story. When the Lemon Drop Kid accidentally cheats gangster Moose Moran (Fred Clark) out of his track winnings, the Kid promises to repay Moose the money by Christmas. Creating a fake charity for "Apple Annie" Nellie Thursday, the Kid tricks his gang into donning Santa suits and "collecting dough for old dolls" like Nellie who have nowhere to live. Radio personality Marilyn Maxwell assists as the Kid's girlfriend, while William Frawley and Jay C. Flippen play the lovable, gruff crooks that fall for the Kid's Santa scam.

Hope is great as the fast-talking sharpster, and the comical gangsters are well worth the price of admission. Music by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston (including the classic Christmas song "Silver Bells") makes The Lemon Drop Kid that much sweeter. --Mark Savary