Allen, Lewis

Little House on the Prairie - The Pilot

Discover the television movie that started it all! Based on the best-selling books by Laura Ingalls Wilder this classic produced and directed by Michael Landon launched the Emmy Award-winning series. This movie takes us from the woods of Wisconsin to the plains of Kansas where the Ingalls struggle to build a new life. With indomitable courage that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit the Ingalls face endless challenges and experience countless adventures as they pursue their dream of a new home. This premiere movie is a "must-have" for all Little House fans!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 069458111737 Manufacturer No: A021427

Cannon: Season One, Vol. 1

The weekly adventures of Frank Cannon an overweight balding ex-cop with a deep voice and expensive tastes in culinary pleasures who becomes a high-priced private investigator. Since Cannon's girth didn't allow for many fist-fights and gun battles (although there were many) the series substituted car chases and high production values in their place.System Requirements:Running Time: 615 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097368924246 Manufacturer No: 892424

William Conrad became television's first plus-sized detective in this Quinn Martin production that ran for six seasons. His girth makes him the butt of snide comments. In the episode, "Salinas Jackpot," a good 'ol boy invites Cannon to shoot a game of pool. Referring to The Hustler, he says, "Ever since I seen that movie, I've always wanted to take on a champion fat man." In the pilot episode, a little boy bluntly asks him, "How'd you get that fat?" But the balding, pipe-smoking Cannon has a style all his own (check out his boating shorts in the episode, "A Lonely Place to Die."). Fleeing miscreants may be just as surprised as viewers at just how fleet he is on his feet in a chase. The pilot episode fleshes out Cannon's backstory: He is a former Los Angeles cop-turned-private insurance investigator. He is introduced in his swank apartment (that comes complete with personal firing range), but the rest of the episodes find him in outlying locations that are at odds with his bon vivant lifestyle. Though expensive and "the best," he does handle desperate personal cases, as in the pilot episode, in which his investigation of a Korean War buddy's death leads him to "a town that reeks of bad money." Cannon is nothing but intuitive. He tracks down the bar from which a threatening phone call was made by noting the sound of a phone booth ceiling fan's faulty bearing. His imposing size, gruff manner, and blunt talk do not win him many friends. "Go back where you came from" is a representative greeting from those who don't want to be bothered by "the fella with all the questions." Among the most compelling episodes include "Death Chain," in which a married man turns to Cannon when his mistress is murdered, and "Stone Cold Dead," in which he defends a Viet Nam veteran falsely accused of murder. Cannon has no sidekick or office staff to banter with, but Conrad deftly carries the show on his hefty shoulders. Guest stars of note include Vera Miles, Earl Holliman, Keenan Wynn, and John "Tigger" Fiedler in the pilot, Tom Skerritt as a killer disguised as a rodeo clown in "Jackpot," and a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill as a farm boy in "Country Blues." While Cannon may not rank in the pantheon of TV detectives, it's good to have him back pounding the beat on DVD. --Donald Liebenson

Best of Bonanza (34 episodes)

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT Packaging:  DVD STYLE BOX The Cartwright's thousand-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch is located near Virginia City Nevada site of the Comstock Silver Lode during and after the Civil War. Each of the sons was born to a different wife of Ben's; with none of the mothers still alive. Join Ben (Lorne Greene) Adam (Pernell Roberts) Hoss (Dan Blocker) and Little Joe (Michael Landon) as they rewrite the book on the western genre. These were the days where family values and the fight for justice were backed up by six-guns that always had right on their side. Included in this set are three bonus episodes of the classic TV western Wagon Train. Disc 1Gunmen TheFear Merchants TheSpanish Grant TheBlood on the LandDesert JusticeStranger TheEscape to PonderosaAvenger The Disc 2San Francisco HolidayBitter WaterFeet of ClayDark StarDeath at DawnShowdownMission TheBadge Without HonorMill The Disc 3Hopefuls TheDenver McKeeDay of ReckoningAbduction TheBreed of ViolenceLast Viking TheTrail Gang TheSavage The Disc 4Last Trophy TheSilent ThunderApe TheBlood Line TheCourtship TheSpitfire TheAlias Bill Hawks (Wagon Train)Dr. Denker Story The (Wagon Train)Malachi Hobart Story The (Wagon Train)Specifications:Video Format:  NTSC Region 1Format:  4-DVD SetRun Time:  25 Hours 30 MinutesRating:  NR - Not Rated

The Fugitive - Season Two, Vol. 1

The relentless Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse) has always insisted that capturing fugitive Richard Kimble (David Janssen) was just "unfinished business." But in "The Nemesis," an essential episode that is one of the highlights of this half-season set, it's personal. An unwitting Kimble has stolen Girard's car to make a getaway, not knowing that it contains Girard's young son, Phil, Jr. (Kurt Russell). Phil Jr. is a chip off the old block (he cleverly leaves a trail of his precious football cards to point his father in the right direction), but a selfless act by Kimble raises doubts in the boy's mind. "You and dad can't both be right," he questions. This is just one of the compelling human dramas at the heart of one of television's Most Wanted series. Now in his second year on the run after escaping from the Death Row-bound train, Kimble is "tired of looking over his shoulder… tired of running." In "Escape Into Black," he visits a small-town diner and loses his memory after the gas stove explodes. In "When the Bough Breaks," he hops a freight car that also carries a traumatized woman who has abducted a baby. Until he can find the one-armed man (Bill Raisch) he witnessed running from his home the night his wife was killed, he will have to endure "another shabby room, another lonely night." Not that Kimble doesn't have his champions. In the season-opener, "Man in a Chariot," a college law professor, argues Kimble's case before his students in a mock trial. In "World's End," the daughter (Suzanne Pleshette) of his former defense attorney contacts Kimble with potentially devastating news about the ever-elusive one-armed man and schemes to run away with him. In "Escape into Black," a compassionate hospital welfare caseworker (Betty Garrett) tries to find the one-armed man while Kimble recovers.

The episodes in this set maintain an unflagging pace, thanks to taut direction (the late Sydney Pollack directed "Man on a String," in which Kimble is a very reluctant witness in a murder case) and excellent scripts (George Eckstein, who wrote "Man in a Chariot" and "When the Bough Breaks" would co-write The Fugitive's final episode, a television benchmark). Among the great character actors who guest star in these episodes include Tuesday Weld as a manipulative and very twisted sister in "Dark Corner," Slim Pickens as a poacher in "Nemesis," and Ivan Dixon as a doctor who discovers Kimble's identity in "Escape Into Black." The Fugitive taps into the primal fear that was one of Hitchcock's favorite themes: What would you do if you were falsely accused? Janssen is unforgettable in his signature role as the man whose every instinct is to flee the scene and not get involved with the strangers whose paths he crosses. But we offer viewers the same advice the professor gives Kimble in "Chariot": "All I ask is that you stay around and see what happens." --Donald Liebenson

Dr. Richard Kimble is accused to be the murder of his wife. The night before his execution he escapes. The only chance to prove his innocence is to find the man who killed hi wife. Kimble persecuted by the Lt. Gerard risks his life several times when he shows his identity to help other people out of trouble.System Requirements:Running Time: 771 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097361327648 Manufacturer No: 132764

Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 4 (Act of Violence / Mystery Street / Crime Wave / Decoy / Illegal / The Big Steal / They Live By Night / Side Street / Where Danger Lives / Tension)

The fourth volume of Warner Video's Film Noir Classic Collection boasts ten titles on five double-feature discs--appropriate packaging for films that mostly run less than an hour-and-a-half and would have shared the marquee with another picture upon original release. It's a welcome set, with entries by top noir directors Anthony Mann and Nicholas Ray, several unheralded gems, and solid entertainment value in nearly every instance. But somebody (and it looks as if that's us) ought to mention that Warners is getting a mite cavalier with the label "film noir." You can have a '40s or '50s movie that's in black and white, involves criminal activity, and features stars like Robert Mitchum or Edward G. Robinson, and still not tap into the pungent atmosphere, perverse psychology, implacable fatalism, and jagged/voluptuous style that are the hallmarks of noir. Indeed, there are several such movies in this set--and in their non-noir ways, they're not bad.

Act of Violence (1948) is the real McCoy, albeit so meticulously directed by Fred Zinnemann in postwar-European style that it's virtually an art-film noir. Van Heflin plays a model small-town citizen suddenly confronted with a guilty WWII past, in the dark, limping, permanently trenchcoated figure of Robert Ryan. The film systematically dismantles the domestic security of Heflin's life till he's forced to flee his own home, which has become a trap, and escape into the nightworld of the big city. Mary Astor is superb as one of its few sympathetic denizens. Co-featured with Act of Violence is Mystery Street (1950), a hard-edged movie about a B-girl's murder and some of the proto-CSI techniques the police use to solve the crime. Directed by John Sturges, from a script by Richard Brooks and Sydney Boehm, the picture is enhanced by atmospheric Boston and Cape Cod settings and camerawork by Mr. Film Noir himself, John Alton.

For case-hardened noiristes, the disc holding Decoy and Crime Wave is the collection's prime catch. Decoy (1946), like Dillinger in Volume 2, is an ultra-low-budget offering from Monogram Pictures and a fascinatingly mixed bag of Poverty Row production values and flashes of directorial ambition (one night scene in a woods strongly suggests director Jack Bernhard had seen Sunrise). Its main attraction is a cold-hearted heroine who could pledge the same sorority as the dames from Double Indemnity, Gun Crazy, and The Lady from Shanghai. (Alas, British-born actress Jean Gillie appeared in only one subsequent film, dying at the age of 34.) Andre De Toth's Crime Wave (1954) places us in the awkward position of being grateful for the chance to see an exciting movie and obliged to disqualify it from the set: it's closer to the '50s police procedural (Dragnet et al.) than to film noir. Shot almost entirely on location, the picture virtually reeks of seedy L.A. nightlife and satisfyingly unreels without benefit of music score. Ted De Corsia, Nedrick Young, and Charles Buchinsky-soon-to-be-Bronson supply juicy villainy, with a characteristically unclean contribution late in the film from Timothy Carey. Gene Nelson plays an ex-con, resolved to go straight yet being forced to abet his newly escaped old cellmates, and the world-weary cop keeping tabs on all of them is Sterling Hayden.

The set's two stellar noir directors share a disc and costars, Farley Granger and the ethereal Cathy O'Donnell. They Live by Night (1948) was Nicholas Ray's maiden effort, and kinetically and emotionally the director found natural rapport with the spooked-animal vulnerability of his hero and heroine. This was the first film version of Edward Anderson's Depression-era novel Thieves Like Us (adapted again a quarter-century later by Robert Altman), and its tale of a young rural misfit drawn into more violent crime by older, harder fellow escapees from a prison farm anticipates the spirit of Ray's '50s teen classic Rebel Without a Cause. Side Street (1949) is fascinating as a bridge between Anthony Mann's great series of noirs shot by John Alton and the Western genre Mann would soon master. Working this time with a conventional MGM cameraman (Joseph Ruttenberg), the director demonstrates that the terrific "eye" that gave us T-Men, Border Incident, et al. was at least as much Mann's as Alton's, and he visualizes Manhattan as a collection of jagged skylines and deep, shadowed canyons. The script (by Sydney Boehm) involves a mail carrier (Granger) who, worried about taking proper care of his pregnant wife (O'Donnell), impulsively swipes an envelope full of money. Hard upon that "one false step," the family man finds himself caught up in a dark scheme involving blackmail and, several times over, murder.

Despite a screenplay by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett and direction by John Farrow (The Big Clock), Where Danger Lives (1950) is easily the weakest entry in Vol. 4. Robert Mitchum plays a doctor who saves a would-be suicide, then falls for her without noticing she's crazy as a loon, and homicidal to boot. Soon they're on the run, sought by the law and at the mercy of every larcenous character between them and the Mexican border. Despite yeoman work by Mitchum and RKO shadowmaster Nicholas Musuraca, and the too-brief participation of Claude Rains, the film founders on the femme-fatale casting of Howard Hughes discovery Faith Domergue. A more memorably dodgy female complicates everybody's life in Tension (1950), the next-to-last Hollywood film for director John Berry before his blacklisting. This one's played by Audrey Totter--never a major star, but a delicious and definitive late-'40s dame (who also supplies sharp commentary on the auxiliary audio track). Her milquetoast husband, pharmacist Richard Basehart, sets up a second identity for himself under which to seek revenge for her numerous infidelities--till the new man he has become makes the acquaintance of neighbor Cyd Charisse. (No, Charisse does not dance, but those awesome legs are nevertheless put to creative use.) Eventually someone is dead, and cops Barry Sullivan and William Conrad enter the picture, contributing their own shades of gray to the noir palette. Another satisfying, little-known film that collections like this one lead us to discover.

There's also satisfaction to be had from our final pairing, Illegal and The Big Steal--even if both these titles have to be turned back at the noir border. Illegal (1955) is the third version of The Mouthpiece, a '30s play and film about an esteemed district attorney who falls from grace but rebounds as a spellbinding defense attorney much-sought-after by the criminal class. It was probably the best part Edward G. Robinson had in the '50s, and he's all the reason we need for watching. But the role and the story predated noir (the previous renditions came out in 1932 and 1940), and this movie, for all intents and purposes, postdates noir. In addition, sad to say, it's an artifact from that era when Warner Bros.' movies had started looking like the studio's TV shows. By contrast, The Big Steal (1949) springs from the heart of the classic noir era, was produced for perhaps the most noir-friendly of studios, RKO, and even boasts the costars and screenwriter of the sublime Out of the Past--which is to say, Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Daniel Mainwaring (a.k.a. "Geoffrey Homes"). The whirlwind first reel plops us right in the middle of several chases, with as many switcheroos of allegiance and direction, in pursuit of an "it" that won't be specified till some time later. All nimbly managed by director Don Siegel, on location in Mexico yet, and briskly over with in 72 minutes. But it's a comedy-adventure, not a film noir. Not even close.

Most of the films come accompanied by authoritative voiceover commentaries, including contributions by L.A. crime novelist James Ellroy (on Crime Wave) and surviving cast members Nina Foch (Illegal) and Audrey Totter (Tension). However, for a sporadic series of primers on noir style, which feature absurdly florid lighting of the talking heads and lesson-plan intertitles that belong on a blackboard, somebody at Warner Home Video should be taken for a ride. --Richard T. Jameson

Ex-World War II pilot Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a respected contractor and family man. Then his troubled gimp-legged bombardier (Robert Ryan) shows up with a gun and a score to settle. Perhaps neither man is what he seems to be as director Fred Zinnemann (The Day of the Jackal) guides a searing Act of Violence "the first postwar noir to take a challenging look at the ethics of men in combat" (Eddie Muller Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir). Murder lives on Mystery Street. John Sturges (The Great Escape) directs a revealing-for-the-era procedural about a Boston cop (Ricardo Montalban) solving a whodunit with the help of a Harvard forsensic expert (Bruce Bennett). Welcome to CSI Noir.Running Time: 833 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 085391150206 Manufacturer No: 115020

The Best of Bonanza, Vol. 1

Little House on the Prairie - Christmas

Christmas At Plum CreekIn this unforgettable holiday classic from Season 1 the members of the Ingalls family work to make their very first Christmas at their new home in Plum Creek a memorable one. Laura sells her most prized possession her horse to purchase a stove for Ma but her sacrifice is made bittersweet when she opens her gift from Pa.A Christmas They Never ForgotIn this heartwarming episode from Season 8 a sudden fierce snowstorm traps the entire extended Ingalls family including Mary and Laura's husbands inside the little house on Christmas Eve They pass the time by exchanging stories about their favorite Christmases of the past. System Requirements:Approx Length 100 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 069458123730 Manufacturer No: A021442

A Bullet For Joey (MGM Film Noir)

This 1955 Cold War-era film noir is something of a misfire (great title, though), and you can't go wrong with any movie in which quintessential screen mug George Raft is referred to as "the boss." He's Joe Victor, a deported former crime "big wheel," who's "back in business" after accepting an offer of $100,000 ("that's real velvet") from foreign agents to kidnap a scientist at work on some top secret project. Joe assembles "the boys" as well as Joyce (Audrey Trotter), an increasingly conflicted femme fatale (she's "respectable now"), to seduce the unsuspecting doc. Little Caesar himself, Edward G. Robinson, is intriguingly miscast as the dogged Montreal police inspector on Victor's case. Raft, however, is in fine form as he barks out orders and takes no guff. --Donald Liebenson

Nefarious Eric Hartman (Peter van Eyck) a spy working for the Communists tricks Joe Victor (George Raft) a naive gangster into working for him. Victor's assignment is to kidnap a nuclear physicist and "rub out" a Federal Agent who has been sniffing after Hartman. It isn't long however before Victor realizes where Hartman's sympathies lie.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 027616081018 Manufacturer No: M108101

Suddenly

Directly in the wake of his Oscar-winning comeback in From Here to Eternity, Frank Sinatra took on the role of a psychopathic hit man in this taut, low-budget film noir. The choice shows how interested Sinatra was in serious acting during the mid- to late '50s; there's nothing remotely likable about this angular, neurotic assassin. He's in the small town of Suddenly to kill the president, who is passing through on a quick train stop. Sinatra makes hostages of a local family and sheriff Sterling Hayden, and the film is basically a countdown to the president's arrival, with Sinatra's patter getting loonier as the day goes on. Aside from the interest of Sinatra's performance (very focused and downright perverse at times), and the film's place in the American noir tradition, Suddenly is uncannily prophetic on the subject of assassination. It's clear that the killer is doing it for the fame as well as the money, a theme that would crop up in later confessions of real-life killers or would-be killers. Perhaps the 1954 film was too prophetic; like Sinatra's Manchurian Candidate, this movie was pulled from circulation for years after the JFK assassination. According to Kitty Kelley's bio of Sinatra, Lee Harvey Oswald saw this film a few days before he took rifle in hand. Now in the public domain, Suddenly is generally available in cheap, scratchy prints. --Robert Horton

Bonanza

It was on September 12 1959 that Bonanza first appeared on television. In an interesting twist on the usual trivia this show originally was intended as a vehicle to sell color TV sets! RCA the parent company of NBC wanted a show with a lot of outdoor scenes to promote its new color television sets. Although the ratings of the show were marginal in the first two years it staying on the air and became a huge success when it was moved from its original time slot of 7:30 pm on Saturday to Sunday night at 9:00 pm. Since that time the show has become an American tradition with its rich family oriented story lines great western action and endearing characters. "Bonanza" is a true classic that will surely entertain audiences for years to come!Disc 1 - Side A1. Escape To The Ponderosa2. The ApeRuntime 98:53Disc 1 - Side B1. The Blood Line2. Death at DawnRuntime 99:20Disc 2 - Side A1. Blood in the Land2. Badge Without HonorRuntime 98:51Disc 2 - Side B1. Day Of Reckoning2. Desert JusticeRuntime 98:53System Requirements:Starring: LORNE GREENE as Ben Cartwright MICHEAL LANDON as "Little Joe" Cartwright PERNELL ROBERTS as Adam Cartwright DAN BLOCKER as Eric "Hoss" Cartwright and VICTOR SEN YUNG as Hop Sing. Copyright-2002 BCI ECLIPSEFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 787364442393 Manufacturer No: 44423-9