Hollywood Vault

Twelve O'Clock High (Special Edition)

This gritty World War II action drama staring Gregory Peck Oscar winner Dean Jagger Hugh Marlowe Gary Merrill and Millard Mitchell is seen as one of the most realistic portrayals of the heroics and perils of war. Convinced an air force commander (Gary Merrill) is at the breaking point Brigadier General Savage (Peck) takes over his struggling bomber group. Kind and understanding he adopts a crushing discipline to revitalize the demoralized troop. At first resentful and rebellious the flyers gradually change as Savage guides them to amazing feats. But the stress of command soon takes it's toll and the weary general reaches his own breaking point.System Requirements:Running Time: 132 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 024543440550 Manufacturer No: 2244055

The wartime memories of surviving World War II bomber squadrons were still crystal clear when this acclaimed drama was released in 1949--one of the first postwar films out of Hollywood to treat the war on emotionally complex terms. Framed by a postwar prologue and epilogue and told as a flashback appreciation of wartime valor and teamwork, the film stars Gregory Peck in one of his finest performances as a callous general who assumes command of a bomber squadron based in England. At first, the new commander has little rapport with the 918th Bomber Group, whose loyalties still belong with their previous commander. As they continue to fly dangerous missions over Germany, however, the group and their new leader develop mutual respect and admiration, until the once-alienated commander feels that his men are part of a family--men whose bravery transcends the rigors of rigid discipline and by-the-book leadership. The film's now-classic climax, in which the general waits patiently for his squad to return to base--painfully aware that they may not return at all--is one of the most subtle yet emotionally intense scenes of any World War II drama. With Peck in the lead and Dean Jagger doing Oscar-winning work in a crucial supporting role, this was one of veteran director Henry King's proudest achievements, and it still packs a strong dramatic punch. --Jeff Shannon

An Affair To Remember (50th Anniversary Edition)

In this poignant and humorous love story nominated for four Academy Awards Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet on an ocean liner and fall deeply in love. Though each is engaged to someone else they agree to meet six months later at the Empire State Building if they still feel the same way about each other. But a tragic accident prevents their rendezvous and the lover's future takes an emotional and uncertain turn.System Requirements:Run time: 119 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 024543487982 Manufacturer No: 2248798

Get out your handkerchiefs for this four-star weepie, a 1957 remake of the 1939 Love Affair, directed by Leo McCarey, who also made the original. Grant and Kerr are strangers on an ocean liner, involved with other people, but who can't resist each other for a shipboard romance. They decide to test whether this is the real thing by agreeing to split up, then meet in six months atop the Empire State Building. Is there anyone who can resist that setup or the tragic romantic mishap that nearly splits them up? Can you keep dry eyes during the famous finale? Some prefer the original (with Charles Boyer); practically no one liked the underrated 1994 remake with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. While occasionally a shade slow, this one soars on Grant's charm and Kerr's noble suffering. --Marshall Fine

With a Song in My Heart - The Jane Froman Story

From radio star to wartime inspiration, the life of singer Jane Froman (the incomparable Susan Hayward) was made for the silver screen. The opening titles proclaim it "The story of a girl and the story of a voice. The girl is Jane Froman, the voice is her own" (Froman provided Hayward's vocals). Born in Missouri, the contralto finds fame in Cincinnati before conquering Chicago, New York--and songwriter Don Ross (David Wayne), her first husband. When her plane crashes en route to a USO engagement, Froman risks losing her legs, and fears she'll never perform again. In the hospital, she bonds with Pilot John Burn (Rory Calhoun) and wise-cracking nurse Clancy (All About Eve's Thelma Ritter). In the process, she falls for Burn and returns to the stage. With a Song in My Heart follows the basic biopic template--rise, fall, and resurrection--but Technicolor maestro Walter Lang (The King and I) throws in a few surprises, like narration by the supporting cast and an appearance by a handsome young Robert Wagner as a shell-shocked paratrooper. He also showcases an array of glittering gowns and a myriad of musical numbers, including Rodgers and Hart's stirring title track. Two featurettes and an interview with Burn reveal that Froman's life was even more difficult than that of her fictional counterpart. Though she marks an exception among Hayward's edgy on-screen personas--notably her Academy Award-winning convict in I Want to Live!--the auburn-haired actress invests the vocalist with innate decency and persuasive talent. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

How To Marry A Millionaire

Three women rent an expensive New York penthouse apartment in the hope of catching rich husbands.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: NR
Release Date: 20-APR-2004
Media Type: DVD

Nunnally Johnson's Broadway comedy was brought to the big screen by director Jean Negulesco, built around a trio of female stars, Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable. They play friends who come up with a plan to find and marry rich men. They rent a lavish penthouse and use it as their launching pad to lure men with money in the bank. But each eventually finds that love is more important that material possessions, though it takes a while. One running joke has Monroe so insecure about her looks that she refuses to wear glasses, though this means she bumps into furniture and walls. The other has Bacall rejecting suitor Cameron Mitchell because he doesn't wear a tie, assuming this means he's low-class when, in fact, he's the Donald Trump of 1954. Pre-feminist comedy captures the mindset of an era in which women's identities were based on the men they married. It has its moments, but much of the humor seems dated, though its take on sexual politics is occasionally acute. --Marshall Fine

Von Ryan's Express (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Ryan an American POW leads his fellow prisoners on a dangerous escape from the Germans in Italy. Having seemingly made errors of judgement Ryan has to win the support of the mainly British soldiers he is commanding.System Requirements:Running Time: 117 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG UPC: 024543440611 Manufacturer No: 2244061

Forget Indiana Jones. This 1965 high adventure stars Frank Sinatra as the leader of a mass escape from a World War II POW camp in Italy. That mission accomplished, Old Blue Eyes has sundry adventures camouflaging the freed men as German soldiers, trying to fool the Gestapo, and finally doing battle with enemy planes and ground troops while trying to get a hijacked train through a blocked tunnel. Sinatra is in great form and director Mark Robson handles the endless chain of action set-pieces with panache. A great pulse-quickener. --Tom Keogh

Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster)

A Three Movie Collection of Fox Horror Classics!THREE classic creepy tales in one collection priced to sell & guaranteed to set your spine tingling. From Jack the Ripper to a werewolf on the loose... there is something for everyone.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 024543466796 Manufacturer No: 2246679

This three-disc collection of vintage suspense from the Fox vaults not only presents three atmospheric and underrated thrillers in sparkling remastered formats, but also serves as a long-overdue tribute to the talents of director John Brahm and actor Laird Cregar, who stars in two of the three films. 1944's The Lodger is probably the best-known of the three; it's a remake of a 1926 Alfred Hitchcock film and stars Cregar as a mysterious house guest who may be Jack the Ripper. Cregar is top-billed in 1945's Hangover Square as another psychologically tormented soul; here he's a concert pianist (Bernard Herrmann composed the film's stunning concerto) who flies into a psychotic rage at the sound of a dissonant chord. And 1942's The Undying Monster is the "truest" horror title in the collection due to its werewolf plotline, but there's more than a touch of detective drama (and scientific procedural) in its frames as well. All three pictures are distinguished by German-born director Brahm, whose expressionistic visual style and emphasis on psychological terror over physical frights help to set these films apart from the monster-driven horror films coming from Universal at the same time. He's aided considerably by Cregar, who set the standard for movie madmen for decades to come. In addition to their stunning remastering, all three films feature in-depth featurettes on their principal players and histories. Concerto Macabre: The Films of John Brahm traces the director's offbeat career (after making an impact with the three films featured here, he concentrated almost exclusively on TV, where his output included stellar episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits), while The Tragic Mask: The Laird Cregar Story explores the oversized actor's struggle with typecasting and his homosexuality. The Lodger gets its own making-of documentary, The Man in the Attic, which explores Brahm's stunning visual compositions and Cregar's intense performance in detail. Trailers and advertising galleries for all three pictures are included, as are two complete radio adaptations of The Lodger and Hangover Square, both starring Vincent Price, who became Fox's in-house heavy after Cregar's untimely death at 31. Commentary on Hangover Square by film historians Richard Schickel and Steve Haberman with cast member Faye Marlowe, and James Ursini and Alain Silver on The Lodger, round the extras on this chill-filled set. -- Paul Gaita

Ford At Fox - The Collection

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 4-DEC-2007
Media Type: DVD

For anyone with a passion for vintage American cinema, it's difficult to imagine a more spectacular or more deeply gratifying occasion than the DVD release of Ford at Fox: The Collection. This mega-box is like a film archive unto itself ... or maybe permanent browsing rights over a wing of the Library of Congress. To be sure, there have been plenty directorial boxed sets, including several devoted to John Ford; and Ford made quite a bit of film history--and many of his best movies--away from Fox Films and its post-1935 avatar, 20th Century-Fox. But this treasure trove of 21 discs, encompassing just about half of the 50 titles Ford directed for Fox between 1920 and 1952, is unparalleled.

It isn't just the career highlights, though those have been treated royally. The Iron Horse, the epic 1924 Western that became a breakout success for its 30-year-old director, is presented in two editions, a British release version and the American version. Three Bad Men (1926), Ford's even better, last silent Western, is here, as well as the two pictures that brought him back-to-back best director Oscars in 1940-41, The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley. The Grapes of Wrath has been newly restored, and you'll find three other towering collaborations with Henry Fonda: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), and My Darling Clementine (1946)--both the director's preview cut and the release version.

Yet the real richness of Ford at Fox isn't limited to the known masterpieces. Some of it has to do with the dozen-and-a-half titles that are far from household words--the movies that put us in touch with the self-described "picture man" who did a "job of work" for the studio where he was under contract for much of the three decades beginning with Just Pals in 1920. Some of these are great films awaiting proper recognition. But even the least among them give off the ozone snap of discovery, affording simultaneous insights into the evolution of an artist, a medium, and a distinctive studio.

In this regard, the new feature-length documentary Becoming John Ford is an invaluable element of the set. Premier Ford biographer Joseph McBride, screenwriter Lem Dobbs, Peter Fonda, and others astutely testify about not only the life, artistry, and cantankerous personality of the director but also Fox studios and the mogul who served as a key Ford collaborator, Darryl F. Zanuck. Ford famously despised producers, but he respected Zanuck's movie sense and was content to leave the cutting of their films to him. (To the nighttime scene in The Grapes of Wrath when Tom Joad wanders outside the fruit-pickers' barracks and finds the strikers' encampment, Zanuck added the sound of crickets--a touch that made the superbly composed and lighted moment more "Fordian" than ever.)

Fox was the studio most identified with Americana, even before Zanuck--the favorite son of Wahoo, Nebraska--took charge. And so the legacy of Ford at Fox includes the three pictures he made with the beloved actor, comedian, and national political scold Will Rogers. Doctor Bull (1933) is a scrappy adaptation of a James Gould Cozzens novel, notable chiefly for its wintry New England atmosphere (Ford was a native Down Easter), but Judge Priest (1934) and Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) are luminous fables from the rural South. Judge Priest is especially remarkable for its subversive playing-off of Rogers' wily-rascal persona against the sly Stepin Fetchit in profoundly egalitarian comic scenes; the movie has been neglected because of Fetchit's infamous political incorrectness, but it has, and deserves, a place of honor here.

Also very fine is the 1936 The Prisoner of Shark Island, about the martyrdom of Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter), who unwittingly set the leg John Wilkes Booth broke following his assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The moment of Lincoln's death, the president virtually passing into history before our eyes, is a mystical triumph by Ford and cinematographer Bert Glennon. Critic Joe McBride claims Pilgrimage (1933) as one of Ford's early masterpieces and likens the dark-hearted Hannah Jessop, played by stage actress Henrietta Crosman, to the similarly driven Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (not a Fox picture and not included in this set). The setting is again the rural South, and to break up her son's romance with a local girl, Hannah forces him to march off to war in France--where he is killed. The rest of the film becomes, spiritually and then literally, a redemptive journey for Hannah. This stark character study lacks marquee names but has Ford's heart and some of his most powerfully visualized sequences.

Pilgrimage, like the late silents Four Sons and Hangman's House (both 1928), displays evidence of how influenced Ford was in that period by German director F.W. Murnau, who had come to Fox in 1927 to make Sunrise; Four Sons, a mostly German-set story, was even shot on sets left over from the Murnau picture. The essential Ford style was based on dynamism defined within a fixed frame, but watching the director experiment here with elaborate camera movement is fascinating. Similarly, the gangster movies Up the River and Born Reckless (both 1930) and the WWI naval adventure Seas Beneath (1931) take their interest not from their slapdash scenarios but from Ford's crash course in accommodating the presence of sound. Seas Beneath is especially striking among early talkies for being filmed almost entirely in the open air, on the water and on picturesque Catalina Island, with astonishing long-take, real-time coverage of submarines surfacing and submerging, boats sinking, and a naval artillery duel nerve-wracking in its relentless slowness.

For much of his tenure at Fox, Ford had little to say about what films he'd be assigned, or who'd be cast in them. His response was to fill the backgrounds of his movies with his personal stock company of memorably ugly mugs (supremely, Jack Pennick), and to improvise passages of visual poetry or comedy (a baseball game amid the WWI section of Born Reckless!) to keep from getting bored. Apart from some anthology-worthy battlefield sequences, the 1934 The World Moves On is so diffuse and devoid of interest in its rambling family saga, we suspect it might have been the film that inspired one of the great Ford legends: how, advised by the front office that his current production was falling behind, he tore a handful of pages out of the script and said, "Now we're back on schedule."

Mostly, though, the picture man triumphed in spite of himself. Saddling John Ford with a Shirley Temple movie would seem to border on insult, but the director turned the Kipling-based Wee Willie Winkie (1937) into something enchanting instead of cloying. Also partly set on the Indian frontier, Four Men and a Prayer (1938)--a preposterous Boy's Own Adventure tale that hops from India to England to Latin America to Egypt as the titular quartet of British brothers try to clear their late father's name--was just about Ford's last obligatory assignment before embarking on the amazing 1939-41 streak of The Grapes of Wrath et al.; he disliked the story (and the British), but he turned an Indian saloon scene into a classic "Oirish" brawl, and invested a night of civil war in a Latin American town with a memorably surreal air of shock and terror.

How might Ford at Fox have evolved if WWII hadn't intervened? The director spent the war years shooting documentaries (several are included on the Becoming John Ford disc). Upon mustering out, his ambitions focused on developing personal productions for Argosy Pictures, the company he had formed with Merian C. (King Kong) Cooper before the war. Apart from My Darling Clementine, Ford directed only two more pictures for Fox, When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950) and an inferior remake of the silent Raoul Walsh classic What Price Glory (1952)--both semi-musicals featuring Fox's new star Dan Dailey. So, anticlimactically, Ford at Fox: The Collection ends there. But let's not dwell on that; this big box is very full. "There is no fence round time," the narrator says in How Green Was My Valley, "you can go back and have of it what you will." The films of John Ford are forever. --Richard T. Jameson

Can-Can

How to adapt a Broadway musical for the movies? Well, if you've got Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine signed up, you throw out most of the original and make up something new--which is how Cole Porter's Can-Can came to the screen. It had been a smash on Broadway, and on film Can-Can locked up the #2 box-office spot for 1960 (nestled between Ben-Hur and Psycho). From a modern standpoint, the movie's popularity can be attributed to the stars, the colorful widescreen production, the sexy subject matter, and of course the Porter songs. It can't really be explained any other way, because Can-Can isn't among the most engaging movie musicals; it has the stolid, proscenium-framed look of Fox's 1950s widescreen musicals, and the story is only mildly diverting. The saturated color makes 19th-century Montmarte come to life, and the can-can numbers (and the wonderfully daft Garden of Eden ballet) look appropriately splashy. For a bit of authentic Gallic je ne sais quoi, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan are imported from Gigi, a big hit two years earlier. MacLaine and Sinatra have their cozy chemistry ("Let's Do It" fares especially well with them), and the movie marks the film debut of the dimply dancer Juliet Prowse.

The DVD provides a gorgeous color presentation of the movie. A second disc has some OK featurettes, including a making-of documentary that includes the famous story of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the set of Can-Can, at which he witnessed an ooh-la-la can-can number, after which he denounced the proceedings as an example of Western depravity. --Robert Horton

A 1890's Montmartre Dance Hall Owner Constantly Raided For Performing The Illegal Can-Can Has To Use Her Own Resources When An Elderly Judge Is Replaced By A Younger More Serious One. Based On Abe Burrow'S Play. Music By Cole Porter.

Carmen Jones

Few actresses have captivated the camera as powerfully as Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones. Her polished beauty plays in irresistible contrast to her title character's leonine sexuality and fluid emotions; a man can't decide from moment to moment if he wants to save her from doom, build her a castle, or never let her out of bed. Of course, that's the problem with the boys in this semi-experimental adaptation of Bizet's opera, Carmen. Straight-arrow Joe (a strapping Harry Belafonte), an obedient corporal on a Southern military base during World War II, is all set to go to flight school and marry his hometown sweetie, Cindy Lou (Olga James), when his troublemaking sergeant orders him to accompany Carmen to a civilian court. In short order, Joe is swept up in Carmen's carnal anarchy and her craving for release from lousy options in life. An impulsive act of violence ensures that Joe's future is gone forever, putting Carmen in the difficult position of destroying their relationship to save him. Oscar Hammerstein II took Bizet's music in 1943 and rewrote the book and lyrics. The result is largely a smashing success with a few missteps (the bullfighter in Bizet's piece becomes a heavyweight boxer here, which breaks up a certain grace in the story) and a couple of perfect stretches (the long prelude to Carmen and Joe's first embrace, set on Carmen's hoodoo-ish home turf). Despite the fact that both Dandridge and Belafonte were singers, their vocal performances were dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne. (Yes, it is a little disconcerting to hear another voice come out of the more familiar Belafonte's mouth.) Otto Preminger directed with his usual eye on economy of action and production, as the numerous musical numbers tend to be shot in lengthy, single, carefully choreographed takes. The result can be a little visually static at times, but the passion behind the singing pulls everything through. --Tom Keogh

Powered by Georges Bizet's grand music and Oscar Hammerstein II's magnificent lyrics, this Americanized all-black version of the classic opera Carmen is "a dynamic superb show" with a positively "incandescent Carmen." (Newsweek) OscarÂ(r) -nominee Dorothy Dandridge stars in the title role, a passionate, sexy creature who lures Joe (Harry Belafonte), a handsome soldier, away from his sweetheart (Olga James). Following a fatal brawl with his sergeant, Joe deserts his regiment with the sultry femme fatale. But Carmen soon tires of him and takes up with a heavyweight prize-fighter (Joe Adams). Triggering Joe's tragic revenge. Helping to set the screen on fire are Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll, part of the "sensational troupe" that makes this jubilant musical film "hard to beat."

The King and I

The third Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway hit to go before the cameras, The King and I boasts a career-making performance from Yul Brynner, repeating his stage triumph as the titular monarch and proving to moviegoers that bald can be beautiful. It's Brynner's proud king that provides the fulcrum to the plot, and it's Brynner himself, with his piercing gaze and graceful physicality, that demands our attention.

The story line, adapted from an earlier, nonmusical stage hit, follows widowed English teacher Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) to her new posting as tutor to the Siamese king's formidable mob of children. The collision of East and West affords its winning mixture of drama and humor, and the warm friendship that grows between the king and the patrician teacher provides a poignant, unfulfilled romance between the two wary protagonists. Into this framework, the composers insert a superb score, echoing Asian motifs, as well as a bouquet of lovely songs including "Hello, Young Lovers," "Shall We Dance," and two ensemble pieces for Anna and the royal children ("Getting to Know You" and "I Whistle a Happy Tune") that suggest prototypes for Rodgers & Hammerstein's later hit, The Sound of Music.

For this 1956 production, 20th Century Fox lavished stereophonic sound, widescreen cinematography, intricate production design, and stunning sets. Technically, this newly mastered THX version is the best-looking and -sounding King yet to hit video. But, regardless of format, the glorious music is reason enough to hit "play." --Sam Sutherland

The third Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway hit to go before the cameras, The King and I boasts a career-making performance from Yul Brynner, repeating his stage triumph as the titular monarch and proving to moviegoers that bald can be beautiful. It's Brynner's proud king that provides the fulcrum to the plot, and it's Brynner himself, with his piercing gaze and graceful physicality, that demands our attention.

The story line, adapted from an earlier, nonmusical stage hit, follows widowed English teacher Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) to her new posting as tutor to the Siamese king's formidable mob of children. The collision of East and West affords its winning mixture of drama and humor, and the warm friendship that grows between the king and the patrician teacher provides a poignant, unfulfilled romance between the two wary protagonists. Into this framework, the composers insert a superb score, echoing Asian motifs, as well as a bouquet of lovely songs including "Hello, Young Lovers," "Shall We Dance," and two ensemble pieces for Anna and the royal children ("Getting to Know You" and "I Whistle a Happy Tune") that suggest prototypes for Rodgers & Hammerstein's later hit, The Sound of Music.

For this 1956 production, 20th Century Fox lavished stereophonic sound, widescreen cinematography, intricate production design, and stunning sets. Technically, this newly mastered THX version is the best-looking and -sounding King yet to hit video, but in its full-frame, pan-and- scan version the formatting downsizes far too much of the splendor, losing some sharpness to the imagery. For viewing on all but the smallest screens, the widescreen edition is vastly superior. But, in either version, the glorious music is reason enough to hit "play." --Sam Sutherland