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Classic DVDs

Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:520
List Price: $26.98
Lowest New Price: $9.50
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Black & White
Closed-captioned
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Orson Welles
Joseph Cotten
Agnes Moorehead
Ray Collins
Dorothy Comingore

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconsciousness. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brecht on film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films from the 20th century. --Tom Keogh

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Cool Hand Luke (Deluxe Edition)

Sales Rank:469
List Price: $19.98
Lowest New Price: $11.76
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Color
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Restored
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Luke Askew
Joe Don Baker
J.D. Cannon
Marc Cavell
Dick Davalos

Paul Newman gives one of the defining performances of his career, and cemented his place as a beautiful-rebel screen icon playing the stubbornly tough and independent title character in Cool Hand Luke. And before he became familiar as a sidekick in 1970s disaster movies (Earthquake and the Airport movies), George Kennedy won an Oscar for playing Dragline, the brutal chain-gang boss who tries to beat loner Luke's cool out of him. It's a classic rebel-against-the-repressive-institution story in the line of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest or The Shawshank Redemption. Certain moments have become classics--particularly the hardboiled egg-eating contest, and the immortal line (drooled by Strother Martin, as a sadistic redneck prison officer), "What we have here is a failure to communicate." And don't forget, Luke is also the source of the oft-quoted driving ditty, "I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I have my plastic Jesus, right here on the dashboard of my car..." He is cool, all right. --Jim Emerson

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Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three

Sales Rank:484
List Price: $64.98
Lowest New Price: $24.99
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MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Animated
Box set
Closed-captioned
Color
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Rudolf Ising
Robert McKimson
Chuck Jones

Actor(s):

Mel Blanc
Billy Bletcher
Stan Freberg
John T. Smith (II)
Bea Benaderet

Like the previous entries in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series, volume 3 confirms how brilliant the Warner Bros. artists were and how durable their creations have proven. The set includes classics that every cartoon buff will recognize: "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!," "Robin Hood Daffy," "Birds Anonymous." Other selections are less familiar but significant in the development of the studio: "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," the first Looney Tune; "I Haven't Got a Hat," the earliest Warners cartoon viewers can watch for fun, rather than as an historic curiosity; "Porky's Romance," in which director Frank Tashlin introduced rapid cutting to cartoons. Some of the caricature films have aged less gracefully. Younger audiences will recognize the drawn versions of W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Katharine Hepburn, and Charlie Chaplin. But will anyone under the age of 60 remember Edna Mae Oliver, George Arliss, or Ned Sparks?

The producers have once again loaded the discs with supplemental material, including "Point Food Rationing," a unseen short explaining wartime ration books; a BBC documentary on Chuck Jones; and interstitial animated sequences for The Bugs Bunny Show. "Philbert" ranks as the oddest of the extras: an unsold (and leaden) pilot from 1963, featuring live actors and an animated title character. Whoopi Goldberg introduces the set, explaining that some of the ethnic gags would no longer be considered appropriate. But she correctly adds that to remove them would falsify both the history of animation and American popular culture. It all adds up to a set every cartoon fan will want. (Unrated, suitable for all ages: cartoon violence) --Charles Solomon

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It's A Wonderful Life (Two-Disc Collector's Set) (B/W & Color)

Sales Rank:403
List Price: $24.99
Lowest New Price: $16.09
Lowest Used Price: $17.30
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Black & White
Color
Dolby
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

James Stewart
Donna Reed
Lionel Barrymore
Thomas Mitchell
Henry Travers

Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It's a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra's masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director's optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra's triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming--in the teary-eyed final reel--his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It's a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. --Robert Horton

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The Day the Earth Stood Still

Sales Rank:415
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $7.11
Lowest Used Price: $6.88
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

Black & White
Closed-captioned
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Michael Rennie
Patricia Neal
Hugh Marlowe
Lock Martin
Frances Bavier

A hallmark of the science fiction genre as well as a wry commentary on the political climate of the 1950s, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a sci-fi movie less concerned with special effects than with a social parable. A spacecraft lands in Washington, D.C., carrying a humanoid messenger from another world (Michael Rennie) imparting a warning to the people of Earth to cease their violent behavior. But panic ensues as the messenger lands and is shot by a nervous soldier. His large robot companion destroys the Capitol as the messenger escapes the confines of the hospital. He moves in with a family as a boarder and blends into society to observe the full range of the human experience. Director Robert Wise (West Side Story) not only provides one of the most recognizable icons of the science fiction world in his depiction of the massive robot loyal to his master, but he avoids the obvious camp elements of the story to create a quiet and observant story highlighting both the good and the bad in human nature. --Robert Lane

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Quo Vadis (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:910
List Price: $20.97
Lowest New Price: $13.73
Lowest Used Price: $14.34
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Special Edition
NTSC

Director(s):

Anthony Mann
Mervyn LeRoy

Actor(s):

Robert Taylor
Deborah Kerr
Leo Genn
Peter Ustinov
Patricia Laffan

"Welcome to Nero's House of Women" greets a concubine to a slave girl, Lygia (Deborah Kerr). Later this self-same greeter reveals that she, too, like Lygia, is really a fellow Christian neophyte. And it's that mixture of tawdry Hollywood sex and a strong Christian message that makes this film an enjoyable "gentiles and gladiators" flick. Marcus Vinicius returns home after conquering the Britons to find that Rome is infected with a crazy new sect called Christians and that his beloved emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov, roly-poly and wicked) has become increasingly wacky. Marcus tries his centurion wiles on Lygia, and she's smitten, but she's also a Christian convert and begs Marcus not to force her to choose between him and her god. The Christians have a tough go of it, with martyrdom in the Coliseum as punishment for belonging to the new religion in town. Though three hours long, director Mervyn LeRoy's film always has something going on. It could help you enjoyably kill any rainy Sunday afternoon. --Keith Simanton

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My Fair Lady (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:269
List Price: $26.98
Lowest New Price: $8.49
Lowest Used Price: $8.55
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

AC-3
Anamorphic
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Special Edition
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

George Cukor
Suzie Galler

Actor(s):

Audrey Hepburn
Rex Harrison
Stanley Holloway
Wilfrid Hyde-White
Gladys Cooper

Hollywood's legendary "woman's director," George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry of Cukor's set, but it also underscores a certain visual stiffness that can slow viewer enthusiasm just a tad. But it's really star wattage that keeps this film exciting, that and such great songs as "On the Street Where You Live" and "I Could Have Danced All Night." Actor Jeremy Brett, who gained a huge following later in life portraying Sherlock Holmes, is quite electric as Eliza's determined suitor. --Tom Keogh

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Sergeant York (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Sales Rank:544
List Price: $26.98
Lowest New Price: $10.99
Lowest Used Price: $10.85
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Black & White
Closed-captioned
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Gary Cooper
Walter Brennan
Joan Leslie
George Tobias
Stanley Ridges

Gary Cooper plays Alvin York, the real-life country lad and sharpshooter drafted to fight during World War I but blocked from killing by his pacifist sentiments. Howard Hawks makes a rousing, heroic film out of the tale, and Cooper gives one of his best performances (for which he won an Oscar). The 1941 feature seems as much a valentine to wartime America (and a not-so-subtle piece of propaganda) as anything, with Hawks capturing splendidly shot scenes of life in York's home state of Tennessee, which in turn provide a striking contrast to the battlefield. A key scene in the film, in which York is presented with an argument in favor of killing in war, is still thought provoking. --Tom Keogh

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Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition)

Sales Rank:627
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $25.90
Lowest Used Price: $7.49
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

Animated
Closed-captioned
Color
Special Edition
Surround Sound
NTSC

Director(s):

Clyde Geronimi
Hamilton Luske
Wilfred Jackson

Actor(s):

Barbara Luddy
Larry Roberts
Peggy Lee
Bill Thompson
Bill Baucom

It's still one of the sweetest kisses onscreen, up there with Bergman and Grant, Bogey and Bacall: the moment when pampered purebred Lady and streetwise mongrel Tramp, sharing a moonlit plate of spaghetti in an alley behind an Italian café, unknowingly slurp the same strand, and suddenly find their mouths meeting in surprise and tenderness. Ah, puppy love. Lady and the Tramp is a delight of animation and surprisingly deep character development, given that the stars are all dogs. Lady, an adorable Cocker Spaniel, feels neglected when her owners become distracted by the pending birth of a baby. But the last straw is clueless Aunt Sarah's appearance with her conniving Siamese cats (among Disney's most creatively evil villains), who wreak havoc on Lady's blissful home life. Soon Lady is off on an adventure in the streets, where the savvy Tramp takes her under his paw. The lessons of friendship and loyalty, of integrity--not to mention trusting in the kindness of strangers--ring true to delighted children and adults alike. And unlike many Disney films, there's no real violence, only challenges that smart dogs (including a tough-talking vamp named Peg, voiced sublimely by Peggy Lee, who also wrote the songs), banding together, can tackle. The animation is terrific; the scene where we first meet Tramp shows him rinsing off under a pipe, and his subsequent shaking-off of the water follows the detailed rippling up and down his back that any dog lover will recognize. And is there any song more romantic than "Bella Notte"? Bellissima! --A.T. Hurley

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Casablanca

Sales Rank:471
List Price: $19.98
Lowest New Price: $10.16
Lowest Used Price: $7.98
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Black & White
Digital Sound
NTSC
Subtitled

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Humphrey Bogart
Ingrid Bergman
Paul Henreid
Claude Rains
Conrad Veidt

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. --Tom Keogh

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