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Emma (A&E, 1997)
: :Emma woodhouse has a rigid sense of propriety as regards matrimonial alliances. Unfortunately she insists on matchmaking for her less forceful friend harriet and so causes her to come to grief. Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 08/29/2000 Starring: Kate Beckinsale Mark Strong Run time: 125 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Diarmuid Lawrence :Similar to the equally excellent Valmont, this version of Jane Austen's classic novel had the misfortune of following a sumptuous big-star version with Gwyneth Paltrow, which was released the summer before. And, just as 1989's Valmont suffered comparisons with Dangerous ...
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Moby Dick
: :A skipper of a 19th century whaling boat is obsessed with the idea of harpooning the whale that is responsible for the loss of his leg.Genre: Feature Film-Action/AdventureRating: NRRelease Date: 30-JUL-2002Media Type: DVD essential video:There are so many things right about this 1956 production of Moby Dick, it's a shame it is remembered for the one (debatable) thing wrong with it. As Captain Ahab, the bearded, one-legged, insanely obsessed whaler, Gregory Peck has often been called miscast. The mild, level-headed Peck had many talents, but the volcanic eruptions of Ahab seemed ...
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Dandelion Dead
: :England 1921. The serenity of a small country town is about to be shattered by a shockiing revelation about one of its leading citizens. A family will be ruined. A private matter will become a case of great public interest. Life seems good for Major Herbert Armstrong. he is a respected solicitor with a country estate the love of his three children and a dvout pride in both his life and his garden. But every landscape has its challenges - and so does every life. In Herbert's otherwise pristine garden it's a ...
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Great Expectations (1946) (Criterion Collection Spine #31)
:Description:One of the great translations of literature into film, David Lean's Great Expectations brings Charles Dickens' masterpiece to robust onscreen life. Pip, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, and Estella populate Lean's magnificent miniature, beautifully photographed by Guy Green and designed by John Bryan. essential video:David Lean's handsome adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic novel captures the warm humor and richness of character that so many filmmakers miss in their reverent recreations of Victorian England. From the nightmarish opening sequence on the windswept graveyard where young orphan Pip (Anthony Wager) meets the desperate escaped criminal Magwitch ...
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In Which We Serve
: :Based on the true story of Lord Mountbatten's destroyer, In Which We Serve is one of the most memorable British films made during World War II. Unfolding in flashback as survivors cling to a dinghy, the film interweaves the history of HMS Torrin with the onshore lives of its crew. The 1942 film was the inspiration of Noel Coward, who desperately wanted to do something for the war effort, and he produced, wrote the screenplay, composed the stirring score, and starred as Captain Edward Kinross. Coward also officially codirected, though he handed the ...
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Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
: :Brew some tea and curl up by the fire for murder, intrigue, and madcap upper-class high jinks in Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? James Warwick and Francesca Annis play plucky amateur sleuths Bobby Jones and Lady Frankie Derwent (and yes, you've also seen them paired as plucky amateur Christie sleuths Tommy & Tuppence). In the very opening scene, Bobby happens upon a dying man who whispers the mysterious title question and we're off. Why Didn't They Ask Evans? has everything one looks for in an old-fashioned bloodcurdler: murder, false identities, a ...
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Tom Thumb
: :When the 2-inch-tall Tom Thumb arrives at a childless couple's door, it seems like the perfect family has been created. But a chance meeting with a pair of devious robbers soon has Tom acting as an unwitting accomplice in a robbery, thereby threatening his family's happiness. Only Tom (Russ Tamblyn of West Side Story) and his friend Woody (Alan Young) can prove the innocence of Tom's parents and bring the robbers to justice. This 1958 presentation of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale won an Oscar® for its innovative special effects. Timeless scenes include ...
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It Happened Here
:Description:The story of Hitler's England. In Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's brilliant and chilling re-write of history, Germany has won World War II and Nazi troops occupy England. Pauline, an apolitical nurse, hopes only that normal life will return to England. It is only after she accepts a nursing job with the Nazis that she slowly begins to realize the horrifying reality behind the occupation. 'It Happened Here' is a masterful, terrifying vision of what might have happened if the Allied effort had failed. When first shown in 1964, seven minutes of controversial ...
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Heavens Above!
: :British cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s turned out a series of gently satirical films that mocked established institutions, and Heavens Above! is the member of the group that turned its attention to religion. Peter Sellers, in an unusually low-key performance that's all the better for being underplayed, stars as a young vicar whose tendencies to interpret Christian doctrines in his own individualistic way, rather than conform to church traditions, leads to all kinds of chaos. He really believes, for example, in taking from the rich to give the poor. It's ...
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The Smallest Show On Earth
: :An amiable knockoff of the Ealing comedy style, The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) starts with aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his 'nice gel' wife Virginia McKenna inheriting a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discovering that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, which specializes in those 'smash 'em in the face, knock 'em over the waterfront' pictures, but the decrepit Bijou, known locally as 'the fleapit.' The initial plan, set up by lawyer Leslie Phillips, is to sell off the cinema to the owner of the Grand so he can knock ...
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