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Lady and the Tramp
: :Disney's first animated feature in CinemaScope is now available in widescreen presentations on video, and it is definitely good to get the whole picture. One of the studio's most original and charming movies, the 1955 film tells the story of a rakish, street-smart dog named Tramp, who helps an aristocratic pooch named Lady out of some trouble and then commences a romance with her. Sweet, funny scenes abound, and the combination of innocence and sophistication would have done well in a live-action picture. Peggy Lee cowrote the songs and provides the ...
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Very Brady Christmas
: :Disney's first animated feature in CinemaScope is now available in widescreen presentations on video, and it is definitely good to get the whole picture. One of the studio's most original and charming movies, the 1955 film tells the story of a rakish, street-smart dog named Tramp, who helps an aristocratic pooch named Lady out of some trouble and then commences a romance with her. Sweet, funny scenes abound, and the combination of innocence and sophistication would have done well in a live-action picture. Peggy Lee cowrote the songs and provides the ...
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Condorman
: :A pre-Phantom Michael Crawford plays Woody, a goofy cartoonist-accidentally-turned-spy in this Cold War-era lark. In Paris visiting his friend, a CIA 'file clerk,' Woody is sent on a cloak-and-dagger errand and is mistaken for an operative by his beautiful Russian counterpart. She then contacts the agency with the demand that he, and only he, help her defect. Writer adopts comic book persona and voilà: Condorman! This wide-winged hero thwarts the pesky Soviets at every turn. From the old run-down farmer's truck he's driving emerges a flashy race car that outruns a ...
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Seekers (2pc)
: :A pre-Phantom Michael Crawford plays Woody, a goofy cartoonist-accidentally-turned-spy in this Cold War-era lark. In Paris visiting his friend, a CIA 'file clerk,' Woody is sent on a cloak-and-dagger errand and is mistaken for an operative by his beautiful Russian counterpart. She then contacts the agency with the demand that he, and only he, help her defect. Writer adopts comic book persona and voilà: Condorman! This wide-winged hero thwarts the pesky Soviets at every turn. From the old run-down farmer's truck he's driving emerges a flashy race car that outruns a ...
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Benny Goodman Story
: :It lacks the tragic ending of The Glenn Miller Story, a smash hit released a year earlier, but this enjoyable musical biopic does a nice job of blending Benny Goodman's sweet swinging clarinet with a healthy dose of Hollywood hokum. The emphasis is on Goodman's struggle to get 'hot music' into the mainstream, and his shy wooing of a socialite (Donna Reed). With Steve Allen cast as the bespectacled Goodman, there's a comic undertone to the bandleader's somewhat geeky demeanor, and Allen (a musician himself) is believable fronting the orchestra. Real-life ...
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Dr Strangelove
: essential video:Arguably the greatest black comedy ever made, Stanley Kubrick's cold war classic is the ultimate satire of the nuclear age. Dr. Strangelove is a perfect spoof of political and military insanity, beginning when General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), a maniacal warrior obsessed with 'the purity of precious bodily fluids,' mounts his singular campaign against Communism by ordering a squadron of B-52 bombers to attack the Soviet Union. The Soviets counter the threat with a so-called 'Doomsday Device,' and the world hangs in the balance while the U.S. president ...
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Tarnished Angels
: :Rock Hudson has never been better than as the hard-headed newsman with a romantic soft spot for a team of gypsy fliers--especially the sexy parachute-jumping Dorothy Malone--in Douglas Sirk's adaptation of William Faulkner's Pylon. It's the Depression, and the volatile little family--disillusioned World War I ace Robert Stack; his doting wife Malone; his sad, lovesick mechanic Jack Carson; and Stack's hero-worshipping son--has landed in New Orleans for a Mardi Gras air show. Stack's mania for flying ('I need to fly, just like an alcoholic needs his drink!') keeps him at arm's ...
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How to Make a Monster
: :Rock Hudson has never been better than as the hard-headed newsman with a romantic soft spot for a team of gypsy fliers--especially the sexy parachute-jumping Dorothy Malone--in Douglas Sirk's adaptation of William Faulkner's Pylon. It's the Depression, and the volatile little family--disillusioned World War I ace Robert Stack; his doting wife Malone; his sad, lovesick mechanic Jack Carson; and Stack's hero-worshipping son--has landed in New Orleans for a Mardi Gras air show. Stack's mania for flying ('I need to fly, just like an alcoholic needs his drink!') keeps him at arm's ...
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Pray for the Wildcats
: :Rock Hudson has never been better than as the hard-headed newsman with a romantic soft spot for a team of gypsy fliers--especially the sexy parachute-jumping Dorothy Malone--in Douglas Sirk's adaptation of William Faulkner's Pylon. It's the Depression, and the volatile little family--disillusioned World War I ace Robert Stack; his doting wife Malone; his sad, lovesick mechanic Jack Carson; and Stack's hero-worshipping son--has landed in New Orleans for a Mardi Gras air show. Stack's mania for flying ('I need to fly, just like an alcoholic needs his drink!') keeps him at arm's ...
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Tommy
: :If you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing (or try to) or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. As it turns out, the Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched to director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess, and this 1975 production finds Russell at the peak of his filmmaking audacity. It's a fever-dream of musical bombast, custom-fit to the thematic ambition of Pete Townshend's epic rock drama, revolving around the titular 'deaf, dumb, ...
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