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Wizard of Oz
: essential video:When it was released during Hollywood's golden year of 1939, The Wizard of Oz didn't start out as the perennial classic it has since become. The film did respectable business, but it wasn't until its debut on television that this family favorite saw its popularity soar. And while Oz's TV broadcasts are now controlled by media mogul Ted Turner (who owns the rights), the advent of home video has made this lively musical a mainstay in the staple diet of great American films. Young Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), her dog, Toto, ...
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101 Dalmatians (Walt Disney's Classic)
:Description:Full of boundless adventure and boisterous fun, Disney's 17th animated masterpiece is the original film classic starring 101 of the world's most lovable, huggable Dalmatians and their hilariously evil captor, Cruella De Vil! A charming London neighborhood is home to Roger and Anita, whose beloved Dalmatians, Pongo and Perdita, have become the proud parents of 15 puppies. But when Cruella and her bumbling henchmen, Horace and Jasper, unexpectedly appear, the pups soon disappear -- along with every other Dalmatian puppy in town! Now Pongo and Perdita must rally their animal friends and use ...
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Treasure Island (1990)
: :A tale about a fatherless boy finding dramatically different father figures throughout a remarkable adventure, Treasure Island is an entertaining coming-of-age story, with themes of family, loyalty, friendship, trust, and honesty at its core. While Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure tale is popular film fare, it's never been done this well. Charlton Heston stars as Long John Silver and Christian Bale as plucky Jim Hawkins in this TNT production. Directed by Heston's son Fraser (who also directed the excellent family fare Alaska), the film remains faithful to the novel, and draws much of ...
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Casino Royale (The Collector's Edition)
:Description:Who was the first actor to play James Bond? If you answered Sean Connery, you would be wrong. In 1954, Barry Nelson played Bond in 007's screen debut: a 1954 live t.v version of the first James Bond novel 'Casino Royale'. Spy Guise Video now makes this amazing and historic program available - complete with the restored ending missing from previous video versions. This deluxe collector's edition also features many extras: an exclusive overview of the life of Ian Fleming and the 'Casino Royale' legacy hosted by Lee Pfeiffer, co-author of the best-selling ...
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The African Queen
: essential video:The 1951 John Huston classic, set in Africa during World War I, garnered Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain in Africa, who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to finally fall into one another's arms. This is classic Huston material--part adventure, part quest--but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a longtime ...
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The Rounders
: :Burt Kennedy wrote several of the finest Westerns ever for director Budd Boetticher in the late '50s--marvels of austere, subtle storytelling. Yet on his own, writer-director Kennedy tended to very broad comedy-Westerns. The Rounders, based on a novel by Max Evans, falls somewhere between Support Your Local Sheriff (high) and Dirty Dingus Magee (low). Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda play two bronc busters in the pickup-driving West who, by their own admission, 'ain't exactly the smartest cowboys that ever lived.' Somehow they always end up owing rancher Jim Ed Love (Chill Wills) one ...
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Swiss Family Robinson
: :The Disney touch is all over this grand, colorful version of the Johann Wyss adventure of a European family set off for the new world of New Guinea. The film opens on a ship jostled and torn by a raging storm while a family struggles to make it through alive. Tossed into a reef near a deserted tropical island, father John Mills takes charge and the family soon turns their island prison into a veritable paradise. Their multilevel tree house, built in record time, is complete with running water and a working pipe ...
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Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
: :Australian model George Lazenby took up the mantle of the world's most suave secret agent when Sean Connery retired as James Bond--prematurely, it turned out. Connery returned in Diamonds Are Forever before leaving the role to Roger Moore and Lazenby's subsequent career fizzled, yet this one-hit wonder is responsible for one of the best Bond films of all time. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 007 leaves the Service to privately pursue his SPECTRE nemesis Blofeld (played this time by Telly Savalas), whose latest master plan involves a threat to the world's crops ...
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Diamonds are Forever
: :Sean Connery retired from the 007 franchise after You Only Live Twice (replaced by George Lazenby in the underrated and underperforming On Her Majesty's Secret Service) but was lured back for one last official appearance as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. He's in fine form--cool but ruthless--in a sharp precredits sequence hunting the unkillable Blofeld (a suavely menacing Charles Gray in this incarnation), but the MacGuffin of a story (involving diamond smuggling, a superlaser on a satellite, and Blofeld's latest plot to rule the world ) is full of the groaning tongue-in-cheek ...
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Pt 109
: :John F. Kennedy lived long enough to see this Hollywood account of his Navy career and his heroism following a ruthless attack by a Japanese ship on his small patrol craft. Cliff Robertson is an amiable choice to play Kennedy, though one won't find a lot of the late president's mannerisms in his performance. The key battle sequence, which finds Kennedy and his crew bloodied and battered while trying to stay alive in shark-infested waters, makes a big impression on young viewers. --Tom Keogh
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