Paul Mavis' DVD Talk DVD Reviews https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list/DVD Video DVD Talk DVD Review RSS Feed en-us Mister Ed: The Sixth and Final Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67648 Thu, 28 May 2015 16:28:28 UTC Highly Recommended

Shout! Factory and M-G-M have released Mister Ed: The Sixth and Final Season, a 2-disc, 13-episode collection of the CBS sitcom's 1965-1966 (half) season. Starring Alan Young, Connie Hines, Barry Kelly, and the voice talent of Allan "Rocky" Lane, Mister Ed wound down its run in the network graveyard (not even prime time: Sundays at 5:00pm), after failing to ever break through to the Nielsen Top Thirty (whenever it did manage to get an evening time slot). That didn't stop kids and families from taking the show to heart, with endless reruns over the decades cementing its status as a truly iconic sitcom from the genre's golden age. No extras for these very sharp, clean black and white fullscreen transfers.

Southern Californian architect Wilbur Post (Alan Young) has moved out of the city and into the hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley. Living in his beautifully appointe...Read the entire review

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The Dakotas: The Complete Series (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68820 Thu, 28 May 2015 16:28:28 UTC Highly Recommended

Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released The Dakotas: The Complete Series, a 5-disc (pressed, not M.O.D.), 20-episode collection of the 1963 ABC Western's sole--and abbreviated--season. Starring Larry Ward, Jack Elam, Chad Everett, and Mike Greene, The Dakotas, from legendary WB TV producer William T. Orr, was intended as a replacement for ABC's and Orr's Cheyenne series. However, low ratings and a controversial episode that (reportedly) sent viewers to dialing up their TV stations with complaints, saw The Dakotas disappear before all its filmed episodes were aired. No extras for these very sharp black and white fullframe transfers.

The Dakota Territory, during America's so-called "Gilded Age." Former Territorial Marshal Frank Ragan (Larry Ward), sporting an eye patch (for the pilot only) and a grim,...Read the entire review

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Dr. Kildare: The Complete Fourth Season - Parts One and Two (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68827 Thu, 28 May 2015 16:28:28 UTC Highly Recommended

Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Dr. Kildare: The Complete Fourth Season - Parts One and Two, a 2-volume, 8-disc (pressed, not M.O.D.), 34-episode collection of the hit NBC medico drama's 1964-1965 season. Against heavy competition over on ABC, ratings continued to fall for Dr. Kildare, with the series leaving the Nielsen Top Thirty this season. Big guests stars like Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Walter Matthau, Ramon Navarro, and Robert Young, and the show's typically lush production--a special three-part trip to Rome was this season's highlight--compensated. No extras for these pristine black and white fullscreen transfers.

Mammoth, bustling Blair General Hospital. At the center of this modern metropolitan citadel of healing sits Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey), Chief of Staff at Blair. Brilliant, dem...Read the entire review

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The Colbys: The Complete Series DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67540 Thu, 28 May 2015 16:28:28 UTC Recommended

Shout! Factor and CBS DVD have released The Colbys: The Complete Series, a 2-volume, 12-disc, 49-episode collection of the failed 1985-1987 ABC prime time soap starring Charlton Heston, John James, Katharine Ross, Emma Samms, Stephanie Beacham, Tracy Scoggins, Maxwell Caulfield, Ricardo Montalban, and Barbara Stanwyck. A direct spin-off of ABC's huge Nielsen hit, Dynasty, The Colbys, despite an opulent budget and extensive promotion befitting its stellar cast, never caught on with the public the way its host series did, disappearing into obscurity when it was rather quickly cancelled in its sophomore session. The fullscreen, 1.37:1 transfers here look fine, while some new interviews with the cast should tempt fans of the series.

Los Angeles, California, 1985. At the palatial Belvedere mansion high atop the hills of Bel Air, intrigue--foreign, domestic, and most...Read the entire review

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Hart to Hart: The Complete Fourth Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66571 Thu, 28 May 2015 16:28:28 UTC Recommended

Shout! Factory and Sony have released Hart to Hart: The Complete Fourth Season, a 6-disc, 22-episode collection of the hit ABC romantic murder mystery's 1982-1983 season. Created by novelist Sidney Sheldon and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, and starring Robert Wagner, Stefanie Powers and Lionel Stander, Hart to Hart was pulling in Nielsen Top Twenty numbers for this penultimate season, with the attractive, charismatic leads giving loyal viewers a sophisticated dose of tongue-in-cheek glamour week after week. No extras for these good-looking fullscreen color transfers.

Los Angeles, California, 1982. Self-made multi-millionaire Jonathan Hart (Robert Wagner) has no time for mundane office duties at his electronics empire. He's too busy solving murders and thwarting smugglers and spies, all with the invaluable help of his gorgeou...Read the entire review

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Escape from East Berlin (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68757 Fri, 22 May 2015 17:38:54 UTC Rent It

Passable Cold War nail-biter. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Escape from East Berlin (known internationally as Tunnel 28), the 1962 exploiter--based loosely on a true story--released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Robert Siodmak, and starring Don Murray, Christine Kaufman, Werner Klemperer, Ingrid van Bergen, Carl Schell, Edith Schultze-Westrum, Bruno Fritz, Maria Tober, Horst Janson, Kai Fischer, Kurt Waitzmann, Helma Seitz, and Ronald Dehne. Shot on location in West Berlin with a storyline ripped, as they like to say, straight from the newspaper headlines, Escape from East Berlin plays okay when its focus is on creating basic, conventional suspense. However, when the characters start talking, Gott im Himmel does it get a bit slow...and more than a little fuzzy. An original trailer is included in this...Read the entire review

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Black Patch (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68711 Sun, 17 May 2015 13:25:22 UTC Skip It

Initially intriguing psychological oater, taken to ponderous, counterproductive anti-Western extremes. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released an obscure one: 1957's Black Patch, written by co-star Leo Gordon, produced and directed by Allen H. Miner, and starring George Montgomery, Diane Brewster, Tom Pittman, House Peters, Jr., Lynn Cartwright, George Trevino, Peter Brocco, Strother Martin, Ned Glass, Stanley Adams, and Sebastian Cabot. What starts out as a nicely moody, somber chamber piece about the adults somehow sluggishly devolves into Nick Adams-Wannabe Apes James Dean and Grows Up to be Shane, with Gordon and Miner eliminating too many established Western conventions in a resoundingly failed effort to be "arty." Too bad. No extras for this nice anamorphically enhanced widescreen black and white transfer.

Dusty lit...Read the entire review

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Fireball XL5: The Complete Series DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67238 Fri, 15 May 2015 01:07:49 UTC Recommended

Supermarionation space race shenanigans, in black and white (terms). ITV Studios Global Entertainment (with Timeless Media Group's help), under their Gerry Anderson Collection banner, has released Fireball XL5: The Complete Series, a 5-disc, 39-episode collection of the 1962 U.K. "Supermarionation" puppet show from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's AP Films (...or from Sir Lew Grade's ITC, if you want to get technical). The last black and white series from Anderson, and the first and only one to get a U.S. "Big Three" network run (okay...on NBC's Saturday morning line-up, but still...), Fireball XL5 was a big hit with space-happy kid audiences when it first debuted, but for whatever reasons--and no, being shot in black and white isn't necessarily one of them--it hasn't maintained as high or lengthy a pop culture profile as other seminal Anderson works like Stingray or Thun...Read the entire review

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The Stranger Trilogy (Warner Archive Collection: A Stranger in Town, The Stranger Returns, The Silent Stranger) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68546 Thu, 07 May 2015 00:53:58 UTC Highly Recommended

"Just who are you, anyway?"
"I guess you'll just have to figure that out for yourself."

Three cult westerns all'italiana that are no strangers to fans of the spaghetti Western genre. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released The Stranger Collection, a two-disc, three-movie gathering of star Tony Anthony's first three "Stranger" Italian oaters, all of which were originally released in the States by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Included here are: 1968's A Stranger in Town, originally released in Italy in 1967 where it was titled Un dollaro tra i denti (A Dollar in the Mouth); 1968's sequel, The Stranger Returns, originally released in Italy in 1967 as Un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola (A Man, A Horse, A Gun); and finally The Silent Stranger (Lo straniero di silenzioRead the entire review

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Remember The Day; A Life In The Balance; Tonight We Sing! (Fox Cinema Archives Triple Feature) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68467 Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:34:44 UTC Rent It

A semi-sensible grouping of three variably entertaining outings. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has recently been repackaging solo titles into triple features, usually grouped around a single performer, or a shared theme. Here, in the Remember the Day; A Life in the Balance; Tonight We Sing! triple feature, one could say the common link is either Anne Bancroft (appearing in two here: 1953's Tonight We Sing! from director Mitchell Leisen, with David Wayne, Ezio Pinza, Roberta Peters, Tamara Toumanova, the voice of Jan Peerce, and Isaac Stern, and 1955's A Life in the Balance, from Harry Horner, with Ricardo Montalban, Lee Marvin, Rodolfo Acosta, and Jose Perez), or that two of the movies feature a young child at the center of the story (A Life in the Balance and 1941's lovely Remember the Day, from He...Read the entire review

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This Is My Affair; Battle Of Broadway; Professional Soldier (Fox Cinema Archives Victor McLaglen Triple Feature) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68457 Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:57:10 UTC Recommended

Uncomplicated, entertaining fare from he-man Victor McLaglen. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has re-packaged three solo discs starring McLaglen into the triple feature This is My Affair; Battle of Broadway; Professional Soldier. Professional Soldier, from 1935 (originally titled Damon Runyon's Professional Soldier during its first run), was directed by Tay Garnett and co-starred Freddie Bartholomew, Gloria Stuart, Constance Collier, and Michael Whalen. McLaglen took third billing to real-life love birds Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck in 1937's This is My Affair, directed by William A. Seiter and co-starring Brian Donlevy, John Carradine, Douglas Fowley, Robert McWade, Sidney Blackmer, Frank Conroy, and Sig Ruman. And 1938's quasi-B comedy from director George Marshall, Battle of Broadway, co-starred B...Read the entire review

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''CHiPs'': The Complete Third Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66744 Sat, 18 Apr 2015 22:26:29 UTC Highly Recommended

The ratings' peak for you, you sun-kissed disco-dancing West Coast Olympian Gods of the Forever Spinning Firestones. Warner Bros.' has released--only a mere seven years after Season Two's DVD release--"CHiPs": The Complete Third Season, a five-disc, 23-episode collection of the smash-hit NBC action/drama/comedy's 1979-1980 season. More explosions, fewer guest stars, less actual time on those sweet, sweet C-Series KZ1000s--and even fewer glimpses of Officer Pretty and Prettier's home lives--mark this as a peppy, action-filled season that drew the series' biggest number of viewers (at least according to Nielsen). Never a critical darling, to say the least (another notch in its favor), "CHiPs" succeeds at precisely what it sets out to do: entertain, in a gossamer-light, attractively breezy fashion. Add in roller disco parties, pyscho freeway killers, racist surf...Read the entire review

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The Best Things In Life Are Free & 3 Brave Men (Fox Cinema Archives) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68236 Mon, 06 Apr 2015 22:30:22 UTC Skip It

Two wrongs don't make a right....

20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has started to package their previously released M.O.D.s into triple features (in this case: an Ernest Borgnine themed gathering). Curiously, this "3-Film Collection," as it's clearly labeled on the front cover, only contains two movies: 1956's The Best Things in Life Are Free, the Michael Curtiz directed color musical starring Gordan MacRae, Dan Dailey, Ernest Borgnine, and Sheree North, and 3 Brave Men, the 1956 black and white Commie drama from Philip Dunne, starring Ray Milland, Ernest Borgnine, and Frank Lovejoy. Unfortunately, both titles here are fatally compromised cropped and panned-and-scanned fullscree...Read the entire review

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The Best House in London (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68235 Mon, 06 Apr 2015 20:08:37 UTC Skip It

Flat, passed-it "X-rated" Victorian sex satire. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has dug up a rare one: 1969's The Best House in London, a Carlo Ponti production released here by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and starring David Hemmings (in dual roles), Joanna Pettet, George Sanders, and a host of familiar British comedy faces, including Warren Mitchell, John Bird, William Rushton, Bill Fraser, Maurice Denham, Wolfe Morris, Martita Hunt, Hugh Burden, Jan Holden, Tessie O'Shea, Peter Jeffrey, Thorley Walters, and John Cleese. Yet another box office dud for fast-fading British totty David Hemmings, The Best House in London came and went without a trace here in the States; receiving the early MPAA "X" rating before that designation became exclusively associated with porn, did nothing to boost b.o. ticket lines (...nor, quite frankly, did the presen...Read the entire review

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Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Three - God's Power (Tower of Babel, Sodom & Gomorrah, Jacob's Challenge, Joseph in Egypt) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68182 Sat, 04 Apr 2015 11:44:53 UTC Recommended

Reviewer's Note: This Easter week, I reviewed the first two volumes of Paramount's three Greatest Heroes of the Bible releases. Since these volumes constitute episodes from the same series/miniseries, I'll port over the same opening from those reviews for this third entry, with additional thoughts on the new episodes.

Forgive them, Father, for they know not this is Schick Sunn Classic entertainment. CBS DVD and Paramount have released Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Three - God's Power, a single-disc gathering of four episodes of the NBC...miniseries? series? special events? that aired sporadically during the 1978-1979 season. Episodes included here are: The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jacob's Challenge, and Joseph in Egypt. Produced by the legendary Schick Sunn Classic Pictures indie (I'm about to faint...), G...Read the entire review

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Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Two - God's Chosen Ones (Moses, Joshua & Jericho, Story of Esther, Abraham's Sacrifice) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68167 Thu, 02 Apr 2015 23:37:05 UTC Recommended

Reviewer's Note: Yesterday, I reviewed the first volume of Paramount's three Greatest Heroes of the Bible releases. Since these volumes constitute episodes from the same series/miniseries, I'll port over the same opening from that review for volumes 2 and 3, with additional thoughts on the new episodes.

Goddammit...they're starting to get good? CBS DVD and Paramount have released Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Two - God's Chosen Ones, a single-disc gathering of four episodes of the NBC...miniseries? series? special events? that aired sporadically during the 1978-1979 season (I'll be reviewing volume 3 this week). Episodes included here are: The Story of Moses, Joshua and Jericho, The Story of Esther, and Abraham's Sacrifice. Produced by the legendary Schick Sunn Classic Pictures indie (I'm about to faint...), ...Read the entire review

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Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One - Bible's Greatest Stories (Ten Commandments, Samson & Delilah, David & Goliath, Noah) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68153 Wed, 01 Apr 2015 22:10:55 UTC Highly Recommended

Thank God. CBS DVD and Paramount have released Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One - Bible's Greatest Stories, a rather awkwardly-monikered single-disc gathering of four episodes of the NBC...miniseries? series? special events? that aired sporadically during the 1978-1979 season (Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Two - God's Chosen Ones and Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Three - God's Power, have been released, and I'll be reviewing those this week). Produced by the legendary Schick Sunn Classic Productions indie (I'm about to faint...), Greatest Heroes of the Bible looks to be an effort by the studio and NBC to hopefully recreate the success of their previous joint effort, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. As far as I can tell--and info is scarce on this series/miniseries--Greatest Heroes of the Bible didn't repeat that ratings vict...Read the entire review

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Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: The Complete Series DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67192 Sun, 29 Mar 2015 18:24:21 UTC Highly Recommended

Reviewer's Note: Way back in 2006, I began reviewing the first four seasons of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. for DVDTalk. So, for this new complete series set, I'll combine some of those older reviews with new observations and information about this release.

Shazam! CBS DVD and Paramount have released Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: The Complete Series, a single volume, 24-disc collection of the CBS smash-hit sitcom that ruled the Nielsens during its 1964-1969 run. Starring Jim Nabors and Frank Sutton (one of television's most accomplished, and least appreciated, comedy teams), Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. absolutely enraged elitist "television critics" and baffled bitter social commentators who lamented the series' massive popularity as a sure sign that 1960s TV was a cultural wasteland of science-fiction, fantasy, and hillbilly junk, aimed at the lowest common denomina...Read the entire review

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Anthony Adverse (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68116 Sat, 28 Mar 2015 21:10:53 UTC Rent It

Big and busy...but bland. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Anthony Adverse, the epic 1936 historical romance from Warners, based on the international bestseller from Hervey Allen, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and featuring a huge cast, including Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland (gorgeous), Donald Woods, Anita Louise, Edmund Gwenn, Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard (winning the first-ever Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this, her movie debut), Akim Tamiroff (hilarious), Pedro de Cordoba, Louis Hayward, Ralph Morgan, Henry O'Neill, Billy Mauch, Joan Woodbury, and Marilyn Knowlden. Warners spared no expense in terms of sets and costuming for this long, sweeping Napoleonic meller; however, Fredric March is too cerebral and refined for the swashbuckling bastard Anthony Adverse, while the superficially entertaining storyline--aided en...Read the entire review

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Seventh Heaven (1937, Fox Cinema Archives) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68087 Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:28:09 UTC Skip It

Sometimes sweet romantic remake...but far too silly. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles, has released Seventh Heaven, the 1937 romance starring Simone Simon, James Stewart, Jean Hersholt, Gregory Ratoff, Gale Sondergaard, J. Edward Bromberg, John Qualen, Victor Kilian, Thomas Beck, Sig Rumann, and Mady Christians. A critically and financially unsuccessful remake of the wildly successful 1927 Janet Gaynor/Charles Farrell silent original, this version of Austin Strong's play is compromised by a miscast Stewart, an under-directed Simon, and the simultaneously too-specific and completely unnecessary context of the Paris slums before WWI. Still...Stewart and Simon are attractive together. No extras for this not bad-looking fullscreen black and white transfer.

"The Sock," the infamous, sinister Paris square "between Heaven and H...Read the entire review

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Lovejoy: Series 5 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66928 Wed, 25 Mar 2015 12:17:56 UTC Highly Recommended

Reviewer's Note: Way, way back in 2007, I began reviewing the BBC's boxed sets of Lovejoy for DVDTalk. Those sets subsequently went out of print, and are now being re-released (with slight title changes) by Acorn. As far as I can tell, though, these are the same fullscreen transfers used for the previous releases (Acorn's now-standard disclaimer about audio/visual imperfections for these older U.K. TV shows is present). So, I'll port over my older review of Lovejoy - The Complete Season Five (with a few minor tweaks...including a new bonus for this collection)...because my opinion of these delightful mysteries hasn't changed a bit, I found, after watching these charmers all over again this past week.

Loose, easy, and fun. Acorn has released Lovejoy: Series 5, a 4-disc, 14 episode collection of the 1993 season starring Ian McShane as that East Angl...Read the entire review

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Midsomer Murders: Set 25 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66488 Sat, 21 Mar 2015 14:07:47 UTC Rent It

Bring back Brian True-May. Acorn has released Midsomer Murders: Set 25, a 3-disc, 5-episode collection of the first half of the U.K. murder mystery's 16th "series" (season), which originally aired in England from December, 2013, to February, 2014. Episodes included here are The Christmas Haunting, Let Us Prey, Wild Harvest, The Flying Club, and the series' 100th episode, The Killings of Copenhagen, shot partially in Denmark (...to distressingly little effect). Big news for fans of the series (of which I count myself, lest the negative tone throw you)--there's a brand new sidekick for the sorta new Barnaby: handsome, young, demographically desirable Welsh ratings bait actor Gwilym Lee checks in as Detective Sergeant Charlie Nelson (...to surprisingly little effect so far). Even bigger news: the Barnabys have a baby ("It'...Read the entire review

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The Bob Newhart Show: The Final Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67258 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 02:50:40 UTC Highly Recommended

I think we've reached a point, where therapy is no longer necessary. Shout! Factory and 20th Century-Fox have released The Bob Newhart Show: The Final Season, a 3-disc, 22-episode collection of the beloved CBS sitcom's 1977-1978 kiss-off season. Starring Bob Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz, and Bill Daily, The Bob Newhart Show had by this last season played out its hand in terms of ratings--at least according to Nielsen--with everyone in front of and behind the cameras going into it knowing it would be the last hurrah. And while it's still not quite up to the level of the show's first three seasons, this sixth Bob Newhart Show go-around surpasses the middling fifth (which I reviewed here), with some new writers injecting some much-n...Read the entire review

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The Wild Affair (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67947 Sun, 15 Mar 2015 01:38:12 UTC Recommended

Promising ideas in an attractive--yet ultimately ill-defined--package. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released The Wild Affair, a rarely-seen sex comedy from Bryanston Films (producer Ray Stark's Seven Arts Productions), written and directed by John Krish, and starring Nancy Kwan and Terry-Thomas, along with a host of familiar U.K. faces, including Jimmy Logan, Bessie Love, Bud Flanagan, Gladys Morgan, Betty Marsden, Paul Whitsun-Jones, Donald Churchill, Joyce Blair, Joan Benham, Frank Thornton, Frank Finlay, and Victor Spinetti. Shot in England early in 1963, and released in the U.K. that December, The Wild Affair didn't even make it to American shores until 1966, where it quickly disappeared without a trace (if anyone has the story on that unusual, protracted delay, email me). Rarely seen, its main claim to fame today seems to b...Read the entire review

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The Bob Newhart Show: Season 5 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66681 Sun, 15 Mar 2015 01:38:12 UTC Highly Recommended

Why don't you tell me how you feel about this being the next-to-last season of The Bob Newhart Show? Shout! Factory and 20th Century-Fox have released The Bob Newhart Show: Season Five, a 3-disc, 24-episode collection of the beloved CBS sitcom's 1976-1977 season. Starring Bob Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz, and Bill Daily, The Bob Newhart Show, by this fifth go-around, had already suffered a marked decline in its ratings during the previous fourth season, with star Newhart more than ready to pack it in at the end of this run of episodes. How CBS or MTM Enterprises or the fans got Newhart to reconsider and sign up for one more year is apparently open for debate (a lot of stories and explanations out there...). However, there's no question that viewers in this 1976-1977 TV year--according to Nielsen, at least--were continuing to drift off in big numb...Read the entire review

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The Road To Glory, Wife, Husband and Friend, Earthbound (Fox Cinema Archives Warner Baxter Triple Feature) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67920 Fri, 13 Mar 2015 01:18:03 UTC Recommended

Three meat-and-potato offerings from now-forgotten big star Warner Baxter. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released The Road to Glory, Wife, Husband and Friend, Earthbound, a Warner Baxter triple feature. 1936's gloomy World War I romantic actioner, The Road to Glory, is directed by Howard Hawks, co-written by a pasel of scripters including Nunnally Johnson and no less than William Faulkner, and stars Fredric March, Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, June Lang, and Gregory Ratoff. 1939's romantic comedy Wife, Husband and Friend, is directed by Gregory Ratoff, scripted by Nunnally Johnson, and stars Loretta Young, Baxter, Binnie Barnes, Cesar Romero, George Barbier, J. Edward Bromberg, and Eugene Pallette. And Earthbound, a fantasy B murder mystery, is directed by Irving Pichel, and stars Baxter, Andrea Leeds, Lynn Bar...Read the entire review

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Come To The Stable,Three Blind Mice, Suez (Fox Cinema Archives Loretta Young Triple Feature) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67791 Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:27:33 UTC Highly Recommended

Three enjoyable entertainments from that whirling, twirling dress form, Loretta Young. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Come to the Stable, Three Blind Mice, Suez, a Loretta Young triple feature. 1949's religious comedy drama Come to the Stable is directed by Henry Koster (from a real-life Clare Boothe Luce story), and co-stars Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Patrick, Regis Toomey, Dooley Wilson, and Mike Mazurki. 1938's romantic comedy Three Blind Mice, is directed by William A. Seiter, and co-stars Joel McCrea, David Niven, Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Weaver, Pauline Moore, and Binnie Barnes. And Suez, from 1938's biopic hooey Suez, is directed by Allan Dwan, and stars Tyrone Power, Annabella, J. Edward Bromberg, Joseph Schildkraut, Henry Stephenson, Sidney Blackm...Read the entire review

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Batman: The Television Series -- The Second Season, Part One DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66628 Fri, 27 Feb 2015 13:12:01 UTC Highly Recommended

Perhaps not quite as inspired as season one...but still charmingly Batsh*t crazy. Warner Bros., with the help of Fox and DC Comics (and no doubt a slew of copyright lawyers), has released Batman: The Television Series -- The Second Season, Part One, a four-disc, 30-episode collection of the first half of the celebrated super hero spoof's sophomore session (take that, William Dozier!). Starring Adam West and Burt Ward, with appearances by "Special Guest Villains" Julie Newmar, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Van Johnson, Vincent Price, Liberace (I'm going to faint...), Art Carney, Shelley Winters, Cliff Robertson, Victor Buono, Walter Slezak, Carolyn Jones and, um...Otto Preminger, the unprecedented pop culture craze that had sprung up around ABC's Batman when it premiered mid-season in January of 1966, had already started to cool by the time this first full season of ...Read the entire review

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All Neat in Black Stockings (Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67723 Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:03:53 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Bawdy "Swinging London" comedy with plenty of dishy birds for you plonkers...whoa, wait a minute--it's depressing as hell. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has dug up a remarkable forgotten gem: All Neat in Black Stockings, the 1969 British "sex comedy" produced by teeny tiny Miron Films, and released in the U.K. by Anglo-Amalgamated Productions (National General Pictures handled the roll-out here in the States...to that brief company's usual uninspiring results). Based on a novel by cult author Jane Gaskell (who co-wrote the screenplay with Hugh Whitemore), and starring Victor Henry, Susan George, Jack Shepherd, Vanessa Forsyth, Terence de Marney, Anna Cropper, and Harry Towb, All Neat in Black Stockings seems to have confused some critics, then and now, as to whether it considered itself a raunchy sex comedy or a so-called "kitc...Read the entire review

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A Horseman Riding By DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66326 Sun, 22 Feb 2015 03:06:08 UTC Rent It

Initially enjoyable vintage BBC miniseries that unfortunately peters out and gets downright fuzzy towards the end. Acorn has released A Horseman Riding By, a 4-disc, 13-episode DVD presentation of the 1978 BBC mini, based on the novels by R.F. Delderfield, and featuring a big cast of familiar U.K. TV faces including Nigel Havers, Glyn Houston, Fiona Gaunt, Prunella Ransome, David Delve, Gillian McCutcheon, Martin Fisk, Pam St. Clement, Forbes Collins, Wendy and Valerie Holloway, Richard Beale, Mary Chester, Bruce Purchase, Madge Ryan, Joby Blanshard, Glyn Owen, Jack May, Valerie Phillips, Sarah Porter, Frank Moorey, David Prowse (he's a big boy), and Jack Watson. Concerned with only the first book (published as two volumes here in the States) in Delderfield's two-book series, A Horseman Riding By attempts to dramatize the vast changes that came to England's rural areas after the turn...Read the entire review

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Kill or Cure (1962, Warner Archive Collection) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67627 Sun, 15 Feb 2015 14:43:41 UTC Rent It

Genial and amusing...but you won't die laughing. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Kill or Cure, the 1962 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer English comedy from the same production team that launched the successful Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple series, and starring Terry-Thomas, Eric Sykes, Dennis Price, Lionel Jeffries, Moira Redmond, Katya Douglas, David Lodge, Ronnie Barker, Hazel Terry, and Derren Nesbitt. Always right on the comedic cusp of "taking off," Kill or Cure unfortunately winds up as just a mildly diverting exercise for the gap-toothed Terry-Thomas and bumbling sidekick Eric Sykes. That doesn't mean lovers of English comedy from this period won't find something of value here...as long as they know the bar isn't set too high. No extras for this very nice-looking anamorphically-enhanced widescreen black and white tran...Read the entire review

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The Pleasure Seekers, Three Little Girls In Blue, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (Fox Cinema Archives) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67596 Thu, 12 Feb 2015 19:50:46 UTC Rent It

Just barely so-so musical triple feature. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has grouped together three previously released stand-alone titles into a three-disc triple feature: The Pleasure Seekers, Three Little Girls in Blue, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim. 1965's The Pleasure Seekers--shown here in a flat letterboxed transfer that maintains its correct widescreen ratio--is directed by Jean Negulesco and stars Ann-Margaret, Tony Franciosa, Carol Lynley, Gardner McKay, Pamela Tiffin, Andre Lawrence, Gene Tierney, Brian Keith, and Vito Scoti. Three Little Girls in Blue, from 1946, features June Haver, George Montgomery, Vivian Blaine, Celeste Holm, Vera-Ellen, Frank Latimore, and Charles Smith, and is directed by Bruce Humberstone. And finally, 1947's The Shocking Miss Pilgrim is directed by George Seaton, and star...Read the entire review

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Song of the Islands (Fox Cinema Archives) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67583 Thu, 12 Feb 2015 01:08:12 UTC Recommended

Technicolor-soaked South Seas trifle, with plenty of songs and, um... "comedy." 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Song of the Islands, the 1942 musical comedy romance starring Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jack Oakie, Thomas Mitchell, George Barbier, Billy Gilbert, Hilo Hattie, and Harry Owens And His Royal Hawaiians. Paper-thin, tune-filled island shenanigans with an ample supply on hand of cheesecake (Grable), beefcake (Mature), and ham (Oakie), Song of the Islands was precisely the kind of escapist fare war-shocked Americans wanted in the spring of 1942--a favorable context for this sort of assured piffle that wouldn't be entirely out-of-line today (watch Song of the Islands after reading today's horrific headlines--it works a lot better that way). An original trailer is included here--a rarity with these ...Read the entire review

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Red Skies Of Montana, The Siege At Red River, Untamed (Fox Cinema Archives) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67516 Sun, 08 Feb 2015 21:03:06 UTC Recommended

Action-filled Technicolor triple feature from Fox. 20th Century-Fox's Cinema Archives' line of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Red Skies of Montana, The Siege at Red River, Untamed, a three-disc collection of these previously released Archives titles. Forest firefighting actioner Red Skies of Montana (also known as Smoke Jumpers), from 1952, stars Richard Widmark, Constance Smith, Jeffrey Hunter, Richard Boone, Warren Stevens, James Griffith, and Joe Sawyer, and is directed by Joseph M. Newman. 1954's Civil War Western, The Siege at Red River, directed by Rudolph Mate, stars Van Johnson, Joanne Dru, Richard Boone, Milburn Stone, Jeff Morrow, and Craig Hill. And Untamed, from 1955, is a CinemaScope South African adventure epic directed by Henry King, and starring Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Richard Egan, Agnes Moorehead, Rita Mor...Read the entire review

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Welcome Back, Kotter: The Complete Second Season DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67511 Fri, 06 Feb 2015 02:53:27 UTC Recommended

"Julie, did I ever tell you about my cousin Paul Mavis Kotter who used to love my old TV show?"

The high-water mark--at least in terms of Nielsen ratings--for the beloved 70s sitcom. Shout! Factory, that white knight of abandoned TV series-on-DVD, has released Welcome Back, Kotter: The Complete Second Season, a 4-disc, 23-episode collection of the smash ABC comedy's 1976-1977 season. The equivalent of a golf ball-sized rock of crack for the 70s TV junkie, Welcome Back, Kotter is one of those series from that "second golden age" of television that crossed a lot of demographic lines while indelibly rooting itself in literally tens of millions of weekly viewers' memories...before flaming out rather quickly (...only to be resurrected every ten years or so in syndicated reruns). Like any show, nostalgia and warm, fuzzy feelings can only go so far in helping Welcome Back...Read the entire review

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