Wen's Style.

Home > Donald Pleasence in

Great Escape [VHS]

Great Escape [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Steve McQueen , James Garner , Richard Attenborough , Charles Bronson , Donald Pleasence
Director: John Sturges
The Great Escape image of Steve McQueen (as "The Cooler King") astride his motorcycle has entered silver-screen iconography, alongside Brando on his bike from The Wild One. Based on a true story about a group of POWs who mount a daring breakout from a supposedly inescapable Nazi prison camp, this rousing and suspenseful WWII epic features an all-star cast, including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and David McCallum. --Jim Emerson
List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $5.25
The Bastard: Part 1 of the Kent Family Chronicles [VHS]

The Bastard: Part 1 of the Kent Family Chronicles [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Andrew Stevens , Tom Bosley , Kim Cattrall , Buddy Ebsen , Lorne Greene
Director: Lee H. Katzin
Based on John Jakes' best-selling American Bicentennial series. An impoverished young man, Philip Kent and his mother Marie (Patricia Neal) seek to establish his birthright as the son of an English nobleman. But their efforts are thwarted and they flee to colonial America. Seeking a new identity in the land of upportunity, Kent comes in contact with the great figures of the American Revolution, and must choose between an aristocratic English woman (Olivia Hussey) and a spirited American girl (Kim Cattrall) in this fascinating and compelling story set against one of the most exciting periods of American history.
List Price: $29.98 Our Price: $64.50
Terror in the Aisles [VHS]

Terror in the Aisles [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Donald Pleasence , Nancy Allen , Fred Asparagus , Lainie Cooke , Joel S. Rice
Director: Andrew J. Kuehn

List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $98.76
Halloween 2 [VHS]

Halloween 2 [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Jamie Lee Curtis , Donald Pleasence , Charles Cyphers , Jeffrey Kramer , Lance Guest
Director: Rick Rosenthal
"You can't kill the boogeyman," explains John Carpenter in Halloween, and to prove it he brings Michael Myers back in this handsome but grisly sequel. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode but spends most of her time cowering in a hospital gown, and Donald Pleasence runs around like a maniac as the panicky doctor desperate to hunt down Myers before he kills again. Carpenter writes and produces with partner Debra Hill, and together they replace the mystery and uncertainty of the original with an exponentially bigger body count and some strange tales about the Druids and pagan ceremonies, and the now-familiar family ties between Michael and Laurie. First-time director Rick Rosenthal (Bad Boys) paces the film at a brisk jog and directs it with a clean, crisp style, taking the murders out of the dark to display them in all their nasty detail. --Sean Axmaker
List Price: $12.98 Our Price: $2.15
The Night of the Generals [VHS]

The Night of the Generals [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Peter O'Toole , Omar Sharif , Tom Courtenay , Donald Pleasence , Joanna Pettet
Long (148 minutes) military mystery set among the high command of Nazi Germany in occupied Poland and elsewhere in the Third Reich. A prostitute in wartime Warsaw has been brutally murdered and a German military investigator narrows his field of suspects to three German generals. But the war--and the sense of preening Prussian arrogance--interferes with his investigation, even as he begins to home in on the killer. Moodily sinister atmosphere and a strong cast (Peter O'Toole, Tom Courtenay, Omar Sharif, Christopher Plummer) can't overcome a plodding pace and a tendency to digress. --Marshall Fine
List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $35.90
You Only Live Twice [VHS]

You Only Live Twice [VHS]

Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Sean Connery , Akiko Wakabayashi , Mie Hama , Tetsuro Tamba , Teru Shimada
The film boasts the best of the Bond title songs (this one sung on a dreamy track by Nancy Sinatra), but the movie itself is one of the weaker ones of the Sean Connery phase of the 007 franchise. The story concerns an effort by the evil organization SPECTRE to start a world war, but the not-so-super villain behind the plot is the awfully civilized Donald Pleasence. The thin script is by Roald Dahl (shouldn't we have expected a better Bond nemesis from the creator of mad genius Willy Wonka?), and direction is by British veteran Lewis Gilbert (Alfie). But the movie can't hold a candle to Dr. No, From Russia with Love, or Goldfinger. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $9.94 Our Price: $2.83
Halloween [VHS]

Halloween [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Donald Pleasence , Jamie Lee Curtis , Tony Moran , Nancy Kyes , P.J. Soles
Director: John Carpenter
Halloween is as pure and undiluted as its title. In the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a teenage baby sitter tries to survive a Halloween night of relentless terror, during which a knife-wielding maniac goes after the town's hormonally charged youths. Director John Carpenter takes this simple situation and orchestrates a superbly mounted symphony of horrors. It's a movie much scarier for its dark spaces and ominous camera movements than for its explicit bloodletting (which is actually minimal). Composed by Carpenter himself, the movie's freaky music sets the tone; and his script (cowritten with Debra Hill) is laced with references to other horror pictures, especially Psycho. The baby sitter is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the real-life daughter of Psycho victim Janet Leigh; and the obsessed policeman played by Donald Pleasence is named Sam Loomis, after John Gavin's character in Psycho. In the end, though, Halloween stands on its own as an uncannily frightening experience--it's one of those movies that had audiences literally jumping out of their seats and shouting at the screen. ("No! Don't drop that knife!") Produced on a lo...
List Price: $14.99 Our Price: $3.55
Literary Masterpieces: The Count of Monte Cristo [VHS]

Literary Masterpieces: The Count of Monte Cristo [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Richard Chamberlain , Trevor Howard , Louis Jourdan , Donald Pleasence , Tony Curtis
Director: David Greene

List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $23.95
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home [VHS]

The Dark Secret of Harvest Home [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Bette Davis , David Ackroyd , Rosanna Arquette , Rene Auberjonois , John Calvin
Director: Leo Penn

List Price: $59.98 Our Price: $136.01
Centennial Vols 1-12 [VHS]

Centennial Vols 1-12 [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Raymond Burr , Barbara Carrera , Richard Chamberlain , Robert Conrad , Richard Crenna
A remarkably ambitious and engrossing project, this 1978 television miniseries ran 26-and-a-half hours, cost a then-enormous $25 million, and involved 4 directors, 5 cinematographers, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 speaking parts. Based on James Michener's panoramic bestseller about the settling of the American West--as reflected in the history of a fictional town called Centennial, Colorado--the story begins in the late 18th century and ends with a typical 20th century conflict over land usage. Centennial, however, largely concentrates on various memorable frontiersmen, trappers, Indians, ranchers, cowboys, and farmers from long ago. Richard Chamberlain shines as the pioneer Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad does some of his best work as French-Canadian Pasquinel, and performances by Alex Karras, Chad Everett, Sally Kellerman, Raymond Burr, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, and Dennis Weaver effectively add to a tapestry of adventure, tragedy, violence, and dubious Western progress. Produced at a time when TV networks were in the throes of acknowledging America's history of racial injustice, the program paints a starkly villainous portrait of opportunists e...
List Price: $99.98 Our Price: $87.75