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1492 - Conquest of Paradise (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

1492 - Conquest of Paradise (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Gérard Depardieu , Armand Assante , Sigourney Weaver , Loren Dean , Ángela Molina
Director: Ridley Scott
One of Ridley Scott's most wrong-headed films, this one (like all of his movies) looks fabulous and sounds utterly ridiculous, almost from the beginning. His first mistake was casting the wonderful Gerard Depardieu as Columbus and forcing him to speak English, which Depardieu does with decided difficulty. After spending way too much time on the ocean with Columbus's three ships (you kind of wish they would sail over the edge of the world), they arrive in the West Indies, only to turn around and sail back. The rest of the film deals with the not particularly comprehensible politics of Columbus's venture, which leads to the violent slaughter of trusting natives by a band of cardboard villains. Depardieu, who radiates sympathy, looks like he's at sea with this material. --Marshall Fine
List Price: $4.99 Our Price: $89.98
The Greatest Story Ever Told [VHS]

The Greatest Story Ever Told [VHS]

Rated: G (General Audience)
Staring: Max von Sydow , Dorothy McGuire , Charlton Heston , Michael Anderson Jr. , Carroll Baker
Director: David Lean , George Stevens , Jean Negulesco
The life of Christ got an excessively long treatment (260 minutes, later trimmed to 195) in this 1965 film directed by George Stevens (The Diary of Anne Frank). Max von Sydow does beautiful work as Jesus--his spontaneous mourning at discovering his friend Lazarus has died is not like anything in other New Testament epics--and Stevens renders the familiar tale with a handsome authenticity. But the project is nearly undone by an unwise gimmick in which seemingly half of Hollywood's living stars at the time make brief (often very brief) cameo appearances, some of which are ridiculous. But there is a lot to like in the film, and Von Sydow's sensitive nobility sticks in the memory. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $24.98 Our Price: $2.99
1492 - Conquest of Paradise [VHS]

1492 - Conquest of Paradise [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Gérard Depardieu , Armand Assante , Sigourney Weaver , Loren Dean , Ángela Molina
One of Ridley Scott's most wrong-headed films, this one (like all of his movies) looks fabulous and sounds utterly ridiculous, almost from the beginning. His first mistake was casting the wonderful Gerard Depardieu as Columbus and forcing him to speak English, which Depardieu does with decided difficulty. After spending way too much time on the ocean with Columbus's three ships (you kind of wish they would sail over the edge of the world), they arrive in the West Indies, only to turn around and sail back. The rest of the film deals with the not particularly comprehensible politics of Columbus's venture, which leads to the violent slaughter of trusting natives by a band of cardboard villains. Depardieu, who radiates sympathy, looks like he's at sea with this material. --Marshall Fine
List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $15.00
Ship of Fools (B&W) [VHS]

Ship of Fools (B&W) [VHS]

Staring: Vivien Leigh , Simone Signoret , José Ferrer , Lee Marvin , Oskar Werner
Director: Stanley Kramer
An all-star drama in the grandest of Hollywood traditions, Ship of Fools is now a glossy, Oscar®-nominated relic from a bygone era, when actors were valued more than special effects. "Prestige" is the keyword in describing this high-toned Stanley Kramer production, and the passage of time brings the pros and cons of Kramer's filmmaking into stark relief. In adapting Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Germany, Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann (who shifted the story from 1931 to 1933) attempted to display the oncoming horror of Nazi Germany in microcosm, as represented by the ship's colorful variety of passengers, including maritally combative artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); a has-been baseball star (Lee Marvin); a pair of illicit lovers (Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret); a despondent divorcée (Vivien Leigh, shockingly garish in her final film); and several others who play symbolic roles with varying degrees of obviousness. Porter's potent themes are somewhat deflated by Kramer's pompous, heavy-handed approach, but powerful acting remains. Having lost what relevance it had in 1965, Ship of Fools is still f...
List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $7.93
Lawrence of Arabia (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

Lawrence of Arabia (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

Rated: G (General Audience)
Staring: Peter O'Toole , Alec Guinness , Anthony Quinn , Jack Hawkins , Omar Sharif
Director: David Lean
There's no getting around a simple, basic truth: watching Lawrence of Arabia in any home-video format represents a compromise. There's no better way to appreciate this epic biographical adventure than to see it projected in 70 millimeter onto a huge theater screen. That caveat aside, David Lean's masterful "desert classic" is still enjoyable on the small screen, especially if viewed in widescreen format. (If your only option is to view a "pan & scan" version, it's best not to bother; this is a film for which the widescreen format is utterly mandatory.) Peter O'Toole gives a star-making performance as T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who united the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I. Lean orchestrates sweeping battle sequences and breathtaking action, but the film is really about the adventures and trials that transform Lawrence into a legendary man of the desert. Lean traces this transformation on a vast canvas of awesome physicality; no other movie has captured the expanse of the desert with such scope and grandeur. Equally important is the psychology of Lawrence, who remains an enigma even as we grasp his identification with the desert...
List Price: $19.96 Our Price: $2.20
The Sentinel [VHS]

The Sentinel [VHS]

Rated: R (Restricted)
Staring: Chris Sarandon , Cristina Raines , Martin Balsam , John Carradine , José Ferrer

List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $2.99
Moulin Rouge (1952) [VHS]

Moulin Rouge (1952) [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: José Ferrer , Zsa Zsa Gabor , Colette Marchand , Suzanne Flon , Claude Nollier
Director: John Huston
It was one of the top 10 grossing films of 1952 and garnered seven Oscar nominations, but Moulin Rouge is neglected today. Not to be confused with the Baz Luhrmann-Nicole Kidman extravaganza, this is a color-soaked tale of Toulouse-Lautrec (Jose Ferrer), based on a romanticized novel about the artist's life. Director John Huston explores the discrepancy between the creation of exquisite art and the messy business of living--especially messy for the growth-stunted, alcoholic painter, whose affairs revolve around prostitutes. The soap-opera aspects of the storyline limit the picture (as does the distracting fact of Ferrer walking on his knees), but it has some gorgeous things in it. The experiments in color photography (which horrified the Technicolor people) are spectacularly successful, and the movie won Oscars for set decoration and costumes. George Auric's haunting melody became a standard, so lovely even the dubbed performance of Zsa Zsa Gabor couldn't hurt it. --Robert Horton
List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $4.98
Miss Sadie Thompson [VHS]

Miss Sadie Thompson [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Rita Hayworth , José Ferrer , Aldo Ray , Russell Collins , Diosa Costello

List Price: $19.98 Our Price: $22.95
Caine Mutiny [VHS]

Caine Mutiny [VHS]

Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Staring: Humphrey Bogart , José Ferrer , Van Johnson , Fred MacMurray , Robert Francis
Humphrey Bogart is heartbreaking as the tragic Captain Queeg in this 1954 film, based on a novel by Herman Wouk, about a mutiny aboard a navy ship during World War II. Stripped of his authority by two officers under his command (played by Van Johnson and Robert Francis) during a devastating storm, Queeg becomes a crucial witness at a court martial that reveals as much about the invisible injuries of war as anything. Edward Dmytryk (Murder My Sweet, Raintree County) directs the action scenes with a sure hand and nudges his all-male cast toward some of the most well-defined characters of 1950s cinema. The courtroom scenes alone have become the basis for a stage play (and a television movie in 1988), but it is a more satisfying experience to see the entire story in context. --Tom Keogh
List Price: $19.95 Our Price: $3.14
Dune (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

Dune (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]

Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Staring: Kyle MacLachlan , Virginia Madsen , Francesca Annis , Leonardo Cimino , Brad Dourif
Director: David Lynch
Even more than most of David Lynch's deliberately bizarre and idiosyncratic movies, Dune is a "love-it-or-hate-it" affair. An ambitious, epic, utterly mind-boggling--and, let's admit it, all-out weird--adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction novel, Dune remains one of the most controversial films in the director's exceedingly provocative career. The story (if Dune can be said to have just one story) is complex and convoluted in the epic tradition; it has something to do with political intrigue and a planet that is home to a precious spice and gigantic sand worms. Think Shakespeare's Henry IV with a dash of Tremors, and set in another galaxy. But despite plenty of strangely whispered voice-overs that explain the characters' thoughts (and endlessly detailed exposition), storytelling is not really among the film's strong points. There are, however, a lot of memorably fantastic/grotesque images, an extraordinary cast, and a soundtrack featuring Toto. I told you it was weird. Among the stars are Kyle MacLachlan, José Ferrer, Dean Stockwell, Brad Dourif, Sting, Kenneth McMillan, Patrick Stewart, Sean Young, and Linda Hunt. --Jim Emerso...
List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $1.99