The first three entries in the Clive Barker-originated series are presented in Hellraiser: The Collector's Edition, a box set which includes...... more

The first three entries in the Clive Barker-originated series are presented in Hellraiser: The Collector's Edition, a box set which includes Barker's 1986 original, and the first two sequels, Tony Randel's Hellbound and Anthony Hickox's Hell on Earth. Watching the films run together, you can see the process whereby a twisted original vision from the British writer-director is gradually hammered out into the stuff of an American direct-to-video franchise. Even the first film suffers slightly as a story written to take place in London is rendered puzzling by the decision to dub minor players with American accents, and by the time of the third film there is only the odd flash of s&m imagery to distinguish the series from the Elm Street or any other franchise. Along the way, there are a few great and many good things: the nasty little family drama of the first film, played by Andrew Robinson and Clare Higgins, as a marriage is literally torn apart by the bloody, skinless brother-lover in the attic, and the still-striking look of the series' major demons, the Cenobites. Part II is a mess, but has a certain grand dementia and Part III at least gives the films' poster boy, Doug Bradley's Pinhead, centre screen as he bids to become the Freddy Krueger of the body-piercing set. On the DVD:Hellraiser: The Collector's Edition presents parts I and II in anamorphic widescreen, while III is cramped at 4:3 full-screen: the transfers are okay if not sumptuous, a little soft if aptly gloomy. Region 1 releases have director and crew commentaries and retrospective documentaries that are sadly not included here--though completists note: this edition boasts on-set cast and director interviews (five minutes apiece for I and II) which are not on the American set. I and II also have trailers (and II has a printable stills gallery and a pointless extra which consists of extracts from the film grouped together as "sub-plots"), but III is strictly no-frills. --Kim Newman

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Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy...... more

Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom KeoghThe Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.comState Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.

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A 6 Disc collection of your favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, containing the following six classic films:Carousel; The King and I; Oklahoma!; The Sound...... more

A 6 Disc collection of your favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, containing the following six classic films:Carousel; The King and I; Oklahoma!; The Sound of Music; South Pacific; State Fair;Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom KeoghThe Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.comState Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.

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A semi-pretentious urban sleaze film, Shadow Hours offers Balthazar Getty--sporting a "BZAR" knuckle tattoo and a Charlie Sheen look as a recovering drug addict...... more

A semi-pretentious urban sleaze film, Shadow Hours offers Balthazar Getty--sporting a "BZAR" knuckle tattoo and a Charlie Sheen look as a recovering drug addict working nights in a Los Angeles filling station to support an angelic pregnant wife (Rebecca Gayheart). Getty is tempted to the wild side by sharp-suited mystery man Peter Weller, who takes him on a tour of nocturnal weirdsville: piercing clubs, bare-knuckle boxing arenas and big-money Russian roulette parlours. Getty comes to suspect that Weller is a perhaps-demonic serial killer who has been turning women's heads (literally) and calls in cop Peter Greene. But he also goes back to dealer Frederic Forrest to get back on drugs and is stuck with get-in-the-way boss Brad Dourif. The film has a good cast and the germ of an interesting idea, but ends up as just another drama about a backsliding rehab guy and nighttime folks. It works hard on being shocking without going all the way into Clive Barker territory, despite advice on extreme underground culture from shock-tactics queen Lydia Lunch and some nasty fishhook facial sculpture. The ending suggests Weller might be a semi-supernatural character, but cops out of dragging Getty all the way down to hell. Weller, who grabs most of the best lines ("I've seen things in this city make Dante's Inferno read like Winnie the Pooh"), is an interesting, ambiguous villain, but everyone else is very standardised. Writer-director Isaac H Eaton clearly has a large collection of David Lynch videos and watched Fight Club several times. On the DVD: Sound is presented in both 2.0 and 5.1, while the widescreen presentation looks a lot better than the full-frame video release. In addition, there's a trailer and a photo gallery montage of arty looking frame blow-ups scored with pounding weird-rock. --Kim Newman

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Exclusive 4DVD Version 1978, director John Carpenter changed the face of horror cinema and made movie history with Halloween, the terrifying account of psycho...... more

Exclusive 4DVD Version 1978, director John Carpenter changed the face of horror cinema and made movie history with Halloween, the terrifying account of psycho killer Michael Myers' horrific rampage through the small town of Haddonfield. A quarter of a century after the events of that fateful night, Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror revisits Haddonfield to discover the triumphs, controversies and groundbreaking influence of the greatest horror movie franchise ever with the most comprehensive Halloween documentary ever produced. Narrated by Halloween star P.J. Soles and featuring rare behind the scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew members, including John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Jamie Lee Curtis, Moustapha Akkad, plus fans such as Rob Zombie, Clive Barker, Edgar Wright and Kim Newman, Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror is the ultimate retrospective look at the entire Halloween saga. Released as a four-disc DVD set that includes the digitally remastered version of Carpenter's original movie, Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror also comes packed with extras features that include extensive footage filmed at the H25 Convention in South Pasadena (the actual filming location for the fictional Haddonfield). For devoted fans of the Halloween series who couldn't make it to that legendary event, this is definitely the next best thing to actually having been there. About This Transfer: Halloween has been fully restored under the supervision of Lucasfilm's THX Digital Mastering Services and was transferred by colourist Adam Adams from a new 35mm interpositive and approved by cinematographer Dean Cundey. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack was created by Chace Productions in association with Alan Howarth using the original 16-track music studio master and the original 35mm magnetic dialogue and effects tracks.

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The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a...... more

The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a synthesis of the plot of William Faulkner's Sanctuary with the lurid exposes of the criminal rampage of Arizona Clark "Ma" Barker and her alleged criminal brood. Aldrich sticks surprisingly close to Chase's plot, although he considerably deepens all the characterisations and cuts through the prurient sex sensation to create a surprisingly moving and complicated relationship between kidnapped heiress Barbara Blandish (Kim Darby) and the homicidally psychopathic but also childish Slim Grissom (Scott Wilson), the most feared member of the gang headed by the grotesquely horrible Ma (Irene Dailey). Barbara is abducted after a jewel heist gone wrong by a trio of inept small-timers, who are swiftly rubbed out by the more organised Grissom mob, and though Ma insists that after the girl's father has come across with the million-dollar ransom she will be mercilessly put down, Slim becomes enchanted with the girl, who eventually becomes his lover. In the book, the girl was drugged and raped, but here we get a delicate, creepy shifting of power to the point when Miss Blandish can browbeat her fearsome captor into mixing her a perfect martini, and the new attachment between crook and captive creates a rift with the rest of the gang that inevitably pays off in various hails of machine gunfire as the plan falls apart and the authorities close in. Aldrich manages the kind of claustrophobic black comedy games of terror and flirtation he perfected in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, but attacks the rat-tat-tat tommy gun scenes with action skills honed on The Dirty Dozen. Most of these films trusted costumes, cars and music to evoke the 1920s, but screenwriter Leon Griffiths takes care with period slang and the supporting cast have a real Depression era Warner Brothers feel, with Connie Stevens as a dumb but ferocious blonde showgirl, Tony Musante as the slick-haired official ladykiller in the gang and Robert Lansing as an impeccably down-at-heel but compassionate private detective.On the DVD: The advertised extras--notes, trivia and photo gallery--are disappointingly thin, but the 16:9 letterboxed print is almost flawless, with lovely pastels for the clothes and sets and bright scarlet for the many bursts of blood. --Kim Newman

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The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a...... more

The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a synthesis of the plot of William Faulkner's Sanctuary with the lurid exposes of the criminal rampage of Arizona Clark "Ma" Barker and her alleged criminal brood. Aldrich sticks surprisingly close to Chase's plot, although he considerably deepens all the characterisations and cuts through the prurient sex sensation to create a surprisingly moving and complicated relationship between kidnapped heiress Barbara Blandish (Kim Darby) and the homicidally psychopathic but also childish Slim Grissom (Scott Wilson), the most feared member of the gang headed by the grotesquely horrible Ma (Irene Dailey). Barbara is abducted after a jewel heist gone wrong by a trio of inept small-timers, who are swiftly rubbed out by the more organised Grissom mob, and though Ma insists that after the girl's father has come across with the million-dollar ransom she will be mercilessly put down, Slim becomes enchanted with the girl, who eventually becomes his lover. In the book, the girl was drugged and raped, but here we get a delicate, creepy shifting of power to the point when Miss Blandish can browbeat her fearsome captor into mixing her a perfect martini, and the new attachment between crook and captive creates a rift with the rest of the gang that inevitably pays off in various hails of machine gunfire as the plan falls apart and the authorities close in. Aldrich manages the kind of claustrophobic black comedy games of terror and flirtation he perfected in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, but attacks the rat-tat-tat tommy gun scenes with action skills honed on The Dirty Dozen. Most of these films trusted costumes, cars and music to evoke the 1920s, but screenwriter Leon Griffiths takes care with period slang and the supporting cast have a real Depression era Warner Brothers feel, with Connie Stevens as a dumb but ferocious blonde showgirl, Tony Musante as the slick-haired official ladykiller in the gang and Robert Lansing as an impeccably down-at-heel but compassionate private detective.On the DVD: The advertised extras--notes, trivia and photo gallery--are disappointingly thin, but the 16:9 letterboxed print is almost flawless, with lovely pastels for the clothes and sets and bright scarlet for the many bursts of blood. --Kim Newman

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The opening credits of Spanish Fly promise "Leslie Phillips vs. Terry-Thomas", making this the British comic innuendo version of King Kong vs. Godzilla or...... more

The opening credits of Spanish Fly promise "Leslie Phillips vs. Terry-Thomas", making this the British comic innuendo version of King Kong vs. Godzilla or Frankenstein vs. the Wolf Man, with the two masters of fnarr-fnarr lecherous English lounge lizardry pitted against each other. It's a sunstruck, terminally silly slice of fluff of the stripe that passed for a sex film in 1976 ("Go and butter yourself", someone says) but seems almost comically innocent these days. The sort of film that boasts special credits for women's fashions by Cornelia James and underwear by Janet Reger, it tells the story of a gap-toothed con man (Thomas) exiled to sunny Spain. He adds ground-up cantharides to undrinkable plonk to create a market for aphrodisiac wine, and impotent underwear tycoon (Phillips) benefits from the effects of the product as he gets to grips with four lovely models, until his wife (Sue Lloyd) shows up and a side-effect means he starts barking like a dog. The stars are game, but the material--from a story by producer Peter James, now a horror novelist--is skimpier than the starlets' bikinis and none of the pretty girls has any comic timing (though they all get topless scenes). Students of British pop culture will note the bizarre juxtaposition of hiring an uncredited Francis Matthews, the upright voice of Captain Scarlet, to dub the roles of a gay Spanish photographer and (for one bad gag) a disgusted dog.On the DVD: The picture is fullscreen. There are no extras.--Kim Newman

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The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a...... more

The Grissom Gang is director Robert Aldrich's take on British author James Hadley Chase's once-notorious novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which was itself a synthesis of the plot of William Faulkner's Sanctuary with the lurid exposes of the criminal rampage of Arizona Clark "Ma" Barker and her alleged criminal brood. Aldrich sticks surprisingly close to Chase's plot, although he considerably deepens all the characterisations and cuts through the prurient sex sensation to create a surprisingly moving and complicated relationship between kidnapped heiress Barbara Blandish (Kim Darby) and the homicidally psychopathic but also childish Slim Grissom (Scott Wilson), the most feared member of the gang headed by the grotesquely horrible Ma (Irene Dailey). Barbara is abducted after a jewel heist gone wrong by a trio of inept small-timers, who are swiftly rubbed out by the more organised Grissom mob, and though Ma insists that after the girl's father has come across with the million-dollar ransom she will be mercilessly put down, Slim becomes enchanted with the girl, who eventually becomes his lover. In the book, the girl was drugged and raped, but here we get a delicate, creepy shifting of power to the point when Miss Blandish can browbeat her fearsome captor into mixing her a perfect martini, and the new attachment between crook and captive creates a rift with the rest of the gang that inevitably pays off in various hails of machine gunfire as the plan falls apart and the authorities close in. Aldrich manages the kind of claustrophobic black comedy games of terror and flirtation he perfected in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, but attacks the rat-tat-tat tommy gun scenes with action skills honed on The Dirty Dozen. Most of these films trusted costumes, cars and music to evoke the 1920s, but screenwriter Leon Griffiths takes care with period slang and the supporting cast have a real Depression era Warner Brothers feel, with Connie Stevens as a dumb but ferocious blonde showgirl, Tony Musante as the slick-haired official ladykiller in the gang and Robert Lansing as an impeccably down-at-heel but compassionate private detective.On the DVD: The advertised extras--notes, trivia and photo gallery--are disappointingly thin, but the 16:9 letterboxed print is almost flawless, with lovely pastels for the clothes and sets and bright scarlet for the many bursts of blood. --Kim Newman

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Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy...... more

Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom KeoghThe Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.comState Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.

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Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy...... more

Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom KeoghThe Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.comState Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.

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A 6 Disc collection of your favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, containing the following six classic films:Carousel; The King and I; Oklahoma!; The Sound...... more

A 6 Disc collection of your favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, containing the following six classic films:Carousel; The King and I; Oklahoma!; The Sound of Music; South Pacific; State Fair;Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom KeoghThe Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.comState Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.

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