Fall is upon us, and here’s another batch of classic and recent films for you to watch during these crisp autumn nights! From a beloved Disney favorite to the first season of Abbott and Costello’s legendary comedy series and beyind, these new offerings will thrill and entertain you!
Cinderella (Diamond Edition)
Wonderful music and marvelous Disney animation bring to life the timeless fairy tale classic of poor Cinderella, a beautiful and kind young woman tormented by her scheming stepsisters. But an encounter with her fairy godmother, a date with Prince Charming at a lavish ball, a glass slipper, and the ultimate midnight curfew could change her life forever. Features the voices of Ilene Woods, Verna Felton, James MacDonald; Songs include “The Work Song,” “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.”
Big John, Little John: The Complete Series
What happens when junior high teacher Big John (Herb Edelman) takes a big drink from a so-called fountain of youth? He turns into Little John (Robbie Rist), of course–that’s John at 12 years of age! Follow the wacky adventures of both Johns in this imaginative and humorous live-action Saturday morning comedy. With Joyce Bulifant, Mike Darnell.
Bonanza: The Official Fourth Season Value Pack
All 34 episodes from season four–including “The First Born,” “A Hot Day For A Hanging,” “Knight Errant,” “The Last Haircut,” and “The Boss”–have been collected in a nine-disc set.
Me? I want this compilation of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore’s greatest holiday-themed specials and episodes, including “A Chipmunk Christmas” (1981), “It’s A Wonderful Life, Dave” (1989), “Alvin’s Christmas Carol” (1989), and “A Chipmunk Celebration” (1994). “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late),” “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and other festive favorites are performed throughout.
Decidedly offbeat period adventure set in Barbary Coast-era San Francisco stars Vincent Price as an opium-addicted soldier of fortune determined to free a boatload of freshly imported female slaves before they become collateral damage in a tong war. June Kyoto Lu, Linda Ho, Philip Ahn co-star; Albert Zugsmith produces and directs.
Director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp pay tribute to the popular gothic soap opera with this unique blend of horror and comedy. After spending over 200 years buried in the ground, vampire Barnabas Collins (Depp) is exhumed in the year 1972. Can he adjust to life in 20th-century America and help the current Collins clan revive their fishery business while romancing the reincarnation of his lost love? Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green also star.
Happy Endings: The Complete Second Season
All 22 episodes from the second season–including “Blax, Snake, Home,” “The Code War,” “Meet The Parrots,” “Cocktails & Dreams,” and “Kickball 2: The Kickening”–are featured in a three-disc set.
Hart of Dixie: The Complete First Season
All 22 episodes from season one–including the “Pilot,” “Gumbo & Glory,” “The Crush & the Crossbow,” “Aliens & Aliases,” and “The Big Day”–are featured in five-disc set.
Forty-one disc set features the complete seasons 1-8 of “House.”
How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season Seven
All 24 seventh-season episodes–including “The Best Man,” “Field Trip,” “The Rebound Girl,” “No Pressure,” and the two-part “The Magician’s Code”–are featured in a three-disc set.
It Takes a Thief: The Complete First Season
All 16 episodes from the first season–including “A Thief Is a Thief,” “One Illegal Angel,” “A Spot of Trouble,” “The Radomir Miniature,” and “The Lay of the Land”–are presented in a five-disc set.
Monstrously funny farce stars Scott Valentine as a young musician who is stricken with a strange curse–he turns into a demon whenever he becomes sexually aroused. But when he falls for a beautiful girl who has suffered through a string of disastrous relationships, he must figure out how to romance her while dealing with his condition. Outrageous comedy co-stars Michelle Little, Robert Trebor.
New Girl: The Complete First Season
All 24 episodes from the debut season–including the “Pilot,” “Naked,” “Jess and Julia,” “Control,” and “See Ya”–are featured in a three-disc set.
Nikita: The Complete Second Season
All 23 episodes from the second season–including “Game Change,” “333 Walnut Lane,” “Clean Sweep,” “Girl Power,” and “Homecoming”–are collected in a five-disc set.
Although she runs a wedding-planning business, thrice-divorced mother Miriam finds herself unlucky in love. While dealing with romantic problems of her own, she also contends with relationship issues involving her three quirky daughters. Will Miriam be able to juggle life, love, and business successfully? Hilarious comedy stars Illeana Douglas, Kimberly-Rose Wolter, Mia Riverton.
Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
Indulging her counterculture habits from the 1960s well into her advanced years, grandmother Grace (Jane Fonda) is reluctant to put the brakes on her free-spirited lifestyle at the request of daughter Diane (Catherine Keener), a Manhattan lawyer who arrives on her Woodstock doorstep with her children (Elizabeth Olsen, Nat Wolff) in tow after her divorce. The estranged family members proceed on a charming journey of self-rediscovery in this poignant film. With Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chace Crawford.
After his father dies, New York salesman Sam (Chris Pine) reluctantly travels to Los Angeles for the funeral and the work involved in the dispensation of his estate. A large sum of cash left inside a shaving kit soon brings him into contact with a young woman (Elizabeth Banks) and her son (Michael Hall D’Addario)–leading to a complex relationship involving secrets, suffering, and generosity. With Michelle Pfeiffer, Olivia Wilde, and Philip Baker Hall.
Pete’s Dragon: 35th Anniversary Edition
Wonderful musical fantasy from Disney blends live-action and animation to chronicle the adventures of Pete, an orphan boy who escapes from his adoptive parents and travels to Passamaquoddy, Maine. Befriended by a kindly lighthouse keeper and her father, he attempts to stop a con artist from exploiting his guardian dragon pal, Elliott. Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Mickey Rooney, Shelley Winters, Sean Marshall, and the voice of Charlie Callas star.
Expert at exposing charlatan psychics, two professional skeptics (Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver) have a harder time discerning how popular mentalist Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) pulls off successful presentations of his uncanny abilities. Their investigation into his dealings takes on an unmistakable aura of danger after one of Silver’s most strident critics dies mysteriously. Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones co-star.
Snorks: The Complete First Season
All 13 episodes from the debut season–including “Journey to the Source/Hooked on a Feeling,” “Now You Seahorse, Now You Don’t/Snorkymania,” “Casey and the Doubleheader/Das Boot,” “Fine Fettered Friends/Time Out for Sissies,” and “The King of Kelp/Whale Tales”–are collected on two discs.
Miserable after their single mom (Teri Polo) uproots them from their Brooklyn home for an old house out in the boonies, two young brothers (Chris Massoglia, Nathan Gamble) begin exploring their new residence. It seems that the basement floor has an ancient, padlock-laden door, and where the bottomless pit beneath leads, you don’t want to know. Joe Dante’s shocker co-stars Haley Bennett, Bruce Dern, and the great Dick Miller.
There’s no talking car in this Three Mesquiteers adventure, but the heroic trio (John Wayne, Ray “Crash” Corrigan, and Max “Alibi” Terhune) does don masks and capes as they saddle up to foil a phony Spanish nobleman’s land-grabbing scheme. With Ruth Rogers, George Douglas, Tom Tyler, and Kermit Maynard.
Raunchy comedy stars Parker Posey as a seemingly happy married woman who’s harboring a devastating secret: She’s never been able to achieve an orgasm. When her husband (Paul Rudd) leaves her out of frustration and begins an affair with a high school student (Mischa Barton), Posey seizes the opportunity to explore her sexuality, leading her to an unlikely romance with a much older man (Danny DeVito). With Miranda Bailey and Liza Minnelli.
The Six Million Dollar Man: Season 2
All 22 episodes from the second season–including “Nuclear Alert,” “The Midas Touch,” “Return of the Robot Maker,” the two-part “The Bionic Woman,” and “Steve Austin, Fugitive”–are collected in a six-disc set.
Classic British chiller stars Boris Karloff as a gifted hypnotist who develops a technique that allows him to control the experiences and sensations of others. Enlisting the help of a young test subject, he begins experimenting with the new method. But when Karloff’s wife becomes consumed by manipulating the human guinea pig, the dark side of human nature is unleashed. With Catherine Lacey, Elizabeth Ercy, Ian Ogilvy.
Another evil plan by Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) is set in motion when he orders a scientist to begin cloning important lawmen so that the duplicates can be placed in the world’s seats of power. On the list: Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. Howard Marion Crawford and Maria Rohm co-star in this compelling suspenser.
There’s trouble under the big top when some owlhoots after her late grandfather’s ranch sabotage circus owner Carole Landis’ show. Luckily for Carole, the Three Mesquiteers (John Wayne, Max Terhune, Ray Corrigan) have the ranch next to hers and are ready to perform death-defying feats of justice in this thrill-a-minute oater.
Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection
Eight-disc set includes eight of Universal’s popular monster films: “Dracula” (1931), “Frankenstein” (1931), “The Mummy” (1932), “The Invisible Man” (1933), “Bride Of Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man” (1941), “Phantom Of The Opera” (1943), and both the regular and 3D versions of “The Creature From the Black Lagoon.”
A documentarian (Christopher Denham) and his recovering addict girlfriend (Nicole Vicius) sign up for indoctrination into an L.A.-based cult, hoping to mount an expose on the band’s leader (co-scripter Brit Marling), a charismatic if frail woman who claims to have time-travelled from 2054. The deeper they probe, however, the greater the danger to their safety, if not their very sanity. Intriguing thriller also stars Davenia McFadden, James Urbaniak.
Actually, the “stage” the Three Mesquiteers are called on to protect is a Greyhound bus (!) carrying gold in its hold, as Stony Brooke (John Wayne), Lullaby Joslin (Max Terhune), and Tucson Smith (Ray Corrigan) travel on the land and in the skies to best the black hats. With Anthony Marsh and, in her final film, silent screen siren Louise Brooks.
Craving the cash so he can settle down with girlfriend clerk Bette Davis, struggling pharmacist Charles Farrell reluctantly partners with bootlegger Ricardo Cortez for the manufacture of knock-off cosmetics. When the greedy gangster wants to expand the operation into diluted drugs, however, a prescription for tragedy is certain to be filled. Pre-Code crime opus co-stars Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins.
Moving drama set in a 1900s Welsh mining town, with Bette Davis as a recently arrived teacher who meets opposition when she tries to establish a school for the locals. John Dall is Davis’ prize pupil, and Nigel Bruce is an antagonistic landowner. Irving Rapper (“Now, Voyager”) directs this version of Emlyn Williams’ autobiographical play; with Joan Lorring, Mildred Dunnock.
Christopher Lee’s first appearance as Sax Rohmer’s evil Asian crimelord finds him employing a group of scientists to develop a lethal gas that will help him terrorize England–and then, the world. Will Scotland Yard Inspector Nayland Smith (Nigel Green) be able to stop him? Karin Dor, James Robertson Justice also star in this British-West German coproduction.
The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow
From Rankin/Bass comes this unforgettable holiday special set in 19th-century France that concerns an orphan shepherd boy who is blinded in a lightning storm. After he is rescued by a kindly nun, the child discovers the depths of human kindness as his wishes to experience snow at Christmastime miraculously come true. With the voices of David Kelley, Angela Lansbury, Cyril Ritchard.
The Abbott and Costello Show: The Complete First Season
All 26 episodes from the debut season–including “The Drugstore,” “The Birthday Party,” “The Army Story,” “The Actors’ Home,” and “Safari”–are presented in a four-disc set.
For details and availaibility of more of this week’s new releases, click here.
Here’s a look at last week’s DVD and Blu-ray releases.