Looking for some rare films by Gary Cooper, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy that you can’t find anywhere else? How about some cowboy classics from Monogram Pictures? Or some anniversary editions of true Hollywood originals? This week’s new releases have it all! Here’s what great movies and TV shows are now available.
New Moon — Exclusive!
Colorful 1700s New Orleans is the setting for adventure, romance, and song in this Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy musical, the duo’s sixth pairing. Plantation heiress Jeanette discovers that slave laborer Nelson is actually a rebellious nobleman out to offer escape to the region’s bondservants. Mary Boland, George Zucco co-star; songs include “Lover Come Back,” “One Kiss,” “Wanting You,” and “Stout Hearted Men.”
High Noon (60th Anniversary Edition)
Four Academy Awards, including Gary Cooper’s second Best Actor Oscar, went to director Fred Zinnemann’s landmark western drama. Cooper shines as retiring frontier marshal Will Kane, who must stand alone when a vengeance-seeking outlaw comes to town. Grace Kelly co-stars as Kane’s new Quaker wife; with Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, Ian MacDonald, Thomas Mitchell.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Director Don Siegel’s original sci-fi classic, combining outer space horror with Cold War paranoia, is set in a small California town whose residents are being replaced by emotionless replicas grown from mysterious alien seed pods. Can the invasion be stopped? Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, and Carolyn Jones star in this adaptation of Jack Finney’s novel “The Body Snatchers.”
Johnny Carson: King of Late Night
This “American Masters” PBS special focuses on the life and legacy of Johnny Carson. An intensely private man whose guarded personal life was a sharp contrast to his gregarious on-screen persona, Carson brought laughs to millions during his 30-year stint as the host of “The Tonight Show.” Through classic footage and interviews with David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Doc Severinsen, and others, this documentary spotlights the man behind the entertainment.
In the spirit of “Escape from New York” comes this exciting futuristic actioner from scripter Luc Besson. Guy Pearce stars as a former government agent, wrongly convicted of betraying the U.S., who is given one chance to win his freedom. All he has to do is rescue the president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) from an orbital space prison that’s been taken over by its dangerous inmates. Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Vincent Regan also star.
This “Green Acres” reunion telefilm follows Oliver and Lisa Douglas (Eddie Albert and Ava Gabor) as they become disenchanted with country life and decide to move back to New York City. In their absence, Mr. Haney (Pat Buttram) swindles the people of Hooterville into selling their homes so that the town can be taken over by industry. Can the Douglases return and save the day? With Alvy Moore, Mary Grace Canfield, Henry Gibson.
All 21 episodes from the sixth season–including “Broken,” “Instant Karma,” “Black Hole,” “Open and Shut,” and “Help Me”–are featured in a five-disc set.
Designing Woman: The Final Season
All 22 episodes from the seventh (and final) season–including “Of Human Bondage,” “Love Letters,” “It’s Not So Easy Being Green,” “The Lying Game,” and the two-part series finale “Gone with a Whim”–are featured in a four-disc set.
Diff’rent Strokes: The Third Season
All 22 episodes from the third season–including the two-part “The Bank Job,” “Little Mother,” “Roots,” “The Bus,” and “The Athlete”–are collected in a three-disc set.
The nyuks are non-stop in the Farrelly Brothers’ farcical tribute to cinema’s slapstick icons. When the Catholic orphanage where they were abandoned as infants (and pretty much remained) faces foreclosure, Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos), Larry (Sean Hayes), and Curly (Will Sasso) have to make their way into the world in search of the cash to save it from “soiten” disaster. Jane Lynch, Larry David, Jennifer Hudson, Sofia Vergara co-star.
With the 1956 Hungarian uprising raging, a group of multinationals flees Budapest for the Austrian border, where they are detained by Soviet major Yul Brynner. The suspicious officer comes to focus his interrogation on British noblewoman Deborah Kerr and consort Jason Robards, Jr. (in his feature debut), who isn’t what he seems. Exiting Cold War entry co-stars Robert Morley, E.G. Marshall, Anne Jackson, Ron Howard.
Monogram Cowboy Collection, Vol. 3
“The Ghost Rider” (1943), the first of Johnny Mack Brown’s “Nevada Jack McKenzie” opuses, finds him riding to protect a town from corrupt cattleman Harry Woods. Raymond Hatton co-stars. Brown and Hatton have to fight a sheriff on the take and clear an innocent man in “The Stranger From Pecos” (1943). Lawman Hatton poses as a preacher, and Brown helps him deliver “Six Gun Gospel” (1943) to gold hijackers. When Hatton’s wrangler nephew is rooked and shot by a crooked gambler, Brown deals with the “Outlaws Of Stampede Pass” (1943). When an elderly rancher gets framed by an owlhoot who wants his land, Brown and Hatton dole out “Range Law” (1944). Brown and Hatton hit “The Navajo Trail” (1945) when the tribe is targeted by horse thieves. “Flame Of The West” (1945) offers Brown as a lawman-turned-doctor who prescribes hot lead for ransacking rannies. Hatton co-stars. Road agent Brown infiltrates a pack of rustlers to bring them down in “Shadows On The Range” (1946). Marshal Brown must save ranchers from a land grab in “Law Of The Panhandle” (1950).
A thunderstorm forces a Brazil-bound light aircraft to crash-land in an uncharted area of the rainforest, and the calamity’s survivors pin their slim chances of getting out alive on the plane’s repair. Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, Anita Ekberg, Phyllis Kirk, Gene Barry head the ensemble; John Farrow directs this gripping remake of his 1939 opus “Five Came Back.”
Early talkie oater inspired by the legendary outlaw delivers the excitement (if not the historical accuracy) as Billy (Johnny Mack Brown) seeks to pay back his bosses’ killers in the wake of the Lincoln County War, and spurs determined pursuit from lawman Pat Garrett (Wallace Beery). Kay Johnson, Karl Dane, Roscoe Ates co-star under King Vidor’s direction. AKA: “The Highwayman Rides.”
Bonanza: The Official Third Season Value Pack
All 34 episodes from season three–including “The Smiler,” “Day Of The Dragon,” “The Ride,” “Look To The Stars,” and “The Miracle Maker”–have been collected in a nine-disc set.
Offbeat Spanish-language comedy stars Will Ferrell as a man who has spent his life working on his cash-strapped dad’s ranch in Mexico. Desperate to raise some much needed money, he seems to find financial salvation when his brother arrives with his sexy fiancee in tow. But when he discovers that his sibling has been participating in shady deals, Ferrell and his family are thrust into a brutal drug war. Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal, Genesis Rodriguez, Nick Offerman co-star.
British government employee Fred Jones (Ewan McGregor) is sent on a good will mission to fulfill a Yemeni sheikh’s wish to bring salmon fishing to his desert nation. While making the impractical project work, Fred, who’s estranged from his wife, begins to fall for the sheikh’s consultant Harriet (Emily Blunt), whose soldier boyfriend is missing in action. But what happens when Harriet’s beau comes home? Kristin Scott Thomas co-stars in this romantic comedy/drama based on Paul Torday’s novel.
This version of the story that inspired “Victor/Victoria” stars British singer Jessie Matthews as a seamstress’s delivery girl. After she’s recruited by a female impersonator stricken with laryngitis to pose as a man posing as a woman, Matthews becomes a sensation–but a mysterious woman and her friend try to find out what’s really going on under the costume. Sonnie Hale, Anna Lee also star; songs include “It’s Written All Over Your Face,” “Say the Word and It’s Yours,” “Everything’s in Rhythm in My Heart,” and more.
Conscious that their biological clocks are ticking, but wary of the impact that family life has had upon the rest of their social circle, longtime best buds Jennifer Westfeldt (who scripted and directed) and Adam Scott decide to have a kid together…while maintaining separate love lives. Provocative, funny rumination on friendship and romance co-stars Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox, Edward Burns.
Crime Does Not Pay: The Complete Shorts Collection
Learn what happens when you buck the law in this enduringly popular series of impressively mounted mini-melodramas produced by M-G-M over 1935-47, on which many notable directors and performers cut their professional teeth. All 50 shorts in the series–including such Academy Award winners and nominees as “The Public Pays” (1936), “Torture Money” (1937), “They’re Always Caught” (1938), “Drunk Driving” (1939), “Forbidden Passage” (1941), “A Gun In His Hand” (1945), and “The Luckiest Guy In The World” (1947)–are presented in a six-disc set.
Singin’ in the Rain (60th Anniversary Collector’s Edition)
Stars Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor, M-G-M’s song catalog, and a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green combine to make what is regarded as the best musical of all time. In Hollywood at the end of the silent era, a dashing film star puts up with his vapid leading lady while falling for a humble chorus girl. Songs include “Make ‘Em Laugh,” “Good Morning,” “You Were Meant for Me,” and the title tune. Co-stars Jean Hagen; co-directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen.
The Girl of the Golden West – Exclusive!
Dashing bandit Nelson Eddy didn’t count on having his heart stolen by saloon keeper Jeanette MacDonald when he held up her stagecoach, and he poses as an army officer to court her. Will he escape the trap laid by jealous sheriff Walter Pidgeon? Sprightly musical co-stars Buddy Ebsen, Leo Carrillo, Monty Wooley; songs include “Senorita,” “Who Are We to Say,” “Ave Maria.”
For details and availability of more of this week’s new releases, click here.
Here’s a look at last week’s DVD and Blu-ray releases.