Humphrey Bogart - The Signature Collection, Vol. 2 (The Maltese Falcon Three-Disc Special Edition / Across the Pacific / Action in the North Atlantic / All Through the Night / Passage to Marseille)

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The movie that made Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart anchors this second DVD box devoted to the mighty star. The Maltese Falcon gets--and merits--the deluxe three-disc treatment, and the other Bogie movies collected here are solid vehicles from his early 1940s Warner Bros. heyday. The essence of Bogart's world-weary yet mysteriously romantic aura is on luscious display, even if most of these films fall just short of classic status.

Bogart's letter-perfect incarnation as Sam Spade, the anti-hero of John Huston's debut film as a director, grounds The Maltese Falcon in a smart, sardonic groove. Even if Spade is one of Bogart's finest turns, it's hard to single out the film's best performance: Mary Astor as the mystery dame who trips off the case, Peter Lorre as the fey Joel Cairo, or Sydney Greenstreet as the massively erudite Kasper Gutman (the latter making one of the great debuts in film history). Dashiell Hammett's best-selling story had been filmed twice before, and both versions are included in the extras here: the 1931 Maltese Falcon, which has a fair amount of cheek and some near-identical snatches of Hammett dialogue as the 1941 film--but without the magic--and the 1936 Satan Met a Lady, which puts the story squarely in the realm of screwball comedy, with Warren William and Bette Davis acting as though they'd wandered into a Thin Man movie. Other extras include a commentary with Bogart biography Eric Lax, three radio versions of the tale, and a short documentary about the Falcon.

Huston also directed Across the Pacific, a fun and somewhat tongue-in-cheek picture that brought Bogart, Astor, and Greenstreet back together. After being drummed out of the military, Bogie finds himself aboard a ship sailing toward the Panama Canal--and as the date of Dec. 7, 1941, looms on the horizon, we suspect intrigue. Also from 1942 is the wisecracking All Through the Night, which is set entirely in a Damon Runyon NYC but nevertheless unearths a nest of Nazis (Conrad Veidt among them) planning a homeland attack.

WWII figures in the other two features. Michael Curtiz's Passage to Marseille (1944) burdens itself with too many flashbacks, but otherwise presents a nicely atmospheric tale of Devil's Island escapees trying to get home to fight for France. Lorre and Greenstreet are back, with Michele Morgan snuggling Bogart in the Casablanca-inspired love story. Action in the North Atlantic (1943) is a more conventional picture, with Bogart and Raymond Massey fighting the war in the Merchant Marines; the topnotch action sequences and crusty supporting cast keep it going. Bogart's covert socking of a loose-lipped bar patron gives us the vintage Bogie. Bartender: "Did you hurt your hand?" Bogie: "Never do." --Robert Horton

Product description

Includes: The Maltese Falcon (Three-Disc Special Edition), Across the Pacific, Action in the North Atlantic, All Through the Night, and Passage to Marseille.

Customer Reviews:

Bogart Collection Vol. 2.......2007-06-15

Good plots with wonderful dialog. If these were books you'd call them real page turners.

For the Bogart Fan.......2007-03-19

What a great collection of films and some of the best bits are the "extras" on each DVD. The films are typical Bogart as a detective, spy, mercenary etc.

Bogie Know Best.......2007-03-08

Bogart isn't the best actor in the history of film, but his attitude and feel rank make him one of the most memorable and admirable in film. All movies in this kit show off his skills as well as those of the other actors that often worked with him. Great stuff.

Humphrey Bogart, forever a star!.......2007-02-03

Humphrey Bogart is without a doubt, one of the best actors ever to delight the world with his performance. This classic offers a Bogart that is sharp, cynical and virile. As a private eye, Humphrey Bogart is awesome. The dialogue is difficult to follow, but we always select the language option that provides subtitles to assist the hearing impaired; a feature that we highly recommend because this way you do not miss a word that is said. The DVD's offer many advantages; but for us, this feature is simply... the solution we had always looked for to truly understand the messages offered by great movies. There is much action and suspense, keeping you at the edge of your seat, always wondering when violence will take place because of the ferocious interpretations of the actors. With this role, Bogart leaves no question that he is... and shall forever remain... a Star!!!

A Humphrey Bogart espionage love feast.......2007-01-19

HUMPHREY BOGART: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION, VOLUME 2 has, as its set piece, a remastered studio print of John Huston's incomparable THE MALTESE FALCON (1941). Also included for a comparison is the very good 1931 Ricardo Cortez/Bebe Daniels THE MALTESE FALCON and the mediocre 1936 Warren William/Bette Davis SATAN MET A LADY. But the spotlight is on Huston and company in terms of bonuses that include a brand-new documentary and vintage radio adaptations that offer the fun of the same plot with a different cast.

This DVD boxed set is a love feast for Bogart fans. It also includes ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942), ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT (1942), ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943), and PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES (1944). All sparkle in brand-new prints and, since is from Warner Home Video and movies made during World War Two, all include a generous array of patriotic wartime dramatic and musical shorts, documentaries, new interview featurettes, cartoons, and theatrical trailers.

ACROSS THE PACIFIC reteams director John Huston with FALCON cast members Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet. It is an adventure potboiler that goes from eastern Canada to the Panama Canal, without going near the Pacific. Its climax has espionage activities at the canal, and no one is who they seem.

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT has an incredible cast, led by Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson as Nazis. Bogart battles the Gestapo over his right to have the perfect cheese cake in this tongue-in-cheek wartime adventure that is great fun. A 99 year old Vincent Sherman, who directed, helps out on an audio commentary with Bogart scholar Eric Lax.

ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC is about the Merchant Marine in the north Atlantic when it was made (1943). Lloyd Bacon, who directed some wonderful 1930's musical romances, shows his versatility in this exciting adventure that stars Bogart, Raymond Massey, and Alan Hale. The box says the Merchant Marine used this rather downbeat movie as a recruiting tool.

Finally, we have Michael Curtiz' underrated PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES, with seemingly half the cast of CASABLANCA, including Bogart, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Helmut Dantine, and Sydney Greenstreet. This one is infamous for flashbacks within flashbacks, but with this cast, who cares? Max Steiner did the music, James Wong Howe did the brilliant photography, and a ten-hankie final scene sends the movie into the stratosphere. This one must have really packed a wallop for 1944 audiences torn between good Free France and bad Vichy France.

I highly recommend HUMPHREY BOGART: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION, VOLUME 2 to the millions of Bogart fans, as well as fans of wartime intrigue movies. And special kudos to Warner Home Video for the generous bonuses and putting each film in its own slim envelope inside a larger box. That shows a lot of class, in comparison to the "don't give a damn" people at Universal Home Video.

The James Bond Collection, Vol. 2 (Special Edition)

Average customer rating:

Good Set, but Wow $$$$
3 Repeats in This Series!!!
A great mix of Bond movies
Holy be-jesus...
JB Ultimate Edit... mi6.co.uk

The James Bond Collection, Vol. 2 (Special Edition)
Starring: Sean Connery
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

( J ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Special Editions | Fully Loaded DVDs | Features | DVD | Video

Action & Adventure | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B0000BYRO7
Release Date: 2003-11-18

Amazon.com

Sean Connery casts a long shadow over the James Bond legacy. He created the movie persona and starred in six of the first seven features, all but establishing the cool cold warrior as the world's most suave secret agent. The second Bond collection celebrates the Connery Bond with three of his classics, including From Russia with Love, 007's second and perhaps finest outing. A blond, buff Robert Shaw plays Bond's most ruthless nemesis, and Lotte Lenya and the great Pedro Armindáriz costar in this sleek, high-energy trip through the Iron Curtain. Connery travels to the Far East in You Only Live Twice, which introduces the international criminal conspiracy SPECTRE and its cat-loving mastermind, Blofeld (Donald Pleasence). After a brief retirement, Connery returned for Diamonds Are Forever, his final "official" appearance in the Bond series (15 years later he played Bond for a rival studio's Never Say Never Again). This more tongue-in-cheek adventure takes 007 to Las Vegas, where he battles Blofeld (this time played by Charles Gray) and his minions--namely, a pair of fey, sardonic henchmen and a team of bikini-clad karate killers.

Roger Moore took over the role and his fourth effort was Moonraker, a misguided sci-fi entry that takes Bond to space for a physically impressive but dramatically lackluster adventure with Richard Kiel's steel-dentured Jaws. After that brief digression, For Your Eyes Only returned Bond to globetrotting high adventure and teamed him with his most endearing ally (Topol as a gregarious smuggler). The torch was passed to Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights, an attempt to clear away the camp elements of Moore's portrayal and return to a lean, hard-edged spy thriller for the post-cold war era. It lacks the larger-than-life characters and spectacle of previous Bond pictures, but Dalton was a tough, ruthless 007 and a worthy inheritor of the legacy, which was then passed on to Pierce Brosnan. In The World Is Not Enough, Bond takes on post-Soviet geopolitics, with Robert Carlyle as the villainous Renard and Sophie Marceau and Denise Richards as love objects.

Description

Includes From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, and The World Is Not Enough.

Customer Reviews:

Good Set, but Wow $$$$.......2006-11-29

Let me start off by saying that this collection has some good points. Those good points are From Russia with Love, a great Sean Connery movie, For Your Eyes Only which a pretty good Roger Moore film, and (many may disagree with me on this one) my favorite Brosnan Bond, The World is Not Enough. The other films in this collection are ok, but I don't think there is any film in the Bond series that I really dislike. Now that being said, DON'T PURCHASE THIS SET. I don't know who the people are that are reviewing this with 5 stars and saying great low price, but I wonder if they are the ones trying to sell them. My problems with this set is the picture and sound quality. They are what you would expect on a movie from the era each film was produced. The older Connery Bond movies look like your watching them on 1960's film. The other problem I have with these sets are the prices. To purchase this set used will cost you about $170, the price new is over $200. There is no reason to pay that much for this set. I would recommend if you are looking for the Bond collection to purchase the Ultimate Editions (UEs). The movies have been restored so picture quality is great. The UEs are also set in 5.1 surround sound, and the special features are great. Also the price of the UE compared to this set is a lot better, when you consider that you can purchase all 4 of the UE for about the same price this Vol 2 will cost you. In sort if you want the Bond movies, buy the Ultimate Editions.

3 Repeats in This Series!!!.......2006-09-04

I just bought James Bond Collection, Vol. 2 for my brother and much to my surprise found that THREE of the titles were also in Vol. 1 of the series (which he has). What a rip-off! Paid over $100.00 for 3 new discs. Very disappointing.

A great mix of Bond movies.......2006-08-19

This is my favorite of the 3 Special Edition boxsets. For one thing, it's got 3 great Connery movies: "From Russia With Love" (007 tries to get a Russian decoding machine while surviving a SPECTRE trap); "You Only Live Twice" (007 in Japan must take on SPECTRE, which has been kidnapping spaceships to start war between the USSR and the USA); and "Diamonds Are Forever" (classic Connery 007, in Las Vegas tracking a diamond smuggling trail that leads to Blofeld). I find all those Connery ones entertaining, and YOLT and DAF are two of my personnal favorites, both very entertaining and with great settings. Next, there are two Roger Moore flicks: "Moonraker" (007 goes onto a space station to stop a madman from destroying the world); and "For Your Eyes Only" (007 must recover a stolen piece of technology). "Moonraker" is a bit silly, but I'll admit I find it to be entertaining and I enjoy it more than most Moore films. And "FYEO" is my favorite Moore film, the most hard edged and realistic. There's also a Timothy Dalton film, "The Living Daylights" (007 must stop a group of Soviet renegades from smuggling heroin). It's Dalton's first film, and he's my second favorite, next to Connery. Dalton's Bond is more dark and serious, yet "TLD" is still a good thriller. Finally, there's Pierce Brosnan's third outing, "The World Is Not Enough" (007 tries to stop a nuclear sub exploding and destroying much of the world's oil supply). "TWINE" is one of Brosnan's best, certainly better than his first two. Overall this boxset contains some of the lightest Bond movies, and some of the darkest, offering a good variety of styles and a good variety of Bonds.

Holy be-jesus..........2005-11-19

For all the positive reviews, am I the only one who noticed that the cheapest you can get one of this box set for amounts to over $25 a movie? Maybe its just because it the holiday season and due to the amount of shopping impressed upon me at this time of year, but it occurs to me that this is rather outrageous.

JB Ultimate Edit... mi6.co.uk.......2005-09-21

For any James Bond fan. If this superb collection of James Bond DVDs weren't enough for you; there is good news coming your way. SONY and MGM are planning to re-release all twenty(20) of the James Bond Movies to DVD in (what they're calling) The James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD Collection. Straight official article from mi6.co.uk Here is the link:

http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/articles/dvd_ultimate_editions.php3?=&s=

These new Ultimate Edition DVDS are due in Q32006 coinciding with the release of Casino Royale (21st James Bond Film). These DVD releases are gonna be one of the top DVD projects of 2006!

Picture Quality? They are using Imagica Machines; which are ultra-sophisticated digital film-scanners. One frame every four seconds, which is how long it takes Imagica to scan across the frame 4,000 times. The Imagica they are using creates digital replicas of the frame consisting 4,000 horizontal lines of data. The process is called 4K scanning. It's gonna look sharper than ever; believe it.

Sound Quality? The Company Mi Casa has chosen the brand new Bryston SP 1.7 multichannel preamplifirer/processors for to use in the James Bond remastering project. Although you'll be able to switch back to the original traditional mono sound track if you desire.

Extra special features? Brand New Documentaries and new special bonus material; plus cast and crew intervies from the past 42 years. Including rare and previously seen footage from the productions. Also newly added, Roger Moore has just recorded his commentary tracks for his seven bond films.

I just can't wait. Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan (my favorite Bond) coming back to DVD in the best action spy adventures; the best collection yet.

So they're out next year in 2006. Probably October, with the release of Casino Royale who'll once again being directed by Martin Campbell (GoldenEye). Theatrical Release Date October 19th, 2006.

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