Studio Classics - Best Picture Collection (Sunrise / How Green Was My Valley / Gentleman's Agreement / All About Eve)

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Sunrise (1927)
There are those who rate Sunrise the greatest of all silent films. Then again, some consider it the finest film from any era. Such claims invite a backlash, but do yourself a favor and give it a look. At the very least, you'll know you've seen a movie of extraordinary visual beauty and emotional purity. This universal tale of a farm couple's journey from country to city and back again was the first American film for F.W. Murnau, the German director of Nosferatu and The Last Laugh whose everyday scenes seemed haunted by phantoms and whose most extravagant visions never lost touch with reality. Hollywood afforded him the technical resources to unleash his imagination, and in turn he opened up the power of camera movement and composition for a generation of American filmmakers. You'll never forget the walk in the swamp, the ripples on the lake, the trolley ride from forest to metropolis. This movie defines the cinema. --Richard T. Jameson

How Green Was My Valley (1941)
John Ford's beautiful, heartfelt drama about a close-knit family of Welsh coal miners is one of the greatest films of Hollywood's golden age--a gentle masterpiece that beat Citizen Kane in the Best Picture race for the 1941 Academy Awards. The picture also won Oscars for Best Director (Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography; all of those awards were richly deserved, even if they came at the expense of Kane and Orson Welles. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, the film focuses its eventful story on 10-year-old Huw (Roddy McDowall), youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp, Sarah Allgood), a hardy couple who've seen the best and worst of times in their South Wales mining town. They're facing one of the worst times as Mr. Morgan refuses to join a miners union whose members have begun a long-term strike. Family tensions grow and Huw must learn many of life's harsher lessons under the tutelage of the local preacher (Walter Pidgeon), who has fallen in love with Huw's sister (Maureen O'Hara). As various crises are confronted and devastating losses endured, How Green Was My Valley unfolds as a rich, moving portrait of family strength and integrity. It's also a nod to a simpler, more innocent time--and to the preciousness of memory and the inevitable passage from youth to adulthood. An all-time classic, not to be missed. --Jeff Shannon

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
Elia Kazan directed this sometimes powerful study of anti-Semitism in nicer circles, based on Laura Z. Hobson's post-World War II novel. Gregory Peck is a hotshot magazine writer who has been blind to the problem; to ferret it out, he passes himself off as Jewish and watches the WASPs squirm. Seen a half-century later, the attitudes seem quaint and dated: Could it really have been like this? Yet the truth of the story comes through, in the wounded dignity of John Garfield, the upright indignation of Peck, and the hidden ways bigotry and hatred can poison relationships. That's particularly true in the Oscar-winning performance of Celeste Holm, who finds more layers than you'd expect in what seems like a stock character. --Marshall Fine

All About Eve (1950)
Showered with Oscars, this wonderfully bitchy (and witty) comedy written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz concerns an aging theater star (Bette Davis) whose life is being supplanted by a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ingenue (Anne Baxter) whom she helped. This is a film for a viewer to take in like a box of chocolates, packed with scene-for-scene delights that make the entire story even better than it really is. The film also gives deviously talented actors such as George Sanders and Thelma Ritter a chance to speak dazzling lines; Davis bites into her role and never lets go. A classic from Mankiewicz, a legendary screenwriter and the brilliant director of A Letter to Three Wives, The Barefoot Contessa, and Sleuth. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

Great movies.......2007-05-11

I was looking for All About Eve, but I ended up three othet great movies. What a wonderful bonus

Collection does not overlap the other Best Picture collections.......2007-02-03

These are four of the eight Best Picture winners produced by Fox Film Corporation, the others being "Cavalcade", "Sound of Music", "Patton", and "The French Connection". I'll give a brief run down on my opinion of each film:

Sunrise (1927) - Winner of "Best Artistic Picture" of 1927-8, this is actually NOT a best picture winner in the strict sense. That film would be "Wings". However, this is a much better movie. The whole picture is a work of art. Director F.W. Murnau actually makes you somewhat sorry that silent pictures are obsolete, and the cinematography has to be seen to be believed. The story is simple - A farmer falls for a woman from the city, almost resorts to killing his wife to be rid of her, comes to his senses, and the man and wife remember why they got married in the first place while having a day of fun in the City. If you don't like artistic pictures, you may not like this one, but it is one of my favorites.

How Green Was My Valley (1941) - The most amazing factoid about this film is that it beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture, and yet today it is relatively forgotten compared to that film. The film is pretty good though. It is about a Welsh family and the impact of how their green lush Welsh valley is ruined by mining at the turn of the twentieth century. John Ford directs.

Gentleman's Agreement (1947) - One of the first "socially relevant" films to win Best Picture. Gregory Peck pretends to be Jewish to collect material for a story on being Jewish in America. The message is powerful, but there are some distracting subplots going on - most notably Peck and his relationship with his sick mother, and Peck's romance with Dorothy McGuire that rings hollow.

All About Eve (1950) - This is a great one. Powerful acting by everyone. Just when you think there is nobody more evil than Anne Baxter's Eve Harrington, along comes George Sander's Addison DeWitt and kicks her to the curb in that category. Then there's the wonderful Bette Davis as aging star Margo Channing. This role reinvigorated Davis' career, which had been on a downward slide for a few years.

In summary you get two great Best Pictures - Sunrise and All About Eve, and two good Best Pictures - How Green was My Valley and Gentleman's Agreement, all for a reasonable price that does not overlap with other Best Picture boxed sets and DVD bundles. I recommend it.

Hollywood masterpieces.......2007-01-16

I have been trying for over a year to obtain a copy of Sunrise. I had seen the film about two years ago on the Turner Classical Movies channel and it had a profound impact on me. The characters were so human and modern in their behavior. And, although certain directors of the 20's seemed to like advancing the plot or time element through superimposing one frame over another and it could be annoying and confusing, in this film it was a fascinating technique to watch. This is a film in which you can get totally engrossed. The story is timeless and poignant. I am so glad this film was included with the "talkie" best picture films (which, it goes without saying are among the superior films of the 30's and 40's).

Very good value -- even if you own a couple already!.......2005-07-01

I have to take issue with "Moviefanatic", who objected to having no lower-cost, 'Sunrise'-only alternative to this set.

I could see his point if they were charging a premium price for the set, but they're not. The cost of this 4-film set is less, for example, than for the 1-disk Criterion edition of 'The Passion of Joan of Arc', or the Kino or Image Entertainment versions of 'Intolerance'. (To say nothing of other silent masterpieces, like 'The Crowd', which have never received DVD release.)

If it helps, you can think of the other three films as bonus filler items. They are all worthy pictures. 'How Green Was My Valley' is often called sentimental, and in some ways it is, but it is a dark, sad movie, and one of Ford's best. 'Gentleman's Agreement' is the weakest film here, a sincere and well-intentioned attack on American anti-Semitism, but rather talky and slow. If it doesn't represent Kazan's best work, it still stands up as historically important. 'All About Eve' was for years the film with the most Oscar nominations (14); it too is talky, but with dialogue this memorable, talky is in this case a good thing.

But the big attraction of this set is 'Sunrise'. Technically, you could argue 'Sunrise' is out of place here, as is not exactly a "Best Picture" Oscar-winner. In the first year of the Academy Awards, 1927-28, the award for "Best Production" was split between 'Wings' and 'The Last Command', while 'Sunrise' got the award -- issued that year only -- for "Best Artistic Quality of Production", beating out 'The Crowd' and 'Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness'. (Incidentally, none of those three films were nominated for "Best Production", and 'The Crowd' would have taken the Artistic Quality award if not for an all-night fillibuster by L.B. Mayer.) But this is trivia; both 'Sunrise' and 'The Crowd' are legitimate masterpieces.

I had never heard of 'Chang', but it is available on DVD, from Image Entertainment -- for about the same price as this 4-disk set.

Bottom line: This set features three great movies, one of which is otherwise unavailable, and one good one. The set is a terrific bargain. Case closed; buy it.

Clever Packaging!.......2005-06-06

I have to admit that all of these movies are great. Unfortunately, all of them (except 'Sunrise') have been available in other editions. So what do the lovers of Murnau's masterpiece have to do? In order to get their hands on the cherished bonus, they have to buy three other movies that they have probably watched countless number of times. I have to give credit to this DVD set creators/promoters. This is business sense (shameless and greedy) at its best! And people flock to buy it and give praises. Everybody is happy (or furious)... You decide.

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