Classics - Movies

Native Son

Classics

One of the most controversial novels of its day, Richard Wright's Native Son (first published in 1940) exposed the injustices of urban African-American life, witnessed through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, whose violent tendencies and moral confusion were the natural result of a lifetime of deprivation. In prison for murder and sentenced to death, Thomas reflects on the circumstances that led to his fate. Kino Lorber presents a new restoration of the 1951 film version of the novel, directed by Pierre Chenal and starring Richard Wright as Bigger Thomas. It is presented in association with the Library of Congress, Fernando Martin Peña and Argentina Sono Film. Special thanks to Edgardo Krebs for his years of research into the making of Native Son, and for being a tireless champion of its restoration and re-release.

Steamboat Bill Jr.

Classics

The son of a steamboat captain, Buster falls in love with the daughter of a rival steamboat owner. When a cyclone rages, Buster proves himself a hero by rescuing his love and her father from a watery grave.

Thirteen Women

Classics

Shortly before shedding her snakeskin vamp persona for good by wrapping herself in the ermine confines of Nora Charles, Myrna Loy terrified and terrorized as the murderous mesmerist Ursula Georgi in the pre-Code horror show Thirteen Women. Following a racist sorority's cruel rebuff, half-caste Ursula embarks on a blood-thirsty trail of deceit and murder until only one woman (Irene Dunne) is left to face her. Aside from the allure and interest of its two leading ladies – each on the cusp of their ascension into cinema legend – Thirteen Women's delights are rather more diabolical and devastating than the more domestic concerns of a traditional "Women's Picture." From its breathless and terrifying (and arrestingly staged) opening aerial atrocity through its stabbings, suicides and hidden bombs, Thirteen Women's relentless pace startles and astonishes, ever driven by Loy's portrayal of Ursula's unalloyed and unapologetic evil.

The Will

Classics

Love brings Mohamed and Fatma together, and they promise each other to get married. Mohamed is a fresh graduate suffering from financial problems, so he joins Nazih Pacha, a friend's (Adly) father as a partner in an import/export company with nothing to offer but his effort. Nazih Pacha travels abroad, leaving his business to Mohamed and Adly to run. Adly spends his father's money compulsively and makes the company suffer big losses, and when Nazih returns and finds out, he kicks his son Adly out of his house. Mohamed marries Fatma, to the envy of Etr the butcher, who wants Fatma for himself. Etr makes a plan to get Mohamed kicked out of the company and succeeds in it, after fabricating a crime and sticking it to him, while secretly trying to change Fatma's feelings towards Mohamed. When Fatma asks for divorce, Etr proposes to her, but Nazih Pacha finds that Mohamed is innocent at the right time, and this stops Fatma from marrying the butcher at the last moment.

No Way to Treat a Lady

Classics

Suspense-master Willam Golman (Marathon Man) wrote the novel from which this bizarre black comedy was adapted. It's the extraordinary account of a plumber who kills a dowdy matron, a priest who kills a dowdy matron, and a policeman who kills a dowdy matron. Actually they're all the same man, a psychotic master of disguise brilliantly played by versatile Rod Steiger. The killer also gets his kicks phoning in clues to detective George Segal. All of New York trembles as a sixth strangling is reported in the papers. And the man with the makeup kit stalks another victim... the detective's girlfriend (Lee Remick). A suspenseful, macabre game of cat and mouse.

Lady In a Cage

Classics

A suspenseful shocker, "Lady In a Cage" tells of ten terrifying hours in the life of a beautiful widow (Olivia de Havilland) who is accidentally trapped in her home elevator during a power failure. Her well-oriented world is destroyed as the elevator, nine feet from the floor, becomes a torture chamber--a cage. Unable to escape, her situation becomes desperate when the emergency alarm attracts a drunken derelict and his boozy prostitute friend, both bent on robbery. James Caan (The Godfather) projects his raw power as one of the hoodlums who embarks on an orgy of wanton vandalism and sadistic brutality that ends in murder.

The Woman in the Whirlpool - (????? ?? ?????)

Classics

The story begins on the night of Nadia’s wedding. When Nadia’s fiancé dies and her mother discovers Nadia’s pregnancy, she decides to get rid of the child and gives it to a wealthy couple who wanted to adopt. The plot revolves around how Nadia and her child reunite years later.

The Rainmakers

Classics

At the height of their powers - and the height of the infamous Dust Bowl Disaster - comedy team supreme Wheeler and Woolsey brought The Rainmakers to a laugh-parched public. As Roscoe the Rainmaker and his sidekick, destitute farmer Billy, Woolsey and Wheeler play a pair of unlikely saviors to the desperate, draught afflicted town of Lima Junction, Ca. Armed with his patented Magno-Magnetizer, Roscoe is ready to deliver the badly needed cloudburst Lima Junction needs while Billy is ready to romance banker's daughter Margie (Dorothy Lee). Unfortunately for the pair, wealthy land speculating farmer Simon Parker (Berton Churchill) and his son Orville (George Meeker) have their own designs on the land and lady. Finding themselves sabotaged, Billy and Roscoe fight back the best way possible: by staging a train wreck!

Nosferatu (Remastered)

Classics

A cornerstone of the horror film, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphiny of Horror is resurrected in an HD edition mastered from the acclaimed 35mm restoration by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung. Backed by an orchestral performance of Hans Erdmann’s 1922 score, this edition offers unprecedented visual clarity and historical faithfulness to the original release version. An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu remains to many viewers the most unsettling vampire film ever made, and its bald, spidery vampire, personified by the diabolical Max Schreck, continues to spawn imitations in the realm of contemporary cinema.

The Europeans

Classics

The lives and routines of the puritanical Wentworth family are upended by the not-so-welcome arrival of their European cousins to New England one particularly golden autumn. Lee Remnick shines as the snooty and calculating Eugenia, a Baroness whose marriage to a German prince is on the fritz—meanwhile her dapper brother Felix has his eye on one of the Wentworth daughters. Exploring the social and moral clashes between The New World and the Continent, the first of Merchant Ivory’s Henry James triptych features a witty screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, while the BAFTA-nominated production design and Oscar-nominated costumes solidified the lavish (and impeccably researched) period trappings Merchant Ivory became famous for. Cohen Film Collection is proud to present a new restoration of this classic adaptation.

Villa Rides

Classics

Viva la revolución! Oscar® winner Yul Brynner stars as Pancho Villa in this thrilling story of the Mexican Revolution. Along for the ride are legends Robert Mitchum with Charles Bronson at his sneering best. A gritty screenplay by Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) brings out the chemistry between the stars and makes this action packed tale of real life desperados a must see!

The Rainmaker (1956)

Classics

Under the spell of a wandering charlatan named Starbuck, a lonely ranch girl blossoms into full womanhood. Katharine Hepburn garnered an Oscar nomination as the "believably plain yet magnetically beautiful" tomboy rancher, with Burt Lancaster brilliantly cast in the role of the smooth-talking con man who sells his rainmaking "powers" to unsuspecting, drought-ridden Western towns. Playwright N. Richard Nash meticulously enlarges his hit Broadway play to the big screen without losing any of the earthy, gut-wrenching emotions or the sheer, hilarious fun. The result is a genuinely appealing and beautifully executed romance. A must-see for Hepburn fans!

Plan 9 From Outer Space (In Color & Restored)

Classics

Ed Wood's cult classic has been hailed as the worst film of all time, but it's one of the most hilariously entertaining movies you'll ever see. Aliens from outer space reanimate the Earth's dead in an attempt to save the human race. With string-powered flying saucers, laughable dialogue, shrewd alien logic and “priceless” special effects, they can't go wrong. Or can they? (Hint: They do.) Plan 9 is a movie so beautifully bad, it's great. Now you can watch it in color for the first time!

Hue and Cry

Classics

Teenager Joe Kirby, fantasizing he's on the track of criminals, finds to his astonishment that it has all come true. He has walked straight into the story of his comic book. Very soon he convinces himself and his adventurous cronies the comic is being used as a means of communication between a master criminal and his gang of thieves. The first of the Ealing comedies, this 1947 classic features Alastair Sim. Available in HD in North America.

Went the Day Well?

Classics

Bramley End, snug and safe, seemed far away from the events of World War II. Little did the villagers suspect the grim events which were impending. They were surprised, but welcomed the lorry loads of Royal Engineers that rolled onto their village green. They had no reason to suspect that the soldiers were disguised German parachutists, and even less reason to mistrust the leader of their little community, Oliver Winsford.

The Skin

Classics

Based on the memoirs of author Curzio Malaparte, diplomatic liaison between the Allied and Italian forces after the defeat of the Nazi’s in Italy, director Cavani’s (The Night Porter) film is an unflinching look the collapse of Italian society under the US occupation and the desperate measures required for survival. An unforgettable and controversial film.

Stranger At My Door

Classics

Martin Scorsese Presents REPUBLIC REDISCOVERED—over 20 rarely seen films from the storied Republic Pictures library, restored and remastered by Paramount and personally curated by Martin Scorsese. In Stranger at My Door an escaping bank robber finds refuge with a preacher and his wife. The preacher believes he can be reformed but soon finds the robber more trouble than he's worth.

A Woman of Paris

Classics

Charles Chaplin made his debut as a director/producer at United Artists with A WOMAN OF PARIS which, as a serious drama, was a major departure from his previous output. He proved that he was just as adept here as he was with comedy, however, presenting a sincerely mature story of the title character (Edna Purviance), who is betrayed and cast aside by her would-be fiance and ends up a "kept" woman in the company of the disreputable Adolphe Menjou.

For Ever Mozart

Classics

The "story" is a complex tapestry in four panels, with the character of the Director linking the sections. A film is planned but is stymied by casting problems; a play is produced in Sarajevo, but the actors are swept away by war; the Director is frustrated in completing the film that initially couldn't get off the ground; and the magnificence of Mozart puts a period to Godard's wandering--but never adrift--drama.

Shirley Temple Storybook Collection: The Early Years, Vol. 1 (in Color)

Classics

Our exclusive film anthology is taken from Shirley Temple's personal collection. Capturing the first work Shirley ever did in show business, these rare short films, made in 1932, are the ones that launched her to stardom. Shirley presents them here, for the first time - expertly restored and presented in beautiful color! Contains seven wonderful short films - Kid 'in Hollywood, Glad Rags to Riches, War Babies, Kid 'in Africa, The Kid's Last Fight, Pie Covered Wagon, and Polly Tix in Washington.

Classics Movies