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Gone with the Wind
»rank: 29
: essential video:David 0. Selznick wanted Gone with the Wind to be somehow more than a movie, a film that would broaden the very idea of what a film could be and do and look like. ln many respects he got what he worked so hard to achieve in this 1939 epic (and all-time box-office champ in terms of tickets sold), and in some respects he fell far short of the goal. While the first half of this Civil War drama is taut ...
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My Fair Lady (digitally THX mastered)
»rank: 240
: essential video:Hollywood's legendary 'woman's director,' George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry ...
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The Philadelphia Story
»rank: 491
: essential video:Re-creating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. ...
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Love Among the Ruins
»rank: 3297
: essential video:Re-creating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. ...
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Born Yesterday
»rank: 1431
: :Judy Holliday's 0scar-winning performance is just one of the reasons to watch this terrific 1950 comedy, which is equally acclaimed for its deliciously witty screenplay (based on Garson Kanin's long-running Broadway hit) and George Cukor's silky-smooth direction. Holliday plays Billie Dawn, the floozie fiancée of a junk-dealer millionaire (Broderick Crawford), who is trying to make a good impression among the Washington, D.C., politicos he's hoping to influence. To ensure that Billie gets properly 'culturefied,' the corrupt Crawford hires a D.C. journalist (William Holden) ...
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Gone with the Wind
»rank: 1854
: essential video:David 0. Selznick wanted Gone with the Wind to be somehow more than a movie, a film that would broaden the very idea of what a film could be and do and look like. ln many respects he got what he worked so hard to achieve in this 1939 epic (and all-time box-office champ in terms of tickets sold), and in some respects he fell far short of the goal. While the first half of this Civil War drama is taut ...
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Little Women (1933)
»rank: 12285
: essential video:Louisa May Alcott's beloved story is one of the most-read novels ever written. lt has also proved popular film and telefilm fodder (at least six versions plus a TV series). ln addition, Little Women is one of those rare literary projects that can truly be done well on screen. This, the 1933 version, chronicles the lives and loves of sisters Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth (played, respectively, by Katharine Hepburn, Frances Dee, Joan Bennett, and Jean Parker). lt's a superior rendering ...
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Gaslight
»rank: 11282
: :George Cukor helped transform a moody Victorian stage melodrama (previously filmed in Britain in 1939) into a gothic Hollywood romantic thriller. lngrid Bergman stars as a meek, uncertain heiress courted and married in a whirlwind romance by the debonair Charles Boyer, but when they move back into her childhood home she begins losing her grip on reality and becomes convinced that her husband is trying to drive her insane. Joseph Cotten, rather stiff and colorless next to the anguished Bergman and charming and ...
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Travels With My Aunt
»rank: 12092
: essential video:The steady hand of George Cukor and the grand manner of Maggie Smith bring Graham Greene's lovely novel to spiffy life. Smith, fresh off her 1970 0scar® win for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, plays the larger-than-life Aunt Augusta, free spirit and committed eccentric (a role originally considered for Katharine Hepburn). She drags her starchy nephew (Alec McCowen), whose biggest adventure in life thus far has been tending his fine English garden, into a series of globe-trotting escapades. Cukor, one ...
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My Fair Lady
»rank: 7566
: essential video:Hollywood's legendary 'woman's director,' George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry ...
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