Studio Classics - Best Picture Collection

Sunrise / How Green Was My Valley / Gentleman's Agreement / All About Eve

Directed by Elia Kazan, F.W. Murnau, John Ford, Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Walter Pidgeon

20th Century Fox, 1948, DVD

Product Description

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

Product Details

Title: Studio Classics - Best Picture Collection (Sunrise / How Green Was My Valley / Gentleman's Agreement / All About Eve)
Sales Rank: 10878 in DVD
Actor: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Walter Pidgeon
Director: Elia Kazan, F.W. Murnau, John Ford, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Studio: 20th Century Fox, 2003-10-14, Theatrical Release: 1948-02
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Box set, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.33:1
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Audience Rating: Unrated
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 469 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.6 x 2.6 inches, 1.1 pounds

Customer Reviews

An Absolute MUST for Film Lovers: Put simply there is no better deal in all of DVD-dom than this 4-disc box set from 20th Century Fox. What you get is 3 masterpieces and one good film all restored to pristine visual and audio quality as well as a ton of extras in a nice keepsake box.
SUNRISE - 1927; Directed by F.W. Murnau
EXTRAS:
-Audio Commentary by John Bailey… More reviews

Sunrise is Worth the Price Alone: This is one of the first box sets released and it has three of the greatest films ever plus one really good film. But the main thing is that this is the only way you can get Sunrise.
Sunrise has the distinction of being only film to win the Oscar for Most Creative Film (The original classification… More reviews

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

Collection does not overlap the other Best Picture collections: 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… More reviews

Hollywood masterpieces: 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… More reviews