CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

.

Winchester '73 [1950]

starring: James Stewart, Rock Hudson, Jay C. Flippen, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea
directed by: Anthony Mann

Release Date June 04, 2007
Winchester `73 was the film that moved director Anthony Mann from the b-movies to the big league, rescuing James Stewart's floundering post-war career in the process by casting him as a conflicted hero (although since he inherited the project from Fritz Lang, maybe Lang deserves the credit for that). Both men would go to much darker places - Mann already had with the remarkably bleak Devil's Doorway, which remained shelved by MGM until the success of Broken Arrow convinced them to release it - but a movie about a man hunting down his own brother as the rifle of the title is handed from person to person along the trail before it ends up in one of the director's beloved mountainside shootouts is still stronger meat than you'd expect from the studio ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

.

Sahara [1943]

starring: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Lloyd Bridges, Rex Ingram
directed by: Zoltan Korda

Release Date January 28, 2002
If anyone wants to see how effective a WWII propaganda movie can be, I'd recommend Sahara. It's the story of a small group of Allied soldiers, led by Sergeant Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart), lost in the Libyan desert, who are determined to defend a small outpost against a battalion of Germans. The outpost has a well, but the well is almost dry. It produces only drops of water. Joe and his comrades will use the promise of water to delay the Germans, fighting them off in an almost hopeless battle, to give the Allies after the fall of Tobruk a chance to regroup. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed.

Sahara hits its marks to get all of us civilians back home a reason to be proud of our fighting men, to be resolute in the fight ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

.

The Flight Of The Phoenix [1965]

starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine
directed by: Robert Aldrich

Release Date May 03, 2004
After first seeing this film at school film club aged 9 I've watched it everytime it appears on tv the final scenes trying to start the engine still bring tears to my eyes. The whole film builds up to this climax and it never fails. Every cast member hits the spot. Looking forward to it being on Blu-RAy.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

.

Along Came Jones [1945]

starring: Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, William Demarest, Dan Duryea, Frank Sully
directed by: Stuart Heisler

Release Date August 15, 2005
After first seeing this film at school film club aged 9 I've watched it everytime it appears on tv the final scenes trying to start the engine still bring tears to my eyes. The whole film builds up to this climax and it never fails. Every cast member hits the spot. Looking forward to it being on Blu-RAy.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

.

The Little Foxes [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

starring: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Dan Duryea
directed by: William Wyler

Release Date September 18, 2001
If there were ever a better movie made about family greed, duplicity and selfishness, I've yet to see it. William Wyler, one of the great directors, is at the top of his form. Bette Davis commands the screen with a performance so powerfully evil you can't stop watching, but it never descends to camp.

The Hubbard brothers, Ben (Charles Dingle) and Oscar (Carl Benton Reid), bankers in their turn-of-the-century southern town, have a scheme to bring cotton factories to the south where the cotton grows. With cheap labor they'll make a fortune. They need their sister, Regina Giddens (Bette Davis) to come up with a third of the required investment. The three believe they can get the money from Regina's sick husband, Horace (Herbert Marshall). He refuses, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

.

Lady On A Train

starring: Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce, George Coulouris, Allen Jenkins
directed by: Charles David

Release Date August 16, 2004
A film noir starring Deanna Durbin may seem as natural as eating an oyster with a splash of chocolate syrup, but if you're adventurous, well, somebody has to be the first to try it. Actually, the movie's a pleasant romp. Lady on a Train is a comedy mystery with some nice noir characteristics...shadows, trains, bodies and a climax in a darkened office building that would make Dick Powell feel right at home.

Nikki Collins (Durbin) is a society deb from San Francisco coming in on the train for a visit to New York. As the train pulls into Grand Central, she casually looks out the window of her compartment and sees an elderly gentleman in an office across the way having his head bashed in by a crowbar-wielding murderer. She can see the victim's face, but not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

.

The Hills Run Red [1966]

starring: Dan Duryea, Thomas Hunter, Henry Silva
directed by: Carlo Lizzani

Release Date September 08, 2008
A film noir starring Deanna Durbin may seem as natural as eating an oyster with a splash of chocolate syrup, but if you're adventurous, well, somebody has to be the first to try it. Actually, the movie's a pleasant romp. Lady on a Train is a comedy mystery with some nice noir characteristics...shadows, trains, bodies and a climax in a darkened office building that would make Dick Powell feel right at home.

Nikki Collins (Durbin) is a society deb from San Francisco coming in on the train for a visit to New York. As the train pulls into Grand Central, she casually looks out the window of her compartment and sees an elderly gentleman in an office across the way having his head bashed in by a crowbar-wielding murderer. She can see the victim's face, but not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

.

Ball of Fire [1941] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

starring: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall
directed by: Howard Hawks

Release Date May 22, 2007
A film noir starring Deanna Durbin may seem as natural as eating an oyster with a splash of chocolate syrup, but if you're adventurous, well, somebody has to be the first to try it. Actually, the movie's a pleasant romp. Lady on a Train is a comedy mystery with some nice noir characteristics...shadows, trains, bodies and a climax in a darkened office building that would make Dick Powell feel right at home.

Nikki Collins (Durbin) is a society deb from San Francisco coming in on the train for a visit to New York. As the train pulls into Grand Central, she casually looks out the window of her compartment and sees an elderly gentleman in an office across the way having his head bashed in by a crowbar-wielding murderer. She can see the victim's face, but not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

.

Hammer Film Noir Collector's Set 2: Vol. 4-7

starring: Dan Duryea

Release Date June 26, 2007
A film noir starring Deanna Durbin may seem as natural as eating an oyster with a splash of chocolate syrup, but if you're adventurous, well, somebody has to be the first to try it. Actually, the movie's a pleasant romp. Lady on a Train is a comedy mystery with some nice noir characteristics...shadows, trains, bodies and a climax in a darkened office building that would make Dick Powell feel right at home.

Nikki Collins (Durbin) is a society deb from San Francisco coming in on the train for a visit to New York. As the train pulls into Grand Central, she casually looks out the window of her compartment and sees an elderly gentleman in an office across the way having his head bashed in by a crowbar-wielding murderer. She can see the victim's face, but not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

.

Winchester '73 [1950]

starring: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Millard Mitchell
directed by: Anthony Mann

Release Date September 18, 2006
James Stewart's first Western was DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) eleven years later he played the former army scout Tom Jeffords in BROKEN ARROW (1950). Directed by Delmer Daves, then came WINCHESTER '73. But it was Anthony Mann's WINCHESTER '73 that was given its public release first, which also revealed to the public a hitherto unknown harder-edged Stewart which was to continue with a series of Mann / Stewart Westerns culminating in THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955). Sadly they fell out in the early pre-production stages of NIGHT PASSAGE (1956) and never worked together again!

Produced by Aaron Rosenberg for Universal International. Fritz Lang had been originally earmarked as Director of WINCHESTER `73 but he wasn't available so Mann was chosen to direct his first Western. ... Read More: