Customer Reviews

Hollywood Beauties

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hollywood Beauties is a collection of movies starring exceptionally beautiful women that have only one thing in common: they are all public domain and as such it is possible for them to be presented in highly affordable collections. I paid $9.98 for my set and that comes down to about one dollar per movie. The way that movie tickets cost nowadays, you really cannot complain about this collection.

An added bonus of this collection is that most of these movies are not available on other public domain collections. All in all, Hollywood Beauties is a great 9 movie collection.

Anyways, here is how I rate the movies in Hollywood Beauties:

Great:

Evil in the Deep
Rum Runners

Good:
Home Town Story
Imperial Venus
The Doll That Took the Town
Whistle Stop

Average:

Sundown
The Strange Woman

Bad:

Lady of Burlesque

ST. CLAIR DVD multi-packs are reasonably priced, and offer fine quality video/audio transfers of unrestored public domain material. Discs are single-side recorded, plastic storage cases fairly sturdy, movie liner notes appear on box's back cover and most DVDs include bonus items.

Extras on their HOLLYWOOD BEAUTY set include movie trailers, film posters and a bio of Hedy Lamarr.

NOTABLES--
HOME TOWN STORY-- Average programmer best remembered for 5th banana Marilyn Monroe. She works in the newspaper office of a former State Rep. (Lynn) who was defeated for reelection by a local industrialist (Crisp).

IMPERIAL VENUS-- Gina Lollobrigida has a minsicule role in this fictionalized Euro-made bio of Napoleon's sister. Also features "swords & sandals" specialist Stephen Boyd.

THE DOLL...-- Remake of 1956 Virna Lisa film stars Miss Lisi and other '60s Euro-kittens.

LADY OF BURLESQUE-- Highlight of the collection is a multiple genre tale starring Barbara Stanwyck. Comedy, intrigue, romance, murder-- this one has it all! (Watch for Catskills comic Pinky Lee in a typecast role, and Bogie lookalike Gerald Mohr as 'Louie.')

SUNDOWN-- WWII-era drama has Tierney as a jungle dweling exotic who helps to defeat the Germans. Includes top-notch supporting cast.

Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.
PROGRAM--

DISC ONE:
(5.3) Home Town Story (1951) - Jeffrey Lynn/Donald Crisp/Marjorie Reynolds/Alan Hale Jr./Marilyn Monroe (uncredited: Hugh Beaumont/John Archer)
(5.6) Whistle Stop (1946) - George Raft/Ava Gardner/Victor McLaglen/Tom Conway
(5.5) Imperial Venus (Italy/France-1963) - Giuseppe Addobbati/Stephen Boyd/Feodor Chaliapin Jr./Gina Lollobrigida
BONUS: 'Beauties' Film Trailers:
Giant, All About Eve, The Long, Hot Summer, The Bribe, This Gun for Hire

DISC TWO:
(5.5) Rum Runners (France/Italy/Spain-1971) - Lino Ventura/Brigitte Bardot/Bill Travers/Clive Revill
(2.8) Evil in the Deep ("Treasure of Jamaica Reef") (1975) - Stephen Boyd/David Ladd/Chuck Woolery/Roosevelt Grier/Cheryl Ladd/Art Metrano
(6.3) The Doll That Took the Town (Italy/France-1965) - Virna Lisi/Elke Sommer/Gina Lollobrigida/Akim Tamiroff
BONUS: Movie Poster Beauties

DISC THREE:
(6.5) Lady of Burlesque (1943) - Barbara Stanwyck/Michael O'Shea/Charles Dingle/Frank Conroy/Pinky Lee/Gerald Mohr/
(6.3) The Strange Woman (1946) - Hedy Lamarr/George Sanders/Louis Hayward/Gene Lockhart/Hillary Brooke/Kathleen Lockhart/Alan Napier (uncredited: Billy Gray/Chief Yowlachie)
(5.1) Sundown (1941) - Gene Tierney/George Sanders/Harry Carey/Joseph Calleia/Reginald Gardiner/Marc Lawrence/Cedric Hardwicke/Dorothy Dandridge (uncredited: Woody Strode)
BONUS: Hedy Lamarr bio

Also from ST. CLAIR:
STAR POWER 9 MOVIE PACK features Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Tom Selleck, Sally Field, Keanu Reeves and others in some of their lesser-known films.