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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Bargain for the Buck, April 10, 2005
This review is from: Hollywood Legends 50 Movie Pack (DVD)
I own a couple of these "50 movie pack" sets and this is my favorite of the lot, mainly because it has more mainstream movies and bigger stars than many of the other sets. As noted, the print quality is not particularly great but keep in mind you are paying well under a dollar per movie so you can't expect flawless reproduction. These are all apparently public domain movies; some of the titles can be bought individually elsewhere for $1-10 each but even if you don't watch half of the films you will probably save money buying this set than picking and choosing. (Also you might want to get this from one of Amazon's "new and used" sellers for substantial savings).
There are some rare titles in this set. I have never seen Hedy Lamarr's post-MGM films "Dishonored Lady" and "Let's Live A Little" before so I was glad to see them at last. Among the other hard-to-find titles are "Affair in Monte Carlo" with Merle Oberon (alas a B&W print of a color film), "High Voltage" with Carole Lombard (curiously the box totes William Boyd instead of Lombard), "Monsoon" with George Nader and Ursula Thiess, "The Most Dangerous Game" with Joel McCrea, "Smash Up" with Susan Hayward, and the 1970's "Treasure of the Jamica Reef" with Stephen Boyd and a young Cheryl Ladd.
I was glad to finally get to see "Hell's House" with Bette Davis and "Heartbeat" with Ginger Rogers, admittedly two lesser films in their filmographies. I haven't watched all the films but some of the prints here are significantly better than other companies public domain issues of the movies. I had earlier bought "The Snows of Killimanjaro" at a dollar store and this print is a vast improvement; I bought Gloria Swanson's "Indiscreet" on the net quite cheap but that copy was awful, this one is far better. The prints to the silents "The Joyless Street" (Greta Garbo) and "Blood and Sand" (Rudolph Valentino) are quite good. I was surprised to see June Allyson's "Good News" in this set; MGM films are rarely public domain, that one must have slipped through the cracks.
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45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Caveat emptor (again...), February 24, 2005
This review is from: Hollywood Legends 50 Movie Pack (DVD)
On paper, it sounds like a bargain. If the prints used were higher quality, my score would probably double. The noisy, scratchy, dense video and sound is not even the biggest problem here. I can write that stuff off since I grew up seeing films on TV that way. I justified picking this collection up mainly for two films, "The Man with the Golden Arm" and "The Klansman". The latter is unavailable on DVD - most likely due to the political incorrectness of it all. You'll do better buying this from a collector since here it's not in widescreen, but most importantly, it's cut HEAVILY for TV. This is a bad exploitation romp from a major studio (Paramount) and most of the exploitation (aside from frequent use of the "n" word) is on the cutting room floor. What's the point? Even still, at least it's actually here. On my copy (which was factory sealed), Frank Sinatra's "The Man with the Golden Arm" is not even included! The disk (Disk 8/Side A) that was supposed to have it and "The Town Went Wild", while labelled correctly on the disk itself, is a duplicate of Disk 11/Side A ("Heartbeat" and "He Found a Star"). What a gyp!
"The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" looks like the source used was a 6-hour speed VHS tape...probably worse, actually. A handful of the films suffer similar fate, or are taken from scratchy, thrashed old TV prints. Others are missing title music (replaced by new classical music), including some silent films with out-of-place newer music scores. I find it impossible to believe even the most ardent viewer is really going to sit through a lot of these movies. One disk even locked up on me when I tried to advance to the next chapter, forcing me to power down the machine.
There are some nice moments: "The Fat Spy" is a poor-man's beach party flick with Jayne Mansfield and Phyllis Diller (!) and "Meet John Doe" is priceless entertainment. The most money this collection is worth is about $10. Otherwise, buy at your own risk.
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48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dissapointing!, May 27, 2005
This review is from: Hollywood Legends 50 Movie Pack (DVD)
I own an outstanding '50 Mystery Classics' where almost every movies was watchable. By contrast, '50 Hollywood Legends' contains was below average collection of movies that I would not want to waste my time on. With the exception of 'The Joyless Street' with Garbo and 'Blood and Sand' with Valentino, I coonsider this a waste regardless of the attractive price. Not recommended.
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