Product Details

• Actors: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire
• Directors: John Sturges, John G. Avildsen, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, Norman Jewison
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, French, German, Russian, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• DVD Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 549 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301971760
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,682 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "United Artist Cinema Greats Collection, Set 2 (The Great Escape / Rocky / West Side Story / The Thomas Crown Affair)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Great Escape: The Great Escape image of Steve McQueen (as "The Cooler King") astride his motorcycle has entered silver-screen iconography, alongside Brando on his bike from The Wild One. Based on a true story about a group of POWs who mount a daring breakout from a supposedly inescapable Nazi prison camp, this rousing and suspenseful WWII epic features an all-star cast, including James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and David McCallum. --Jim Emerson

Rocky: The only remaining evidence that Sylvester Stallone might have had a respectable career, this 1976 Oscar winner (for Best Picture, Director, and Editing) is still the quintessential ode to an underdog and one of the best boxing movies ever made. After writing the script about a two-bit boxer who gets a "million-to-one shot" against the world heavyweight champion, Stallone insisted that he star in the title role, and his equally unknown status helped to catapult him (and this rousing film) to overnight success. The story is familiar, but it has been handled with such vitality and emotional honesty that you can't help but leap and cheer for Rocky Balboa, the chump turned champ (despite his valiant defeat in the ring) who stuns the boxing world with the support of his timid girlfriend, Adrian (Talia Shire), and grizzled trainer, Gus (Burgess Meredith). Oscar nominations went to all the lead actors (including Burt Young as Adrian's hot-tempered brother), but five sequels could never top the universal appeal of this low-budget crowd pleaser. --Jeff Shannon

West Side Story: The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, the film stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighborhoods--and ethnicities. The film's real selling points, however, are the highly charged and inventive song-and-dance numbers, the passionate ballads, the moody sets, colorful support from Rita Moreno, and the sheer accomplishment of Hollywood talent and technology producing a film so stirring. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the score. --Tom Keogh

The Thomas Crown Affair: Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes, and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. (McQueen looks like he'd rather be in jeans than Crown's natty three-piece suits.) The Thomas Crown Affair is a catalog of '60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling. --Robert Horton

Product Description

Disc 1: The Great Escape WS Disc 2: Rocky WS Disc 3: West Side Story P&S

Disc 4 Side A: Thomas Crown Affair (1968) WS Disc 4 Side B: Thomas Crown Affair (1968) P&S

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AWESOME, December 22, 2009

By 

Mike Brolin (Boston) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: United Artist Cinema Greats Collection, Set 2 (The Great Escape / Rocky / West Side Story / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)

I bought this for $6 New, from PieceOfMindMedia and i have to say that this is definetly one of the best deals i have got...EVER. All of these Classic Movies for $6 is Unheard of! Rocky, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair and West Side Story. If you bought these individualy you would spend at least $60. AWESOME GIFT!

4.0 out of 5 stars Good 4 set DVD. Three 5 stars One 3 stars, February 22, 2012

By 

Thomas Erickson (Lutz Fl and Felt Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: United Artist Cinema Greats Collection, Set 2 (The Great Escape / Rocky / West Side Story / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)

This is the second United artist 4 DVD set I bought. Both were good and worth buying.

All 4 DVDs in this set played perfect with great color and sound.

Rocky won best picture in 1976 and was nominated for ten Academy awards. Rocky is about a Philadelphia non rated club heavyweight who gets his once in a lifetime chance. The heavy weight champion of the world Apollo Kree selects Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone)to fight as all the top 10 contenders are either grossly overweight and out of training or are unwilling to fight. Its the fourth of July and Rocky as a white "Italian Stallion" is selected as Christopher Columbus was an Italian.

Rocky has none of the boxing skills Apollo has and is a super underdog but a man with 5o years boxing fighting experience ( Burgess Meridith... was nominated for supporting actor Oscar) asks to be his trainer/manager. Rocky trains relentlessly and gets his body into an iron condition and can spit nails. He gains speed,endurance and devastating punching power as he practices punching slabs of beef in a meat locker. Awesome! He fights Apollo and goes the full 15 rounds. Rocky finally gets a broken nose and his face completely broken/slashed up. Apollo gets so many body blows he is bleeding internally with smashed ribs and kidney. Apollo wins with a split decision and vows no rematch. NOT! There were 5 later Rockies. The first Rocky a classic movie of an underdog making good. A great heart warming ending. I loved this movie. 5 stars

The Great Escape was about a true event in 1943 where habitual escape artist Allied prisoners of war are collected and put into one "escape proof" prison. Not! Three tunnels are dug and 76 prisoners escape. However the NAZI SS and Gestapo capture and execute 50 of the escapees. A few are captured by the regular army and set back to the prison camp. Several make good their escape.

Great plot, adventure, color and sound. The viewer gains great empathy with the hardships the prisoners endure. There are great attempted escapes by motorcycle, a German trainer airplane, and train , Successful escapes by row boat and bicycle. Help from the French resistance and a three German officers getting massacred by the French resistance saving an Australian escapee.

Lots of action. I loved the motorcycle scene with Steve McQueen and the German trainer plane scene with James Garner and Donald Pleasence playing a blind escapee. Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson,James Coburn, and James Donald also star. A super great DVD. I loved it. 5 stars plus!

The Thomas Crown affair was also with Steve McQueen as a multi millionaire who engineers a big bank robbery for kicks. He doesn't need the money. An insurance investigator ( Fay Dunaway)is out to get him but both fall in love. Thomas Crown does another bank holdup and knows his girl friend/insurance investigator will betray him to the police. A super great ending in a cemetery, black Rolls Royce and a jet flying away.I won't ruin the great ending. A great movie 4 1/2 stars.

West side story had great color and sound. The movie won 10 Academy awards including best picture in 1961. Natalie Wood stars.
The movie was about two gangs fighting in the west side of NYC... the Sharks and the Jets and the police getting involved. There is a classic love story like Romeo and Juliet but in a 1950ish NYC street alley environment. Innocent blood and death is shed. Parts INMO were great but I am not into musicals. 3 1/3 stars. For those who like musicals with lots of singing and dancing around in the early parts will like this movie much more. Many say this movie was the best musical of all times.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Vampire Tale(and not from Universal!), June 30, 2000

By 

brent been (Tahlequah, Ok) - See all my reviews

This review is from: United Artist Cinema Greats Collection, Set 2 (The Great Escape / Rocky / West Side Story / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)

I loved this one, and in some ways it is superior to Dracula(30). There is a strong cast with Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi. This one has a good atmosphere that is worthy of Universal. This would make(and maybe it did in its heyday!) a good double feature with the original Dracula(30).