The second and last of Anthony Mann's historical epics is a smart, handsome spectacle of the decadence, corruption, and intrigue that tears apart the greatest empire the world has seen. The sprawling story spreads itself thin over a number of characters and stories. At the center are handsome but stiff Stephen Boyd as Livius, the loyal soldier and symbolic son of the aging emperor (Alec Guinness), and Christopher Plummer as Commodus, the corrupt heir to the throne--boyhood friends turned enemies when the latter accedes to the throne and sells out the values of his father for greed and hedonistic pleasures. The three-hour running time is filled out with the tales of Sophia Loren (as the beautiful Lucilla in love with Livius but coveted by greedy Commodus) and a gallery of heroes and... More Info About This DVD Actor(s): Sophia Loren - Stephen Boyd - Alec Guinness - James Mason Director(s): Anthony Mann DVD Release Date: Released the 31 December 2025 This item is currently not available.
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The second of the BBC's well-regarded serializations of John Le Carré's espionage bestsellers, Smiley's People is slightly less compulsively watchable than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy if only because Tinker, Tailor had a much stronger plot premise (who is the mole in British Intelligence?) than Smiley's People, which takes a very long time to come into focus. Retired spymaster George Smiley (Alec Guinness) wanders around Europe and visits a succession of desperate or eccentric characters as he plays a game which finally leads to another confrontation with and a possible victory over his Moriarty-like Soviet arch-nemesis Karla (an expressive but silent Patrick Stewart).
Directed by Simon Langton and coscripted by John Hopkins and Le Carré... More Info About This DVD Actor(s): Alec Guinness DVD Release Date: Released the 10 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Venerable British actors Alec Guinness and John Mills give two of their finest performances in Tunes of Glory, a compelling, emotionally charged study of leadership in a peacetime Scottish battalion. In one of his most memorable roles, Guinness plays Jock Sinclair, the brash, red-haired colonel who temporarily commands his regiment of loyal, devoted soldiers. He's quick with a drink and hearty tales of military bravado, placing him in fun-loving contrast to his replacement, Col. Barrow (Mills), a hot-tempered martinet whose by-the-book style couldn't be more different, or less likable, than Sinclair's. In adapting his own novel for director Ronald Neame, James Kennaway keenly establishes the psychological opposition of these two stubborn men, demonstrating the equal merit of their... More Info About This DVD Actor(s): Alec Guinness - John Mills - Susannah York Director(s): Ronald Neame DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ealing comedy--cozy, gentle, and whimsical, right? In this case, think again. Alexander Mackendrick was always the most politically aware of the Ealing directors, and in The Man in the White Suit (1952) he takes the studio's favorite theme of the little man up against the system and gives it a sharp satirical twist. Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness at his most unworldly), a maverick scientist working in a textile mill, invents a fabric that never gets dirty and never wears out. He's hailed as a genius--until management and unions alike realize what his brainwave implies. Mackendrick's humor is exact and pointed, and the satire turns savage as a lynch mob of bosses and workers hunt Sidney down through dark, narrow streets. Mackendrick's disenchanted view of class-ridden British... More Info About This DVD Actor(s): Alec Guinness - Joan Greenwood Director(s): Alexander Mackendrick DVD Release Date: Released the 10 September 2002 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Britain's Ealing Studios was at the top of its game when this classic comedy was released in 1951--one of the all-time best crime-caper comedies and a quintessential example of the witty and subtly subversive Ealing style. Alec Guinness stars as a mild-mannered transporter of gold bullion who has spent 20 years moving gold bars to banks in an armored truck. Then one day he simply decides to help himself to a million British pounds' worth of the gold, but to pull off the heist he enlists and old friend (Stanley Holloway), who sculpts and manufactures paperweights. Once the gold is hijacked, it's molded into souvenir miniatures of the Eiffel Tower and shipped off to Paris, right under the noses of British customs officials on alert for the missing gold. Panic ensues when six of the gold... More Info About This DVD Actor(s): Alec Guinness Director(s): Charles Crichton DVD Release Date: Released the 10 September 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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