List Price: $19.97 Our Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
DVD Ivanhoe
Among the most exciting of MGM swashbucklers, Richard Thorpe's 1952 Ivanhoe stars Robert Taylor as the medieval hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel. Returning to England from the Third Crusades, Ivanhoe is steadfast in his determination to raise the ransom for the captured King Richard (Norman Wooland), but the effort is full of peril. First is Ivanhoe's reunion with his estranged father (Finlay Currie), a Saxon who hates the Norman king and refuses to give his son the money. Then there's Ivanhoe's unpopular rescue of a wealthy Jew, Isaac (Felix Aylmer), from anti-Semites, and the subsequent decision by Isaac's beautiful daughter, Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor), to pay Ivanhoe's entry fee in a tournament. (The strapped knight seeks the tourney's cash prize.) Wait, it gets worse: two of Ivanhoe's closest associates (played by George Sanders and Robert Douglas) collude with Richard's evil brother, Prince John (Guy Rolfe), to discredit their friend and steal away Rebecca and another woman, Rowena (Joan Fontaine)--who also fancies Ivanhoe--for themselves. Yes, the situation looks grim, but surprise appearances by a couple of legendary hero types toward the end help level the playing field. Nonstop adventure to make one swoon, Ivanhoe is a gorgeous treat and reasonably faithful to the Age of Chivalry. Things worked out so well for this film, Thorpe and Taylor got together the next year to make Knights of the Round Table. --Tom Keogh
Earlier this year I was able to watch "The Adventures of Robin Hood" for the first time. I had heard that it was considered something of a classic for its' time but, frankly, I thought it was a bit much and rather over-rated. I mention this because it was the first movie that came to mind after I watched "Ivanhoe" the other night. They are quite similar in a number of ways, not the least of which is to tell the story of the efforts to bring King Richard the Lion-Hearted back to his throne. Needless to say, the ultimate bad guy in both films was King John. The local bad guys, the damsels in distress, the martial competitions, etc. give a sense that the same story is told with different actors portraying different characters.
I felt "Ivanhoe" did the better job. The jousting events were better staged and more interesting that Robin Hood's famous archery match. I do have to acknowledge that I saw a lot of old men in "Ivanhoe" appearing to fence with younger men at no apparent disadvantage. The story of King Richard was better developed although it appears that Ivanhoe must have been able to FedEx the ransom money so that the King could arrive just in time. The aspect of Rebecca and her father in "Ivanhoe" was unique for its' time. Rebecca, played beautifully by Elizabeth Taylor, is the daughter of a Jewish leader and their issues were dealt with rather realistically. All in all, I found myself more attentive to "Ivanhoe" than I ever was to "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Finally, I couldn't help but note that Olivia de Havilland was the leading lady to Robin Hood and Joan Fontaine was a leading lady to Ivanhoe. I understand that they are actually sisters in real life and quite competative professionally. I'd said Joan got the edge in this matchup.
They don't make them like this anymore
I really enjoy this film. Good story, great actors, Costumes and scenery the best and you don't have to be afraid to let your kids see it. Ivanhoe's honor is never in doubt.
A magnificent tale
This stands as one of the best of the "knights in shining armour" genre. Elisabeth Taylor is beautiful, and Robert Taylor is a great hero. You've also got Richard the Lionhearted and his evil brother King John. The fighting scenes are great, and the story is even better! Definitely a keeper.
Adventure yarns don’t come more ripping than King Solomon’s Mines, the classic Great White Hunter tale. Novelist H. Rider Haggard’s hero, Allan Quatermain (Stewart Granger), reluctantly agrees to lead an Englishwoman (Deborah Kerr) and her brother (Richard Carlson) deep into uncharted territory in Africa, in search of the lady’s lost husband. What follows is a cavalcade of boys’ adventure stuff: charging rhinos, cannibals, an incredible wildlife stampede, and the back-of-the-neck-tingly thrill of venturing into unmapped lands. The location shooting, including tribal rituals, is marvelous throughout, and the movie manages to pack a great deal of material into 102 minutes without ever seeming rushed. A remake of a 1937 film, King Solomon’s Mines... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Deborah Kerr - Stewart Granger Director(s): Andrew Marton - Compton Bennett DVD Release Date: Released the 11 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
This 1953 follow-up to the successful teaming of actor Robert Taylor and director Richard Thorpe on Ivanhoe isn't quite as good a film, but it is a sumptuous adventure-romance shot on location in England. MGM's first widescreen production finds Taylor playing Sir Lancelot to Mel Ferrer's King Arthur. Based in part on Thomas Malory's 14th-century version of the Camelot legend, Knights of the Round Table tells the familiar tale of Arthur's construction of a Utopian kingdom, where virtue, courage, and a sense of possibility rule the hearts of strong men. Lancelot is there every step of the way, but after Arthur marries a particularly bodacious Guinevere (Ava Gardner), Lancelot can't stifle his love for her, nor can she stifle her own for him. That chink in the wall of the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robert Taylor - Ava Gardner - Mel Ferrer Director(s): Richard Thorpe DVD Release Date: Released the 01 July 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $17.98YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
Errol Flynn is one of those names that define movie stardom. Chiseled good looks that stopped just short of being preposterous. A brash and jaunty manner that charmed men and women alike. Whiffs of bad-boy scandal offscreen that only enhanced his legend (not for nothing did "In like Flynn" become a national catchphrase!). And enough marquee-worthy titles that in memory's ear ring like classics.
Flynn's stardom wasn't on a par with the richly ambiguous artistry of Cary Grant, or the deep, enduring heroic legacy of John Wayne, or the indelible character work amassed by Flynn's Warner Bros. contemporaries Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. Still, this most celebrated of Tasmanian devils was a one-of-a-kind, often raffishly entertaining icon of Hollywood in the '30s... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $59.98 Your Price: $29.97YOU SAVE $30.01!
Buy it
Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $7.49YOU SAVE $7.49!
Buy it
