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The real story here may be that Tex Avery's King-Size Canary is finally coming to DVD. From DVD Times:

[quote]Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of World War II Collection Vol. 2: Heroes Fight for Freedom for 5th June 2007. Never before seen on Region 1 DVD, the titles include Air Force, Command Decision, Hell to Eternity, The Hill, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and 36 Hours. These six films present stirring tales of front-line action, conflict and heroism and star Hollywood's top leading men such as Clark Gable, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Jeffrey Hunter, Spencer Tracy, John Garfield and James Garner. Extras reinforcing the excitement are World War II era shorts, classic cartoons, a vintage making-of featurette and trailer galleries. The six-disc World War II Collection Vol. 2 will be available for $59.92 SRP, with individual titles selling for $19.97 SRP.

Air Force (1943)
Howard Hawks guides one of Hollywood's greatest battle epics, a film of courage, camaraderie and combat. This is the story of the Mary-Ann, a B-17 bomber which leaves San Francisco for Honolulu on the day before Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor…and flies right into World War II. A gifted ensemble cast – including John Garfield, Harry Carey, Gig Young and Arthur Kennedy – plays ordinary Americans called upon to do the extraordinary. Air Force was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Editing.

DVD Special Features:
Oscar-nominated Technicolor drama short Women at War
Classic cartoons The Fifth-Column Mouse and Scrap Happy Dafft
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

Command Decision (1948)
Clark Gable heads the cast in a film about the wrenching choices officers must make in time of war. Gable plays a U.S. general who realizes that Allied victory depends on destroying the Nazi's jet factories. Based on the Broadway hit play, Command Decision combines thrilling aerial pyrotechnics with tense war room battles to create an indelible portrait of the men whose judgment holds the power of life and death.

DVD Special Features:
Vintage Passing Parade Short Souvenirs of Death
Classic cartoon King-Size Canary
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

Hell to Eternity (1960)
Tells the real-life story of Marine Guy Gabaldon (Jeffrey Hunter), a Hispanic kid from the streets of East L.A. who was raised in a Japanese-American foster family. In an astonishing true story of heroism during the Battle of Saipan, Gabaldon used his language and combat skills to convince 800 Japanese to surrender to American troops after their commander commits suicide. For this, he won the Navy Cross…and the gratitude of all America.

DVD Special Features:
1960s war movies trailer gallery
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

The Hill (1965)
Sean Connery headlines and Sidney Lumet directs this jolting tale of life and mutiny inside British military prison walls in North Africa during World War II. The inmates are soldiers who once defied, rebelled, talked back. The wardens are sadists who perpetrate cruelty in the name of discipline, forcing soldiers on the brink of collapse beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline known as The Hill, a manmade, torturous tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. Ossie Davis and Michael Redgrave also star.

DVD Special Features:
Vintage featurette The Sun…The Sand…The Hill
1965 war movies trailer gallery
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

36 Hours (1964)
James Garner does a heroic star turn as U.S. Major Jefferson Pike, an amnesiac who's been kidnapped by the Germans as the key player in an elaborate ruse to get him to divulge the Allied D-Day plans. Rod Taylor makes a canny opponent as the duplicitous Doktor in this tense twist-filled wartime thriller. The clock is ticking with the Nazis having only 36 Hours and using any means necessary to pull off their complicated plan to get the D-Day details out of Pike.

DV Special Features:
James Garner war movies trailer gallery
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
“The Doolittle Raidâ€

I'm particularly glad to see the arrival of Air Force, possibly Hawks's finest war film. Sergeant York is impressive, but Air Force is just more Hawksian, especially in the treatment of the group (although there is a lack of women if my memory serves me). It's a shame there aren't any commentaries on any of these, but it should finally get me to reread Wood's book on Hawks (there's some good stuff on this film I seem to remember) and Todd McCarthy's biog.

Both very good books. You may want to know that a new edition of the Wood book came out last year. He doesn't believe in revising old writings to reflect changes in perspective, so he just added a new introduction. Apart from a preposterous paragraph toward the end of the intro (as well as a few more expressions of his late-life cynicism), it's a fine addition to the book. I was glad to read that he's recanted on the original book's dismissal of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
It will be good to see Air Force again and to finally see The Hill. I would just buy those individually, but King-Size Canary is tempting.

I've been waiting for The Hill in R1 for quite some time. A superbly acted film! I'm just a little surprised that Lumet didn't do a commentary for it when he did all those other commentaries for Warner. His commentaries are a little bland, but there are always some important nuggets of information in them.

If memory serves, the plot description for "36 Hours" is not quite right. The James Garner character is not "an amnesiac", but is very cleverly tricked into believing he has amnesia, that the war is over, and that he is in a post-war hospital being cared for by the (yummy) Eva Marie Saint. Another great score by Dimitri Tiomkin, another average movie from Garner who always claimed that "The Americanization of Emily" was his only good role and only great movie.

I just got through viewing "Air Force"...the transfer is exceptional, though there seem to be some awkward cuts of some kind, that seem NOT to be a part of the film editing.

What's special about this film, to me, are the air battle sequences that seem so realistic, considering the year the film was made. Very realistic handling, photographically wise, that is.

Belmondo wrote:If memory serves, the plot description for "36 Hours" is not quite right. The James Garner character is not "an amnesiac", but is very cleverly tricked into believing he has amnesia, that the war is over, and that he is in a post-war hospital being cared for by the (yummy) Eva Marie Saint. Another great score by Dimitri Tiomkin, another average movie from Garner who always claimed that "The Americanization of Emily" was his only good role and only great movie.

What I recalled to be outstanding was Rod Taylor's performance...outstanding as "heavy" !

The Hill is one of Lumet's best, but not seen very often. I caught it a year ago on TCM and thought it was superb.

Excellent job on King Size Canary highlighting. That's without a doubt one of Tex Avery's best.

Despite being an avid Howard Hawks fan, I can say I haven't seen Air Force. Any members ave comments on it?

I have seen AIR FORCE and it is a classic early war film with many virtues and only a few minor flaws involving the need to show the super-heroic nature of our fighting men well before victory was assured.

I want to comment on a specific aspect of this and similar period war movies which may provoke some disagreement - This movie has many action scenes and we get to see the earliest combat version of the B-17 bomber, but we also get plenty of fakes and large scale models of ships and planes.
I found that watching these so called "cheesy fakes" was much more enjoyable and exciting than the state of the art computer generated effects seen today. Is it because the models are "real things" that actually exist on the screen? Feel free to tell me I'm lost in the past, but, hey, everybody gotta be somewhere.

In any case, AIR FORCE is a terrific movie and will be admired by Howard Hawks fans and everyone else.

I have to disagree with Belmondo. Even though I'm a huge Hawks fan, Air Force is possibly my least favorite Hawks "classic" -- despite being a near-perfect example of his "team of professionals" theme. We've actually discussed this title elsewhere on this forum, though I don't remember where at the moment. Leave it to say that I have two major problems with the film:

1.) Its propagandistic elements, though perhaps necessary at the time, are cringe-worthy now. Some of the lines ("Fried Jap going down," "Gentelmen, I've studied all the wars of history, and I've never come across such duplicity," etc.) are among the worst offenders Hollywood produced during WWII -- surpassed only by the marines laughing as they mow down the unarmed Japanese in the surf in Guadalcanal Diary. Compare that with some of the much more sensative and complex British war-era films, like those of P&P, Humphrey Jennings, Carol Reed, or David Lean.

2.) Even by the standards of 1943, some of the characterizations, relationships, and scenes seem awfully cliched to me: especially John Garfield's chip-on-his-shoulder routine. Hawks dealt with these relationships so much better in Flight Commander (a.k.a. Dawn Patrol), even though the earlier film had less competent actors.

Not that I want to dissaude anyone from seeing the film. If you have any interest at all in Hawks, it's a must-see. But I can't imagine wanting to revisit as frequently as I do his far superior war-era propaganda film, To Have and Have Not.

Savant review - looks like the return of keepcases, at least for this set.

There has only been one review of the DVD of this stunning film (DVD Verdict) which is very disappointing, as it should not be overlooked this summer.

Sidney Lumet rarely put a foot wrong in the 60s and 70s, but this film is often overlooked - as is Connery's performance, which, along with Lumet's, The Offence (1972) is his most impressive. It recieved very good reviews and has strong supporters today, but is generally skipped over, though not as shamefully obscure as The Offence. What we get in The Hill, is wall-to-wall great performance, a film brimming over with energy and anger, harshly photographed in deep focus black and white by the great Oswald Morris, who deservedly won a BAFTA. Just like Fail-Safe (which I watched again last week) the acting and cutting sustains the drama, with no music score whatsoever. Most scenes are uncommonly long and long, uninterrupted takes are employed, though fast bursts of cutting are also used at key moments. Harry Andrews also gives his career best, I feel. Along with Windsor Davies and R. Lee Ermey, Andrews is one of the greatest shouting actors of all time and this is the film that unequivocally proves that; he was often cast in military roles, but he had a greater range and he he really stretches out here. Lumet makes sensible and frequently interesting choices throughout the film and he won a BAFTA, though the film did not even get a single Oscar nomination.

Playwrights, Ray Rigby and Ray Allen (who also recieved BAFTAs for this) rarely wrote for film and TV, which is a shame, as The Hill features some crackling, often hilarious, dialogue and the careful unfolding of events is subtly done and the conclusion to all the madness is very strong.

The transfer perfectly reproduces the blazing black and white images, I am happy to report. Sadly, this was one of the last great deep focus black and white english language films. The promotional behind-the-scenes piece is decent, but a commentary by Lumet and/or Connery would have great and Ossie Morris is still alive at 91 and - he appears in A Sense of Carol Reed on Criterion's, The Fallen Idol disc. A bit of missed opportunity, but it's great to finally see this one again after many years. Order now!

Person wrote:Along with Windsor Davies and R. Lee Ermey, Andrews is one of the greatest shouting actors of all time

=D> =D> =D>

Person wrote:There has only been one review of the DVD of this stunning film (DVD Verdict) which is very disappointing, as it should not be overlooked this summer.

That's not entirely true. DVD Savant wrote a review, along with the rest of the WWII boxset. (I wonder if there were other reviews of the collection as a whole. Oddly, DVD Beaver didn't do one.)

At any rate, I agree that it's a brilliant film. As you pointed out, the acting and cinematography are spellbinding, and the way Lumet lets the tension mount -- and plot snowball -- during the final fifteen minutes or so is breathtaking. There are very few war movies that are quite this exciting -- and this one doesn't even have a single instance of gunfire.

I like your point about Andrews. But it's also worth mentioning Redgrave. Very few actors could portray ineffectuality as convincingly as Redgrave.

SHUUUT UP!!!



The bewildered should click here

Thanks, tryavna. I used DVD Basen's excellent search facility and it yielded the single release of The Hill, only.

Redgrave is, indeed, perfect for that role - very, very subtle stuff. Ian Bannen, who later gave a terrific performance for Lumet in The Offence, is also at the top of his game as Harris; brilliant actor, but he had to be replaced on Schlesinger's, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and his career never really took off, though he is excellent in Waking Ned.

King Rat - also released in 1965 - makes a great double-bill with this film, btw.