GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS 101 Films presents acclaimed cult drama Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), widely regarded as one of the finest films of the 90s. Adapted for the screen by David Mamet from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the compelling, witty, and endlessly quotable script is delivered with razor-sharp precision by an ensemble cast at the height of their powers. A group of Chicago real estate salesmen-cum-con artists live on the edge. Life is good for the one on a roll. For the rest, life hangs in the balance. There is no room for losers. A-B-C: Always Be Closing, sell or go under, is the salesman's mantra. With the pressure on, so begins a rainy night of cutthroat business and shattered lives. Delivering an Academy Award® nominated performance. Al Pacino (Scent of A Woman) plays the fast-talking Ricky Roma, alongside Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment) giving a phenomenal performance as the veteran Shelley The Machine Levene, struggling to keep his neck above water. A star-studded ensemble cast features Alec Baldwin (The Cooler) Ed Harris (Apollo 13, Pollock) and Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Argo) SPECIAL FEATURE A conversation with director James Foley God Bless Ricky Roma actor Joe Mantegna remembers working with David Mamet Audio commentary with James Foley Audio commentary with actor Jack Lemmon A.B.C. (Always Be Closing) documentary (SD) Magic Time: A tribute to Jack Lemmon (SD) Limited Edition Booklet: Includes Death of a Fuckin' $ale$man: Defining an American Dramatic Tradition' by Rich Johnson and Glengarry Glen Ross and The All-American Loser' by Andrew Graves
Maybe "nobody's perfect", as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant--a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy". Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behaviour. The results, however, are sublime. --Robert Horton
Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele
Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin play four real estate salesmen who are forced into a selling competition by their head office. First prize is a Cadillac, second a set of steak knives and third and fourth prizes are the sack. This adaptation of David Mamet's hit play is packed with star turns from some of Hollywood's most respected character actors.
In 1960, following the success of their collaboration on Some Like it Hot, director Billy Wilder (Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard) reteamed with actor Jack Lemmon (Grumpy Old Men) for what many consider the pinnacle of their respective careers: The Apartment. C.C. Bud Baxter (Lemmon) is a lowly Manhattan office drone with a lucrative sideline in renting out his apartment to adulterous company bosses and their mistresses. When Bud enters into a similar arrangement the firm s personnel director, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray, The Caine Mutiny), his career prospects begin to look up... and up. But when he discovers that Sheldrake s mistress is Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine, Irma la Douce), the girl of his dreams, he finds himself forced to choose between his career and the woman he loves... Winner of five Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, The Apartment features a wealth of Hollywood s finest talent on both sides of the camera at the top of their game. By turns cynical, heart-warming and hilarious, Wilder s masterpiece now shines like never before in this all-new, 4K-restored edition from Arrow Films. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative produced by Arrow Films exclusive for this release Original uncompressed PCM mono audio Optional 5.1 remix in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Audio commentary with film producer and historian Bruce Block The Key to the Apartment, a new appreciation of the film by film historian Philip Kemp Select scene commentary by Philip Kemp The Flawed Couple, a new video essay by filmmaker David Cairns on the collaborations between Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon A Letter to Castro, a new interview with actress Hope Holiday The Writer Speaks: Billy Wilder, an archival interview from the Writers Guild of America s Oral Histories series Inside the Apartment, a half-hour making-of featurette from 2007 including interviews with Shirley MacLaine, executive producer Walter Mirisch, and others Magic Time: The Art of Jack Lemmon, an archive profile of the actor from 2007 Theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ignatius Fitzpatrick
When two musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Neil Simon's classic stage comedy made an effortless transition to the big screen in 1967, when The Odd Couple provided Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau with a tailor-made mid-career affirmation of their status as two of cinema's greatest funny men. Lemmon is Felix, manically obsessed with cleanliness and housekeeping, struggling to understand why his wife wants a divorce. Matthau is Oscar, his slovenly poker-playing buddy who invites him to take the spare room and lives to regret it as they rapidly and comically come to grief like an old, totally incompatible, married couple, revealing exactly why their respective wives have had enough. "I don't think two single men living alone in a big eight-room apartment should have a cleaner house than my mother", Matthau wails, trying to make sense of the disintegrating situation. The pair devour Simon's typically sharp and witty script in a frenzy of classic one-liners that allow Lemmon's trademark twitchy neurosis and Matthau's baleful cussedness to flourish. Great as they are, though, they are nearly eclipsed in the funniest scene of the film by Monica Evans and Carole Shelly as a couple of British expatriate sisters from the apartment upstairs. Carry On innuendo briefly meets Manhattan repartee and the screen crackles with brilliance. It's a comic masterclass. On the DVD: The Odd Couple on disc has no extras apart from the original cinema trailer, but the film, presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, is pristine, Neal Hefti's score providing that instantly identifiable flavour of sophisticated 1960s American comedy. --Piers Ford
When a reporter and cameraman are assigned to cover the daily routine of a nuclear power plant, they witness and record an accident which could have wiped out the whole of Southern California, but their bosses refuse to broadcast the footage. Starring Jane Fonda (The Chase, Klute) Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot, Missing) and Michael Douglas (Basic Instinct, The Game), this daring and controversial thriller was nominated for four Academy Awards®, and proved to be horrifyingly prescient when the real-life Three Mile Island accident happened at a nuclear generator in Pennsylvania just 12 days after it was released in US cinemas. Features: High Definition remaster Original mono audio Alternative 5.1 surround sound track The John Player Lecture with Jack Lemmon (1973, 80 mins): archival audio recording of an interview conducted by Philip Oakes at London's National Film Theatre Assessing the Fallout (2018, 18 mins): Professor Tony Shaw, author of Rotten to the Core: Exposing America's Energy-Media Complex in The China Syndrome', discusses the film and the issues it raises A Fusion of Talent (1999, 28 mins): documentary about the making of the film, featuring interviews with cast and crew, including Jane Fonda, actor-producer Michael Douglas, executive producer Bruce Gilbert, and actor Jack Larson, partner of director James Bridges Creating a Controversy (1999, 30 mins): a look at the film's impact and the real-life events which occurred just after its release publicity stills and promotional material Deleted scenes (4 mins) Theatrical trailer New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
The complete obscurity of Avanti is a cinematic injustice that needs to be rectified. Jack Lemmon and director Billy Wilder made their share of hits together (Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, for starters), but this wry, melancholy comedy was completely out of touch with its time (which recalls a Wilder one-liner from the 1970s: "Who the hell would want to be in touch with these times?"). It may have flopped badly in 1972, but it wears well in retrospect. Lemmon plays a jerk American businessman called to Italy to pick up the body of his father, who died while enjoying a secret (and, it turns out, annual) liaison with a mistress. With the help of a delightful Englishwoman (Juliet Mills) who happens to be the daughter of the "other woman", Lemmon finds himself stepping in a few of dad's footsteps, and falling under the sway of the beguiling Italian atmosphere. It's a very leisurely movie, but that's part of the effect. Clive Revill delivers a gem of a performance as a heroic hotel manager, and Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley, daughter of Sir John) had her finest screen hour here. As a director, Wilder spent much of his early career camouflaging his romantic streak under a cynical front; here, despite many acerbic touches and the presence of death as the central plot device, the romance is in full flower under the rich Italian sun. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
Like moths to a flame, great actors gravitate to the singular genius of playwright-screenwriter David Mamet, who updated his Pulitzer Prize-winning play for this all-star screen adaptation. The material is not inherently cinematic, so the Glengarry Glen Ross's greatest asset is Mamet's peerless dialogue and the assembly of the once-in-a-lifetime cast led by Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, and Alec Baldwin (the last in a role Mamet created especially for the film). Often regarded as a critique of the Reagan administration's impact on the American economy, the play and film focus on a competitive group of real estate salesmen who've gone from feast to famine in a market gone cold. When an executive "motivator" (Alec Baldwin) demands a sales contest among the agents in the cramped office, the stakes are critically high: any agent who fails to meet his quota of sales "leads" (ie, potential buyers) will lose their job. This intense ultimatum is a boon for the office superstar (Pacino), but a once-successful salesman (Lemmon) now finds himself clinging nervously to faded glory. Political and personal rivalries erupt under pressure when the other agents (Alan Arkin, Ed Harris) suspect the office manager (Kevin Spacey) of foul play. This cauldron of anxiety, tension and sheer desperation provides fertile soil for Mamet's scathingly rich dialogue, which is like rocket fuel for some of the greatest actors of our time. Pacino won an Oscar nomination for his volatile performance, but it's Lemmon who's the standout, doing some of the best work of his distinguished career. Director James Foley shapes Mamet's play into a stylish, intensely focused film that will stand for decades as a testament to its brilliant writer and cast. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
The work of two great American artists merge in Short Cuts maverick director Robert Altman's kaleidoscopic adaptation of the stories of renowned author Raymond Carver. Epic in scale yet meticulously observed the film interweaves the stories of twenty-two characters struggling to find solace and meaning in contemporary Los Angeles.
Billy Wilder directs this first-time pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in a brilliant comedy in which a larcenous lawyer convinces his brother-in-law to perpetrate insurance fraud. Jack Lemmon portrays Harry Hinkle a TV cameraman who gets injured by a very considerate player while working a Cleveland Browns football game. Walter Matthau is the devious lawyer Willie Gingrich who encourages the expensive lawsuit. Co-written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond the film garnered
Eureka Entertainment to release Billy Wilder's IRMA LA DOUCE, a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine on Blu-ray as a part of The Masters of Cinemas Series from 18 March 2019. One of director Billy Wilder's biggest box office hits following his landmark comedies Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, the spectacular Irma La Douce -- adapted from the 1956 musical for the French theatre -- reunites Wilder with his Apartment stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, providing the latter with one of her most fondly remembered (and Oscar®-nominated) early roles. MacLaine is Irma, a popular Parisian prostitute whose new pimp is an unlikely procurer: Nestor (Lemmon) is a former honest cop who was just fired and framed by his boss after Nestor inadvertently had him arrested in a raid. However, Nestor's love for Irma is making his newfound vocation impossible, so he poses as a phoney British lord who insists on being Irma's one and only client. But when Lord X appears to have become the victim of foul play...further comedic complications ensue! Irma La Douce offers many of the same sardonic observations on human nature as Wilder's earlier comedies -- in addition to the same riotous humour and touching romance -- but on an even broader, more colourful canvas. Collaborating again with his regular screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond, Wilder delivers one of his most purely entertaining crowd-pleasers of the 1960s. Features: Stunning 1080p presentation from a brand new 4K restoration LPCM Mono audio Optional English SDH subtitles Brand New and Exclusive Interview with film scholar Neil Sinyard Feature Length Audio Commentary by critic and film historian Kat Ellinger Feature Length Audio Commentary by film historian Joseph McBride PLUS: A Collector's booklet featuring a new essay by Richard Combs, alongside a wide selection of rare archival imagery.
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) is a sparkling, exotic and intelligent comedy based on John Van Druten's original play about the unlikely subject of witchcraft in Manhattan. In his last romantic lead role, James Stewart is publisher Shep Henderson, sucked into the underworld of Greenwich Village by the extraordinarily beautiful Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak). Their liaison kicks off when Gillian employs her skills to indulge in a bit of fun. By the time Shep gets wise and rejects the artificial premise for a relationship, she has sacrificed her powers to emotional awakening and all is set for a happy ending. Largely thanks to an eccentric supporting cast, which includes Jack Lemmon as Gillian's warlock brother, Hermione Gingold as a fruity nightclub owner and Elsa Lanchester as Gillian's dotty aunt, the film has a delightfully off-centre quality. It's also a bittersweet allegory about being different. "We forfeit everything and then we end up in a little world of separateness from everyone", sighs Gillian. Novak is at the height of her beauty and here, as in her other 1958 triumph Vertigo (also with Stewart), her other-worldly quality fits the character so perfectly that her thespian limitations are well disguised. It's entrancing in every sense. On the DVD: Bell, Book and Candle's vibrant Technicolor explodes from the screen in this DVD release, which is enhanced for 16:9 widescreen televisions. Everything looks fresh and new--particularly the exotic nightclub scenes--and the mono soundtrack has lasted well. Extras include selected filmographies and original trailers, and detailed background in the booklet notes. --Piers Ford
A collection of six classic Doris Day movies in one bumper value box set! Young At Heart (1955) Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra) is a cynical down-on-his-luck musician who reluctantly agrees to help his composer friend Alex Burke (Gig Young) with a new comedy he is working on. However Barney gains a new perspective on life and love when he meets Alex's irrepressibly perky fiancee Laurie (Doris Day) - and promptly falls in love with her! Lover Come Back (1961) Account ex
TBC
Maybe "nobody's perfect," as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant--a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy." Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behaviour. The results, however, are sublime. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
Maybe "nobody's perfect", as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant--a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy". Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behaviour. The results, however, are sublime. --Robert Horton
Not a John F Kennedy biopic, but a film of New Orleans' attorney Jim Garrison's investigation into the President's assassination, JFK is that rarest of things, a modern Hollywood drama which credits the audience with serious intelligence and ultimately proves itself a great film. Oliver Stone's film has the archetypal story, visual scale and substance to match; not just a gripping real-life conspiracy thriller, but a fable for the fall of the American dream (a theme further explored by the director in Nixon and Any Given Sunday). JFK doesn't reveal exactly what happened in Dallas on 22 November 1963--those who knew generally took their secrets to the grave--but marshals a vast wealth of facts and plausible theories, trusting the audience to draw its own conclusions. Following less than a year after Dances With Wolves (1990), these two epics mark the high point of Kevin Costner's career and the vast supporting cast here, including Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland, is superb. Quite simply the best American political film ever made. --Gary S Dalkin
If the idea of an Oprah Winfrey-produced film detailing the last days of a dying man and his inspirational effect on those left behind sounds a little cloying, Tuesdays with Morrie will be a rather pleasant surprise. While the presentation of this true story is certainly very American in tone, and it was obviously made for television (the points where it faded to commercial breaks are clear), it's still a surprisingly satisfying piece of work. The credit for that can firmly be laid at the door of Jack Lemmon, appearing in what was to be his last film. He excels as the terminally ill college professor Morrie Schwartz, determined to use his passing as a medium for teaching others about life. Still showing signs of the spark that made the movies of his heyday so memorable, Lemmon is also capable of bringing a magnificent pathos to the role. Co-star Hank Azaria is a more-than-equal foil, instilling his character with a growing awareness of self that blossoms before the viewer. Yes, at times it is a little too schmaltzy for its own good, but Tuesdays with Morrie is a film capable of visiting emotional extremes with ease. On the DVD: A very scanty package, with the usual scene access and Dolby Digital stereo accompanied by a text-only resume of the movie and the briefest of biographies of its cast--in Lemmon's case a massively ineffectual effort.--Phil Udell
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy