One of Hollywood's saddest heartbreakers with the emotional Garland, fast approaching her final crack-up, superb as the fast rising young star leaving behind her true love, Mason in one of his greatest performances, on the slippery road to failure. The DVD version includes important excised footage, many scenes admirably filling gaps in the original, rediscovered in archives.
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AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957)
CertificationU Our Rating
An enduring and endearing romance with Grant and Kerr as two people who inadvertently fall in love aboard ship, despite both being already involved elsewhere. They vow to meet again, but things don't work out as planned. Romantic.
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BRIEF ENCOUNTER (HOWARD/JOHNSON) (1945)
CertificationPG Our Rating
This movie shocked audiences back when it was first released, a sympathetic portrayal of two strangers who meet in a train station and have a non-consumated extramarital affair, was too strong for the times. Written by the equally shocking Noel Coward, this is a classic British melodrama.
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CASABLANCA (1942)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Nothing more can be said about this classic melodrama from the peak of the Hollywood studio-film era. Hardened cynic Bogart softens when he meets old flame Bergman who is now a refugee in neutral wartime Casablanca. Together they outwit the Germans... and of course there's that famous song. Watch this classic or some day you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...
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CATHY COME HOME (1966)
CertificationPG Our Rating
A revelation for television drama this early work, a 'Wednesday Play', by Ken Loach is everything we've come to expect from one of Britain's finest directors. This tells the bleak tale of Cathy, who loses her home, husband and, eventually, her child through the inflexibility of the welfare state, and is a searing attack on the said state and an incredibly humane observation of those at the sharp end. The DVD also has a commentary by Loach and extracts from the writer Jeremy Sandford's memoirs. T
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DARK VICTORY (1939)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Wonderful weepie with the incomparable Bette Davis as the spoilt, sniffy socialite who discovers compassion, and love when she's told she has only months to live. A tear-jerking tragedy with an excellent performance by George Brent as the doctor who brings her some happiness. Nominated for 3 Oscars.
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DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Joe and Kirsten are high rollers and fast livers, but when their "social" drinking becomes an addiction the couple descend into a world of depression and recrimination. Days of Wine And Roses was nominated for 5 Oscars on its release in 1962 and it remains a powerful and unsettling portrait of alcoholism to this day.
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DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
Certification15 Our Rating
David Lean's epic romance set against the turbulant backdrop of the Russian revolution. One man's struggle for moral political and personal survival amidst the complex web of intrigue and tangled loyalties that accompanied the fall of the Tsar.
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FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967)
CertificationU Our Rating
Thomas Hardy's classic tale of a rural landowner chased by three men, a swashbuckling army womaniser, a loyal shepherd and a staid middle-aged bachelor, and her making a choice she lives to regret. Nicolas Roeg's beautiful cinematography of the West Country dominates the film.
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GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
CertificationPG Our Rating
The original big screen romantic epic that fired the hearts of generations to come. Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and telling the tale of the love between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, it's the history of a selfish woman who doesn't want to admit her feelings about the man she loves, and finally loses. Won Best Picture at 1939 Academy Awards.
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