THE SECRET SIX (1931) Although Wallace Beery had the topline, the scorching chemistry between supporting tyros Clark Gable and Jean Harlow nabbed appreciative audience eyeballs and studio scrutiny. As superstar and up-and-comer honed their craft, they were paired up for a series of films that saw them anointed screen royalty only to be cut short by Harlow’s tragic death. This pre-code crime corker sees MGM take a drive through Warner Bros. style mean streets following Beery’s stockyard worker Louis Scorpio’s Scarface-like violent rise to the top of the bootlegging racket. When Scorpio gets too big for his britches, he is targeted by “The Secret Six,” a masked tribunal of civic titans. Gable plays the catspaw reporter tasked with Scorpio’s take down and Harlow plays the gangster’s moll caught in the crossfire. Ralph Bellamy makes an unforgettable screen debut as a hood. Also stars Lewis Stone (Judge Hardy) and John Mack Brown from before he was ’Johnny’. Directed by George Hill. Newly Remastered
RED DUST (1932) One year after The Secret Six, Red Dust features Gable and Harlow in command of the screen in a famous match-up that’s as pre-code as they come. Director Victor Fleming manages a menage of trysts as steamy and as dangerous as the Indochina rain forest they take place in. Making up a triangle of prostitute, adulteress and seducer, Harlow, Mary Astor, and Gable love, betray, and attempt murder with no apologies or restraint. Gene Raymond plays the unwary engineer husband of the seemingly prim and unseemly passionate Astor. Take a trip upriver into a heart of snarkness! Newly Remastered
HOLD YOUR MAN (1933) Gable and Harlow are at the top of their game: she glows, he sparkles and the sparks that fly between them set the screen on fire! Hold Your Man is the tale of a couple of cons who combine falling in love with taking a fall. Eddie Hall (Gable) is on the run from his fleece and the fuzz when he ducks into the first unlocked apartment he can find and it’s Ruby’s (Harlow). But this young lady of easy wisecracks and easy virtue doesn’t panic, she stashes the lamster inside her bubble bath, and love blooms. But when one of Eddie’s jobs goes south, Ruby is left holding the bag in more ways than one. Directed by Sam Wood from a wonderful and wise script and story by Anita Loos. Newly Remastered
CHEYENNE SEASON 4 (1959-60) Cheyenne’s much anticipated fourth season heralded some changes for TV’s first mega-hit show and its star, Clint Walker. With a new compressed episode order that allowed the show to share slots with fellow Western ramblers like Bronco and Sugarfoot, newly minted superstar, Clint Walker was able to split his time between the big and small screens. So while Cheyenne Bodie was facing fallout from the massacre at Little Big Horn, saving Mexican patriot Juarez from assassins and rampaging lynch mobs on TV, Clint was also wowing audiences with roles in such fine film fare as Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly, and Gold of the Seven Saints. Guest stars found wandering the western wilds in this 4-Disc, 13-Episode Collection include Adam West, Lorne Greene, Connie Stevens, Whit Bissell, Rhodes Reason and George Kennedy.
MAYA (1966) Sleeper animal action picture, Maya is an undiscovered gem of the east. Shot on location in India’s stunningly wild Tiger Valley, this film is a coming of age tale that packs a punch while it breaks your heart. Dennis the Menace star Jay North plays Terry Bowen, an unsure adolescent who is packed off to his father’s (Clint Walker) not-so-tender care in India after his mother dies. Unsure of his role as a parent — and his own nerves after a fateful confrontation with a killer tiger — Terry’s big game hunting dad unwittingly drives the boy into the jungle wilderness. Aided by local boy Raji (a superb Sajid Khan), Terry finds himself on a quest to deliver a rare white elephant calf to a temple across dangerous terrain controlled by dangerous tigers and even more dangerous men. Thankfully they are under the protection of the calf’s mother, the mighty and loving Maya. Screenplay by literary lion John Fante from the novel by Jalal Din, and directed by John Berry. 16x9 Widescreen and Newly Remastered
HARDCASE (1971) Hanna-Barbera’s first foray into live-action TV is a surprising adult Western, starring the man who helped define it for a generation, Clint Walker. Walker plays a Filipino war POW who returns home to discover his wife has sold his ranch out from under him and ran off to Mexico with a charismatic revolutionary. And so the hardcase merc heads down south, to either get his money or his wife. Co-starring Stefanie Powers and Alex Karras, with Walker delivering a powerhouse performance. Newly Remastered
THE PHYNX (1970) Just who are The Phynx? If you guessed a boy pop rock sensation manufactured by a computer at the CIA, then you may be one of the lucky few familiar with this Holy Grail of rare films that after 40 years is not just making its home video debut, but its first general release! The spymasters of the US of A create a pop band to get inside the double iron curtained bastion of Albania to rescue a gaggle of kidnapped superstars including George Jessel, Butterfly McQueen, Dorothy Lamour, Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Rudy Vallee, Pat O’Brien, Edgar Bergen, Busby Berkeley, Jay Silverheels, Col. Sanders and more. Clint Walker delivers a spectacular cameo playing a tougher-than-shrapnel drill instructor who goes by the name of Clint Walker. Dick Clark and Richard Pryor are on hand to teach The Phynx their musical chops and Leiber and Stoller provide their tunes. Also starring Michael Ansara, Martha Raye and Joan Blondell. Don’t ask! Just watch it! 16x9 Widescreen and Newly Remastered
Okay, I’ll bite - I’m curious about The Phynx. Yes, curious enough to buy it!
