TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Literary Romance (Little Women / Pride and Prejudice / Madame Bovary / Anna Karenina)

This will probably be a strong seller in TCM's "Greatest Classic Films" series, a programme designed to bring some of the best MGM/Warner-controlled films to the masses in budget-friendly sets. Unlike the previous TCM sets, this collection has each film presented on it's own disc, as opposed to four films sharing two double-sided discs.

MGM's 1940 production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is one of my favourite screen versions of the Jane Austen classic. Greer Garson stars as Elizabeth Bennet, and Laurence Olivier (fresh from his "Wuthering Heights" success) is a fine Darcy. MGM costumier Adrian threw the original Regency period setting of the book out of the window - the result being that Garson and the ladies almost suffocate under costumes made of endless frilly laces and satins. Classic MGM...never let a story's period setting get in the way of a good costume! Special Features - Oscar-nominated Crime Doesn't Pay short "Eyes of the Navy", and classic cartoon "The Fishing Bear".

MGM's 1949 colour remake of LITTLE WOMEN sparkles with June Allyson (perfectly-cast as Jo), along with Mary Astor as Marmee, Margaret O'Brien as Beth, Janet Leigh as Meg, Peter Lawford as Laurie; and a blonde-wigged Elizabeth Taylor as Amy. Though it falls decidedly short next to the well-regarded 1933 RKO version with Katharine Hepburn, MGM's 1949 remake oddly copies many of the original set and costume cues from the earlier film. Special Features - "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast with the original stars (audio), and "Successful Women-Successful Films" essay.

Jennifer Jones is positively haunting, as Gustave Flaubert's MADAME BOVARY. This 1949 Vincente Minnelli-directed masterpiece, filmed in crisp black-and-white, may very well just be Jones' greatest screen performance. As the simple country doctor's wife who yearns to experience a life of glamour, wealth and romance, Jennifer Jones madly spins into her doom in the movie's signature ballroom sequence. A sheer masterpiece. With Louis Jourdan, Van Heflin and James Mason. Special Features - Pete Smith Specialty short "Those Good Old Days", classic cartoon "Out-Foxed"; and the trailer.

Greta Garbo had already filmed Tolstoy's tragic story of "Anna Karenina" (as "Love") during her silent days, but the 1935 MGM remake of ANNA KARENINA stands as one of her finest performances. Matched by a fervent Fredric March as Vronsky, Garbo's Anna is as mysterious and otherwordly as the fog from which she emerges at the beginning of the story.

The original stand-alone DVDs of Little Women and Anna Karenina (1935) are now out-of-print (with Madame Bovary (1949) looking like it's going to be discontinued soon too); so this set will be good for those who missed out last time.

Little Women

When I was growing up in the St. Michael's Orphan Asylum and Industrial School in Hopewell, N.J. a Catholic nun would read to us at bedtime from the pages of a novel. My last waking minutes were filled with descriptions of warm hearths and home baked goods and although we had no parents of our own, we could experience vestiges of family life at least vicariously. The book the nun read from was Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. As boys, our attentions soon turned to spiders, comic books, baseball, and one day someone switched Little Women for The Jackie Robinson Story. When I grew up and had a family of my own, subconsciously at least, I think I tried to duplicate for my children the atmosphere of family life I'd heard about in the pages of Little Women.

Oscar winning set designers Cedric Gibbons and Paul Grosse collaborate on the movie set production and begin this color film version with a motif of a beautifully designed Whitman Sampler that fades to a Currier & Ives winter scene. It seems Elizabeth Taylor puts a great deal of herself into her character role "Amy" when she says "a princess always knows she's a princess". Janet Leigh (Psycho) is older sister Meg and June Allyson, married to film noir star Dick Powell in real life, is tomboy sister Josephine. Mary Obrien (Meet Me In St. Louis) as Beth rounds out the quartet of sisters trying to find their destinies as the Civil War unwinds around them. Josephine is moody and ambitious, moving to New York to advance a writing career, although her fictional characters are hollow and filled with exaggerated melodrama rather than truth. It takes a family tragedy to boil away the superficial and get down to what is real.

The film print is rich with warm tones and colors in this restoration. Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon) is appropriately supportive as Marmee March and Lucile Watson is blustery and wind swept in her mammoth costumes as curmudgeonly Auntie March with a heart of gold.

Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary c'est moi (Madame Bovary is me) Gustav Flaubert said famously. A French court took him at his word and put the novelist on trial for defaming the people of France, and he defended himself successfully. James Mason is Flaubert and uses his overarching voice convincingly in the film and the French court is appropriately riveted when he sums up.

Lana Turner was initially scheduled to play Emma Bovary, although studio heads thought Jennifer Jones had a more neurotic acting style compared to Lana Turner's eroticism, and Jones' performance in the leading role confirmed their instincts.

Vincent Minnelli's set and direction are impeccable; he gives full flight to Emma's outsized aspirations for fame and renown. He also gives prominent weight to the money changers who are keeping score as Emma racks up bills no one can pay, least of all her husband Charles, played by Van Hefflin, who made a film career out of being reasonable. His mundane and grounded character contrasts brilliantly with his wife's mercurial temperament. The black and white print in this restoration is completely free of dirt, debris and other imperfections. Each film in this set has its own disc and cover artwork, in contrast to other TCM productions where films have been ganged two to a disc.

Anna Karenina

Screen legend Greta Garbo had been agitating for a remake of her 1927 silent film Love, a derivative of Anna Karenina. In 1935 she got her wish - and we know the old saying: be careful what you wish for. In real life, co-star Frederich March had a reputation as an amorous adventurer; legend has it that to ward off his advances, Gretta Garbo walked around the set of Anna Karenina with garlic in her mouth between takes. This is my first Gretta Garbo film and even though it's embarrassing to admit such a thing, I'm glad to own it.

The great Vivien Leigh (Gone With The Wind) also wanted the part of Anna for this film and when she didn't get it, her and husband Lawrence Olivier went off to England and shot a competing version to the Anna Karenina presented here.

Casting is somewhat of an issue in this film. Frederick Bartholomew, who plays Anna's husband, is handsome, cultivated and much taller compared to March's short stature, and some viewers may to wonder why Anna wants to run off with someone less handsome than her husband. In the English version, Anna's husband is short, corpulent, almost deformed. Then too, Gretta Garbo is almost always composed, not revealing much in the way of inner turmoil, while Vivien Leigh seems to frazzle and disintegrate right before our eyes.

Director Clarence Brown was a specialist in working with Gretta Garbo (they made 7 pictures together), once again, Cedric Gibbons did the production design. The quality of the film print is excellent throughout.

Pride and Prejudice

It's said that F. Scott Fitzgerald based his unfinished masterpiece, The Last Tycoon on MGM's Irving Thalberg, who died suddenly in 1936, but not before acquiring the rights to film Pride and Prejudice, the novel by Jane Austen that examines a cross section of English country life. Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer, had been penciled in for the female lead, but the part went instead to Greer Garson, Louis B. Mayer's up and coming star, giving rise to the belief that the best path to success is: stay healthy.

Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver) as Lizzy is classically imperturbable leading a gaggle of five sisters chasing village newcomers who are young, single and (the tiebreaker) rich. It's hugely comic watching the sisters assess the newcomers as they perform the appropriate financial calculations of net worth in their heads. No wonder the dialog is bright, snappy, and to the point - the great British writer Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) shares a screenwriting credit with Jane Murfin.

Cedric Gibbons and Paul Grosse won a Production Design Oscar for this film. The costumes are suitably sumptuous for an English period piece and the film quality is excellent in this restoration.

I'm not going to review these movies so much as to tell you that buying them is a smart thing to do. Turner Classic Movies has restored these movies and they look great. All the movies they have put on DVD are excellent and worth a couple hours of entertainment. Fans of classic movies are going to want to get them all. Four classic movies for under twelve dollars are a steal. This is barely more than what it costs for one person to go to the theater. If you enjoyed this set be sure to see TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Murder Mysteries (The Maltese Falcon / The Big Sleep / Dial M for Murder / The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946), TCM Greatest Classic Film Collection: Astaire & Rogers (The Gay Divorcee / Top Hat / Swing Time / Shall We Dance), TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Holiday (Christmas in Connecticut / A Christmas Carol 1938 / The Shop Around the Corner / It Happened on 5th Avenue), TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Broadway Musicals (Show Boat / Annie Get Your Gun / Kiss Me Kate / Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), Tcm Greatest Classic Films: Thin Man 1, TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby), TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Hitchcock Thrillers (Suspicion / Strangers on a Train / The Wrong Man / I Confess), to list a few.

CA Luster

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