I haven't seen this particular set so I can't comment on the DVD transfer quality but they are 5 excellent films which should all deserve 5 stars. All have been previously released on DVD so there are no first-timers here. This entry is simply to tell you what movies are contained in the set. The Amazon listing doesn't specify.

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH (1957)
When their great-uncle dies, newlyweds Matt and Jean Spencer (Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna) inherit a dilapidated small-town cinema that comes with an eccentric staff including a drunken projectionist (Sellers), a dotty cashier (Margaret Rutherford) and an ancient usher/janitor (Bernard Miles).

CARLTON-BROWNE OF THE F.O. (1959)
When valuable mineral deposits are discovered on the forgotten British colony of Gaillardia, the Foreign Office sends bumbling envoy Cadogen de Vere Carlton-Browne (Terry-Thomas) to investigate. But while negotiating with the corrupt Prime Minister Amphibulos (Sellers), Carlton-Browne is convinced to split the tiny island in half, sparking a revolution that builds to an international nuclear showdown.

I'M ALL RIGHT JACK (1959)
When naive Oxford graduate Stanley (Ian Carmichael) is hired as a lowly employee in his uncle's missile factory, the factory's socialist shop steward Fred (Sellers) sees a great political opportunity. Soon, Stanley finds himself stuck between Fred's union and the family business, leading to an epic comedic tug-of-war!

TWO-WAY STRETCH (1960)
Criminal mastermind Dodger Lane (Sellers) is a model inmate at Huntleigh Prison until he and his cellmates hatch a plan to break out of jail, steal a sultan's diamonds from a military convoy and then break back into jail... all before morning!

HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963)
Sellers stars as Reverend John Smallwood, an idealistic prison chaplain who is accidentally assigned to a wealthy parish known for its popular sedative/laxative. When Smallwood insists on ministering to both rich and poor, he manages to somehow infuriate both groups - along with the entire town government!

These words were used in the opening credits of every Odd Couple episode ...

"On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down he knew she was right. But he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison. Some time earlier, Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return.

"Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?"

... but you won't hear them on this set of DVDs! I've waited until the release of the final season to see if perhaps they only appeared in that one year. Not so - they've been completely edited out of the entire series. Surely that was part of the charm of the show - the expectation of hearing those words in the opening titles. In those few seconds the entire premise of the show is set up. Many other little things have been cut, clipped and altered in this DVD set and the other reviewers (on this listing and on the individual season listings) have touched on many of them. The one that bothers me is the complete removal of Pernell Robert's singing of "In Some Secluded Rendezvous" which is the whole punchline of the "Strike Up The Band or Else" episode during which, in the final seconds of the episode, he steals the theme song of Felix' band, The Sophisticados. It simply fades to black just as he's about to sing and that's the new ending of the show. That's all, folks. It just trails away to nothingness leaving us with a hopelessly lame ending never imagined by the original writers. Apparently Paramount have been unwilling to pay for the music rights for this release.

This original series gets my 5-stars but this DVD release gets only 4. I'm totally baffled and frustrated as to why anyone would want to edit these episodes. Don't they realize that customers are buying them to see exactly what they saw when these great shows first aired on TV? When you watch a comedy more than once you know what you're about to see and hear so there's an expectation on the part of the audience that the producers of the DVD have completely failed to realize. There's no such thing as "better" when you tinker with nostalgia.

William Holden is at his peak in this credible story of American troops in WWII Italy. It strikes a perfect balance between action and romance and between life in the front lines and life while on rest and recreation away from combat. Nancy Olson is excellent as Holden's leading lady (once again) and there's a great supporting cast in the likes of Frank Lovejoy, Gene Evans, Paul Picerni and Dick Wesson.

No criticism of The Ames Brothers' recordings. Were there ever 4 voices that blended so perfectly? It's always great to hear this vastly underrated group on CD but why on Earth did Living Era choose this particular selection of songs? More than two-thirds of these numbers already appear on CDs currently in circulation on "Best of" discs put out by Varese, Taragon and Jasmine. Now here we have the fourth release of these same hits. The Ames recorded hundreds of tunes and more than 30LPs (both 10" and 12") during their years with Coral and RCA. What we need is someone to put together some CDs to bring out more of their unreleased (on CD) material. Jasmine seems to be doing the best job of it so far. If I'm faced with yet another CD that contains all these same hits I'll think twice before spending money to get a mere handful of "new" songs while being given no alternative but to buy a 5th CD copy of all their same great hits. I suspect a lot of people are avoiding buying this CD for exactly that reason. I'm knocking a star off this disc because of the rather witless and unimaginative track selection on the part of Living Era's producers. As one of the top vocal acts of the 50s, The Ames Brothers could sing the phone book and they'd get my 5 stars any day of the week. Surely one of the greatest and most neglected vocal groups of all. There's an audience awaiting all the marvellous material that's still tucked away in the vaults and I wish someone would do something about it instead of just trotting out the same old titles every time.

This set contains: AIR FORCE (1943), COMMAND DECISION (1948), HELL TO ETERNITY (1960), THE HILL (1965), THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO (1944) and 36 HOURS (1965).
I won't try to review these 6 films individually but I do think it's a nice set of 6 - all previously unreleased on DVD. I think Amazon.ca might have taken the time to provide the titles in their listing instead of letting us find them on other sites or else squint to read the spine on the picture of the box. A key to this collection is the value - all six for $30.79 (pre-release price). Individually, these films are priced at $17.47, the cost of only two films being more than the price for all six when bought as a boxed-set (it would seem The Hill can only be bought as part of this set - there is no individual listing for it on Amazon)

The movie itself gets at least 4 stars from me but the transfer quality only 2. It's a shame that this seriously under-rated film met with such little success when it was first released. It was retitled "The Great Spy Mission" after MGM thought that its original name was giving people the impression that they were about to see a Robin Hood type of adventure film! Loosely based on a true story, this is a well-made thriller that's intelligently scripted, fast-paced and with a nice balance of tension and big bangs. The perfomances are good, especially by Sophia Loren and the ever-reliable Anthony Quayle. It's a highly enjoyable and entertaining picture so it's a shame that its first DVD release turns out to be on a second-rate DVD transfer. The menus are absolutely basic (only four chapters) and with no extras of any kind. I wouldn't care about any of the window-dressing if only they'd have given me a high quality print. This is not the kind of DVD quality we'd expect from an MGM production: a grainy print with below standard colour and sharpness and with light leakage on the right side of the projection screen. It's most obvious in the blackouts where much of the screen is an obvious deep blue-grey fading to black. It's still entirely watchable but it's clearly a quick and cheap release aimed at making someone a fast buck. This film deserves better. I can only hope that we get a full DVD studio quality release at sometime in the future. Good movie but the DVD could have - should have been much better.

As the North African campaign of WWII drew to a close it became obvious that the Allies next move would be to invade Sicily. A deception was therefore needed to try to lure away some of the German defences. Inter-services "XX Committee" (XX for double-cross) members Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, and Squadron Leader Sir Archibald Cholmondley hatched the then unheard of plan of planting a body in the sea off Spain where prevailing currents would surely carry it inshore to the Huelva region, known to be the territory of one of the Nazis' best Spanish agents. The body, dressed as a major in the Royal Marines and apparently killed in a plane crash at sea, would be carrying supposedly top secret documents aimed at convincing any reader that the invasion target was not Sicily at all, but Greece. Montagu himself plays a cameo role in the film as an Air Marshall.

The film takes us through the planning and execution of what its creators hoped would become one of the most successful and unusual deceptions in the history of warfare. The leading role of Montagu is played by Clifton Webb, utterly credible as a British naval officer, while Robert Flemyng, who had himself served conspicuously in WWII and was awarded the Military Cross and Order of The British Empire, takes on the role of Montagu's junior assistant, a composite role based partly on Cholmondley's real-life character. Together they must procure a body that will pass a medical examination to determine the cause of death and they must also create a personality and a past life and history for this man.

This is a true-story that avoids battle scenes and big bangs. There are no special effects. It describes a war of stealth and cunning and the cat and mouse game of espionage. It is an atmospheric suspense thriller with Stephen Boyd effective as the determined Axis agent, Patrick O'Reilly, sent in from Ireland to verify the existence and past life of this man who never was. While the soundtrack works well and is one of Alan Rawsthorne's (The Cruel Sea) better scores, it is nevertheless immediately recognizable as being in his highly distinctive style, unfortunately sounding so very much like all his others. It is ably directed by the great and sometimes under-rated Ronald Neame and is beautifully filmed, as are all of former-cameraman Neame's pictures. The voice of Churchill is provided by the young Peter Sellers who, at that time in 1956, was establishing his versatility and making a name for himself in the BBC radio comedy, "The Goon Show".

20th Century Fox's DVD video and sound transfer quality are excellent, as would be expected in the studio release of one of their own productions, although taken from an unrestored print that shows just a little of its 50 years. A few slightly shaky moments in the original print do not detract from the overall enjoyment of the DVD. The two sided disc offers the double helping of seeing the movie in both a full screen 4:3 version on one side and the original Cinemascope presentation on the other. The widescreen, which I usually prefer, is extremely wide in this case and makes for somewhat difficult viewing on a standard TV. The full screen option is therefore a very welcome addition. The Canadian release also offers French sub-titles and a bilingual English-French case insert. The cover is illustrated with a rather strange composite picture that appears nowhere in the film ... a shot of Clifton Webb, in civvies, gazing longingly at the sky above the English countryside while a flight of American Thunderbolt fighters flies overhead. I wonder if the artist ever actually saw this movie?

Nevertheless, this is a worthy and entertaining addition to any WWII film collection and if it gives you an appetite for a more in-depth version of the true story, Ewen Montagu's 1953 book is still available in both the hardback and paperback editions.

This is one of my very favourite war films. It is tense and exciting while avoiding cliches and big bangs. There is an intelligence and subtlety to it that only adds to the tension. It has top of the line production qualities and a realism that is enormously heightened by the location filming and European casting. The DVD transfer is good, very reasonably priced and a rare treat, at long last, for fans of this highly under-rated movie. I have no trouble putting it in my top ten list of best war films. Get it while it's available.

It was very unfair of your other reviewer to give this superb compilation only 1 star just because it isn't yet available in his language or format.
Everyone else has said it all and I agree with them 100% ... one of the very best documentaries in existence. It could be half as good as it is and still be a must-see for Beatles fans.

I agree with Hawthorne, FL ... he's right on the money. The 4-star rating is for the movie not for the DVD quality.

My problem with the reviews of this film is that Amazon has listed all the reviews underneath all the copies of this film. I have to assume it has fallen into public domain because there are many releases under various cheapo labels. I'd like to see the reviews appear against the specific versions/copies of the film so we can get a better idea of which ones have the better prints. We know from other public domain titles that some of these are going to be OK and others will be a chore to watch. The reviewer from Hingham, MA says his print is so dark as to be almost unusable. I wonder which one he was talking about? It's a shame that these fast buck artists are muddying the water by putting out DVDs that are in worse shape than most VHS tape versions.

How about it Amazon? Is there some way you can let us know which ones to go with if we want to see the best prints? I'm not buying this one because there's a chance it's money wasted. If you can point me towards a decent print I'll gladly give you my business.