Screen Goddess Collection: Barbara Stanwyck [DVD]

GRAB THIS COLLECTION BEFORE IT IS SOLD OUT!! This is an excellent collection of some of the best Barbara Stanwyck films. It amply showcases the acting prowess of her,whether it is comedy,family drama,cine noir. She was the best among her equals.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY directed by the legendary Billy Wilder is the finest and quintessential cine noir and who could be better in playing femme fatale than Barbara Stanwyck? She plays a calculating woman,plots to kill or rather get her husband killed so that she can collect the insurance money. That she does with the insurance agent(Fred MacMurray)who sells the insurance policy to her husband.

THE LADY EVE, another legendary film, a romantic screwball comedy with Henry Fonda,directed and written by Hollywood legend Preston Sturges. A story of a card sharp who fleeces rich passengers on a transatlantic cruiser in collusion with a companion(the inimitable Charles Coburn),falls in love with a rich heir whom they wanted to fleece. Look forward to snappy,witty dialogues to realise the genius of Preston Sturges. Some of the finest witty barbs from the golden age of Hollywood!

THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. This is the most interesting and least known film of the lot. It was one of the very few commercial flop the director Frank Capra had. Nevertheless, it is a great film. Set in China during '30s of the last century,where Ms.Stanwyck plays an American missionary. The film, in essence is an excellent study of the confrontation of two value systems viz.the Chinese and the Western. The film has much more relevane now that China is surging ahead to the superpower status and the West is at loss to understand the inscrutable China and the Chinese.

ALL I DESIRE is a family melodrama directed by Douglas Sirk. An ambitious mother leaves the family to pursue her theatrical career. After the success a decade or so pass by and she comes back to the family hoping for some kind of reconciliation. Ms.Stanwyck plays the role of the mother with finesse.

THE MIRACLE WOMAN is another Frank Capra film.Although the film is from the thirties of the last century,it is still relevant in our times. It deals with the theme of con artists exploiting people in the name of religion and spirituality.

GOLDEN BOY directed by Rouben Mamoulian is a story of a young prize boxer(played by twentyish something William Holden, a great pleasure to watch him in this film,)falling in love with a woman of the world played Barbara Stanwyck. I think, this is the first major film of William Holden and commercially successful too.

This box set made an excellent gift for my mum. Truly classic films. Three generation of our family have enjoyed watching them.