Shenandoah

Starring:James Stewart, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett, Patrick Wayne, Rosemary Forsyth, Phillip Alford, Katharine Ross, Charles Robinson (III), Jim McMullan, Tim McIntire, Eugene Jackson Jr., Paul Fix, Denver Pyle, George Kennedy, James Best, Tom Simcox, Berkeley Harris, Harry Carey Jr., Kevin Hagen, Dabbs Greer
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Studio: Universal Studios
Product Type: DVD

Description

James Stewart is one of America's favorite leading men and a true icon in cinema history. Join this beloved actor as he shines in five of the most versatile roles of his career in the James Stewart: Screen Legend Collection. Sharing the screen with such Hollywood sensations as Joan Fontaine, Margaret Sullavan, June Allyson and Ray Milland, these classic films showcase the sincere, easygoing charm of a screen legend who continues to entertain audiences around the world. Next Time We Love When an ambitious newsman (James Stewart) marries an aspiring actress (Margaret Sullavan), their love is put to the test as their careers move them in different directions. You Gotta Stay Happy A runaway heiress (Joan Fontaine) hooks up with a struggling pilot (James Stewart) for a wild cross-country ride in his cargo plane with a group of wacky passengers. Thunder Bay A pair of oil trouble-shooters (James Stewart and Dan Duryea) attempt to strike it rich despite devastating hurricanes, dangerous love affairs and a hostile town of Cajun fishermen. The Glenn Miller Story James Stewart and June Allyson star in a tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940's. Shenandoah A wealthy Virginia landowner (James Stewart) refuses to participate in the Civil War until an attack on his family forces him to take a stand.

Customer Reviews:

A great collection of James Stewart movies.......2007-06-14

This is a great collection of James Stewart's finest non-Hitchcock performances in films under the control of Universal Studios that span thirty years in his career. The price is excellent, but the trade-off is that you don't get much in the way of extras. In fact, all you get are theatrical trailers on a couple of the movies.

Shenandoah (1965) is a film about the Anderson family of Virginia, which is living a happy life on their family farm when the Civil War breaks out. They are convinced this skirmish has nothing to do with them, but they are soon to find out otherwise. Stewart certainly gives one of the performances of his career in this one.

The Glenn Miller Story (1953) reteams James Stewart with June Allyson, who were so good in "The Stratton Story", in a similar film about a man with great talent whose career was cut short by tragedy. Miller has always been ranked as one of the great swing bandleaders of the late thirties to middle forties era, and this film is a great tribute to his life and work. A great performance from all involved.

Thunder Bay (1953) is set in the post-World War II era, but in many ways it is another James Stewart western. Stewart portrays ex-Navy engineer Steve Martin who wants to design a safe off-shore oil drilling platform. Instead of the cattlemen versus the sheepherders, in this film we have the oil drillers versus the fishermen who see their way of life threatened. Stewart seems a less sympathetic figure here than he does in most of his films, but he handles the role wonderfully.

You Gotta Stay Happy (1948) is the lighter side of Stewart. This one is "It Happened One Night" meets "The Bride Came C.O.D" as a wealthy girl hides aboard Stewart's plane when she gets a case of the immediate post-wedding jitters. What results is a screwball comedy that predictably ends in the wealthy girl (Joan Fontaine) and Stewart's character falling in love. The plot is not that intriguing, but Stewart is charming as always. This is probably the weakest of the five films.

Next Time, We Love (1936) is a very early Stewart film that really gave him his first big break with a leading role. In this film he was teamed with Margaret Sullivan, and together they play a couple that marries on impulse and then begin pursuing their own individual careers - she is an actress, he is a journalist. Conflict develops when her career takes off and his does not. This film is very typical of those melodramas that were so common in the 1930's, but it is still interesting to see what Stewart does with this early role in his career. Stewart and Sullivan have a better chance to show off their chemistry in 1938's "Shopworn Angel", but that film was made by MGM and is therefore not in this collection.

very good value even considering the duplication....4+stars.......2007-06-13

5 Jimmy Stewart films for about $4 each is hard to not give a 5 star rating to. 3 of these films are seeing their DVD debut (unlike the John Wayne set that came out today with all 5 already being available individually). I am already owner of The GLenn Miller Story and SHenandoah as many Jimmy STewart fans must and still consider this a good purchase. The three movies new to DVD all have merit and span a 20 year range from his first leading role in 1936 ("Next TIme We Love" where he mentions lindberghs flight to Paris in his first lines)to "Thunder Bay" in 1953. This was Universals first widescreen film and directed by Anthony Mann. I am a big fan of all the Mann/Stewart films and this one is terrific.

Bottom line...if you don't own any and are a Jimmy Stewart fan...whopeee!
If you do own a couple...its still a good deal.
PS..these 5 films are on 3 DVDs but NO FLIPPERS...one sided dual layers!

Average customer rating:

Underappreciated classic
Not history but sure is entertainment - contains spoilers
It Never Gets Old
A moving semi-western with excellent performances and well-controlled mood...
Saved By Performances and Disney-esque Sentimentality

Shenandoah
Starring: James Stewart , Doug McClure , Glenn Corbett , Patrick Wayne , and Rosemary Forsyth
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Civil War | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

War Epics | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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Friendly Persuasion
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The Rare Breed

ASIN: B00008CMT3
Release Date: 2003-05-06

Product Description

Shenandoah, a film well-liked in its day, recalls Friendly Persuasion and foreshadows The Patriot as it tells of an American clan traumatized by war on native soil. Virginia farmer James Stewart has never owned slaves, owes allegiance to no one beyond his own kin, and adamantly disregards the North-South strife rumbling just over the hill: "This war is not mine and I take no note of it." That changes when youngest son Philip Alford (To Kill a Mockingbird's Jem) is carried off by Yankees, and the family must ride out to reclaim him. Shenandoah has several affecting moments--notably a homefront atrocity--but much of it is lit and played like a television show. Script and direction are formulaic, Stewart falls back on cozy shtick, and the supporting cast is a collection of bland studio contract players. As the closing credit says: "filmed entirely at Universal City." --Richard T. Jameson

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Underappreciated classic.......2007-04-05

Is it indeed possible to remain neutral in a world that demands we take sides? The Jimmy Stewart character in this movie attempts to do just that and in the end pays the same price as if he had chosen sides. Perhaps the cost is the same whether we choose or not. Or, perhaps the moral cost is greater when choosing sides. Is it better, after all, to choose the lesser of two evils? As many reviewers have already noted, this is not Mr. Stewart's best but the questions it raises about the relative morality of war and our obligation to the state are interesting ones indeed. Mr. Stewart takes the libertarian road less traveled until circumstances force his intervention. And perhaps that is why, despite lacklustre reviews, this movie remains a classic for so many.

Not history but sure is entertainment - contains spoilers.......2007-02-12

I first saw this film over 40 years ago and bought the DVD on the strength of my memory of sitting in the cinema enthralled by the performace of James Stewart et al. The revisited Shenandoah was offered on a DVD which had a pretty good video print transfer, but not spectacular, and an adequate sound rendering in Dolby Digital Mono. The story itself is the stuff of Hollywood and not a history textbook replacement - as was generally the way back in the 60's when this was made. The story of a peaceloving Virginian widower bringing up his family, trying to ignore the civil war around him until it gets to be "personal" with the Union army capture of "the boy" - sounds a bit corny but is very important to the plot. Could have had a bit more war action but the story of "the family" is key to the whole film and not the war. I think I have a need for more action as I get older - but still an excellent film with lots to offer. I do not rate it a 5 but do rate it a good 4 - well worth watching!

It Never Gets Old.......2006-12-02

It is intriguing how some comments confidently classify "Shenandoah" (1965) as an anti-war film and others see it as pro-war propaganda (insert Vietnam here). The anti-war advocates must be basing their position on the film's similarity to "Friendly Persuasion" while the propaganda pundits appear to have been influenced by the fact that screenwriter James Lee Barrett would write the script for "The Green Berets" a couple years later. But given that the screenplay was written in 1963 and actual production was completed by late 1964, it is unlikely that Vietnam (pro or con) was much of a factor. National consciousness was a couple years away from regarding that little adventure as something of real significance.

I think the real strength of "Shenandoah" is that it maintains the same kind of uneasy neutrality that the Anderson family holds to throughout the film. It shows good and bad people on both sides as the family attempts to just distance themselves as much as possible from the conflict. That they are not entirely successful in doing so hardly sends a clear message of either pacifism of patriotism.

Director Andrew V. McLaglen's films are some of the least political you are likely to find, the exception being his frequent focus on strong women. In "Shenandoah", neither Charlie Anderson (James Stewart) nor his six sons are a match for daughter Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth). The father-daughter dynamic purposely gets a disproportionate amount of screen time as Jennie is shown to be the child most like the father and the only one who routinely stands up to him. This merits the most attention if one is looking for subtle political messages in the film.

Stewart is the only cast member with more screen time than Forsyth. Her romantic scenes with Doug McClure are also first rate, with a touch of comic relief as you begin to realize that he has little idea what he is getting himself into. And their reunion scene at the prisoner of war train is handled extremely well.

Civil war buffs will generally enjoy this film as it presents the war from the (until then unprecedented) point of view of a southern family who did not buy into the frenzy for secession in 1861 and remains resolute even as their property is overrun with union troops. It wouldn't be until "Cold Mountain" that another film would present the reality of a not so united southern home front. Eastern Tennessee and western Virginia remained pro-union, and Winston County, Alabama seceded from the state and attempted to stay in the union.

Of course the buffs will find many inaccurate historical details. At one point the doctor mentions losing a son the year before at Gettysburg, yet much later Carter notes that the besieged troops at Vicksburg are eating rats (the Gettysburg battle ended the day before Vicksburg surrendered). And just after Jennie drives away the federal procurement agents with a single shot rifle, the family rides off equipped with the latest lever action models.

Like McLaglen's "The Rare Breed", "Shenandoah" is somewhat of a chick flick, making it a novelty among historical action adventure films.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

A moving semi-western with excellent performances and well-controlled mood..........2006-11-06

With a Civil War background, "Shenandoah" is a deeply human work spread with that current of emotion that is often tried to obtain by directors and actors, but very infrequently found... It is old-fashioned in the sense that it deals with love of family and friends in a tender way... For this, and many other reasons, it stays in the heart and mind...

Stewart has never been in better form than in "Shenandoah." He is an archetypal widower, deeply concerned for his six sons and one daughter on their farm in a remote section of Virginia, while the Civil War rages around them... A pacifist and a man who refuses slavery, Stewart holds himself and his sons away from both the Confederate and Union causes... But, for all his hatred of war, the rush of events finally draws him into that tumultuous and heartbreaking clash...

When he loses his 16-year-o1d youngest boy to the Union soldiers as a prisoner, he is compelled into action... He presides with cold affection over his daughter's marriage to a young Confederate officer... He visits his wife's grave (she had died giving birth to the son who is now a prisoner) and in simple and sincere words movingly talks with her... Stewart's hatred of war is continually intact, but his faith in family remains stronger than ever...

The film is alive with great performances... Katharine Ross, in her first film role, is moving as the daughter-in-law... Rosemary Forsyth is strong and stately as Stewart's only daughter, who dresses in male clothes and joins her brothers in their search for their captured sibling... George Kennedy is effective as a Union officer who helps Stewart with a pass to obtain his son... Paul Fix is affecting as the attentive and concerned family doctor, and many others round out a superb cast...

"Shenandoah" was Stewart's first film with director Andrew V. McLaglen, the 45-year-o1d son of the famous Victor, who had won a Best Actor Oscar in John Ford's "The Informer" in 1935... McLaglen had been an assistant director to John Ford, Budd Boetticher, and others, and had absorbed much from them, before emerging with his own individual directing style...

Nominated for a Best Sound Oscar, "Shenandoah" exudes a quality that seems to have partially disappeared from American life... The picture represents a time of moral sentiment and regardful devotion to certain established ideals...

Saved By Performances and Disney-esque Sentimentality.......2006-08-27

Replace the allegedly anti-Semitic, alcoholic ax wielder from "The Patriot" with taciturn Jimmy Stewart, and you've basically got "Shenandoah," a well-meaning film whose strength lies in its performances and sentimentality and certainly not in its plotting.

Cribbed a bit from the better "Friendly Persuasion," the plot concerns an irascible Southern farmer (Stewart) who stubbornly -- and correctly -- refuses to let his sons join the lost cause that is the American Civil War. His stand is less a moral than a selfish one, and there are several effective moments where is proven right, not the least of which is the slaughter of the command of a young officer who just minutes earlier challenges Stewart's stand. Stewart's point that Virginia didn't lift one finger to help raise his children is an economical and rational defense to the argument that their lives are nonetheless owed to the state.

There are other scenes that rather maddeningly come close to making this a better film than it is: an otherwise capable officer's (Doug McClure, who could be played by a prettied-up Matt Damon in a bio-pic) nervous asking for Stewart's daughter's hand in marriage, Stewart's demands of a sympathetic union colonel (a self-effacing George Kennedy), his fury at the young sentinel who shoots one of his sons, a brief but bloody battle, and the quiet horror when murderous scavengers inevitably invade his all-but-deserted home.

Unfortunately, they're blunted by some rather dopey elements, including Stewart allowing his youngest son (rather annoyingly referred to as "the boy") to trundle about the countryside wearing a discarded confederate cap along with his gray clothes (you can see where that's going), his leaving his home virtually defenseless when horrific battles are occuring just miles away, and the baffling conclusion son Glenn Corbett comes to upon seeing the decimated troop his father kept him from joining.

In fact, I found myself at the end less moved by the power of the story and more irritated as to how Stewart's character, despite his ego, determination, and self-righteousness could not see that had he simply told the kid to take that hat off, none of the tragedy in the story would have happened. I generally prefer older movies because they're so much smarter and more natural than newer ones -- but not this time.

Stewart and the rest of the cast are quite good, though Patrick Wayne is so toothy in his role that you might be torn between sorrow and relief by the ultimate fate of his character. And, despite its thematic heaviness, the film often has much lighter moments more appropriate for a Disney film, which ironically may be what finally holds everything together. Watch for a young Katherine Ross in a supporting role, and try to ignore some of the historical liberties. (While I'd give the film five stars for its performances, the brainlessness of the plot knocks it down to three.)

Naturally Native [DVD-2000] by Red Horse Native Productions

Average customer rating:

Naturally Native [DVD-2000] by Red Horse Native Productions

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Edge of America
Skins
Pow Wow Highway
Smoke Signals
Dreamkeeper

Product Features:

Winner of several noted awards.
Produced by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.

ASIN: B000OSLBZQ

Product Description

Naturally Native follows the lives, loves, pain, joy and relationships of three sisters as they attempt to start their own business. Of American Indian ancestry, but adopted by a Caucasian foster mother as young children, each sister has her own identity issues and each has chosen a very different career path. Now dedicated to starting a Native cosmetic business, they attempt to overcome obstacles both in the business world and in the home. A touching love story of family and culture.

Average customer rating:

Shenandoah Valley of the Virginias

Manufacturer: Finley-Holiday Film Corp.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

DVD Extra - Shenandoah Valley Quiz
DVD Extra - Photo Gallery
DVD Extra - Top 20 Things To Do
DVD Extra - 1950's Travelogue

ASIN: B000ES2EPW

Product Description

Shenandoah National Park & Skyline Drive This broadcast-quality DVD tours 200-mile-long Shenandoah Valley and its majestic Blue Ridge Mountains. From the heights of Shenandoah National Park to the depths of Luray Caverns, discover why Shenandoah Valley is known as the crowning glory of the Virginias. Scenic & Historical Highlights The countryside is steeped in American history where famous men like George Washington, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and President Woodrow Wilson worked and lived. The towns and historic sites still reflect Virginia's proud pioneer heritage. Appalachian Crafts & Music Here, you'll explore fantastic caverns, enjoy the autumn pageantry along Skyline Drive and explore the mountain folklore of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visit battlefields and museums and retrace Civil War campaigns.

Average customer rating:

Underappreciated classic
Not history but sure is entertainment - contains spoilers
It Never Gets Old
A moving semi-western with excellent performances and well-controlled mood...
Saved By Performances and Disney-esque Sentimentality

Shenandoah [Region 2]
Starring: James Stewart , Doug McClure , Glenn Corbett , Patrick Wayne , and Rosemary Forsyth
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Friendly Persuasion
Spencer's Mountain
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Winchester '73
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ASIN: B0002K10LG

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Underappreciated classic.......2007-04-05

Not history but sure is entertainment - contains spoilers.......2007-02-12

It Never Gets Old.......2006-12-02

A moving semi-western with excellent performances and well-controlled mood..........2006-11-06

Saved By Performances and Disney-esque Sentimentality.......2006-08-27

Average customer rating:

Eastern National Parks & Historic Sites

Manufacturer: Finley-Holiday Film Corp.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

DVD Extra - Living History
DVD Extra - Eastern Parks Music Video
DVD Extra - Wildlife Featurette
DVD Extra - History Quiz & Nature Quiz
DVD Extra - National Parks Photo Gallery

ASIN: B000EIYFFO

Product Description

America's eastern national parks and historic sites are special. These are places where people and time come together to create a rich and varied tapestry of national experience. You can discover mile-high mountains, wild seashores, stories of war for independence and war among ourselves, and Liberty's welcome reach across New York Harbor to the world. Enjoyable. Comforting. Never ordinary. Often unforgettable. From Acadia to Everglades, from Jamestown to Vicksburg, join with us now as we explore some of these extraordinary places.

Average customer rating:

Shenandoah Valley of the Virginias

Manufacturer: Finley-Holiday Film Corp.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

DVD Extra - Shenandoah Valley Quiz
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ASIN: B000EMBO3G

Product Description

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