Tough Guys of Action 20 Movie Pack

Beat the Devil An international group of crooks are headed to East Africa under the auspices of selling vacuum cleaners to buy land reportedly loaded with uranium. In a cult classic satirical style their many misadventures and double-crossings end with them facing extermination by an Arab firing squad.Swap TheIn a story of disillusionment murder and revenge Sam (Robert De Nero) is a man who is investigating the death of his brother and desperately hunting for his killer.BLOOD ON THE SUN Nick Condon (James Cagney) stars as an American editor of a pre-WWII Tokyo newspaper. After the murder of two of his best friends he suspects the "peaceful" Japanese government is corrupt. Targeted and betrayed Condon tries to foil the Japanese plans and stay alive while doing so.BOXER THE Although a threat of victory will end in the murder of his manager / trainer Nick Boxer Teddy Wilcox (Robert Blake) wins his first fight. When Nick shows up dead Wilcox is the primary suspect and must try to clear his name and find Nick's real killer.THE KLANSMAN In a small town begrudgingly facing the effects of the Civil Rights Movement a young white woman is violently raped. The white town fathers immediately declare that the attacker had to be black and blame Garth a young black man who takes to the woods as the Klansmen start hunting him down.THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL Johnnie a prizefighter is unwittingly involved in a murder and unable to prove his innocence quits boxing and flees to a ranch in Arizona run by an old lady as a work farm for delinquent teenagers. He falls in love with Peggy and became the "teenagers" hero. But a New York Detective is still on the hunt for the fleeing boxer.GOLD Rod Slater (Roger Moore) is the newly appointed general manager of the country's largest gold mine Sonderditch. He quickly stumbles across a despicable scheme to control the international price of gold with a plan to sabotage the mine by drilling into an underground lake. Can Product Description

Not action films exactly but plenty of tough guys

There are too many films to go in depth on and most of them frankly are crap. They are not action packed films as the box promises and many of them are old films shot in black and white, and made for T.V. movies. I will discuss the notable ones in terms of genuine quality and entertainment value. Agency is actually a pretty entertaining film starring Lee Majors and Robert Mitchum. Mitchum is a mysterious political advisor who has just bought out a major advertising company that Majors works for. It is believed that he is splicing in subliminal messages for the political candidates he endorses. One of the things that makes this film works is a brief but very good performance from veteran character actor Saul Rubinek as one of Major's coworkers and a major conspiracy theorist who is eventually bumped off by Mitchum. The ads that Mitchum uses as the platform for his political views like the opening deodorant commercial No Sweat are hilarious. Thieves of Fortune is the last film that Lee Van Cleef ever appeared in and is easily the most embarrassing thing he has been associated with since his television show The Master. He dies in the first ten minutes so the rest of the film is an attractive woman disguised as a man trying to inherit his fortune. Death Rage is a pretty entertaining Italian crime film starring Yul Brynner, Barbara Bouchet, and Martin Balsam. Brynner is a hitman pulled out of retirement to kill the men who killed his brother. This is an edited version of the film unfortunately. Rogue Male was a very solid film made for the BBC starring Peter O Toole as an aristocrat who attempts to assassinate Hitler who is captured and brutally tortured by the Germans. He is forced to go underground and elude the Germans who are after him. A Farewell to Arms and Snows of Kilimanjaro are both based on Ernest Hemingway novels and are two of the higlights of the box. Both are autobiographical with Arms being about the love of a soldier with a nurse during the war and the soldier's best friend who schemes to keep the two apart. Kilimanjaro stars Gregory Peck as a wounded failed novelist who is not expected to make it through the night so he uses his last hours to reflect on the women in his life (including Ava Gardner) and his failures as a writer. Gold is not the Roger Moore film advertised on the box but rather another film called Gold made in the 30's. The Klansman stars Lee Marvin and Richard Burton and was written and disowned by Sam Fuller. Unfortunately this is a heavily edited version so the rape and racism that are essential to the story are practically nonexistent so it is often very hard to follow. Still one of the highlights of the box though. The Swap is a very early effort from one Robert De Niro. He plays an editor on porn films who is killed because of one of the performers in the adult film. His very few scenes are extremely entertaining and much funnier than anything in Analyze That. His mustache alone deserves special mention. Beat The Devil is the most critically acclaimed out of the box appearing on Roger Ebert's Great Film's List. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, was written by Truman Capote, and directed by John Huston. It is a comedy and a spoof on films like the Maltese Falcon and such. Some very witty lines by Capote and expected good direction from Huston. Bogart is very funny and good as the cynical guy who is trying to get land and uranium it is too bad he hated the film since it was not successful and he lost money on the deal since he produced it. They Made Me A Criminal was a very entertaining film starring John Garfield and Claude Rains and directed by Busby Berkely. Garfield is wrongly accused of murdering his manager and hides out at an orphanage which houses the Dead End Kids and is pursued relentlessly by Claude Rains. The other tough guys assembled here do well for the most part even if their films are not that great. Jimmy Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Sidney Poitier fall into this category. Their films are not as bad as some of the others. The Robert Blake one is terrible but true to life as he is accused of a murder and tries to act like a really tough guy even as the cops are closing in on him. Fans of Nick Nolte will be disappointed by his film here as he is in it for no more than three scenes, and finally Telly Savalas battles the bald and raspy voiced villain from the Godfather 2 over the illegal smuggling and use of underage Mexican workers in slaughterhouses in Border Cop. In closing there are some very well made films here some crappy films that nonetheless have good acting and some truly terrible films. In other words what you would expect from a Brentwood box. January 28, 2008

Half action

TOUGH GUYS OF ACTION might be better described as "Action Stars in Other Genres," for only half of these 20 titles are legitimate action movies.

The two based on Hemingway stories ("Farewell to Arms and "Snows of Kilimanjaro") are melodrama/romances. The Bogart film ("Beat the Devil") fits just about every category BUT action. "Death Sentence" is a courtroom drama, "They Made Me a Criminal" a crime story. The DeNiro film's a drama, as are the Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier movies. Jack Palance appears in a horror/mystery story.

In spite of a technical misnomer, this DVD box set offers literally dozens of fine performers in mostly lesser-known films. The price for over 31 hours of entertainment is quite fair and BCI's audio and video transfers of these unrestored movies uniformly decent.


For action film fans, Rule of the Gun 20 Movie Pack (from MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT) would complement this collection nicely.

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Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

(5.2) Agency (Canada-1980) - Robert Mitchum/Lee Majors/Valerie Perrine/Saul Rubinek
(6.5) Beat the Devil (UK/USA/Italy-1953) - Humphrey Bogart/Jennifer Jones/Gina Lollobrigida/Robert Morley/Peter Lorre
(6.3) Blood on the Sun (1945) - James Cagney/Sylvia Sidney/Robert Armstrong/Wallace Ford/Rosemary DeCamp/Hugh Beaumont (uncredited)
(5.0) Border Cop ("The Border") (UK-1979) - Telly Savalas/Eddie Albert/Michael V. Gazzo
(3.6) Border Shootout (1990) - Charlene Tilton (Glenn Ford/Michael Ansara in bit parts)
(4.4) The Boxer (Italy-1972) - Robert Blake/Ernest Borgnine
(4.8) Death Rage (Italy-1976) - Yul Brynner/Martin Balsam
(5.2) Death Sentence (TV-1974) - Nick Nolte/Cloris Leachman/Laurence Luckinbill/Alan Oppenheimer/William Schallert
(6.5) A Farewell to Arms (1932) - Gary Cooper/Helen Hayes/Adolphe Menjou
(5.5) Gold (UK-1974) - Roger Moore/Susannah York/Ray Milland/Bradford Dillman/John Gielgud
(4.3) The Klansman (1974) - Lee Marvin/Richard Burton/Cameron Mitchell/O.J. Simpson/Lola Falana/Linda Evans
(6.0) Man in the Attic (1953) - Jack Palance/Constance Smith/Frances Bavier/Rhys Williams
(6.3) Marie Galante (1934) - Spencer Tracy/Ned Sparks/Helen Morgan/Sig Ruman
(4.3) The Mark of the Hawk (USA/UK-1957) - Sidney Poitier/Eartha Kitt/John McIntire
(6.5) Quicksand (1950) - Mickey Rooney/Jeanne Cagney/Peter Lorre/Minerva Urecal/Jimmie Dodds
(6.9) Rogue Male (TV-UK-1976) - Peter O'Toole/John Standing/Alastair Sim/Harold Pinter
(6.3) The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) - Gregory Peck/Susan Hayward/Ava Gardner/Leo G. Carroll
(3.5) The Swap ("Sam's Song") (1969) - Robert DeNiro/Jennifer Warren
(7.0) They Made Me a Criminal (1939) - John Garfield/Dead End Kids/Claude Rains/Ann Sheridan
(4.9) Thieves of Fortune (USA/S Africa-1990) - Lee Van Cleef/Liz Torres/Michael Nouri December 28, 2007

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