Warner Classics Mega Collection (1970)

This is it. The ultimate gift for the ultimate movie lover. The greatest classics of all time from the world's largest, and most heralded film library. Warner Home Video and Amazon.com bring you an unprecedented mega-set of the most beloved and popular classic films of all time from the venerable studio's unparalleled potpourri of Hollywood essentials. All the great stars, the great moments, the most lauded and treasured films of all time, in one mind-boggling assemblage of cinematic greatness.. From Bogart's unforgettable romance with Ingrid Bergman in CASABLANCA, to his on-screen and off-screen love affair with Lauren Bacall, in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, Gene Kelly's incredible singin' and dancin' in the rain, to GWTW's Scarlett and Rhett, the swashbuckling adventures of Errol Flynn, the irresistible sleuthing of Powell and Loy in the Thin Man series, Charlton Heston's Oscar-winning chariot race against Stephen Boyd in BEN-HUR, the inspired lunacy of the Marx Bros., Orson Welles as Citizen Kane, Rosalind Russell as AUNTIE MAME. or Fred & Ginger at their very best. It's all here. Essential gangster classics, spectacular musicals, screwball comedies, mysteries, romances, & grand epics that define moviemaking. The Warner library draws not only from its own 80+ years of amazing films, but also all the pre-1986 films of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the RKO library, and several classics from independent producers. This group of specially selected classics has been brought together as an instant DVD library of the best films ever made, digitally remastered and painstakingly restored, and as is the hallmark of Warner Home Video releases, most of the titles come with a plethora of exciting extras. Fascinating behind-the-scenes documentaries, star biographies, vintage shorts, cartoons, featurettes, trailers, newsreels, and everything that has critics referring to Warner Home Video as the company that sets the "gold standard" for classic film presentations on DVD. Now their very best can be yours, to have and hold forever. Titles are:

42nd Street	Freaks	Objective Burma
Adventures of Robin Hood, The: Special Edition	Friendly Persuasion	Ocean's 11 (1960)
Advise and Consent	Fury	On the Town
Alice Adams	Gaslight	Operation Pacific
An American in Paris	Giant 2-Disc SE	Out of the Past
The Americanization of Emily	Gigi	Petrified Forest
Anchors Aweigh	Glass Bottom Boat	Philadelphia Story Two-Disc SE
Angels with Dirty Faces	Gold Rush, The	Please Don't Eat the Daisies
Anna Christie	Gone with the Wind 4-Disc Edition	Possessed '47
Anna Karenina	Goodbye Mr. Chips	The Prince and the Pauper
Annie Get Your Gun	Grand Hotel	The Prince and the Showgirl
Asphalt Jungle, The	Great Dictator, The	Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex
Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, The	Great Ziegfeld	Public Enemy
Bad Day at Black Rock	Gun Crazy	Queen Christina
The Band Wagon Two-Disc SE	Gunga Din	Random Harvest
The Barkleys of Broadway	Harvey Girls, The	Rebel without a Cause Two-Disc SE
Bells are Ringing	High Sierra	Rio Bravo
Ben Hur 4-Disc Edition	Horror of Dracula	The Roaring '20s
The Big Sleep	House of Wax (1953)	Robin and the Seven Hoods
Billy Rose's Jumbo	Humoresque	Scaramouche
Blackboard Jungle	Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939	The Sea Chase
Blood Alley	I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang	The Sea Hawk
Born to Kill	I Confess	Searchers, The
Boys Town	I Remember Mama	Set-up, The (1949)
Bridgadoon	In the Good Old Summertime	Shall We Dance (1937)
Bringing Up Baby Two-Disc SE	Jezebel	Shop Around the Corner
Butterfield 8	Key Largo	Show Boat
Camille	Kid, The	Singing' in the Rain Two-Disc SE
Captain Blood	Kim	Son of Lassie
Casablanca 2-Disc SE	King in New York/Woman in Paris, A	Stage Door
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	King Kong 2-Disc SE	Stage Fright
Chaplin Revue	King of Kings	Stagecoach
Christmas Carol 1938	Lassie Come Home	The Star (1953)
Christmas in Connecticut 1945	Libeled Lady	Star is Born, A (1954)
The Cincinnati Kid	Limelight	Story of Sea Biscuit
Circus, The	Little Caesar	Strangers on a Train: Special Edition
Citizen Kane 2-Disc SE	Love Finds Andy Hardy	Suspicion
City Lights	Love in the Afternoon	Swing Time
Clash By Night	Love Me or Leave Me	Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Courage of Lassie	Lullaby of Broadway	Tall in the Saddle
Cowboys, The	The Maltese Falcon	Tarzan Collection
Crossfire	The Master of Ballantrae	Taste the Blood of Dracula
Curse of Frankenstein, The	Mata Hari	TCM Archives: Buster Keaton
The Damned Don't Cry	McQ	TCM Archives: Lon Chaney
Dark Passage	Mildred Pierce	That's Entertainment I
Dark Victory	Mister Roberts	That's Entertainment II
Day at the Races, A	Modern Times	That's Entertainment III
Days of Wine and Roses	Monsieur Verdoux	Them!
Designing Woman	Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)	They Died with their Boots on
Destination Tokyo	Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House	They Drive By Night
Dial M for Murder	Mr. Skeffington	The Thin Man Collection
Dillinger	Mrs. Miniver	To Be or Not to Be
Dinner at Eight	Mummy, The (1959)	To Have and Have Not
Doctor Zhivago 2-Disc S	Murder, My Sweet	Top Hat
Dodge City	Mutiny on the Bounty 1935	The Train Robbers
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	My Fair Lady 2-Disc SE	Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The: Special Edition
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave	My Favorite Wife	The Unsinkable Molly Brown
East of Eden Two-Disc SE	Narrow Margin	Where The Boys Are
Easter Parade Two-Disc SE	National Velvet	White Heat
Face in the Crowd	Never So Few	The Wizard of Oz Two-Disc SE
Father of the Bride	Night and Day	The Women
Finian's Rainbow	Night at the Opera, A	The Wrong Man
Follow the Fleet	Night in Casablanca, A	Yankee Doodle Dandy: Special Edition
For Me and My Gal	Ninotchka	The Yearling
Foreign Correspondent	North By Northwest	Young Man with a Horn
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed	Now Voyager	Ziegfeld Girl

Great collection, but for whom is it practical?

I've examined this set carefully, and it seems Warner went boxed-set wild on this one and pretty much unboxed the following sets to produce this collection:

Astaire & Rogers Collection Volume 1
Bogie & Bacall - The Signature Collection
The Chaplin Collection Volume 1
Classic Comedies Collection
Classic Musicals Collection - Broadway to Hollywood
Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory
Controversial Classics Collection
Cary Grant Signature Collection
The Doris Day Collection 1
The Elizabeth Taylor Signature Collection
The Errol Flynn Signature Collection Volume 1
Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 1
Film Noir Collection Volume 2
Garbo - The Signature Collection
Hammer Horror Collection
Humphrey Bogart - The Signature Collection Volume 1
The Complete James Dean Collection
The Joan Crawford Collection
John Wayne Signature Collection
Judy Garland Signature Collection
Lassie Collection
Warner Bros. Classic Holiday Collection
Warner Gangsters Collection

This is in addition to the actual collections they mention. Thus you can look at these individual collections and see if it is to your liking. Most all of the sets seemed to have favorable ratings. There are also some odds and ends, but overall, I didn't see any real duds. I also didn't see much past the year 1970 with most of the films concentrated in the years 1930-1960, so this is mainly for someone who likes early classic cinema. February 26, 2007

A great beginning

As a big movie buff and collector, and a big Warners fan, this is a great collection. God knows that I have spent more than $1500 collecting movies. Some people have criticised the cost, but, this is clearly designed for people like me, who are big collectors. Spending $1500 on this is no different than people who spend $1500 on a Steiff animal or porcelin dolls.

The only disappointment is that Warners has YET to put the movie that really made Warners a major player on DVD, The legendary "Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson. that one disc would complete my collection of the AFI top 100 films of all time. I'm really missing that classic. So, please Warner, if you see this, release the great 1927 classic and complete my collection. November 14, 2005

It's ok....I guess...

but come on...there's not ONE David Lynch film here, not ONE John Waters film here, not ONE film by the Cohen Brothers, and, where's films like FAT GUY GOES NUTZOID or BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA? Where's the movies from the Big Dwarf Rodeo? Ok, I suppose, if you've got the scratch to drop, and the hours upon hours to spend to watch some of these hacknied movies, then knock yourself out. November 10, 2005

Just sickening

Sure all the movies on there are great, and wow what a chance to get them all, but come on, this is absolutely sickening. The ultimate gift for the movie buff? With the list price of 4 grand, and the Amazon price at a grand and a half, it'd be cheaper to slap the movie buff who puts this on his xmas list. Seriously, there's no way anyone who buys this can say the economy's bad if they've got 1.5 thousand dollars to blow on something so meaningless. I'm for splitting that package up into about 4 or 5 sets, lower the price and viola! You're not a glutton for buying one of them at a time. Perhaps I'm the only one in this consumer day and age who doesn't find this to be a deal of the century, but rather one of the sickest displays of commercialism I've seen. November 6, 2005

Quite a Collection of About 198 Films

The "Warner Classics Mega Collection" certainly contains a large number of classic films. Some of my favorites that are contained within this massive 198-film collection include the following:

* The classic children's tale of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) starring Judy Garland (1922-1969)

* The Civil War drama of "Gone With the Wind" (1939) starring Clark Gable (1901-1960) and Vivien Leigh (1913-1967)

* The Roman/first-century story of "Ben-Hur" (1959) starring Charlton Heston

* The classic musical of "My Fair Lady" (1964) starring Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993), Rex Harrison (1908-1990) and Wilfrid Hyde-White (1903-1991)

* The gripping story set in Russia circa World War 1 and the Bolshevik Revolution of "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie

* The film based upon Ernest Hemingway's (1899-1961) classic novel "To Have and to Have Not" (1944) starring Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) and Lauren Bacall in her big-screen debut

* The chilling sci-fi/horror film "Them!" (1954) starring James Whitmore and Joan Weldon

* The comedy "The Glass Bottom Boat" (1944) starring Doris Day and Rod Taylor

* The classic musical "Top Hat" (1935) starring Fred Astaire (1899-1987) and Ginger Rogers (1911-1995)

* The hilarious "To Be or Not to Be" (1942) starring Jack Benny (1894-1974) and Carole Lombard (1908-1942)

* The extremely funny "A Day at the Races" (1937) starring Groucho Marx (1890-1997), Harpo Marx (1888-1964), Chico Marx (1887-1961) and Margaret Dumont (1882-1965)

* The Equally funny "A Night at the Opera" (1935) also starring the Marx brothers and Margaret Dumont

* The chilling original version of "A Christmas Carol" (1938) starring Reginald Owen (1887-1972)

* The exciting "Blood Alley" (1955) starring John Wayne (1907-1979) and Lauren Bacall

Of course, this is but a small percentage of the total number of films contained in the "Warner Classics Mega Collection". Other well-known films include "Casablanca", "King Kong", "The Maltese Falcon", "Singin' in the Rain", "Rebel without a Cause", "Gigi", "The Searchers", "Giant" and "Rio Bravo" just to name a few more.

The advantage of purchasing such a large set of DVD's is that you never have to worry about purchasing them separately. If you're looking to have an instant DVD collection of very enjoyable films, this 198-film library would certainly please many individuals' tastes in film. Of course, if you already own one or more of the DVD's contained in this set, you may not want to duplicate the DVD's that you already have. Also, you might not want to purchase the set if there are films contained within it that you don't want or because of the set's price. Overall, though, the "Warner Classics Mega Collection" is a very interesting mammoth-sized DVD collection that I give a combined rating of 4 out of 5 stars. November 3, 2005

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