Editorial Review

Novelist James Clavell wrote, produced, and directed this 1967 British film (based on a novel by E.R. Braithwaite) about a rookie teacher who throws out stock lesson plans and really takes command of his unruly, adolescent students in a London school. Poitier is very good as a man struggling with the extent of his commitment to the job, and even more as a teacher whose commitment is to proffering life lessons instead of academics. The spirit of this movie can be found in such recent films as Read more

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Reviews (70)

To Sir, With Love
Awesome Movie...When Nothing Else Will Do...Giving Your Heart...To Sir, With Love
Epitomy of "Class" - Sidney Poitier
An outstanding performance by Sidney Poitier in this 1966 film. Sidney stars as Mark Thackeray. An engineering job market hasn't panned out for him, and he somewhat reluctantly takes a teaching position in a working-class London high school. His students are out of control and must be tamed. Ultimately, we can smile wondering who learned the most - the students or the teacher.
Video purchasing was never so easy!
The product was delivered in excellent shape. The quality of the video is very good.Sound is clear.For a classic, it is sure to provide us with generations of insight. Arrival of video was on-time. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Diana Ross stars as legendary blues singer Billie Holiday in this biopic that chronicles her rise and fall. It begins with her late childhood, a stint as a prostitute, those early days as a blues singer, her marriages, and her drug addiction. Overly glossy and lacking depth, this is worth seeing only for the performances. Diana Ross was nominated for an Oscar for her acting debut. A dynamo with sparkling screen presence, she realistically conveys the confusion and unhappiness that caused Holiday so much grief. Her performance is almost matched by romantic interest Billy Dee Williams. Watch for Richard Pryor, who is most powerful in a dramatic supporting role as the piano player in a brothel. Read more

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Reviews (83)

RIVETING SUPREME CLASSIC~BRAVO DIANA!!!
By the early 70's jazz legend Billie Holiday had been gone for over a decade and her harrowing life was truly an incredible story that was bound to hit the big screen...my first choice to play Lady Day was another magnificent Jazz/Soul/Pop legend Nancy Wilson who had just turned in a passionate and impressive "guest star" performance of a singer all strung out on one of the popular television dramatic series...looked like she was a shoo-in for that plum role but it was Diana who had Berry Gordy and at that moment that was the ticket!Being a huge fan of Motown music I was less than thrilled though when I heard that Diana Ross was going to portray the troubled and brilliant jazz legend but out of curiosity ran to see "Lady Sings The Blues" the week of its release and was totally impressed with the drama and pathos created by the great performances contained in this ground-breaking motion picture that also made a romantic leading man out of Billy Dee Williams plus Richard Pryor gives a winning performance as well.Diana Ross is simply tremendous and amazing to watch in this moody atmospheric motion picture classic that still holds up today as an engrossing drama of a singer who had brilliant and uniquely original talent but made all the wrong choices in life...Bravo to everyone involved with this earthy and deeply moving and yes somewhat troubling and disturbing classic!!! Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli both gave magnificent career defining performances the same year and these grand and legendary performers should have gone on to greater heights in motion pictures but a burned-out Hollywood no longer knew how to put together great projects for great female talent and this sadly still holds true today!Since the 70's a legendary screen career such as a Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, etc. would not or could not have happened and this is a sad loss to the audience and those many artists whose career's have floundered with their wonderful talent left untapped...Hollywood in many ways has really lost the way and movies today look and feel completely fake and manufactured..."Lady Sings The Blues" is from another era where talent for the most part reined supreme and this era is sadly gone and would take nothing short of a miracle for it to return.

Lady Sings the Blues
Lady Sings the Blues is a must for people who like the oldies to include movies that tells a story and leaves a lesson for the viewers.A must for old movie collectors.

Great!
Lady is one of my favorite movies - and the one I ordered is flawless - I really enjoyed watching it and will for sometime to come!! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Movie    3. Musical Features    4. Musicals   

Editorial Review

This 1958 variation on Huck Finn's adventures with Jim finds a white convict (Tony Curtis) chained to a black convict (Sidney Poitier) as they both escape their captors. With each man literally stuck with the other, racial conflicts take a back seat to survival. Directed by Stanley Kramer (Read more

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Reviews (14)

Black and white fight and run
A black and white movie about a hateful pair of black and white convicts struggling for their lives and against each other. During the era of the film in the South, it is amazing that a black man would touch a white -- let alone be chained to him with a defiant attitude. What is more remarkable than the intense hatred and out-and-out fist fight is the bond that forms between this unlikely pair as they flee for their lives after a prison break. Pushing personal differences asside, they must learn to rely upon one another or die trying.
"That's a hell of a way to live- you keep quiet all your life and the only time youopen your mouth is when you're dying."
The Defiant Ones is one of the great American films. Released in 1958, this starkly filmed story of two convicts on the run for their freedom evokes powerful emotions for the viewer. Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are wonderful in their roles and display a level of screen chemistry that has been sadly lacking in contemporary films. It is hard to say which one is better due to their very different but equally powerful performance. As one might expect, the two cons start out hating each other, but slowly develop a grudging respect for one another as they learn about the others life and eventually a kind of friendship is formed. The secondary story concerns the posse on their trail and the friction that develops amongst them as the chase goes on. Cara Williams is memorable as the woman that Curtis cares for while on the run and is the character that causes a change in his attitude that leads directly to the bittersweet ending. Theodore Bikel is also very accomplished as the beleagered Sheriff and Lon Chaney Jr. is very good as a townsman who has a special reason for aiding the 2 cons in their escape.The Defiant Ones is a great film that almost 50 years later still prods us with the reminder that YES, WE CAN learn to overcome our differences over race and live with and care for each other. Both Curtis and Poitier are at the top of their game here and each received an Academy Award nomination deservedly. A final note: watch the last scene and decide for yourself- was it an accident or did one friend make a sacrifice for another?

Bonding Under Pressure
The Defiant Ones
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Actress Kasi Lemmons made an auspicious debut as a writer and director with this delicately handled, wrenchingly emotional drama, hailed by critic Roger Ebert as one of the best films of 1997. Read more

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Reviews (52)

"I need to be a hero."
As this wonderful movie opens, we enter the world of Eve's Bayou, the Louisiana home of ten-year old Eve (Jurnee Smollett) and her charming, philandering father Louis (Samuel L. Jackson), her glamorous and superstitious mother, her psychic aunt (Debbi Turner), and her big sister who idolizes Daddy as much as Eve does. The narrator's opening line concerns a murder, and we wait for this terrible event to occur.
Big Present in a Small Package
Eve's Bayou is an incredible film about a family struggling to keep family together.Eve's Bayou is a town founded by a freed slave.Our heroine is named after her predecessor.
My favorite movie EVER!!!!
Kasi Lemmons is phenomenal as director, she also wrote it! The movie is well acted and written. Oscar worthy performances by Jurnee Smollett and Samuel L. Jackson. Excellent cast, Debbi Morgan owned the role of Mozelle! Jurnee Smollett really evolves into a great actress!
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

Director Norman Jewison's (Read more

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Reviews (17)

One of my favorites
This movie is a must have for your home collection.
Our Nation's Story
A Soldier's Story simply has everything working for it, and the result is a frequently overlooked masterpiece that will add depth to any collection of American film.It works as a murder mystery and it works as an astounding inside look into cultural psychology.Certainly the themes of racism - and self-hatred - are universal.But this snapshot of southern race relations in 1944, seen in a military context, is also very specific, and more powerful still because of this specificity.
Aphenomenal Cast
This movie will be listed as an all time great.
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Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

This 1967 film took home lots of Oscars for its fascinating drama about a Philadelphia detective (Sidney Poitier) who assists a redneck Southern sheriff (Rod Steiger) in solving a murder. A study in racism that ebbs a bit through the collective and shared need between a black man and a white man who don't want to be working together, the film continues to strike a chord today. Steiger is a mass of snarling danger, Poitier a bundle of nerves covered in class. Norman Jewison (Read more

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Reviews (53)

Still great fun due to the Poitier-Steiger pairing...
The racism in this film may be a bit dated now, even in the deep south, where blacks holding high positions in police work is no longer a novelty. The movie, however, still holds my attention when I find it on television, although I must have seen it 20 times since its first release. I like Steiger's work best, but Sidney is also at a high level here. The supporting cast is uniformly good as well. If you have never seen this, take a rental and enjoy yourself. The film's success eventually led to a multi-season TV series starring Carroll O'Connor, and that had some good moments, too, but never equalled the big screen version.

Vintage classic 60's film on racial tensions with superb acting.
In The Heat Of The Night (1967) Rod Steiger and Sydney Poitier team up in study of racial politics in a sleepy Southern town. Steiger won an Oscar as the prejudiced lawman who begins to question his own motives after being outclassed by Poitier during a difficult murder investigation. Watch closely when Steiger evolves from a racist bigot (which he never really was, deep in his heart) to a man who trusts a "colored" enough to pour out his alcoholic-soiled soul to Tibbs,this is the heart-cliching scene which nabbed Steiger the Golden Prize.
Cinema Milestone and Entertaining Movie
Winner of best picture for 1967, In The Heat of The Night may have just been another crime thriller or murder mystery, but the profound and topical Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie   

Editorial Review

From the era when American films almost never put black characters at the center of a movie, Read more

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Reviews (6)

Bravo!!
A wonderful film that stands the test of time. Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln shine!I'm glad I have this in my collection!

A Great Film
I first saw "Nothing But a Man" on public TV about 35 years ago when I was in high school.I never forgot it.I was very happy to learn of its release on tape in the 1990s and now its availability on DVD.Terrific acting, and a tight script.Unlike so many Hollywood movies, you have to pay attention to the details in this one.It's in my personal Top 50 films of all time.

Classic
Beautiful Film that captures the angst of all Black Men and their relationships even until today. With the root cause ever so obvious. Nothing has changed, its just more subtle these days. ... Read more

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Reviews (3)

It captured a moment in time
Everything in this movie is a metaphor to encase its statement in an entertaining venue.People are singing in the full sanctuary of St. Peter's Episcopal Church while Park's barber shop is selling baths, shaves and hair cuts two blocks away.And a crowd seen only on Saturday afternoon populates the town square of Jefferson.The Oxford town square was dead on Sunday's and the church was empty on Saturday's.
Intruder in the Dust
The movie "Intruder in the Dust" takes some liberties in changing the details, but the storyline remains consistent with the book.Faulkner (and the movie) included some over-the-top social-statement lines -- an unheard of thing for the times, but effective.Movie is very good on several levels.

Can justice be served or will there be a lynching?
Based on a novel by William Faulkner, and filmed in 1949 in black and white, this is the story of an African American man wrongly accused of murder in a small Southern town.Actually filmed in Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner's hometown, and using local residents as extras, there's a ring of authenticity about it.Read more

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Editorial Review

Pam Grier, the voluptuous queen of blaxploitation movies (and the foxy title character of Quentin Tarantino's Read more

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Reviews (14)

Foxy Brown Rocks!
This is a great 70's movie! Pam Grier looks beautiful and plays this tough girl part perfect. I love the music and Intro to this film along with the cool clothes! This is a fun movie to watch lots of laughs. I loved it when Foxy pulled the gun out of her Afro, she is too cool! She is like Charlies Angels and Police Woman, Girl Power!

Grier is outstanding in this crime thriller
"That's my sister, baby--and she's a whole lotta woman!" That's how one character sums up the title character in "Foxy Brown," a crime thriller written and directed by Jack Hill. Pam Grier plays the title character, whom the title song promises is "super bad." Hardly a Great Film, But Enjoyable and Action-Packed
With better direction and acting, I think *Foxy Brown* could have been an awesome film. As it stands, it's pretty much just a decent plot filled with distractions caused by a parade of terrible acting and outrageous '70s fashion (the latter of which, however, is really almost reason enough to see the film).Read more

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Editorial Review

Raw, jagged, and explosively angry, Read more

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Reviews (43)

Vile
I have to tap into my memory banks to recall a more repulsive film.I came up with "I Spit On Your Grave".Director-star Melvin Van Peebles has the audacity to pawn off his nihilistic fantasies as wish fullfilment for the black population as a whole.There were a lot of artistic triumphs to emerge from so-called "black expoitation" genre and this is not one of them.This collage of violently misogynistic images can be attributed to the auteur himself.The film starts with Van Peebles exploiting his son Mario by showing the adolescent servicing a prostitute.The film goes downward from there.Van Peebles directorial style is hackneyed and the acting is amateur hour.Don't be fooled into thinking this is some sort of landmark film.It's unadulterated [...]

You Had To Be There
Made for a pittance, initially released in just two theaters, ultimately grossing over ten million dollars, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" became the progenitor of the "Blaxploitation" film craze of the seventies. Considered a seminal film in African-American cinema, Director Van Peebles feels it influenced the independent film movement as a whole. Its jazzy editing and strong hero set it miles apart from the standard fare - one can see how African-American audiences could see this film as a long-overdue cinematic thunderbolt.
skully
SWEETBACK WAS THE ORIGINATOR OF THE BLAXPLOITATION GENRE!!Look!Lets be real, Sweetback wasn't that great a movie.However it spawned a movement of Black cinema.How are you going to like films like Coffy and Shaft if you aren't going to acknowledge the movie that started it all.Before Sweetback we had only one star, Poitier. Poitier was fading because the new generation didn't think he was militant enough. To us Poitier was the good negro, a Uncle Tom.We needed a film that would represent the times. YES!! Police brutality was happening. It wasn't something that was made up. YES!!! the new generation was different from previous generation and we was fed up with the system. The film didn't have great cinematography,nor a great script,nor great direction, but it did speak for the millions of angry,youngminorities who felt they didn't have a voice.Whats worse we had some rich minorities who condemned the film but didn't have the guts to put the capital together to put out a better film that spoke to their people. So go ahead a write all the bad reviews that you want about Sweetback,butif it wasn't for Melvin Van Peebles you wouln't heard of Pam Grier (who we all love) and Richard Roundtree and Fred Williamson.Hollywood blackballed (yes this existalso) Melvin van Peebles, but used his formula to make millions of dollars. GOD BLESS MELVIN VAN PEEBLES ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Drama    2. Feature Film-drama    3. Movie    4. bargain_vhs   

Editorial Review

The first film directed by Vincente Minnelli (who directed the original Broadway version), this musical offers its pleasures, but also may make you squirm at the racial stereotypes that were considered both acceptable and entertaining in 1943. A story of the struggle between good and evil for the soul of a man named Little Joe (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson), the film plays with the same kind of racial notions that made Stepin Fetchit a star. Still, there's much to recommend it, particularly performances by some of the greatest musical stars of the day: Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, among others. The film also includes a terrific score, a combination effort by Ellington, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, and E.Y. Harburg that includes the song"Taking a Chance on Love." Read more

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Reviews (31)

Classic Lena Horne!
All black cast in roles that are befitting for them.Lena shined as Georgia Brown,the lady who leads Rodchester astray. She was the Rita Hayworth of the 1940s!

The Good News message.
Lord knows the trials dark skin people have been subjected to since about Day One,,,,
A Treasure!
"Cabin in the Sky" is remarkable for how undated it is...considering it is a segregated movie.You wouldn't know America was peopled by anything but African Americans by watching this move.
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