For Immediate Release
KINO RELEASES AFT: THE COMPLETE MEGA SET:
A SINGLE 15-DISC BOXSET WITH ALL FILMS FROM THE AMERICAN FILM THEATRE SERIES FEATURING JEFF BRIDGES, JESSICA TANDY, ALAN BATES, IAN HOLM, PAUL SCOFIELD, BRIAN COX, LAURENCE OLIVIER AMONG OTHERS.
Kino International is proud to announce the release of AFT: THE COMPLETE MEGA SET, presenting the entire American Film Theatre collection in one 15-DVD, thincase box set. Originally released in three separate DVD sets in 2003, for a total of $329.95, this exclusive collection of 14 films can now be purchased for $199.95 – almost $130 cheaper.
The finest collection of plays brought to the big screen in the history of American cinema, the AFT films will be re-introduced to the general public in this unprecedented 14-disc set, on July 1, 2008. The prebook date is 3 weeks earlier, on June 8.
The American Film Theatre series was the vision of producer Ely Landau, who challenged film audiences to set their sights on high-quality drama and comedies enacted by top industry talents. Throughout its three years of existence (1973-1975), this groundbreaking series of magnificently crafted films was made available in selected theatres, only for members who purchased a special annual subscription.
As the discs remain the same, all titles in the AFT: THE COMPLETE MEGA SET bring the same exclusive extras, including interviews with Ely Landau, the founder and producer of the American Film Theatre, theatrical trailers, photo galleries with the films’ original posters, original filmed interviews with the likes of Alan Bates (The Homecoming), Edward Albee (Delicate Balace), Tom O'Horgan (Rhinoceros) and Edie Landau (AFT’s Executive in Charge). All discs also come with a special clip of Ely Landau introducing the "second season" of the series.
Here is a complete list of films included in Kino’s AFT: THE COMPLETE MEGA SET:
THE ICEMAN COMETH (2-Disc set)
John Frankenheimer’s THE ICEMAN COMETH, starring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Frederick March and Jeff Bridges
Directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Lee Marvin, Fredric March, Robert Ryan and Jeff Bridges, THE ICEMAN COMETH is considered the definitive cinematic adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s classic play. Set in 1912, New York, at a skid row bar populated by marginal characters–prostitutes, ex-soldiers, and drifters, THE ICEMAN COMETH centers on a series of character sublimating their loneliness with high dosages of alcohol.
Director John Frankenheimer (RONIN, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) successfully translates to the screen the existential dilemmas of O’Neil’s sharp and perceptive work.
THE MAIDS
Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS, starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York
When French novelist Jean Genet started writing for the theatre in the late 1940s, his work was already being championed by the likes of Jean-Paul Satre and Jean Cocteau. Considered as a landmark in the theatre of the absurd, THE MAIDS tells the story of two sisters, Solange (Glenda Jackson) and Claire (Susannah York), who work under the strict rules of their Madame’s (Vivian Merchant) domestic demands. But whenever Madame leaves the house, the sisters engage in a compulsive role-playing psychodrama, acting out their love and hate relationship towards each other and the mistress they serve.
RHINOCEROS
Eugene Ionesco's RHINOCEROUS starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel,
Reunited for the only time after their triumph in Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS, Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel catapult their shared genius for elegant slapstick, manic wit and sly satire to an unmatched level of fearless absurdity. Together with director Tom O'Horgan, originator of the Broadway smash hit HAIR, Mostel and Wilder transforms playwright Eugene Ionesco's Theater Of The Absurd curio RHINOCEROS into a fluid, character-rich screen comedy that The Hollywood Reporter dubbed, "an excellent film."
BUTLEY
Simon Gray’s BUTLEY starring Alan Bates and Jessica Tandy / Directed by Harold Pinter
Ben Butley (Alan Bates) is a narcissistic English Literature professor at a London University who has mastered the art of treating his loved ones with disdain. But as each one of his best friends and wife leave him – on the same day that a much-less talented colleague signs a publishing contract – Butley is forced to face his first life crisis.
Arguably one of the sharpest and most accomplished Post-World War II dramatists, Harold Pinter’s version of Simon Gray’s single-set, dialogue-driven play has been hailed by Time Magazine as "a quite superior directorial debut." Pinter, Bates and Academy-Award Winner Jessica Tandy (DRIVING MISS DAISY) have created a vigorous film; one still embedded with the same verbal sophistication found in Gray’s play.
LUTHER
John Osbourne's LUTHER starring Stacy Keach
One of the most socially revolutionary minds in world history, Martin Luther was the German priest who ignited the Reformation in the 16th century, forever changing the role of religion in western civilization. Staring two-time Golden Globe Winner Stacy Keach as Luther, Leonard Rossiter (THE RISE AND FALL OF REGINALD PERRIN) and Dame Judi Dench (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 007), LUTHER is based on John Osborne’s (“Look Back in Anger”) homonymous play, which explores nearly two decades in the life of this controversial intellectual.
A DELICATE BALANCE
Edward Albee’s A DELICATE BALANCE, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Katherine Hepburn and Paul Scofield,
Three time Oscar® winner Katherine Hepburn (PHILADELPHIA STORY, ADAM'S RIB), Oscar® winner Paul Scofield (A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS) Oscar® nominee Lee Remick (DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES) and Joseph Cotton (CITIZEN KANE) form the core of A DELICATE BALANCE's miraculous, one-night-only dream cast. Acclaimed British director Tony Richardson (TOM JONES) allows these thoroughbreds to explore and discover the full range of conflict and confrontation in Edward Albee's (WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF?) explosive WASP gothic with both appreciative generosity and masterful control.
THE HOMECOMING
Harold Pinter’s THE HOMECOMING, starring Ian Holm and Vivien Merchant / Directed by Peter Hall
Considered by Village Voice theatre critic Michael Feingold as AFT’s “most daring pic,” Harold Pinter’s THE HOMECOMING stars Academy Award Nominees Ian Holm (LORD OF THE RINGS, THE SWEET HEREAFTER, ALIEN) and Vivien Merchant and was directed by acclaimed director Peter Hall (NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS).
The New York Times declared the American Film Theater's production of THE HOMECOMING, "a movie of astounding dynamism." Indeed, director Atom Agoyan (THE SWEET HEREAFTER) went so far as to say, "I often find myself seeking solace from this film. Its poetry and twisted sense of compassion and humor have assuaged many moments of despair and confusion. Other people have religion, I have my copy of THE HOMECOMING."
IN CELEBRATION
David Storey’s IN CELEBRATION starring Alan Bates and Brian Cox,
Utilizing the same brilliant cast as IN CELEBRATION's original highly acclaimed Royal Court Theater run, director Lindsay Anderson (O LUCKY MAN, IF) re-imagines his stage triumph into a riveting cinematic experience.
In their tiny house in a Yorkshire mining town, god fearing and hardworking Mr. and Mrs. Shaw (Bill Owen and Constance Chapman) welcome their sons home to celebrate the Shaw's fortieth wedding anniversary. But with each son's arrival more and more of the Shaw's model blue-collar family façade begins to chip away.
THREE SISTERS
Anton Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright
Nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow, Chekhov's Three Sisters live in virtual exile. Olga (Jeanne Watts), a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings and the home that is the sole legacy of their late army officer father. Masha (Joan Plowright) finds relief from her empty marriage in an affair with a passionate young colonel, played by Alan Bates (Gosford Park, The Cherry Orchard, In Celebration). Irina (Louise Pernell), the youngest, wills herself to return the affections of an ardent suitor in the hopes that he will whisk her off to the city before it is too late. Intoxicated by yesterday's triumphs and heedless of tomorrow's disasters, the Three Sisters are left to sift through the debris of their shattered dreams on the eve of the social and political upheaval that will transform Russia forever.
THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH
Robert Shaw’s THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH, starring Maximillian Schell
Director Arthur Hiller (Love Story, Silver Streak), working from screenwriter Edward Anhalt's (Becket) adaptation, transforms actor-playwright Robert Shaw's The Man in the Glass Booth into a film the Los Angeles Times dubbed, "daring, outrageous, utterly provocative, endlessly ambiguous and strikingly effective."
Millionaire Jewish entrepreneur Arthur Goldman (Maximilian Schell) benevolently rules his financial empire from a penthouse apartment overlooking Manhattan. Seemingly at the edge of sanity, Goldman holds forth on everything from Papal edicts to ex-wives, from baseball to his family's massacre in a Nazi concentration camp. When Goldman remarks on a blue Mercedes continuously parked outside his building, Goldman's captive audience of assistant (Lawrence Pressman) and chauffeur (Henry Brown) dismiss their boss' anxiety as encroaching paranoia. But each of Goldman's passionate, seemingly capricious ravings are transformed into a shocking, inadvertent deposition when Israeli agents capture Goldman and put him on trial as Adolph Dorf, the commandant of the concentration camp where Goldman's family was supposedly exterminated.
GALILEO
Bertolt Brecht’s GALILEO, directed by Joseph Losey and starring Topol and John Gielgud,
Fiddler on the Roof's Topol and a wish-list cast of British theatrical aristocracy, including Sir John Gielgud (Arthur, Becket), Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal), and Tom Conti (Reuben, Reuben), ground Bertolt Brecht's famous theatrical imagination in a precise, character-rich interpretation of the troubled life and anxious times of 17th century physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei.
In Galileo, director Joseph Losey (Eva, The Go-Between), who originated the American stage version of Galileo in 1947, creates a uniquely affecting portrait of discovery, heresy, compromise, and exile. Neither coward nor hero, Brecht's Galileo reveals the troubling human side of the struggle between science, government, and religion.
JACQUES BRELL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS
Jacques Brel’s JACQUES BRELL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, starring Brock Peters and Melba Moore
Eschewing conventional narrative, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris transforms Mort Shuman and Eric Blau's beloved 35-song stage revue into an infectious movie musical that showcases both Brel's astonishing songwriting breadth and the resourceful audacity of 70's filmmaking. Belgian born Brel's richly sensual, uncompromising and lyrical songs provide a simultaneously ecstatic and tragic framework for this flamboyant and moving film. Director Denis Heroux utilizes everything from puppetry to location photography to shepherd Brel's music far beyond the proscenium-bound horizon.
PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME
Brian Friel’s PHILADEPHIA, HERE I COME, starring Siobhan McKenna and Donal McCann
Set in playwright Brian Friel's (Dancing at Lughnasa, Faith Healer) mythical Ballybeg, Ireland, The American Film Theatre's Philadelphia, Here I Come! presents an ingenious glimpse into the stock-taking of young Gareth "Gar" O'Donnell on the eve of his emigration to America. Through the myriad preparations and good-byes that fill Gar's last day in Ireland, comes a powerful portrait of the public boasts and private doubts that bedevil him on the threshold of his journey to a new life in a new land.
LOST IN THE STARS
Kurt Weilll & Maxwell Anderson’s LOST IN THE STARS, directed by Daniel Mann (The Rose Tattoo), starring Brock Peters and Melba Moore.
The American Film Theatre's Lost in the Stars transforms Alan Paton's world famous novel of racial oppression, Cry the Beloved Country, into a tragic and beautiful film musical unlike any you've ever seen. Gilded by Maxwell Anderson's lucid lyrics and Kurt Weill's (The Three Penny Opera) powerful music, and guided by Daniel Mann's (Playing for Time) sensitive direction, this one-of-a-kind film is both a heartbreaking indictment of a cruel society and a poetic testament to the millions of forgotten lives ground beneath the heel of apartheid.
|
