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Whistle Stopper - Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection (Manhattan Melodrama / Evelyn Prentice / Double Wedding / I Love You Again / Love Crazy)
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List Price: $49.98
Our Price: $37.04
Your Save: $ 12.94 ( 26% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Myrna Loy, William Powell, Jack Carson, Clark Gable
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569798229
Format: Box set
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 5
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-08-07
Running Time: 454
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1941-05-23
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Loy & Powell
Comment: Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection (Manhattan Melodrama / Evelyn Prentice / Double Wedding / I Love You Again / Love Crazy)
Is there a better way to spend the day than with the charming Powell or the beautiful & witty Loy. The best ever coupling of two hollywood stars. If you enjoy watching class in action or witty dialogue you will love these 4 movies especially Manhattan Melodrama that has the extra bonus of the wonderful CLARK GABLE.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely marvelous
Comment:
Powell and Loy are incredible together. No acting couple today can match their wit and charm. Buy this collection!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dillinger's last show
Comment: A great set. Few people know that Manhattan Melodrama was the film that the infamous gangster John Dillinger saw just before he was gunned down by FBI agent C.B. Winstead outside the Biograph Theater on Chicago's Lincoln Avenue on July 22, 1934. Dillinger was in the company of two women, one of whom is believed to have set him up. Dillinger was shot three times with a Colt .45 automatic: one shot through the lung and out the chest, one shot through the head and out below the right eye, and the third round grazing his face. He died within minutes. An unfired Colt .380 automatic was found in his pocket. One can only wonder what he thought about while watching Clark Gable in this great gangster film, perhaps wondering if his own life of crime was about to come to a sudden end.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great team, great box office
Comment: This set of William Powell/Myrna Loy films contains all of the MGM films, with the exception of "The Great Ziegfield" and "Libeled Lady", which they made together not featuring "The Thin Man" characters. While the dramas are OK, comedy was their forte. Powell usually played some sort of nutty character and Loy was the sane base around which the nuttiness revolved. The set is a showcase for Powell's versatility but their smooth rapport and warm charm is always a pleasure.
First off is "Manhattan Melodrama" a drama starring Clark Gable and the first film in which Powell and Loy appeared together. This is the oft repeated yarn about boyhood friends who take different paths in life. Gable is a gangster and Loy switches allegiance from him to lawyer Powell. It is interesting to watch how she reacts to the different acting styles of the 2 male stars; brittle with Gable and soft with the other. All of them are excellent. One very odd standout is the song in a nightclub, sung by white Shirley Ross, with a bad black wig and swarthy makeup, fronting a black band and singing "The Bad in Every Man" in torchy style, a song which evolved into "Blue Moon" - bizarre! The film was directed by W S Van Dyke, who was the one who saw Powell and Loy's potential and teamed them in "The Thin Man", their next film. Van Dyke was known for the speed of his direction and this film has a pace which makes it more comparable to a Warner Brother's product than the usual overblown MGM product. Keep an eye out too for a very young and talented Mickey Rooney as Gable as a kid.
"Evelyn Prentice" was the first film Powell and Loy made after the standout success of "The Thin Man". In this one, Powell is a lawyer who works too hard and neglects wife Loy. Adultery and murder result in an unusual courtroom drama with a twist but Loy underacts to the point of inertia. In terms of reality, the film suffers from the usual MGM gloss, overdressed stars and glamorous sets. Warner Brothers would have made this more dynamic and convincing.
In 1938, "Double Wedding" was farce whereby bohemian Powell melts officious Loy. The film is quite amusing due to the smooth performances of the stars but there are too many close-ups of supporting Florence Rice and John Beal, who obviously were getting a build up, one which neither subsequently warranted. Once again, the MGM house style with production line direction from Richard Thorpe makes this a pleasant way of passing 90 minutes but Powell and Loy are better than their material. By the way, Loy has some great close ups and looks terrific.
Released in 1940, "I Love you Again" is a quite amusing comedy showcasing Powell as an amnesia victim. Like most of these films, the comedy revolves around the scrapes which Powell gets into and he is very funny as an amnesia victim. Loy's role, as his wife, is much less interesting. There is the usual good supporting cast but the film is overlong, once again with too many close-ups and that stolid feel from which many MGM films suffered.
The last film is "Love Crazy", a marital/divorce farce, the highlight of which is Powell in impeccable drag. This might be the funniest film of all. There is a great performance by Florence Bates as Loy's mother and other good supporting players such as Sig Rumann and Gail Patrick
All of the prints are unrestored and therefore variable but mostly good. "Manhattan Melodrama" notably looks pristine. The set contains original trailers, some mostly dumb MGM cartoons, some in faded colour, and a few MGM goofy movies, Pete Smith narrated scripts to an antique silent melodrama - very corny. "Double Wedding" contains an unusual musical short with Busby Berkeley cuties set in an art deco dentist's office. This has to be seen to be believed.
The set is good value.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Classiest Screen Couple in Film History
Comment: Sophistication and elegance mingled with martinis each time William Powell and Myrna Loy made a film together. Their pairing in the wonderful "The Thin Man" launched not only the finest series of enjoyable "A" class mysteries ever captured on camera, but a screen couple so wonderfully matched that their only rival was the greatest dance partners in the history of film, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
After decades of neglect, five of the couple's films outside "The Thin Man" series have been released on this truly beautiful and long awaited collection. It was given the class it deserves, everything about it as delicate and elegant as fine crystal. It slides out and opens up in four panels, lovely pictures of Powell and Loy adorning the glossy design. Even the discs look terrific, with rare photos of the pair gracing the moviegoer when they are removed for viewing.
The collection itself is fabulous. "Manhattan Melodrama" uses the star power of Powell, Loy, and Clark Gable to overcome any shortcomings this crime drama might have. Though somewhat forgotten today, it is nice to have "Evelyn Prentice" included here. It is a warm and involving marital drama with a crime angle.
Loy is simply fabulous as a wife and mother who has the trappings of happiness but not the man with which to share it. Urged in the wrong direction by a friend, with blackmail and a murder the outcome, it sounds much more explosive than it really is. But it is more a mature marital drama with Powell showing his love for wife Evelyn in the courtroom, where there will be enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes.
The other three films could easily have been given their own collection as they seem to belong together. Each is a very funny comedy with much to recommend it. "Double Wedding" has Loy trying to stop Powell from marrying her sister, or her sister from marrying Powell. It is terribly funny and, of course, it's no surprise who really belongs together.
William Powell has never been funnier and Myrna Loy has never been more lovely than in W.S. Van Dyke's "I Love You Again." Powell is a hoot and Loy is more adorable than ever in this sharp comedy. Powell gets a knock on the head and remembers he's a less than stellar fellow. But for several years he's been living an uninspired life which he's sure involves some dough. But it also involves a babe of a wife who sort of likes this new husband. You can probably fill in the blanks but it's a lot of fun getting there in this one.
In "Love Crazy," marital bliss turns into hilarious chaos when Powell tries to have himself declared insane so wife Loy won't divorce him. The trouble is, it works! This is one of the great marital screwball comedies, with a great supporting cast. It's a merry mix-up, with Powell's stay at Doctor Wuthering's Rest Home a riot. Powell pretending to be his own sister and slapping around Jack Carson in a dress is not to be missed!
A wonderful gift I cherish and will enjoy for years to come, this is one of the best designed boxed sets on the market. Film buffs were incredibly happy to see these hard to find films finally given a classy release. If you love film, especially classic films of the 30's and 40's, you cannot find anything better out there than this beautiful set.
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Editorial Reviews:
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This set includes: Manhattan Melodrama Loy and Powell's first screen pairing showcases an on-screen magic that also sparks the tense courtroom thriller Evelyn Prentice. Comedies however - urbane to insane - were the duo's mainstays and this set has three of their bubbliest. In Double Wedding Loy doesn't want her sister to wed bohemian Powell. Any guess who does? A clunk to the head convinces fuddy-duddy Powell he's a con man - and Loy finds her changed hubby appealing in I Love You Again. And the loopiness gets loopier when Powell pretends he's off his rocker to stop Loy's divorce proceedings in Love Crazy.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 012569798229 Manufacturer No: 79822
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