Subgenre Sampler
Epic: 201 Films to Buy & Rent
- Green Dolphin Street (1947)
- Dir. Victor Saville
Feat. Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed…
- One of the biggest box office hits of its time, this sweeping colonial melodrama of unrequited lovers who migrate to Aotearoa in the 1850s has dated…
- Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
- Dir. Gabriel Pascal
Feat. Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger, Claude Rains…
- The oft–told tale of the First Roman Emperor and the Queen of Egpyt, here adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play. Stagey filming is offset by…
- An American Romance (1944)
- Dir. King Vidor
Feat. Brian Donlevy, Ann Richards, Walter Abel…
- Ambitious technicolour drama from director King Vidor about a European immigrant to the USA, who builds his fortune in the automobile industry, and…
- Ivan the Terrible Pts. 1 & 2 (1943)
- Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Nikolai Cherkassov, Serafima Birman, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
- Spectacularly staged chronicle of the life of Czar Ivan IV, and his struggle to consolidate the Russian empire in the 16th Century. One of the…
- Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943)
- Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Feat. Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook
- The numerous off–beat adventures of a British soldier are chronicled over a period of three wars, with Deborah Kerr playing all three of the…
- Munchhausen (1943)
- Dir. Josef von Baky
Feat. Hans Albers
- This adaptation of the Rudolph Raspe novel about the extraordinary tall–tales of a German baron is a genuine oddity, both historically and…
- Arabian Nights (1942)
- Dir. John Rawlins
Feat. Jon Hall, Maria Montez, Sabu…
- Lavish sets and costumes distinguish this story of two brothers competing for the throne of Turkey and the hand of the fiery dancing girl played by…
- Loyal 47 Ronin, The (47 Ronin) (1941)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Yoshizaburo Arashi
- Sombre rendition of a famous Japanese legend that's both quietly dignified and overtly nationalistic, tooled as propaganda during the height of…
- Howards Of Virginia, The (1940)
- Dir. Frank Lloyd
Feat. Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Sir Cedric Hardwicke
- Cary Grant rather bumbles through this melodrama set during the American Revolution, playing a rugged surveyor who marries aristocrat and royalist…
- Beau Geste (1939)
- Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston…
- Classic Hollywood gallantry with, Gary Cooper as the eldest of three brothers who run away to join the French Foreign Legion, only to clash bayonets…