The James Stewart DVD Hollywood Legend Collection 5 DISC SET / Classic Films: Vertigo, Rear Window, Harvey, Winchester '73, Destry Rides Again / Universal

UPC 025192558627

ISBN-10: 1417014350

ISBN: 978-1417014354 / 9781417014354

MADE IN USA

REGION 1 NTSC DVD SET (black & white)

Audio: English 5.1, English 2.0, Spanish 2.0 (Disc 3), French 2.0 (Disc 2)

Subtitles: English (captions) Spanish, French

Total Runtime: 540 minutes ( 5  discs )

English Summary:

This collection highlights some of star James Stewart's best work. Titles include the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers VERTIGO and REAR WINDOW, the family film with the invisible, giant rabbit HARVEY, and the classic westerns WINCHESTER '73 and DESTRY RIDES AGAIN. Please see individual titles for complete information.

James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military officer. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart had a film career that spanned over 55 years and 80 films. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, Stewart epitomized the "American ideal" in twentieth-century United States. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors.

Born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Stewart started acting while studying at Princeton University. After graduating in 1932, he began a career as a stage actor, appearing on Broadway and in summer stock productions. In 1935, he signed a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The studio did not see leading man material in Stewart, but after three years of supporting roles and being loaned out to other studios, he had his big breakthrough in Frank Capra's ensemble comedy You Can't Take It with You (1938). The following year, Stewart garnered his first of five Academy Award nominations for his portrayal of an idealized and virtuous man who becomes a senator in Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

A licensed amateur pilot, Stewart enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps as soon as he could after the United States entered the Second World War in 1941. Although still an MGM star, his only public and film appearances from 1941 to 1945 were scheduled by the Air Corps. After fighting in the European theater of war, he had attained the rank of colonel and had received several awards for his service. He remained in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and was promoted to brigadier general in 1959. He retired in 1968, and was awarded the United States Air Force Distinguished Service Medal.

Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.

The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely.

After a rooftop chase, where his fear of heights and vertigo result in the death of a policeman, San Francisco detective John "Scottie" Ferguson retires. Scottie tries to conquer his fear, but his friend and ex-fiancée Midge Wood says that another severe emotional shock may be the only cure.

An acquaintance from college, Gavin Elster, asks Scottie to follow his wife, Madeleine, claiming that she is in some sort of danger. Scottie reluctantly agrees, and follows Madeleine to a florist where she buys a bouquet of flowers, to the Mission San Francisco de Asís and the grave of one Carlotta Valdes (1831–1857), and to the Legion of Honor art museum where she gazes at the Portrait of Carlotta. He watches her enter the McKittrick Hotel, but on investigation she does not seem to be there.

Cast

• James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson
• Kim Novak as Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster
• Barbara Bel Geddes as Marjorie "Midge" Wood
• Tom Helmore as Gavin Elster
• Henry Jones as the coroner
• Raymond Bailey as Scottie's doctor
• Ellen Corby as the manager of the McKittrick Hotel
• Konstantin Shayne as bookstore owner Pop Leibel
• Lee Patrick as the car owner mistaken for Madeleine

Rear Window is a 1954 American Technicolor mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.

Recuperating from a broken leg, adventuresome professional photographer L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies (Stewart) is confined to a wheelchair in his Chelsea apartment. His rear window looks out onto a courtyard and several other apartments. During an intense heat wave, he watches his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool.

He observes a flamboyant dancer he nicknames, "Miss Torso"; a single woman he calls "Miss Lonelyhearts"; a talented, single, composer-pianist; several married couples, one of them newlyweds; a middle-aged couple with a small dog that likes digging in the flower garden; a female amateur sculptor; and Lars Thorwald (Burr), a traveling jewelry salesman with a bedridden wife.

Cast

• James Stewart as L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies
• Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont
• Wendell Corey as NYPD Det. Lt. Thomas "Tom" J. Doyle
• Thelma Ritter as Stella
• Raymond Burr as Lars Thorwald
• Judith Evelyn as Miss Lonelyhearts
• Ross Bagdasarian as the songwriter
• Georgine Darcy as Miss Torso
• Frank Cady and Sara Berner as the husband and wife living above the Thorwalds, with their dog
• Jesslyn Fax as "Miss Hearing Aid"
• Rand Harper and Havis Davenport as Newlyweds
• Irene Winston as Mrs. Anna Thorwald

HARVEY Elwood P Dowd [James Stewart) is a respectable, good-natured man. whose best friend just happens to be an invisible, six-foot id white rabbit named -Harvey!" Elwood's distraught sister, Veto Louise (in an Oscar`- winning performance by Josephine Hull), has had enough of her brother's -imaginary" companion and decides to put kindly Elwood in a mental hospital. But when she goes to fill out the papers to pen up Elwood and his pal, a hilarious mix-up occurs and she finds herself committed instead! Its up to Elwood and Harvey to straighten out the ensuing mess in this crowd-pleasing comedy classic, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, that proves there's no power like that of the imagination.

Cast

• James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd
• Josephine Hull as Veta Louise Dowd Simmons
• Peggy Dow as Miss Kelly
• Charles Drake as Dr. Lyman Sanderson
• Victoria Horne as Myrtle Mae Simmons
• Jesse White as Marvin Wilson, orderly
• Cecil Kellaway as Dr. William Chumley
• William H. Lynn as Judge Omar Gaffney
• Dick Wessel as Bartender Mr. Cracker
• Nana Bryant as Mrs. Hazel Chumley
• Grayce Mills as Aunt Ethel Chauvenet
• Clem Bevans as Herman Shimmelplatzer, gatekeeper
• Harry Hines as Mr. Meegles
• Norman Leavitt as Henry, first cab driver
• Wallace Ford as E.J. Lofgren, second cab driver
• Sam Wolfe as Minninger, Gaffney's law clerk
• "Harvey as Himself" (This credit appears on screen, and is the final shot of the film.)
• Maudie Prickett as Elvira the cook (uncredited)

WINCHESTER 73 James Stewart tears up the screen in this timeless western adventure. Courageous frontiersman Lin McAdam [Stewart) wins a one-of-a-kind rifle, the Winchester 73, in a shooting contest, only to have it stolen by the runner-up. Tracking his prized possession through the rugged frontiers of the Old West, McAdam battles a diverse group of desperate and vicious characters, including his own outlaw brother [Stephen McNally). When the dust settles, a final, spectacular shootout determines the fate of the coveted gun. featuring Shelley Winters as the rifle's only rival for McAdam's interest and Tony Curtis in one of his first screen performances, this gripping tale of the men (and the gun) who won the West is one of Stewart's most memorable films and one of the genre's most enduring classics.

Cast

Destry Rides Again is a 1939 American Western film directed by George Marshall and starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart.

The supporting cast includes Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, Brian Donlevy, Allen Jenkins, Irene Hervey, Billy Gilbert, Bill Cody Jr., Lillian Yarbo, and Una Merkel. Although the title comes from Max Brand's popular novel, which inspired the earlier screenplay with Tom Mix, this version is almost entirely unrelated to either.

Saloon owner Kent (Brian Donlevy), the unscrupulous boss of the fictional Western town of Bottleneck, has the town's sheriff, Mr. Keogh (Joe King), killed when Keogh asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game. Kent and "Frenchy" (Marlene Dietrich), his girlfriend and the dance hall queen, now have a stranglehold over the local cattle ranchers. The crooked town's mayor, Hiram J. Slade (Samuel S. Hinds), who is in collusion with Kent, appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger), as the new sheriff, assuming that he will be easy to control and manipulate. However, Dimsdale, a deputy under the famous lawman Tom Destry, promptly swears off drinking, and is able to call upon the latter's equally formidable son, Tom Destry, Jr. (James Stewart), to help him make Bottleneck a lawful, respectable town.

Destry arrives in Bottleneck with Jack Tyndall, a cattleman, and his sister, Janice. Destry initially confounds the townsfolk by refusing to strap on a gun and maintaining civility in dealing with everyone, including Kent and Frenchy. This quickly makes him a disappointment to Dimsdale and a laughingstock to the townspeople; he is mockingly asked to "clean up" Bottleneck by being given a mop and bucket. However, after a number of rowdy horsemen ride into town shooting their pistols in the air, he demonstrates uncanny expertise in marksmanship and threatens to jail them if they do it again, earning the respect of Bottleneck's citizens.

Cast