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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Glamour Girls Box Set (2006)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

'Girls' Just Wanna Have Fun

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Glamour Girls Box Set on DVD

After their recent film noir set, Kino has re-packaged five more films in new slender boxes and assembled the "Glamour Girls" set. The most significant of the five is Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich. But Kino's previously-issued two-disc set, featuring both the English and German language versions, is the one to have; the set only includes the English language version. After that, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932), starring Jeanette MacDonald, is a must-see. Some critics have called it an Ernst Lubitsch knockoff -- it's a musical starring Maurice Chevalier -- but it has charms of its own, and it has been one of Kino's most celebrated DVD titles. Lucille Ball stars in Douglas Sirk's Lured (1947), a kind of film noir made before Sirk turned to color and established his famous melodramatic style. Margaret Sullavan stars in her husband William Wyler's The Good Fairy (1935), a screwball comedy crafted specifically for her, even if Wyler lacked the grace and speed of a Lubitsch or a Hawks. And finally, the extraordinary Ava Gardner stars in Albert Lewin's lengthy Technicolor romance Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), though Heaven knows it's worth sitting through just about anything to gaze at her amazing mug.

(See Kino's homepage for more details.)

Starring: Lucille Ball, Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Jeanette MacDonald, Margaret Sullavan, James Mason, Maurice Chevalier, Emil Jannings, Boris Karloff, George Sanders, Herbert Marshall
Written by: Albert Lewin, Preston Sturges, etc.
Directed by: Albert Lewin, Rouben Mamoulian, Douglas Sirk, Josef von Sternberg, William Wyler
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 500 minutes
Date: December 22, 2006