Universal Hollywood Icons Collection: Gregory Peck (Arabesque / Mirage / Captain Newman, M.D. / The World in His Arms) [DVD]

I liked that it had four of his best unforgettable roles in one package.

Haven’t completed all of these movies yet but have watched Captain Newman M.D. Fantastic movie. Saw it a few years after it out and loved it. Great acting. Bobby Darin, Tony Curtis, Eddie Albert, Gregory Peck, Angie Dickinson….and many more. Drama, comedy. This alone was worth the price. In fact, that is why I bought the set. Just for that movie. I’m sure the other movies will be good as well. Two DVD’s double-sided.

This “Hollywood Icons Collection” from Universal Studios contains four films starring Gregory Peck. I’ll examine them in chronological order.“THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS” (1952), starring Gregory Peck, Ann Blyth, Anthony Quinn, John McIntire, Carl Esmond, Hans Conreid, and Sig Ruman. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Borden Chase, based on a novel by Rex Beach (more on him below). Cinematography by Russell Metty and David S. Horsley.The year is 1850, the place, San Francisco. Schooner captain Jonathan Clark (Gregory Peck) and his crew have just returned from two years in the waters around Alaska, killing and skinning fur seals, and he has a “boatload” of them. Clark is a rough-and-tumble mariner equally adept at brawling in saloons or dancing in white tie and tails in a fancy hotel ballroom, a free-spending man-about-town, beloved of bartenders and saloon girls alike. John McIntire is his first mate, the Bible-spouting Deacon Greathouse. Hans Conreid is a fussy hotel manager named Eustace.The toughest part of skinning seals seems to be that the area is controlled by Russia. To the Tsar, Clark is considered a thief and pirate with a price on his head, dead or alive. (Clark’s plan to get the Russian navy off his back is simplicity itself: raise ten million dollars and buy Alaska for himself!) The next toughest thing may be his boisterous and larcenous rival in the fur trade, Portugee (Anthony Quinn, using a Harpo Marx accent). Portugee shanghais Clark’s crew and Clark steals them back. It’s that sort of relationship.Meanwhile, a runaway bride from Russia, Princess Marina Selanova (Ann Blyth, using a very slippery accent) is in San Francisco fleeing an arranged marriage to Prince Semyon (Carl Esmond). She needs a ship to get her to Alaska where she thinks she’ll be protected by her Uncle (Sig Ruman), governor of Russia America. Clark has rejected the trip when offered by a Russian general. The Princess, pretending to be a mere traveling companion, takes personal charge of securing his ship and it isn’t long before she and Captain Clark have fallen in love and, just as quickly, a wedding is in the works.Before that can happen, though, Prince Semyon arrives in a fast, steam-driven gunboat and shanghais his would-be bride to Alaska. Finding out her true identity sends Clark on a drunk, then into a race with Portugee to the seal-killing islands. (No actual killing is shown, just stock footage of thousands of seals in their natural habitat as rear projection.) The film was billed as a seafaring adventure, but this race, about 55 minutes into the film, is the first time we’re out on the water and lasts about 15 minutes.They are caught in the act by Prince Semyon and taken to Alaska in chains where even the offer of ten million dollars is not enough to keep Semyon from having Clark whipped. Marina agrees to marry the prince if Clark and his crew are allowed to leave. Naturally, Clark brings his boat about and his men crash the wedding. (Secretary William Henry Seward did not actually buy Alaska for the US until 1867, so one is left wondering what happened to Clark’s ten million.)Of the four films in this collection, “The World in His Arms” is perhaps the least known. (The title refers to Peck and Blyth together at the helm of his schooner, heading into the sunset at the end.) It’s based on a novel by Rex Beach, a prolific writer of outdoor adventures from early in the last century. Among them: “The Barrier” (1907); “The Silver Hoard” (1909); “The Winds of Chance” (1918); “The Ne’er-Do-Well” (1911); “Flowing Gold” (1922); “The Auction Block” (1914); “The Looting of Alaska” (1906); “The Iron Trail” (1913); “Oh, Shoot! Confessions of an Agitated Sportsman,” and his most famous novel (perhaps due to at least five film versions), “The Spoilers” (1901), the best version of which came in 1942 and starred John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich. (Fifty-six minutes into the film John Wayne has a short blackface scene with Dietrich’s maid, Idabelle (Marietta Canty); Wayne calls his blackface make-up “my Alabama tan.”)Beach was once an Olympic water polo player before turning to writing. He was born in 1877 and shot himself to death in Florida in 1949.----------------------“CAPTAIN NEWMAN, M.D.” (1963) – Gregory Peck, Angie Dickinson, Tony Curtis, Eddie Albert, Robert Duvall, and Bobby Darin. Director: David Miller. (Miller directed John Wayne in “Flying Tigers,” the Marx Brothers in “Love Happy,” Doris Day in “Midnight Lace,” and Kirk Douglas in “Lonely Are the Brave,” among others.)Russell Metty was the Cinematographer. The screenplay was by Richard L. Breen, and Phoebe and Henry Ephron (parents of Nora Ephron), adapted from a novel by Leo Rosten. In terms of writing and acting, this is the best of the four films in the collection.What we call PTSD today was once termed battle fatigue or shell shock. At this Army Air Corps hospital in 1944, it’s termed “psychogenic syndrome.” Base commander, Colonel Pyser (James Gregory), scoffs, saying it’s just malingering, and he thinks the man in charge of Ward 7, the “Mental Hygiene Clinic,” is not doing enough to get his patients back into combat. That man is psychiatrist, Captain Josiah J. Newman (Gregory Peck), just the sort of man to stand up to higher-ranking people if he feels he’s in the right.Newman’s unit is short of everything, from beds to nurses, but has plenty of patients. Newman tells a visiting officer (Dick Sergeant, who’d become the second Darrin on “Bewitched” in 1969) what the war has done to his “acute anxiety” patients and takes him on rounds. Accompanying them is an orderly named Gavoni (Larry Storch; he’d star on TV’s “F Troop” two years later but plays it straight here), and a nurse named Blodgett (Jane Withers: Withers was a former child star opposite Shirley Temple, made some movies as an adult, and got rich and famous doing TV commercials as Josephine the Plumber for Comet cleanser). Newman can be friendly or tough with his patients, as needed. (“I wasn’t shouting at him. I was shouting at his symptoms.”)Newman hijacks a new orderly from Ward 4, Corporal Jackson Leibowitz (Tony Curtis), a street kid from New Jersey uncomfortable in uniform, and even more uncomfortable in a psyche ward, but he adapts; Leibowitz is soon scrounging and scheming to get things the ward needs...like imported champagne. Which comes in handy when Captain Newman tries to recruit a nurse for his ward, Lt. Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson); she succumbs when she sees him interact with his patients. She has great empathy.The screenplay focuses primarily on three patients with different problems. One is Colonel Norval Bliss (Eddie Albert) who goes berserk and cusses out Newman for keeping him out of action: “God shrivel your heart and consume your monstrous brain!” he shouts. If one’s only exposure to Eddie Albert was on TV’s “Green Acres,” his portrayal of Bliss and his split personality will be astonishing. (He was nominated for an Oscar opposite Peck in “Roman Holiday,” but lost to Frank Sinatra in “From Here to Eternity,” and nominated again in 1972 for “The Heartbreak Kid,” losing to Joel Grey in “Cabaret.”) Another patient, who is practically, comatose in an eerie way, is Captain Winston (Robert Duvall, who played Boo Radley opposite Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird” the year before). The third featured patient is Corporal Jim Thompkins (played by pop singing idol Bobby Darin: could the singer of “Splish Splash” actually act? He showed such depth that he earned a Supporting Actor nomination, losing to Melvyn Douglas in “Hud”).This is a guy movie, so Angie Dickinson has little to do beyond looking beautiful in her nurse’s uniform. It would be four more years before “Point Blank,” eleven years before “Big Bad Mama.” Bethel Leslie, as the wife of Robert Duvall, has the one female dramatic scene.Novelist Leo Rosten was born in Poland in 1908 and died in New York City in 1997. He was very versatile, writing comedy, drama, and even history. Among his titles: “The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N” (and a couple of sequels), “The Joys of Yiddish,” “Rome Wasn’t Burned in a Day: the Mischief of Language,” “Religions of America,” “People I Have Loved, Known, or Admired,” and “The 3:10 to Anywhere,” among others.----------------------------MIRAGE (1965) – Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, Walter Matthau, Kevin McCarthy, Jack Weston, Leif Erickson, Walter Abel, George Kennedy. D: Edward Dmytryk. Screenplay by Peter Stone (author of the Broadway musical, “1776”), based on a story by Walter Ericson. Cinematographer (in black-and-white): Joseph MacDonald. Music: Quincy Jones.A blackout hits a Manhattan skyscraper where David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) works. Or thinks he does. When he makes his way down to the street he finds a crowd gathered around a dead body, an apparent suicide who fell from the 27th floor. David doesn’t know him. Or so he believes. When he goes to his regular watering hole across the street, he knows the bartender but the bartender doesn’t seem to know him. People who do know him say they haven’t seen him in a long time, even though he hasn’t gone anywhere. Or so he thinks. When he gets to his apartment, there’s a man with a gun waiting for him, and he doesn’t know why.Things get more confusing for David: one day his refrigerator is empty; the next day, it’s full. His clothes have vanished from a closet, then come back. His empty briefcase suddenly is full. Even the door to his office has disappeared and is now a blank wall. People mention someone called The Major, a person he doesn’t know...or does he?If Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling spent an evening watching “Gaslight,” this is the kind of plot they might have come up with. But it has holes. Such as David overcoming the man with the gun (Jack Weston) and, instead of calling the police, he simply drags him into a storage room across the hall as if this sort of thing happens all the time. Later, there’s a second hit man (George Kennedy) trying to kill David even though David is said to have something that his boss, The Major (Leif Erickson), wants: how will he get it if David is dead?Best line comes when Peck says to Kevin McCarthy: “If you’re not committed to anything, you’re just taking up space.”Director Edward Dmytryk was nominated for Best Director only once, for “Crossfire” in 1947, but his credits contain some very good movies: “Murder, My Sweet,” “Back to Bataan,” “The Caine Mutiny,” “The Young Lions,” “Walk On the Wild Side,” “Anzio,” and ‘The Human Factor.”Remade in 1968 as “Jigsaw,” starring Harry Guardino and Hope Lange. It wasn’t any easier to understand the second time around.------------------------------ARABESQUE (1966) – Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Kieron Moore. Director: Stanley Donen. Music by Henry Mancini. Cinematographer: Christopher Challis.A convoluted plot involving hieroglyphics, espionage, and an assassination plot against a Middle Eastern prime minister (country unspecified), based on a novel by Gordon Cotler. Forget all that.The best reason to watch this movie is the amazing cinematography by Christopher Challis. There is hardly a conventional, straight-forward scene in the entire film as Challis shoots over, under, around and through anything available, with multiple lenses and tilted angles, and with an excellent use of reflections and tracking shots—the opening scene alone could give someone a phobia about optometrists. The stunning visuals are aided by psychedelic opening credits designed by Maurice Binder, and further enhanced by Henry Mancini’s most unusual music score (a detuned piano can produce an eerie sound).Perhaps this stylishness was meant to keep viewers distracted from the twisty plot? Gregory Peck is Professor David Pollock, an American teaching in London, his specialty apparently the deciphering of hieroglyphics. It’s this ability that gets him involved with a very rich, very bad man named Yussef Kasim (Kieron Moore) and the sultry Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren). Pollock finds himself evading various hit men and undercover agents, gets drugged, chased, and trapped in a shower with Yasmin. It’s all quite complex. It’s one of those plots that doesn’t bear too much thinking about. Just enjoy the creative imagery.British cinematographer Christopher Challis made two other films with director Stanley Donen, the excellent “Two For the Road” with Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, and “The Little Prince.” Born in London in 1919, Challis filmed more than 70 movies in a long career, among them: “Mary, Queen of Scots,” “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,” “Sink the Bismarck,” “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “The Grass is Greener,” “The Deep,” “A Shot in the Dark,” “Staircase,” “The Victors,” and “S.O.S. Titanic.” He also wrote a book: “Are They Really So Awful? A Cameraman’s Chronicles.” Challis died in Bristol in 2012.

If you are like me and want widescreen movies in the widescreen format, you'll be very disappointed with this set. Amazon lists this as Widescreen (only). Now, The World in his Arms (1952) is the only flat screen entry here. Arabesque is in Widescreen, as it should be. Mirage (1965) & Captain Newman, M.D. (1963) are both presented in flat screen, when they are both in Widescreen (1:85). I for one, am very unhappy with this set.The movies are otherwise in excellent condition. Like I said, if you don't care about aspect ratio, then please get this set. Otherwise, buy the singles of Mirage & Captain Newman, they list as being in Widescreen (1:85). I will be purchasing both singles.

Gregory Peck retains his reputation as a great actor in each of these movies. I have NO (zero) regrets in purchasing this DVD.

Each movie played flawlessly. However, while 'Captain Newman, M.D.' and 'The World In His Arms' were excellent in every aspect, and 'Mirage', though unusual, required patience (but was well done), 'Arabesque' was a disaster. Not even Gregory Peck, and the director responsible for 'Charade' and many other fine movies, lift 'Arabesque' free of a leaden script, and equally unsuitable co-star.

Very disappointed in these Gregory Peck Movies - terrible. don't order any for yourself.

But these are kind of dog movies. Do not recommend. Get Night People instead.