This set and "The Marx Brothers Collection" from Warner Home Video gives you 12 of their 13 films. Their comic genius is one of a kind, and coming from the stage they immediately adapted to sound comedy on film.

1930 film about a German college student during World War I who is brainwashed into enlisting in the Army by a zealot college professor. Once on the front lines, he quickly discovers that the glory of the Fatherland is of little concern to a soldier dodging bullets & explosions, whose comrades are dying in his arms. As powerful in its way as Platoon was almost 60 years later.

It is one of the first films (1931) about serial killers, and already Lang goes beyond depicting the pathology of such criminal; what M examines is the pathology of our contemporary society of urbanization, mass politics, and mass media: it's also a film about a 20th century metropolis of mass society and mass media culture.

Berkeley revived the movie musical after a series of bad entries killed it in 1931. Berkeley's genius is conveyed by the various expert commentaries, but even their unbounded enthusiasm seems to fall short of the man's towering vision, and staggering achievement. Berkeley's talent was really geometric thinking more than dance.

The first 2 Thin Man movies were the best, but the other 4 are good films too. Great chemistry between the two leads William Powell & Myrna Loy, plus some good detective stories. Takes the couple from being NYC high rollers in 1934, through parenthood, into the verge of middle age with their last film. The series is a good example of how film adapted to the motion picture code.

The best and most complete of the Astaire & Rogers sets. This is possibly the best dance team we'll ever see, plus some great music to boot.

Each of these is the somewhat definitive version of the Universal monster stable, before camp took over. The main exception to this is Phantom of the Opera. The Lon Chaney version of the phantom remains the archetype. Each DVD is packed with features, including a special documentary for each monster type per disk. Somewhat pricey, though.

A pretty good value. There are two great movies - Little Caesar and Public Enemy. Two are very good movies - Petrified Forest and The Roaring Twenties. The other two are good but not great movies.

In this timeless collection, each film has many memorable moments of screen brilliance. "It's a Gift" is arguably the funniest movie ever made. Fields was a unique talent in a bygone era.

There are two volumes in this set, and with the exception of 2 films, cover the post-"Jezebel" period of Bette's career when she was the biggest actress in Hollywood. It's said that Bette Davis is the most versitile and the best actress to have come out of Hollywood until Meryl Streep came along.

Shown in movie theatres until 1976, this 1939 movie merits its own boxed set.

The iconic star and iconic director collaborated on 14 films, eight of which appear here. John Ford and John Wayne redefined the war and western genres starting with "Stagecoach" in 1939.

John Ford directs this tale of dispossessed dustbowl farmers who migrate westward to California. After terrible trials en route they become little more than slave labor. However, the Joads refuse to knuckle under.

If this 1941 film is not the best of the century it is certainly one of them. Its influence on a generation of filmmakers cannot be ignored in the equation. People who watch this film and ask, "What's the big deal?" are comparing it with modern films that have borrowed from this film's techniques and undergone 60 years of evolution.

This and volume 2 of what is so far a 2 volume set show Bogart's successful transition from playing gangsters in the 30's to the wider range of roles he was capable of playing.

There are several titles that always come to mind when discussing Film Noir, and 1944's "Double Indemnity" is one of those great titles. It's the story of insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who knocks on the door of sultry Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) one fateful afternoon.

The story focuses on three war veterans (Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell) and their rocky readjustment to civilian life. One is a bank executive, another a pilot in the war who is only a soda jerk in civilian life, the third a former high school athlete whose hands were amputated as the result of a war injury. Perfectly captures the mood of the post-war era.

Film noir became very popular in post-WWII America. This is the first of a very fine four volume set.

Tale of a Hollywood writer who becomes a kept man, and the fiftyish silent star that can't let go of the past or William Holden.