American Film Theatre Collection #2: A Delicate Balance / Man In The Glass Booth / In Celebration / Three Sisters / Homecoming
Price 69.96 - 119.95 USD
A Delicate Balance - Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Lee Remick and Joseph Cotten form the core of A Delicate Balance"s miraculous, one-night-only dream cast. Acclaimed British director Tony Richardson allows these thoroughbreds to explores and discover the full range of conflict and confrontation in Edward Albee"s explosive WASP gothic with both appreciative generosity and masterful control. The Man in the Glass Booth - Director Arthur Hiller, working from screenwriter Edward Anhalt"s adaptation, transforms actor/playwright Robert Shaw"s The Man in the Glass Booth into a film the Los Angeles Times dubbed, "daring, outrageous, utterly provocative, endlessly ambiguous and strikingly effective." In Celebration - Utilizing the same brilliant cast as In Celebration"s original highly acclaimed Royal Court Theater run, director Lindsay Anderson re-imagines his stage triumph into a riveting cinematic experience. Anderson grounds David Storey"s ferocious and poignant drama in a setting that is as realistic as the playwright"s caustic portrait of generational hypocrisy is universal. In their tiny house in a Yorkshire mining town, God-fearing and hard-working Mr. and Mrs. Shaw (Bill Owen and Constance Chapman) welcome their sons home to celebrate the couple"s fortieth wedding anniversary. But with each son"s arrival, more and more of the Shaw"s model blue collar family facade begins to chip away. Middle son Colin"s (James Bolam) engagement has placed him on the pat to a loveless marriage. Barely shouldering the burdens of his shattered artistic aspirations and his own family, Steven, the baby, brilliantly played by Brian Cox, is on the threshold of a nervous breakdown. But the toaster tossed into this already scalding theatrical bath is Alan Bates (as eldest son Andrew). As father, mother and brothers futilely try to hide the truth from themselves and each other, Bates" Andrew tears into the Shaw family"s carefully maintained fictions with animal fury and all too human bitterness. Three Sisters - Nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow, Chekhov"s Three Sisters live in virtual exile. Olga (Jeanne Watts), a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings and the home that is the sole legacy of their late army officer father. Masha (Joan Plowright) finds relief from her empty marriage in an affair with a passionate young colonel, played by Alan Bates. Irina (Louise Pernell), the youngest, wills herself to return the affections of an ardent suitor in the hopes that he will whisk her off to the city before it is too late. Intoxicated by yesterday"s triumphs and heedless of tomorrow"s disasters, the Three Sisters are left to sift through the debris of their shattered dreams on the eve of the social and political upheaval that will transform Russia forever. The Homecoming In North London, an all-male bee-hive of inactivity is ruled with a foul mouth and an iron hand by the abusive Max (Paul Rogers) and his brother, the priggish palace eunuch Sam (Cyril Cusack). Rounding out the precision vulgarity of The Homecoming"s "situation tragedy" are the sons, punch-drunk demolition man Joey (Terence Rigby) and the magnificent Ian Holm as pimp-smart Lenny. When, under cover of darkness, the prodigal son Teddy (Michael Jayston) brings his wife Ruth (Vivien Merchant) home to meet his family for the first time, he gets far more and less than he bargained for. To Teddy"s rueful discomfort, Ruth"s Mona Lisa smile forms the gateway to a labyrinth of Freudian dread, venal family values and naked neediness that could only come from the mind of Harold Pinter.