David L. Loew Movies

For some, dealing with pressure can be a Herculean task. It affects the mind and body if left unresolved. Stress has been linked to disease and early death for years in the medical community. Video Hypnotics offers a way to handle everyday challenges with Stress Management. By targeting the emotional aspects of stress, the instruction promises to minimize its effects. The viewer will learn how to change a response to a negative situation to produce a less volatile result. The hour-long video is part of a series focusing on the health. ~ Sarah Ing, All Movie Guide

Self-hypnosis is a method often used for changing negative patterns of thought, overcoming unwanted habits, and working toward achieving positive goals. In this instructional video, Guy Motansky offers a 53-minute program of self-hypnosis practice, incorporating hypnotic suggestion and subliminal learning methods for achieving relaxation, relief from emotional stress, and improved moods. Soothing music, selected visuals, and basic relaxation and suggestion exercises are used to help viewers learn to guide their own thoughts, improve their self-esteem, function more effectively, and feel happier in life. Other titles in the series are Video Hypnotics: Smoking Cessation and Video Hypnotics: Stress Management. ~ Alice Duncan, All Movie Guide

After a five-year absence, the Marx Brothers returned to the screen in the independently-produced effort A Night in Casablanca. Originally conceived as a parody of Casablanca (with character names like "Humphrey Bogus" and "Lowen Behold"), the film emerged as a spoof of wartime melodramas in general. Someone has been methodically murdering the managers of the Hotel Casablanca, and that someone is escaped Nazi war criminal Heinrich Stubel (Sig Ruman). Disguised as a Count Pfefferman, Stubel intends to reclaim the stolen art treasures that he's hidden in a secret room somewhere in the hotel, and the only way he can do this undetected is by bumping off the managers and taking over the hotel himself. The newest manager of Hotel Casablanca is former motel proprietor Ronald Kornblow (Groucho Marx), who, blissfully unaware that he's been hired only because no one else will take the job, immediately takes charge in his own inimitably inept fashion. Corbacchio (Chico Marx), owner of the Yellow Camel company, appoints himself as Kornblow's bodyguard, aided and abetted by Stubel's mute valet Rusty (Harpo Marx). In his efforts to kill Kornblow, Stubel dispatches femme fatale Beatrice Reiner (Lisette Verea) to romance the lecherous manager, leading to a hilarious recreation of a key comedy sequence in the Marxes' earlier A Day at the Races. Arrested on a trumped-up charge, Kornblow, Corbacchio and Rusty escape in time to foil Stubel and his stooges. As in most Marx Brothers epics, A Night in Casablanca includes a tiresome romantic subplot, this time involving disgraced French flyer (Pierre) and his faithful sweetheart Annette (Lois Collier). Though hampered by listless direction and witless one-liners, A Night in Casablanca contains enough hilarity to compensate for its many flaws; some of the best visual gags were conceived by an uncredited Frank Tashlin, including Harpo's legendary "holding up the building" bit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham's account of the life of artist Paul Gauguin, was brought to the screen as a labor of love by writer/director Albert Lewin. George Sanders plays Charles Strickland, a staid London broker who kicks over the traces to become an artist. Strickland pursues his dream to the extent of leaving his family, betraying his friends and associates, and living a life of unending hedonism in Tahiti. An undeniably brilliant painter, Strickland is also a thoroughgoing louse, until he is forced to confront himself on the threshold of death. Herbert Marshall plays the Somerset Maugham character (as he would later in The Razor's Edge), who narrates the story as he attempts to make some sense of Strickland's rakish ways. Director Lewin's obsessive fascination with extraneous exotica -- notably feline statuary and obscure poetry -- is ideally suited to the subject matter of The Moon and Sixpence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime comedy, a fortune is stolen and every gangster in town is looking for it. They all end up staying at a young woman's inn. The crooks all end up jailed thanks to the work of an innocent fountaineer. Not only does he collect a substantial reward, he returns the missing loot and wins the heart of the innkeeper. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The most successful of Joe E. Brown's post-Warner Bros. efforts, The Gladiator finds cavern-mouthed Brown winning a cash prize at a movie theatre, then using his windfall to attend college. The son of a legendary athlete, clumsy Brown is unable to live up to his dad's reputation. Genially batty scientist Lucien Littlefield injects Brown with a strength serum that turns Our Hero into a star football player. When he balks at joining the team, the coach sends pretty June Travis, the girlfriend of campus jock Robert Kent, to flatter Brown into suiting up. At first considering Brown a twerp, Travis grows to genuinely love him, especially after he is publicly humiliated by Kent. The climax finds Brown wrestling against Man Mountain Dean, with virtually everyone at the college betting their bankroll on Brown. Trouble is, the serum begins to wear off at the most inopportune moment. Despite his milquetoast characterization, Joe E. Brown was in fact a champion-level athlete; he used no doubles in the wrestling scenes, and as a result landed in the hospital with a double hernia. The Gladiator is a lighthearted adaptation of the satirical novel by Philip Wylie, which was reportedly also the inspiration for the Superman comic strip. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A lesser but no less amusing Joe E. Brown vehicle, Riding on Air was adapted from a series of Saturday Evening Post stories by Richard Macaulay. Brown and Vinton Hayworth play Elmer Lane and Harvey Schumann, two rival small-town newspaper reporters who spend half their time fighting over stories (including a juicy murder yarn) and the other half battling over heroine Betty Harrison (Florence Rice). Elmer finally gains the upper hand when he stumbles upon a gang of airborne smugglers; commandeering the crooks' plane, our hero goes on a wild and crazy ride before the aircraft is brought under control by a revolutionary new radio beam. He then settles the hash of local swindler Doc Waddington, played by Brown's old Warner Bros. crony Guy Kibbee. Produced independently by David Loew, Riding on Air was released by RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide