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Margin for Error/A Royal Scandal: Double disc set

Certificate

1943/1945: DVD Mar08

Black and White

Language(s): English

Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired

Published/distributed by BFI

ISBN/EAN: 5035673006696

Ratio 04:03

Region 2

Price: £19.99
(Including VAT at 17.5%)

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Margin for Error/A Royal Scandal: Double disc set

Preminger, Otto

Margin for Error (1943)
Wisecrackin' Jewish cop Moe Finkelstein (Milton Berle) has just been put in charge of guarding the proto-Nazi German embassy in New York, a matter of weeks before the US enters World War II and his commissioner gives him the additional task of showing the staff the American way of life. Once there he encounters the egoistical, villainous consul (a scene-stealing performance by Otto Preminger himself), his American wife Sophie (Joan Bennett) who is desperate for a divorce, and the Consul's secretary, the sheltered Baron Von Alvenstor whose blind allegiance to his motherland is being severely tested by both his bosss increasingly maddening power-hungry pursuits and his own growing affection for Sophie. On the night Hitler's words are broadcast across the world, a murder is committed in the embassy, but with each character nurturing a dark secret, Moe can allow no margin for error.

Margin for Error was Otto Preminger's third film for the Hollywood studios, and offers great insight into the working methods of the Austrian director who went on to create classic masterpieces such as Laura (1944) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

A Royal Scandal (1945)
Bursting into the majestic surroundings of the court of Catherine the Great, brash young Officer Alexei Chernoff brings his Empress news of a revolution stirring in the Western front. Impressed by the dashing audacity of her devoted, handsome subject, Catherine makes sure that the young man is swiftly promoted through the ranks much to the annoyance of the court: the crafty old Chancellor (Charles Coburn) and his niece and Chernoffs fiance (Anne Baxter). But will Catherine get her wicked way before the next revolution begins?

A Royal Scandal is a risque comedy set at the height of the Russian dynasty that features a rare appearance from the sumptuous Tallulah Bankhead in one of her finest roles as Empress Catherine the Great. There is also a hilarious cameo from Vincent Price, a sparkling Lubitsch-honed script and the stunning black and white cinematography that has come to mark Otto Preminger's work.

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