Billy Wilder (5 Disc Box Set)

The Major and The Minor:

Modern girl Susan Applegate is desperate to go home from New York to Iowa, but doesn’t have the railway fare — so she disguises herself as a child to travel at half price.

En route she meets Army major, Philip Kirby, who is taken in by her deception. But his ladyfriend isn’t and comedy ensues. Billy Wilder’s first film in Hollywood was a huge hit that kick-started the director’s long and hallowed career.

Five Graves to Cairo:

June, 1942. The British Army, retreating ahead of victorious Field-Marshall Erwin Rommel, leaves a lone survivor on the Egyptian border: Corporal John Bramble.

Lucking on a desert hotel, Bramble assumes an identity which proves perilous. The new guest of honour is none other than Rommel, hinting at a strategy code-named ‘five graves’. The fate of the British in Egypt depends on whether a lowly corporal can discover the Desert Fox’s secret.

Double Indemnity:

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a smoothtalking but naïve insurance salesman, falls for the seductive charms of his beautiful client Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). The couple are immediately drawn to each other and an affair begins. Together they plot to get rid of her dull husband and collect on the “double indemnity” life policy.

Considered the greatest film noir ever made, and nominated for seven Academy Awards®, Double Indemnity is legendary director Billy Wilder's masterful adaptation of James M. Cain's classic thriller. With a brilliant cast – Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson – it is a cynical, witty thriller about adultery, corruption and murder.

The Front Page:

Hildy Johnson is the top reporter on a Chicago newspaper during the 1920s. Tired of the whole game he's determined to quit his job to get married.

His scheming editor, Walter Burns, has other plans though. It's the day before guilty (but insane) murderer, Earl Williams, is due to go to the gallows and Burns tempts Johnson to stay and write the story.