Dance with a Stranger
by Mike Newell
List Price:
Our Price: $3.49
You Save: $11.49 (77%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.81 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ian Holm, Joanne Whalley, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, Stratford JohnsDirector: Mike Newell
Brand: Sony
Cinematographer: Peter Hannan
Editor: Mick Audsley
Producer: Paul Cowan
Producer: Roger Randall-Cutler
Writer: Shelagh Delaney
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
Published: 2001-01-01
DVD Release Date: 2001-01-23
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Dance with a Stranger
Movie Review: Some dance to remember.
Summary: 5 Stars
Before Brit director Mike Newell became famous for rom-coms starring Hugh Grant, he directed this intense little masterpiece called *Dance with a Stranger*, based on the true-life story of the Last Woman Hanged in England, Ruth Ellis. Firstly, one is shocked to discover that they were still HANGING people in England 50 years ago! -- in the progressive United States, we had moved on to electric chairs and other inventive methods for dispatching our undesirables. Onward and upward! At any rate, this film is an engrossing experience, with dynamite acting from the British Meryl Streep, Miranda Richardson. (Another shocking thing to consider is that this was her first starring role in the movies! She carries herself like a 20-year screen veteran, here.) A very young Rupert Everett acquits himself well as the lover that Ellis eventually guns down. He plays the part with a curious mixture of viciousness and sleepiness. And Ian Holm finds himself in the type of role he was born to play; that is, the repressed, lip-gnawing little man on the sidelines. His character is a torch-carrying friend of Ellis, as equally obsessed with her as she is with the Everett character. (The Everett character is equally obsessed with himself.) There's some social commentary here, if one cares to search for it: it's a feminist saga by its very nature, in which the heroine serves as either a) a repository for Everett's "jam", or b) a punching bag . . . and sometimes as a combination of the two. As you might imagine, Ellis finally gets her fill of this treatment, but don't expect a feel-good, you-go-girl speech as a side-dish for the vengeful main course. This is a woman in living damnation. She's not Susan Sarandon with an accent. There's also a nod toward the caste system in post-war Britain. Ruth Ellis was little better than a hooker, one of those "very friendly" bar-maids who indifferently sings torch songs and keeps the gentlemen company. The Everett character, despite his moonlighting as a race-car driver, came from a family whose home in the country resembled Blenheim Palace. And Everett's comfortably bourgeois friends can muster only contempt for this woman, who -- to them -- seems no better than a tarty and shrill Marilyn Monroe look-alike. Yah yah yah, the social commentary is there, all right; but the movie isn't terribly interested in it. You're better off just watching Richardson portray this woman whose life spirals vertiginously out of control. One senses that she has been waiting all along for a chance to self-destruct: it's not an easy life, coming home to your young son reeking of gin and cigarette smoke. As she slowly but surely turns into a masochistic, lust-soaked monster, pulling down three different people (including her own son) into the abyss right along with her, we can only watch with appalled fascination. I highly recommend this ice-cold film.
Summary of Dance with a Stranger
DANCE WITH A STRANGER - DVD MovieSimilar DVD Movies
RepulsionKOC; Release date: 2005-02-08; DVD
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
Blow UpHEMMINGS,DAVID; Release date: 2004-02-17; DVD
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Magnificent AmbersonsWarner; Release date: 2012-01-31; DVD
Best price: $6.79
Price in other shops:
Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection (Morocco/ Blonde Venus/ The Devil Is a Woman/ Flame of New Orleans/ Golden Earrings)NBC Universal; Release date: 2006-04-04; DVD
Best price: $7.92
Price in other shops:
Cleopatra 75th Anniversary Edition (Universal Backlot Series)Cleopatra; Release date: 2009-04-07; DVD
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops:
Dolores Claiborneby Stephen King
Bates; Release date: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $3.43
Price in other shops:
Dangerous LiaisonsWarner Brothers; Release date: 1997-10-29; Published: 1997-10-01; DVD
Best price: $5.83
Price in other shops:
ToleranceKoch International; Release date: 2007-05-08; DVD
Best price: $6.88
Price in other shops:
Unconditional LoveNLV; Release date: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $2.14
Price in other shops:
An Ideal HusbandEBH; Release date: 2011-06-21; DVD
Best price: $2.76
Price in other shops: