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DVD Extra: 'Camelot' and other Blu-ray upgrades

May 15, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

The last major film personally produced by Jack L. Warner at the studio that still carries his and his brothers' names -- it was released after the last surviving Warner sold the lot to Seven Arts -- "Camelot'' carries a special resonance for Hollywood buffs, in addition to the original Broadway musical being permanently linked with the brief, shining presidency of John F. Kennedy in the public's mind.

A commercial and critical disappointment when it was released in 1967, Joshua Logan's adaptation -- recently newly upgraded to a great-looking Blu-ray special edition -- now seems at least as appealing as George Cukor's "My Fair Lady,'' the other Lerner and Lowe stage musical produced by J.L. that won Oscar Best Picture's award three years earlier (the Blu-ray of that one, from longtime owner CBS, looks horrendous).

Logan's movie took its lumps at the time for replacing the stage Arthur and Guinevere, Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. But 45 years out, that seems more like a wise choice -- and Redgrave has had an enduring off-screen relationship and marriage with Franco Nero, the Italian actor who replaced the bilious Robert Goulet as Lancelot.

Unlike Warners' 2003 DVD release that amped up the colors, the Blu-ray more faithfully reproduces the original earth-toned pallette of this melancholy romance, superbly carried by the vocals of Harris (who, let us not forget, had a huge pop hit with "MacArthur Park.''

The soundtrack of the three-hour roadshow version sounds great, and there's a bonus CD with four songs bound into the 36-page Blu-ray book. In addition to features ported over from the DVD, there's a new 30-minute featurette (in HD) and a commentary track by Stephen Farber.

Continuing to catch up with recent releases, here are some other notable titles that have received Blu-ray upgrades:

"1900'' (1977) -- Paramount has decided to license Bernardo Bertolucci's epic covering the turbulent first 45 years of the 20th Century in Italy in a fantastic-looking HD transfer to Olive Films. A seriously great-looking film shot by Vittorio Storaro, this saga of two families has a heavyweight cast including Robert DeNiro, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster, Dominique Sanda, Alida Valli and Sterling Hayden. Cut to four hours for U.S. release, the Blu-ray presents the full five-hour cut with an English-language track -- the Italian actors are dubbed. The making-of featurettes from Paramount's 2006 release aren't carried over, but there is a 51-minute 2002 documentary on Bertolucci's career.

"Buck Privates'' (1941) -- Abbott and Costello's first vehicle, a huge hit (grossing $4 million on a reported budget of $180,000) that helped them supplant Deanna Durbin as the studio's top attraction, looks surprisingly terrific in one of Universal's official 100th Anniversary restorations, a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack packaged in book format. Like many of their early films, this is a World War II musical, and the big attraction here is The Andrews Sisters singing "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy'' and "Apple Blossom Time.'' When she isn't being romanced by Lee Bowman and Alan Curtis, USO girl Jane Frazee warbles "I Wish You Were Here.'' Bud and Lou join Shemp Howard, among others, for "When Private Brown Becomes A Captain.''

"To Catch a Thief'' (1955) -- I've said it many times before, but films shot in VistaVision and Technicolor make for the most mouth-watering Blu-ray classics.It's hard to say what looks better -- Cary Grant, Grace Kelly or the French Rivera -- in this sharp, superlative rendition of Hitchcock's frothy crime thriller. Copious extras are carried over from the out-of-print Centennial Collection DVD -- a line that was discontinued well before Paramount's actual 100th anniversary this year.

"A Trip to the Moon'' (1902) -- George Melies' famous 15-minute short -- painstakingly and beautifully restored from a crumbling hand-colored print discovered in Spain in the 1993 and the showpiece of last year's "Hugo'' -- gets a spectacular Blu-ray release from Flicker Alley. Besides this seminal Jules Verne knockoff with impressive 110-year-old effects, the limited-edition DVD/Blu-ray combo set includes a fascinating feature-length documentary on the film and its restoration.

"Fort Apache'' (1948) -- The first part of John Ford's "cavalry trilogy'' (with John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple) gets the best-looking Blu-ray I've seen derived from a black-and-white RKO feature from this era. Blacks are crisp and there's enough of a grain patina to give a film-like experience.

"Chinatown'' (1974) -- Roman Polanski's neo noir classic is another high-def upgrade from Paramount's defunct Centennial Collection line. The film looks great, and the copious extras carried over include a Robert Towne-David Fincher commentary track, as well as an illuminating feature-length documentary on the movie's historical background.

"A Streetcar Named Desire'' (1951) Alex North's jazzy score is brilliantly represented in this upgrade of Elia Kazan's taboo-busting adaptation of the Tennesee Williams play, which also highlights Harry Stradling Sr.'s shadowy black-and-white cinematography.

"Pillow Talk'' (1959) Another landmark film and another of Universal's official 100th anniversary restorations. The color levels, which had faded notably for this Eastmancolor title, have been pumped up for its Blu-ray debut -- sometimes to garish levels, especially in the many split-screen scenes. Still, it's hard not to like the first of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies, especially when wolfish Hudson (who was gay in real life) pretends to be gay so Day can "cure'' him.

The Warner Archive Collection it taking pre-orders for King Vidor's "Billy the Kid'' (1930), starring Johnny Mack Brown in the title role, Wallace Beery and Kay ("Madam Satan'') Johnson. Also scheduled for June 5 is WAC's third volume of Monogram westerns -- eight of 'em made between 1943 and 1951, and all starring Brown.
	 
The TCM Vault Collection continues dipping into the Universal catalogue for "The 1930s Rareties Collection,'' which offers the very welcome DVD debuts of Eddie Cline's "Million Dollar Legs'' (1932) starring W.C. Fields and Jack Oakie; Raoul Walsh's "Artists and Models'' (1937) with Jack Benny and Ida Lupino; and Henry Hathaway's "Souls at Sea'' (1937) starring Gary Cooper and George Raft. Rounding out the set is Leo McCarey's 1934 Mae West vehicle "Belle of the Yukon,'' briefly available on DVD from Image back before the end of the last century.
	 
Also due on Aug. 7, from Olive Films, are the Blu-ray debuts of Nicholas Ray's never-on-DVD "Johnny Guitar'' (1954) starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge, as well as an upgrade for John Ford's "Rio Grande'' (1950), the first teaming of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.

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Revival Circuit: Gene Tierney goes boating

May 10, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenck

Probably Hollywood's most popular film noir at the time of its original release -- at $5 million, doubling the take of the previous year's "Double Indemnity'' to become Fox's top-grossing film of ANY genre in the '40s -- "Leave Her to Heaven'' stars Oscar-nominated Gene Tierney as a woman so insanely possessive of her new husband (Cornel Wilde) that he lets his handicapped teenage brother drown in a Maine lake. And that's just for starters; unfortunately Gene's old boyfriend (Vincent Price) is the prosecutor.
	 
The Christmas Day 1945 attraction at the old Roxy on Seventh Avenue at 50th Street is also one of the most ravishingly beautiful three-strip Technicolor films, winning an Oscar for Leon Shamroy's cinematography and a nod for its gorgeously elaborate interiors -- this is the only film with houses I'd love to live in. It's showing Saturday at 7 p.m. as part of the "Fashion in Film'' Festival on the huge screen at the Museum of the Moving Image, 36th Avenue and 37th Street, Astoria, Queens.
	 
For Mother's day, MMI  is offering both Michael Curtiz's original "Mildred Pierce'' starring Oscar-winner Joan Crawford and Todd Haynes' 2011 330-minute HBO remake with Kate Winslet. Ann Roth's costumes from the latter are on display at the museum.

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DVD Extra: Verne underground, Brando's Napoleon and other Blu-ray treats from Twilight Time

May 08, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

The name of the boutique label Twilight Time is a sly reference to the increasing reluctance by some of the major studios to release "deep catalogue'' titles -- i.e., films made before, say, 1975 -- on "physical media,'' or DVD and Blu-rays. Begun a year ago to license such semi-orphaned films from Twentienth Century Fox Home Entertainment for limited-edition DVD editions of 3,000 copies, Twilight Time (which distributes through Screen Archives Entertainment, a longtime purveyor of movie soundtracks) is now debuting a couple of new Blu-ray editions a month of films -- including some already available on DVD -- that both Fox and Sony have reservations about releasing through normal retail channels.

It's hard to imagine there isn't a large and enthusiastic market for Henry Levin's delightful "Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1959), which arrives on Blu-ray in a great-looking edition today via Screen Archives. Made during Hollywood's decade-long infatuation with Jules Verne -- it followed Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'' (1955) and the Oscar-winning "Around the World'' (1956) -- this is an elaborately entertaining sci-fi classic that holds a special place in the holds a special place in the hearts of boomers like me but has a generation-spanning appeal.

The excellent screenplay by veterans Walter Reich and producer Charles Brackett -- the writing team for "Ninotchka,'' minus Billy Wilder -- takes some liberties with Verne (adding a promnent duck named Gertrude who gets a special shout-out in the trailer, and references to Atlantis) but remains true to the author's spirit and 19th-century setting.

"Journey'' was originally intended for two of Fox's biggest stars of the era, singer Pat Boone and Clifton Webb. The latter, who had two other 1959 releases but made only other film after that, dropped out for health reasons and was replaced by James Mason of "20,000 Leagues,'' who gives one of his most memorable performances as an irascible, newly-knighted geology professor at the University of Edinburgh (that same year, he played the chief villain in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest'').

Boone was reportedly reluctant to play a Scottish graduate student (in real life, he had just graduated cum laude from Columbia University) who joins Mason on his often arduous quest after a couple of relatively undemanding Henry Levin-directed musicals. He was persuaded to participate with top billing and a lucrative percentage of grosses from the picture (he mysteriously shares a credit with former Fox executive Joseph L. Schenck). The result is probably Boone's best Fox vehicle, far superior to the problematic 1962 remake of "State Fair,'' the only other Boone film available at this point on digital media (as an extra on the 1944 original).

Joining them in confronting volanic eruptions, dinosaurs and other splendid effects -- as well as villain Thayer David -- are Arlene Dahl as a fellow explorer's widow who bickers with Mason, and Peter Ronson as a heroic Swede. Diane Baker plays Mason's daughter and Boone's love interest, who gets serenaded by him in one of three songs composed by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen (with a little help from poet Robert Burns).

The film's transfer is a bit on the soft side -- not unusual for a CinemaScope feature shot in Eastmancolor (credited as Deluxe Color after the lab that Fox then owned) but the very vivid colors are a definite improvement over Fox's 2003 DVD.

While it would have been nice to hear a commentary track with Boone and Dahl's recollection, the only extra besides the trailer for this 132-minute feature is an isolated soundrack for Bernard Herrman's striking, organ-oriented score. Like all Screen Archives releases, it's accompanied by a booklet containing excellent notes by Julie Kirgo.

Like "Journey,'' Henry Koster's "Desiree'' was once a big attraction on network TV -- it debuted with much fanfare in the second season of NBC's "Saturday Night at the Movies'' in 1962 -- but has been been surprisingly little-seen since consideringat it stars Marlon Brando, then at the height of his stardom, as Napoleon Bonaparte.

It's interesting that both of Hollywood's major depictions of the emperor come in films focusing on the women in his life. Back in 1937, Charles Boyer had played Napoleon in MGM's "Conquest,'' a notorious flop centering on his mistress Marie Waleska, portrayed by top-billed Greta Garbo.

Brando may be topped billed in "Desiree,'' but the title role goes to Jean Simmons (soon to be his co-star in "Guys and Dolls'') as a silk merchant's daughter briefly egaged to the young officer before his more politically advantageous marriage to Josephine (Merle Oberon, who has one good scene).

Desiree drifts in and out of Napoleon's life over a period of decades (neither visibly ages) as he divorces Josephine for an Austrian princess, Desiree's French husband (Michael Rennie) becomes King of Sweden and the emperor becomes increasingly grandiose after various military victories (which occur mostly offscreen) lead up to his banishment to Elba.

A bigger hit at the time than Brando's other 1954 release, "On the Waterfront,'' this early CinemaScope epic -- there are no closeups and few two-shots because of technical issues with lenses -- has a pair of stars with palpable chemistry (though the film does not suggest Napoleon and Desiree ever did the nasty) and really, really lavish sets and costumes. Plus, in the early scenes, Desiree's overprotective brother is played by --- hold on now -- Richard Deacon, better known as Mel Cooley of "The Dick Van Dyke Show.''

Twilight Time's Sony releases are Blu-ray upgrades that were originally prepared for retail release until Sony got cold feet, so they look even better than the Fox titles. A new high-definition transfer showcases cimematographer James Wong Howe's romantic vision of Manhattan in "Bell, Book and Candle'' (1958), the other film that James Stewart and Kim Novak teamed up for the same year as "Vertigo."

Richard Quine and screenwriter Daniel Taradash created a delightfully quirky classic from John Van Druten's play about a Manhattan book publisher (Stewart) bewitched by a witch (Novak) who wishes she weren't. Like the TV series it loosely inspired ("Bewitched''), it's been read as a gay and/or feminist parable, particularly Novak is she's talking about her fraught relationship with her former college roommate (Janice Rule), now Stewart's financee.

Certainly Jack Lemmon, who plays Novak's jazz musician/warlock brother, can be read as gay (even Novak told me she thinks so). The extremely funny supporting cast includes Elsa Lanchester as Novak's mischevious aunt, Ernie Kovacs as a fraudulent expert on supernatural phenomenon and Hermoine Gingold as a Brooklyn watch who Stewart goes to for a cure.

"Bell, Book and Candle'' is a film of great moments, including a visit to a Greenwich Village beat cafe, a Christmas morning visit to the Flatiron building, and the unforgettable moment when Novak discovers she's become human. Howe even shoots several scenes from the point of view of Novak's scene-stealing cat.

Twilight Time's latest release from Sony's Columbia Pictures catalogue today is arguably Fritz Lang's best American film, "The Big Heat'' (1953). Made in black-and-white just before the widescreen craze (and presented at 1:1.37), this crisp, bright new transfer of the noir classic stars Glenn Ford as a cop out to avenge the death of his wife (Jocelyn Brando) on the orders of an underworld boss (Alexander Scourby).

Ford finds an ally in B-girl Gloria Grahame, in her unforgettable role as a B-girl who receives a face full of scalding coffee from boyfriend Lee Marvin-- one of the most indelible, and still-shocking, images of the 1950s.

A pair of late John Garfield classics -- Robert Rossen's "Body and Soul'' (1947) with Lili Palmer and Abraham Polonky's "Force of Evil'' (1948) with Marie Windsor -- are due July 31 from Olive Films, via its licensing of Republic library titles from Paramount.

Ernest Schodesack and Irving Pichel's "The Most Dangerous Game'' (1932) is scheduled to make its Blu-ray debut June 26 from Flicker Alley. Copious special features include the feature-length South Seas ethnograhic documentary "Go'' (1931, aka "Cannibal Island''), a commentary track by USC's Rick Jewell, and an archival interview with producer Merian C. Cooper conducted by Kevin Brownlow.

Flicker Alley is also excitingly promising the Blu-ray/DVD combo debut of "This Is Cinerama'' (1952) in time for its 60th anniversary in September, with lots of special features. Flicker Alley will also be bringing out "Windjammer'' (1958), produced in the rival jumbo format of Cinemiracle and later distributed by Cinerama.

The long-promised first volume of MGM's "Maisie'' film series starring Ann Sothern series arrives today from the Warner Archive Collection. Sothern had been kicking around Hollywood as a dancer and B-movie star since 1929 when her scene-stealing role in Tay Garnett's "Trade Winds'' (1937) persuaded MGM to take her on. They cast Southern as a showgirl in Edwin L Marin's "Maisie'' (1939), a one-off script originally ontended for Jean Harlow, billed second to Robert Young.

The series proper begins with "Congo Maisie'' (1940), H.C. Potter's programmer remake of "Red Dust'' co-starring Clark Gable lookalike John Carroll. The other films in the first set, all directed by Marin, are "Gold Rush Maisie'' with Lee Bowman; "Maisie Was a Lady'' (1941) with Lew Ayres and Maureen O'Sullivan taking a break from the "Doctor Kildare'' and "Tarzan'' series; and "Ringside Maisie'' (1941) with George Murphy and Robert Sterling.

WAC is also releasing with Sam Wood's "Navy Blue and Gold'' (1937) starring Robert Young and James Stewart (billed in that order) as Annapolis cadets. Florence Rice, Lionel Barrymore and Billie Burke co-star.

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OCD Archives: The Post's (positive!) 1962 review of 'The Connection'

May 04, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

The press notes for "The Connection,'' opening today in a new 35mm restoration at the IFC Center, give the impression that "mainstream'' reviews were uniformly negative when the film originally... Read on

The press notes for "The Connection,'' opening today in a new 35mm restoration at the IFC Center, give the impression that "mainstream'' reviews were uniformly negative when the film originally opened on October 4, 1962 at the D.W. Griffith -- and closed the same day, on orders from the state Board of Regents, whose responsibilities then included film censorship.
	 
 
	 
"The filmmakers fight against censorship was audacious, but it came at a very severe price,'' according top the notes. "By the time the New York Supreme Court ruled in favor of the film on Oct. 23 at it reopened at the D.W. Griffith on Nov. 7, the mainstream critics had already weighed in -- and against 'The Connection's' bold language and storyline. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote that the film offered "a fortright and repulsive observatin of a sleazy, snarling group of narcotic addicts.''
	 
 
	 
The film's new distributor, Milestone Films, incorrectly suggests that Jonas Mekas of the Village Voice was the movie's sole advocate, but as my "Film Pick'' in today's print edition
	 points out, the film had at least one mainstream defender. Here's the full text of Archer Winsten's Oct. 4, 1962 review in The Post. Incidentally, the 'New Griffith Theater' referred to in the first paragraph venue was a short-lived name for a Times Square venue mostly known as the Bijou, which alternated between film and live theater bookings -- not to be confused with the D.W. Griffith basement cinema on E. 59th Street, variously known as the Cine Malibu, the Clearview E. 59th, the ImaginAsian, and currently, Big Cinemas.

'Connection' Bows at the New Griffith
	 
 
	 
The importance of "The Connection'' at the new D.W. Griffith Theater on 45th Street is threefold. It rudely pushes at a word-boundry of censorship; it plunges deeply into the contemporary topic of drug addiction; and it demonstrates a technique and artistic integrity somewhere between the incomprehensibility of the far-out and the ugliness of utter realism. With so much to offer, the picture can be excused from the duties of entertainment in the pleasurable sense.
	 
 
	 
As you enter Leach's pad where, in the far-famed play by Jack Gelber, a couple of movie-makers are about to record a group of heroin addicts waiting for their fix, the comparisons between stage and screen begin.
	 
 
	 
Warren Finnerty (Leach, with a boil on his neck) seems to be carrying over a little too much theatrically from stage to screen. William Redfiel, the producer of the picture, stammers in a way that doesn't seem natural. But the natural movement of the camera, and especially the astounding reality of the pad, take effect. And the more relaxed performances of the musicians, and Jerome Raphael as Solly, and Garry Goodrow as Ernie win the day for belief. Before Barbara Winchesgter, the fantastic Sister Salvation, appears with Cowboy (Carl Lee), the man with the stuff, you are a part of the experience whether you like it or not.
	 
 
	 
There follow character details and the drama of the fixes, mounting to a climax with the movie-maker's vomiting and Leach's approach to death with an overdose.
	 
 
	 
Moviemaker Shirley Clarke, displaying commendable courage and a strong stomach, does not pull back from degregation or disgust. Her use of the forbidden word ["s_t"] is peculiarly appropriate, one might even say "moral,'' in relationship to this topic. So also is her viewing of repellent details.
	 
 
	 
In this sense, "The Connection'' must be considered a moralistic tract of extraordinarily strong impact. It strikes to the bowels of the subject, kicking the tender sensibilities of an American audience where it will hurt the most.
	 
 
	 
No one is going to be tempted to the use of narcotcics by this film. The romantic fallacy is avoided to an extent seldom met in American films where it is commonplace to find a gangster, war and delinquent youth films preaching their lessons in terms so exciting that youth is tempted despite all the ods. There is no temptation in "The Connection,'' not in the prospect, the act, the surroundings, the people.
	 
 
	 
Thus we are given the full power of the movie medium, only slightly flawed by limitations of the author, and even less defaced by the comparatively unimportant errors of the director, Shirley Clarke.
	 
 
	 
In essence this picture is an act of iconoclastic courage and conviction no men have fought through to this level of exhibition. It has taken a woman to do it, and both she and her picture deserve commendation beyond the call of duty since neither will receive that other reward of box-office riches that accompany pleasant vicarious experiences.

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What will become of The Ziegfeld?

May 03, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

The fate of the Ziegfeld Theatre on W. 54th St. -- the closest thing New York City has to an operating movie palace and still the best place in town to see a movie -- is now officially up in the air, with corporate parent Cablevision
	 indicating todaythat it's shopping around its Clearview Cinemas Chain. The Ziegfeld, opened in 1969 by the long-defunct Walter Reade chain, is the flagship of what remains of Clearview, consisting mostly of older venues in less desirable locations that Cablevision snapped up after Loews sold them to comply with antitrust concerns following its acquisition of Cineplex Odeon (years later, of course, Loews was in turn swallowed up by AMC).

It's my understanding that Clearview has about 15 years left on its longtime lease for the Ziegfeld, which for years turned a profit as a large (about 3,000 seats) single-screen theater by renting the place out big studio premieres. But these have become increasingly rare since the recession current recession began in 2007, and revenues from runs of "event'' movies at the Ziegfeld have also been hurt because the same movies often show at the Lincoln Square IMAX, which is not really all that far away. I hear there's been some talk about retrofitting the Ziegfeld, rumored to lose about $1 million annually, as a large-format house -- most likely not IMAX, since AMC Loews probably has clearance protection for both the Lincoln Square and its smaller digital IMAX screen at the Empire.

With Clearview selling the Chelsea West (the old RKO 23rd Street) and taking a buyout for its lease to the unprofitable basement theater at Broadway and 65th Street in recent years, the chain now has only two other venues left in Manhattan. There is a disastrously located and poorly designed six-screen multiplex at First Avenue and 62nd Street where crowds have generally been non-existent. I'd guess the only profitable location in Manhattan is Clearview's nine-screen Chelsea on W. 23rd St. at the corner of Eighth Avenue. There are no Clearview houses left in the other boroughs; most of the chain's holdings are in New Jersey, with seven on Long Island, five in Westchester, one in Rockland and a couple in Pennsylvania.
	 
It's not as if there are a lot of potential buyers. Buying the Ziegfeld would probably require an antitrust waiver for either AMC Loews or Regal -- if they were interested at all. City Cinemas seems to be primarily a real-estate holding company, and the Ziegfeld could quickly turn into a money pit for an operation with less deep pockets.

The Ziegfeld's chief competitor, the similarly-sized single-screen Astor Plaza, was turned into a live-action venue, the Nokia (now the Best Buy Theater). But the cost of converting the Ziegfeld -- which has neither a real stage nor an orchestra pit -- may or may not be a financially viable option. Disney has long been interested in a New York counterpart to the El Capitan in Hollywood, which showcases its big movies with a live stage show. But given the realties of Manhattan real estate, it may be more profitable for the owners of the Ziegfeld to buy out Clearview's lease and use or sell the land for other purposes than to give Disney an extended lease.

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DVD Extra: Swashbuckling double DeMille

May 03, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

I arrived in Hollywood a day before the recent TCM Classic Film Festival, just in time to watch the world premiere of "The Avengers'' at the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard from the widow of my room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
	 

	 
Though the LAPD had the crowd well in hand, the huge, excited throng reminded me a bit of the horrific climax of John Schlesinger's "The Day of the Locust,'' which is set across the street from the El Capitan at Grauman's Chinese (the main venue for the TCM Fest) during the 1938 premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's swashbuckling historical epic "The Buccaneer.''
	 

	 
Perhaps the most corrosive look at Tinseltown ever -- the sequence begins with Donald Sutherland stomping singularly obnoxious child star Jackie Earle Haley to death, then himself being lynched on the street and builds to a full-fledged riot -- Schlesinger's unsparing adaptation of Nathaniel West's novel is currently out of print on DVD (though available from resellers on Amazon).
	 

	 
But the film's owner, Paramount Picture has licensed "The Buccaneer'' (one of a handful of its pre-1950 talkies still owned by the studio), as well as its ill-fated remake, to Olive Films as part of a larger deal for catalogue titles. The earlier film is one of DeMille's best talkies, made at the height of his powers, while the latter is an unfortunate coda to his career that nevertheless looks great in a new Blu-ray transfer from its VIstaVision negative.

The older version wasn't a Blu-ray candidate without an expensive digital restoration, but the very light vertical scratches that run through much of Olive's DVD release in no way detract from one of DeMille's most entertaining films (if one of his least known today, because of very limited TV exposure). Frederic March is in top form (even if his French accent is shaky) in the title role of the French pirate Jean Lafitte, who plundered ships from a base in the bayous south of New Orleans.
	 

	 
The two "Buccaneers'' represent fairly rare Hollywood depictions of the War of 1812, whose bicentennial is barely being celebrated in the United States this year (it's a bigger deal in Canada, which successfully resisted a U.S. military invasion). The 1938 version opens with a brief prologue depicting White House being evacuated (Spring Byington plays Dolly Madison) during the burning of Washington, which is not shown by DeMille.
	 

	 
The scene quickly shifts to New Orleans, where the governor (Douglas Dumbrille) orders the arrest of Lafitte, who has coincidentally caught the eye of his daughter (Margot Grahame). But the war and the arrival of Andrew Jackson (obscure character actor Hugh Sothern, who reprised the role a year later in a Warner Bros. Technicolor short, "Old Hickory'') force the governor to give Lafitte a pardon -- one of many he received, the opening scroll assures us.
	 

	 
Lafitte volunteers his services to the U.S. as the film vigorously builds toward the Battle of New Orleans. One highlight is Lafitte's men rowing their way through the Bayous in a green-tinted sequence that shows off Victor Milner's Oscar-nominated cinematography.
	 

	 
Hungarian singer Francisca Gaal, who returned home after a couple more movies, is prominently billed as the governor's daughter's rival for Lafitte, who rescues her from a ship sunk by his rogue colleague Robert Barrat. There are more notable contributions by Russian-born Akim Tamiroff as Lafitte's top aide and Walter Brennan as Jackson's rustic aide-de-camp (these two inverterate scene-stealers share one brief but memorable scene together).

"The Buccaneer'' was such a success that DeMille for years harbored plans to remake it as a musical -- so it was excluded from Paramount's 1956 sale of pre-1950 titles to MCA (now controlled by Universal). DeMille had been revisiting his work since 1918, when he remade his very first film "The Squaw Man'' (co-"picturized'' with Oscar Apfel). DeMille then turned it into a talkie in 1930 (the 1914 version -- considered by many historians the first feature shot in Hollywood -- and the 1930 edition are available as a double feature from the Warner Archive Collection. Only the final reel of the 1918 remake survives).
	 
Unfortunately, DeMille suffered a heart attack during the making of his biggest hit, his loose remake of "The Ten Commandments'' (1956). Failing health forced him to turn over direction of the "Buccaneer'' re-do to his son-in-law Anthony Quinn (who had a supporting role in the '38 version) and his protege Henry Wilcox as producer.
	 

	 
There's only one song -- delivered by Inger Stevens in Grahame's old role -- in this version made "under the personal supervision of'' DeMille, who turns up, looking very frail, to deliver a historical lecture by way of a prologue (he died shortly after its release). The new screenplay, which sometimes plays like a libretto setting up musical numbers that aren't there -- follows the old one reasonably closely, including the crowd-pleasing ending. The major change is that Lafitte's other woman is now the renegade pirate's daughter, played by Claire Bloom.
	 

	 
Yul Brenner dons a wig for March's old role of Lafitte. Andrew Jackson's part has been beefed up just enough to justify "and also co-starring'' billed at the end of the cast list for a heavily made-up Charlton Heston -- who reprises the role from "The President's Lady'' and mentions Jackson's wife Rachel so often that you almost expect Susan Hayward to show up in a flashback. Both are quite good within the film's limitations.
	 

	 
Quinn, who never directed another film after this expensive box-office failure, lacks DeMille's showman instincts as a filmmaker, and too much of the film is obviously studio bound.
	 

	 
There are compensations, among them appearances by old-timers like Dumbrille (in a glorified bit part; E.G. Marshall has inherited his role as the governor) and Madame Sul-Te-Wan, as well as a pre-"Bonanza'' Lorne Greene as a heavy who tries to organize a lynching of Lafitte until Old Hickory steps in. Still, there are are some striking widescreen compositions by the main "Ten Commandments'' cinematographer, Loyal Griggs. And as is so often the case, Technicolor and VistaVision make for a particularly handsome-looking Blu-ray.

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DVD Extra: When Noel met David (Lean)

May 01, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

David Lean's remarkable directing career began when the future Oscar winner -- then England's best film editor -- was recruited by Noel Coward to help with the technical aspects of his own directing debut. Coward, a prolific and acclaimed playwright, composer and actor, had an ambivalent relationship to movies going back to 1918, when as a teenage actor he had an uncredited bit in D.W. Griffith's "Hearts of the World.'' Though many of Coward's popular plays began to be filmed without his active participation nine years later, he didn't appear onscreen again until he played the title role in "The Scoundrel,'' an eccentric melodrama filmed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur in Astoria, Queens, in 1935.

Coward finally decided to add filmmaker to his accomplishments in the midst of World War II, when pal Louis Mountbatten (Prince Philip's uncle) shared his experiences of having a destroyer he commanded sunk by a Nazi submarine. The intensely patriotic Coward decided to make "In Which We Serve'' -- the first of four collaborations in The Criterion Collection's splendid new "David Lean Directs Noel Coward'' Blu-ray set -- as a morale booster for blitzed England, playing a character very loosely modeled on Mountbatten in the only story he ever wrote directly for the screen.

By all accounts, Coward confined his direction to the actors, and was so impressed by Lean's work (or so bored with the tedium of filmmaking) that he turned the entire responsibility over to his protege after about three weeks and never directed a film again. Focusing on sailors played by Coward, John Mills and Bernard Miles, this rousing film flashes back (in a style inspired by "Citizen Kane'') to their lives with their wives (Cecilia Johnson, Kay Walsh and Joyce Carey) and it poignantly portrays the homefront that was at stake in the war. Transcending its propaganda mission, "In Which We Serve'' was named best picture of 1942 by the New York Film Critics Circle, over "Casablanca'' (the outcome was reversed when the two films competed for Best Picture at the 1943 Oscars, though Coward received a special award from the academy).

With Lean, cinematographer Ronald Neame (later an accomplished director himself) and associate producer Anthony Havelock-Allen, Coward formed Cineguild, a production company that then filmed a pair of The Master's recent plays in Technicolor. "This Happy Breed'' (1944) was another beautifully-crafted morale-booster, a less lavish companion piece to Coward's upper-crust epic "Cavalcade'' (a filmed version of that won Oscar's Best Picture honors for 1933) focusing on a middle-class film in the years between the World Wars. Cecilia Johnson, who had made her feature debut in "In Which We Serve,'' is superb in the lead role. Lean talked Coward -- the flamboyant actor with the clipped tones barely got away with playing the captain in "In Which We Serve'' -- out of reprising his stage role in favor of the more appropriately plebian Robert Newton.

Lean's strong suit was not comedy and he was less comfortable at the helm of an adaptation of Coward's biggest stage success, the farcial "Blithe Spirit'' (1945). Coward was not happy with the result, but it's still a beguiling entertainment because of the sparkling cast -- with Rex Harrison at his most delivishly charming as a widower whose new marriage to Constance Cummings is imperiled by the mischevious ghost of his first wife (Kay Hammond) unleased during a seance presided over by a scene-stealing Margaret Rutherford. The vivid colors in this new transfer (all four films were restored by the British Film Institute in 2008 in honor of Lean's 100th birthday) are spectacular compared to the washed-out prints that have circulated for years. Coward, who created Harrison's role onstage, reclaimed it for a 1956 NBC production that co-starred Lauren Bacall and Claudette Colbert.

A gleaming black-and-white Blu-ray upgrade also does wonders for the undisputed masterpiece in the set, a longtime repertory staple for Janus Films and for the Criterion Collection on DVD. "Brief Encounter'' (1945), the last Cineguild production was adapted (reportedly by Lean, Neame and Havelock-Allen, none of them credited) from "Still Life,'' one of nine one-act plays by Coward that were performed in repertory as "Tonight at 8:30'' (three others turned up in a 1952 British film of that name, while a decade earlier one of them had been turned into a Norma Shearer vehicle, "We Were Dancing,'' in Hollywood).

This flawless classic tearjerker -- with a piano-heavy Rachmaninoff score that might invite snickers in any other context -- stars the great Celia Johnson as a suburban matron who embarks on on an affair with a handsome younger doctor (Trevor Howard), though both are married to others. It's a doomed liasion that would be unbearably sad if many of their encounters didn't take place at a railway station peopled by affectionate working-class comicstereotypes expertly played by Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey. The film received Oscar nominations for Lean, Johnson and the screenplay, which was adapted as a wonderful stage musical that I've seen performed in both England and the United States.

Lean, of course, went on to direct the winners of two Best Picture Oscars -- "Lawrence of Arabia'' and "The Bridge on the River Kwai.'' Coward (who with a single exception appeared only in movie cameo roles after "In Which We Serve") passed on the role that won Alec Guinness the Oscar for the latter.

"David Lean Directs Noel Coward'' boasts one of Criterion's best extras packages, including a revealing interview with Neame, conducted shortly before his death in 2010 (at age 99!). There's also an excellent BFI audio interview with Coward conducted in 1969 by Richard Attenborough, who makes his screen debut in a small but important role in "In Which We Serve,'' as well as a 1971 television documentary on Lean's career.

Coward scholar Barry Day provides informative introductions for all four films, and there are featurettes on "In Which We Serve'' and "Brief Encounter'' from their 2000 UK DVD releases, among other things. A booklet that rounds out the set includes essays by Ian Christie, Terrence Rafferty, Geoffrey O'Brien, Kevin Brownlow -- and my colleague Farran Smith Nehme, who holds forth eloquently on the most underrated of the Lean-Coward collaborations, "This Happy Breed.''

Criterion also issued a Blu-ray upgrade for Roy Ward Baker's "A Night to Remember'' (1959) to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic last month.
	 

	 
This adaptation of Walter Lord's book is still considered to be the definitive account of the sinking. even if it's less fun and in some ways less dramatically satisfying than James Cameron's Oscar-winning 1997 film, which arrives on Blu-ray Sept. 15. It's certainly the most sober.
	 

	 
Made in the UK, this was the fourth feature-length Titanic movie. The first was E.A. Dupont's "Atlantic'' (1929), a Anglo-German early talkie based on a play that had to rename the ill-fated liner because of legal threats from the White Star Line. The acting -- the cast includes future Hollywood stars Madeleine Carroll and John Loder -- can be crude, but the effects are surprisingly good. This curiosity has circulated for decades on public domain videos, often under the title "Titanic.''
	 

	 
David O. Selznick planned a Titanic epic as the first project for Alfred Hitchcock when the Master of Suspense came to the United States in 1939. But this got scrapped because they rightly reckoned that it would be difficult to make such a film that wouldn't reflect poorly on the British as World War II loomed.
	 

	 
This is precisely why wartime Germany decided to make its own "Titanic'' film in 1944, as anti-British propaganda. This fascinating version -- issued on DVD by Kino in 2004 -- invents a brave German second officer who lectures White Star Line president Bruce Ismay for trying to break the spread record to drive up the line's stock price. The film also emphasizes the proportionally greater loss of life in steerage, a theme that returned in Cameron's epic. Ironically, Josef Gobbels banned the 1944 version because the very realistic scenes of panic were hardly reassuring to German moviegoers facing Allied bombing raids.
	 

	 
"Titanic'' (1953), the first Hollywood, rendition of the tragedy, sidestepped politics by focusing on a single American family headed by Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. Originally announced for r/Blu-ray release on April 4, it's now expected to come out around the same time as the Cameron version (Farran Smith Nehme compares three versions
	 in this blog post).
	 

	 
"A Night to Remember'' actually recycles a few shots from the often technically superior 1944 German version, one of which also turns up in the disappointingly brief Titanic sequence of the 1964 musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown.''
	 

	 
The greed of Ismay (played by Frank Lawton, the adult lead in George Cukor's 1935 "David Copperfield'') and British incompetence is barely hinted at in this version, which focuses on the heroics of Second Officer Charles Lightoller (very well played by forgotten British leading man Kenneth More) and downplays class distinctions on the boat. Baker, who had directed several films in Hollywood (including "Don't Bother to Knock'') does a great job with the sinking, but he simply doesn't have the massive resources and special-effects wizardry that would be available Cameron four decades later.
	 

	 
Still, "A Night to Remember'' remains a high-water mark in the history of British filmmaking. Lord, incidentally, was an American advertising man. His book had previously been adapted as a live 60-minute 1956 episode of NBC's "Kraft Theatre'' written and directed by George Roy Hill.
	 

	 
The superb-looking new Criterion transfer (also available on DVD) ports over an excellent one-hour 1993 making-of documentary from the previous DVD, as well as adding a 2006 BBC documentary on the sinking and archival interviews with survivors. There's also a written essay on the film by critic Michael Sragow.

Today's Warner Archive Collection releases include Stephen Roberts' "Star of Midnight'' (1935), a mystery with William Powell and Ginger Rogers; Edwin L. Marin's "Hullabaloo'' (1940), a comic vehicle for Frank Morgan with Billie Burke; Robert Wise's "This Could Be the Night'' (1959), a gangster comedy with Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas and Tony Franciosa; Etiene Perier's "Bridge to the Sun'' (1961), starring Carroll Baker as the bride of a diplomat (James Shigeta) in Japan as World War II erupts; and James Neilson's "Flareup,'' a 1969 thriller with Raquel Welch as a go-go dancer.
	 

	 
WAC has also added J. Walter Ruben's "Phantom of Crestwood'' (1932) with Karen Morley and Ricardo Cortez to the David O. Selznick-produced pre-orders available for May 22 release. Listed for June 15 pre-orders are King Vidor's "Show People'' (1928) with Marion Davies and William Haines and lots of silent star cameos, including Charlie Chaplin; Lewis Seiler's "Flight Angels'' (1940) starring Virginia Bruce, Jane Wyman and Dennis Morgan; Alexander Korda's "Vacation From Marriage'' (1945) with Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr; and Robert Hamer's "The Scapegoat'' (1959) with Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. Anatole Litvak's "The Journey'' (1959) starring Kerr and Yul Brenner is listed for June 6 release.

This week's releases from the Sony Pictures Choice Collection -- a MOD program whose releases generally go up on the WAC website on the first Thursday of the month -- include a pair of Boston Blackie mysteries with Chester Morris: Budd Boetticher's "One Mysterious Night'' (1944) with Janis Carter and Lew Lander's "A Close Call For Boston Blackie'' (1946) with Lynn Merrick. Also premiering on DVD is Alfred E. Green's "Strange Affair'' (1944), Columbia's second and final attempt to launch Allyn Joslyn and Evelyn Keyes as a programmer version of Nick and Nora Charles. The always watchable Joslyn plays a crime-solving comic-book artist in this one.
	 
Olive Films' first Blu-ray releases licensed from Paramount's Republic Pictures holdings, both on July 17, are Fred Zinneman's "High Noon'' (1952) and Don Siegel's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' (1956), both previously issued on DVD by former rights holders Lionsgate and Artisan Entertainment. The cover of "High Noon'' contains a new "produced by Stanley Kramer'' credit, which does not actually appear on the film, billed as "a Stanley Kramer Production,'' which is not the same thing. By some accounts "High Noon,' was actually produced by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who was denied a credit by his former partner Kramer because he was about to be blacklisted.

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Second opinion: 'The Avengers'

April 27, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

Already the fanboys in the comments have begun to attack Kyle Smith's three-star review of "The Avengers'' in today's print edition (its East Coast premiere, which is not open to the general public... Read on

Already the fanboys in the comments have begun to attack Kyle Smith's
	 three-star reviewof "The Avengers'' in today's print edition (its East Coast premiere, which is not open to the general public, is designated as the closing night film at the Tribeca Film Festival)  as insufficiently enthusiastic. Never mind that most of them haven't even seen the movie yet; they just KNOW it's great because they want it to be.

I'm obviously not this movie's target audience, but having seen "The Avengers'' I agree with most of Kyle's complaints. In fact, if I had reviewed "The Avengers'' -- as more of a D.C. than a Marvel guy, I chose not to -- my notice would have been a half-star lower.

I can certainly understand the fanboys ire; rarely has a movie been made that panders so relentlessly and efficiently to their whims. For all their whining about spoilers, the fact is that fanboys really don't like surprises in their movies. And aside from Mark Ruffalo's pleasing decision to underplay David Banner, this movie doesn't deliver a single one. Which may be a problem for moviegoers like me -- probably a minority for an event film like this -- who don't like movies to be so ultra-predictable, or "about'' nothing more than gratifying ticket buyers.

To lead with the film's most positive aspects, Robert Downey Jr. rocks as Iron Man (he didn't in the second film) and he's given lots of great one liners. Ruffalo is also rock solid, and the effects work is really top-notch.I've never seen Manhattan leveled anywhere near this impressively.

But at 143 minutes, "The Avengers'' felt way too long to me. As as Kyle notes, it's got a boring and borderline incomprehensible plot.

I would add a basically uninteresting villain in Tom Hiddleston's Loki -- and, though Kyle would disagree, I find Chris Evans' Captain America and Chris Hemworth's Thor, just as dull -- cardboard on steroids -- as they were in their movies last summer. Scarlett Johanssen's Black Widow is basically token window dressing.

The other, better actors in the cast, Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye and Samuel L. Jackson's Sgt. Nick Fury, have disappointingly small roles with Jackson given a dangerously low eyball-glazing-exposition-to-one-liner ratio.

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Tribeca: Cuban 'defector' wins acting prize

April 26, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

Javier Nunez Florian, who reportedly went missing on his way to the American premiere of his Cuban film "Una Noche'' at the Tribeca Film Festival, Thursday night shared the fest's acting award with co-star Dariel Arrechada -- who unlike Nunez Florian, showed up to collect his share of the prize, worth $1,200.
	 
Lucy Molloy won the narrative director award for "Una Noche,'' a story about young refugees that also garnered a prize for its cinematography.
	 
Nunez Florian and one of the film's other non-professional stars, Analin de la Rua de la Torre, reportedly disappeared during a stop in Miami en route to New York, spurring speculation they plan to defect and seek political asylum in the United States.
	 
The film's reps deny it's a publicity stunt to help "Una Noche'' find a U.S. distributor.
	 
The top prize went to Kim Ngyuen's "War Watch,'' while another non-professional actress, Rachel Mwanza, took the festival's best actress prize for her performance in the film about a freed African child soldier.
	 
The screenplay award went to "All In,'' a Spanish-language romantic comedy. 'The World Before,'' centering on women coming of age in India, took the documentary prize.

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DVD Extra: Lee Tracy in Russia, Kyser meets Barrymore, Stanwyck on a train

April 24, 2012 , ι Lou Lumenick

This is a catch-up column after a month's absence due to a vacation, Kyle Smith's temporary assignment to London and my trip to Hollywood for the TCM Classic Film Festival, where I got an early look at some spectacular digital restorations -- including "Singin' in the Rain,'' "Funny Face'' and "Cabaret'' -- that will be turning up on video later this year.

Any pre-code film starring the fast-talking Lee Tracy is a welcome addition to DVD. "Clear All Wires!'' (1933), the first made during his brief association with MGM (he was fired for a drunken escapade in Mexico during the making of the still-MIA-on-DVD "Viva Villa!" and replaced by Stuart Erwin) is one that was on our wishlist for TCM's "Shadows of Russia'' series a couple of years ago but didn't make the final cut. It's precisely the sort of fascinating obscurity that typifies the curatorial genius of the Warner Archive Collection.

Based on a short-lived play by Sam and Bella Spewack ("Boy Meets Girl,'' "Kiss Me Kate'') that starred Thomas Mitchell -- they later heavily reworked it as a more successful Cole Porter musical-- "Wires'' typecasts Tracy as a foreign correspondent for a fictional Chicago paper who arrives in Moscow to report on, among other things, "the new [Soviet] woman.'' Fired for pickpocketing a credential from a New York Times correspondent to get an exclusive interview with Stalin, Tracy contrives a phony assassination attempt against a supposed survivor of the Czar's family to get himself back in the good graces of his employers.

Briskly directed by the undeservedly forgotten George Hill ("The Big House''), who committed suicide the next year, "Clear All Wires!'' features Benita Hume and Una Merkel as love interest, Akim Tamiroff as a hotel desk clerk and C. Henry Gordon as the head of the Soviet secret police. But only James Gleason as Tracy's conniving assistant has a prayer of upstaging the galvanic star in this very funny little movie.

RKO, Tracy's most frequent home after his MGM tenure (he had previously tested the patience of Fox, Columbia, Universal and Warners) was initially partly owned by RCA and rarely passed up on opportunity to showcase radio personalities features on the latter's NBC radio subsidiary.

Oddly, the most successful of these was the now-forgotten bandleader Kay Kyser, who scored one of the studio's biggest hits of 1939 with his first and best starring vehicle, "That's Right You're Wrong,'' a hilariously meta comedy about a movie studio's attempts to build a movie around a bandleader who can't act (this will presumably be included in the Warner Archive Collection's second set devoted to the RKO comedies of its female lead, Lucille Ball). Kyser played himself again in the horror-comedy "You'll Find Out,'' which Warners released at retail in 2009 as part of an oddball collection of Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi films (the horror stars both share under the title billing Peter Lorre).

The "Kay Kyser Double Feature'' recently released by Warner Archive includes his third starring vehicle,"Playmates'' (1941), which revisits the earlier comic theme of trying to turn Kyser (for a third time accorded solo above the tile billing) into an actor. This time, his agent (Peter Lind Hayes, replacing Dennis O'Keefe in the two earlier films, which like this one were directed by David Butler) gives him the services of no less than John Barrymore.
	 
The Great Profile -- shown the door by RKO in 1934 after he failed to show up for "Hat, Coat and Glove'' (1934) and fresh from his comeback in "The Great Man Votes'' (1939) -- is somewhat cruelly forced to parody himself and his problems (drinking, financial issues) in what turned out to be his final screen performance before his death the following year. But the film does include the only record Barrrymore performing Hamlet, aside from an abortive screen test (Kyser plays Ophelia). The cast includes Patsy Kelly as Barrymore's agent, Lupe Velez briefly guesting on leave from RKO's "Mexican Spitfire'' series and May Robson (by then blind but still memorizing scripts that were read to her) reprising her role as Kyser's grandmother in her penultimate movie before her own death in 1942.

The Kyser repertoire, which tends heavily toward novelty songs, is delivered by his band and his regular singers, including Harry Babbitt, Sully Mason, Merwyn Bogue (who sports an early Beatles haircut as Ish Kabibble) -- and Ginny Simms in her final screen appearance with Kyser's band.

MGM chief Louis B. Mayer's reportedly unconsummated romanic obsession with Ms. Simms seems a plausible partial explanation for Tim Whelan's "Swing Fever'' (1943), a prime candidate for the oddest musical ever made by that studio. Once again accorded star billing, Kyser for the only time isn't playing himself, but a composer with hypnotic powers who fight promoter William Gargan employs on behalf of client Nat Pendleton. Kyser ends up leading his real-life band and singers, but without Simms, who in this film is replaced by MGM starlet Marilyn Maxwell. Also on hand are Lena Horne, Tommy Dorsey and an unbilled Ava Gardner as a secretary.

Kyser, who toured extensively with the USO during World War II, returned to playing himself in two more RKO vehicles not yet on DVD, "Around the World'' and "My Favorite Spy,'' and had cameo appearances in MGM's "Thousands Cheer'' and "Broadway Canteen.''
	 
His final acting appearance, again as "himself," was in "Carolina Blues'' (1944), recently released by the recently renamed Sony Pictures Choice Collection (formerly known as Screen Classics by Demand and Columbia Classics) MOD program through the Warner Archive and other websites. Ms. Simms' successor as the band's girl singer, Georgia Carroll, appears briefly as herself. In real life, she retired after her marriage to Kyser. In the movie, though she marries a serviceman and is replaced by Ann Miller in this pleasing bit of fluff. Comic honors go to Victor Moore, who appears as six members of the same family, and the best number teams Harold Nicholas and the Four Step Brothers.

Olive Films' extensive mining of Paramount's post-1950 film library has turned up a gem in Mitchell Leisen's "No Man of Her Own'' (1951), based on a Cornell Woolrich story that was re-filmed in France in 1983 with Nathalie Baye under its original title "I Married a Dead Man.'' (Paramount previously used "No Man of Her Own'' as the title of an unrelated 1932 film that turned out to be the only teaming of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard).

Barbara Stanwyck has one of her best roles as an abandoned pregnant woman who is mistaken for another mom-to-be after a train crash that occurs while trying on the other woman's wedding ring. The family of the dead woman's husband, who have conveniently never met his wife, take in Stanwyck and help her raise the child as romance blossoms with the dead man's brother (John Lund). Stanwyck's struggles with her guilt over the impersonation, and then the sleazy father of her child (Lyle Bettger) turns up with a blackmail demand.

Even more than another Stanwyck noir classic from this era, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' requires suspension of disbelief for its wilder plot twists, but it's well worth the effort. Stylist Leisen's only venture into film noir is full of arresting moments -- I've never seen a body disposed of more artfully -- and, as Dan Callahan notes in his recent book on Stanwyck and her films, there's loads of gay subtext. Most interesting, Stanwyck took her character's name from her personal assistant, who some believe was also her lesbian lover.
	 
Today's Warner Archive Collection releases include a quartet of Lon Chaney silents, among them three coveted chillers directed by his frequent collaborator Tod Browning: "The Black Bird'' (1926) with the Man of a Thousand Faces in a dual role opposite Owen Moore and Renee Adoree; "West of Zanzibar'' (1928), an earlier version of the lurid melodrama "Kongo'' co-starring Lionel Barrymore; and "Where East is East'' (1929) with Lupe Velez. Chaney drops the heavy makeup for his most famous straight role, as a tough sergeant in "Tell It to the Marines'' (1926) co-starring William Haines and Eleanor Boardman.

WAC is also reissuing these out-of-print swashbucklers: William Keighley's "The Prince and the Pauper'' (1937) starring Errol Flynn, Billy and Bobby Mauch and Claude Rains; Victor Saville's "Kim'' (1950) with Errol Flynn and Dean Stockwell; George Sidney's "Scaramouche'' (1952) with Stewart Granger, Eleanor Parker and Janet Leigh; and the Camelot-themed "Knights of the Round Table'' (1953) starring Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Mel Ferrer.

After an absence of several weeks, the WAC websites is now again taking pre-orders for upcoming manufactured on demand releases, including an intriguing quintet supervised by David O. Selznick during his tenure at RKO that will drop on May 22. They are George Archainbaud's "State's Attorney'' (1932) starring John Barrymore as a crooked lawyer opposite Helen Twelvetrees and William "Stage'' Boyd; William Seiter's "Is My Face Red'' (1932), also with Ms. Twelvetrees, and Ricardo Cortez playing a Walter Winchell clone; Dudley Murphy's "Sport Parade'' (1932) a football yarn starring Joel McCrea, William Gargan, and in his feature debut, Robert Benchley; Gregory LaCava's "Age of Consent'' (1932) with Dorothy Wilson and Richard Cromwell; and Ralph Ince's "Lucky Devils'' (1933) starring a pre-Hopalong Cassidy William ("Screen'') Boyd and Gargan as stuntmen. Also being taken are pre-orders for the June 6 release of "Back From Eternity'' (1956), John Farrow's remake of his own classic (still not-on-DVD) "Five Came Back'' (1939) with a cast that includes Anita Ekberg, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, Gene Barry, Fred Clark and Beulah Bondi.

The latest announcement from the TCM Vault Collection's licensing arrangement with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is "The Columbia Pictures Pre-Code Collection,'' scheduled for July 2. The five titles to be distributed through TCM's website and Movies Unlimited include pair of Barbara Stanwyck vehicles, Lionel Barrymore's "Ten Cents a Dance'' (1931) with Ricardo Cortez and Nick Grinde's "Shopworn'' (1932) with Regis Toomey; as well as blonde bombshells Carole Lombard in Edward Buzzell's "Virtue'' (1932) opposite Pat O'Brien and Jean Harlow in William Beaudine's "Three Wise Girls'' (1932) with Mae Clarke. Rounding out the set is John Wayne's only starring role at Columbia, the uber-obscure "Arizona'' (1931) with Laura LaPlante. Title and setting notwithstanding, this is not a western; it was reissued as "Men Are Like That.''

Twilight Time, the boutique label that licenses catalogue titles from 20th Century Fox and Sony for limited-edition pressed Blu-ray releases sold online, has some great ones coming up: Fritz Lang's "The Big Heat'' (1953) with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin is scheduled on May 8, along with Henry Levin's "Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1959), a splendid Jules Verne adaptation with the unlikely team of James Mason and Pat Boone. For June 12, Twilight Time has the never-on-DVD "The Wayward Bus'' (1957), a John Steinberg adaptation starring Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield and Dan Dailey.

The label's summer offerings include Charles Vidor's classic musical "Cover Girl'' (1944) starring Rita Hayworth and Gelly and Ken Annakin's all-star "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes'' (1965), both on July 10. On Aug. 14, Twilight Time will release George Sidney's "Bye Bye Birdie'' (1963) with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh and Ann-Margret; and Blake Edwards' "High Time'' (1960), a never-on-DVD Bing Crosby musical (he appears in drag in one scene) co-starring Fabian and Tuesday Weld.

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About the Authors

LOU LUMENICK Lou Lumenick, a native of Astoria, Queens who's been covering movies since 1981, is The Post's chief film critic. He's covered the Cannes, Toronto, Sundance and New York Film Festivals many times. Lou co-curated the Turner Classic Movies film series "Shadows of Russia'' and has appeared on the network as an on-air guest programmer. He will introduce "Design for Living'' on April 29 at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. Columnist Archives

KYLE SMITH Kyle Smith has been a film critic for the Post since 2005. He also contributes book reviews and columns on current affairs to the Sunday Post and is the author of the novels "Love Monkey," which was adapated into a CBS TV series, and "A Christmas Caroline." He is a graduate of Yale University. Columnist Archives

Follow Kyle on Twitter

V.A. MUSETTO V.A. Musetto is a film critic. His specialty is indie and foreign movies, with an emphasis on Asian. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and frequents film festivals from Tokyo to Rotterdam to Transylvania.

REED TUCKER Reed Tucker writes movie features for the Sunday paper. He didn't like "The Love Guru" either. He is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill.

SARA STEWART Sara Stewart is a features writer who majors in movies and minors in books, women's issues, health, fitness, science, music and any sort of participatory journalism that doesn't involve being on a boat.