Criterion has done its usual fine job of restoring Jean Renoir’s first masterpiece, 1931’s La Chienne (The Bitch), as well as his earlier-in-the-year first talkie, On Purge Bébé (Baby’s Laxative), which is presented as an extra on the release of La Chienne, its first ever home video release in the U.S. The film itself was not shown in the U.S. until 1976. Un Purge Bébé has never been released here.

Renoir had wanted to make a film version of La Chienne, Georges La Fouchardiere’s famed novel, but had difficulty finding backing due to his excessive overtime on his last two silent films, which had both been flops. In order to prove that he could make a talkie on time and on budget, he sold some of his father’s paintings to finance the film version of Georges Feydeau’s 1910 stage farce Un Purge Bébé, which he completed in six days. The hour-long film was a box-office smash in France, giving him the green light to make La Chienne.

Michel Simon (Boudu Saved from Drowning) starred in La Chienne as a mousy bank clerk married to a terror of a wife who finds solace in painting. He is seduced by a prostitute (Janie Marese) who, along with her pimp (Georges Flamant), steals his paintings and passes them off as the work of an undiscovered genius – herself. The betrayal leads to murder. The 23-year-old Marese died within days of completing the film adding to both the film’s notoriety and its high level of anticipation.

Film buffs who haven’t seen Renoir’s film will recognize its plot from Fritz Lang’s 1945 Hollywood remake Scarlet Street, which starred Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea as the unholy trio.

An unexpected delight, Un Purge Bébé is hilarious from start to finish as a bickering couple (Jacques Louvigny, Marguerite Pierry) struggle to get their seven-year-old son (Sasha Tarride) to take his laxative while entertaining an influential businessman (Michel Simon) and later his wife (Olga Valéry) and her “cousin” (Fernadel). With plenty of discussions about slop buckets, chamber pots, bowel movements, toilets flushing, and cuckolds, this probably wouldn’t have made it past most U.S. censors of the day but it should have.

La Chienne is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade of Alexander Hall’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan is another sterling release from the premier video company. Both Robert Montgomery as the prizefighter who dies fifty years before his time and comes back in another body, and James Gleason as his everyman trainer are both at their career best in their Oscar-nominated performances. Also with Claude Rains, Edward Everett Horton, Evelyn Keyes, and Rita Johnson, this was later made equally successfully as Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s Heaven Can Wait thirty-seven years later.

Universal’s Airport: The Complete Collection gives us all four of their successful Airport films in one Blu-ray package for the first time. All four films are highly watchable, although none of them can be considered great works of art.

The original 1970 film from Arthur Hailey’s bestseller was a box office phenomenon that received ten Oscar nominations and a win for Helen Hayes as a little old stowaway who helps stop a mad bomber (Van Heflin) from carrying out his mission. Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, and Maureen Stapleton, who received a nomination as the bomber’s wife, lead the all-star cast.

The first sequel, 1974’s Airport 1975, was lambasted by the critics but nevertheless received a Golden Globe nomination for singer Helen Reddy as best newcomer playing a nun who comforts kidney transplant patient Linda Blair while instructor pilot Charlton Heston in another plane talks cross-eyed stewardess Karen Black into flying the disabled airliner after a dying Dana Andrews flies his small plane into the pilot’s cabin taking out the flight crew. Gloria Swanson plays herself as one of the passengers signaling that the airliner will have a safe landing and thereby killing the suspense. Myrna Loy, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Susan Clark, Sid Caesar, Martha Scott, and Nancy Olson are featured.

The second sequel, 1977’s Airport ‘77, was about a hijacked plane that crashes in the Bermuda jungle, its passengers in danger of drowning in the submerged airliner. Nominated for two Oscars (Best Art Direction–Set Decoration and Costume Design), it won neither. Jack Lemmon as the pilot, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotton, and, all too briefly, James Stewart join George Kennedy in this one.

The third and final sequel, 1979’s The Concorde…Airport ’79, was nominated for two Stinkers Bad Movie awards (Worst Picture, Worst Direction) which gives you an idea of what you’re in for in this poorly made film about a wealthy arms manufacturer who decides to shoot down the Concorde on its initial transatlantic flight to prevent a TV news anchorwoman (Susan Blakely) from exposing his connection to the Russians. Alain Delon is the pilot in this one which also includes Eddie Albert, Bibi Andersson, Charo, John Davidson, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, and Mercedes McCambridge along with the ubiquitous George Kennedy in its eclectic cast.

Two years after the first season of the acclaimed British mystery series Grantchester delighted TV audiences, a second season has arrived. Grantchester: Season 2 is just as enjoyable as the first one, albeit with just six hour-long episodes, it leaves us wanting for more. Happily, a third season has just been announced.

James Norton is the Anglican priest who helps detective Robson Green solve complicated murders in 1954 Cambridge while balancing his clerical duties with his love life. Morven Christie is back as his true love who married someone else, as are Al Weaver as his closeted gay curate, and Tessa Peake-Jones as his no-nonsense housekeeper.

Grantchester: Season 2 is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Fast-rising British actor Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Testament of Youth) gives a charming fish-out-of-water performance as do-or-die 1988 British Winter Olympian Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards who came in last in his two ski jumping competitions but won the hearts of sports fans all over the world with his tenacity in Eddie the Eagle. Hugh Jackman co-stars as his alcoholic coach, an undisciplined athlete in his youth who was kicked off a previous Olympic team. Christopher Walken makes a welcome eleventh-hour appearance as the famed coach who kicked Jackman out of the earlier Olympics.

Sally Field is also very much a fish-out-of-water as a sixty-something office clerk who falls in love with thirty-something art director Max Greenfield in Hello, My Name is Doris. Assuming his friendship means he shares her feelings, she stalks him, breaks up his relationship with his fiancé, makes a fool of herself on his bed on Thanksgiving, and eventually realizes her daydreams have no basis in reality. The film’s subplot revolves around Field’s excessive hoarding which she also gives up in the end. While it’s nice to see Field in a leading role again, it would be nicer to see her in something a bit more substantial.

Both Eddie the Eagle and Hello, My Name is Doris are available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

This week’s new releases include Midnight Special and the Blu-ray upgrade of If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.