Tennessee Williams won his first Pulitzer Prize for A Streetcar Named Desire and his second for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, two of the most frequently revived plays in modern theatrical history. The film versions of both were phenomenally successful in their day and continue to be among the most cherished films of all time. A Blu-ray of Streetcar was released to great acclaim in 2012. Warner Archive has now released a sparkling new Blu-ray of Cat.

Purists may object to the watering down of the play, but the changes made by Richard Brooks (who also directed) and James Poe in their screenplay actually strengthen the work. In the play the alcoholic husband, Brick, rebuffs his seductive wife, Maggie the Cat, in part because she seduced his friend Skipper who then committed suicide. In the film, Maggie goes to Skipper’s room intent on seducing him, but chickens out, strengthening her character. Brick’s hinted at bisexuality is more fully explored in the play, but is still there in a brief angry exchange between Brick and his father in the film, which in itself was quite daring for films of the day. In the play Brick turns to drink because he couldn’t handle his friend coming on to him, which leads to the friend’s suicide, not Maggie’s betrayal. In the film, it’s his inability to handle Skipper’s hysterical phone calls, which was about as far as the writers could go under the repressive production code of the day. All of this plays secondary to the imminent death of Brick’s tyrannical father, Big Daddy, which is chillingly expanded from the play. Williams supposedly disliked the film’s lengthy reconciliation scene between Brick and Big Daddy which was not in the play, but it leads to a less uncertain ending than the play which allowed audiences of the day the hope that everything would turn out alright for Maggie and Brick.

No one, including Williams himself, had a problem with the performances of the film’s three stars, all of whom were extraordinary. Elizabeth Taylor at 26 was never more beautiful than she was as Maggie. A week into the film her husband Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash. Despite her grief, she gives what was the far and away best performance of her career up till then. Paul Newman, two months after his marriage to Joanne Woodward, solidified his place as the decade’s fourth hottest male star after Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean as Brick. Burl Ives, expanding his legendary Broadway turn as Big Daddy, showed movie audiences a darker side of the actor than they had ever expected from the beloved folk singer whose previous screen roles had been mostly charmingly folksy. Taylor and Newman were nominated for Oscars, as was the film, its direction, screenplay, and cinematography. Ives won for his similar supporting performance in the year-end release The Big Country, ostensibly because he couldn’t be nominated in support for Cat because MGM submitted his name in lead. In those days Oscar rules mandated that nominations in acting categories adhere to studios’ submissions.

Taylor’s next film would be another Tennessee Williams work, Suddenly, Last Summer, with Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift. Newman would head off to Broadway to star opposite Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth in roles that they would reprise in the 1962 film version. In the interim, Newman would continue to star in such groundbreaking films as The Young Philadelphians and The Hustler, with Hud to quickly follow the film version of Bird.

Taken on its own, Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel, The Body Snatchers, is in many ways the best of the four versions made thus far from the source material. Called Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as was the 1956 version, this one, set in San Francisco, was the first in color. Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronia Cartright, Jeff Goldblum, Art Hindle, and Leonard Nimoy are all terrific in their starring roles Kevin McCarthy, star of the 1956 version; Don Siegel, director of that version; and Robert Duvall provide interesting cameos. As good as it is, though, it does not come close to capturing the paranoia that enveloped audiences of the 1956 version at the height of the Cold War.

Abel Ferrara’s 1993 version, called simply Body Snatchers, albeit subtitled The Invasion Continues is arguably that director’s best film and worth seeking out. Avoid at all costs the 2007 version, lamely titled The Invasion.

Shout! Factory’s stunning new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray is head and shoulders above the previous bare bones MGM release. Extras include new on-camera interviews with Brooke Adams and Art Hindle, and two separate commentaries.

Australian director Gillian Armstrong’s best-known film is probably the 1994 version of Little Women, but she has always alternated her career between narrative films and documentaries. Newly released on standard DVD, Armstrong’s latest documentary, Women He’s Undressed, is based on the newly discovered memoirs of legendary Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly.

Australian Kelly racked up more than 300 credits in his film career from 1932 to his death in 1964. His designs were part of the reason many of the films he worked on became unforgettable classics. The big revelation in his memoir, and Armstrong’s documentary, is his heretofore unreported three-year affair with his roommate, struggling actor Archie Leach, who dumped him for Randolph Scott when he went to Hollywood and changed his name to Cary Grant. The documentary makes the case that at least three of Grant’s five marriages were shams, the first resulting in a suicide attempt by Scott.

Kelly’s artistic background informed his immaculate black-and-white costumes and his fondness for bold, brassy colors informed his later spectacular color designs.

Among the highlights of Kelly’s unparalleled career were his naughty, gaudy designs for 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933; Bette Davis’ “red” dress that everyone remembers seeing in the black-and-white Jezebel; Davis’ period-specific hoop skirts that he got in over Michael Curtiz’s virulent objections in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex; Davis’ fat suit and chic, post-cure outfits in Now, Voyager; and Ingrid Bergman’s pure white outfits in Casablanca, all before they gave out Oscars for costume design beginning with the 1948 awards or he surely would have won at least three of them. Post-1948 he did indeed win three of the little golden guys for An American in Paris, Les Girls, and Some Like It Hot. His transformation of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon into less-than-attractive, but nevertheless realistic-looking women, not drag queens, was even more astounding to Oscar voters than the two near-nude costumes he got away with designing for Marilyn Monroe under the noses of the puritanical censors of the day.

Other outstanding late career designs were Rosalind Russell’s tastefully flamboyant costumes in Auntie Mame and the busty, out-there outfits he designed for short, skinny, flat-chested Natalie Wood in her transformation into Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy. Among those contributing their comments to the documentary are historian Leonard Maltin and screen legends Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury for whom he did some of his last work.

This week’s new releases include Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.