The DVD Report #5

This week’s DVD releases offer a little something for everyone, from vintage Eddie Murphy to the film that torpedoed his Oscar chances this year. From a boxed set of World War II films to a foiled film version of a beloved stage musical.

Norbit, directed by Brian Robbins, was one of the most poorly reviewed films of this or any year. Pundits questioned why Eddie Murphy would allow the release of this film, in which he plays several zany characters, at the height of Oscar season when Murphy was the presumed favorite for best supporting actor for his musical and dramatic turn in Bill Condon’s Dreamgirls. Many attribute his loss to Norbit‘s poorly timed release. The problem most people had with the film was the character of Rasputia, a vile fat woman played by Murphy in drag. You can form your own opinion when you view the DVD being released today.

Murphy is no stranger to playing multiple characters in a film, something he did to great acclaim in The Nutty Professor and Coming to America, the latter being re-issued today in a Paramount Special Edition.

Paramount is also re-releasing John Landis’ landmark 1983 film Trading Places, in which Murphy plays a lovable con artist opposite Dan Aykroyd as a snobbish investor. Their lives are turned upside down at the whim of eccentric millionaire brothers, Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche. Denholm Elliott has one of his best screen roles as a butler and Jamie Lee Curtis is along for the ride as a hooker.

Harold Lloyd had owned his own films, which he kept hidden away in vaults, occasionally showing snippets of them on television programs. By the early 1960s there was enough interest in them that Lloyd put together a compilation of his films called Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy which was shown at Cannes in 1962 and then released theatrically in the U.S. where it was a box office hit. Although all of Lloyd’s films have previously been made available on DVD by the Lloyd Estate, the compilation film had been held back until now.

Fox is releasing Special Editions of three of its most popular war films long available in regular editions: Twelve O’Clock High, Von Ryan’s Express and The Sand Pebbles.

Twelve O’Clock High, directed by Henry King, won 1949 Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Actor (Gregory Peck) an Oscar for Supporting Actor (Dean Jagger). It still holds up as one of the better war/anti-war films produced in the years following World War II. Peck’s portrayal of the hard-as-nails young general who ultimately suffers a nervous breakdown is one of his best.

1965 Oscar nominee for Special Effects Von Ryan’s Express, directed by Mark Robson, is an enjoyable high adventure film in the vein of The Great Escape, with Frank Sinatra more or less playing himself. Trevor Howard provides the real acting as his nemesis.

The Sand Pebbles (1966), directed by Robert Wise, won Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Steve McQueen), Supporting Actor (Mako), Score (Jerry Goldsmith), Cinematography (Joseph McDonald), Art Direction and Editing. Richard Attenborough won a Golden Globe for his supporting performance and Robert Anderson won a Writers Guild nomination for his screenplay. Though a bit slow moving, this anti-war film about a U.S. gun boat that must rescue American missionaries in the midst of the Chinese revolution of 1926 ultimately wins you over through its beautiful cinematography, haunting Goldsmith score and fine acting. Both Attenborough and Mako are heartbreaking.

Fox is getting fanciful with a couple of other re-releases this week. Richard Fleischer’s nifty sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage and Irwin Allen’s deadly dull Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were put out together on one disc in the early days of the format. Now Fox is re-issuing both in separate special editions. The amazing Fantastic Voyage, released in 1966 with a cast that includes Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O’Brien, Donald Pleasance and Arthur O’Connell, isabout a submarine and its crew shrunk to microscopic size and inserted into the bloodstream of a diplomat after he is shot. The new version is simply being called a Special Edition. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, on the other hand, is being called The Global Warming Edition.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which later spawned a television series, is a 1961 film about an atomic submarine and a radiation belt that catches fire. With an eclectic cast that includes Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine, Barbara Eden, Peter Lorre, Robert Sterling and Frankie Avalon, one is led to expect more than one gets from the dreary mystery that a novice to the genre could figure out. The TV series, which starred Richard Basehart in Pidgeon’s role, ran for four seasons from 1964 to 1967.

Comedy rules with Fox’s latest distribution of an MGM film, the Extra Frills Edition of Stephen Elliott’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. This hilarious road film about two drag queens (Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving) and a trans-sexual (touchingly played by Terence Stamp) in the Australian outback was a world-wide hit in 1994. It won an Oscar for its fabulous costume designs.

Nevada landscapes highlight Donna Deitch’s 1985 film Desert Hearts which is being given a two-disc Special Edition this week. This beautifully nuanced drama about a budding 1959 lesbian romance benefits greatly from its Reno backdrops. Helen Shaver is the professor who comes to Reno for a quick divorce, Patricia Charbonneau the out lesbian she falls for and the wonderful Audra Lindley is Charbonneau’s mom.

The disappointing 1978 screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s magical Broadway hit, A Little Night Music, is being released on DVD for the first time (the home video format has never seen a widescreen version of the film until now). Many of the songs are missing including Hermione Gingold’s big number, but she and Diana Rigg, who gets to sing a little snippet of “A Weekend in the Country”, still manage to steal the film from Elizabeth Taylor, who horror of horrors, gets to massacre “Send in the Clowns.” Broadway’s esteemed Hal Prince never directed another film after this one. It’s easy to see why. If only Image or some other enterprising DVD company would release the superior 1990 PBS version directed by Scott Ellis with a cast headed by Sally Ann Howes, Regina Resnick and Kevin Anderson.

This was supposed to be the week Warner Bros. released the Lucille Ball Collection, but the thought of A Little Night Music and the even worse film version of Jerry Herman’s Mame coming out on the same day must have sent shivers down some advertising executive’s spine. The Lucille Ball Collection, which also includes Lucy as “Bubbles” in Dorothy Arzner’s delightful Dance, Girl, Dance will be released in two weeks. In its place, Warner Bros. is giving us a gem of a World War II Collection, curiously a bit late for Memorial Day.

The six films that comprise Warner Bros.’ World War II Collection offer a different perspective than one usually finds in films about the war. 1943’s Air Force, directed by Howard Hawks (Only Angels Have Wings, Sergeant York), the oldest film in the collection, comes the closest to being a typical WWII propaganda film. However, it is distinguished by Hawks’ masterful direction and the performances of its eclectic cast. John Garfield, John Ridgely, James Brown, Harry Carey, Gig Young and Arthur Kennedy are among the crew of the Mary Ann, a B-17 Flying Fortress, as it fights its way through Wake Island, the Philippines and the battle of the Coral Sea. Faye Emerson has the principal female role. The film’s major battle scene was copied by George Lucas in the original Star Wars.

1944’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, directed by Mervyn LeRoy (Waterloo Bridge, Random Harvest), tells the true story of the 1942 raid that became a rallying point during the war in the Pacific. Focusing on the crew of just one of the B-52s involved in the raid, the film stars Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Phyllis Thaxter and Spencer Tracy in an extended cameo as Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Johnson and Thaxter have the film’s meatiest roles. Thaxter, who is quite wonderful in this, is probably best known, if at all these days, as Clark Kent’s mother in the 1978 film version of Superman.

In 1948, director Sam Wood (Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Pride of the Yankees) brought the film Command Decision to the big screen. As its title implies, the film focuses on the men who make the decisions ordering others into combat. In that regard, it is not unlike 1930’s The Dawn Patrol and its 1938 remake, or 1949’s Twelve O’Clock High. Unlike those films, however, it is rather theatrical as it was taken from a then-recent Broadway success. Still, it’s worth seeing for its high voltage cast that includes Clark Gable, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Brian Donlevy, Charles Bickford, John Hodiak and Edward Arnold.

Hell to Eternity, Phil Karlson’s (Kansas City Confidential, Tight Spot) 1960 feature, is the true story of Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles-born Hispanic raised by Japanese-American foster parents. While Gabaldon joins the marines, his parents are placed in an interment camp. Gabaldon’s fluency in Japanese, as well as his obvious compassion, facilitates the surrender of 800 Japanese during the bloody battle of Saipan. Jeffrey Hunter has one of his best roles as Gabaldon and he is ably supported by David Jannsen, Vic Damone in a rare dramatic role, Patricia Owens, Miiko Taka and the great Sessue Hayakawa.

36 Hours (1965), directed by George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street, The Counterfeit Traitor), is a humdinger of a spy thriller in which hero James Garner wakes up to find himself greatly aged as he learns the Nazis have won World War II. What’s going on? Rod Taylor knows and he’s not telling. Eva Marie Saint plays the female lead whose loyalties are in conflict and Sig Ruman all but steals the show as a seemingly affable guard. Future TV stars John Banner (Hogan’s Heroes) and James Doohan (Star Trek) are also featured.

1965’s The Hill, directed by Sidney Lumet (Twelve Angry Men, The Pawnbroker), about a British disciplinary camp, was a highly regarded film in its day. It was nominated for six British Academy Awards (BAFTA) and won one for Oswald Morris’ stunning black-and-white cinematography. Sean Connery is the star, but it is second lead Harry Andrews who steals the show in his BAFTA-nominated and National Board of Review award winning role as the camp’s regimental sergeant major. Ian Bannen won an Oscar nomination for his other 1965 film, The Flight of the Phoenix, but he’s even more memorable here. Ian Hendry, Ossie Davis, Alfred Lynch and Michael Redgrave also have important roles.

The week’s most notable television series release is the third season of Rescue Me, a groundbreaking cable series in its first two seasons, but a bit over the top in its third. Still, this racy night-time soap about the daily strife and nightly sexual antics of a company of New York City firemen is easy to get hooked on. The acting is among TV’s best with a cast headed by Denis Leary, Mike Lombardi, Steven Pasquale, Daniel Sunjata and a host of recurring guest stars including Charles Durning, Tatum O’Neal and Kate Burton.

Rescue Me is one of the numerous recent TV series I’ve discovered on DVD. I don’t know about you, but I am totally fed up with the way in which TV programming honchos sabotage their own series by putting them on hiatus, showing re-runs in mid-season and sometimes moving their shows to different nights. Catching up with series on DVD is becoming the only way to go.

Arrested Development, Boston Legal, The Closer, Desperate Housewives, Freaks and Geeks, Grey’s Anatomy, House, NCIS, Medium, Numbers, Rome, 24, Veronica Mars, Weeds and the British TV series Footballers’ Wives and Mile High are other shows I’ve discovered in this manner. If nothing else, it’s a great cure for insomnia.