American Madness is the last of Frank Capra’s classic Columbia Studios comedies of the 1930s to be released on Blu-ray, this one from Sony. Its original DVD release was part of a 2006 package that also included It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can’t Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Although not as well-known as those five seminal works, American Madness was every bit as important as those other films in the great director’s oeuvre.

After the stock market crash of 1929, films tended to portray banks and bankers as evil. Capra’s 1932 film based on Bank of America’s A.P. Giannini, restored confidence in the institution and the men who ran it. Walter Huston’s bank president is a kindly man who loans money to people without collateral because he believes in them. He is a precursor to James Stewart’s savings-and-loan man in Capra’s 1946 classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. The highlight of the film is a run on the bank that would later be one of the highlights in that later film.

Huston’s performance is one of his best, evoking the one he would give just four years later as the retired industrialist in Dodsworth. Pat O’Brien as the head teller evokes the brash confidence he brought to The Front Page the year before and Constance Cummings who played Huston’s daughter in that year’s The Criminal Code is his secretary and O’Brien’s sweetheart here. Kay Johnson (Madam Satan) plays Huston’s wife who may be having an affair with one of his employees. All four are superb.

The film is also notable as the first in which overlapping dialogue was used to move the plot along. Prior to American Madness, sound engineers insisted it couldn’t be done. Capra forced them to find a way.

Kino Lorber continues to be the leader in releasing classic films from Hollywood and around the world on Blu-ray. Recent releases include a 1933 children’s classic, a German musical from the same year, and the first three films for which Vanessa Redgrave was nominated for an Oscar, all three of which were made in the U.K.

Paramount’s Alice in Wonderland was the studio’s big 1933 Christmas release. Although its reviews were mixed, they were mostly positive belying the film’s reputation as a flop with critics. Audiences, however, were a bit indifferent despite the film’s all-star cast supporting 19-year-old newcomer Charlotte Henry (Charlie Chan at the Opera) as Alice.

The film’s galaxy of stars includes W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, May Robson as the Queen of Hearts, Edward Everett Horton as the Mad Hatter, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as the White Knight, Richard Arlen as the Cheshire Cat, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, Louise Fazenda as the White Queen, Charlie Ruggles as the March Hare, Alison Skipworth as the Duchess, Ned Sparks as the Caterpillar, and Jack Oakie and Ned Sparks as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

It was directed by Norman Z. McLeod (Topper) with amazing masks, costume designs, set decorations, and special effects wizardry by William Cameron Menzies (Gone with the Wind) who also collaborated on the screenplay with Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve ).

Other versions of Lewis Carroll’s classic have come and gone, but this once-in-a-lifetime version is a treat that has been too long without a home video release.

Reinhold Schunzel’s amusing 1933 musical comedy Victor and Victoria was given a U.S. release in 1935 but is best known as the source material for Blake Edwards’ 1982 Hollywood version retitled Victor/Victoria. Renate Muller, Herman Thimig, and Anton Walbrook have the roles later played by Julie Andrews, Robert Preston, and James Garner. The surprise here is Walbrook whose romantic lead is a far cry from the diffident characters he would immortalize in the British and French classics, The Red Shoes and La Ronde. Prolific writer-director Schunzel became one of the many German directors to flee his homeland with the rise of the Nazis, but after a few Hollywood flops including the notorious Ice Follies of 1939, he turned to his first calling as an actor, most notably as Dr. Anderson in Alfred Hitchcok’s Notorious.

Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment is the British release title of Karel Reisz’s 1966 film better remembered by its U.S. release title of Morgan! The film was notable for providing the first starring roles of both David Warner as the titled lunatic and Vanessa Redgrave as his long-suffering ex-wife. Both had previously played supporting roles in Oscar-winning films, he in Tom Jones and she in A Man for All Seasons.

Seen today, the comedy in Morgan seems forced and although Warner works hard, his character’s charm, such as it is, wears thin rather fast. Redgrave, in her first Oscar-nominated performance, comes off much better as she maneuvers between Warner and fiancée Robert Stephens. Worth rediscovering as you would something you might find in a time capsule.

Resiz also directed 1968’s Isadora, which was a showcase for Redgrave. She is terrific from start to finish but your enjoyment of the film relies on your affinity for the character of Isadora Duncan. Was she a genius or an opportunist? Was her non-interpretive dancing art or merely flailing about? A huge flop in its initial L.A. release, it was withdrawn, re-edited, and re-released in 1969 as The Loves of Isadora for which Redgrave received numerous critics’ awards a year after receiving her surprise second Oscar nomination.

Redgrave is at her most radiant in 1971’s Mary, Queen of Scots for which she received her third Oscar nomination as the Scottish queen who ruled with her heart and not her head opposite Glenda Jackson as England’s Elizabeth I who ruled with her head and not her heart. Jackson, of course, had starred as Elizabeth in the legendary miniseries Elizabeth R on PBS earlier in the year and gives an equally fascinating performance here.

The film is a largely accurate portrayal of Mary’s seven-year reign and nineteen-year imprisonment by Elizabeth with emphasis on the former. The two queens never met in real life, but as with every other production about the two queens they are given a secret meeting, two in this one that become the highlights of the film

The splendid supporting cast includes Timothy Dalton, Ian Holm, Daniel Massey, Nigel Davenport, Patrick McGoohan, and Trevor Howard.

This week’s new releases include Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Corpus Christi.