The Criterion Collection has released on Blu-ray a new 4K restoration of Samuel Fuller’s 1953 classic, Pickup on South Street. A consummate film noir, this black-and-white masterpiece, which clocks in at a lean, action-packed 80 minutes, has never looked better.

Fuller was a legendary newspaper man before he became a film writer and director. Like a good newspaper story, his films get to the point quickly and stay there. In this one, from the director of such disparate films as House of Bamboo, The Crimson Kimono, and Shock Corridor, he tackles the world of petty crime and murder in lower Manhattan. The protagonist, played by Richard Widmark, is a three-time loser whose next arrest will put him away for good. A pickpocket, his domain is the crowded New York subway system where he can easily brush up against his victims. He hits paydirt when he latches onto a strip of microfilm when he picks the purse of easily-duped carrier for the mob, Jean Peters. The two of them join forces, which make them targets of a Communist spy ring which also ensnares sad sack stoolpigeon Thelma Ritter in the greatest role of her career.

Ritter, who earned the fourth of her six Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress for this performance, provides a masterclass in character acting that has never been equaled. If you thought she was good in Miracle on 34th Street, All About Eve, and Rear Window, which she was, you will be blown away by what she does with her role here.

The main extras in this release include a 1989 interview of Fuller by film critic Richard Schickel; a 1982 French TV program in which Fuller discusses his making of the film; a 1954 Hollywood Radio Theater adaptation starring Thelma Ritter; trailers for a slew of Fuller’s films; and accompanied by a booklet of essays from critic Luc Sante, filmmaker Martin Scorsese, and Fuller himself.

Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray upgrade of 1943’s Madame Curie, a film that received seven Oscar nominations, include Best Picture, Actor (Walter Pidgeon), and Actress (Greer Garson). It was a huge box-office success, equal to that of Garson’s previous two films, the Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver, in which Best Actress winner Garson starred opposite Pidgeon, and Oscar-nominated Random Harvest, in which she starred opposite Ronald Colman. Alas, it is nowhere near as good a film as those two.

Although Garson and Pidgeon continue to work well together, they are severely miscast. Tall, elegant, and very English Garson as the diminutive Polish scientist when she was a university student twenty years Garson’s junior in the early part of the film doesn’t ring true. Pidgeon’s shy young French professor comes across as more of a middle-aged milquetoast. Their years of work that eventually leads to the discovery of radium is a fascinating one but does not lend itself easily to drama.

Albert Basserman as Garson’s first supporter and Henry Travers and Dame May Whitty as Pidgeon’s parents provide their customary aplomb. On the other hand, Robert Walker as an associate of Pidgeon’s and Van Johnson as a naïve young reporter are wasted in roles meant to showcase their budding talent. Garson and Pidgeon do, however, redeem themselves toward the end of the film, but the ultimate ending in which Garson gives a patriotic speech is forced.

Ever busy Kino Lorber released all nine of Mae West’s Paramount films on Blu-ray for the first time.

West made her stage debut in 1898 at the age of five and had been a star ever since. By the time she made her screen debut in 1932 in a supporting role in Night after Night, she was a renowned actress, playwright, singer, and sex symbol whose bawdy rumor kept the customers coming back for more. Paramount, on the verge of bankruptcy, knew a good thing when it saw it, and signed her to a multi-year writer-actress contract. The first two films in the deal, 1933’s She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel, filmed back-to-back, made her a major film star at 40 and saved Paramount from bankruptcy.

She Done Him Wrong was a thinly disguised film version of her stage success Diamond Lil, which ran afoul of the censors and was forbidden to be made into a film. West got around it by changing the name of her character and re-writing the show’s purple dialogue so that most of the lines had double meanings risqué enough to tickle the funny bone without getting anyone upset. The Academy even nominated it for a Best Picture Oscar. I’m No Angel, released later in the year, was even funnier, and duplicated the first film’s success. Both co-starred Cary Grant, handpicked by West on his way to screen immortality even greater than hers.

Unfortunately, the Hollywood Production Code, which went into full force in mid-1934, stymied West’s humor to the point where her succeeding films, Belle of the Nineties, Goin’ to Town, Klondike Annie, Go West Young Man, and Every Day’s a Holiday proved clunkier and clunkier as they went along. Her last Paramount film, 1940’s My Little Chickadee in which she was paired with W.C. Fields was pretty much an embarrassment but has become a cult classic because it is the only pairing of the legendary stars whose comedy style was at opposite ends of the spectrum.

She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel belong in every film collector’s library. The others are for those who can never get their fill of West, whose stardom lasted until her death in 1980.

Universal, which owns all pre-1948 Paramount films, has released Paramount’s 1936 classic The Trail of the Lonesome Pine on Blu-ray.

The first outdoor film to be filmed in glorious technicolor, it was a Best Foreign Film nominee at the 1936 Venice Film Festival but received only one Oscar nomination for Best Original Song (“A Melody from the Sky”). It should also have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the great Beulah Bondi, but she was nominated instead for her portrayal of Andrew Jackson’s pipe-smoking wife in The Gorgeous Hussy.

Bondi plays the mother of Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, and Spanky MacFarland, who put an end to a generations-long feud with a career-defining speech near the end of the film that also stars Fred MacMurray billed first over Sidney and Fonda. The still-thrilling film was directed by Henry Hathaway (True Grit).

Paramount has itself released Otto Preminger’s 1965 epic war film, In Harm’s Way.

Based on James Bassett’s best-seller, the film is set just before and just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Its all-star cast includes John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Brandon de Wilde, Jill Haworth, and, in all too brief roles, Dana Andrews, Franchot Tone, and Henry Fonda. Wayne, who was diagnosed with lung cancer during filming, and Neal, who almost died from a series of strokes shortly after filming, are really good in this. Their mature romance is the most interesting of the film’s many subplots.

This week’s U.S. Blu-ray releases include Bringing Up Baby and The Last Time I Committed Suicide.