Universal has released a no-frills Blu-ray edition of State of the Union, Frank Capra’s 1948 film from the Howard Lindsay-Russell Crouse Pulitzer Prize-winning play of 1945. Set in the early days of the Truman presidency, the play was about the Republican Party’s search for a viable candidate to run against Truman in the 1948 elections.

Capra’s first film since 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life was supposed to star Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in their first film for the director since all three won Oscars for 1934’s It Happened One Night. Colbert was on board, but Gable wasn’t, replaced by Spencer Tracy in the role of the reluctant potential candidate originated on Broadway by Ralph Bellamy (Sunrise at Campobello). Then Colbert demanded a clause in her contract that prevented her from working evenings. Capra responded by firing her and hiring Katharine Hepburn, to replace her in Ruth Hussey’s (The Philadelphia Story) stage role of Tracy’s long-suffering wife.

The third major role was that of the newspaper magnate and political operative who was the potential candidate’s mistress. She was played on Broadway by 40-year-old Kay Johnson (Madam Satan), who was roughly the same age as Bellamy and Hussey as were Tracy and Hepburn. Her screen replacement was 22-year-old Angela Lansbury who more than holds her own with the high-powered cast that also includes Van Johnson (Battleground) as Tracy’s campaign manager, Adolphe Menjou (Paths of Glory) as a venomous political kingmaker, and Lewis Stone (The Sin of Madelon Claudet) as Lansbury’s dying tyrannical father.

Stoking widespread interest was the casting of political adversaries Hepburn and Menjou in the same film, so much so that Capra closed the set to the press.

Menjou was an ultra-rightwing conservative who eagerly participated in the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming names to put on the Hollywood blacklist. Hepburn was an outspoken critic of the blacklist who Menjou had accused of being a Communist sympathizer if not a Communist herself. Clearly, they had both come a long way since amicably co-starring in Morning Glory and Stage Door more than a decade earlier.

Hepburn’s teary-eyed reaction to Tracy’s curtain speech is eerily similar to her reaction to his speech at the end of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner nineteen years later.

Originally released by MGM, the film’s rights reverted to Capra’s production company, Liberty Films, after seven years. Liberty redid the title sequence, removing the MGM logo, and misspelling three names – Katharine Hepburn as “Katherine” Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou as “Adolph” Menjou, and cinematographer George J, Folsey as George J. “Falsey.” The misspellings remain.

Australia’s Imprint label from ViaVision has released three more classic films in region free Blu-ray editions.

Imprint’s Alfie is only available in a twofer edition that includes the 2017 feature-length documentary, My Generation, in which Alfie star Michael Caine revisits the swinging London of the 1960s that dominated the earlier film.

The Paramount release was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Alfie began life as a book, then a play by Bill Naughton, who updated the story for his Oscar-nominated screenplay.

Alfie is a self-absorbed womanizer with no empathy. During the course of the film, he has relationships with numerous women played by the likes of Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant, and Shelley Winters, all of whom are terrific. Merchant’s poignant portrayal of the hapless married woman with whom he has a one-night stand earned her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, as well as a BAFTA. Winters was also nominated for a Golden Globe.

The film remains fresh and engaging. It was remade in 2004 with Jude Law who later reprised Caine’s role from 1972’s Sleuth in that film’s remake in which Caine took on Laurence Olivier’s role.

Extras include a newly recorded commentary track by historians Jo Botting and Melanie Williams, a new video essay by Kat Ellinger, and a new appreciation by journalist Matthew Stewart. Also included is an archival video interview with director Lewis Gilbert (Moonraker) from 1995.

My Generation is interesting but really doesn’t offer anything new. Caine’s ruminations are not much different than those he shared in the 1994 documentary Michael Caine: Breaking the Mold, which is included as an extra on the Blu-ray.

The film is a bit of a cheat in that it lists 1960s icons David Bailey, Roger Daltrey, Marianne Faithfull, Paul McCartney, Mary Quaint, and Twiggy as Caine’s co-stars. Only Caine appears on screen, the others are heard but not seen as images of them and others from the sixties flicker across the screen. It really should have been included as an extra on the Alfie Blu-ray instead of on a separate disc and slipcase which only serves to double the already high cost of the imported release.

Although most of the Imprint Blu-ray upgrades have been of Paramount films, Drugstore Cowboy and The Straight Story are not. The former was originally released by Avenue Pictures. It was distributed on VHS and DVD in the U.S. by Artisan Entertainment. The latter was a Disney film, released on DVD by Buena Vista.

Gus Van Sant’s 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy earned 8 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations and 4 wins including one for its star, Matt Dillon (Crash). It has only grown in popularity since.

Set in 1971, Dillon plays a thief, who along with his friends, steals prescription drugs from drugstores in order to get high. Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros, Heather Graham, Max Perlich, and James Remar co-star.

David Lynch’s 1999 film The Straight Story, based on the true story of an elderly farmer’s journey to visit his terminally ill brother in rural Iowa, provided Richard Farnsworth with a richly deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actor. At 79, he held the record in that category until Anthony Hopkins succeeded him earlier this year when he was nominated, and later won, for The Father.

Both releases contain Imprint’s usual plethora of extras.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include Mona Lisa from Criterion and Santa Fe Trail from Warner Archive.