The Randolph Scott Collection on Blu-ray from Mill Creek, featuring 12 of the actor’s films for Columbia, with prints provided by Sony, was supposed to have been released in April of this year but was held up for six months. The holdup was presumably so that they could add commentary to the first film in the collection, 1943’s The Desperados. That film’s newly recorded commentary is not listed on the box cover, although the commentaries on four other films in the collection are.

Randolph Scott was born January 23, 1898 in Virginia, and raised in North Carolina. First signed to a contract by Howard Hughes, which Hughes turned over to Paramount, one of Scott’s early assignments was to teach Gary Cooper a Virginia accent for his starring role in 1929’s The Virginian in which Scott himself had an uncredited role. Although exclusively in highly profitable full color westerns from 1947 on, becoming a top ten box-office star from 1950-1952, the actor’s early career was extremely versatile.

Scott starred in musicals, comedies, mysteries, family films, and adventure films, as well as westerns in the 1930s and early 1940s. Early highlights include 1932’s Hot Saturday, 1934’s Supernatural, 1935’s Roberta and She, 1936’s Follow the Fleet and The Last of the Mohicans, 1938’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1939’s Jesse James, 1940’s My Favorite Wife, 1941’s Western Union, and 1942’s The Spoilers and Pittsburgh.

The Desperadoes, which opens the new collection, was Columbia’s first color film. Scott as the town sheriff and Claire Trevor as a dance hall girl are given star billing, but the film was designed to advance the careers of third and fourth billed Glenn Ford as good guy gone bad trying to go good again and Evelyn Keyes as the forthright gal who loves him. All four stars acquit themselves quite well. Ford eventually became Columbia’s top star while Keyes, a fine actress, is best remembered for her marriages to directors Charles Vidor and John Huston and bandleader Artie Shaw.

The other four films in the collection for which commentary is provided are 1952’s Hangman’s Knot, 1953’s The Stranger Wore a Gun, 1957’s The Tall T, and 1958’s Buchanan Rides Alone.

The Tall T, which was the first film made from a story by Elmore Leonard (3:10 to Yuma, Hombre), is generally regarded as Scott’s best film. In it, he plays to his typical persona of a man who is neither heroic nor non-heroic, just an ordinary guy trying to get by.

The film opens amicably with Scott visiting a stagecoach stop on the way to town from his starter ranch where he spends a short time with the widowed stationmaster and his young son, taking a few cents form the kid to buy him candy while in town. On his way back, he loses his horse in a bet and starts to walk home when he hitches a ride on a special stagecoach run by a newly married accountant (John Hubbard) and his homely bride (Maureen O’Sullivan), who he married for her money. The stagecoach is then held up by Richard Boone, Henry Silva, and Skip Homeier at the stop where Scott earlier met the stationmaster and his son. We now know that the “T” in the title stands for terror. The scoutmaster and his son have been murdered; their bodies having been thrown down the well where two more bodies will soon follow.

Directed by Budd Boetticher (The Bullfighter and the Lady), with cinematography by Charles Lawton, Jr. (The Long Gray Line, The Last Hurrah), the highly suspenseful film is beautiful to look at from beginning to end with extraordinary performances from the entire cast, especially Scott and O’Sullivan (The Thin Man).

Also in the collection are 1950’s The Nevadans, 1951’s Santa Fe and Man in the Saddle, 1955’s A Lawless Street, 1957’s Decision at Sundown, 1959’s Ride Lonesome, and 1960’s Comanche Station, Scott’s last for Columbia. He would make only one more film, 1962’s Ride the High Country with fellow versatile star turned exclusively western star, Joel McCrea, retiring at 64, but living to 89.

The Film Detective has released a Special Edition Blu-ray of 1948’s The Amazing Mr. X.

Given a 4K transfer restored from the film’s original 35mm elements, this film noir horror film, directed by Bernard Voorhaus, was undoubtedly inspired by the similarly themed 1947 film Nightmare Alley in which the central character is a phony spiritualist. It’s no coincidence that its release coincides with the upcoming release of the 2021 remake of Nightmare Alley.

The cast is led by Turhan Bay as the title character, Lynn Bari as the woman he preys upon, and Cathy O’Donnell as her sister. Richard Carlson, Donald Curtis, and Virginia Gregg also have prominent roles. The restoration does wonders for this film which had long been consigned to public domain hell.

Extras include full-length commentary by film scholar Jason Ney and the documentary Mysteries Exposed: Inside the Cinematic World of Spiritualism.

Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray of 1933’s The Secret of the Blue Room.

Made in six days on the set of 1932’s The Old Dark House this spooky house thriller was Universal’s lowest budgeted film of the year. It was a remake of a 1932 German film (Secret of the Blue Room) that Universal would make twice again as 1938’s The Missing Guest and 1944’s Murder in the Blue Room.

Lionel Atwell (Doctor X) had top billing as the owner of the house with Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine) second billed as one three suitors of third billed Gloria Stuart (The Kiss Before the Mirror). Also in the cast were Edward Arnold (Easy Living) as the police inspector, Onslow Stevens and William Janney as Stuart’s other two suitors, and Elizabeth Patterson as a cook. The taut story revolves around a series of twenty-year-old murders in the house’s blue room that were never solved and the repetition of those murders now.

Commentary is provided by filmmaker and historian Michael Schlesinger.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include Respect and The Last of Sheila.