One of the best films of 2020 was Regina King’s One Night in Miami…, previously only available via streaming on Amazon Prime. Available now on Blu-ray thanks to the Criterion Collection, this wonderful film can and likely will reach a wider audience.

A fictionalized tale of a get-together by four African American icons in 1964 following 22-year-old boxer Cassius Clay’s championship victory in the boxing ring over Sonny Liston. Joining Clay, soon to change his name to Mohamoud Ali following his conversion to Islam, were Nation of Islam founder Malcom X, football legend turned actor Jim Brown, and singer Sam Cooke.

What the four men talked about in private no one knows, but writer Kemp Powers certainly makes a case for all four having something interesting to say.

This was the first film Oscar-winning actress King (If Beale Street Could Talk) made as a director. Her background allowed her to pick the finest actors to fill the iconic roles. She chose Canadian actor Eli Goree (Godzilla) to play Cassius Clay because she liked the way he stayed in character between the three scenes he auditioned with. She chose Aldis Hodge (Clemency) to play Jim Brown because of the gravitas he brought to the role. She chose British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir (TV’s Vera) to play Malcom X for the same reason. She chose Broadway star Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton) to play Sam Cooke because of his singing voice.

All four stars are excellent, especially Ben-Adir and Odom whose characters were both murdered within months of the get-together, Sam Cooke by thieves while Christmas shopping in December 1964, and Malcom X from an assassin’s bullet in February 1965.

The film received numerous awards recognitions including Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Odom), Best Adapted Screenplay for Powers who adapted his own play, and Best Song “Speak Now” for Odom and co-songwriter Sam Ashworth.

While One Night in Miami… is an excellent example of a stage play turned into an even better film, Dear Evan Hansen, directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), is an example of an acclaimed stage play that became an utter disaster on screen.

The musical with a book by Steven Levinson (tick, tick…BOOM! ), who also wrote the screenplay, and music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman), was a smash hit off-Broadway and later Broadway where it is still running. It received nine Tony nominations, and won six including Best Musical, Book, Score, Actor (Ben Platt), and Featured Actress (Rachel Bay Jones). Mike Faist, who is currently winning raves for Steven Spielberg’s new film version of West Side Story, was nominated for Best Featured Actor but didn’t win.

Platt (Pitch Perfect) played the title character, a high school student in therapy, who is tasked with writing a letter to himself, which school bully Faist takes from him and stuffs in his pocket. When Faist then commits suicide with the letter in his pocket, his family assumes it is a letter he (Faist) had written to his “friend” Platt who then capitalizes on the misunderstanding.

The problem with the film is that this intimate story doesn’t play well when expounded upon on the big screen. Platt, who repeats his stage role, was 27 at the time of filming and looked it. Faist was replaced in the film version by Colton Ryan who is two years younger than Platt and was his understudy on Broadway. He’s perfectly fine but doesn’t have nearly as much screen time as Platt who is over-exposed.

Julianne Moore replaces Rachel Bay Jones in the film version and gets to sing her 11th hour number, but it’s too little too late. Moore is otherwise wasted as are Amy Adams and Danny Pino as the other boy’s parents. Better luck next time, guys.

Hal Ashby’s 1971 film Harold and Maude was a flop in its initial release fifty years ago, but subsequently became a cult classic. Written by UCLA graduate student Colin Higgins, who later became a Hollywood director himself (Foul Play, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas), but Ashby, hot on the heels of his directorial debut with The Landlord, was tapped to direct for Paramount. The Oscar-winning editor of In the Heat of the Night would go on to direct such classics as Coming Home and Being There.

Bud Cort, fresh from M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud, was 18-year-old Harold and Ruth Gordon, fresh from her Oscar-winning performance in Rosemary’s Baby, was the soon-to-be 80-year-old Maude. The two death-obsessed characters meet at the various funerals they attend, becoming fast friends, and eventually lovers. Neither Cort nor Gordon were the producers’ first choices for their roles. It would have been a completely different film had first choices Elton John and Dame Edith Evans agreed to play the quirky characters.

Paramount’s new Blu-ray provides improvement in both picture and sound over Criterion’s now out-of-print 2010 release.

Michael Curtiz’s 1938 film Angels with Dirty Faces was a hit even before it was released. It had the dream casting of James Cagney as a thug and Pat O’Brien as a priest in their sixth film together, supported by the Dead End Kids, who made their film debut in the previous year’s hit, Dead End, as well as Humphrey Bogart as a crooked lawyer and Ann Sheridan as Cagney’s love interest.

Warner Archive’s Blu-ray imports all the extras from the 2005 DVD.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include The Last Duel and Venom.