Arrow Video has released a 4K UHD remastered edition of Paul Schrader’s 1980 film, American Gigolo, the third film directed by the writer of Taxi Driver.

Schrader’s previous two films, 1978’s Blue Collar and 1979’s Hardcore were well received by the critics but not by the public. Like Taxi Driver, which Schrader wrote for Martin Scorsese, American Gigolo was only incidentally about the title character’s profession. People went to it expecting to see a sultry tale of degradation in contemporary Los Angeles fueled by a throbbing soundtrack featuring Blondie’s “Call Me” with star Richard Gere costumed by no less than men’s fashion guru Giorgio Armani. They got all that, but they also got a modern film noir bathed not in darkness but by the golden California sun which is the reason the film has remained popular.

Contrary to legend, this was not Gere’s breakout role. That happened with his supporting turn in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Richard Brooks’ 1977 film opposite Diane Keaton, followed in 1978 by Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven and in 1979 by John Schlesinger’s World War II remembrance, Yanks, both which provided him with a major starring role.

Gere’s character in American Gigolo is a male prostitute whose clients are the richest women from Santa Barbara to San Diego, but primarily Los Angeles. For most of them it’s just sex but for the dissatisfied wife of a U.S. Senator (played by Lauren Hutton) it’s love as well as lust. Her love is put to the test when Gere becomes the prime suspect in the brutal murder of one of his clients. Suspicion turns to certainty for detective Hector Elizondo when Gere is framed for the murder by his pimp (Bill Duke) and others. He is tried and convicted and only Hutton can save him, or can she?

The Arrow release includes a brand-new commentary by Adrian Martin, as well as brand-new interviews with Schrader, actors Elizondo and Duke, cameraman King Baggot (grandson of the actor with the same name), and more.

Warner Brothers’ remastered 4K UHD release of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film, The Outsiders, is not new but is of renewed interest because of the re-emergence of the property as a Tony Award-winning musical.

The 2021 release was billed as The Outsiders: The Complete Novel. It contains two versions of the film, the 1983 original, and Coppola’s 2005 edit, which he produced for showing to his granddaughter’s eighth grade class.

The film is based on the 1966 novel of the same name by S.E. (Susie) Hinton about ongoing hostilities between Tulsa, Oklahoma’s greasers (the poor kids) and socs (the rich kids). Heavily influenced by Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story including the latter’s Romeo and Juliet references, the novel was a sensation. It has long been recognized as the first Young Adult novel and is still a bestseller today.

The central character, a poor fourteen-year-old, is played by fifteen-year-old C. Thomas Howell in only his second film. Other key roles are played by Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio (the year before The Karate Kid), Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Diane Lane, all of whom give memorable performances. Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise (just before his breakout in Risky Business), and Leif Garrett co-starred in lesser roles.

Extras include a brand-new interview with Coppola and several making-of documentaries.

Warner Archive’s latest Blu-ray releases include 1938’s The Shining Hour, 1947’s The Man I Love, and 1949’s Act of Violence.

The Shining Hour was a Broadway hit in 1934 starring Gladys Cooper in her Broadway debut along with Adrienne Allen, Raymond Massey, and Cyril Raymond, roles played in the film version by Joan Crawford, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, and Melvyn Douglas. Fay Bainter and Hattie McDaniel co-starred.

Crawford plays a famous dancer who marries rich guy Douglas only to fall in love with his more handsome brother (Young) whose lovely wife (Sullavan) is unaware of the attraction. Bainter is the older sister of the brothers and McDaniel is Crawford’s maid. More interesting than the characters are the performers under the direction of two-time Oscar winner Frank Borzage who would next direct Sullavan to her only Oscar nomination in the same year’s Three Comrades. Sullavan lost the Oscar to Bette Davis in Jezebel, a film directed by Sullavan’s second ex-husband William Wyler, co-starring her first ex-husband, Henry Fonda.

Also nominated for Best Actress that year was Fay Bainter for White Banners who won for her supporting role in Jezebel, having become the first performer to have been nominated in two acting categories in the same year. She would present McDaniel with her Oscar for the following year’s Gone with the Wind. Crawford would not be in Oscar’s sights until 1945’s Mildred Pierce. Douglas wasn’t nominated until 1963’s Hud. Young was never nominated for an Oscar, but he later won Emmys for both of his iconic TV roles in Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, M.D. .

The Man I Love was filmed in mid-1945 but not released until 1947. The film is part thriller, part musical, and part tearjerker with its disparate elements coming together under Raoul Walsh’s skilled direction and the star performance of Ida Lupino who gets to lip-synch the title song and several other standards. Bruce Bennett plays her piano-playing love interest but Robert Alda as a manipulative nightclub owner is the one who gets second billing. Also featured are Andrea King and Martha Vickers as Lupino’s sisters and Dolores Moran as a hot-to-trot neighbor of the girls. In real-life, Moran (To Have and Have Not) was Mickey Rooney’s main squeeze between his marriages to Ava Gardner and Vickers.

Act of Violence is a classic film noir starring Van Heflin and Robert Ryan under the assured direction of Fred Zinnemann fresh from his first Oscar nomination for 1948’s The Search.

Heflin plays the pillar of his community with Ryan playing his former best friend now out to kill him for reasons that are slowly revealed during the course of the film. The two actors are terrific as usual, but Janet Leigh as Heflin’s hysterical wife overacts through most of the film. Phyllis Thaxter as Ryan’s fiancé is given too little do.

The film’s greatest asset is Mary Astor who too soon moved into kindly mother roles such as those in 1944’s Meet Me in St. Louis and the 1949 version of Little Women. Returning to the ambiguity she displayed in earlier 1940s films like The Maltese Falcon and Across the Pacific, she is a standout as the bar girl (a 1940s euphemism for prostitute) who helps Heflin in his escape from Ryan.

The actress who once opined that there are five stages in the life of an actor: “Who’s Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor Type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who’s Mary Astor?” never got beyond the “Get me Mary Astor” phase. She was one of a kind and has remained so thanks to her many memorable performances before, during, and after Act of Violence.

Happy viewing.