Dead of Night has been released for the first time in the U.S. on Blu-ray and DVD by Kino Lorber. The granddaddy of the horror film anthology has been given a 4K restoration that does full justice to the 1945 British film that was released in the U.S. in 1946 with two of its five stories missing. The two missing stories which seemed to bother American film censors of the day were restored for the U.S. television debut of the film shortly thereafter.

Directed by Charles Crichton (A Fish Called Wanda), Basil Dearden (Victim), Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets), and Alberto Calvalcanti (Went the Day Well? ), it features Mervyn Johns, Roland Culver, Googie Withers, and Sally Ann Howes in the linking story with Withers and Howes prominently featured in two of the other segments as well, along with Miles Malleson, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Michael Redgrave, and Elisabeth Welch in other segments. Redgrave and Welch star in the film’s most famous segment, “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” with Redgrave’s portrayal of the mad ventriloquist long regarded as the prototype for Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho fifteen years later.

Extras include commentary by film historian Ted Lewis and a 75-minute documentary, “Remembering Dead of Night”.

Criterion has released a Blu-ray upgrade of The BRD Trilogy consisting of three films directed by Germany’s Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola. The films are connected in a thematic, rather than a narrative, way with the emphasis on the title characters in each film set in West Germany in the aftermath World War II. The three-letter acronym stands for Bundersrepublik Deutschland, the official name of West Germany and of the now reunited Germany.

1979’s The Marriage of Maria Braun and 1981’s Lola were given 4K restorations while 1982’s black-and-white Veronika Voss was given a high-definition digital restoration.

These three films were the most successful of Fassbinder’s career which had already produced such acclaimed films as 1974’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and 1975’s Fox and His Friends. Hanna Schygulla as the hard-working woman with an unconventional marriage in The Marriage of Maria Braun and Barbara Sukowa as a manipulative cabaret singer in a brothel in Lola, loosely based on The Blue Angel, were legendary actresses at the top of their game. Rosel Zech who played the washed-up actress in Veronika Voss was less celebrated but equally memorable in her role.

Fassbinder, who completed 44 projects between 1966 and his death in 1982, was only 37 when he died. His last film, Querelle, was released posthumously.

Criterion has also released a 2K Blu-ray restoration of Agnieszka Holland’s 1990 German-French co-production Europa Europa filmed in Poland starring Marco Hofschneider as Saloman “Sally” Perel the man on whose memoir the film is based and who appears singing a song at the end of the film.

The incredible true story of a Jewish boy who hid his identity as a Hitler youth in Nazi Germany was an international success that won numerous awards around the world. It oddly received just one Oscar nomination for Holland’s screenplay, but had a higher profile at the Golden Globes and various U.S. critics’ awards where it was either a nominee or winner for Best Foreign Language Film.

Extras include new interviews with Holland in Warsaw (in English), Hofschneider in Berlin (also in English) and Perel in Tel Aviv.

Blake Edwards was primarily known for his comedies, of which Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Victor/Victoria are generally considered to be his best. Among his lesser known dramatic films was 1974’s The Tamarind Seed starring his wife, Julie Andrews, and Omar Sharif.

This cold war thriller, newly released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, has been given a high-definition transfer from the original film elements.

Andrews is an assistant to a high-level British home office member and Sharif is a Russian intelligence officer stationed in Paris who meet on vacation in Barbados. Is it by accident or is Sharif out to seduce and recruit her? Anthony Quayle and Brian Marshall are the British operatives in charge of finding out. Dan O’Herlihy is the British ambassador to France and Sylvia Sims in a BAFTA-nominated performance is his snarly wife. Oscar Homolka is Sharif’s boss. It all comes together in a high-tension climax followed by a surprise ending that seemed old-fashioned at the time of the film’s release but is nonetheless very satisfying in retrospect.

Extras include archival interviews with Edwards and Sharif and a musical suite devoted to John Barry’s lovely score.

Also new from Kino Lorber is the Blu-ray upgrade of Anthony Mann’s 1953 film Thunder Bay. This was the fourth film Mann made with James Stewart as the star following Winchester ’73, Bend of the River, and The Naked Spur. It preceded The Glenn Miller Story, The Far Country, and The Man from Laramie.

Made to convince the public that offshore oil-drilling was environmentally safe, there is very little story here as the shrimpers and the oilmen clash and make nice, but Mann keeps it going with colorful performances from Stewart, Dan Duryea, Joanne Dru, Gilbert Roland, Jay C. Flippen, Marica Henderson, and others. It is historically important as the first film released in widescreen by Universal.

Extras include commentary by film historian Toby Roan.

One of the best loved of the modern mystery series, Endeavour: Season 6 is now available on Blu-ray and standard DVD. The prequel to the long running Inspector Morse (1987-2000) and its sequel Inspector Lewis (2006-2015), the series, set in the 1960s, first appeared in 2011. Series regulars Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, James Bradshaw, Anton Lesser, and Sean Rigby will soon begin filming their 7th season, which will take them into the 1970s. In the meantime, you can catch up on this fascinating season of just four feature-length episodes.

This week’s new releases include the home video debuts of long-sought classics The Baker’s Wife and Hold Back the Dawn.