Never Steal Anything Small, released in 1959, is one of the most obscure films of James Cagney’s lengthy career. Released in the early days of VHS, the film was never released on DVD until now that Kino Lorber has made it available on both DVD and Blu-ray.

The third and last film directed by writer Charles Lederer, it was also the third film for which he was nominated for his screenplays by the Writers Guild of America. Previously nominated for writing 1949’s I Was a Male War Bride and 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, he would be nominated again for 1960’s Can-Can and Ocean’s 11.

Based on an even more obscure play by Maxwell Anderson and Rouben Mamoulian, called The Devil’s Hornpipe, Cagney plays a rogue longshoreman who uses all kinds of dirty, underhanded tricks to win the presidency of the local trade union. His leading lady is Shirley Jones, fresh from making April Love with Pat Boone. They are a mismatched couple on-screen as well as off, Jones being the wife of Cagney’s attorney (Roger Smith), who aspires to a singing career.

Classified as a musical, but sold as a comedy, there are five songs in the score, three of which are performed by Jones in her nightclub act. Cagney gets to sing the title song and perform a duet with Cara Williams as Smith’s secretary.

All four stars did much more interesting work at this time in their careers. Cagney was at his best in 1955’s Love Me or Leave Me opposite Doris Day, for which he received his third and final Oscar nomination; 1957’s Man of a Thousand Faces as Lon Chaney; and 1960’s One, Two, Three, filmed in Berlin as the wall was being built. Jones burst onto the screen in two Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, 1955’s Oklahoma! and 1956’s Carousel and would soon win an Oscar for her first dramatic role in 1960’s Elmer Gantry.

Roger Smith, a Cagney discovery, was Lon Chaney Jr. to Cagney’s Sr. in 1957’s Man of a Thousand Faces as well as Rosalind Russell’s nephew Patrick in 1958’s Auntie Mame. Cara Williams was just coming off her Oscar-nominated performance in 1958’s The Defiant Ones.

Never Steal Anything Small remains a curiosity in the careers of all four stars. It’s a shame Kino couldn’t get 86-year-old Jones and/or 95-year-old Williams for the film’s commentary, but there are two commentaries provided, one by film historian/filmmaker David Kremer and one by film historian Lee Gambin.

Kino Lorber has also newly released 1965’s The Art of Love and 1966’s Lord Love a Duck on both Blu-ray and DVD.

The Art of Love, from a new 2K master, was co-written by a trio of TV comedy writers, including Carl Reiner. It was directed by Norman Jewison just ahead of his major successes, which would include In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, and eventually Moonstruck. Sad to say, The Art of Love is not in the same class as those later films but is a fun film to while away a rainy day.

The plot is about an artist (Dick Van Dyke) who is convinced by his roommate (James Garner) to pretend to be dead so that his non-selling paintings become profitable. He does, but when the two have a falling out, Van Dyke plots to have Garner accused of his murder and sent to the guillotine which was still in use when the film was made.

Van Dyke, two years after Mary Poppins, and Garner, two years after The Great Escape, were still at the peak of their screen careers, having become two of the most popular screen stars whose popularity first manifested itself in television, Van Dyke with The Dick Van Dyke ShowMaverick. The women in their lives are Angie Dickinson (Rio Bravo), and Elke Sommer (The Prize). Stage legend Ethel Merman (Call Me Madam) co-stars as a nightclub owner, a role originally intended for Mae West Myra Breckenridge).

Film historian and critic Peter Tanguette provides the commentary.

Lord Love a Duck, also from a new 2K master, was based on a satirical novel by Al Hine, written for the screen by Larry H. Johnson and George Axelrod (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Manchurian Candidate) with Axelrod also directing.

Axelrod may have been a gifted writer, but he was not a great director. This was the first of only two movies he directed. The oddball story revolves around a high school student played by 37-year-old Roddy McDowall, a long way from How Green Was My Valley. Tuesday Weld (Pretty Poison) is the 23-year-old co-ed McDowell is fixated on and Lola Albright (Champion) is Weld’s mother. Ruth Gordon is McDowall’s wacky landlady in the film she made between her Oscar-nominated role in 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover and her Oscar-winning role in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.

Kino Lorber did not provide a commentary with this one.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has release Season 5 of Outlander on Blu-ray and DVD.

The character of an English combat nurse in World War II who was swept back in time from 1945 to 1743 now finds her, her 18th century husband, and various friends and family members in the New World on the cusp of the American Revolution.

Catriona Balfe and Sam Hueghan remain strong as the passionate lovers from the first two seasons who are now older and wiser. All five seasons thus far are now available on home video but only the first three seasons are available on Netflix. You need a subscription to Starz to otherwise catch up with the last two.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray releases of The Elephant Man and Love Me Tonight.