The DVD Report #76

Disney has entered the Blu-ray market with the re-release of its 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty. The disc looks terrific, the colors sharper than the previous standard DVD release of five years ago, but the film itself has always struck me as a bit lackluster when compared to the glorious work of such earlier efforts as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi and the resurgent work of the 1990s, most notably Beauty and the Beast. Disney includes with its two-disc Blu-ray version an extra disc of the film on standard DVD, the first ever such double format release.

Extras include the Oscar winning short Grand Canyon, which accompanied Sleeping Beauty on screens in its initial theatrical release.

New releases on standard DVD include a number of classic films released on DVD for the first time or re-released with more bells and whistles than in their previous incarnations.

After seeing a preview of his 1958 film Touch of Evil, Orson Welles famously wrote a 58-page memo to the producers of the film that they had taken away from him advising how the film could be improved. Instead of taking his advice they released a shorter 96-minute cut that still managed to achieve cult status. In 1998, working from his notes Universal released a beautifully restored version which, at 111 minutes, ran 15 minutes longer than the original release version incorporating Welles’ suggestions. This is the version that appeared in the previous DVD release.

Both the original theatrical version and the restored version are included in the new release along with a third version, a 109-minute pre-release version that incorporated some of Welles’ suggestions. The DVD package also includes a reproduction of Welles’ 58 page memo from December 5, 1957.

Extras include commentary by stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh on the restored version, though the DVD packaging mislabels their commentary as being on the pre-release version.

In conjunction with the release of this 50th anniversary edition of Touch of Evil, Universal is re-releasing three Hitchcock masterpieces as part of their Legacy Series in digitally re-mastered versions. The three films, which are included in Universal’s Hitchcock’s Masterpiece Collection are Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho.

Featuring a new commentary by John Fawell author of Rear Window – The Well-Made Movie, as well as improved picture and sound, Hitchcock’s 1954 film has never looked so good. James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter star in the classic tale of a man who suspects his neighbor of murdering his nagging wife.

Extras include the similarly themed Mr. Blanchard’s Secret, an episode of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents starring Robert Horton and Meg Mundy.

Colors are clearer and images are more lifelike in this version of Vertigo than in its previous release. The classic tale of obsession with James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes was a modest success when first released in 1958 but has come to be regarded in many circles as Hitchcock’s greatest work. There are two separate commentary tracks including one by William Friedkin as well as the alternate ending shown in the film’s initial European release.

Extras include the telling documentary Obsessed with Vertigo and a similarly themed episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called The Case of Mr. Pelham starring Tom Ewell.

The digitally re-mastered Psycho offers a marginally improved picture over the already good one on the previous release. The mother of all modern slasher movies, the 1960 classic starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam just seems to get better with every viewing. The real treat here though is the bonus episode from Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

From 1958, the same year she co-starred in Vertigo, Barbara Bel Geddes stars in what is probably the best remembered episode of Hitchcock’s anthology series: Lamb to the Slaughter in which she plays a mousy housewife who gets her revenge on her overbearing husband in a most unusual and delightful way. As was often the case with the Hitchcock series, she gets away with murder in the narrative but is punished for her crime in the epilogue supplied by Hitch at the end of the evening’s show.

Of even bigger news for devotees of the Master of Suspense is the release of MGM/Fox’s Alfred Hitchcock Premier Collection featuring the five films Hitchcock made under the Selznick banner in the 1940s as well as three films rescued from pubic domain hell.

While Fox has previously released Lifeboat twice, the other Selznick properties Rebecca, Spellbound, Notorious and The Paradine Case have been out of print for some time. The Criterion Edition of Rebecca sells on e-Bay for more than the cost of this entire collection for which all the films except Lifeboat have been newly restored and re-mastered. They are presented in an attractive box set with loads of trivia about each film and listed chapter stops which, as you know, have all but become extinct in DVD presentations.

Officially titled The Lodger: A Tale of the London Fog, Hitch’s 1927 silent was his fifth film and the one that established his reputation for suspense mastery. A highly atmospheric tale of a family who begins to suspect that their boarder may be The Avenger, a Jack the Ripper-style killer, the film starred legendary heartthrob Ivor Novello as the man of mystery. It was the first film in which Hitchcock appeared in a cameo.

Extras include commentary by film historian Patrick McGilligan and a choice of two scores, both composed in the late 1990s.

One of Hitchcock’s most suspense-filled British-made efforts, 1936’s Sabotage starred Sylvia Sidney as a wife who suspects her husband, Oscar Homolka, may be a terrorist. John Loder, taking over for an ill Robert Donat, is the undercover agent who also suspects the truth about Homolka. The boy on the bus with the package that may or may not contain the bomb is one of Hitch’s greatest nail-biters.

Extras include commentary by historian Leonard Leff and audio excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1973 interview with Hitchcock.

Former child actress Nova Pilbeam had her first adult role in 1937’s Young and Innocent as a young girl who helps hide falsely accused Derek de Marney and seek out the real killer in the film highlighted by a game of blind man’s bluff at a children’s party.

Extras include commentary by historians Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn and audio excerpts from Hitchcock’s interviews with both Peter Bogdanovich and Francois Truffaut.

The only Hitchcock film to win a Best Picture Oscar, 1940’s Rebecca was the first film Hitchcock made in the U.S. and one that was not among his own particular favorites as it was made with what he felt was too much interference from producer David O. Selznick who was under pressure to make a film that could stand up critically and artistically to Selznick’s Gone with the Wind. He also had to adhere as closely as possible to Daphne de Maurier’s beloved novel so as not to alienate any of the novel’s legion of fans. He succeeds on all counts.

The film actually won two Oscars, including one for its gorgeous cinematography, despite its total of eleven nominations including one each for Hitchcock and three of his stars, Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson. George Sanders, Gladys Cooper, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny and Leo G. Carroll are also featured.

Extras include a new making-of documentary, commentary by film critic and historian Richard Schickel and more of Hitch’s audio interviews with Bogdanovich and Truffaut.

In his first attempt at a one-set film, 1944’s Lifeboat featured a group of disparate survivors of a ship torpedoed by Nazis. Tallulah Bankhead heads the cast in her New York Film Critics Circle award-winning performance as a glamorous newspaper reporter that was easily the best role of her sporadic screen career. John Hodiak, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee co-starred.

The DVD, which features commentary from historian Drew Casper and a making-of documentary, is the only re-issue in the set that has been restored and re-mastered, which happened only last year.

Ingrid Bergman took her one-two punch of 1945 to the New York Film Critics Circle and won Best Actress for her performance in Hitchcock’s Spellbound and for her even better performance in The Bells of St. Mary’s. Though Bergman is good as usual, co-stars Gregory Peck, Leo G. Carroll and Oscar-nominated Michael Chekhov are even better. The highlight is a Salvador Dali-designed nightmare sequence in this tale of mental patient Peck being mistaken for an eminent psychiatrist.

Extras include commentary from historians Thomas Schatz and Charles Ramirez Berg, several featurettes and more of Bogdanovich’s Hitchcock interview.

The most romantic film of his career, as well as his ultimate spy thriller, 1946’s Notorious finds Hitchcock at the peak of his storytelling powers. Ingrid Bergman, in what was arguably her greatest performance, plays the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy who, in order to prove her allegiance to America, goes undercover as a spy in a den of Nazis hiding out in South America. Cary Grant as her recruiter and Claude Rains, in an Oscar-nominated performance as the spy she marries to complete her subterfuge, are equally outstanding.

Extras include commentary by two historians, more of the Bogdanovich and Truffaut interviews and an excerpt from Hitch’s AFI Life Achievement award ceremony presided over by Bergman.

One of Hitchcock’s few critical and box office flops, 1947’s The Paradine Case featured Gregory Peck as a young attorney hopelessly infatuated with his client, the beautiful Alida Valli. Despite this and a romantic triangle involving Peck’s wife, Ann Todd, the dull courtroom drama really has nowhere to go. Some relief is given by the wonderful supporting cast which includes Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn and Ethel Barrymore in an Oscar-nominated performance, but even they can’t save it.

Extras include commentary by historians Stephen Robello and Bill Krohn and more of the Bogdanovich interview.

Warner has finally released one of its most requested titles to region 1 audiences with the issuance of 1945’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The film, written and directed by Albert Lewin from Oscar Wilde’s novel, won an Oscar for its gorgeous cinematography by Harry Stradling Sr. and was nominated for its scrumptious art direction and the heartbreaking supporting performance of Angela Lansbury as the title character’s first victim. Hurd Hatfield stars as the handsome young man who doesn’t age while his picture hidden in the attic grows more grotesque with each misdeed he performs. George Sanders, Lowell Gilmore, Donna Reed, Peter Lawford and Richard Fraser co-star. Hatfield and Sanders are superb, but it’s Lansbury in a brief but effecting role that is the real standout.

Among the extras are Lansbury’s fond remembrances on the commentary.

Fox has released its long delayed Alice Faye Collection Volume 2 featuring five more of the effervescent musical comedy star’s films from the late 1930s and early 1940s.

A thinly-disguised biography of Fanny Brice, 1939’s Rose of Washington Square featured a competent masquerade by Faye as Brice that even included her singing one of Brice’s signature tune “My Man”. Tyrone Power was the thinly-disguised Nicky Arnstein and Al Jolson, in perhaps his best screen performance, all but steals the film as a character very much patterned after himself. Gregory Ratoff directed.

Extras include a documentary on the making of the film.

A nostalgic look at silent movie-making from 1913 to 1927,1939’s Hollywood Cavalcade is a non-musical, the only full blown comedy Alice Faye ever made. She is a total delight as a character made to resemble Mabel Normand with a touch of Constance Bennett and Mary Pickford. Don Ameche plays a character molded after Mack Sennett with a little Cecil B. DeMille thrown in for good measure. Silent screen veterans from Buster Keaton to Rin Tin Tin are featured.

Extras include a making-of documentary.

The early days of radio are explored in 1941’s The Great American Broadcast, in which Alice Faye plays a vaudeville singer who becomes a star in the new medium. John Payne, Jack Oakie, The Ink Spots, The Weire Brothers and The Nicholas Brothers are also featured. Archie Mayo directed.

Several documentaries accompany the feature.

Alice Faye’s signature tune, the Oscar winning “You’ll Never Know”, is the highlight of Hello, Frsico, Hello, a lovely-to-look-at Technicolor musical in which she plays a star whose career is on the rise while her former lover John Payne’s is on the decline. June Havoc, Jack Oakie and Lynn Bari co-star.

Extras include a documentary on the making of the film.

Alice Faye, Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda make memorable guest appearances in Four Jills in a Jeep, which centers on the first all female unit of the USO comprised of Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye and Mitzi Mayfair. The four women portray themselves in the film which was also the title of Landis’ book about the tour that took them to England and Africa where they entertained the troops under constant attack from Nazi war planes. It is an interesting look at a forgotten part of the war effort.

Extras include a Documentary on the four women.

-Peter J. Patrick (October 14, 2008)