The DVD Report #87

Every year, DVD distributors make a dent in the long list of films not available on commercial DVD in the U.S., but it’s a slow process. This year they finally gave us Fanny and early next year they’ll give us Rachel, Rachel. We should be grateful for those, but there is so much more out there that needs to be released. Here are the twenty films that top my wish list of films that cry out for an official DVD release.

A top revival house attraction for more than thirty years now, Leo McCarey’s 1937 masterpiece Make Way for Tomorrow quickly moves to the top of the list of cherished films for those who are lucky enough to see it. Infrequently shown on TV and available only in poor quality non-commercial editions, the film’s heart shines through even the dullest transfer.

In her mid-40s when she made the film, character actress Beulah Bondi beautifully captures the wounded dignity of an unwanted 70 year-old woman who is separated from husband Victor Moore when their home is foreclosed upon. Forced to move in with one middle-aged child while he is forced to live with another, when the couple meets for one last time before he is sent cross-country to live with yet another child, she doesn’t let on that she, too, has been displaced and will soon be sent to an old-age home from which she will have nothing to look forward to but the inevitable.

The beauty of the piece is that McCarey never treats any of his characters as monsters, just sadly frustrated people who must do what they must do for their own survival. Thomas Mitchell and Fay Bainter as the son and daughter-in-law for whom Bondi proves too much to handle are equally memorable. With a deep recession if not another full blown depression upon us, the film resonates now as much as it did seventy-one years ago.

Bondi, who somehow managed to be overlooked for an Oscar nomination for her magnificent performance was honored with a nomination the following year for Clarence Brown’s Of Human Hearts, the first and best of her seven pairings with James Stewart as her son. Here she is the wife of stern frontier minister Walter Huston and the doting mother of selfish Gene Reynolds who grows into the equally selfish and callow Stewart. After Huston dies and Stewart is conscripted into the Union side during the Civil War, she doesn’t hear from him and frantically writes President Lincoln for him to tell her whether her son is dead or alive. A moved Lincoln, played by John Carradine, intervenes and chastises the callow Stewart who finally realizes what he owes his mother. Brown’s direction and Bondi’s performance keep it from becoming an unabashed tearjerker. Why this film hasn’t become a Mother’s Day perennial is a mystery. Even more of a mystery is why it isn’t on DVD.

For years, the most requested film not on DVD on TCM’s website, Frank Borzage’s 1940 film The Mortal Storm was one of the first Hollywood films to document the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi party on its own citizens. Frank Morgan, in one of his greatest roles, is the professor whose ideas prove too radical for the Nazis. Margaret Sullavan is his daughter and James Stewart her lover, while Robert Young is the nasty Nazi youth leader who causes Sullavan’s brothers Robert Stack and William T. Orr to join the dark side. Maria Ouspenskaya as Stewart’s mother and Bonita Granville as his adopted sister are also first rate. Gene Reynolds, who played the younger Stewart in Of Human Hearts, is Sullavan’s youngest brother here.

Screen legend Irene Dunne had one of her best roles in Clarence Brown’s 1944 film The White Cliffs of Dover. As the American woman who marries into a wealthy British family, losing her husband to World War I and her son to World War II, Dunne is seldom off the screen, giving a glowing performance and remaining upbeat through all her trials and tribulations. Alan Marshall as her husband, Roddy McDowall and later Peter Lawford as her son, Frank Morgan as Dunne’s father, Gladys Cooper as Marshall’s mother, and Dame May Whitty as a family servant are all marvelous as are C. Aubrey Smith, Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor and June Lockhart in smaller roles.

Greer Garson played so many English women that moviegoers forgot she was actually Irish, a fact they were reminded of when she played the Irish born maid in Tay Garnett’s 1945 film, The Valley of Decision opposite Gregory Peck as the Pennsylvania steel mill owner’s son. Gladys Cooper, luminous as Peck’s mother; Donald Crisp, appropriately stern as his father; Lionel Barrymore, way over the top as Garson’s union leader father; Preston Foster as Barrymore’s number two; Marsha Hunt as Peck’s sister; Dan Duryea and Marshall Thompson as his brothers; Dean Stockwell as his son; and Jessica Tandy as his nasty wife all have their moments, but Garson dominates this multi-generational family saga with a surprise ending. Garson won her sixth Oscar nomination for this.

Never released in any home video format, and seldom shown on TV any more, Victor Saville’s 1946 film of A.J. Cronin’s The Green Years was a remarkably-cast version of the beloved novel. Dean Stockwell is the orphan son of an Irish Catholic mother and Scottish Protestant father who comes to live with his father’s family after the death of his parents. The family consists of Hume Cronyn as his miserly grandfather, Selena Royle as his kindly grandmother, Jessica Tandy (his mean mother in The Valley of Decision) as his aunt, Gladys Cooper (his grandmother in The Valley of Decision) as his great-grandmother on his grandfather’s side, and Oscar-nominated Charles Coburn as his rascally great-grandfather on his grandmother’s side. It’s a treat seeing these well-known non-Scottish actors act with thick, but still understandable, Scottish burrs.

Olivia de Havilland gave one of the most accomplished performances ever to win an Oscar, going from young innocent to hardened businesswoman to doting mother of the airman son who is clueless to her identity, in Mitchell Leisen’s 1946 film To Each His Own. Lyrics were put to the film’s theme music that provided an instant hit song that has proved a favorite through the years. Why then is this not available on DVD? John Lund makes his screen debut in the dual role of de Havilland’s World War I lover and her oblivious son, and Roland Culver adds his acerbic wit to the role of de Havilland’s influential friend. Keep a box of tissues handy for the film’s classic last line.

Almost all of Billy Wilder’s films are available on DVD in the U.S. His 1948 comedy classic A Foreign Affair, pitting Jean Arthur against Marlene Dietrich in post-war Berlin, is a rare one that isn’t. Arthur is a United States Congresswoman on a fact-finding mission, John Lund is her Army escort and Dietrich is the former Nazi nightclub singer with whom he is having an affair. Filled with Wilder’s particular brand of cynicism, Dietrich’s songs include “Black Market” and “Ruins of Berlin”. Dietrich, in one of her many comebacks, easily steals the film from the aging Arthur whose last romantic role this was.

There have been numerous film and TV versions of The Secret Garden but Fred Wilcox’s 1949 version remains for many the definitive version because of the perfect casting of the children played by Margaret O’Brien, Dean Stockwell and Brian Roper. This would be the last major starring role for 12-year-old O’Brien. The older folks are no slouches in the acting department either. Herbert Marshall is the emotionally closed off uncle, Gladys Cooper is the stern housekeeper and Elsa Lancheser is the cheerful maid. Filmed mainly in black-and-white, the final sequence is appropriately in glorious Technicolor.

The largely forgotten Mitchell Leisen provided character actress Thelma Ritter with her first starring role in 1951’s The Mating Season as a self-sacrificing mother who poses as a maid in her daughter-in-law’s home. Gene Tierney and John Lund received over-the-title billing as the newly married couple and even Miriam Hopkins as Tierney’s interfering mother received billing over Ritter, but make no mistake about it, this was her film. She’s in practically every scene from the beginning of the film to its highly satisfactory conclusion. She richly deserved the Oscar nomination she got for it, the second of six.

Few actresses have reinvented themselves as successfully as Jane Wyman over the years. Starting out as a chorine, moving into second banana comic roles, eventually leading lady and finally star roles in dramas, comedies and musicals, she entered her most profitable period as a tearjerker star extraordinaire in Curtis Bernhardt’s 1951 film The Blue Veil. Playing a wife and mother whose husband is killed in World War I and whose baby dies when less than a day old, she fills the void in her life by becoming a nursemaid to other people’s children. Charles Laughton, Joan Blondell, Natalie Wood, Agnes Moorehead and Richard Carlson are among those who drift in and out of her life. Engrossing all the way through, the film’s final moments are extremely moving. No wonder she won the Golden Globe and received her third Oscar nomination for her troubles.

Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 film of Robert Anderson’s semi-autographical play Tea and Sympathy suffers only slightly from the Legion of Decency-imposed coda that was tacked onto the film in order to avoid a condemned rating. Enlightened viewers, however, know the film really ends with its unforgettable seduction scene. Deborah Kerr was never as radiant as she was here as the sensitive wife of macho coach Leif Ericson who forms a kinship with student border John Kerr (no relation). The equally sensitive younger Kerr is called “sister-boy” by classmates due to his inability to fit in leading to a disastrous evening out with local slut Norma Crane. It’s up to the elder Kerr to re-instill his confidence. It’s beautifully done all the way through.

Another rarely shown gem is Delbert Mann’s 1960 film of William Inge’s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, a lovely film about life in economic hard times. The times here are the 1920s and Robert Preston is a salesman whose opportunities are limited, as are those of his family. It’s beautifully acted by Dorothy McGuire as his wife, Eve Arden as his busybody sister-in-law, Angela Lansbury as his sometimes mistress, Shirley Knight as his impressionable daughter, Lee Kinsolving as Knight’s suicidal boyfriend, and Richard Eyer as his impressionable son. The cinematography, art direction and costume design beautifully recreate the era.

A major film in its day, Vincent J. Donehue’s 1960 film of Dore Schary’s Sunrise at Campobello
is difficult to find these days, its subject matter, that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s battle with polio, having been rendered in so many subsequent films. No one, however, has ever quite captured the essence of the man as Ralph Bellamy did, who created the role on stage, and reprised the character in numerous subsequent TV appearances. As the shy Eleanor, only beginning to emerge from her shell, Greer Garson is luminous. While many of numerous great actresses who have since played her, no one has really outdone Garson’s interpretation of the future First Lady for which she earned her seventh and final Oscar nomination.

Barely released in 1963, Alex Segal’s film of James Agee’s All the Way Home has all but been forgotten due to various remakes over the years, some of them renamed A Death in the Family, the title of Agee’s original novel. Jean Simmons is at her peak as the young married woman whose husband (Robert Preston) is killed in an automobile accident on his way home from visiting his sick father. The bulk of the film revolves around the reactions of Simmons and her young son (Michael Kearney) to the events following the death of their breadwinner Preston. Aline MacMahon is outstanding, in her last big screen appearance, as Simmons’ sympathetic aunt.

A woman is released from prison after a long time and takes a job as nanny to an impressionable teenager in Ronald Neame’s 1964 film The Chalk Garden. It might not sound like anything special, but in the hands of Deborah Kerr as the woman, Hayley Mills as the teenager and the incomparable Dame Edith Evans as Mills’ haughty grandmother, it is a treat from beginning to end. Hayley Mills’ real-life father, John Mills, a major star in his own right, has a featured role as Evans’ butler. Evans won the second of her three Oscar nominations for her luminous performance.

Long regarded as the screen’s definitive portrayal of old age, Dame Edith Evans stunned the world with her portrayal of the economically depressed old lady who talks to her teapot in Bryan Forbes’ The Whisperers. Although the film is heavily plotted with some nonsense about stolen money being hidden in Evans’ cupboards, it iss Evans’ fascinating portrayal of the lonely old lady that keeps you interested. Eschewing her usual strong, in-charge characterizations, the actress, almost 80 when she made the film, provides a master class in acting that once seen is impossible to forget. It’s no wonder she won every major acting award in the world except the Oscar, which went to Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

A fairly faithful stage-to-screen transfer, Ulu Grosbard’s 1968 film of Frank D. Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses was about the unsettling homecoming of a World War II veteran, but took on a powerful new meaning for then-returning Vietnam veterans and could easily appeal to Iraq War veterans today. Patricia Neal, in her first film since suffering three near-fatal strokes, is luminous as the mother who doesn’t realize she’s smothering her son. Jack Albertson as the miserly father and Martin Sheen as the homecoming soldier are equally brilliant. Neal was nominated for an Oscar while Albertson actually won.

Grounded in the New York of Judith Rossner’s novel, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Richard Brooks’ 1977 film version, suffers from the all-city, no-city mishmash of being filmed partly in San Francisco and partly in Los Angeles. Nothing, however, can detract from Diane Keaton’s fine performance as a disaffected schoolteacher spiraling to an early death. Tuesday Weld as her sister, Richard Kiley as her father, and Richard Gere and Tom Berenger as the dangerous men in her life are also first-rate.

Ellen Burstyn has one of her best roles as a woman who experiences an out of body experience in an auto accident that kills her husband in Daniel Petrie’s1980 film Resurrection, a powerful film in which Burstyn’s character discovers she has magical healing powers that can be applied to saving other people’s lives, but at a cost. Sam Shepard as her young lover and stage legend Eva Le Gallienne as her grandmother are outstanding as well. Burstyn and LeGallienne were both Oscar nominated for their performances.

The culmination of his long career, John Huston’s 1987 film of James Joyce’s The Dead is a masterpiece that any director would be proud to bow out on. The source material is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written and Huston’s son Tony’s Oscar-nominated screenplay does it full justice. Donal McCann and Anjelica Huston are ideally cast as the middle-aged couple attending a turn-of-the-last-century Christmas dinner at his spinster aunts’ home. As the evening progresses and events are recalled the husband has an epiphany as the snow falls on the living and the dead. It’s as much a tribute to Huston’s beloved Ireland as it is to Joyce’s timeless words.

One or two of these are apt to see an official release sometime in 2009. Any guesses as to which ones will make it?

-Peter J. Patrick (December 30, 2008)