December, 2005: S.O.S. ICEBERG

by John Gallagher

S.O.S. ICEBERG: I'm playing catch up this month – I've had a heavy teaching schedule at The Neighborhood Playhouse and the School of Visual Arts, and I'm in preproduction on a new feature so sorry for the delay in the column. Check out my round table discussion with SYRIANA's George Clooney, director Stephen Gaghan, Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Weddig, and former CIA agent Bob Baer at http://syrianamovie.warnerbros.com/ . It took place at New York's Warners screening room on November 21, just a couple of days before the film's release.

This season's DVD releases were a harvest of cinematic delights, offering obscure gems as well as perennial classics looking and sounding better than ever. Let's look at some of the best, and keep them in mind for your holiday gift purchases:

S.O.S. ICEBERG : For years one of the rarest of early Universal talkies and among the greatest of forgotten films, S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933) has been brought to DVD by Kino. It is one of the most stunning releases of the year, part of a series of German director Arnold Fanck's so-called “mountain” films that includes THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929) and STORM OVER MONT BLANC (1930). Shot on real locations from the Alps to the Arctic, starring Leni Reifenstahl in her pre-filmmaking days, these movies make for exciting viewing 75 years later. S.O.S. ICEBERG is the jewel in the crown of this collection. Here's an excerpt from my forthcoming book on Tay Garnett, who directed the English language version:

              “ The late '20s and early '30s saw a vogue for adventure pictures shot in far-flung locales, from the South Seas (Paramount's Moana and Tabu , MGM's White Shadows in the South Seas ) to Africa (MGM's Trader Horn ) and Malaysia (RKO's Bring 'Em Back Alive ) to the Arctic (MGM's Eskimo ). The studios often sent units to exotic locations for "atmosphere" shots; Paramount, for example, dispatched Ernest Schoedsack and cinematographer Rex Wimpy to India in July, 1931 to photograph a Bengal tiger hunt for their proposed production of Lives of a Bengal Lancer . In early 1932, Universal president Carl Laemmle acquired Edward Small's independently produced Igloo ; when it proved successful at the box office, Laemmle commissioned the most daring motion picture expedition of all into northern Greenland, the heart of the Arctic region.

                    At Universal's Berlin studio (Die Deutsche Universal), producers Joe Pasternak and Paul Kohner had scored with director-explorer-scientist Dr. Arnold Fanck, whose series of mountain films starring the beautiful young actress Leni Reifenstahl had brought the company unexpected revenues. Their biggest hit to date had been the 1930 Alpine adventure Das Weisse Holle Vom Piz Palu ( The White Hell of Pitz Palu ). In April, 1932 Fanck went to Carl Laemmle Senior at Universal City and secured his backing for S.O.S. Eisberg ( S.O.S. Iceberg ).

                    Fanck left New York harbor on the Bremen on May 4th, arriving in Copenhagen six days later. Since filming would take place in Greenland, the cooperation of the protectorate Danish government was essential. The necessary diplomatic arrangements were made, and Arctic explorer Knud Rasmussen went along to safeguard the Fanck company from the rigors of polar life, as well as serve as technical adviser. Cameramen Hans Schneeberger and Richard Angst, Olympic-caliber skiers and veterans of Fanck's mountain films, were signed to photograph the Arctic vistas. Universal made the most out of the venture by supplying a smaller crew to make a second picture simultaneously with S.O.S. Iceberg . This unit was placed under the direction of 28-year-old film editor Andrew Marton, an Hungarian native who had gone to Hollywood during the '20s and cut two Ernst Lubitsch films ( The Student Prince , Eternal Love ) before returning to Berlin.

                    "I was working in Berlin for Universal," remembered Marton in our 1983 interview. "They had a large office and studio operation going on in Berlin when it was decided to make S.O.S. Iceberg . I had a call from Joe Pasternak, the producer, and he asked me, `How would you like to make a picture at the North Pole?' I thought he was joking and I said, `Sure, when do we start?' He said, `Tomorrow.' I said, `You must be kidding.' He said, `No, come over to the house and let's talk about it.'

                    "So I left the next day, without a script, to make a comedy up at the North Pole. I had no actors assigned to me except my wife, Jarmilla Marton, who played the lead. The rest of my cast would come from the cast of S.O.S. Iceberg.”

                    Fanck and his company of 38 sailed from Hamburg, Germany on May 25, 1932, having chartered the English whaling vessel S.S. Borodino . The expedition was outfitted with 40 living tents, a kitchen tent, and a dining room tent; two motor boats, the Peer and the Poul ; modern radio equipment; two double deck airplanes and Major Ernst Udet's stunt plane Der Motte ( The Moth ); plus hundreds of cases of foodstuffs, including chocolate, tobacco, wine, rum, cognac, port wine -- enough supplies to last a year. The Danish government would supply dogs and sleighs.

                    For this dangerous undertaking, Universal claimed the largest insurance ever secured for a motion picture. The plan was to shoot two versions of S.O.S. , a German-language version and an English one. They would shoot the bulk of the picture in Greenland from Edwin H. Knopf's script, return to Hamburg in the fall of 1932, then Knopf would make studio scenes in Berlin and additional exteriors in Switzerland.

                    Andrew Marton recalled, "On S.O.S. Iceberg we were saddled with an impossible story. I was often kicked out of the story conferences because on occasion I said, `Big deal. Two men and a woman on the North Pole. They come home to Berlin and she divorces one of them and marries the other one. Where is the big deal?' They thought I was frivolous and didn't take it seriously and said I had no place in the story conference."

                    After a stop in Copenhagen, the Borodino sailed into the harbor at Umanak on the west coast of Greenland on June 4th, and the extensive eight-day unloading period began the next day, with the company living on board ship in the interim. The unloading and assembling of Der Motte was delayed when the mayor of Umanak insisted that the film crew be given typhoid vaccinations, and to further hold up the company, the local natives held two feasts, capturing whales and celebrating with whale meat and blubber, expecting their visitors to participate in the festivities. Finally, Udet's stunt plane was mounted and placed in a small private harbor in the Bay of Umanak.

                    By June 11th, a camping site had been found outside Umanak, but the unseasonably warm weather posed more problems. There was an infestation of mosquitoes, unusual in the region, and the company couldn't film on the icebergs off the Umanak shore because they were brittle and liable to crack. A more frigid climate was required, so Fanck and twelve assistants embarked in the Peer and Poul motorboats. They returned to base two weeks later, having discovered Nuljarfik, a tiny island off the coast of Greenland about eighteen hours' sail from Umanak.

                    Fanck brought his company to the new location, where, living in tents and supplementing their supply of canned goods with fish and cooked seal, they filmed Sepp Rist's swim through the freezing waters and several of Ernst Udet's aerial scenes. The explorer Rasmussen met them at their next location, a village called Nugeizjaki. Rasmussen was well respected by the natives, and recruited over 100 locals for an epic scene of dozens of natives paddling kayaks off the coast. Fanck found a reasonably safe iceberg here as well, and shot scenes of Leni Reifenstahl stranded on an island of polar ice.

                    Meanwhile, Dr. Ernst Sorge, a scientist who had been with the Wegener Arctic Expedition, left Nugeizjaki alone in a kayak to scout the monstrous Rinks Glacier further north, looking for photogenic iceberg formations at the foot of the glacier. He was expected to return in five days, but when he still hadn't shown up at camp on the sixth day, Udet was dispatched to fly out to locate him. The company waited anxiously as Udet returned from his rescue mission with heartbreaking news -- Sorge was nowhere to be found. Udet flew out a second time, and found the trapped, starving scientist on Rinks Glacier; he had built a signal of rocks that stood out against the vast white stretches of the Arctic.

                    Sorge had landed on the glacier when the ice had given way in large fissures, and a water geyser swept away his kayak. He had witnessed the birth of an iceberg, incorporated along with the rescue incident into the film in a drastic case of art-imitating-life.

                    For five months, from May 25, 1932 to October 25th, 1932, the S.O.S. Iceberg company braved incredible hardship and hazard. At one point Udet crashed his plane into the base of an iceberg while the camera crew filmed it; the propellor broke and the flier was lucky to escape with his life. When the iceberg on which Fanck and his cameramen were shooting began to crumble, they were thrown into freezing Arctic waters. On another occasion, the Borodino almost capsized, and crew members along the railing were tossed to the water. They were rescued by Eskimos in kayaks, but the valuable sound recording equipment was lost.

                    Laemmle was with them in spirit and Fanck didn't forget his patronage -- when the company filmed on the Rinks Glacier, they erected a statue of "Uncle Carl" with the inscription "It Can Be Done!" But back in Hollywood, faced with the expedition's mounting delays and costs, the studio head was questioning his own slogan.

                    Fanck wrote to Laemmle of the company's problems: "I don't believe that an iceberg film will ever be planned a second time. It took me, the really incorrigible ice fanatic, to plan this monumental stupidity, and you may rest assured that I shall never work again with these monsters, provided I get back safely with all my people from this first iceberg film."

                    With 175,000 feet of the movie in the can, Universal called the Fanck/Marton expedition back to Berlin.

                    "Although the photographic background material that they shot was magnificent," Marton told me, "it just didn't cut together. The footage was unsurpassed photographically, but it didn't make any sense. Paul Kohner decided to bring over Tay Garnett from Hollywood to complete the picture."

                    The 39-year-old Garnett had started in the business as a gag man for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett in 1923. Under contract to Pathe, he wrote a successful trio of William Boyd-Alan Hale action pictures in 1928 ( Skyscraper , Power , The Cop ), and later that year made his directorial debut with Celebrity . He joined the ranks of top directors with Her Man (1930), a celebrated early talkie variation on Frankie and Johnny , and in 1932 made the romantic classic One Way Passage for Warners. Garnett had been under contract to Universal since June, 1932, when he directed Okay, America! , and still had several days of shooting on his rum-running melodrama Destination Unknown (1933) when he was called in for a meeting in late December, 1932 with the Laemmles and studio manager Henry Henigson. Kohner, an old friend of Tay's, had recommended the director on the strength of his writing talents.

                    Garnett's contract at Universal had almost expired and he was ready to move on to MGM to prepare China Seas ,   but Carl Junior prevailed upon him to salvage S.O.S. Iceberg . Tay welcomed the prospect of his first trip to Europe and an Arctic adventure, and besides, his marriage to actress Patsy Ruth Miller was on the skids. He accepted Laemmle's proposition with the stipulation that his regular assistant director, Robert Fellows, accompany him. Laemmle agreed, Tay packed his bags, and Garnett's agent Myron Selznick worked out a new deal with Metro's Irving Thalberg.

                                      Best known for the John Garfield-Lana Turner The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Garnett was something of a specialist in location filming. He had shot backgrounds in Cuba for Her Man , took a unit to the Florida Everglades to simulate the Vietnamese jungles of Prestige (1932), and his 1938 around-the-world cruise provided rear screen footage for his Trade Winds (1938). Garnett made The Black Knight (1954) in Spain, segments of Seven Wonders of the World (1956) in India, The Night Fighters (1959) in Ireland, and in 1972, at the age of 78, directed his last two features, Challenge to Be Free and The Timber Tramps in Alaska.

                    Back in Berlin, Kohner was trying to make headway with Fanck's footage. Much of it was truly spectacular, but a good deal of what had been filmed was not in Knopf's script, while other scenes that had been scripted proved impossible to film. Andrew Marton was pulled onto the picture as film editor: "Basically, Paul Kohner put me on S.O.S. Iceberg because I am such a good cutter. He was hoping to cut out some of the cumbersome footage that Dr. Fanck left in there, in his idealistic way, and bring the whole picture down to earth."

                    Universal contract writer Tom Reed was vacationing with his wife in Europe when Laemmle put out the call for a major rewrite. Reed was contacted in Andalusia, Spain, and flown to Berlin. In two weeks' time he wrote a new screenplay built around the Greenland footage, and it was decided he would meet Garnett and Fellows in New York before they sailed for Europe.                    

                    Once in Berlin, Garnett spent six hours a day screening Fanck's footage and did a rewrite on the Reed script, fashioning a story about an expedition stranded on a slowly melting iceberg, playing up the suspense element. Garnett also hired Rod LaRocque, a former DeMille/Pathe star, who was also in Europe at the time with his wife Vilma Banky, the co-star of Luis Trenker's concurrently-filming The Rebel (1933). Since Fanck owned a substantial piece of S.O.S. Iceberg , Universal decided he could complete his own version.

                    The Arctic cold had made the sound equipment freeze, so the Garnett company moved to Bernina Hospiz in Switzerland in an effort to simulate Greenland. Many of the new scenes were to take place inside a protective igloo, and an iceberg was built to match conditions in the Arctic. A bamboo frame was constructed on a frozen lake, covered with burlap, and then the interior and exterior were frozen with water pumped from the Swiss lake.

                    "When you go on location," reflected Garnett in our 1977 interview, "you always finds conditions unlike anything you have anticipated, and you learn to adjust to the conditions you find. Either that or you drop by the wayside because on a great many pictures, particularly when you get into the Western field, you run into some rather rigorous locations. I don't think any of them I did were as rigorous as S.O.S. Iceberg ."

                    Even in the relative comfort of Switzerland, the company had to ski seven miles to the location. Schneeberger, Angst, Reifenstahl and the rest of the company were skilled in the Alpine sport ... but not Tay Garnett; he was towed by the crew or by dog sled, an arrangement that still didn't prevent numerous spills for the director.

                    Shooting commenced with two crews for the alternating English and German versions. But, according to Marton, Garnett was pre-occupied.

                    "Tay was absolutely crazy in Europe," he remembered. "I went down to Switzerland to help out with the shooting and we became very close friends. Hollywood was very puritanical then and he discovered the sexual freedom that was then unknown in Hollywood. There was a double standard in Hollywood, you couldn't show this on the screen, you couldn't do that, and some of that backwashed into the private lives of people. Everything was taboo. In Switzerland, when the German company was shooting, Tay had a few days off, so he took his time and went down to Milano, in Italy. Like Hemingway in his time, Tay discovered that there's easy living in Milano. There were lovely whorehouses and lovely whores, too, to spend his time with.

                    "When his time came to shoot he was notified by telephone and he hopped on a little local train and came up the pass into the snow region. Although this was springtime, the snow started to melt, but up in that altitude the snow stays until July and we were still only in June.

                   "Our biggest trouble was to talk to Tay. That little train made a stop of five minutes up on the highest spot where we had our little location shelter. They opened a mountain shelter for us that was usually closed in the wintertime, because there was twenty feet of snow there. They opened the shelter for us and we actually lived under the snow. They opened a tunnel into the snow and we lived in this `hotel' with the windows covered with snow.

                   "The little train made a stop of five minutes, and in those five minutes we had to convince Tay that it was time for him to get off the train, leave the girls behind, and start working. Tay had a wagonload of easy ladies with him, four or five, and he was reluctant to leave them, and quite often it happened that he stayed on the train which went down the mountain for the next stop, St. Moritz. He had hotel reservations there and he lived it up with the girls. The next day we said, `Come up here, Tay, we're ready for you.' He took the train from St. Moritz up the mountains, again the five minute stop, and again we had five minutes with which to convince him to get off the train, otherwise he went down to Milano again!

                   "This went on for a number of days. I had to pinch-hit for him. I had to do some directing for him because he had already laid out all the scenes. I had to inform him of that and he'd say, `You do it, I'll come back later.' He was a marvelous guy, a fabulous character.

                   "I thought Tay's assistant, Bob Fellows, was a marvelous influence on him. He balanced him out, because Tay was sometimes erratic, and Bob was down to earth, both feet on the ground. Bob was very nice and I have nothing but the highest praise for him.

                   "You know, I admired Tay Garnett as a man who was taken right off the leash, so to say, from Hollywood, and he made full use of it. I envied him, actually! In later years, we'd meet once in a while at Directors Guild meetings in Hollywood, and it was always a big occasion. We would embrace like mad, because we went through a lot of things together in Switzerland."

                    In addition to Tay's caprices, the unit was plagued with bad weather during much of their time in the Alps, and the continued delays forced a cash flow crisis with Universal. A flurry of wires were transmitted between Switzerland and Universal City, with Garnett and production manager Alfred Stern (a Laemmle nephew) advising Uncle Carl that they needed to take a small crew to Jung Fraujoch, where the weather was more obliging, in order to match Fanck's ice floe scenes. Laemmle wanted Garnett to stage the remaining sequences on a Berlin stage; Tay wired back that it was impossible and took a trip to the more remote location where he wrapped S.O.S. Iceberg 's Swiss scenes on May 18, 1933. He moved to Berlin for interiors at the Jofa Studio from May 19th through June13, 1933, then travelled to London to dub in the voices of the German-speaking actors. Garnett, Bob Fellows, and a young English actress named Helga Moray (later the second Mrs. Garnett) dubbed the German actors.

                    Although Tay Garnett is the director of credit on S.O.S. Iceberg , most of what is good in the picture is Fanck's extraordinarily realistic Arctic footage.                     S.O.S. Iceberg opens with a foreword signed by Carl Laemmle declaring that Nature is the star of the film. In the first scene, a dinner at the International Society for Arctic Research, we meet the members of the Lawrence Expedition -- Dr. Carl Lawrence (Rod LaRocque), his wife Ellen (Leni Reifenstahl), Dr. Johannes Brand (Sepp Rist), John Dragan (Gibson Gowland, star of Stroheim's Greed ), Dr. Jan Matushek (Dr. Max Holsboer), and Fritz Kuemmel (Walter Riml) [1] . The Lawrence Expedition sets out from Berlin to rescue lost explorers, with shots of their schooner travelling into the Arctic wastes, moving through ice floes, amid huge icebergs.

                    The team sets up camp in an igloo; a title reads, "Terrifying days pass swiftly in the barren wasteland where there is no night." La Rocque leaves camp alone to search for the lost explorers, and he in turn is followed by the members of his own expedition, gliding through the snow in poetic skiing sequences. Lawrence is found starving in an ice cavern, trapped on an iceberg, but his rescuers are also without food. There is one harrowing image after another -- Gowland goes crazy and tries to eat one of their dogs; when Riml tries to intervene, Gowland kicks him back over the edge of the iceberg. A polar bear tears Riml to pieces, and Gowland commits suicide. Sepp Rist goes for help, swimming from iceberg to iceberg in a remarkable feat before he reaches an Eskimo village. Leni Reifenstahl (piloted by an unseen Udet) flies across the Arctic panorama in stunning aerial shots, before crashing into LaRocque's iceberg. The climax of S.O.S. Iceberg comes with a flotilla of Eskimo kayaks sweeping across the waters to rescue the survivors just before the iceberg crumbles into the sea.

                    Universal's publicity department had a field day with their advertising: "The Impossible Comes to the Screen! See the rescuing airplane piloted by a beautiful girl crash in flames against an iceberg! See the crashing masses of white death -- crumbling worlds of ice menacing man and beast alike! See the terrific hand-to-claw battle between a man and a Polar Bear -- the man the loser! See the airplane piloted by Major Ernst Udet perform unbelievable feats among the ice crags! See a lone woman trapped on a melting and crumbling iceberg with five desperate men! See the birth of an iceberg -- a mountain of ice exploded into the sea -- mothered by a giganic glacier! Icebound! Blizzard-Lashed! Facing Unknown Terrors! Facing Death itself -- Not Once, but a Thousand Times -- All to bring you this picture! the Screen's Supreme Adventure!"

                    Universal opened the film in New York City at the Criterion Theatre on September 22, 1933, with twice daily screenings at $1.50 a seat, as compared to the usual 25-to-50 cents admission. "For grandeur of scenic investiture," wrote Variety , " Iceberg stands alone in the Arctic category." The New York Times critic called it "a lusty melodrama of the frozen wilds and as such it is lurid, and frequently the suspense is drawn out to the snapping point." Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News gave the picture three-and-a-half stars out of a possible four.

                    The public was not so enthusiastic. The production delays had brought the film to the end of the cycle, and audiences were spending their money on Depression escapism like Dinner at Eight , Lady for a Day , Bombshell , and Too Much Harmony . Seen today, however, S.O.S. Iceberg is an awesome feat of filmmaking, worthy of   the DVD treatment it has received from Kino. " S.O.S. Iceberg ," said Andrew Marton, "was a very unusual picture. It would probably run better today because audiences are better prepared after Kurosawa's Japanese pictures to accept a picture that relies mainly on beauty, on nature. That was a novelty then, and the novelty didn't catch on."

                    Kino gives us both German and English-language version of S.O.S. ICEBERG on one disc, making for a fascinating comparison. Extras on THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU include a photo gallery, an excerpt from the 1935 sound reossie version, and “The Immoderation of Me” (2002), Leni Reifenstahl's final interview, in which she speaks candidly about her acting days and her directorial credits under the Nazi regime. The STORM OVER MONT BLANC DVD includes Fanck's rare 1924 short CLOUD PHENOMENA OF MALOJA ( www.kino.com ).

WARNERS HOME VIDEO is setting the standard for preservation and presentation of vintage DVDs. Their autumn releases continued to delight movie buffs:

GARBO: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION celebrates Great Garbo birthday centennial with ten of her movies and a feature documentary in one box set. For Garbo fans, this is the holy grail; I've always preferred Marlene Dietrich to Garbo, but I have to confess that Garbo's mystique and allure is undeniable.

ANNA CHRISTIE (1930): Garbo was the last of MGM's stars to make a sound film; Mayer and Thalberg were afraid her Swedish accent would be insurmountable. Thalberg chose the perfect vehicle for his star, an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's waterfront drama ANNA CHRISTIE. Garbo's favorite director, Clarence Brown, was placed at the helm, the hugely popular Marie Dressler co-starred, and the ads blared “Garbo Talks!” Her sound career was assured, and she earned a Best Actress nomination from the Academy. The WHV DVD includes a special treat, the German-language version, with Garbo friend and sometime lover Salka Viertel in the Dressler role, shot simultaneously with the English-language film (the studios hadn't yet developed the ability to dub their films for foreign release).

MATA HARI (1931) is a campy favorite among Garbo fans, as she plays the famous World War One spy, playing with the hearts of Latin lover Ramon Novarro and scenery-chewing Lionel Barrymore (as a Russian general). George Fitzmaurice (Valentino's SON OF THE SHIEK) provided atmospheric direction, but this version just doesn't stand up to the similarly themed Dietrich-Sternberg DISHONORED of the same year. The DVD includes a theatrical trailer.

GRAND HOTEL (1932) is the grand-daddy of all-star movies, winner of the Best Picture Oscar with its overdone melodrama still wildly entertaining today by virtue of its cast – Garbo, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, and Jean Hersholt. Thalberg made sure this was the best MGM had to offer Depression audiences – Edmund Goulding's tasteful direction, Cedric Gibbons' dazzling Art Deco sets, Adrian's costume designs. The DVD includes a new documentary, CHECKING OUT: GRAND HOTEL; newsreel footage of the premiere that includes appearances by Jean Harlow and Clark Gable; the 1932 musical short NOTHING EVER HAPPENS (a play on Lewis Stone's lament that “Nothing ever happens at the Grand Hotel”); and trailers for the movie and the 1945 Van Johnson-Ginger Rogers remake WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF.

QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) is as much director Rouben Mamoulian's triumph as Garbo's. Sheplays the 17 th Century Swedish monarch, romancing John Gilbert, her ex-fiance and former co-star. The movie featured one of Garbo's favorite conceits, as she dons boy's clothes to travel the countryside incognito. Garbo and Mamoulian provide a good deal of charm in these scenes; conversely, they created an indelibly moving sequence in which Garbo moves about her room at the inn, caressing the furniture, “memorizing” the room through her hands after her tryst with Gilbert. Mamoulian told me he achieved the rhythm of this sequence by including a metronome on the set and having Garbo time her movements to it. The DVD also includes a theatrical trailer.

ANNA KARENINA (1935), another period picture, was a typically lavish MGM production, based on the 19 th Century Tolstoy novel, with Garbo as the obedient wife and mother who sacrifices all for true love. Producer David O. Selznick (in one of his last Metro films before starting his own studio) and director Clarence Brown gave her an outstanding cast – dashing Fredric March, cruel Basil Rathbone, adorable Freddie Bartholomew, beautiful Maureen O'Sullivan. ANNA KARENINA made the NBR's Top Ten list for 1935, and the New York Film Critics named Garbo Best Actress. Once again there's a theatrical trailer included.

CAMILLE (1936), the great tragedy from Alexandre Dumas' story, set in 1847 Paris, is one of Garbo's best known movies. Starring opposite the beautiful young Robert Taylor, working under George Cukor's sensitive direction, Garbo is radiant in the role of the doomed courtesan. Once more the film made the NBR's Ten Best, the New York Critics named her Best Actress, and this time the Academy nominated her for an Oscar. Warner Home Video does a beautiful thing once in a while – on the HOUSE OF WAX (1953) DVD they included the original MYSTERY OF THE WEAX MUSEUM (1933), on DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941) they included the 1932 Fredric March version, and here on CAMILLE, we get the rare 1921 Alla Nazimova-Rudolph Valentino silent film. It's just another reason to applaud WHV (oh, and the CAMILLE disc includes the 1936 trailer and the radio promo LEO IS ON THE AIR).

NINOTCHKA (1939): I really dig the kooky, little-known Garbo/Gable pre-Code drama SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE (1931) – maybe WHV will release it in a Gable collection -- but hands down my favorite Garbo is NINOTCHKA. Just look at the pedigree – sophisticated romantic comedy maestro Ernst Lubitsch directs an irreverent Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett screenplay about a hard-spined Communist (Garbo) who comes to Paris to retrieve three wandering comrades (the delightful trio of Felix Bressart, Sig Rumann, and Alexander Granach) and ends up falling in love with Melvyn Douglas (and capitalism). “Garbo Laughs in Her First Comedy!” trumpets the theatrical trailer, and you'll laugh too at this greatest of classic Hollywood comedies, whether or not you've seen it before. Ina Claire is fun in support, and Bela Lugosi is perfect as a hardcore Moscow official.

TCM ARCHIVES: THE GARBO SILENTS COLLECTION is a spectacular two-disc set including in the box set, presenting three of Garbo's silent features – THE TEMPTRESS (1926), directed by Fred Niblo (who replaced Garbo's mentor Mauritz Stiller), co-starring Antonio Moreno; FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1927), her greatest silent film, co-starring John Gilbert, directed by Clarence Brown; and THE MYSTERIOUS LADY (1928), a forerunner of MATA HARI, directed by Niblo, co-starring Conrad Nagel – all restored with new musical scores. There are fascinating audio commentaries as well – Barry Paris on FLESH AND THE DEVIL, Mark Vieira on THE TEMPTRESS, and Tony Maietta and Jeffrey Vance on MYSTERIOUS LADY. There's also a documentary about TCM's Young Film Composers Competition and the scoring of these classic silents; photo montages on all three features; alternate endings on FLESH AND THE DEVIL and THE TEMPTRESS; and the only surviving footage, nine minutes worth, from the lost Garbo feature THE DIVINE WOMAN (1928). Incredible!

GARBO (2005): As if all of this isn't enough Turner Classic Movies and Warner Home Video includes a new documentary on Greta Garbo co-directed by the greatest film documentarian on the planet, Kevin Brownlow. Narrated by Julie Christie, loaded with clips, the feature-length film is very much in the superior tradition of the great Brownlow documentaries on Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Griffith, UNIVERSAL HORRORS and HOLLYWOOD: THE PIONEERS. Garbo retired from the screen in 1941 and lived on Manhattan's East Side until her death at 85 in 1990; among most fascinating aspects of the documentary is the section dealing with her reclusive life in New York.

GARBO: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION should be the prototype for every studio releasing their vintage catalogue titles … but Warner is the only company that is doing it the right way. Ten films, ten discs, bonus documentary, extras … this is how it should be, and Warner Home Video is writing the book on the subject. They do it again with another MGM franchise:

THE COMPLETE THIN MAN COLLECTION gives us all six Thin Man comedy-dramas plus a documentary disc. Dashiell Hammett created Nick Charles, San Francisco detective married to millionairess Nora Charles, aided by pet terrier Asta and Woody Van Dyke's 1934 production THE THIN MAN became one of Metro's biggest hits … because in William Powell and   Myrna Loy they happened to have under contract the perfect Nick and Nora. The movies were a harmonious blend of mystery and laughs, and were popular in no small part because they showed a husband and wife lusting after each other. Van Dyke directed the first four installments – THE THIN MAN (1934), AFTER THE THIN MAN (1936), ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939), SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN (!941) – and was well known for the speed with which he worked … “One Take Woody” they called him. His style imparts a breezy quality to these films; after his untimely death in 1942, Metro continued his style in Richard Thorpe's THE THIN MAN GOES HOME (1944) and Edward Buzzell's SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947).

              The THIN MAN series is especially fun today because of the wonderful casts assembled in support of Powell and Loy:

THE THIN MAN: Maureen O'Sullivan, Cesar Romero, Nat Pendleton

AFTER THE THIN MAN: James Stewart (in one of his first roles), Sam Levene, Penny Singleton (BLONDIE), George Zucco (1940's Universal B-movies)

ANOTHER THIN MAN: C. Aubrey Smith, Sheldon Leonard, Ruth Hussey (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY), Tom Neal (DETOUR)

SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN: Donna Reed, Barry Nelson, Stella Adler (yes, the acting teacher!), Tor Johnson (with hair)

THE THIN MAN GOES HOME: Gloria DeHaven, Donald Meek, Mike Mazurki

SONG OF THE THIN MAN: Dean Stockwell (as Nick Jr.), Keenan Wynn, Gloria Grahame, Jayne Meadows

The box set includes vintage shorts (including Robert Benchley's HOW TO BE A PRIVATE DETECTIVE) and cartoons (including Tex Avery's SCREWBALL SQUIRREL and SLAP-HAPPY LION), theatrical trailers for all the THIN MAN films,a and radio shows and promos with Powell and Loy. A seventh disc in the set includes a so-so documentary on William Powell and a better one (by Richard Schickel) on Myrna Loy, but we also get a terrific episode of the 1957 half-hour TV series THE THIN MAN, starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk. The episode is called “Darling, I Loathe You,” and features D.W. Griffith actress Blanche Sweet in a bit. I vaguely remember this series airing at 1 or 2 AM in the 70s on New York's Channel 4, and it was fun to see it again.

THE ASTAIRE/ROGERS COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE should be an essential purchase (or holiday gift) for any classic movie buff. Warner Home Video brings together TOP HAT (1935), SWING TIME (1936), FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936), SHALL WE DANCE (1937), and their reunion film, THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949) in an indispensable box set full of extras:

TOP HAT (1935) and SWING TIME (1936): RKO first teamed Broadway star Astaire and busy starlet Rogers in support of Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond in FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933); Astaire and Rogers were a sensation and were rewarded with their own vehicle, THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934), which set the standard for the Astaire/Rogers musicals. TOP HAT developed the formula and SWING TIME perfected it --   Fred falls for Ginger, Fred dances with Ginger, Fred gets Ginger … but with wonderful screenplays (usually by Allan Scott), deft direction (Mark Sandrich on TOP HAT, George Stevens on SWING TIME), expert supporting comic players like Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick, songs by America's greatest (Irving Berlin with “Cheek to Cheek,” and “Isn't It a Lovely Day?,” for example, on TOP HAT; Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields on SWING TIME with “Never Gonna Dance.” “Pick Yourself Up,” and “The Way You Look Tonight”), and of course the Hermes Pan choreography filtered through the chemistry of Fred and Ginger.

              Irving Berlin was back with songs like “We Saw the Sea” and “Let Yourself Go” for Sandrich's FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936), with Fred and Randolph Scott romancing Ginger and Harriet Hilliard (who went on to become the Harriet of THE OZZIE AND HARRIET SHOW); a very blonde Lucille Ball and Betty Grable have supporting roles, and the movie features the beautifully sublime number “Let's Face the Music and Dance.” Sandrich was in the director's chair again for SHALL WE DANCE (1937), with Fred and Ginger singing and dancing the George and Ira Gershwin classics “Let's Call the While Thing Off,” “They All Laughed,” and “They Can't Take That Away from Me.”

              After THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE (1939), Astaire became too expensive for RKO and moved on to free-lance at MGM (BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940, EASTER PARADE), Paramount (HOLIDAY INN) and Columbia (YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH), while Ginger won an Oscar for her dramatic turn in KITTY FOYLE (1940) and excelled in comedies like ROXIE HART and THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (both 1942). When Judy Garland fell ill for 1949's THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY , Rogers replaced her and reunited with Astaire in a husband-and-wife show biz story written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, directed by Charles Walters for MGM's Arthur Freed musical unit. The movie is the only Astaire/ Rogers in color, with a reprise of the Gershwins' “They Can't Take That Away from Me” as a highlight.

              Warners has crammed the set with extras, as usual – audio commentaries (including Fred's daughter Ava Astaire MacKenzie on TOP HAT), new featurettes on the making of each film; musical shorts and cartoons from each year represented (e.g., Tex Avery's Droopy cartoon WAGS TO RICHES on THE BARKLEYS disc). The magic of Astaire and Rogers has finally come to DVD, jammed with enough riches to hold us over until next year's Volume Two, which will presumably include FLYING DOWN TO RIO, THE DIVORCEE, ROBERTA, CAREFREE and THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE).

But hold on there, movie fans, there is still MORE from our friends at WHV – an incredible three-disc set of Victor Fleming's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) , restored with their “Ultra Resolution” process, packed with more than thirteen hours of special features, including five new documentaries,   the original Oz storybook read onscreen by Angela Lansbury and a reproduction of the 1939 Grauman's Chinese Theater souvenir premiere program and much much more.

              The studio has seemingly emptied out their vaults for this set, preserving everything OZ for posterity. Disc One includes the restored movie with new commentary by Oz historian John Fricke and arcgival audio comments from Arthur Freed's daughter Barbara Freed-Saltzman, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger, John Lahr (son of Bert Lahr), Jane Lahr (Bert's daughter), Margaret Hamilton and her son Hamilton Meserve, makeup artist William Tuttle, Buddy Ebsen (replaced as the original scarecrow), producer Mervyn LeRoy and Munchkin Jerry Maren. There's a documentary on the restoration, a profile of the supporting cast, and THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF OZ STORYBOOK, read by Angela Lansbury.

              Disc Two features two documentaries, songwriter Harold Arlen's on-set home movies, outtakes and deleted scenes, the tornado special effects tests, vintage featurettes, stills and trailer galleries, and most incredibly, more than six hours of audio rarities, including multiple take original recording sessions of “Over the Rainbow,” “We're Off to See the Wizard,” and all the other Arlen-Harburg standards. Disc Three has four hours devoted to Oz creator L. Frank Baum, including a new documentary on his life, and the silent versions of Oz: THE WIZARD OF OZ (1910), THE MAGIC CLOAK OF OZ (1914), HIS MAJESTY, THE SCARECROW OF OZ (1914), a restored THE WIZARD OF OZ (1925) with Oliver Hardy, and the 1933 cartoon version. That's a whole lotta Oz! While it's been released before, it's never looked this magnificent, and again, is a great gift idea for the holidays.

              Another MGM classic gets the special treatment from WHV … a FOUR-DISC Collectors Edition DVD of William Wyler's BEN-HUR (1959). Newly remastered from original 65mm film elements, with over ten hours of bonus material, this is another must-have DVD. Wyler expertly balanced the personal story of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and his conflict with former best friend, Roman big shot Messala (Stephen Boyd), against the epic backdrop of Christ's Holy Land and Imperial Rome. The first half of the 222-minute film, including Ben Hur's enslavement as a galley slave, the sea battle and the legendary chariot race is an amazing spectacle, all the more incredible since there were no computer effects available at the time. Discs One and Two contain the restored movie with audio commentary from film historian T. Gene Hatcher and scene specific comments from Heston; Disc Three consists of the brilliant 1925 silent version, complete with several restored two-strip Technicolor sequences. Disc Four offers a new documentary with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Ridley Scott remarking on the film's influence; a 1994 making-of documentary; an audiovisual mélange of stills, storyboards and production sketches; a vintage newsreel gallery; highlights from the 1960 Academy Awards ceremony (eleven Oscars including Best Picture, Heston's Best Actor, Wyler's Best Director, Hugh Griffith's Best Supporting Actor, Robert Surtees' Color Cinematography and Miklos Rosza's music); and a group of screen tests that include Leslie Nielsen auditioning for the part of Messala!

              Producer Val Lewton introduced a new brand of psychological terror with a series of horror movies produced at RKO during the first half of the 1940s. To wild shrieks of joy from fright film fans, Warner Home Video has released THE VAL LEWTON HORROR COLLECTION , nine features and a new documentary, SHADOWS IN THE DARK: THE VAL LEWTON LEGACY (2005), a great introduction to the producer's work, featuring interviews with Val Lewton, Jr., Sara Karloff, George Romero, Joe Dante, John Landis, William Friedkin, and Robert Wise.

              Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE (1942) and Robert Wise's THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944) are double-featured on one disc. CAT PEOPLE stars Simone Simon as a beautiful young woman cursed to turn into a deadly panther when sexually aroused; the sequel is a haunting study of a little girl's fantasy world, with Simon recreating her character from beyond the grave. Greg Mank provides an excellent audio commentary, and there's an audio interview with Simone Simon.

              Another disc presents Tourneur's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943), a voodoo version of JANE EYRE starring Frances Dee; and Wise's THE BODY SNATCHER (1945), starring Boris Karloff and Henry Daniell as 19 th Century grave robbers, with Bela Lugosi in support. Wise and Steve Haberman do the audio commentary on THE BODY SNATCHER, while Kim Newman and Steve Jones share the honors on I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. Tourneur's THE LEOPARD MAN (1943), with commentary from director William Friedkin, and Mark Robson's THE GHOST SHIP (1943) comprise another disc. Dennis O'Keefe stars in THE LEOPARD MAN; the garish studio-imposed title hides another subtle in fear; THE GHOST SHIP features Richard Dix as the mad sea captain in a title that was unseen for years due to conflicts regarding the film's underlying story rights. Another disc double bills two Boris Karloff vehicles directed by Mark Robson, ISLE OF THE DEAD (1945), set on a quarantined Greek island, and BEDLAM (1946) set in a mental institution in Georgian England, with audio commentary by the great horror historian Tom Weaver. Robson's THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943) is a chilling drama with Kim Hunter trying to crack a Greenwich Village cult of devil worshippers (Steve Haberman handles the audio commentary).

              The late Robert Wise shared his memories of Val Lewton, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with me:

ROBERT WISE: Val was an exceptional man, highly cultured and well read, a writer himself, a man of great imagination, a really creative producer. Val was a director's producer in every sense of the word. He contributed tremendously to all of his films in every way. He wrote on all the scripts but refused to take credit. He was very involved with all aspects of the film, yet he was fully supportive of the director at all times and never wanted to second guess or make you feel that he was constantly looking over your shoulder. He was a tremendous creator, and it's just a shame that he died at work at such an early age without really fulfilling all his tremendous potential.

              Karloff and Lugosi were completely different gentlemen. Karloff was highly educated and sensitive, and a well-read man with great taste. Boris was marvelous to work with. He was very excited about the chance to do THE BODY SNATCHER. He took it to be a chance to show he could hold his own with top actors and give a real performance as Boris Karloff and not have to depend on the mechanisms of the monster role. Of course, with Henry Daniell he was playing opposite one of the best character actors in Hollywood, so it was a delight to work with them. The results show on the screen in a really outstanding performance as he really holds his own with Daniell.

              Lugosi was another story. He actually was rather forced into the piece. Somebody at the front office thought it would be a marvelous exploitation thing if they could get both Karloff and Lugosi in the same film, so Lewton came up with the idea of writing in that janitor part which Lugosi played. It had to be a part that was not too demanding because Bela was not well. He had been ill for some time and his English wasn't terribly good. I had no major problems with him, but it was just hard to get through because of the language problem and his illness. I had to almost nurse him through the scenes, whereas Karloff, as I said earlier, was very stimulated by the prospect of what he could do with the character of Gray the grave robber.”

Warner has also released Francis Coppola's THE OUTSIDERS: THE COMPLETE NOVEL , giving the director the chance to re-tool his 1983 teen movie. Stylistically inspired by GONE WITH THE WIND, vividly recreating S.E. Hinton's novel about disenfranchised youths in Tulsa, Oklahoma, THE OUTSIDERS boasted one of the most impressive young casts since AMERICAN GRAFFITI – Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise. Coppola has restructured the beginning and the ending, making it more faithful to the book, integrated an additional 22 minutes into the movie, and replaced some his father Carmine's orchestral score with rock ‘n roll, making for a kind of OUTSIDERS REDUX. The double disc set has a commentary track by Coppola, a second commentary track with comments from many of the cast members, several documentaries that include audition tests, ten minutes of additional scenes, and readings from the Hinton book by seven cast members. THE OUTSIDERS was always a good movie; I daresay it's better now.

Rounding out Warner's fall releases were DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972), with Christopher Lee's Dracula battling a descendant of Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) in psychedelic London, one of the least of the Hammer horrors, but still good for some period laughs. Donald Cammell's DEMON SEED (!977) is more serious, an effective and recommended horror thriller inspired by ROSEMARY'S BABY, with Julie Christie as the mother-in-distress. And least as well as last, the gore remake of HOUSE OF WAX (2005) stars Elisha Cuthbert and Paris Hilton (in red bra and panties) terrorized by wax-crazy killers. Lots of extras make up for the predictable slasher stuff, including a gag reel and a featurette of the cast watching and responding to their own bloopers, which I found highly entertaining. For the gore connoisseur, there are several interesting documentaries detailing how the special effects were achieved.

And of course, THE release of the year for movie buff's is Warners DVD release of the restored original KING KONG (1933). This is truly like seeing the movie for the first time, that's how spectacular this transfer is. The two-disc set includes an excellent new documentary on the film's creators, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack and a seven-part documentary. Peter Jackson is prominently and appropriately featured throughout; this is of course his favorite film, the   movie that inspired him to become a filmmaker. He has actually recreated the lost spider pit sequence following the original script and drawings, and it's truly the highlight of a remarkable set. So much has been written about this release I'll just say that DVD was invented for such a package. WHV has also released beautiful transfers of Cooper-Schoedsack's SON OF KONG (1933), THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935) and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949). Milestone has re-released Cooper and Schoedsack's GRASS (1925) and CHANG (1927), two silent documentaries about Persian nomads and a Thai jungle family, respectively, incredible on-location accomplishments. The latter disc has an incredible nearly two-hour audio interview with Merian Cooper made by Rudy Behlmer in the mid-Sixties in which “Coop” talks about his incredible career; it's worth the price of the disc alone.

PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO : Of all the major home entertainment companies, Paramount is the runner-up to Warner in the DVD department, with a diverse release slate, special treatment going to a few select titles. I recommend the following batch of Paramount releases:

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944): Preston Sturges' outrageous sex comedy slipped through the censor's hands at the height of World War Two and thank goodness it did. Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton and William Demarest are priceless, and Sturges' script and direction rate with the best of American screen comedy. Extras include a making-of featurette and an interesting piece on the film and the censors.

THE STRANGE CASE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946): Lewis Milestone's essential film noir has only been available in dupey public domain copies; Paramount has gone to the master for the only version worth renting. A very young Kirk Douglas (in his film debut) and Barbara Stanwyck steam it up in a passion play of drama and intrigue; watch this on a double bill with DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944).

DETECTIVE STORY (1951): Director Willam Wyler and playwright Sidney Kingsley scored with 1937's DEAD END; they reteamed for this film version of the Kingsley play about life in a Manhattan police precinct. Against the gritty background, Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker play out a marital drama, all under the unerring eye of the great Wyler. No extras, but a great supporting cast including Lee Grant (fresh from the Neighborhood Playhouse), William Bendix, and Joseph Wiseman (a decade before he played the title role in DR. NO).

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953): Here's one of the year's highlights, one of the most beloved science fiction movies ever (reverentially remade this year by Steven Spielberg), gloriously brought to DVD in a special collector's edition. The Technicolor transfer is ravishing, and so are the Oscar-winning special effects, and the movie plays like gangbusters; the H.G. Wells story is played completely straight by director Byron Haskin and producer George Pal. There is an audio commentary by the stars Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, and another commentary by director Joe Dante and historians Bob Burns and Bill Warren, along with a fascinating documentary, a featurette on Wells, and the original 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast from the Mercury Theatre of the Air. Very highly recommended.

Paramount also released the latest two Batjac restorations – HONDO (1953), directed   by John Farrow, and McLINTOCK! (1963), directed by Andrew McLaglen, both starring John Wayne, and both looking sensational. HONDO is one of Wayne's best films of the Fifties; he plays a cavalry rider who looks after a lone woman (Geraldine Page) and her son (Lee Aaker) on   ranch in the middle of Apache country. Page (in her screen debut) makes an unusual leading lady for the Duke, and the Louis L'Amour story is more pro-Indian than usual. Add in some good action sequences and a supporting cast including Ward Bond, Paul Fix, Leo Gordon and Michael Pate as the Apache Vittorio, and you've got a really good Western, an interesting companion piece to the same year's SHANE. This special edition boasts an outstanding audio commentary from Frank Thompson and Leonard Maltin (with interpolations from Lee Aaker) and featurettes on the making of the film, frequent Wayne collaborator Ward Bond, favored Duke screenwriter James Edward Grant, and the Apache nation. McLINTOCK! set the tone for most of the Wayne films to follow, a rowdy comedy with plenty of fisticuffs and colorful characters. This time there's commentary from Thompson and Maltin, co-stars Maureen O'Hara, Stephanie Powers and Michael Pate, producer Michael Wayne and director Andrew McLaglen. There is also a tribute to the late Michael Wayne (the Duke's eldest son) and a variety of featurettes on the making of the movies. HONDO and McLINTOCK!, along with the previously released ISLAND IN THE SKY and THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, fill in some important gaps in the filmography of this greatest of screen icons.

DARLING LILI (1969) was a terrible flop upon its release; Blake Edwards' sentimental ode to love and war during World War One seemed hopelessly out of date in the year of EASY RIDER. Seen today, it's damn near the director's masterpiece, a stunning evocation of the era with a wonderful performance by Julie Andrews and some of her finest musical work on screen, singing standards as well as originals by Henrt Mancini and Johnny Mercer.   She plays a spy patterned on Mata Hari, romantically involved with Rock Hudson, and Edwards fills the screen with extravagant action. Hats off to Paramount Home Video for including   nearly an hour of footage deleted after its original release.

By now, all die hard Bob Dylan fans have watched or taped Martin Scorsese's documentary on the singer-songwriter on PBS; the double-disc DVD of NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN (2005) is a keeper to be enjoyed over and over. Scorsese limits his study of Dylan to his early years, ending with his self-imposed exile in 1967, and unearthed some incredibly rare footage, including a performance of “Girl from the North Country” from a Canadian TV show. The DVD's special features include nine additional rare Dylan performances. THE SIXTIES makes a good companion piece, another PBS documentary about the tumultuous decade, focusing on the socio-political changes through interviews with such major players as Henry Kissinger, Jesse Jackson, Norman Mailer, Bobby Seale and Robert McNamara.

Paramount's documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM (2005) is an utterly charming film --- and an Oscar contender – that traces inner city New York fourth and fifth graders as they participate in the world of competitive ballroom dancing. They perform meringue, tango, rumba and swing, offering candid and amusing insights into their lives … Marilyn Agrelo and Amy Sewell have done a wonderful job in presenting the passion of these kids for dance, as well as their innocence and their heart. Very highly recommended!

I'm partial to Bob Hope, especially in period films (THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE, THE PALEFACE, MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE), so of course I like CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT (1954), in which Bob poses as Casanova (an unbilled Vincent Price) while romancing Joan Fontaine through the Paramount backlots-doubling-for-Renaissance Venice. It's otherwise standard Hope, with brisk Norman McLeod direction and lavish Technicolor photography, costumes and sets.

I am also a major Jerry Lewis fan … and not just because he invited video assist. That's right, as a director Jerry did that. He's also provided millions of laughs for millions of kids, not just in France but right here in the U.S.A. As one of those kids-whose-never-grown-up, I'm not going to defend him. I will say that THE BELLBOY (1960), THE ERRAND BOY (1961), THE LADIES'S MAN (1961), THE PATSY (!964) and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1964) are comic masterpieces, and they're included in the ten-title box set JERRY LEWIS: THE “LEGENDARY JERRY” COLLECTION , new from Paramount. The set also includes THE STOOGE (1953), a Martin and Lewis comedy (Jerry's favorite of the team's efforts)   from the height of their fame, when they were the highest grossing screen comedy team in history; THE DELICATE DELINQUENT (!957), Jerry's first film after the split with Dean Martin; and three more solo efforts that contain their own moments of magic – CINDERFELLA (1960), THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY (1964) and THE FAMILY JEWELS (1965). Many of the titles come with fantastic outtakes, and select commentary from Jerry and singer pal Steve Lawrence. If you're a fan, pounce … if not, try THE ERRAND BOY (especially the “Bending Feathers” scene) or THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, including here in a special edition.

Paramount's most spectacular release of the year is a dazzling three-disc Special Collectors Edition of TITANIC (1997). Get rid of your old DVD – this is digitally mastered   in THX and looks incredible. I was surprised to see that James Cameron's over-hyped epic actually holds up very well almost a decade later and eventually becomes a gripping thriller and a potent love story. Disc One offers a separate commentary track from Cameron, and a separate cast and crew commentary from Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart, Lewis Abernathy, Rae Sanchini and Jon Landau; historical commentary by Don Lynch and Ken Marschall, plus behind-the-scenes featurettes. Disc Two concludes the movie with the same commentaries, plus an alternate ending that expands the Bill Paxton, Suzy Amis and Gloria Stuart characters (but was wisely withheld); more featurettes, and the execrable music video of Celine Dion singing the most overplayed song of 1997-98, “My Heart Will Go On.” Disc Three is remarkable, with over 45 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary; a slew of historical material and production goodies; and video tribute made by the crew which includes some hilarious footage of Leonardo DiCaprio mimicking assistant director Josh McLaglen (son of McLINTOCK! director Andrew). The Special Collectors Edition of TITANIC makes for an especially handsome holiday gift.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR GIFTS (TO YOURSELF OR OTHERS :

MAJOR DUNDEE (1965, Sony Puctures Home Entertainment). THE Western DVD release of the year, a flawless transfer of the reconstruction of Sam Peckinpah's maligned masterpiece. In its new form, the picture rates up there with the John Ford Cavalry films. The original music has actually been re-scored, missing footage reinstated and the whole thing remastered. There's fantastic commentary from Peckinpah historians, a vintage featurette, a documentary excerpt and an essay by DVD Savant Glenn Ericksen. The film itself features great star turns from Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, and a terrific supporting cast including Ben Johnson, James Coburn and Warren Oates. Also from SPHE, check out Boris Karloff in THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES (1940); Karloff made a series of Mad Doctor movies for Columbia in 1939-41. They're great fun but this is only the second one to be released (the other is THE DEVIL COMMANDS ). Let's get rest out there.

THE BELA LUGOSI COLLECTION ( Universal): No extras, no commentaries, but we do get five of   Bela's best – MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932) and his Karloff collaborations THE BLACK CUT (1934), THE RAVEN (!935), THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936) and BLACK FRIDAY (1940). The first four are from the first wave of Universal horrors under the aegis of Carl Laemmle Senior and Junior; the last named barely features Bela but we'll take what we can get. This set is essential viewing for Lugosi-philes.

TWO CRITERION GEMS :   In 1950, working with screenwriter Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini made the sensitive THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS , a legendary film about the followers of the saint long unavailable in a decent print. Criterion releases a restored hi-def transfer, with video interviews (including the director's daughter Isabella Rossellini); this is a beautiful film about the quest for spiritual enlightment. At the other end of the spectrum Criterion releases the post-noir LE SAMOURAI (1967), Jean-Pierre Melville's character study of a hitman (Alain Delon), one of John Woo's favorite thrillers. There are video interviews with Melville historians and archival footage of the director himself.

WEEKEND (New Yorker): With most films by Jean-Luc Godard it's pretty much love it or hate it. WEEKEND (1967) is a little more accessible,a   satire on consumerism that follows a couple on their way to a weekend out of town. Special features include Mike Figgis' take on the film, an interview with cinematographer Raoul Coutard, and audio commentary by critic David Sterritt. New Yorker also releases PUNISHMENT PARK (1971) by David Watkin, the first in a   series of releases by the iconooclastic maverick. This film takes as its premise the McCarren Act, an early Fifties piece of legislation that allows those who would overthrow the government to be sent to concentration camps. Watkin uses this as a jumping off point to follow the tribunal of political dissidents, with a desert pursuit right out of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and LOST :   Buena Vista brings us Season One of both hit shows – hours and hours of entertainment. Season Two on both films have been less than stellar, particularly LOST, which feels as if it's being made up as they go along, but grab these sets and enjoy some of the best network TV programming in years. Season Two of Disney's SCRUBS , on the other hand, fulfilled the promise of Season One; it's one of the funniest, best written, directed and acted shows on the tube. Pop in one show and you'll be watching the next! All three sets are liberally dosed with outtakes, bloopers, commentaries and even audition tapes in the case of HOUSEWIVES and LOST.

                                      JOHN GALLAGHER

                                          jgmovie@aol.com