Here’s a rundown of some older films that have just made their way to Blu-ray and DVD. Because there’s nothing like some classics from the cinema!
Spirit-filled madcap screwballer stars Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as fun-loving socialites George and Marion Kerby, who come back as ghosts after being killed in a car accident. Realizing they may have been too selfish to get into Heaven, they set out to redeem themselves by teaching repressed bank president Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) how to enjoy life. Much-requested film, based on the 1926 novel by Thorne Smith, co-stars Billie Burke, Hedda Hopper, Eugene Pallette, Arthur Lake.
Jabberwocky (Criterion Collection)
Drawing inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem, Terry Gilliam‘s first solo directing gig starred Monty Python-colleague Michael Palin as dopey peasant lad Dennis Cooper, who’s saddled by fate with the daunting task of slaying the Jabberwock, the fearsome and fantastic beast terrorizing the kingdom. Comic medieval fable co-stars John Le Mesurier, Max Wall, Annette Badland.
Thrilling aerial combat scenes highlight director William Wellman’s silent WWI saga, winner of the first Best Picture Academy Award. Richard Arlen and Charles “Buddy” Rogers are small-town best friends, in love with the same girl, who enlist in the Army Air Corps to fight in Europe. Clara Bow is a France-based ambulance driver from back home, and, in an early role, Gary Cooper plays a cocky cadet.
First, in The Law in Her Hands (1936), an ambitious pair of lady law school grads (Glenda Farrell, Margaret Lindsay) hang out a shingle…and regretfully find over time that their only paying clientele happen to be a notorious gangster (Lyle Talbot) and his yeggs. Warren Hull, Dick Purcell, Al Shean co-star. Next, in Here Comes Carter (1936), a Hollywood studio publicist (Ross Alexander) gets canned after butting heads with a temperamental star (Craig Reynolds), and starts a revenge campaign after landing a new gig as a radio gossipmonger. Farrell, Anne Nagel, Hobart Cavanagh co-star. Last, in Dance Charlie Dance (1937), the mounters (Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Charley Foy) of a seemingly doomed Broadway opus were happy to take the backing of a naive small-towner (Stu Erwin)–and then had to deal with him after they had a hit on their hands. Jean Muir, Mary Treen co-star.
Widowed ex-vaudevillian Kitty Lorraine (Alice Brady) came to realize that her teenage daughter Shirley (Maureen O’Sullivan) had the talent and potential that she herself never possessed…and was ready to steamroll any obstacle Shirley would face on the way to Broadway glory. Unfortunately, that would also mean callously sabotaging her girl’s chance at romantic happiness with a Boston painter (Franchot Tone). Effective pre-Code melodrama also stars Phillips Holmes, Ted Healy; look closely for Larry Fine.