A classic Western, a Phil Silvers set, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final starring role
Top picks: Classic
Man Of The West (Kino Lorber)
Anthony Mann began his career making low-budget noirs and ended it as a director of three-hour roadshow epics; in between those two phases, he made his best films, intense Greek-tragedy Westerns that—along with Budd Boetticher’s Ranown cycle and the best of John Ford—represent the high-water mark of both the American oater and mid-20th century popular art. This is Mann’s final foray into the genre (the frontier-set Cimarron is usually grouped with the epics), and it’s downright Shakespearean in the way it handles the story of a seemingly mild-mannered ex-outlaw (Gary Cooper) rejoining his old gang.
The Leopard (Criterion)
Luchino Visconti—born into the Milanese House Of Visconti and styled Count Of Lonate Pozzolo—was both an ardent Communist and a bona fide nobleman, which helps explain why The Leopard, his sweeping portrait of the decline of the aristocracy, is both one of the least sentimentalized and one of the most authentic treatments of the subject. Unlike many of Criterion’s recent Blu-ray upgrades, this version does not look substantially different from its earlier standard-def release.
Other classic releases
Written in the late 1940s by the great Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas, The Doctor And The Devils (Shout! Factory) was, for decades, considered to be the greatest of all unproduced screenplays. The film that finally got made in 1985—rewritten by TV vet Ronald Harwood and directed by cinematographer Freddie Francis (The Innocents, The Elephant Man)—may lack the complexity and poetry of Thomas’ original vision, but it’s got a lot going for it, not the least of which are its squalid sense of atmosphere and a superb cast that includes Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, and Patrick Stewart.
I.A.L. Diamond was, unquestionably, one of the great American comedy screenwriters, but he also had the benefit of regularly working with Billy Wilder. Cactus Flower (Sony) is an object lesson in the importance of direction in comedy; it has a Diamond script and a strong cast—Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, Goldie Hawn—but flops around like a wet noodle under the non-direction of Neil Simon specialist Gene Saks. Of course, it’s always possible to do worse; the film was remade by Dennis Dugan as Just Go With It, with Adam Sandler, Jennifer Anniston, and Brooklyn Decker filling the Matthau, Bergman, and Hawn roles, respectively. Masochists who enjoy watching terrible movies made by comic geniuses can also pick up Don’t Raise The Bridge, Lower The River (Sony), a pretty bad British-made Jerry Lewis flick from 1968.
Shout! Factory digs up the full runs of two black-and-white syndication staples: The Phil Silvers Show (more popularly known, and more prominently billed on Shout!’s packaging, as Sgt. Bilko) and M Squad. The former made a household name out of one-time contract player Silvers, giving him a signature character in the form of scheming Army Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko; the latter was a cop-show star vehicle for legendary tough guy Lee Marvin. Included as a bonus with M Squad is an episode of the proto-reality show Lee Marvin Presents Lawbreaker, which helped pave the way for America’s Most Wanted, Cops, and the true-crime fare parodied in Reno 911!: The Complete Series (Paramount). Created by and starring members of sketch-comedy legends The State, Reno 911! was heavily improvised, resulting in the nearly two hours of outtakes augmenting the 88 episodes collected here.
Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Complete Case Collection (Acorn Media) features all 70 episodes of the long-running ITV series, which ended last year. As the eponymous Belgian detective, David Suchet is fine throughout, though the slick, opulent later entries sorely lack the charm of the series’ drizzly Art Deco early-1990s episodes, which benefited from the presence of Christopher Gunning’s eminently hummable theme music. Those who prefer their detectives animated and canine can pick up Sherlock Hound (Eastern Star); the eight-disc set includes the complete run of the Italian-Japanese steampunk series, six episodes of which were directed by Hayao Miyazaki.