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New DVD releases

Bette Davis Collections, Charlie Wilson's War, more

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BETTE DAVIS COLLECTION VOLUME THREE (1939-1946). April 5 marked the 100th anniversary of Bette Davis' birth (she passed away in 1989), and two box sets from different studios were recently released to commemorate the occasion.

First up is the Warner Bros. package, their third to capitalize on the numerous years the incomparable actress spent as one of their most popular contract players. And while most of her classics appeared in the first two sets, she easily made enough prestige pics with the studio to fill out a third box set (and a fourth... and a fifth...).

The Old Maid (1939) unfortunately hasn't aged as well as most of the pictures from her glory years. Set during and after the Civil War, this finds Davis and Miriam Hopkins as cousins both in love with the same rogue (frequent Davis co-star George Brent); after he's killed, one of the women finds herself unwed and pregnant with his child. The Davis-Hopkins teaming fared better in 1943's Old Acquaintance (included in Volume 2).

All This, and Heaven Too (1940) is the best film in the set, working its melodramatic elements to near-perfection. Davis plays a governess who guilelessly comes between a French duke (Charles Boyer) and his high-strung wife (Barbara O'Neil); murder and scandal eventually come calling. This earned three Oscar nominations, for Best Picture, Supporting Actress (O'Neil) and Cinematography (excellent work by Ernest Haller).

The plot of The Great Lie (1941) loosely mirrors that of The Old Maid: Two women (Davis and Mary Astor) are both in love with the same man (George Brent, again), one becomes pregnant with his child and finds herself without his company, and both women work together to avert scandal. This one's more engaging, however, with Astor winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work as a callous pianist. Sign of the times: Check out the scene in which the pregnant woman confesses to smoking 12 cigarettes after lunch and another six before it!

While the other titles in this collection largely feature Davis in her sympathetic, suffering mode, In This Our Life (1942) finds her at her most vicious. She stars as a party girl who steals the husband (Dennis Morgan) of her patient sister (Olivia de Havilland), attempts to toy with her ex-fiancé (George Brent), flirts with her incestuous uncle (Charles Coburn), and blames a black man (Ernest Anderson) for the death she causes in a hit-and-run accident. Incidentally, the portrayal of Anderson's character, far more sensitive than most seen in this time period (he's a well-spoken young man studying to become a lawyer), earned Warner Bros. a spot on the New York Public Library's Honor Roll of Race Relations, although reportedly (and predictably), Anderson's scenes were largely deleted when the film played the South because it made him too likable!

Today, it's inconceivable to imagine anyone beating Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca for the Best Actor Oscar, but Paul Lukas accomplished this feat with his work in Watch on the Rhine (1943). He's fine in the picture (though obviously no Bogie), starring as a key member of the German underground during World War II. Dedicated to fighting the Nazi menace at every turn, he drags his understanding wife (Davis) and three children all over Europe and eventually (when the picture begins) the United States. He hopes to catch his breath while staying with his spouse's family, but a meddlesome former diplomat (George Coulouris) sympathetic toward the Nazis causes him trouble. Besides Lukas' award-winning turn, this earned additional Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Lucile Watson as Davis' flamboyant mother) and Screenplay (Dashiell Hammett, adapting Lillian Hellman's play).

If there's one Warner contract player who deserves to have a box set tossed his way, it's the formidable Claude Rains. Since that likely won't happen, we can take delight in watching him turn up in other stars' collections. In Deception (1946), he's typically superb as a cruel and conniving composer who toys with the emotions of his former mistress (Davis) and her new husband (Paul Henreid), a cellist left scarred by World War II.

In addition to trailers and (on some titles) audio commentaries, each disc features the "Warner Night at the Movies" package (vintage newsreels, shorts, classic cartoons and additional trailers) which the studio includes in many of its box sets.

The Old Maid: **1/2

All This, and Heaven Too: ***1/2

The Great Lie: ***

In This Our Life: ***

Watch on the Rhine: ***

Deception: ***

Extras: ***1/2

THE BETTE DAVIS COLLECTION (1950-1965). No longer Warner's exclusive property after the 1940s, Davis went to work for other studios, including 20th Century Fox. Here, the studio has collected five of the films she made on their behalf.

My all-time favorite motion picture, All About Eve (1950) is writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's masterpiece set in the world of theater. Among its many attributes, this features Davis' career-best performance as stage star Margo Channing ("Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"), a knockout script packed with astounding dialogue, an early role for Marilyn Monroe, and George Sanders' indelible turn as cynical critic Addison DeWitt. Nominated for a still-record 14 Academy Awards (since tied by Titanic), this nabbed six statues, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Sanders).

Davis' lover in All About Eve is played by Gary Merrill, and the two actors married that same year (they divorced 10 years later). Phone Call from a Stranger (1952) finds Merrill essaying the lead role, with Davis graciously lending her support in a small but pivotal role. Merrill plays a lawyer who strikes up friendships with three fellow passengers (Shelley Winters, Michael Rennie and Keenan Wynn) on an airplane flight; after surviving a crash that kills the others, he takes it upon himself to visit their respective family members.

More interesting than the recent dud Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Virgin Queen (1955) is still only partly successful in recounting the story of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh. Davis again essays the crown after first playing the part in 1939's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, while Richard Todd co-stars as Raleigh.

The best of the countless knockoffs of the 1962 box office hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (which paired Davis with Joan Crawford), Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) reunites Davis with Baby Jane director Robert Aldrich for an atmospheric creepshow about an elderly woman going crazy over the fact that, decades earlier, she may have been the one to chop up her lover (Bruce Dern in one of his earliest roles) with a meat cleaver. The distinguished cast also includes Agnes Moorehead (snagging one of the film's seven Oscar nominations), Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten.

Although Britain's Hammer Films studio was best known for its monster flicks starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, it managed to land the services of Davis for The Nanny (1965), which was then shown stateside by Fox. An effective thriller, this casts Davis as the title character, forced to deal with the temperamental behavior of a 10-year-old boy (William Dix) who, as the story goes, accidentally killed his younger sister a few years earlier. But everything's not as it seems in this well-mounted yarn written by Hammer mainstay Jimmy Sangster.

All About Eve (in its third DVD incarnation) arrives in a two-disc set, while the other titles are single disc editions. Various extras include audio commentaries, making-of featurettes, restoration comparisons and interactive pressbook galleries.

All About Eve: ****

Phone Call from a Stranger: ***

The Virgin Queen: **1/2

Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte: ***

The Nanny: ***

Extras: ***1/2

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007). It hasn't helped that all recent films about wartime politics have been promoted with all the appeal of a plate of vegetables being plopped in front of an 8-year-old (i.e. "It's Good For You" cinema), so trust canny old lion Mike Nichols to recall how to do it right. Charlie Wilson's War is sterling entertainment punched across with enough glitz to sell it but not too much to bury it. Working from a sharp script by Aaron Sorkin (from George Crile's nonfiction book), Nichols has crafted a winning if occasionally facile work whose level of intelligence is measured by how much each viewer wants to put into it. Minimum-effort audiences, therefore, will be happy to roll with the engaging performance by Tom Hanks, but those digging a little deeper will recognize its merit in sniffing out that snatch of history that might serve as the missing link between the fall of Communism and the rise of Middle Eastern terrorism. Kicking off in the 1980s, it follows blustery Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson (Hanks) as he becomes interested in Afghanistan's ineffectual attempts to oust the invading Soviet army. Charlie's spurred to get involved at the insistence of his politically savvy friend (Julia Roberts, little more than serviceable), but it isn't until he teams up with a prickly CIA operative (Oscar-nominated Philip Seymour Hoffman, hilarious) that the ball gets rolling and the Afghans are able to defend themselves. But at what cost to the future? The film doesn't answer its own question, preferring instead to let viewers mull over the response. No Supreme Court tampering is necessary this time around: Charlie Wilson's War is an outright winner.

DVD extras include a making-of featurette and a look at the real Charlie Wilson.

Movie: ***

Extras: **

HOW SHE MOVE (2008). A thoughtful, heartfelt drama that can't quite get past the conventions of its plot mechanics, How She Move is the latest dance flick in which motion trumps emotion. That's not to say there isn't a certain amount of poignancy in the central plotline of a young teen hoping to break free of her dire surroundings – it's just that this picture only truly comes alive when its talented young cast is strutting its stuff in rhythm to the music. Reminiscent not only of dance yarns like Take the Lead and the documentary Rize but also of straightforward dramas like Girlfight and Akeelah and the Bee, How She Move focuses on African-American teenager Raya (Rutina Wesley), a student at a private school who's forced to move back to her impoverished neighborhood after her parents spend all the family funds trying (and failing) to save Raya's drug-addicted sister. Deemed stuck-up by Michelle (Tre Armstrong), a sullen classmate with a perpetual chip on her shoulder, Raya tries to keep her head down and solely concentrate on her studies, but she ends up getting drawn back into the world of stepping, a high-energy form of dancing practiced by both Michelle and Bishop (Dwain Murphy), a charismatic guy who hesitantly allows Raya to join his dance team just in time for the annual Step Monster competition. The screenplay by Annmarie Morais saddles the characters with too many scenes revolving around tired dialogue, but director Ian Iqbal Rashid compensates by staging the vigorous dance scenes as if his life – or at least his career – depended on it.

DVD extras include a piece on the film's characters and dance rehearsal footage.

Movie: **1/2

Extras: **