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Recently I’ve seen two Golden Age-era movies that are revealing commentaries on the era in which they were made — and are surprisingly still relevant today.

The 1946 Paramount Pictures’ ‘The Virginian’ is adapted from a ‘classic’ 1902 Western novel by Owen Wister that he had first adapted into a stage play in 1904. In 1929 ‘The Virginian’ became a hit film directed by future ‘Gone with the Wind’ Oscar winner Victor Fleming and starring Gary Cooper no less. It’s Coop’s first talkie and very first Western (his second Best Actor Oscar was another Western, ‘High Noon’).  A simple story in both versions, the Virginian is a cowboy known only by that name.  He’s a ranch foreman. There are cattle rustlers, one really bad guy, romance, a near fatal ambush and, spectacularly, the Great American West as filming for both versions was on locations.

Paramount’s Technicolor ’46 ‘The Virginian’ stars Joel McCrea, Barbara Britton as his teacher from Vermont love interest, Brian Donlevy as no-good Trampas who, like some future Marvel player, wears all-black.  As Steve, the Virginian’s friend who joins Trampas’ cattle rustling gang, Sonny Tufts gives the story its gravity.  I watched a beautifully remastered, upgraded ‘Virginian’ whose clarity and vivid Technicolor make it look  as if it was filmed last week.  McCrea in the Thirties was a romantic leading man, adept in drama (‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ Hitchcock’s ‘Foreign Correspondent’) and Preston Sturges’ fabled comedies ‘Sullivan’s Travels’ and ‘The Palm Beach Story.’  But McCrea, like Randolph Scott, eventually settled into the saddle as a Western icon, making only oaters (with one exception) from ’46 until he retired in ‘76.

What makes ‘Virginian’ seem so relevant in our era of neo-Nazis, white nationalists and the many murders of unarmed African-American men? It’s devastating look at frontier justice in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  From the teens to ’49, America’s Jim Crow South routinely saw decades of lawless lynchings of blacks — without any legal repercussions.  ‘Virginian’ has Tufts’ Steve captured rustling cows.  In the Old West horse thieves and cattle thieves were given summary justice: A noose.  So it goes in ‘The Virginian.’  Steve is the nicest guy you’d ever meet and it breaks the Virginian’s heart to see him hang. Tufts, Boston born into a prominent banking family – his granduncle has Tufts University named after him, had a meteoric rise as WWII raged.  Yet his stardom was brief and in ‘Virginian’ his is a supporting role as the nicest guy who won’t be bitter much less blame anyone for his imminent hanging.  Watching this film today it’s impossible to not think about its lynching — which is passionately defended by a farmer’s wife as the only possible justice in a place where there are no sheriffs or judges — and the reality that existed in the South where the movie played.  In this candy-colored ultra-bright fable of the American West there remains hard truth and harder questions.

‘The Virginian’ continued with a long-running (1962-1971) TV series starring the recently departed James Drury. Except for the title, it had no connection with Wister’s characters or plot.

Anna May Wong sits atop a pedestal in Hollywood history as its first Chinese-American screen star. She began as a teenager in 1919 and was celebrated for her exotic appearance, costumes and dancing. As the Ryan Murphy Netflix series ‘Hollywood’ attests, she was ideal casting to star in the big-screen version of ‘The Good Earth,’ Pearl Buck’s international bestseller about Chinese peasants.  But there were strict laws against the ‘mixing’ of races which meant she could not kiss a white actor onscreen, even one playing an Asian!  This obviously was a severe limitation on acting opportunities.  Vienna’s Luise Rainer won her second consecutive Best Actress Oscar for the 1937 ‘The Good Earth.’

That same year Wong starred in a ‘B’ picture for Paramount, ‘Daughter of Shanghai’ which TCM recently broadcast in a muddy print.  As one of the few Asian-American accented movies of the era, it’s great fun, notable for its positive Asian emphasis as war with Japan loomed.  There’s an extraordinary cast — and a too timely plot about human trafficking where bad guys blithely escape legal prosecution by dumping their human cargo into the Pacific. That’s a bit close to what has been happening in the Mediterranean for years now.  The ‘Daughter of Shanghai’ plot finds Wong’s successful Chinatown San Francisco businessman father murdered when he won’t cooperate with the gang that traffics desperate Chinese immigrants.  Wong and an FBI agent (Asian American Philip Ahn) team up to expose the ring.  Anthony Quinn, a future Oscar winner for ‘Zorba the Greek,’ and J. Carroll Naish (who would later play the Chinese Charlie Chan) are traffickers alongside Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe, forever known as Flash Gordon. In Shanghai rounding up the victims for transport is Charles Bickford, the great silent era leading man who in the ‘40s was a memorable patriarch in ‘Johnny Belinda’ and ‘Song of Bernadette.’

NEW DVDs:
TOM’S TRIO     Tom Cruise was expected to soar once again this summer in his decades-later sequel to the 1986 ‘Top Gun.’  That release has been postponed, as has production on his next ‘Mission: Impossible’ adventure whose Venice filming was shut down months ago because of COVID-19.

While no longer perfectly timed to mesh with his newest movie, 3 new Tom Terrific DVDs are available, a triple treat for home viewers as they wait for the time when they can return to a movie theater and see the new ‘Top Gun’ on an IMAX screen. There is a magnificent 4K Ultra HD upgrade of ‘Top Gun’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital, Paramount, PG) and the same for Cruise’s ‘War of the Worlds’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital, Paramount, PG-13), a collaboration with Steven Spielberg. Plus the rebranding  and an upgrade of Cruise’s 1990 ‘Days of Thunder’ (Blu-ray, Paramount, PG-13), a reunion with his ‘Top Gun’ helmer, the late Tony Scott.

‘Thunder,’ the 5th film in the new Paramount Presents classics library, is notable as the film where Tom met Nicole Kidman and quickly combusted into a marriage (his second, her first).  Their professional union ended with Stanley Kubrick’s final film, the 1999 disappointment ‘Eyes Wide Shut.’ 

Extras on ‘Top Gun’ are considerable, with a ‘Legacy of Top Gun,’ a commentary by filmmakers and Naval experts, a 6-part documentary on making Tony Scott’s homoerotic classic. Plus ‘Inside the Real Top Gun’ and interviews with Cruise. While ‘Gun’ is a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production, ‘Thunder’ is Jerry going it alone after Simpson’s drug-related demise.  His thoughts on ‘Days of Thunder’ are the Extra.  As for the ‘War of the Worlds’ 2005 remake, unlike the provocative, ingenious Cruise-Spielberg ‘Minority Report,’ it plays as a purely commercial venture.  The Extras range from ‘Revisiting the Invasion’ and ‘The HG Wells Legacy’ to ‘Steven Spielberg and the Original ‘War of the Worlds,’ production diaries, designing the enemy and John Williams’ score.

OFFBEAT BABS, EVEN FOR BABS     Barbra Streisand’s 1981 romantic comedy ‘All Night Long’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R) is more notable for what happened off-screen than on.  Streisand, not just a bankable star but a major Hollywood player whose demanding perfectionism extended to pretty much everything she did, was the juice in this intentionally offbeat, quirky and, for many, myself included, engaging rom-com.  Her Cheryl is a deliciously sexual, sly woman who is having an affair with George (Gene Hackman), who’s left his wife and works all night long in a crummy drugstore.  Should we mention Cheryl has previously had an affair with George’s son (Dennis Quaid)?

I remember the late Village Voice film columnist Stuart Byron commenting on why ‘All Night Long’ flopped: For Streisand’s core audience of women and girls who identify with her, they already KNOW they can get someone who looks like Hackman.  They WANT someone like Redford or Ryan O’Neal!  Streisand apparently agreed. ‘Long’ was directed by the Belgian Jean-Claude Tramont who just happened to be the husband of Streisand’s powerful if controversial agent Sue Mengers (1932-2011).  In the wake of post-mortems for ‘All Night Long’ Streisand dropped Mengers.  The bonus here really is a bonus:  An interview with screenwriter W.D. Richter who has sole credit for the onscreen shenanigans.  If only Streisand had done an audio commentary here!

MARTY SEARCHES      History ultimately decides where a filmmaker stands, what he/she represents and their legacy.  With Martin Scorsese (born November 1942), while his career is primarily associated with violent gangster pictures, it’s truly been eclectic.  Could his greatest accomplishment be seen as the founder in 1990 and driving force of the Film Foundation which has been responsible for the preservation, restoration and exhibition of classic films?  The 1977 Scorsese documentary, newly remastered, ‘In Search of Kundun with Martin Scorsese’ (DVD, Kino Lorber, Not Rated) is one of a kind.  Written and directed by Michael Henry Wilson it was made as Scorsese filmed ‘Kundun’ his epic biography of the 14th Dalia Lama. ‘Kundun’ means ‘presence’ and is how the Dalia Lama is addressed.  ‘

In Search of’ goes from Morocco, which doubled for Tibet onscreen, to India’s Himalayan foothills where the Dalai Lama resides in exile.  His Holiness speaks, recalling his youth and what he sees for the future.  Scorsese offers a behind the scenes commentary alongside the late screenwriter Melissa Mathison (‘E.T.’), cinematographer Roger Deakins, production designer Dante Ferretti and a Tibetan cast of nonprofessionals.  Bonus:  Archival interview with the Dalai Lama, an archival interview with Wilson and the short ‘The Oracle of Tibet.’

SILLY, FUNNY, FUN ESCAPSIM      What a kick is this energized, absurdly dramatic and very Jim Carrey-ed ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ (Blu-ray + DVD  + Digital, Paramount-SEGA, PG)! With a plot that zips from small town American West to San Francisco and involves an egomaniacal, narcissistic villain (yes, a mustachioed Carrey as Dr. Robotnik who minus any real credentials is given millions of our government money for nefarious purposes) eager to seize, capture and use Sonic – known as the Blue Blur – for, what else! world domination.

Making all this fun possible is a sweet, low-key James Marsden who befriends and aids Sonic.  Extras include a limited edition comic book, ‘The Adventures of Sonic & Donut Lord,’ deleted scenes, bloopers,  a featurette on how Carrey created Robotnik and an audio commentary by both director Jeff Fowler and Ben Schwartz who IS the voice of Sonic.

THINK PINK?          Once upon a time, my little kiddies, there were cartoons before the movie.  Once, back in the 1960s there were movies that began with marvelously perky, jazz-inflected, catchy Henry Mancini music and a cartoon with an insouciant Pink Panther donning costumes and making merry with the film’s titles.  The Pink Panther and that Mancini theme music proved so popular that a series of real cartoons followed.

Here then is a treasure chest: ‘Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection,’ (Blu-ray, Kino Lorber Animation, Not Rated), 6 discs that span 16 years, from 1964 to 1980.  If there was once a Swinging Sixties where listening to jazz, wearing Ray-Bans and being cool was the ultimate, the Pink Panther was its one cool dude mascot. No matter how many pratfalls he took.

PACINO WAS HERE: When ‘Me, Natalie’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) opened in 1969 Patty Duke, 23, was already an Academy Award winner (for playing the blind and deaf child Helen Keller ‘The Miracle Worker’), acclaimed Broadway veteran (‘The Miracle Worker’), TV star (as twins on ‘The Patty Duke Show’) and showbiz survivor (her critically derided work in the 1967 ‘Valley of the Dolls’ might have capsized a lesser career).

‘Me, Natalie’ allows Duke to shine as the ‘homely’ daughter who has no job, no romantic prospects and little education since she was expelled from college.  It is basically the Ugly Duckling Hans Christian Anderson fable set in contemporary Greenwich Village. Can Natalie find love?  Will no one ever recognize her for her inner beauty?  As Natalie, Duke won the Best Actress Golden Globe. In its own way it’s timeless – buoyed by a terrific supporting cast with Oscar winner Martin Balsam, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’s Elsa Lanchester and, in his film debut, Al Pacino.

ROCK STEADY       Rock Hudson’s been buzzed about lately as a sensitive Queer icon in Ryan Murphy’s gay fantasia ‘Hollywood’ on Netflix.  At Universal Pictures in the early 1950s where Hudson was under contract, he was dismissed as a good-looking lightweight with no particular starry trajectory.  That changed when the Swiss-born émigré director Douglas Sirk, who had fled the Nazis in 1939 rejecting a career working for them. Sirk crucially cast Hudson in no less than NINE movies, including his 1954 star-making vehicle ‘The Magnificent Obsession’ opposite Oscar laden Jane Wyman.

Sirk saw talent where others had seen a genial hunk.  Their 8 other collaborations: ‘Has Anybody Seen My Gal?’ (‘52), ‘Taza, Son of Cochise’ (‘54), ‘Captain Lightfoot’ (‘55), ‘All That Heaven Allows’ (‘55) again with Wyman, ‘Never Say Goodbye’ (‘56), ‘Written on the Wind’ (‘56), ‘Battle Hymn’ (‘57), and ‘The Tarnished Angels’ (1958).  ‘Taza’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated), originally released in 3-D, has been given a ‘Brand New 2K Master’ and a 3-D Restoration by 3-D Film Archive. This disc offers both 2-D and 3-D versions.

Despite the beefcake aspect of an often bare-chested Hudson as Taza, his is a sensitive, low-key performance.  This was Jeff Chandler’s third if very brief time in the role of Apache leader Cochise since Cochise’s death prompts the ‘Taza’ storyline: Will either of his two sons continue his peace-keeping ways?  Like John Ford’s Fifties Westerns ‘Taza’ takes a sympathetic revisionist view of Native Americans and their struggles.  Special Feature: Film historian David Del Valle and 3-D expert Mike Ballew’s audio commentary.

HOLOCAUST HEARTBREAKER    Like Oskar Schindler of ‘Schindler’s List’ the real-life hero of ‘The Mover’ (Blu-ray, Menemshaw Films, Not Rated) is a gentile who, at the risk of his and his family’s life, sheltered Jews from Soviet and then Nazi murderers in an underground bunker.  His name is Zanis Lipke and ‘The Mover’ illustrates why this blue-collar worker was celebrated by Israel — as Schindler was — as one of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’  A 2018 Latvian drama with English subtitles.

A BLOOMING DETECTIVE   There is no doubt that Ashley Jensen has given indelible life to amateur detective Agatha Raisin but it was M.C. Beaton who created the irrepressible, somewhat daffy, style conscious ex-public relations exec who retreated from high pressure London to an anything but quiet country abode.

‘Agatha Raisin: Series Three’ (DVD, 4 mysteries plus bonus, 3 discs, AcornTV, Not Rated) lets Jensen shine in 4 mysteries, each based on a Beaton book.  My favorite title is easily ‘As the Pig Turns,’ which vividly conveys the charm of country life.  One key to the ‘Agatha’ antics is the truly demented supporting cast which include a police captain who is a blithering idiot, well-meaning busybodies and a staff that’s better at getting coffee than solving clues.  A bonus disc includes a Q&A, cast games, locations tour and a behind the scenes featurette.

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