Two Boxed Sets Honor Davis
By Tirdad Derakhshani, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Apr. 18–Hollywood legend Bette Davis, whose film career spanned half a century and more than 100 films, made her debut in 1931 in the unremarkable melodrama The Bad Sister.
By 1934, Davis had earned the first of her 11 Oscar nods for Of Human Bondage. Celebrate the centenary of Davis’ birth with two new boxed DVD sets.
The Bette Davis Collection Vol.3 from Warner (http://whv.warnerbros.com; $59.98; not rated) features six films from the height of Davis’ fame in the 1930s and early 1940s: The Old Maid; All This, And Heaven Too; The Great Lie; In This Our Life; Watch on the Rhine and Deception. (For details about the films, visit www.whvdvd-collections.com.)
Fox’s The Bette Davis Collection (www.foxstore.com; $49.98; not rated) is a perfect complement. It features five films from the 1950s and ’60s, when the middle-aged Davis proved ageists wrong by mounting a triumphant comeback in a series of films that have since become her hallmark: All About Eve; Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte; The Virgin Queen; Phone Call from a Stranger, and the chilling thriller, The Nanny.
Fantasy and horror author H.P. Lovecraft has one of the most devoted film fans in the biz, a coterie of whom run boutique DVD distributor Lurker Films (www.lurkerfilms.com), which makes available even the most obscure shorts and features inspired by Lovecraft. Each of the recent releases, The H.P. Lovecraft Collection Volume 4: Pickman’s Model and Volume 5: Strange Aeons ($19.95 each; not rated), include two or more short films based on a single story (“Pickman’s Model” and “The Thing on the Doorstep,” respectively). Each volume also includes a generous helping of live action and animated shorts based on other tales.
Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica, one of the best TV shows ever made, is in its fourth and last season. Brush up on Season 3 with Battlestar Galactica: Season Three from Universal (www.battlestargalactica dvd.com; $59.98; not rated).
Mike Nichols’ fierce, real-life satire, Charlie Wilson’s War (Universal; http://homevideo.universalstudios.com; $29.98; rated R), due out Tuesday, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman as political operators and spies who set up a massive covert operation in the 1980s to help the mujahideen’s campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Fans of police thriller Day Break, which ABC unjustly canceled after six episodes, will be cheered by the 13-episode Day Break: The Complete Series (BCI Eclipse; www.bcieclipse.com; $39.98; not rated). Taye Diggs stars as a cop who is being framed for murder. Oh, and he’s also stuck living the same day over and over again (a la Groundhog day).
Partition from Allumination Filmworks (www.alluminationfilmworks.com; $29.99; rated R) is a gorgeously filmed love story between a Sikh man and a Muslim woman set in 1947 amid the turbulent partition of India and Pakistan into separate states.
Two of Hollywood’s grander-than-grand epic films are finally out on DVD as part of Genius’ new, beautifully boxed series, The Miriam Collection (www.geniusproducts.com). Anthony Mann’s 1961 epic El Cid, ($39.95; not rated), about the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz, stars Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. The three-hour 1964 classic, The Fall of the Roman Empire ($39.92; not rated), was also directed by Mann and also features Loren, who costars with a heady list of superthesps, including Alec Guinness, Stephen Boyd, Christopher Plummer and James Mason.
Contact staff writer Tirdad Derakhshani at 215-854-2736 or tirdad@phillynews.com.
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