Year: 1961, 1962
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Eric Fleming, Sheb Wooley, John Ireland, Paul Brinegar
Producer:  Ben Brady
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

Volume Two of the Fourth season of Rawhide comes to DVD November 8th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It still stars Clint Eastwood, which means it’s still worth watching.  It’s got guest stars like James Coburn, Cesar Romero and Mercedes McCambridge.  And it’s still all about this never-ending cattle drive led by Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates.

You’d think, after four seasons, the cows would have reached their destination.  But then, a lot of crazy stuff could happen on these old cattle drives.  (I know because I saw John Wayne in one of the greatest westerns of all time, Red River.)  In that movie, it took about an hour and a half of screen time to get the beef (or “beeves”, as they call them) from one state to another.  Rawhide could maybe learn something from that kind of progress.  Then again, there is always something that comes up to delay the march.

In Season Four Volume Two, the delays are as varied as ever.  A bunch of hot women destined to be mail-order brides to (presumably) upstanding ranchers are kidnapped by some unscrupulous outlaws who intend to make the women into brides for a bunch of unscrupulous outlaws.  The women are hot, and so need rescuing by Clint Eastwood.  Then some rancher tries to take away (adopt) the trail boss’s children.  Gil Favor (and his two girls) are gonna have none of that.  That one’s creepy, because it initially seems like the rancher is interested in Gil’s super-hot sister-in-law.  But it turns out he’s really after the children.  Then the drive has to pause so they can avert bloodshed between a fort full of soldiers and a Pawnee tribe desperate for freedom.  Not only is Clint Eastwood not around at all for that one, but they also lose one of their key trail hands to military service when it’s all over.  No wonder the cattle drive never gets anywhere on time!

I still like Rawhide, one of the classic TV series that I can put on any time and enjoy.  But the reason to pick up Season Four Volume Two remains Clint Eastwood, who was just starting his film career at this time, with the spaghetti westerns that made him a superstar.  Instead of just another cast member of a better-than-average western TV show in the 60s.  One with the best theme song of all time.  Oh yeah – there’s another reason to pick this up – keep them doggies rollin’….

Year:  1961
Genre:  TV series, Western
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker
Creator:  David Dortort
Director of note:  Robert Altman
Run time:  13 hours, 12 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I don’t know how much there is to say about Bonanza, with this fourth DVD being released October 11th by Paramount Home Entertainment.  Two volumes of season one, two of season two…and it’s Bonanza!  This one opens with Hoss and Joe robbing a bank.  But don’t worry – this is the Cartwrights, and they of course robbed the bank for the best of reasons, and won’t end up in prison or shot or anything. 

     So…a reason to get this DVD, other than the fact that it’s Bonanza and you like old classic TV.  Or you’re 80 years old and it brings back warm fuzzy memories of childhood…Sometimes, when you watch a really old TV show on DVD, you get a chance to pick up some really cool things (if you’re a movie buff).  For example, a very young Kurt Russell appears in an episode during the last volume of The Fugitive.  The third season of Rawhide had an episode where acting legends Peter Lorre and Clint Eastwood shared the screen for the first time ever.

     But in Season Two, Volume Two of Bonanza, there is a new twist for the film buffs out there.  Sure, there are some neat guest stars here and there, like Harry Dean Stanton and George Kennedy.  But the biggest star on the DVD never appears on the screen.  It’s legendary director Robert Altman, who directs the very first episode, “Bank Run”. 

     Robert Altman, who had no film credits to his name yet in 1960.  Robert Altman, who went on to direct some of the greatest movies ever made, like MASH, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, Gosford Park.  The same Robert Altman who has a lifetime achievement Oscar.  And he’s directing an episode of Bonanza!  Actually, he directed a couple more on this DVD as well.  I think three in total.

     When I think about it, it’s not THAT cool or unusual.  Every great director had to start somewhere.  I’m just trying to give you a reason to pick it up.  Otherwise, all I’ve got is hey – it’s Bonanza!  Hoss and Ben and Little Joe and Adam Cartwright and the Ponderosa.  Not that those aren’t good reasons to get Season Two Volume Two.  I love Bonanza.  But dude, Robert Altman!

Year:  1961
Genre:  Classic, Romance, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Mickey Rooney 
Director:  Blake Edwards
Run time:  115 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have always felt that Breakfast At Tiffany’s is one of the most over-rated “classic” movies out there.  I still like it, of course it’s still good.  But one of the greatest movies of all time?  Hardly.  It features an unlikeable main character who does irritating things and is rewarded for it, and a pretty offensive Chinese caricature from Mickey Rooney.  Well, it was 1961.

     That being said, the new Blu-Ray version of Breakfast At Tiffany’s, out September 20th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is well worth having.  One of the great things about the film is the look.  The costumes, the fashion, and Audrey Hepburn’s smoking hotness.  All come through magnificently in high definition.

     The thing is, I’ve seen all this before.  And by “all this”, I mean the movie itself, the commentary with it, and every one of the special features.  Everything you get on this new Blu-Ray disc is identical to what you got on the Centennial Collection edition of Breakfast At Tiffany’s, released a couple of years ago by Paramount.  The same “style icon” featurettes, even the same trailers.  So although the Blu-Ray is the one to pick up if you have NO copies of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, it’s unnecessary if you already have the last edition.

     Four of the earliest post-war German movies dealing with World War II are packaged together here in this new release from First Run Features.  The Anti-Nazi box set, however, is more than just a historic curiosity or a collection of films more notable for when and where they were made than for anything else.  No, it’s a collection of four quality movies.  Which are as follows:

  The Murderers Are Among Us (********8/10)

Year:  1946
Genre:  Drama, Romance, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Ernst Wilhelm Borchert, Hildegard Knef, Arno Paulsen 
Director:  Wolfgang Staudte
Run time:  85 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     The first movie made in post-World War II Germany, The Murderers Are Among Us follows two people trying to rebuild their lives following the war.  Susanne returns home to Berlin after being released from a concentration camp to find a man named Dr. Mertens living in her apartment.  His home has been destroyed by bombs, and neither of them has anywhere else to go.  They find a way to live together, then form a sort of tentative bond, then eventually fall in love.

     They fall in love, I think, because it’s a movie and that’s what people did in movies in 1946.  He loves her because she’s super hot and waits on him hand and foot and tends to his every need.  She loves him because…he broods a lot and drinks to ease his tortured psyche?  No…Susanne falls in love with Dr. Mertens because it’s in the script.  That’s it.

     That’s my one complaint about the film.  But setting the implausible love affair aside, it plays only a small part in an otherwise stark but excellent movie.  The two protagonists aer interesting.  Dr. Mertens has come back from the front where he was a soldier.  Susanne has returned from a concentration camp.  And yet she seems vastly less damaged, mentally, by the war than he is.  She is the one who provides the strength for him to conquer his demons.

     His one, biggest demon, it turns out, is his former army commanding officer Captain Bruckner.  Bruckner ordered the massacre of dozens of people, including women and children, on Christmas Day in 1942 in Poland.  It’s a little simplistic to think that killing Captain Bruckner will exorcise all of Mertens’ demons, but that ends up being his plan when he meets up with Bruckner again by chance.  The captain is now selling pots in Berlin (pots made from what used to be Nazi helmets).

     And that is the best reason to see this movie.  Horrible, inhuman monsters return home to become pot salesmen.  The city of Berlin is a complete ruin.  (The movie was shot in the real ruins of Berlin, which is something incredible to see.)  And the awkwardness between all the people – the two main characters and the secondary ones and the bit players who pass by – is tangible.

     Susanne is played by Hildegard Knef, who has an amazing story herself – she was a POW during the war where she disguised herself as a boy, and after this movie she did the very first nude scene in German movie history.  No nudity in The Murderers Are Among Us though.  Just harsh, brutal reality.

  The Gleiwitz Case (********8/10)

Year:  1961
Genre:  Drama, History, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Christoph Bayertt, Hannjo Hasse, Georg Leopold
Director:  Gerhard Klein
Run time:  70 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Perhaps the most interesting movie in the box, from a historical perspective.  This is the true story of ”The Gleiwitz Incident“, an attack on a German radio station staged by German soldiers posing as Poles in 1939.  That way, Germany could say they were “attacked” by “Poland”, and respond with force – the invasion that led to the start of the second World War.

     This wonderfully shot black-and-white movie lays out the German plan meticulously in great detail, without becoming stale or feeling like one of those made-forTV re-enactments.  While the outcome of that plan is a foregone conclusion, the politics and personalities that put it into action are fascinating, and this one is a must-see for those who are into the history of World War II.

  I Was Nineteen (*********9/10)

Year:  1968
Genre:  Drama, History, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Jaecki Schwarz, Vasili Livanov
Director:  Konrad Wolf
Run time:  115 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     A semi-autobiographical movie from director Konrad Wolf, I Was Nineteen is the story of a 19-year-old (obviously) German soldier fighting for the Russian army.  Gregor Hecker fled the Nazi regime with his family, settling in Russia.  Now a lieutenant in the Russian army, he returns to Germany as part of the victorious Russian force, and deals with some craziness. 

      That craziness includes Germans who refuse to surrender, and Germans who do surrender and then turn guns on their own army to help the Russians.  When young Gregor gets on the phone to try to convince a German officer that yes, in fact, the Russians have captured a platoon, that officer thinks he’s a German soldier who is drunk and refuses to allow the platoon to surrender.  Gregor, as the best German speaker in the Russian unit, makes the loudspeaker announcements trying to convince the Germans to surrender.  He is also the one sent in as a translator to the most perilous situations.

     There are angry citizens, happy citizens, and philosophizing Nazis all over the place.  The film does a wonderful job of capturing the chaos surrounding the fall of the Third Reich, from a Russian soldier’s point of view and also from a native German’s point of view.  Gregor, of course, is both.  There is a blind German soldier who believes Gregor to be one of his fellow infantrymen because all he can hear is his voice.  There is a surprise attack from German forces who have stolen Russian army uniforms and a tank.

     It’s chaotic, it’s confusing at times, but that’s appropriate.  I Was Nineteen is the best film in this box set, and one of the great war films I’ve seen from post-war Germany.

  Naked Among Wolves (*********9/10)

Year:  1963
Genre:  Drama, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Armin Mueller-Stahl, Fred Delmare, Erwin Geschonneck, Krystyn Wojcik 
Director:  Frank Beyer
Run time:  116 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Naked Among Wolves is the only film on this box set with a star most people might recognize.  Armin Mueller-Stahl is a well-known actor thanks to his recent work in Eastern Promises, The Game, The Peacemaker and many other Hollywood movies.  This is one of his earliest films, and it is also the first post-war German film to depict life in a concentration camp.

     Mueller-Stahl plays Hofel, a prisoner at Buchenwald in the closing days of the war.  The prisoners suddenly find themselves with a problem – a young Jewish child has been smuggled into the camp by a Polish prisoner (presumably because NOT smuggling the child into the camp would have ensured death).  Now Hofel and the other prisoners must protect the kid while still working on their own resistance plan.

     The most interesting part of Naked Among Wolves is the dynamic between the prisoners and the guards.  As it becomes increasingly clear that the war is unwinnable for Germany, the prisoners start to become more and more powerful – if the camp is liberated, and the freed men say that one officer in particular was kind to them, that officer might be treated better by his eventual captors.  The prisoners now have the power to threaten their jailers, and it’s a fascinating relationship that develops. 

     It’s another magnificent movie, wonderfully acted and actually funny at times.  Another must see on an excellent box set.

Year: 1961
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Eric Fleming, Sheb Wooley, John Ireland, Paul Brinegar
Guest stars:  Carlos Romero, Ralph Bellamy, Burgess Meredith, Jay Silverheels, Barbara Stanwyck, George Kennedy
Producer:  Ben Brady
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Everything you need to know about Rawhide Season Four Volume One you can figure out in the first episode.  The reason you might want to pick this up, when it comes out June 7^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is that it involves Clint Eastwood.  A very young, pre-Fistful of Dollars Clint Eastwood.  And it’s a western TV show.

     So here’s what you’ll learn in the first episode.  Clint Eastwood, as Rowdy Yates, is going to be a tough guy.  He’s going to give his trademark snarl, and he will stare more than he will talk.  In this episode, he meets his drunken absentee father for the first time in presumably twenty or so years, and ends up facing down a Mexican revolutionary bandit thanks to his father’s greedy criminal behavior.  Several times in the episode, it looks as though things are about to get violent, and Clint’s going to have to do some killin’ with the ol’ six-shooter.  But it never happens!  Only one guy dies, and Clint doesn’t even shoot him!  In fact, at one point, Clint has a showdown with his father where he says “I am NOT a bounty hunter”.

     So that’s what you need to know.  Because I know if you’re gonna get Rawhide you’re doing it for Clint Eastwood.  He’s gonna fight.  And stare.  And he’s gonna be really tough and show a lot of his future badass self.  But he’s not gonna get into any gunfights.  And he’s not gonna kill anyone.  Because he’s a cattle drover, NOT a bounty hunter.

     One more reason you might want to pick up this DVD set.  It seems that every Rawhide volume that gets released has featured at least one major surprise star.  The last one I saw, that star was Peter Lorre.  I’m pretty sure it was the only time Clint Eastwood and Peter Lorre shared the screen in their respective illustrious careers.  This time, Oscar winner George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke) shows up for an episode…but he isn’t the big surprise star.

     No, that distinction here belongs to the magnificent screen legend, four-time Oscar nominee Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, Stella Dallas), who shows up for one episode called The Captain’s Wife.  I believe this is also the only time Eastwood and Stanwyck shared a screen.  So…there’s one more reason, all you movie nerds.

Year: 1961
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Richard Boone, Lisa Lu
Guest stars of note:  Bob Hopkins, John Mitchum, Hal Needham, Jack Elam, Kam Tong, Harry Dean Stanton, George Kennedy, Jeanette Nolan, William Conrad, Bob Woodward, Ken Curtis, Harry Carey Jr,
Creators:  Sam Rolfe, Herb Meadow
Run time:  8 hours, 11 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     “Have Gun, Will Travel reads the card of a man…a knight without armour in a savage land…” I had been watching Season Five Volume Two of Have Gun Will Travel, and I’m walking around the house singing the theme song.  It’s a real earworm, after all.  Catchy as hell.  I’m chopping some vegetables, singing away, and I hear from the other room – “a soldier of fortune is the man called Aladdin…” my wife was singing along with me!  What gives?  I was irritated at first that she confused Paladin, the ultimate badass renaissance man with a gun, with the cartoon carpet-flyer who takes advice from Robin Williams.  Then I thought – how the hell does SHE know this song?

     My wife refuses to watch Have Gun Will Travel with me.  It’s a western, you see, and she will not watch a western unless it stars that delightful Matt Damon.  It’s also a pre-1980 TV show, and she won’t watch any of those unless they are Happy Days.  So how could she possibly know this tune?  Well, it turns out I should probably have known it too – the kids are singing it as they walk along the train tracks in Stand By Me.  My wife, the ultimate child of the 80s, has seen Stand By Me about a thousand times.

     Anyway, all this to say that the “Ballad of Paladin” is more well-known today because of that movie than it is because of the actual show itself.  And it’s too bad.  Yes, some of the episodes were ridiculous interpretations of cheesy old stories, like the one on this set where some Russian count comes to America and finds the most dangerous gunfighter in the world (Paladin, of course) in order to hunt him for sport.  Or the irritating episode about the astrologer planning to kill people and take their fortunes.

     But most episodes are top notch, and I have decided after watching a few of these DVD volumes that Paladin is the greatest TV western hero ever, more so even than Matt Dillon.  On Gunsmoke, Dillon saw everything in black and white.  He was the toughest and the fastest and the coolest, but he won most of his battles simply by being more right than everyone else.  And things just fell into place from there.  Paladin has no such luxury.  He also is the fastest and toughest and coolest.  But he’s also the smartest and wisest.  He knows more than just shooting and justice.  He also knows poetry and fine cuisine and tracking and sleeping on a rock under the stars.  He speaks several languages and is familiar with the customs of just about every strange culture he encounters.  He understands politics and moral questions and great literature.  And through all this he remains totally badass and fully cool.

     The greatest western hero on TV comes back to DVD February 22nd from Paramount Home Entertainment as they release Season Five Volume Two of Have Gun Will Travel.  Paladin still gets into some pretty silly situations because not every writer can come up with a gem every time I suppose.  But he remains as cool as ever, some 48 years after hanging up his six guns.

Year:  1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1986
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Ron Howard, Frances Bavier, Jim Nabors, Danny Thomas
Creator:  Sheldon Leonard
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have never before seen the Andy Griffith Show.  Of course, it’s one of those iconic shows that is so famous that I knew all about it.  I know that classic whistling theme music.  I know Andy and Opie and Barney Fife and Gomer Pyle and Aunt Bee.  (To be fair, I know Aunt Bee only because of her appearance on Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.  Yes, I saw Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. before I saw The Andy Griffith Show.)  At any rate, with the release of the 50th Anniversary collection Best of Mayberry, on DVD December 21st from Paramount Home Entertainment, I was excited to finally sit down and see what this show was all about.

     The Andy Griffith Show was off the air ten years before I was born.  It depicts a community, an ethos and warm-apple-pie values that I am not convinced ever actually existed.  That being said, this is one of those shows that makes me feel nostalgic for something that may never have actually taken place, for a place that was never on any map, for a lazy friendly community that was probably impossible no matter what era.  There’s something terrifically familiar about The Andy Griffith Show, even for someone like me who has never seen it before, and who has never experienced this idyllic portrayal of life in the 60s.

     I assume it’s shows like this one that create that sense among older people today that things were just better back in the 50s and 60s.  Remember how back then, women always made apple pie and cooled it on the window sill, boys would be boys, girls would wear pretty dresses and play with dolls, and every father in America would come home after a hard day’s work, kiss his wife, eat his dinner, and dish out wise advice to his children with appropriate gravitas.  I keep hearing people saying that “family values” were better in this era, that people worked harder and were happier and loved their spouse more and blah blah blah.  Watch Andy Griffith for ten minutes, and I can see that people might think that.

     Then again, watch Andy Griffith for thirty minutes, and you might remember that things really were not as idyllic and lovely as they seem through the revisionist lens of a television camera that shows a non-existent world.  At the end of every episode on this DVD, the characters in the show do a quick endorsement for a product of some kind.  Often it’s coffee and breakfast cereal, sometimes other food.  I love seeing this stuff – I think the scripted endorsements actually make me feel more nostalgic for this time than the show itself. 

     And they are more telling than is the show – especially the one for Jell-O cake mixes, which tells me that the little woman is working herself to distraction in the house, what with the laundry and the cleaning and having to cook dinner – how can we make dessert easier on her?  Well, with the easy-bake Jell-O cake mix, of course!  She will be so much happier if we take nine minutes off her prep time for cakes – and then imagine how the counters will sparkle!  She’ll have nine more minutes to clean!

     So these are my first impressions of The Andy Griffith Show.  My second impression is one of Andy Griffith himself.  I’m very familiar with Griffith from Matlock, because I’ve watched that show for year.  I love me my Matlock.  Now, I’ve never seen Andy Griffith interviewed.  But I suspect that maybe, more than any other actor in the world, he is just like the characters he plays.  I really get the sense that if I were to run into this man today, he would invite me into his house just because, and he would stop by a hot dog cart on the way, and he would have a rocking chair and slippers and extra guitars so he can jam with random guests who stop by.  This is what I picture.

     At any rate, this is a DVD set that I just love.  I think this show was one of the best ever, and it still makes me laugh today.  When Don Knotts gets all smarmy and pompous, I giggle.  He wants to be in the town choir even though his singing makes everyone cringe.  Maybe my favourite episode is the one where he gets into a war with Gomer Pyle over traffic tickets and arrests himself.  And the one with his motorcycle and sidecar is hilarious.

     There isn’t a ton of Gomer Pyle on this DVD set, I guess because he didn’t show up until later.  There’s a lot of Opie and a couple of episodes with the Darlings, a backwoods bunch of Bluegrass-playing hicks with a slutty daughter.  The special features are great too – the first episode on the first disc is the episode of the Danny Thomas Show which introduced sheriff Andy Taylor and his family to the world, and the final disc has the TV movie Return To Mayberry, where Andy Griffith, Ron Howard, Don Knotts, Jim Nabors and twelve other cast members reunited to drum up some nostalgia.  And there’s a monster in a lake, a plot straight out of Scooby-Doo.  Well…not everything in the Andy Griffith Show can be a winner, I guess.

Year: 1961
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Richard Boone, Lisa Lu
Guest stars of note:  George Kennedy, Charles Bronson, Duane Eddy, Janet Lake,  Odetta, Hal Needham, Buddy Ebsen
Creators:  Sam Rolfe, Herb Meadow
Run time:  8 hours, 11 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Paladin returns to dispense his brand of questionable justice in Season Five, Volume One of Have Gun Will Travel, out November 30th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It’s the same as other seasons in that Paladin (Richard Boone) heads off to help someone, advocates non-violence and tells them not to kill, then he recites some poetry by Tennyson or Donne and then he kills everyone.  It’s still weird enough, and compelling enough to be awesome.

     What sets Season Five Volume One apart from other volumes I have seen is the guest list.  The second episode of the season features future Oscar winner George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke) as a man who may or may not have killed his traveling partner.  The third episode features guitar great Duane Eddy (who does the rendition of the Have Gun Will Travel theme song in the video clip above) as a young man embroiled in a Hatfield-McCoy type feud with another family.

     Then, for the western nerds like me who love this stuff, there’s an episode starring the smoking hot Janet Lake that starts off as a straight take-off on the 3:10 To Yuma story and ends with a bizarre showdown with a bandido in the desert.  Buddy Ebsen, Hal Needham, and the great blues singer Odetta make appearances in various episodes as well.  (Some more than one.)

     But the greatest episode on the set is the one starring Charles Bronson.  Well, in fact, there are two episodes that star Bronson in different roles.  But the one I’m talking about stars Charles Bronson and George Kennedy (making his second appearance on this DVD).  Bronson plays a total wimp.  Yep – you read that right.  A total wimp.  He’s beaten down by his own mother, and lives a quiet life cut off from the rest of society.  He hires Paladin to teach him to fight.

     So Richard Boone shows up to teach Charles Bronson to fight.  Bronson wants to fight George Kennedy.  Because Kennedy has stolen Bronson’s mail-order bride.  Who is a passionate Greek woman driven away by the wimpy Bronson’s mother.  This gives us an opportunity to learn that Paladin (of course) knows Greek, and a chance to watch George Kennedy and Charles Bronson beat each other up.  For me, anyway, that’s reason enough to grab this set of DVDs.

Year:  1961
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Fred MacMurray, William Frawley
Producer:  Don Fedderson
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I like the cast of My Three Sons.  I like William Frawley and Fred Mac Murray and the boys.  And they did sitcom scenarios better than most casts have since.  That being said, they are still doing sitcom scenarios.  And in the years since My Three Sons was on the air, those scenarios have been done to death.  When Fred MacMurray has to explain the birds and the bees to his youngest son, he plays the scene well.  So does the old man.  And the boy.  But it’s so familiar that I have a hard time being interested.

     I don’t know much about the TV of the 50s and 60s.  I have no idea if My Three Sons was groundbreaking in its day, or if it was just another run-of-the-mill sitcom even then.  All I know is that now, it IS a run-of-the-mill sitcom.  And I’ve seen it all before.  Just because it’s done better than most doesn’t mean I want to keep watching.  Season Two Volume One of My Three Sons comes to DVD February 23rd from Paramount Home Entertainment.

“And here’s the star of the show…Alvin…Alvin…ALVIN!”

Year:  1961
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Run time:  74 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Was this really the very first show?  The one that started it all?  The first Chipmunks show from 1961 that spawned year after year of series and movies and songs and albums and so on and so forth?  I guess so.  The DVD says so.  And I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the back of this DVD.  What I do doubt, however, is the taste of audiences in 1961, who apparently liked this enough to make it a cultural institution.  At least I can understand the voices of the chipmunks a little better than I could in later years.  But wow, is this show ever tiresome!

     In this first show, the chipmunks, who are never really introduced, except in the intro, try to teach a bird how to fly.  And the bird keeps crashing.  And eventually learns how to fly and becomes a far happier bird.  The end.  Oh – the bird is an eagle.  But it doesn’t eat the chipmunks.  That’s implausible.  But it’s far from the worst thing about this show.  Dave is the worst thing about this show.  Early Dave is easily angered, which is upsetting.  He doesn’t pay attention to the chipmunks, and when he does, he doesn’t believe their stories.  What shoddy parenting.  What a shoddy show.  However, if you’re a big-time Chipmunks fan (and I’m sure there are at least four out there), then you’ll want the show that started it all.  And it’s on DVD September 22nd from Paramount Home Entertainment.

     I like Perry Mason.  Raymond Burr was so grave, and wise, and showed such dogged determination as the titular lawyer that even when the story was silly, or the courtroom scenes strained credibility, the show remained interesting and pretty cool.  As always, Mason takes only the cases of those people falsely accused of murder.  If he was getting guilty people off the hook, he would not, of course, have been nearly so compelling.  Those people have been falsely accused, but almost always have been framed for the crime.  And since it’s always such a convoluted and involved frame-up, getting them off the hook becomes a difficult task.

     Of course, most of these frame jobs are pretty much preposterous.  The idea that someone would dress up in drag, dye their hair blonde, wear high heels, be sure to make a lot of noise after the murder, and steal someone’s car is a little involved.  I think most lawyers who got a case where several eyewitnesses identified their client fleeing the scene in her own coat and her own high-heeled shoes and getting into her own car and driving away, would assume that she was guilty.  But such is the gravitas of the wisdom of Perry Mason that he can see through these obviously faked circumstances.  And then, invariably, he exposes the real killer live, in court!

     This was a convention taken to the extreme with shows like Matlock.  Lawyers became detectives, they investigated, on their own, the crimes of which their clients were accused.  They made certain that there was never any “reasonable doubt” when the case was decided, because they had already fingered the Real Bad Guy in front of the jury.  This of course supposes that people are willing to go to great lengths to accuse someone else of a murder, and that the police are pretty darn bad at their jobs.  But as long as lawyers like Perry Mason are good at theirs, we will be entertained.  Perry Mason, Season Four Volume One hits DVD June 9th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

There were certain roles in the history of movies that could be played only by Charlton Heston. Moses, Ben-Hur, Michaelangelo, and El Cid. Heston was never much of an actor when it came to emoting. He was quite the actor, however, when it came to puffing out his chest and speechifying. He was also very adept at looking heroic, twisting his face into furious and righteous anger, and talking justice with his deep, powerful voice and square, stoic chin. Very good stuff, these Heston epics. I’m going to go ahead and assume that everyone has seen The Ten Commandments, because it’s all over TV at Easter time. I will also assume that everyone is aware of Ben-Hur, because it is one of those all-time classics that is on TV so often that it is difficult to miss. Perhaps the same goes for The Agony And The Ecstasy. And I will further make the assumption that virtually no one has seen El Cid, since I have never come across this epic on television or in the video store. The reason it hasn’t been in the video store is that it was not available on DVD. Until this coming Tuesday. El Cid is being released by Alliance Films on DVD in a glorious three-disc set this coming Tuesday. And it is a must-have for any epic film buff.

This is one of those sets that comes with everything. A booklet detailing the massive preparations for shooting this massive epic. A comic book from the 60s that takes us through the entire El Cid movie, such that we don’t even have to watch the film if we would rather take ten minutes to flip through a comic book. And it also has a written introduction to the film by Martin Scorcese, and a bunch of postcard-sized movie posters that nerds like me enjoy putting up on their walls. The El Cid posters are now up beside the similar ones I got in the special editions of The Good The Bad and The Ugly and To Kill A Mockingbird. The three-disc set includes some very cool special features – interviews, behind the scenes stuff, and an endurance-testing feature-length commentary. El Cid is more than three hours long, which means the commentary involves talking for more than three hours straight. That must have been tough.

El Cid is the true story of a Spanish hero named Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, who managed to unite Christian Spain with the Muslim Moors in order to repel an attack against Spain by an evil warlord, Ben Yussef (played wonderfully by Herbert Lom). It is the sort of role Heston was born to play, and the supporting cast is good as well. Watching a young Sophia Loren in the role of Heston’s wife, as they go through a love-hate relationship, certainly lends credence to the idea that she really didn’t start getting really hot until she hit her forties. Sure, she’s attractive in this movie, but the Sophia Loren I think of is far better looking, and also far older. I could go through the rest of the excellent cast too, but there are way too many to mention. In the 60s, you see, there was no CGI, and therefore when you see a crowd of thousands of people, or a battle involving thousands of soldiers, it is actually thousands of actors and extras, and not computer-generated! And that really makes a difference, much as some technophiles would have us believe it does not. The musical score is terrific, and the panoramic battle scenes must be seen in HD or at the very least on a large television in widescreen.

El Cid is not quite the cinematic achievement that are some of Heston’s other best works. It does not quite reach the heights of Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments. Director Anthony Mann, while he was a very capable director, never really lived up to his promise, and this may be his best film. (Also excellent were The Bend In The River and Winchester ’73.) But really, El Cid bears the imprint of Saumel Bronston, the producer, as much if not more as it does the talents of Anthony Mann. Bronston followed up the massive production of El Cid with a few great films, such as King of Kings and The Fall of the Roman Empire, and for a few years was the king of the sweeping cinematic epic. Heston will always be the number one star of the biblical epic and this kind of gigantic film, but Mann will never be considered among the greats of the genre. That title could well go to David Lean, the man behind Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Doctor Zhivago. (This run of three consecutive movies is likely unparallelled in the history of cinema. Perhaps only Francis Ford Coppola comes close, with The Godfather, The Conversation, and The Godfather Part II.)

El Cid is not an all-time classic, but it certainly bears watching. And this three-disc set would be a fantastic addition to the collection of any true movie fanatic. Don’t miss out – it gets released by Alliance Films on Tuesday.