It’s mid-summer and Hollywood’s attention is focused on the box office, but there are some interesting home entertainment offerings including the first Blu-ray editions of The Beatles’ Help! and the 1934 classic Of Human Bondage, plus Halle Berry in an old-school thriller with a technological twist, the complete run of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and a classic BBC miniseries starring Patrick Stewart.
 
Classics on Blu-ray
 
Richard Lester’s second Beatles film Help! (Universal, “Not Rated,” $29.98) has always suffered in comparison to A Hard Day’s Night, but now Help is out on Blu-ray and it may be time to reevaluate this madcap farce that revolves around a mad cult’s desire to obtain Ringo’s ring (and “rule the world”).  The Fab Four scurries around Help like a madcap 1960s version of the Marx Brothers and the songs are certainly as good as those in A Hard Day’s Night.  While the film with its picturesque locations in Austria, the Bahamas, the Salisbury Plain does look exceptionally good in this new Blu-ray edition, it is the glorious 5.1 soundtrack that really makes this BD a “must-have” item for Fab Four fans.
 
Also due this week is the new Blu-ray of John Cromwell’s 1934 adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (Kino, “Not Rated,” $29.98) starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.  This title is in the public domain, which means that there have been numerous DVD releases of the movie with terrible visual quality.  This version was scanned from a print at the Library of Congress donated by Bette Davis.  While it is not perfect, it represents a huge improvement over what has been available before.  Of Human Bondage doesn’t rate the kind of frame-by-frame restoration that a Casablanca or a Wizard of Oz has received, so there is a near constant parade of dust flecks plus some occasional scratches, a few contrast issues and a very pronounced film grain.  Still it is wonderful to see a sharp print of this classic saga of sexual obsession, a film that was groundbreaking for its era in its depiction of the repeated humiliations of its protagonist at the hands of the greatest shrew in the history of cinema.
 
Our view of the American film industry in the 1930s usually concentrates on the various studios, but there were independent productions during that era as well.  Case in point is a Blu-ray of another Library of Congress film donated by Bette Davis, Hell’s House (Kino, “Not Rated,” $29.98), a 1932 film directed by Howard Higgin that starred Davis and a very fast-talking Pat O’Brien.  While Hell’s House is not even close to being a classic like Of Human Bondage, it is an interesting expose of conditions in reform schools--the kind of socially conscious picture that Warner Bros. (I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, Wild Boys of the Road) was making at the same time. O’Brien, who had just played the lead in Howard Hughes’ film adaptation of Hecht and McArthur’s The Front Page, brought his fast-talking stage patter to the role of a smalltime bootlegger who gets an innocent kid in trouble.  Davis plays the bootlegger’s girlfriend, but she is no moll, and the actress manages to forge an interesting and independent character with just a few scenes.  Unfortunately Junior Durkin as the naïve country boy is in a lot more scenes, and every one of them makes you wish the director could have found a better actor for the role.  Once again this is a nice sharp version of the film, but it does have lots of dust flecks and scratches that were on the original print.
 
Theatrical Movies
 
It’s pretty lean pickings in this category when the biggest film debuting on disc is the 911 phone center thriller The Call (Sony, “R,” $30.99, BD/Combo $40.99), which stars Halle Berry and earned just $51.8 million at the box office.  This somewhat overwrought thriller does at least manage to produce some old school shocks thanks to the taut work of director Brad Anderson. It should be noted that this movie did considerably better with audiences (a near 70 percent approval rating) than with critics (only 41% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), a sign that The Call probably isn’t the most original in conception, but also probably does manage to provide the requisite thrills (or laughs if it’s a comedy) that the genre requires.
 
Much has been made recently about the success of the magician/caper film Now You See Me, the exception that proves the rule that films about magicians are box office poison.  There is no doubt that in spite of a stellar cast including Steve Carrell, Jim Carrey, and Steve Buscemi, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (New Line, “PG-13,” $28.98, BD $35.98), which could muster a Tomatometer reading of just 37% positive and earn just $22.5 million, has more than a wee touch of the toxic about it.
 
Todd Robinson’s Phantom (Fox, “R,” $22.98, BD $29.99) is an old-fashioned Cold War submarine thriller with a stellar cast (Ed Harris, David Duchovny) that was panned by the critics (just 25% positive on RT) and earned just a million dollars at the box office.  Still this is solid submarine movie, which fans of that tension-filled underwater genre might want to check out.
 
Another Todd Robinson film, his 1996 feature-length biography of director William Wellman, Wild Bill Hollywood Maverick (Kino, $19.95) is even better, a surprisingly well-rounded look at one of the greats of Tinseltown’s golden age with footage from his movies intercut with commentary from a host of stars (Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Nancy Reagan, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark) who worked with the director.  Wellman was what all the directors of the 1920s and 30s wanted to be.  He was a decorated member of the Lafayette Escadrille who actually flew planes in combat in World War I.  He was also better looking than most of his leading men, and a filmmaker of real talent.  While Wellman honed a classic transparent style that rarely calls attention to itself, he does have his visual tropes including a “less is more” ethos that led him to allow major events to occur off camera or in partially obscured shots where the audience has to “work for it a little bit,” as in the final shootout in the gangster classic Public Enemy.  Wellman was a heck of a filmmaker as well as a truly colorful character who was wildly and wonderfully insubordinate.  As this documentary demonstrates, Wellman’s own story was as good as any of the ones he put on the screen.
 
TV on DVD
 
The top U.S. offerings in this category this week are animated led by Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: The Complete Series (Shout Factory, 2340 min., $119.99), which collects all 110-episodes of the 1970s series created (and voiced in part) by Bill Cosby.  This animated series is a real nostalgia bath for those who grew up in the era, and the life lessons that each episode drove home still have relevance today.
 
Also due this week is The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour: Best of Collection (Warner Bros., $26.99), a two-disc 50-cartoon collection of some of the best Warner Brothers cartoons of all time.  Those who already own some of the Warner Bros. Cartoon collections should beware of duplication, but for others this is a great collection at a reasonable price.
 
Other titles of possible interest to geek viewers include the Canadian horror/sci fi comedy Todd & the Book of Pure Evil: The Complete Second Season (eOne Entertainment, 346 min., $19.98), the live-action sketch comedy series MADtv: Season 3 (Shout Factory, 1080 min., $29.93), and the forensics-themed CSI: New York-The Complete 9th Season (Paramount, $64.99). 
 
Also due this week is the Emmy Award-winning family comedy The Wizards of Waverly Place—The Wizards Return Alex vs. Alex (Disney, 59 min., $19.99), a one-hour special that aired in March of 2013. 
 
The only vintage TV release of the week is a great one, Peter Gunn: Season Two (Timeless Media, 988 min., $29.93).  This Blake Edwards-created private eye series featured Henry Mancini’s theme song (arguably the best TV title music yet written) and plenty of cool 50s jazz throughout—the epitome late 1950s cool.
 
This week’s best TV offerings come from across the pond led by New Tricks: Season 9 (Acorn Media, 590 min., $39.99), the latest season of the character-driven police procedural about a group of retired London cops who form a unit dedicated to solving cold cases (UCOS) led by the dynamic and uncompromising Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman).  This season brings change to the show as Jack Halford (James Bolam), the team’s most senior member retires and a new detective from Scotland (Denis Lawson) joins the team.  It is perhaps not surprising that the series stumbles a bit in this difficult transition, but this is still engrossing TV with compelling mysteries and strong performances from a savvy veteran cast.  With the still extremely popular series apparently set to end with Season 10, the tensions that are building among the UCOS team in Season 9 could become increasingly important in the show’s final run.
 
Amanda Redman also stars in Honest: The Complete Series (Acorn Media, 281 min., $39.99), a 2008 comedy drama that is actually the U.K. version of a New Zealand series that aired in 2005.  Redman has the plumb role of Lindsay Carter, the mother of four, who decides to lead her brood out of a life of crime and into the straight and narrow after her husband is sent to prison.  Honest is a slice-of-life saga with plenty of darkly comic moments and a real feel for life on the fringes of society.
 
For those who enjoy the series on PBS there is Inspector Lewis: Series 6 (PBS, 270 min., $29.99), which collects three feature length mysteries inspired by the Inspector Morris novels by Colin Dexter.
 
Even more interesting is Jack Taylor: Series 1 (Acorn Media, 273 min., $49.99), a collection of three feature length TV movies starring Iain Glen (Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey) as a former cop turned private investigator in his native Galway on the rugged west coast of Ireland.  Produced in 2010 after the demise of the Celtic Tiger in the financial meltdown of 2008, the Jack Taylor mysteries, which are based on a series of novels by Ken Bruen, portray the contradictions of a modern Ireland trying to deal with the imposition of austerity amidst the ravages of economic recession.
 
Of particular interest to those who enjoy the performances of Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) is North & South (Acorn Media, 207 min., $39.99), a 1975 BBC adaptation of the classic Victorian romance by Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford).  North & South is the story of an independent Victorian woman who leaves London’s social whirl to help her pastor father minister to a beautiful village in the South of England, only to be uprooted almost immediately as her father leaves the church and takes a position as a private tutor to rising manufacturer played with considerable power by Stewart.  The contrast between the bucolic and beautiful south and the industrial and dreary north is key to this saga that deals with the social dislocation and suffering brought about by industrialization.  In spite of the fact that his series is nearly 40 years old, it looks pretty good as director Ronald Bennett and crew managed to avoid the washed out look of so many dramas of that era by consistent attention to lighting and visuals.
 
Anime
 
It’s a fairly light week for anime releases, but there are some interesting titles including the Tari Tari Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “13+,” 325 min., $49.98), a 13-episode 2012 series from P.A. Works about a teenage musical group, Momo: The God Girl of Death (Maiden Japan, “14+,” 150 min., $29.98), a 6-episode 2006 series  from TAC based on the Ballad of a Shinigami light novel series, and the Juden Chan Complete Collection (Media Blasters, “16+,” 300 min., $24.95), a sexy saga about electrically-enabled “charger” girls in skintight costumes who alleviate the depression suffered by lonely males.
 
For those who like vintage manga productions this week will also see the North American DVD debut of four Saint Seiya anime films that were produced by Toei Animation between 1987 and 1989.  Saint Seiya Movies 1-2 (Eastern Star, $24.95) includes the first two movies Evil Goddess Eris (1987) and The Heated Battle of the Gods (1988).  Saint Seiya Movies 3-4 (Eastern Star, $24.95) contains Legend of the Crimson Youth (1988) and Warriors of the Final Holy Battle (1989).

Tom Flinn

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICV2.com.