• "The Bette Davis Collection" (Fox, 1950-65, b/w and color, five discs, $49.98). Not to be confused with the three volumes of box sets from Warner Home Video that carry the same title, this is a collection of films from the second half of Davis' career and is comprised of films released by Twentieth Century Fox.
Two have been on DVD for several years — "All About Eve" (1950), a comedy-drama that is one of the wittiest and most engaging movies of all time, and the solid 1964 horror-thriller "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte"
The other three films here are making their DVD debuts, and all are good pictures that have been missing in action for far too long:
• "Phone Call from a Stranger" (1952) casts Davis in a supporting role as one of several people who have lost family members in an air crash and are visited by the lone survivor (Gary Merrill, Davis' real-life husband at the time).
• "The Virgin Queen" (1955), the only color film here, has Davis revisiting her role as Queen Elizabeth I, which she originally played in the 1939 classic "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex." This time the queen is charmed by Sir Walter Raleigh (played by Richard Todd, who is adequate, but no Errol Flynn).
• "The Nanny" (1965) is a well-made thriller from England's Hammer studio, with Davis as a nanny accused of murder by a young boy in her charge, and her modulated performance keeps us guessing right up to the conclusion.
Extras: widescreen/full frame, five films, audio commentaries, featurettes, newsreels, trailers, poster/photo galleries
• "Fox Film Noir: Black Widow" (Fox, 1954, color, $14.98).
• "Fox Film Noir: Daisy Kenyon" (Fox, 1947, b/w, $14.98).
• "Fox Film Noir: Dangerous Crossing" (Fox, 1953, b/w, $14.98). Three more films are added to this series, none of them classics, but all of them interesting, although one doesn't really belong here.
• "Black Widow" is the weakest of these, a stagey murder mystery, with Broadway producer Van Heflin helping out an aspiring young writer (Peggy Ann Garner) while his celebrity wife (Gene Tierney) is out of town ... When Garner's apparent suicide is ruled a murder, Heflin becomes the prime suspect. George Raft is the investigating cop and Ginger Rogers is the star of Heflin's play, and also his self-absorbed neighbor.
• "Daisy Kenyon" is the odd duck here, as it isn't film noir at all, but rather a melodrama about an independent woman (Joan Crawford) who loves a married jerk (Dana Andrews) but marries a downhome war veteran (Henry Fonda). Good performances by all three stars and a surprising subplot about Andrews' wife physically abusing their children. (Peggy Ann Garner is here, too, several years earlier when she was a child actress.)
• "Dangerous Crossing" offers a well-worn plot, but it's cleverly played by an appealing cast. When a newlywed (Jeanne Crain) boards a cruise liner only to have her husband disappear, the ship's doctor (Michael Rennie) must determine whether she's crazy or actually telling the truth.
Extras: widescreen/full frame, audio commentaries, featurettes (including a nice profile of "Daisy Kenyon" director Otto Preminger's Fox years), pressbooks, photo galleries, trailers
• "The Pride of the Yankees: Collector's Edition" (MGM, 1942, b/w, $14.98). This is the third DVD release for the classic story of Lou Gehrig, starring Gary Cooper. Just last year we got an anniversary edition. This one has a few more featurettes for die-hard fans.
Extras: full frame, featurettes
• "Bull Durham: Collector's Edition" (MGM, 1988; R for sex, nudity, language, violence). This funny, albeit raunchy, baseball comedy starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins also gets another release with new featurettes and a pair of audio commentaries, one with writer-director Ron Shelton, the other with Costner and Robbins.
Extras: widescreen, audio commentaries, featurettes
E-mail: hicks@desnews.com