Five movies from deep in the vaults of Paramount Pictures — a trio of film noir thrillers, a Western starring Raquel Welch and a '60s disaster flick — have made their way to DVD for the first time. But not from Paramount. Well, not directly.
For the second time in two years, an independent home-video company has licensed films from the studio's archives.
Two years ago Legend Films struck a deal to issue some 30 vintage titles that had long languished on Paramount's shelves. None were genuine classics, of course. Paramount has kept its major titles close to the vest, releasing and rereleasing them on DVD.
But many picked up by Legend, such as Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in "Houdini" and Jackie Gleason in "Papa's Delicate Condition," were of interest to fans as they had never been on DVD. And some had never been on any home-video format, such as the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis film "Money From Home" and Peter Sellers in "The Optimists."
But apparently Legend didn't sell enough copies to merit extending the relationship. After a massive release pattern in summer 2008, that was it.
Meanwhile, Paramount continued to recycle the same old titles in upgraded versions, "Sunset Blvd.," "To Catch a Thief," "The Odd Couple," etc. Which we'll no doubt see reissued yet again when they get around to Blu-ray.
But now another independent company, Olive Films, is releasing yet another batch of vintage Paramount titles that have never been on DVD, including some that never made it to VHS.
The first wave came out last week, and they're all pretty good:
"Dark City" (1950, b/w) is a very dark crime yarn about card sharks (Charlton Heston in his first film, and future "Dragnet" partners Jack Webb and Harry Morgan as his bickering cohorts). Their latest con leads to suicide and murder, and Dean Jagger is the cop who investigates.
"Appointment With Danger" (1951, b/w) is another film noir thriller, this one with Alan Ladd trying to foil a million-dollar mail robbery, and again featuring Webb and Morgan as bad guys.
"Crack in the World" (1965) is a pretty good disaster flick, anchored by the lead performance, Dana Andrews as a mad scientist trying to harness energy from the Earth's core, which threatens the title catastrophe. Pretty good special effects for the period.
"Hannie Caulder" (1971, rated R) is a standard revenge Western, with a distaff twist and a variety of offbeat characters played by such veterans as Christopher Lee, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Diana Dors and Strother Martin. Raquel Welch stars as the title character, a wronged woman who is taught how to shoot by bounty hunter Robert Culp. Borgnine, Elam and Martin play it for broad laughs, which seems at odds with the level of blood that flows.
"Union Station" (1950, b/w) stars William Holden and Barry Fitzgerald as cops tracking a gang of kidnappers who have taken the blind daughter of a wealthy businessman for ransom. This one culminates with an inventive chase through the title train station's underground tunnels.
They each retail at $24.95 but can be found for much less. (They average around $15 on Amazon right now, and that price will doubtless drop in the weeks to come.)
In September the next round of Olive/Paramount releases will include one of Danny Kaye's best farces, "Knock on Wood," and the amusing Bob Hope-Hedy Lamarr comedy "My Favorite Spy," both from the 1950s.
Also, three glossy all-star soap operas from the '60s and '70s: "Harlow," a Jean Harlow biography with Carroll Baker, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford and Red Buttons; "Where Love Has Gone," based on Harold Robbins' best-seller (loosely ripped from the headlines about the sensational killing of Johnny Stompanato by Lana Turner's daughter), starring Susan Hayward, Bette Davis, Jane Greer and Joey Heatherton; and "Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough," based on Susann's novel, typical over-the-top jet-set histrionics, with Kirk Douglas, Alexis Smith, David Janssen and Melina Mercouri.
And down the road, but as yet without release dates, Olive will release Ingmar Bergman's "Face to Face," starring Liv Ullman; Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke"; Paul Newman's "WUSA"; another Danny Kaye comedy, "On the Double"; another with Bob Hope, "Off Limits"; Michael Caine and Jane Fonda as hot-blooded Southerners (no kidding) in "Hurry Sundown"; and the notorious wacked-out LSD comedy "Skidoo," with the most eclectic cast ever, Jackie Gleason, Frankie Avalon, George Raft, Carol Channing and, wait for it, Groucho Marx! Along with several more.
Let's hope Olive has more success than Legend, and that Paramount will agree to dig deeper into its past.
My Netflix account overfloweth.
e-mail: hicks@desnews.com