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A roundup of recent DVDs. For more reviews, visit HERE. G'wan, don't cost nothin'.

CAN'T TOUCH THIS

Twenty years ago, when Brian De Palma's big-screen version of the Eliot Ness story, The Untouchables, was released, I was appalled at how far from the actual events the movie strayed -- if anything, even further than the classic TV series with Robert Stack had gone. Two generations of TV and movie watchers think of Ness and his small band of G-Men as the bullet-dodging task force of supercops that brought down Capone, smashing his operation and finally nailing him on tax evasion charges. Oh, and he battled Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson, too. And Ness threw Frank Nitti off the roof of a building, right? And those folks who knew that Ness didn't do most of the things the TV show or movie credited him with assumed he was a braggart -- after all, they were adaptations of his own autobiography, The Untouchables (written with Oscar Fraley), right?

For those who wanted to look, there are a few good books about Ness that tell his true story, which is interesting enough: Ness and his Untouchables went gunning for Capone's bootlegging warehouses, and kept his mob occupied while other agents built the tax case against him. Ness then moved on to Cleveland and broke up the rackets there, but his reputation was sullied by his inability to capture the notorious Torso Murderer of Kingsbury Run, a vicious serial killer who still caused my mother (raised in Cleveland) to tremble when she talked about three decades later. Ness ran for mayor of Cleveland on a reform ticket, was soundly trounced, and eventually saw his career ended by a DWI rap. He didn't quite live long enough to see The Untouchables make him a great American hero.

Fictionalized adventures aside, a hero he was, as writer-director Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition) can attest. Collins has put together a wonderful labor of love called Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life starring Michael Cornelison. The filmed version of the Edgar-nominated stage show is now available on DVD from VCI ($14.99) and it's the only true depiction of Ness that you'll find outside of books. The story is stylishly directed using just a few sets that take us from the Ness home in 1957 back to the early-'30s Chicago. Frankly, it's a tough task to engross an audience for nearly two hours of a one-man show, let alone a DVD film version of a stage show, but Cornelison and Collins manage to be both literate and entertaining -- the play succeeds completely in suggesting that you're listening to Ness tell his own dramatic story. The DVD includes commentary, a brief deleted scene, and a marvelous short subject noir thriller directed by Collins, An Inconsequential Matter, plus an excerpt from the actual live stage show. A must for anyone with an interest in Ness, The Untouchables, or Al "Snorky" Capone. (Yes, Capone's nickname was actually "Snorky". There's no truth to the rumor that Frank Nitti was called "Snuggy-Pooks" though.)

A REALLY LIVELY WIRE

Richard Talmadge (1892-1981) was a Swiss-born acrobat who became one of the movies' greatest stuntmen and later, a fine stunt coordinator. He also had a serviceable stint playing male leads, although the best thing we can say about his thespian skills was that as an actor, he made a terrific stuntman. Still, he's been a Balcony favorite ever since we saw him whirling about like a combination of Jackie Chan, Peter Pan, and Spider-Man in the great serial Pirate Treasure (1934), and we recently discovered a terrific DVD with an obscurity called The Live Wire (1935), directed by Harry S. Webb.

Talmadge is a down-on-his-luck seaman who's tracked down by a pair of comical professors looking for the mate to a rare vase brought back (and pawned) by Talmadge after a previous voyage. Joined by good guys Charles French, Alberta Vaughn, and Hattie's lookalike brother Sam McDaniel and chased by bad guys George Walsh and George Chesebro, Our Hero has a flock of fisticuffs, a surfeit of stunts, and a lot of leaps before the treasure is retrieved. This cheaply-made film could've used a musical score, and the bits of intended comedy (many involving the bug-eyed "Negro cook" Sam) aren't nearly as funny as the rest of the picture. Talmadge's signature stunt seems to have been leaping over a car while performing a somersault; it's one of those things that make you wonder how he ever practiced the move without breaking his neck the first time he tried it. Surprisingly, Miss Vaugn -- who was a fine actress but not especially attractive -- is quite sexy here, when she's not pretending she's a man, that is. It's a fun if somewhat creaky old movie.

The DVD ($11.99) comes from Quality Information Publishers, and it's a pip, a fine transfer from a nice print. QuIP offers a lot of very interesting DVDs with vintage educational and entertainment films, terrific stuff I've never seen offered anywhere else. Check out their website at qualityinformationpublishers.com but be warned: you're sure to come away with a full shopping cart and a long wish list. Tell 'em In The Balcony sent ya!

W.C. FIELDS

This is gonna be a short one... It's really just a note to let you know that the 17-film W.C. Fields Movie Collection is available from England (Universal, Region 2), and there are probably more laughs in this set than any other movie collection. The films are spread across 10 discs; some are single discs, single movies and others are double features. The complete lineup (films not available on DVD in the U.S. are in yellow):

The Bank Dick / Follow the Boys
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
International House / Million Dollar Legs
My Little Chickadee
Tillie and Gus / If I Had a Million
Mississippi / Big Broadcast of 1938
You’re Telling Me! / Man on the Flying Trapeze
It’s a Gift
Six of a Kind / You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man
The Old Fashioned Way / Poppy

They're in slimline cases in a big, very sturdy cardboard box and they all have English subtitles for the hard of hearing. The only bonus is a colorful 8 page booklet on the history of the films. For your edification, the films in bold above are the films not currently available on DVD in Region 1. Now, personally, we think Bill Fields is the funniest guy who ever stepped in front of a camera, so we may be a tad prejudiced, but it seems to us if you don't already have an all-region player (cheap and easy to find) so's you can watch all of those great Laurel & Hardy pictures and American-International monster classics available overseas but not in the States, this is as good an excuse as any to rectify that omission.

The first film in the set we reached for was Million Dollar Legs (1932), 'cause it's just so darn goofy and funny. Fields is the President of Klopstokia, a nation in which all of the natives are named either Angela or George (depending on their sex) and have super-human abilities. To save the country from ruin during the Great Depression, they all head for Los Angeles to take part in the '32 Olympics. Yes, that's REALLY the plot; no, we're not making it up. Fields is President 'cause he's the strongest guy in the nation, but he's irritable: "Any o' you mugs been playing my harmonica? It's busted!" he bellows at one point. A gorgeous Swedish spy named "Mata Machree" is hired to seduce and abandon the Klopstokian men. Jack Oakie romances Angela (well, one of the Angelas) by singing the Klopstokian Love Song. Fields -- notoriously jealous of other comics -- is surrounded by them here, including Andy Clyde (hilarious as the fastest man in the world), Hugh Herbert,Billy Gilbert, and Chester Conklin (not to mention Our Gang's Dickie Moore). Like the other great early-1930s political satire, the Marx Bros.' Duck Soup, this film is only an hour long and shows much evidence of studio interference. Also like that film, it's hilarious; if I watched it every night for a week, I'd consider it a very entertaining seven evenings of enjoyment!

MORE W.C. FIELDS ON DVD INFO CAN BE FOUND HERE.

THE THREE MESQUITEERS

Your Balcony Webmaster didn’t much care for cowboy pitchers when he was a kid, with the exception of the various incarnations of Three Mesquiteers lineups. Why did I like these so much? I think it was the comradery; if I ever became a cowboy, I knew I was gonna need a couple of pals to watch my back, being in as I couldn't ride or shoot or punch cows or anything. In any case, I'm delighted to be re-familiarizing myself with these entertaining films through the courtesy of VCI Entertainment, which now offers 9 full double-features of Mesquiteers films on DVD-R.

Republic Pictures produced 51 Three Mesquiteers films between 1936 and 1943, and 18 of them are available here. The scorecard for the series and the DVDs...

The first picture in the series, The Three Mesquiteers, released in 1936, starred Bob Livingston as romantic Stony Brooke, Crash Corrigan as two-fisted Tucson Smith, and Sid Saylor as comic foil Lullaby Joslin. Max Terhune replaced Saylor after the first film (an excellent decision by Republic) and this trio ran for two years and 15 additional films, with one exception: Ralph Byrd subbed for an ailing Bob Livingston for one film.

Of these initial 16 films, 10 are included in the VCI collection. We’ve watched the first two in the series, The Three Mesquiteers, which was quite good, and Ghost-Town Gold, which was rather dull in comparison.

For the 1938-39 series of 8 films, Livingston was promoted to feature appearances by Republic and he was replaced by John Wayne (yes, THAT John Wayne) as Stony. These are the most fondly remembered films in the series, although none of them are included in the VCI set. Note that with the last two films, Raymond Hatton was the third Mesquiteer, Lullaby’s brother Rusty.

With the success of Stagecoach in 1939, the Duke moved on from Republic, which demoted Livingston back to the role of Stony. Crash Corrigan, who disliked Livingston, took that as his cue to vacate the series, and his replacement with dependable Duncan Rinaldo as Rico. Hatton returned as Rusty. Seven films were made with this trio, and two of them, Pioneers of the West and Oklahoma Renegades (both 1940) are included in the VCI set.

Republic revamped the trio once again for the following season’s 7 films; Livingston was still around, but Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin were back in the persons of, respectively, Bob Steele and Rufe Davis. Two of these films, Prairie Pioneers and Gangs of Sonora (both 1941) are included.

For the 7 films in the 1941-1942 season, Steele and Davis were back but Stony was now played by Tom Tyler. The first 4 films with this lineup are here.

For the final year of the series, affable Jimmie Dodd (the future Mouseketeer) replaced Davis as Lullaby, but unfortunately none of those 7 films are included in the VCI releases. Hopefully, further volumes will follow.

VCI provides low-cost DVD-R offerings for films with, shall we say, “less than perfect” prints or that have a more limited target audience. The only problem I found with any of the Mesquiteers films (and I sampled several) was that the original credits were missing, replaced by a uniform opening obviously created decades ago for TV showings. Didn’t bother me, and I just love seeing these again. I’ve started watching them just when they belong: on Saturday afternoons, with a vintage cartoon.

MISCELLANEOUS WATCHINGS

The African Queen (Castaways Pictures, Chinese DVD) Okay, I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I'd never seen The African Queen before. At least I had a good excuse: it was my mother's favorite movie. It was also my older sister's favorite movie. Hence, I just assumed it was some sort of chick flick that just happened to have been directed by John Huston. That would explain Humphrey Bogart's Oscar; the Academy felt sorry for him for having to appear in this thing, right?

Well, am *I* a silly. Turns out this is a great movie, a fine adventure, and just oozes testosterone. I'm sure you've all seen it, so I don't need to recap the plot, so I'll just mention that the DVD quality surprised me, with good, rich color and Chinese subtitles that are easily turned off. Warner Bros., why haven't you given us an (even better) American DVD release yet?

Robin and the 7 Hoods (Warner Bros.) Now this one has been out for years, but I just got 'round to it. I saw it as a kid and remember liking it, and I found to my delight it's still remarkably likeable, unlike some of the other "Rat Pack" pictures. For one thing, this is a REAL movie and not what appears to be a vanity project. Peter Falk and Frank Sinatra are rival gangsters in 1930s Chicago, and Dean Martin, Bing Crosby and Sammy Davis, Jr. are Sinatra's posse. Big, splashy, colorful, lotsa singing and dancing, and Falk is hilarious. The widescreen DVD looks terrific, and there's feature commentary (unsampled) with Frank, Jr. and a vintage mini-documentary on the making of the film. Great fun, and gave Frankie one of his biggest hits: My Kind of Town.

Finally, Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (VCI) is another inexpensive DVD-R, and this time I can see why: the print is slightly soft. That aside, it's a wacky, entertaining-despite-itself 1937 feature with Leo Carrillo, who usually played a broken-English-speaking Mexican pompous windbag here playing a broken-English-speaking Italian pompous windbag. He's a gangster who's taken over a record company, and he auditions (so that we get numbers from) such acts as Cab Calloway, Ted Lewis, Louis Prima, and Gene Autry. Joe DiMaggio sings, badly, and Republic stalwarts Smiley Burnette and Max Terhune pop up, too. Phil Regan and Ann Dvorak supply the romance; he stinks, but she's lovely. Not exactly the boffo all-star review the studio was obviously hoping for, but pleasant nonetheless, and Carrillo channeling Chico Marx has to be seen to be believed.

GOLDEN BOY

Sony, fulfilling its promise to pay more attention to the vintage films in its Columbia vault, has released the 1939 boxing drama Golden Boy on DVD (SRP $19.94) in a package that turns out to be one of the best DVD releases of the year for a stand-alone film.

William Holden found his breakout screen role as Joe Bonaparte, a second generation Italian-American with an equal interest in pugilism and playing the violin. Adolphe Menjou is the manager (fight, not violin) who’s bringing him along, Barbara Stanwyck is Menjou’s woman, and Lee J. Cobb is Joe’s father, who wants him to quit the ring and stick with the strings. What will Joe do? Well, as the film’s moral points out, “Nothing can stop you when you do what’s in your heart.”

Based on Clifford Odets’ hit Broadway play, Golden Boy – directed by Rouben Mamoulian – is occasionally so corny that you think the darn thing is going to sink into parody, but it’s rescued by the terrific cast (including Joseph Calleia as the gangster who wants a piece of the young fighter; Sam Levene is excellent as the comic brother-in-law. And note that I’m not a fan of Lee J. Cobb’s bombastic style, but he’s excellent here) and by the sincerity of its admittedly dated story. The print and transfer are excellent, although you’ll notice some damage to the film here and there. Hopefully, Sony is taking care of its Columbia treasury better than Columbia did.

Okay, now as to the rest of the DVD, which is truly a gem: a lot of vintage shorts are included as extras. First up is The Kangaroo Kid, a 1938 Columbia Color Rhapsody cartoon that flips the story of Golden Boy: the old man wants the kid to be a fighter, but the joey wants to play his fiddle. A one-reel Screen Snapshots from 1930 is loaded with stars of the day, showing how they relax, including Barbara Stanwyck on the links, Harold Lloyd, Jack Holt and Laura LaPlante on the Santa Monica pier, and Neil Hamilton playing polo. The great star Pola Negri, we're told, has just returned from Europe and is anxious to make her talkie debut. Riiight. Pleased to Mitt You will no doubt be the first thing a lot of slapstick fans turn to on this disc: it’s a rare release of a non-Three Stooges comedy short from the Columbia files. This one is part of the Glove Slingers series, which ran for 12 two-reelers in the early 1940s, but nobody can figure out exactly why, because the shorts are pretty lousy. Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, David Durand and Shemp Howard are the stars. Not very funny, but interesting inasmuch as the central gag – a cake baked with a feather potholder inside – was used to such better effect by the Stooges proper.

The best extra on the disc is undoubtedly Sudden Silence, a 1956 episode of the Ford Television Theatre with Stanwyck as the old-west wife of a sheriff (Jeff Morrow) who’s menaced by the father (Trevor Bardette) of a man he sent to the gallows. Babs and her sick son are trapped in the house alone in this gripping suspense tale from director Lewis Allen (The Uninvited, Suddenly). A powerful ending, too… I found this engrossing.

The disc is rounded out with trailers for Golden Boy, for the Frank Capra boxed set, and for some colorized crap (and hopefully, Sony will quickly learn how unappealing colorized films are to DVD purchasers). All in all, one of my favorite DVD packages of the year… although I should qualify the word “packages” by pointing out that the packaging itself is disappointing, with a generic paste-up. Sony can do better in that department. Still, highest recommendation.

Showtime USA Jubilee Collection

VCI has released no less than eight obscure musical-variety shows of the 1950s on DVD in a quartet of double features (SRP $14.99 each, or all four in a box for $39.99). I’ll admit, I was ready to be underwhelmed by these releases, but they turned out to be marvelous entertainment time capsules; I spent an evening watching Vol. 1 from beginning to end, and then cued up the commentary on the second feature and listened to much of that, too. I don’t think the smile left my face at any point during the entire show, except for when my jaw was dropping open at some of the bizarre acts on display (it’s not every day you see a tap dancing, accordion playing, harmonica virtuoso midget, at least, not every day in MY neighborhood).

So Vol. 1 begins with Everybody’s Dancin’ (1950), which anticipates the plot of those “let’s put on a show and raise money to build a teen center!” rock & roll musicals of a few years later. Here, comic Richard Lane (as a phony Southern colonel) is trying to save the local Waltzland ballroom in Santa Monica by staging a coast-to-coast TV show starring Spade Cooley, Ken Curtis and the Sons of the Pioneers, and a number of lesser known talents, plus guest stars Lyle Talbot, Adele Jergens, Fred Kelsey, Roddy McDowall, Russ Hayden, and Sid Melton, among other superstars of the day (as we find out in the commentary for our second film, pretty much these were poker buddies of the husband-wife team that produced and directed these films). When the acts aren’t on, you’ll be just as entertained with behind-the-scenes shots at the Nassour Studio lot (yes, there was one, apparently) and the early KTLA-TV studio, not to mention such songs as “Deep Freeze Dinah” and a bevy of quite talented acrobats(!). The print is perfect, until the last reel, and then it seems to switch to 16mm. I’m glad we have this film at all, though, and I can’t wait to show it to friends: it’s more entertaining than I’d have ever believed possible.

Next, I turned to the two bonus shorts included on the disc; the first is a Weiss Bros. Cinecolor short from 1947 that features fun ‘n’ frolics at the Venice Beach Mardi Gras, and then we’ve got 12 minutes of silent footage of various vaudeville acts shot from the box at the Palace Theatre in Rockville, IL in 1950.

Our second feature is Varieties on Parade (1951), and if anything it’s even stranger than the first film. Virtually plotless, as we enter the theatre (past posters for such other Lippert masterpieces as The Steel Helmet) and find our seat (third row, center) for an hour’s entertainment on the stage hosted by Eddie Garr (Teri’s dad) and Jackie Coogan (Pugsley’s uncle). Highlights here are a musical couple that plays boogie-woogie harmonica and a trio called Harrison, Carol, & Ross, which features the aforementioned renaissance midget. Special guests for this part of the evening’s entertainment include Lyle Talbot (again), Tom Neal, and singing cowboy Eddie Dean. There’s an accent on the comedy here, with the hosts performing several bits, notably a spoof of the silent classic The Kid with Eddie Garr as Chaplin and Jackie Coogan as The Kid (we “kid” you not). I TOLD you my jaw hit the floor.

I can’t wait to watch the other six films in the set; if they’re as entertaining as these two, they’re going to be mighty fun indeed.