Among the earliest movies I remember seeing in a theater is Walter Lang’s “The King and I,” (1956) which I caught with my mother during its original run at the Beacon, a long-closed neighborhood fixture adjacent to the massive Queensbridge Projects in Long Island City. We saw the film version of “South Pacific” there, too. Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals were inescapable if you were growing up in the 1950s — there were even knockoffs of the original Broadway cast albums selling at the A&P for something like a dollar with a $5 purchase.
Now, six of the big-screen adaptations from the eponymous team — five of them road-show attractions before they got to the likes of the Beacon — are being offered on Blu-ray by Fox as “The Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection.” There are gorgeous new high-definition restorations for “Oklahoma!” (in two versions),”The King and I,” and “Carousel,” plus an appealing HD upgrade for “State Fair” (1945). The set is, alas, rounded out by a couple of double-dips, the previously released Blu-ray restorations of “South Pacific” and, of course, the Fox cash cow “The Sound of Music.”
Fox has announced that “Oklahoma!” and “The King and I” will be released as standalone titles in dual format (Blu-ray and DVD) on Oct. 8, though it isn’t known at this point whether that “Oklahoma!” reissue will include both the CinemaScope and the never-before-available Todd-AO version (because the latter was shot with a higher frame rate — 30 versus 24 frames per second — it provides an astonishing clarity, arguably even better than VistaVision).
I watched Fred Zinnemann’s “Oklahoma!” (1955) all the way through when the Todd-AO restoration premiered last month at the TCM Classic Film Festival. As I said at the time, the singing, dancing and the production design are far more impressive than the story, which basically boils down to whether Gordon MacRae’s Curly will prevent Rod Steiger’s Jud from date-raping Shirley Jones’ Laurey. Steiger actually sings a bit as a character who generally comes off as more human, if not quite sympathetic, in stage versions. Gloria Grahame’s Ado Annie seems awfully like an imitation of Shirley MacLaine (who Jones says desperately and unsuccessfully campaigned for the role).
“Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific” were both produced independently by Rogers and Hammerstein (with video rights licensed decades later by Fox after a period of distribution by the Samuel Goldwyn Company), but they’re very much of a piece with Fox’s own R&H films (and, for that matter, Universal’s “Flower Drum Song,” which really should have been licensed as part of this set). The restorations of “The King and I” and “Carousel” — the only two films made in CinemaScope 55 — look great, with surprisingly deep vibrant hues for Fox’s often-problematic variation on Eastman Color, which it marketed as Color by Deluxe.
The copious special features, with one arguably major exception, carry over from those in Fox’s DVD R&H Collection. Though there is a quality disclaimer, the new HD transfer of Fritz Lang’s wonderful 1935 French version of “Liliom” (the pre-musical “Carousel”) looks impressive, considering its age and rarity (Frank Borzage’s 1930 Hollywood “Liliom” with Charles Farrell, alas, remains MIA on video). Added for all these releases is the ability to play the musical numbers only.
What’s missing from the DVD — no huge loss, really — is Jose Ferrer’s spectacularly awful 1962 remake of “State Fair” with Pat Boone, Ann-Margaret, Bobby Darin, Tom Ewell and Alice Faye. I’d much rather have Henry King’s delightful non-musical 1933 version starring Will Rogers and Janet Gaynor, still unaccountably missing on video despite its Best Picture nomination. The 1945 version starring Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain has a small-scale charm missing from the later R&Hs, and the new transfer gives a more than respectable imitation of three-strip Technicolor from the surviving elements, which were transferred to DeLuxe. It’s sure hard not to love a musical that opens with a singing Percy Kilbride driving his truck straight into what’s now clearly a matte painting.
The current economic of home video dictate that most special features on Blu-ray upgrades are ported over from the early 21st-century heyday of DVD, but sometimes a delightful exception comes along. “The First Motion Picture Unit: When Hollywood Went to War” is a brand-new 46-minute documentary included on a DVD bonus disc in Warner Home Video’s “World War II Collections: True Stories of War,” a Blu-ray set that adds the newly-available (and available separately) Blu-ray transfer of Michael Caton-Jones’ “Memphis Belle” to HD reissues of Ken Annakin’s “Battle of the Bulge” (Warners’ popular, if somewhat interminable 1965 roadshow answer to “The Longest Day”) and, as part of WB’s handling of Paramount catalogue titles, Edward Zwick’s more recent Jews vs. Nazis melodrama “Defiance.”
Constantine Nasr’s documentary is a fascinating — if shamelessly Warner-centric — look at the scores of training films shot by the Army at the Hal Roach Studios during World World II, which was staffed largely by recruits from Hollywood (Jack Warner was briefly the base’s first commander and Lt. Ronald Reagan, barred from combat duty because of his eyesight, was later the adjutant). There are some amazing clips — particularly from one of the unit’s first major productions, “Learn and Live” (1943), starring the eponymous Guy Kibbee as St. Peter, who is concerned that too many Army pilots are perishing during training exercises. There are also illuminating interviews with survivors from the unit, as well as film historians like Thomas Doherty and Jack Warner grandson Gregory Orr (who dad is seen playing a pilot with VD in one short).
The disc includes several of the unit’s films, most notably “Resisting Enemy Interrogation” (1944), a 66-minute opus directed by an uncredited Bernard Vorhaus, a German refugee whose eclectic resume includes John Wayne and Bobby Breen vehicles as well as “Learn and Live” before he was blacklisted. Very much resembling a commercial B-movie of the period, this noir-inflected story of American flyers shot down over Germany was written by an uncredited Harold Medford, who recycled it for the Universal programmer “Target Unknown” (1951). The earlier version’s cast includes Arthur Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Mel Torme, Kent Smith, Craig Stevens, Don Porter, Peter Van Eyck and many more familiar faces.
Another 45-minute, clip-filled documentary “Warner at War” narrated by Steven Spielberg, is recycled on the DVD bonus disc after previous appearances on “This is the Army” and “Empire of the Sun.”
The unit also trained combat cameraman for the Army Air force, and the Blu-ray disc of “Memphis Belle” in the set includes the Oscar-winning documentary of the same name that inspired it. Directed and largely photographed by the great William Wyler, it contains astonishing color footage of aerial battles captured during bombing runs over Germany — and experience that cost Wyler much of his hearing.
James Cagney was at the peak of his career after winning an Oscar for “Yankee Doodle Dandy” when he left Warner Bros. for a second time to work in independent features, this time in movies he produced with his brother William. The first of the three they produced — before James returned to WB for “White Heat” in 1949 — is the least known, because unlike “Blood on the Sun” (1945) and “Time of Your Life” (1948), it never slipped into the public domain. So current owner Paramount has licensed the utterly charming “Johnny Come Lately” (1943) to Olive Films for its debut on DVD and Blu-ray in very attractive, if not pristine, transfers.
The setting is 1906, when vagrant reporter Jim is taken in by the elderly editor (stage actress Grace George in her only film) of a small-town newspaper and joins her in a campaign against the corrupt local political boss (Edward McNamara). A final glorious comeback on a generous budget for once-prominent director William K. Howard (“The Power and the Glory”) — who had descended to B pictures, partly because of his drinking problem — this adaptation of a Louis Bromfield story is notable partly because of the Cagneys’ hand-picked lineup of character actors, each of whom is given extended scenes with the star: Marjorie Main, Hattie McDaniel, Margaret Hamilton, Robert Barrat and many more.
Recent Warner Archive Collection releases include four starring Clark Gable, including the long-awaited DVD debut of Victor Fleming’s “Test Pilot” (1938) co-starring Spencer Tracy and Myrna Loy. Also: George Hill’s aviation epic “Hell Divers” (1931) with Wallace Beery, Robert Z. Leonard’s “After Office Hours” (1935), a newspaper comedy co-starring Constance Bennett and written by Herman Mankiewicz; and John M. Stahl’s legendary Gable flop “Parnell,” a biopic of the 19th-century Irish leader with Loy. Plus Vol. 8 of “The Monogram Cowboy Collection” a dozen B-westerns toplined by Johnny Mack Brown, with Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton.
Out Tuesday from WAC a six-pack of late 50s/early 60s WB features: David Butler’s “The Girl He Left Behind” (1956) starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood; Norman Taurog’s “Onionhead” (1958) with Andy Griffith, Felicia Farr and Walter Matthau; Vincent Sherman’s “A Fever in the Blood’ (1961) starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Don Ameche; Howard W. Koch’s “The Violent Road” (1958), a “Wages of Fear” knockoff with Brian Keith and Zimbalist; “Wall of Noise” (1962) with Ty Hardin and Suzanne Pleshette: and a pair of 1955 war movies “Target Zero” starring Richard Conte and Charles Bronson and “Jump Into Hell” (1955) starring “Jack” (Jacques) Sernas in an unusual Vietnam setting.
Another manufacture-on-demand program, the Fox Cinema Archives, has DVD-debuted Henry King’s “Chad Hanna” (1940) starring Henry Fonda, Dorothy Lamour and Linda Darnell; the Betty Grable musical “Springtime in the Rockies” (1942); King’s “Maryland” (1940) with Walter Brennan and Fay Bainter; Gene Negulesco’s “Woman’s World” (1954) with Clifton Webb and June Allyson; and Henry Hathaway’s “The Bottom of the Bottle” (1956) starring Van Johnson and Joseph Cotten.
Upcoming from FCA on June 3 are Irving Cummings’ long-unseen “The Cisco Kid” (1931), with Warner Baxter reprising his Oscar-winning role from “In Old Arizona”; Malcolm St. Clair’s “Crack-Up” (1936), a thriller starring Peter Lorre and Brian Donlevy; and George Marshall’s musical comedy “Hold That Co-Ed” (1938) with John Barrymore, George Murphy and Joan Davis.
On June 10, it’s Lewis Seiler’s uber-obscure “Here Comes Trouble” (1936) with Paul Kelly and Gregory Ratoff; and Ratoff’s “I Was an Adventuress” (1940) with Vera Zorina, Richard Greene, Erich Von Stroheim and Lorre; and the Robert Montgomery western “The Cowboy and the Blonde” (Ray McCarey, 1941) with Mary Beth Hughes.
The June FCA 17 lineup consists of the Jones Family series episode “Everybody’s Baby” (1939) starring Jed Prouty and Spring Byington under the direction of St. Clair; Ricardo Cortez’ little-known “The Escape” (1939) with Kane Richmond and Amanda Duff; and Harold Schuster’s “Girl Trouble” (1942) with Don Ameche and Joan Bennett.
The Sony Pictures Choice Collection continues to mine obscurities in the Columbia Pictures library, to wit: D. Ross Lederman’s “The Fighting Marshall” (1931) starring Tim McCoy; William Castle’s “Klondike Kate” (1943) with Glenda Farrell, Tom Neal, Ann Savage and Sheldon Leonard; “Mary Ryan, Detective” (1949) starring Marsha Hunt and John Litel; Lew Landers’ “Tyrant of the Sea” (1950) with Rhys Williams and Ron Randell; and the Charles Starrett western “Hawk of Wild River” (1952). 
Comrades, rejoice! Lewis Milestone’s notorious pre-Soviet World War II propaganda adventure “The North Star” (1943) will be getting its first authorized video release on DVD and Blu-ray from Olive Films on July 15, as part of that boutique label’s ongoing licensing agreement with Paramount Home Video. Technically, “The North Star” is billed as an extra with “Armored Attack!,” the drastically shorter 1956 re-edit with additional footage that turned “The North Star” into an improbable anti-Soviet piece during the Cold War. Both boast an impressive cast: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Farley Granger (debut), Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Jane Withers, Dean Jagger and Ann Harding as Ukranians whose village is invaded by Germans, including a sadistic surgeon played by Erich Von Stroheim. Some major talents behind the camera for a film that copped six Oscar nods in its original iteration: Lillian Hellman, James Wong Howe, William Cameron Menzies, Aaron Copland, Ira Gershwin.
Olive will kick things off on July 1 with the Blu-ray debut of Blake Edwards’ “Operation Petticoat” (1959) starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis; Leo McCarey’s “Good Sam” (1948) with Gary Cooper and Ann Sheridan; and Richard Fleischer’s never-on-DVD “So This is New York” (1948) starring radio comedian Henry (not Harry) Morgan and Rudy Vallee. July 8: Max Ophuls’ long-awaited “Caught” (1949) will be making its DVD and Blu-ray debut starring James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes and Robert Ryan (as a character based on Howard Hughes); Irving Pichel’s delightful “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid” (1948) with William Powell and Ann Blyth; and Martin Gable’s “The Lost Moment” (1949) starring Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward.
On July 15, Olive will also be offering a Blu-ray upgrade for Milestone’s “Arch of Triumph” (1947) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. July 22 will bring Andre De Toth’s “The Other Love” (1947) starring Barbara Stanwyck and David Niven as well as Irving Rapper’s “Forever Female” (1953), a show-biz comedy with Ginger Rogers, William Holden and Paul Douglas. The latter is the final new Olive release that was theatrically released by Paramount; the others come from Paramount’s bottomless NTA/Republic/Melange library.