This week, we begin with Audrey:
Audrey Hepburn Blu-ray Collection (Sabrina, Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany’s) Available Tuesday.
Warner Home Entertainment has packaged three films featuring Audrey Hepburn for release. The popular icon was one of the few performers ever to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. Of her five Best Actress nominations, two are included: Sabrina and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The collection, recently remastered for Blu-ray, also includes individual supplements.
At age 25, Hepburn starred opposite Humphrey Bogart and William Holden in Billy Wilder’s classic Sabrina (1954, not rated, 113 minutes), She plays the daughter of a rich family’s chauffeur (John Williams), and a charming young woman who becomes an unwitting love object.
Extras include seven featurettes — on Hepburn’s fashion career, William Holden, Paramount in the 1950s, “Supporting Sabrina,” and more.
Dance maven Stanley Donen directed Funny Face (1957, not rated, 103 minutes), giving his stars Hepburn and Fred Astaire license to mingle closely and even dance together. Hepburn plays a shopgirl plucked from obscurity to become a fashion model. Extras include a photo gallery, trailer and the “Paramount in the ’50s” featurette.
In Blake Edwards’ seminal Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, not rated, 115 minutes), based on a Truman Capote short story, she plays iconic Holly Golightly, the free-spirited young woman-about-town hiding a dark secret. George Peppard plays the love interest, and Mickey Rooney embarrasses himself as Holly’s Japanese neighbor. With Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen and Martin Balsam.
The many featurette subjects include Hepburn’s style, a set tour, Henry Mancini’s Oscar-winning music, Holly Golightly, an Asian perspective on Mickey Rooney’s character, and more. The collection is also available in a regular DVD collection.
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Hangmen Also Die (***) Fritz Lang directed this little-seen 1943 film based on actual 1942 events. It has been restored from the original for its DVD and Blu-ray debut.
In German-occupied Czechoslovakia, a sadistic Nazi, “the Hangman,” Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), rules over Prague. A partisan, Dr. Svoboda (Brian Donlevy), assassinates him and then escapes thanks to the help of a stranger, Mascha (Anna Lee).
Svoboda’s escape sets off a series of Nazi reprisals on the town, including Mascha’s father (a surprisingly effective Walter Brennan). Lang uses the event to send the doctor through a series of near-captures and close calls, while the Nazis continue their repression, and a group of Czech patriots organize a reprisal of their own.
Not rated, 135 minutes.
DVD extras: The film’s fascinating history takes up much of the supplements, including a 29-minute “making of” featurette, an eight-minute 1942 German newsreel, a before-and-after comparison of the restoration, and a pamphlet with an essay from Peter Ellenbruch.
The materials relate how Lang had been living in Hollywood for several years when celebrated playwright Bertolt Brecht arrived, also fleeing the Nazis. Lang learned about the death of the real German “Hangman” and approached Brecht for collaboration on a screenplay. The two worked together but became so fractious that John Wexley stepped in and received final credit for the screenplay.
The film also encountered several other duly noted problems. Legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe filmed the black-and-white production.
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Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever This 1983 TV special appeared on NBC and drew huge ratings while making history, winning both Peabody and Emmy awards. The show now arrives in both six-disc and three-disc versions, each with plenty of extras.
Richard Pryor hosted this live tribute to the Motown phenomenon, and it featured performances from the industry’s most renowned artists: the Miracles, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 (supposedly, it was the first time Jackson performed the “moonwalk” live), and others.
But other non-Motown acts also performed: Linda Ronstadt, Jose Feliciano, Adam Ant and others. The show itself eventually served as the basis for Broadway’s Motown the Musical.
The six-disc set contains approximately 16 hours of content. The three-disc set is 7 hours, 38 minutes.
DVD extras: The six-disc set includes more than 14 hours of extras, including newly produced featurettes with dozens of interviews along with previously unseen footage and a special “Performers Roundtable.” Plus: a 48-page collector’s book, and a copy of the “Motown 25” program. Check labels for supplements on the three-disc set.
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Mike & Molly: The Complete Fourth Season At the start of this 22-episode season, Molly Flynn (Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy) quits her job as a schoolteacher in hopes of becoming a writer.
This decision sets the character on a path for the season, giving Molly, and Mike Biggs (Billy Gardell), more room to explore their comedic limits.
Molly researches her crime novel, meets her literary idol (Susan Sarandon) and eventually finds a job driving a forklift.
Mike plays poker with the guys and later gets shot. But it’s not severe enough to keep him from a road trip with his buddies. The season ends as Molly gains acceptance into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
The season’s guest stars include John Michael Higgins, Kathy Bates, Mather Zickel and Brian Baumgartner.
Not rated, 433 minutes.
DVD extras: a gag reel.
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Also available Tuesday on DVD: Chef, Ivory Tower and Lucky Them.
