LA TIMES: Miss it the first time?

November 13, 2005
DVD SNEAKS
Miss it the first time? Times critics offer suggestions for discs they
deem worthy of a spin, or even of a permanent spot on your media shelf.

Movies
Kevin Thomas

"Sunset Blvd." (Billy Wilder, 1950): It's the definitive movie about
Hollywood past, present and forever. Wilder captured the grandeur of
the silent era with wit and compassion and everyday life at Paramount
just as TV was coming in and Cecil B. DeMille was nearing the end of
his reign. Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond is unforgettable in her
pretentiousness and vulnerability. Yet in her madness, as she descends
her staircase for the newsreel cameras, Norma sums up what the movies
are all about: "There's nothing else. Just us, and the cameras, and
those wonderful people out there."

"It Happened One Night" (Frank Capra, 1934): This Hollywood classic has
such verve and good humor that it will probably remain forever fresh.
The film is about a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) who is cut down
to size by a breezy, resourceful newspaper reporter (Clark Gable) while
on a bus trip from Miami to New York. It is studded with immortal
moments in screen comedy, even as it effectively demolished social
pretense and helped launch the entire cycle of screwball comedies that
brightened the bleak '30s.

"Gone With the Wind" (Sam Wood, George Cukor, 1939): Arguably the most
durable American screen epic of them all. The great thing about "GWTW"
is that it has different meanings at different ages; the older one
gets, the more it seems about survival rather than romance.

"Lola Montes" (Max Ophuls, 1955): Ophuls' masterwork transformed a
boudoir tale exploring the scandalous life of dancer Montes into a
dazzling evocation of a vanished age, with its richly romantic spirit
and equally unflagging hypocrisy.

"The Crowd" (King Vidor, 1928): Vidor's pioneering exploration of the
treacherous, self-deluding underside of the American Dream is at once
the story of Johnny Sims and also of every ordinary American man who
grows up believing he is somehow different yet is patently "one of the
crowd" and who is struck by both good fortune and tragedy without
warning.

"Sunrise" (F.W. Murnau, 1928): In this poetic fable of guilt and
redemption, Murnau transports the audience, via a trolley ride, from
the innocent pastoral beauty of the countryside to the city, with its
bright lights and glittering amusement zone. Murnau captures in
striking detail the impact of this world on a farmer and his wife -
the lure of the city ultimately a seductive threat to the couple and
their happiness. It remains one of the most striking moments in the
silent cinema.

"The Leopard" (Luchino Visconti, 1963): In period, scope and story,
Visconti's masterpiece, starring Burt Lancaster and set against Italy's
turbulent era of unification in the 1860s, brings to mind "Gone With
the Wind" as a rich evocation of a crumbling aristocracy -
particularly with its recent release in its original full-length
205-minute Italian version.

"Seven Men From Now" (Budd Boetticher, 1956): Randolph Scott plays a
strong, silent type crossing a desert, whose encounter with two men
leaves them dead but whose second encounter, with a married couple
trying to get to California by covered wagon, finds him lending a
helping hand. We learn about Scott and his mission gradually as the
film builds tautly and surely to a finish of resounding impact.

"Monsieur Verdoux" (Charles Chaplin, 1947): This is a withering attack
on the evils of capitalism - not exactly what postwar audiences
wanted to hear, especially with the Cold War warming up. Today,
however, the pitch-dark satire seems timelier than ever.

"I Vitelloni" (Federico Fellini, 1953): A humorous yet melancholy
portrait of a group of layabouts filmed in Fellini's hometown, Rimini,
an ancient seaside community. Fellini celebrates the simple, eternal
pleasures of the town, but the nostalgic emotions he stirs sharpen the
painful awareness that these friends are mired in a stagnant
environment and their own immaturity.