The latest DVDs and Blu-rays are given the once-over by our writers. Read first before reaching for your credit card.
Almost 80 years after its first release, Thomas Bentley’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1934) is reopening for business and is now available on DVD. For those aware that 2012 is the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth, this may be a reason to celebrate. For those who are interested in the transition from silent film to talkies, this should become a treasured item in their movie collection. For everyone else, well, I'd recommend looking for something maybe not less old, but certainly less curious.
In the realms of science fiction, taking relics out of cold storage isn't always a good thing. But in the case of Earth 2 – aired in 1994-5, cancelled after 21 episodes despite garnering some very positive reviews and finally making it onto DVD in the UK after almost twenty years in the TV equivalent of cryogenic stasis – it was well worth pressing that defrost button.
As part of the Charles Dickens bicentennial celebrations, classic adaptations are being re-released and, despite the sheer volume of Dickens-based features out there, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) still holds up as a fairly faithful rendering of a much-loved classic. Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, the film belongs to the wonderful tradition of Dickens adaptations on screen that conveys a Victorian England full of waifs, strays and villainous characters desperate to make money any which way they can. Nicholas Nickleby is one of the favourites of the Dickens canon, a young man attempting to find his way in the world and encountering all manner of social caricatures.
While the Germans had the amazing compound noun Wirtschaftswunder the Italians stole the English word for their post-war economic growth: ‘Il Boom’. Vittorio de Sica’s 1963 neo-realist black comedy is released for the first time on DVD.
Giovanni (Alberto Sordi, the Best of Enemies) has been living far beyond his means when he tries to impress friends and family as one of the boom’s nouveau riche. Becoming a joke amongst his colleagues and with no one willing to invest in either his business deals or scams Giovanni’s overbearing step-father separates him from his wife (Gianna Maria Canale, I Vampire) and young son. Considering suicide Giovanni is approached by Mrs Bausetti, the wife of a building magnate who had lost the sight of an eye in an industrial accident. In return for one of his eyes the Bausetti’s will give Giovanni enough money to get him out of his slump.
Murder by Decree is a Sherlock Holmes movie, something the marketing for this re-release is eager to point out following the increased interest in the great detective. However, this is not based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, instead this is a work of speculative fiction, dealing with the idea that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (Christopher Plummer and James Mason, respectively) would investigate the Jack the Ripper killings.
