Beat The Devil (1953/UA/Film Detective DVD)/Five and Ten (1931/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/For A Woman (2012/Film Movement DVD)/The Man Who Played God (1932/Warner Archive DVD)/Tasting Menu (2012/Magnolia DVD)

Picture: C/C+/C/C+/C Sound: C/C/C+/C-/C Extras: D/D/C/C-/C- Films: C+

PLEASE NOTE: The Five & Ten and Man Who Played God DVD are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and both can be ordered from the link below.

Here's a set of dramas with comedy, sometimes unintentionally, showing up...

John Huston's Beat The Devil (1953) is a film co-written by Huston and no less than Truman Capote about a group of people vying to get ownership of uranium fields in Africa to score big bucks, but they have to stab each other in the back and manipulate each other to do so in work that recalls earlier Huston films a bit. Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee head the impressive cast for this film that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the work of all involved.

Some of it is great and hilarious, while other parts are not as good, but the film is ambitious and the cast is giving it their all. Lollobrigida and Lorre steal many of their scenes, but don't underestimate Morley who does his comic best in what looks like a project everyone was having fun making. The result is a certain joy in the performances and film that often overcomes its issues. It is worth a look, especially if you love classic movies.

There are sadly no extras.

Robert Z. Leonard's Five and Ten (1931) is one of several films Marion Davies (who was a key figure in the life of William Randolph Hearst) made via her production company at MGM. This pre-code romp is a bit racy for its time as Davies plays the daughter of of a wealthy tycoon whose fortune comes from Woolworth-like stores the title refers to (that would be 75-cents to $1.50 by today's standards as of this posting 83+ years later, but you can see how dollar stores can make a fortune, so that part is a plausible as ever) giving her money to find a good man.

She meets a guy she really likes (Leslie Howard), but he has a fiancee and may even like her, but is already committed. Can that stop her, stop them, from still finding a way to be together? She is not as uncomfortable about this at first, but additional complications ensue. Some of this holds up well for its age, while other details will surprise those used to more censored, restricted films. Davies looks great, knowing how to play for the camera and how good she really looks.

I also liked the costumes, set design and some effects (like a recreated New York City nighttime skyline that reminds us why MGM was the #1 studio of the time) and like all Davies films, this one is also very much worth seeing. Howard is her match in an early performance (of too few) that shows us what a natural big screen movie star he was. Glad to see this one getting issued officially.

There are sadly no extras.

Diane Kurys' For A Woman (2012) is a melodrama about a woman who is about to uncover her family's secret past connected to Nazis and the Holocaust, but instead of just being a film on those subjects (and not to its detriment), deals with the past in extended flashbacks as a character study of the two older sisters as we meet them in the present. Then, we get a well-realized story of how their family came to be under sometimes extraordinary circumstances.

This works more often than not, with a twist that the brother of her father turns up and is a spy with a political movement, though to say anything more would be to go into spoilers territory. I bought the acting, locales and many plot points, yet I did not think this one always added up as I had hoped, but it is worth seeing for what works and it looks good.

Text on the makers and Sylvian Bressollette's short film Le Ballon de Rouge are the extras.

John G Adolfi's The Man Who Played God (1932) has been remade and ripped off a few times, but this original version with George Arliss as a world famous pianist who loses his hearing and desire to play after a royal guest just misses being bombed to death in a terror attack has its share of melodrama. He learns to read lips and finds a new hobby in helping those he sees outside talk about their lives being wrecked, usually by sending his butler to give them money!

This one has its moments too and Arliss was a great actor too easily forgotten today, having made this as a silent film years before. The other big bonus in this Warner film, a top rate production for its time, is that one of his biggest supporters and admirers is played by none other than an up and coming Bette Davis in her early glory. She's already got all the energy, dynamics and power that would make her one of the greatest movie stars of all time here and more than holds her own against anyone in the solid cast. Again, another classic film everyone should see once, glad to see Warner Archive issue it.

A trailer is the only extra.

Last but not least is Roger Gual's Tasting Menu (2012), the latest of an undiscussed cycle of films about food and dining that keeps growing. In Catalonia, one of the greatest restaurants in the opinion of many, including the wealthy, well-fed and food experts, is sadly closing as many do. The owners and head chef decide they will have one last big night bash before folding with a special guest list, et al, going for a night to remember. It does not all work out, however.

This probably has the most comedy on the list, yet is very serious about the issues of live, living, death and good things coming to an end the films in this cycle tend to have. Unfortunately, it can be very uneven where some of the humor (like the gal who knows no other languages assisting two Japanese guests that never fits) is overdone. Fionnula Flanagan (Waking Ned Divine, TV's Callan) plays a rich widow whose very presence offers counterpoint and Stephen Rea plays a mysterious man who eventually gets on the owner's nerves. I have not been too impressed with any of these films and this one is no better, but it is worth a look for those interested.

A trailer is the only extra.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 black & white image on Beat (shot by the great Oswald Morris, B.S.C.) and 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Ten and God are from older, rougher prints with transfers that are good, if not great, yet Ten is the best despite what seems to be more soft shots than usual. However, there is a higher use of diffusion lenses than usual to make Davies look good. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on the remaining DVDs are HD shoots, but Woman is softer than Ten! That leaves Menu looking the best of the five by a narrow margin.

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound on Beat, Ten and God are average at best and show their age, especially God which is weaker than usual and you should be careful of volume switching and high playback levels. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Woman and Menu should easily outdo those three, but Menu has too much of its sound in the center channel too often and is not always clearly recorded. Maybe it is the mix.

To order either of the Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

http://www.warnerarchive.com/

- Nicholas Sheffo