Ezra (2023/Bleecker Street/Decal Blu-ray)/Marguerite's Theorem (2023/Icarus DVD)/Northwest Passage (1940/MGM*)/Soledad's Shawl (1952 aka El Rebezo de Soledad/Blu-ray**)/Stars Fall On Henrietta (1995/*both Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Street Scene (1931/Blu-ray w/DVD/**both MVD/VCI)

Picture: B/C/B/B/B-/B & C+ Sound: B/C+/C+/B-/C+/B- & C+ Extras: C/C-/C/C+/C-/B- Films: B-/B-/C+/B-/C+/B

PLEASE NOTE: The Northwest Passage and Stars Fall On Henrietta Blu-ray discs are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Here we have two new, interesting dramas, plus four additional, restored dramas, including a classic.

Tony Goldwyn's Ezra (2023) is one of those films that, when you finish watching it, you wonder why more people have not seen it. Yes, the story of a loving parent (Bobby Cardinale) trying to take care of a child (William G. Fitzgerald as the title character) who has an illness (autism here) has been told before, but I was very pleasantly surprised in how well it is done. Not concerned with what we have seen before, it is so real while not imitating anything, it is an important film on the subject and belongs on the same shelf as Levinson's Rain Man.

Taking its time as a character study and literally putting us into the situation humanly and naturally, it is more like the better such films you would see like this in the 1970s on the big screen and has a great cast, but the performance that really puts it over is Robert De Niro as the loving grandfather in one of his best performances of another roll of really good ones he has been on lately. Just so pure and for real, it completes what they all set out to do.

This was picked up by the smart-but-small(-and growing) Bleecker Street and I really liked this more than expected. If you like movies by human beings for human beings about human beings who are mature and adult, you'll love this one enough. I bet it will slowly get discovered and many will wonder how they ever missed it.

Extras include a Q&A with Director/Actor Goldwyn (the grandson of Samuel Goldwyn, see Street Scene below) and Screenwriter Tony Spiridakis.

Anna Novion's Marguerite's Theorem (2023) is another pleasant surprise of a small film that works that we have been luckily getting lately, with the title character (Ella Rumpf) certain she has come up with an innovate mathematic equation as she continues her college years, only to find out it has a flaw. Disgusted, she drops out of school altogether and tries to find work and other uses for her advanced talents. It becomes comical at times, but the initial mathematical work will not go away.

I was not certain if the math equations discussed were for real or even valid, making them MacGuffins, the things the characters are interested in, but the audience could care less about. Like the movie Proof (with Gwenyth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins) it does make for a good dramatic background, but it is a character study at times like that film and has some nice character moments throughout. Running just under two hours, I hope this film finds the large, smart audience it deserves.

Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer.

King Vidor's Northwest Passage (1940) is the first of the director's two films we get to look at here and it was meant to be the first chapter in a movie series from MGM, but it just was not as financially successful as they had hoped for, so they quit while they were ahead. Still, emboldened by the watershed year of 1939, the biggest movie studio around at the time (still also riding on the massive profits on Gone With The Wind among their many hits at the time) had all the reason in the world to try this out.

The great Spencer Tracy leads the cast as the French & Indian War (based on Kenneth Roberts' novel) is retold on a big, pricey scale as Tracy leads Roberts Rangers as historical figure, Major Roger Roberts. Despite being in Technicolor, it is surprising gritty at times, but it also has all kinds of stereotypes and a few cliches to pad it over two hours of screen time. The costumes (pre-Barry Lyndon) are solid, the sets often look like it, but never cheap. The story close to life enough, if not documentary-realistic and the cast is a plus.

They include Walter Brennan, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Nat Pendleton, Regis Toomey, Isabel Jewell, Donald McBride, Lester Matthews, Montagu Love and an unaccredited Iron Eyes Cody. I also have to give credit to Director Vidor, who (with some additional uncredited directing help in parts) gives this a pace most journeyman directors of the time would not have and is why it holds up as well as it does. Though not a masterpiece and with its share of now-questionable content, it is worth a good look, especially restored, to see how ambitious a major movie studio could be at its best.

Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer and vintage promo featurette Northward, Ho!

Roberto Gavaldon's Soledad's Shawl (1952 aka El Rebezo de Soledad) is a major drama and one from Mexican Cinema that has somehow not been seen or remembered as much as it should, a huge critical, award-winning success in its time. Pedro Armendariz (later with some serious Hollywood success up to the early James Bond film From Russia With Love (1963) before his sudden passing) leads a very solid supporting cast as a Doctor (Arturo de Cordova) lands up saving the brother of the title character (Estela Inda) at a time later in life when he is having regrets.

Then he starts to fall in love with her, but complications ensue and when you add his optimistic ideas unpopular with some, a landowners dispute and class division politics and you get a very effective melodrama that deserves the good reputation it has. Having seen more Mexican films than most, I was impressed how it starts, never lets up and just builds and builds and builds. Now so well restored, all serious film fans should see it.

Extras includes Trailers for three other VCI Mexican Cinema releases and am excellent featurette on this film, its stars, history and production by Dr. David Wilt (26:43) that is very thorough and impressive.

James Keach's The Stars Fall On Henrietta (1995) is an entry in a little-discussed cycle of little films that tried to offer something lite and special at the time, a trend caused by some successful indie films at a time when smaller boutique companies (sometimes subdivisions of larger companies) like Miramax, Orion, Sony Pictures Classics, Fine Line and others were successfully distributing small films that could and sometimes getting Oscar nominations or wins. The mix included more than a few import foreign films too.

Co-produced by Clint Eastwood, a small family (Aidan Quinn, Frances Fisher as the married couple) are on hard times in mid-1930s Texas as The Great Depression rages on and they are trying to grow cotton on the farm. Suddenly, a eccentric man named Mr. Cox (a scene-stealing Robert Duvall in great form) arrives and says he has a way without any technology or digging to tell if a given piece of land has valuable oil under it. When he gets to the couple's farm, he determines that they do, but can they believe him, especially when everyone else thinks he is a crank!

Well, it is trying for that 'bit of magic' some such films were going for when the cycle happened and it has some of the elements to maybe make that happen, but it comes down to if he's correct or not, so the film has to fill in the rest int eh meantime, but only does such a good job. It is a curio and does successfully recreate the period, but it did not work for me then or now. What does hold up is the acting and it flow, so if you are very, very curious, you'll still want to check this one out. Others might not be impressed.

An Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.

King Vidor's Street Scene (1931) is the second film of his we are looking at here and not only is it one of his earliest ones and a huge hit, but one of my favorite films in his long career and it has aged better than even I expected. The screenplay is by Elmer Rice, based on his stage place, is an enduring portrait of pre-WWII New York City mostly taking place in front of one apartment building in Hell's Kitchen. Led by the great Sylvia Sydney (this film and City Streets the same year put her on the map) and William Collier, Jr., the portrait of neighbors from all over living in the same space and how they do and do not get along is as true now as it ever was. Then things get more interesting, with some twists and turns as well.

Coming out of a series of successful silent films, that Vidor made it into sound film is impressive and Producer Samuel Goldwyn had been pushed out of two companies he founded (including MGM, where they still kept his name on the studio and have a century later and counting!) and proved his producing skills yet again here. He was finally alone as a mega-producer and this was one of his key films. Everyone was working at the highest level here.

The film starts well enough, but just minutes into the film, it just keeps getting better and better, more involving and reminds us of how great the early studio system could be. This was distributed by United Artists (co-founder Mary Pickford had this as part of her catalog left behind) and the film has been highly influential since. Street Scene is a must-see early classic, early sound film that never plays as rough or dated and all film fans need to put it on their list.

Extras include a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and a solid essay by Eric Hoyt, while the discs add a feature length audio commentary track by Mark LaSalle and

a Poster & Photo Gallery.

Now for playback performance. The 1080p 2.00 X 1 digital High Definition image on Ezra is nicely shot and has a natural look without being phony, falsely warm or denatured, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is as well done, recorded, mixed and is the best soundtrack of the releases here. The combination impresses and for a drama.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Northwest Passage has been well restored by Warner Archive and well approximates the kind of 35mm dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor copies of the film MGM would have issued at thee time, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is as restored as possible, but it has a limited and sometimes boxy nature.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Soledad's Shawl can show the age of the materials used, but the restoration work is very impressive and despite some small flaws, looks amazingly detailed, clean and clear without any bad liberties taken with its restoration, while the PCM 2.0 Mono lossless sound has some harmonic distortion and boxiness in parts. That is limited and this sounds better overall than I expected, so the original, surviving sound held up better than many foreign and orphan films from the time, making the combination more impressive than expected as well.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer in The Stars Fall On Henrietta shows the age of the materials used because this is an old HD master that is a little softer than one would like and that extends to the sonics of the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix. This was an early digital sound release and a drama at that, so its sonics were not going to be a Star Wars sequel, but this could play a little better in combination overall. I'm sure its still the best its been on home video to date, just the same.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Street Scene can show the age of the materials used, but this looks better than any other copy I have ever seen of the film and offers detail and even depth unexpected. Again, it is mostly in front of one building, but it looks good and the PCM 2.0 Mono lossless sound also impresses, easily making this the best this film will ever sound. The 1.33 X 1 image (centered in a 1.78 X 1 anamorphically enhanced frame) on the included DVD with its lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is passable for the aged format, but no match for the Blu-ray by any means.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Marguerite's Theorem DVD shows this is nicely shot, but its sadly the softest entry here and really deserves at least a Blu-ray release at some point. The lossy French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is good, but would easily sound better lossless.

To order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, Northwest Passage and/or The Stars Fall On Henrietta, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo