A look at 'James Stewart: Western Collection' and other new DVDs

"JAMES STEWART: THE WESTERN COLLECTION." (1939-1966. NOT RATED. UNIVERSAL. $39.98. SIX DISCS.)

At a nice price, this six-disc collection brings together six of James Stewart's Westerns, all of them either pretty good or better. The collection is essentially repackaged. All six films have been available on DVD for some time, and there are no special features. But if you happen to be a Stewart fan, and if you happen to have none of these films already, buying all six through this set is a good deal (especially because it's possible to find it for even less than full price).

It's always surprising to reflect on just how many times Stewart put on a cowboy hat during his career. The collection contains Stewart's first Western, one of his finest, "Destry Rides Again" (1939), with Stewart in a very shrewd performance as an intelligent, canny man of conviction, a peace-loving sheriff who's one step ahead of the gunslingers and corrupt politicians running his small town.

Three postwar films Stewart made for Anthony Mann are included: "Winchester '73" (1950); "Bend of the River" (1952); and "The Far Country" (1954). These are psychologically rich films about the real strain and cost of 19th-century Western life, a kind of postwar reflection on an earlier era's brutal realities.

The set is filled out by the Western drama "Night Passage" (1957) and "The Rare Breed" (1966), co-starring Maureen O'Hara, which mixes comedy and drama.

-- Mick LaSalle

"COME DRINK WITH ME." (1966. NOT RATED. DRAGON DYNASTY. $19.97.)

Most people who have seen Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" have not heard of King Hu's landmark "Come Drink With Me." They do not know that Cheng Pei-Pei, who played the elderly villain Jade Fox in "Crouching Tiger," was once a dancer who, at 20 years old, was tapped by Hu to become the world's first female action star, paving the way for her "Crouching Tiger" co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang.

Here, with stern face and wielded sword, Cheng plays Golden Swallow, who brings a gang of thieves to justice. The film begins with a classic set piece at an inn, in which she wipes out many of the bad guys (it's a scene that Lee, an unabashed fan of Hu's elegant direction, co-opted in "Crouching Tiger").

Cheng was a box-office queen in Asia for several years, alternating action films with musicals ("Hong Kong Nocturne"), where her dancing talents were put to more obvious use. But she never made another film as great as this, her starring debut, which has a philosophy, wit and fluidness that escape most action films, then and now, and make it a must-have for any serious action collector.

Extras include audio commentary by Cheng and Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan, and an interview with Cheng.

-- G. Allen Johnson

"THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE." (1999. RATED R. LEGEND. $14.95.)

Patrice Leconte ("Monsieur Hire," "Ridicule," "Intimate Strangers") has made a string of films during the past couple of decades that combine a dark vision with a romantic sensibility. This 1999 film, which made a big splash at art houses, stars Daniel Auteuil as a professional knife thrower in need of a professional partner. When he discovers a woman (Vanessa Paradis, the significant other of Johnny Depp) about to throw herself off a bridge, he makes her a business offer. Since she is about to commit suicide anyway, so ...

From there, the movie is about the development of this strange relationship, which isn't sexual, exactly, but has a strong romantic and sexual component. In this context, the knife-throwing scenes are like sex scenes, and in one notable scene, the two practice simply for the fun of it.

The French specialize in stories about the strange and unexpected forms love can take, and this is one of them. Paradis, who is charming, is an occasional actress but mainly a pop singer. Auteuil brings a complex life history and conflicting emotions to the role of a man almost at the end of his rope, struggling to keep it together, struggling not to dive into romance. Some of the parallels between knife throwing and sex become labored, but Auteuil keeps the movie grounded in concrete and always interesting emotion.

-- Mick LaSalle

"DESPERATE CHARACTERS." (1971. RATED R. LEGEND. $14.95.)

Despite some flaws, this is an intermittently fascinating document of a time and a mindset, providing a slant on the late '60s and early '70s that's different from what we normally get. Very little happens. Shirley MacLaine and Kenneth Mars play an upper-middle-class couple in a nearly dead marriage. He is in the midst of dissolving his long-term partnership with an old friend at his law firm. She is wan and depressed. At the start of the film, she is bitten by a cat, and the cat bite provides what little narrative through line there is in a story that takes place entirely over the course of a weekend.

What the film very strongly conveys is the sense of living in the last throes of a dead civilization. The city (New York) is bad and getting worse. Crime is escalating. The countryside provides no respite, and young people are depraved and willfully stupid, vain and drugged. The latter is the most novel and refreshing element. Though the film is told from a kind of defeatist, relativist, fatalistic point of view -- a hip viewpoint for its era -- the brief glimpses you get of the counterculture are entirely negative, that of barbarians at the gates of culture. This makes the movie just a little bit different, as in unusually honest.

MacLaine has a nude scene that took me by surprise (very depressed marital sex) and is emotionally full and committed throughout. Call this an artistic near-miss but a valuable little time capsule.

-- Mick LaSalle

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