For matinee fans, enduring Power

Tyrone Power was much more than an astonishingly handsome face.

From 1936 until his untimely death at age 44 in 1958, Power was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, equally at home in comedy (“Love Is News”), swashbucklers (“The Mark of Zorro”), thrillers (“Witness for the Prosecution”), drama (“The Razor’s Edge”) and period pieces (“Lloyd’s of London”).

Though he usually wore the white hat in films, he did delve into his darker side in 1947’s classic film noir “Nightmare Alley.”

His fans can feast on his films with the “Tyrone Power Matinee Idol Collection” DVD set, coming this week from Fox Home Entertainment.

Besides offering four new featurettes on the affable, romantic leading man, the collection includes 10 films he made while under contract to 20th Century Fox, including his first movie for the studio, “Girls’ Dormitory” in 1936.

The melodrama, starring Herbert Marshall and Simone Simon, features Power in the last 10 minutes as Simon’s charming cousin.

The set includes numerous lightweight comedies -- only Power’s charm and comedic skill save them from obscurity -- including 1937’s “Cafe Metropole,” in which he plays a debt-ridden young man who must pose as a Russian prince to woo an American heiress (Loretta Young); 1939’s fluffy souffle “Day-Time Wife,” in which he plays a married man who is having an affair with his secretary; 1937’s “Love Is News,” which finds Power as a reporter who falls for a rich girl (Young again); the 1948 fantasy “Luck of the Irish,” in which he plays a political writer who encounters a leprechaun (Cecil Kellaway in an Oscar-nominated turn); and 1948’s “That Wonderful Urge,” which casts him yet again as a newspaper reporter who falls for a feisty heiress (Gene Tierney).

Mixed in with the comedies are some terrific dramas, including 1940’s “Johnny Apollo,” a fast-paced story about a young man who turns to crime to help save his stockbroker father (Edward Arnold), and “This Above All,” a 1942 war drama in which Power plays a disillusioned military hero who falls in love with an idealist (Joan Fontaine).