A Do-It-Yourself Jimmy Stewart Film Festival; Blockbuster “Rocky IV” Steps Into the Video Ring in May

James Stewart, who has been a movie star for more than half a century, recently visited MCA Home Video, which is putting out on cassette such Stewart movies as “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), “Winchester ‘73” (1950), “Bend of the River” (1950), “Thunder Bay” (1953) and “The Rare Breed” (1965).

Stewart, 77, has been spared most of the infirmities of age. He’s tall--though he claims to have shrunk an inch--and still rather slender.

During lunch in a conference room he related anecdotes about his career, talking first about “The Glenn Miller Story.” “I never met Miller. And I was stationed in England during the war during the time he was there, but our paths never crossed,” he said.

On miming Miller’s trombone playing in the movie: “I was determined to get the movements right so it looked real. It was important to always get the slide at the correct stop so it looked like I was playing. A trombone player named Joe Yukl helped me with that. While I worried about it, Joe was on the other side of the camera playing all the trombone parts for real.”

On Miller’s wife: “She was on the set all the time, watching everything. I knew if I didn’t have the right suit on, she’d tell me. She had complete script approval--that’s the only way she’d consent to let us do the movie. We thought she was going to be a problem but she never was. She did ask for changes, but it was nothing major. Her real problem was that she never wanted to make the movie because she was never sure her husband was dead.” (Miller plane’s disappeared over the English Channel on Dec. 15, 1944, and was never found.)

Stewart’s 1950 Western, “Winchester ‘73,” was the start of something different for the movies: Its star was given a piece of the profits. This turned out to be lucrative for Stewart. Others also wanted this “new” deal and Hollywood hasn’t been the same.

The film also revived the Western, which had been floundering in the late ‘40s. “Westerns always go up and down, fade and then come back,” Stewart said. “After ‘Winchester ‘73,’ they were big in the ‘50s. I think they’ll come back again. They’re such a pure, simple form of storytelling. How can anybody not like them?”

“Winchester” was significant to him for another reason: “(Director) Tony Mann got me started in Westerns with this picture. I did five or six with him after that. I had done ‘Destry Rides Again’ but that wasn’t a real Western. This was a whole new career for me.”

Unlike some other Hollywood veterans, Stewart is strongly in favor of home video. To him, it’s another means of exposure for movies: “This home video thing brings your movies to a whole new audience. It keeps them alive, it brings them back to life. What more could an actor want for his movies?”

NEW AND COMING MOVIES: One week after MCA debuts “Back to the Future,” CBS-Fox will put a blockbuster of its own on the market--”Rocky IV,” due May 27. Last year, “Rocky IV”--in which little Sly Stallone beats up on gigantic Dolph Lundgren--was the second-highest-grossing film, behind “Back to the Future.”

RCA/Columbia will be rooting for victories for Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly at Monday’s Oscar ceremonies. They star in “Agnes of God,” an April 30 RCA/Columbia release. Bancroft is up for best actress and Tilly is a best supporting actress candidate.

William Friedkin’s violent thriller, “To Live and Die in L.A.,” will be in the stores May 14, with, of course, that sequence in which a car shoots down a crowded freeway going the wrong way.

“Year of the Dragon” (MGM/UA, $79.95), a possible sleeper rental hit, is out this week. This cops vs. gangsters drama stars Mickey Rourke. Yet another teen comedy, “Better Off Dead” (CBS-Fox, $79.95), is available too.

For the kids: “Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird” and “Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer”--a full-length animated movie--were released this week by Warner Video at $79.95.

Next week is a renter’s bonanza. “The Goonies,” “The Bride” and “Plenty”--starring Meryl Streep and Sting--will debut. But the biggie will be “Commando,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger adventure.

OLD MOVIES: Andrzej Wajda’s famed 1958 Polish film, “Ashes and Diamonds,” debuts this week on Embassy’s International Collection at $29.95.

Notable Westerns recently released by Playhouse Video at $59.98: John Wayne and Richard Boone in “Big Jake” (1971); Wayne and Rock Hudson in “The Undefeated” (1969); the underrated 1968 adventure, “Bandolero,” with James Stewart, Dean Martin and Raquel Welch; the romanticized “Jesse James” (1939), with Tyrone Power as Jesse James and Henry Fonda as brother Frank; the 1940 sequel “The Return of Frank James,” also starring Fonda and young Gene Tierney, in her first screen role.

All Occasion Video, noted for its catalogue of $19.95 B-Westerns, has just released a fascinatingly odd movie called “Rawhide” (1938), starring Smith Ballew and, of all people, baseball star Lou Gehrig. This is worth seeing just to watch the late great New York Yankee first baseman battling gangsters on a cattle ranch. Other All Occasion releases: “A Lawman Is Born” with Johnny Mack Brown, “When a Man Rides Alone” starring Tom Tyler and “Buckskin Frontier,” featuring Richard Dix and Jane Wyatt.

ACTION/HORROR: The blood ‘n’ guts crowd will be shrieking over “Re-Animator,” a positively grisly movie that came out last year and made very little money. Vestron is releasing it on cassette next week at $79.95. It’s about a medical student bringing dead bodies back to life and what these lively corpses do.

“Alligator” (Lightning, $79.95) features an unusually creepy monster. In this 1980 movie making its cassette debut April 7, a grotesque gator pops out of a sewer and goes on a gory spree. John Sayles wrote the screenplay. CHARTS (Compiled by Billboard magazine) TOP VIDEOCASSETTES, SALES

1--”Return of the Jedi” (CBS-Fox).

2--”Jane Fonda’s New Workout” (Karl-Lorimar).

3--”Rambo: First Blood Part II” (Thorn/EMI/HBO).

4--”Beverly Hills Cop” (Paramount).

5--”Jane Fonda’s Workout” (Karl-Lorimar).

6--”Pinocchio” (Disney).

7--”Silverado” (RCA/Columbia).

8--”Prime Time” (Karl-Lorimar).

9--”The Wizard of Oz” (MGM/UA).

10--”Gone With the Wind” (MGM/UA). TOP VIDEOCASSETTES, RENTALS

1--”Return of the Jedi” (CBS-Fox).

2--”Rambo: First Blood Part II” (Thorn/EMI/HBO).

3--”Prizzi’s Honor” (Vestron).

4--”Mask” (MCA).

5--”St. Elmo’s Fire” (RCA/Columbia).

6--”Weird Science” (MCA).

7--”Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” (Warner Video).

8--”Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” (Warner Video).

9--”Teen Wolf” (Paramount).

10--”National Lampoon’s European Vacation” (Warner Video).