Here’s Looking at Videos, Kid : Start a classic collection with picks from the National Film Preservation Board

The National Film Preservation Board has given you some clues as to where to start if you want to build a video film collection. It’s given the Library of Congress a list of 25 movies that deserve to be called “classics” because of their cultural, historiial or aesthetic significance. All but three are available on videotape:

There’s the wartime tear-jerker “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946, Nelson tape and disc); Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca” (1942, CBS/Fox tape and a special laser videodisc edition on Criterion); Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941, Republic tape and a special laser videodisc edition on Criterion); King Vidor’s great silent classic “The Crowd” (1928, one of the three not available yet on tape or disc); Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy “Dr. Strangelove” (1964, “CA/ Columbia tape and disc); Buster Keaton’s “The General” (1927, from HBO tapes); the blockbuster epic “Gone With the Wind” (1939, a special 50th anniversary edition from MGM/UA), and Henry Fonda in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (CBS/Fox tape and disc).

Also listed are Gary Cooper in “High Noon” (1952, Republic tape and a special laser videodisc edition on Criterion); D.W. Griffith’s monumental “Intolerance” (1916, Blackhawk tape); “The Learning Tree,” a curious choice about a young black growing up in Kansas (1969, Warner tape and disc); John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon” (1941, CBS/Fox tape and disc); Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939, “CA/ Columbia tape and disc); Charlie haplin’s “Modern Times” (1936, Playhouse tape and disc); Robert Flaherty’s docu-drama “Nanook of the North” (1921, International Historic Films tape), and Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” (1954, “CA/Columbia tape and disc).

The others are the Western saga of John Wayne searching for his niece kidnaped by Indians, “The Searchers” (1956, Warner tape and disc); MGM’s best musical “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952, MGM/UA tape and a special laser videodisc edition on Criterion); Walt Disney’s full-length cartoon “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937, still in the Disney vaults and not on tape or disc); Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” (1959, CBS/Fox tape and a special laser videodisc letter-box edition on Criterion); “Star Wars,” George Lucas’ piece of magic (1977, CBS/Fox tape and letter-boxed disc); F.W. Murnau’s silent film about a farmer who plans to murder his wife, “Sunrise” (1927, unavailable on videotape); Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard” (1950, Paramount tape and disc); Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigoo (1958, MCA tape and disc); Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939, MGM/UA tape and a special laser videodisc edition on Criterion).

Add to the film board’s list your own personal favorites and you have the beginnings of a classic-film video collection.