Double-Bills Pack Nice 1-2 Punch

You probably won’t find double bills at your local mall but, increasingly, laser discs are being packaged to bring yesteryear’s Bijou into your home, with a few improvements.

Case in point is MGM/UA Home Video’s series of double features, packaging classic films the way you never would have seen them in the good old days. Under the astute eye of Senior Vice President George Feltenstein, the company continues to pair films in interesting ways.

“The concept was to find a way of bringing a little value to the laser consumer by pairing two titles that have a common performance or theme and that would work well together,” said Feltenstein. “It’s cheaper to replicate two films on two discs in a double jacket than to put out two discs on two separate jackets.”

Depending on the amount of work involved in making the transfer to laser, the double features sell for $40 or $50.

Among the most fascinating is the label’s “Forbidden Hollywood” releases hosted by movie historian Leonard Maltin. All the films in the series were made before 1934, when filmmakers could do or say practically anything they wanted to--and did. All of that came to an end when the Hays Production Code went into effect and pulled in the reins. A first-rate example of the “Forbidden Hollywood” double bill is the 1931 “Blonde Crazy” and the 1933 “Lady Killer,” both starring a very young James Cagney, sassy and energetic and full of an exuberant wickedness. “Blonde Crazy” offers an overacting Cagney and a pouting Joan Blondell in the “age of chiselry” taking one sucker after another in free-swinging scams before the film comes to an overly melodramatic ending. In “Lady Killer,” Margaret Lindsay puts the more obvious Mae Clarke to shame with a well-mannered performance that doesn’t quite conceal a real sexiness. Both are along for the ride as Cagney works his way from two-bit hustler to matinee idol.

Other notable double features from MGM/UA:

* Fay Wray, King Kong’s favorite leading lady, in two reporter mysteries: “Doctor X” and “The Mystery of the Wax Museum.”

* Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy in two of the series’ best: “Andy Hardy Meets Debutante”(with Judy Garland and Ann Rutherford) and “Love Finds Andy Hardy” (with Garland and a very young Lana Turner).

* The Marx Brothers in two of their later and lesser efforts, although still very funny: “At the Circus” and “Go West.”

* Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn at their wittiest: “Adam’s Rib” and “Pat and Mike.”