HOME ENTERTAINMENT : WWII--Filtered Through a Hollywood Lens

With the V-E day celebrations dominating the news, many home-video retailers will be spotlighting movies about World War II in Europe.

Among the best American movies about that war, and relatively easy to find in most stores:

* “The Great Dictator” (1940). Charlie Chaplin’s scathing spoof of Hitler and Nazis.

* “Twelve O’Clock High” (1949). A drama about the Air Force in England, featuring Gregory Peck. One of finest films ever made about the pressure of military command.

* “Battleground” (1949). Van Johnson stars in this entertaining, Hollywoodized account of American soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge.

* “The Longest Day” (1962). John Wayne and Robert Mitchum head the most impressive cast ever assembled for a war movie. Gripping tale about the Allied invasion of Normandy.

* “The Great Escape” (1963). Steve McQueen and James Garner in a first-rate action movie about POWs trying to bust out of a Nazi camp.

* “The Train” (1965). Spine-tingling thriller set in Paris in 1944, about a train inspector (Burt Lancaster) trying to keep a German general (Paul Scofield) from taking a trainload of stolen art treasures to Germany.

* One of the best war movies ever made in Hollywood is “A Walk in the Sun” (1945), featuring Dana Andrews in a taut drama about American infantrymen in Italy. But it’s hard to find in video stores.

* This is a good time as well to see “Schindler’s List,” Steven Spielberg’s grim Holocaust drama set in the last stages of the war in Europe.

* If you’re looking for a good romantic movie about that war, try “Waterloo Bridge,” a 1940 drama about a tragic affair between a ballet dancer (Vivien Leigh) and a soldier (Robert Taylor) in London.

Some prominent movies to avoid:

* “Battle of the Bulge” (1965). Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw battle a terrible script.

* “Battle of Britain” (1969). Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. Great aerial battles, bad script.

* “A Bridge Too Far” (1977). An account of a bungled Allied offensive in Holland in 1944, with Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and Laurence Olivier. Badly written characters, uninvolving.

* “Is Paris Burning?” (1968). A huge all-star cast, including Kirk Douglas and Glenn Ford, in a bloated tale of Nazis being run out of Paris. Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola were among many who worked on the clumsy script.

*

Mother’s Day Movies Part II: Celebrate this weekend with an old-fashioned, soapy tear-jerker that’s centered around self-sacrificing mothers.

You can’t go wrong with “Madame X” (1966), with Lana Turner playing a woman who’s on trial for murder, with her son as her attorney. The twist, though, is that she knows they’re related but he doesn’t. Trashy, but riveting.

Either “Stella Dallas” (1937) or the remake, “Stella” (1990), will have you in tears. Good-hearted but uneducated, Stella is the all-time sacrificing mom. You know heartbreak is ahead as she prepares her daughter for an upscale world--where tacky, blue-collar types like Stella don’t belong. Barbara Stanwyck stars in the 1937 original, while Bette Midler plays the title role in the remake.

“Imitation of Life” (1959) is a well-done weeper about mother-daughter relationships, with Lana Turner playing a workaholic actress who devotes little time to her daughter (Sandra Dee). The real heart-tugger, though, is the subplot about the actress’ kindly black maid (Juanita Moore), whose cold-hearted daughter (Susan Kohner) tries to pass for white.

One of the best tales of a pushy stage mother is the musical “Gypsy,” available in a 1962 version, starring Rosiland Russell, or the 1993 version, starring Bette Midler. Mama Rose--a frustrated performer--drives her daughter to become a stripper. After watching Mama Rose in action, those who have nice mothers who don’t nag will appreciate them even more.

If you have a taste for black comedy, here are two perfect Mother’s Day movies about over-the-top mother love:

* “Serial Mom” (1994). Kathleen Turner plays a mother so devoted to her family that she kills anybody who causes them any problems. In director John Waters’ movie, she’s not a homicidal maniac, but a concerned mom looking out for her loved ones.

* “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom” (1993). An overzealous mother (Holly Hunter) tries to help her daughter’s cheerleading career by eliminating her chief competitor. The plan--incredibly--is to make this rival an emotional wreck by killing her mother. Featuring an outstanding performance by Hunter, it’s a scathing satire on Texas suburbia and media excesses--but it’s also a homage to mother love.

*

Music Videos: In the 1970s, the Swedish group ABBA was making infectious, melodic pop that fans loved and most critics hated. Looking back on that music, in the video “Thank You ABBA,” it really was woefully lightweight, but still very catchy. Today, those harmonies are as appealing as ever. If you liked ABBA and feel nostalgia for the ‘70s, this is a fun trip down memory lane. From PolyGram at $20.

“The Complex Sessions” is an absorbing half-hour jam session, recorded last year in L.A’s Complex recording studio, with Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing four songs from their “Sleeps With Angels” album. Filmed in a spare, minimalist style, it looks as good as it sounds because it was directed by Jonathan Demme, who also did “Silence of the Lambs.” From Warner Reprise at $17.

Among dinosaur rockers, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the heart of Led Zeppelin in its ‘70s heyday, are a couple notches above the competition--still playing great music. An MTV special about the Page-Plant reunion, “Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: No Quarter Unledded,” is just out on video. This 93-minute tape is a longer version of a special that aired on MTV. For home video, five songs were added. From WarnerVision at $30.

*

What’s New On Video: “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (Columbia TriStar). The reason to watch a Frankenstein movie is to be scared out of your wits. But this lavish production won’t do that. As the monster, Robert De Niro isn’t that frightening. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as Victor Frankenstein.