Hello Again, ‘Angels’

McG, the energetic young director of “Charlie’s Angels,” admits in an interview on the bouncy new DVD (Columbia, $28) that the movie isn’t supposed to be great cinema, only kicky, escapist fun.

And it is. This big-budget spoof of the ‘70s TV series stars Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as the beautiful, brainy and buff detectives working for an unseen man named Charlie. The wild and crazy Bill Murray is also on hand as Charlie’s right-hand man, Bosley.

The DVD includes a wide-screen transfer of the film, the trailer, two music videos, talent files and a repeat of the outtakes and bloopers that are seen at the end of the film. There are also three deleted scenes hosted by McG, who made his feature directorial debut with “Angels.”

Added pluses are the fluffy featurettes. In fact, there’s one on just the enthusiasm of McG, who comes across as a cheerleader on the set. Another short looks at how the Angels learned how to do all of those karate moves: They trained for three months, eight hours a day. Production designer J. Michael Riva (Marlene Dietrich’s grandson) discusses the eclectic, colorful production design of the film. He says the red men’s room in one scene is a homage to the men’s room in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

McG and director of cinematography Russell Carpenter provide the carefree audio commentary. The two discuss how the opening scene aboard a plane looks like one long tracking shot (it’s McG’s tribute to Martin Scorsese) but was actually three separate shots. McG points out that the 1969 Camaro Barrymore drives was the 1969 pace car at the Indy 500. And a vintage Mustang used in one scene was the backup car for Steven McQueen in 1968’s “Bullitt.”

The director acknowledges the heated discussions that took place between him, Murray and Liu, especially surrounding the first scene between the Angels and Bosley. McG says it reminded him of fights his family would have during Sunday dinner. McG is ever the diplomat, saying that the arguments over the tone of the scene were addressed and shooting continued.

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Fans of film history will want to check out the new three-disc set of “The Origins of Film” (Image, $80). All the silent films in the discs are from the Library of Congress’ film collection and are among the first examples of such genres as gangster films, animation and fantasy films. The collection also spotlights early African American films and movies from pioneering female directors.

Oscar Micheaux’s “Within Our Gates,” from 1919, is the earliest surviving feature directed by an African American. The first disc also includes the ‘20s black drama “The Scar of Shame” and a 1923 experimental musical short starring Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake.

“The Origins of American Animation” includes 21 complete films, showcasing the best of the Library of Congress’ cartoons, going back as far as 1900. Two early fantasy films--”The Patchwork Girl of Oz,” produced by L. Frank Baum himself, and “A Florida Enchantment”--round out the second disc.

The third disc is devoted to four complete films of the most successful female directors of the silent era, Lois Weber and Alice Guy-Blache, as well as two seminal gangster pics: 1912’s “The Narrow Road,” directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Mary Pickford, and 1915’s “Alias Jimmy Valentine.”

There are no extras on the DVDS.

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William Shatner gives a terrifying performance in 1961’s “The Intruder” (New Concorde, $15), which is making its DVD bow this week. Directed by Roger Corman, this frightening racial drama was a real change of pace for the man who made his name directing such shoestring-budget thrillers as “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Teenage Caveman.” This is the only one of Corman’s early films to have lost money.

Shatner plays a charming young man who arrives in a small Southern town where residents are upset over court-ordered desegregation of the high school. Shatner’s Adam Cramer quickly reveals himself to be an avowed racist bent on inciting the white citizens to rise up against the African American community.

The DVD includes the wide-screen edition of the film, the trailer, cast and crew biographies and an interview with Shatner and Corman.

Corman says no one would put up the money for this controversial film, so he and his brother Gene ended up taking second mortgages on their homes to finance it.

Shatner admits that at first he didn’t want to do a “low-budget” feature but said that as soon as he read the script, he jumped at the chance to play the loathsome Cramer. Doing the movie was an educational experience for Shatner: As a Canadian, he says, he didn’t really know what conditions were like for African Americans in the South.

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One of the greatest sitcoms in television history, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (BFS, $10), arrives on DVD. Six episodes of the Emmy Award-winning Carl Reiner-created series have been restored for this digital edition: “Never Name a Duck,” “Bank Book 6565696,” “Hustling the Hustler,” “The Night the Roof Fell In,” “A Man’s Teeth Are Not His Own” and “Give Me Your Walls!” Unfortunately, there aren’t any extra goodies on the disc.

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The toddlers from Nickelodeon’s high-rated cartoon series “The Rugrats” cross the Atlantic for their second feature film, “Rug-rats in Paris: The Movie.” The serviceable DVD (Paramount, $30) includes the animated comedy in its wide-screen format, the Baha Men’s music video of “Who Let the Dogs Out,” an OK documentary on the making of the film, two alternate endings featuring the evil Coco (voice of Susan Sarandon) and a sound-effects showcase on the “Chuckie Chan” dream sequence.