Still ‘Magnificent Seven’

While watching the rip-roaring new DVD of the 1960 western “The Magnificent Seven” (MGM, $20), check out Steve McQueen’s star-making performance as one of the hired gunslingers. Though he didn’t have many lines in the movie, he more than made up for it by stealing scenes with his actions--including using various facial expressions and playing with his hat.

And it worked. In a scene in which he’s on a hearse with star Yul Brynner, McQueen takes off his hat, looks at the inside of it and puts it back on. Brynner finally told the young McQueen to stop his one-upmanship. But truth be told, all the young actors in the film, including James Coburn and Robert Vaughn, were involved in trying to steal some of the spotlight from the Oscar-winning Brynner.

Based on Akira Kurosawa’s landmark Japanese film, “Seven Samurai,” this classic finds a group of vigilantes hired to defend a small Mexican village from a gang of thieves lead by Eli Wallach.

Directed by John Sturges, “Magnificent Seven” also features Elmer Bernstein’s memorable score.

The digital edition includes a documentary on the making of the film that features interviews with executive producer Walter Mirisch, Buchholz, Coburn, Wallach, Brad Dexter and Vaughn, plus clips and stills.

The disc also includes a photo gallery, two theatrical trailers and funny and informative audio commentary from Mirisch, Coburn and Wallach.

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Western buffs will also get a kick out of Image Entertainment’s two volumes of “The Gene Autry Show” ($15 each). Each DVD includes four episodes from the beloved singing cowboy’s 1950-55 TV series. Installments include “Gold Dust Charlie,” “The Doodle Bug,” “The Silver Arrow” and “The Double Switch.”

The episodes have been beautifully restored and include Autry’s commercials for Wrigley’s gum. Other goodies include photos, a biography of Autry, a fun look at his cowboy code and a track that allows one to jump to all of Autry’s songs featured in the episodes.

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The Criterion Collection just released three great French films on DVD, including the recently restored 1954 thriller, “Rififi” ($30). Blacklisted American director Jules Dassin made this suspenseful crime film, which features a silent 30-minute jewel heist sequence. Jean Servais and Dassin star.

The DVD includes a crisp digital transfer with restored picture and sound, drawings, stills, the trailer, production notes and a compelling new interview with Dassin.

Also new from Criterion are two wonderful comedies from the late great Jacques Tati: 1953’s “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday” and the Oscar-winning 1958 release, “Mon Oncle” ($30 each). Tati’s pipe-smoking clown Monsieur Hulot is one of the screen’s great comic characters. In “Hulot’s Holiday,” he gets involved in one catastrophe after another at a seaside resort. In “Mon Oncle,” Hulot causes havoc at his sister’s ultramodern house and an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. The sight gags and Tati’s innovative use of sound are remarkable. Both films feature new digital transfers with restored image and sound and loving introductions by Terry Jones of “Monty Python” fame.

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Named best film by the National Society of Film Critics, Edward Yang’s haunting “Yi Yi--A One and a Two” arrives this week on DVD (Fox Lorber, $25). The three-hour film examines the lives of a middle-class Taiwanese family--a middle-aged software executive, his troubled wife, their teenage daughter and their shy young son.

The digital edition includes a wide-screen version of the film and warm commentary from the soft-spoken Yang, who won best director last year at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Geoffrey Rush received Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award nominations for his gusty turn as the nefarious writer, the Marquis de Sade, in director Philip Kaufman’s controversial drama, “Quills.” Set in the French madhouse where Sade was sentenced to live, the drama deals with Sade’s battle with a conservative doctor (Michael Caine) who is determined to stop Sade’s sexually explicit writings. Kate Winslet plays the laundry maid who smuggles out his writings, and Joaquin Phoenix is the asylum’s resident priest, who lusts after Winslet.

The DVD features the wide-screen edition of the film, three better-than-average behind-the-scenes featurettes, talent files, a still-photo gallery and two trailers and TV spots.

Screenwriter Doug Wright, who penned the play on which the film is based, supplies the serviceable commentary. He admits he did a bit of embellishing on the facts. In real life, Winslet’s character had an affair with Sade, and the priest was not a handsome young man, but a hunchback approximately 4 feet tall. Wright also points out that he didn’t have the rights to the English translations of Sade’s work, so he wrote all the “excerpts” from Sade’s novels heard in the film.

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Danny Glover and Angela Bassett give powerhouse performances in “Boesman & Lena,” a harrowing drama based on Athol Fugard’s play set in the era of apartheid in South Africa. The actors play an angry, bitter couple driven out of their shanty home to wander and live in the flats of Cape Town. Adapted by Fugard, “Boesman & Lena” marks the last film made by blacklisted director John Berry, who died shortly before completion of post-production.

The DVD (Kino, $30) features both the wide-screen and pan-and-scan versions of the film, the trailer, production notes, a thoughtful interview with Glover and Bassett and a wonderful chat between Fugard and Berry, taped on the set of the film in 1999.