From out of the shadows

Fox Film Noir

Fox, $15 each

Just the facts: Fox has kicked off a DVD franchise highlighting classic film noir from the 1940s and ‘50s. The first three films released under the new banner: 1944’s “Laura,” 1948’s “Call Northside 777” and 1950’s “Panic in the Streets.”

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Laura

Even if you have never seen this delectable romantic thriller, you probably can hum David Raksin’s lush theme music, which is even more popular than the film itself.

The underrated Dana Andrews stars as a gruff, handsome police detective who locks horns and wits with an acerbic, cultured columnist (Clifton Webb, in his Oscar-nominated film debut) during his investigation into the murder of a beautiful young woman named Laura (a perfect Gene Tierney).

While searching for Laura’s killer, Andrews begins to fall in love with her via her painted portrait, which hangs prominently in the living room of her apartment. Rounding out the sparkling supporting cast is Vincent Price, playing a Southern-born gigolo intent on marrying Laura, and Judith Anderson as her conniving aunt.

Rouben Mamoulian was the original director on the film, but producer Otto Preminger soon took over the reins, excising Mamoulian’s footage and hiring a new cameraman.

Extras: A montage scene, here with commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer, that had been deleted because the studio felt its frivolous mood was in poor taste during wartime; the trailer; A&E; “Biography” profiles of Tierney and Price; and informative commentary from historian Jeanine Basinger and the late Raksin.

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Call Northside 777

Jimmy Stewart was almost 40 when he made this semi-documentary-style thriller. Stewart had had his agents pursue this project because his first post-World War II films, 1946’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” and 1947’s “Magic Town,” were commercial disappointments, and Stewart knew he was too old to play the boy-next-door parts that had made him famous before the war.

“Call Northside 777” was a great career move for Stewart. His low-key, world-weary turn as a cynical Chicago reporter who becomes convinced that a death row inmate (Richard Conte) is innocent foreshadowed the complex, dark and troubled characters he would essay in the 1950s in a series of Anthony Mann westerns and three Alfred Hitchcock films: “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “Vertigo.”

Tautly directed by Henry Hathaway, “Call Northside 777” was shot on actual Chicago locations -- Fox made several of these quasi-documentary films in the late 1940s -- thus offering a glimpse of the Windy City of six decades ago. Lee J. Cobb also stars.

Extras: A Fox Movietone newsreel of the film’s premiere and enjoyable commentary from authors and film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. But there is one big error in the commentary: It mistakenly states that Stewart starred in Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man.” Henry Fonda played the title role in that 1956 drama.

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Panic in the Streets

Elia Kazan directed this riveting action thriller, which makes great use of its New Orleans location. Richard Widmark, in a rare good-guy role, plays a public health officer who teams with a crusty police detective (the wonderfully rumpled Paul Douglas) to try to catch several felons who are carrying the plague before the media get wind of the story and cause a “panic in the streets.” Jack Palance, Barbara Bel Geddes and Zero Mostel also star.

“Panic,” a watershed in the formation of Kazan’s visual and narrative style, is a precursor to several of his classic films from the decade, including 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” 1954’s “On the Waterfront,” 1956’s “Baby Doll” and 1957’s “A Face in the Crowd.”

Though Kazan ran afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee, he eventually named names and continued to work. Bel Geddes and Mostel were blacklisted by HUAC and spent several years off the screen.

Extras: Ursini and Silver’s entertaining, fact-filled commentary. Unfortunately, they state again and again that the film came out in 1951; “Panic” actually hit the streets in June 1950.