Visited by Oscar in younger days

Academy Award Collection

(Warner Home Video,

$20 each)

THIS collection includes seven vintage films, all of which won Oscars for either best picture or for performance.

Cimarron

This 1931 adaptation of Edna Ferber’s sweeping novel about the settling of Oklahoma hasn’t stood the test of time. It’s clunky and wheezy, and the racist depiction of a young African American servant would make even D.W. Griffith blush. That said, “Cimarron” has a crackerjack opening sequence -- a heart-pounding re-creation of the 1889 Oklahoma land rush. The film features Irene Dunne, who had caused a sensation on Broadway in “Show Boat,” in her second film as Sabra, the long-suffering wife of the blustering, rugged pioneer Yancy Cravat (Richard Dix).

Besides best film, “Cimarron” won Oscars for writing and art direction and at the time was the only movie to win the top Academy Award and lose money at the box office.

Extras: A Colortone (an early color process) musical short, “The Devil’s Cabaret,” that’s pretty dreadful, and the cartoon “Red-Headed Baby.”

The Champ

Though this 1931 boxing drama is as sentimental as they come, it still works, thanks to the Oscar-winning turn of Wallace Beery as a washed-up, alcoholic boxer who attempts a comeback so he can provide for his adorable young son (Jackie Cooper, who can really turn on the tears).

Directed by King Vidor, the film also won a best screenplay Oscar for Frances Marion. Beery actually tied for best actor with Fredric March of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Extras: A bad Colortone musical short, “Crazy House,” and the Lux Radio Theatre version of “The Champ.”

Captains Courageous

Spencer Tracy won the first of his back-to-back best actor Oscars for his larger-than-life performance as the effervescent Portuguese fisherman Manuel in this lavish 1937 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s seafaring tale.

Child star Freddie Bartholomew, who actually gets top billing over Tracy, plays a spoiled boy who is befriended by Manuel. The tear-jerker also stars Melvyn Douglas, Mickey Rooney and Lionel Barrymore. The following year, Tracy won the Oscar for playing yet another understanding father figure in “Boys Town.”

Extras: The live-action short “The Little Maestro” and the cartoon “Little Buck Cheeser.”

The Good Earth

This 1937 adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel was the last film to be produced by Irving Thalberg -- in fact, he died during production -- and is dedicated to him.

Luise Rainer won her second consecutive best actress Academy Award for her luminous performance as O-Lan, a former slave in the kitchen of a rich rural Chinese family who becomes the wife -- in an arranged marriage -- of peasant farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni).

Despite its good intentions, “Good Earth” is difficult to watch because so many Caucasians are playing Asians.

Especially difficult to take is Charley Grapewin, who plays Wang Lung’s father. Grapewin is best known as Uncle Henry in “The Wizard of Oz,” and he sounds like he belongs more in Kansas than in mainland China. The film, which features a legendary locust plague sequence, also won a statuette for cinematography.

Extras: A musical short, “Hollywood Party,” with Elissa Landi, Charley Chase and Anna May Wong, and a newsreel on the Oscars, “Supreme Court of Film Picks the Champions.”

Kitty Foyle

After singing and dancing in films with Fred Astaire in the 1930s, Ginger Rogers made a 180-degree turn in this 1940 melodrama and won the best actress Oscar over Bette Davis in “The Letter” and Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story.”

This four-hankie adaptation of the bestselling novel by Christopher Morley has Rogers playing a working-class woman torn between the son (Dennis Morgan) of a rich Philadelphia family and an earnest but poor doctor (James Craig).

Extras: Two vintage cartoons, “Kitty Foiled” and “Bad Luck Blackie,” and two radio adaptations of “Kitty Foyle” with Rogers.

Johnny Belinda

In the early 1940s, Jane Wyman, then married to Ronald Reagan, was considered by Hollywood as a perky ingenue. But she proved herself a fine dramatic actress in 1945’s “The Lost Weekend,” and received her first Oscar nomination for best actress in 1946’s “The Yearling.”

She won the Academy Award for her haunting -- and wordless -- performance in this well-crafted 1948 drama. She plays a deaf-mute living on a farm in Nova Scotia. Her disability has been confused with mental illness, and when a young, handsome doctor (Lew Ayres) arrives in town, he tries to help her come out of her shell by teaching her sign language. But tragedy ensues after a town bully rapes her.

Extras: A truly bizarre short, “The Little Archer.”

Lust for Life

Vincente Minnelli directed this 1956 biographical drama about the tormented life of painter Vincent van Gogh (a memorable, no-holds-barred Kirk Douglas). Beautifully photographed by Freddie Young and Russell Harlan to reflect the hues of Van Gogh’s work, the film also features Anthony Quinn’s best supporting Oscar turn as artist Paul Gauguin.

Based on the historical novel by Irving Stone.

Extras: Scholarly commentary from Drew Casper, film professor at USC School of Cinema and Television, who puts the film into the historical context of post-World War II America.

-- Susan King