If you want some more ‘Hairspray’

John Travolta returned to his musical roots with delightful results in the cotton candy confection “Hairspray” (New Line, $35), which bops onto DVD today in a two-disc “Shake & Shimmy Edition.”

Based on the 1988 John Waters film and the Tony Award-winning Broadway adaptation, “Hairspray” is set in 1962 Baltimore and features Travolta as sweet-as-a-kitten Edna Turnblad, a hefty housewife and mother of the equally weight-challenged teenager daughter Tracy (newcomer Nikki Blonsky). Tracy’s main ambition in life is to dance on the popular “American Bandstand”-style “The Corny Collins Show.”

Directed and choreographed with frenetic energy by Adam Shankman, the box office hit also stars Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Allison Janney, James Marsden, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah and Christopher Walken. Extras on the DVD include spritely, full-length documentaries on the inception and history of “Hairspray” and the film’s production, deleted scenes (including a lovely ballad sung by Blonsky), commentary from producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and enjoyable commentary with Shankman and Blonsky.

There’s still life in Bruce Willis, or at least in his 19-year-old “Die Hard” franchise. Twelve years after the third entry in the series, the disappointing “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” Willis, 52, returned to the big screen this summer as the quip-cracking Det. John McClane in “Live Free or Die Hard” (Fox, $35).

Reviews were generally good, and the box office topped the first three, making $134.5 million in the U.S. alone. The stunt-driven action thriller, directed by Len Wiseman, is the first “Die Hard” not given an R rating -- the language and violence were toned down to earn a more audience-friendly PG-13. But the film was shot with scenes that would’ve earned it an R, and this two-disc set features the rated and unrated versions. Also featured is a comprehensive feature-length documentary on the making of “Live Free or Die Hard,” a lively conversation between Willis and costar Kevin Smith about resurrecting McClane, and commentary with Wiseman and Willis, who talk about the evolution of the script and the ratings battle on the film.

Tim Allen dons the padding and Santa suit one more time in “The Santa Clause 3 -- The Escape Clause” (Disney, $30), a wan entry in the popular comedy franchise. This time around, Mrs. Clause (Elizabeth Mitchell) is expecting a new addition, and Santa is getting grief from the supremely jealous Jack Frost (Martin Short). There are several “making of” featurettes and a surprisingly good blooper reel, thanks to the comedic mis-timings of Short and Allen, and engaging commentary by director Michael Lembeck.

Christian Bale continues to prove himself as one of the most versatile actors around with his gritty performance in Werner Herzog’s riveting “Rescue Dawn” (MGM, $30), which tells the true story of German-born U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down over Laos in 1965 during a secret U.S. bombing mission and subjected to starvation and brutality at a Vietnamese POW camp. Bale and costars Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies all lost copious amounts of weight for their roles. Extras include two well-made featurettes and passionate commentary from the filmmaker.

Also new

“I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition” (Milestone, $45): A rediscovered masterpiece from 1964. Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, the film defies simple description. It’s a giddy, audacious and surreal explosion of motifs and stories set in Batista’s waning days as Cuba’s dictator. The three-disc set includes an interview with Martin Scorsese, a documentary on the filmmaker and another feature-length documentary, “The Siberian Mammoth,” on the making of “Cuba.”

“Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” (Paramount, $25): Francis Ford Coppola and his wife, documentarian Eleanor Coppola, supply frank and candid audio commentary -- they were recorded separately -- for this acclaimed 1991 documentary by George Hickenlooper and Fax Behr, which utilized the footage Eleanor Coppola shot as well as her secret audio recordings of her husband during the difficult 238-day production of “Apocalypse Now.” The DVD also includes Eleanor Coppola’s latest documentary, “CODA: Thirty Years Later,” which chronicles the far less stressful production of her husband’s latest film, “Youth Without Youth.”

“The Lady Vanishes” (Criterion, $40): Alfred Hitchcock’s delightfully witty 1938 thriller stars Margaret Lockwood as a young British woman who befriends an older woman (Dame Mae Whitty) on a train, only to have the woman seemingly disappear without a trace. The two-disc DVD set includes a lovely new restored, high-definition digital transfer; breezy commentary from film historian Bruce Eder; terrific excerpts from Francois Truffaut’s legendary 1962 interview with Hitchcock; a new video essay from Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff, and “Crook’s Tour,” a 1941 feature with Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprising their “Lady Vanishes” characters.

“Sawdust and Tinsel” (Criterion, $40): Though savaged by critics when it was released in Sweden in 1953, this evocative, stark Ingmar Bergman drama of love, lust and passion set in a seedy traveling circus has gained in reputation over the years. The Criterion version includes five minutes of footage not seen in previous U.S. editions. Ake Gromberg and Harriet Anderson (then Bergman’s mistress) star. Extras include a 2003 video introduction with the late filmmaker, who talks about how he thought “Sawdust” was the best film he had made to date and was puzzled at the critical response, and illuminating commentary from Bergman scholar Peter Cowie.

“Film Noir: Five Classics from the Studio Vaults, Vol. 2” ($50) features three American film noir classics: 1945’s “Scarlet Street,” 1946’s “Strange Impersonation” and 1953’s “The Hitch-Hiker,” directed by Ida Lupino. There are also two British thrillers: 1940’s “Contraband,” from the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and 1947’s “They Made Me a Fugitive,” directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.

“Love, American Style: Season 1, Vol. 1” (Paramount, $32): ABC premiered its romantic comedy anthology series in the fall of 1969. The show left the airwaves five years later. Each hour episode featured two or three vignettes starring familiar TV faces, up-and-comers and even those in the twilight of their careers.

“Monsieur Hire” (Kino, $30): Patrice Leconte (“My Best Friend”) directed this riveting 1989 French thriller based on the novel by Belgian crime novelist Georges Simenon, starring Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire.

susan.king@latimes.com