POP THE POPCORN: THIS WEEK'S MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS!

It's the Golden Age of the Silver Screen this week with 3 DVD recommendations heavily based in the 40's. These are the films I'll be watching this week.

First: STATE OF THE UNION directed by Frank Capra and starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. This is an often overshadowed Capra film as well as a rarely mention Tracy/Hepburn film but it's very good. It concerns efforts by less than scrupulous politicos Angela Lansbury and Adolphe Menjou to make Spencer Tracy's "Man of the People" the next president. Unfortunately for them, Tracy is an honest man and no politician so he isn't that interested but reluctantly goes along. Soon he finds himself sinking in a political mire which threatens to destroy his marriage, his family and his very soul. A lot of the themes of political morals (and lack thereof) have a particular relevance at the moment and that's probably why this movie has finally been released on DVD now.

2nd: THE BLACK SWAN starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara is one of my favourite classic pirate movies. This DVD has been out about a month but I only now managed to track down a copy (it was always sold out when I went to the damn store). Anyway, this movie is a lot of fun with tons of swashbuckling adventure, a sinister Laird Cregar and George Sanders adding to the fun.

3rd: THE HUMPHREY BOGART SIGNATURE COLLECTION VOLUME II has just been released featuring the new 3 disc special edition of The Maltese Falcon (which is one of my all-time favourite films already!). However, the classic Bogart version was the THIRD time the Maltese Falcon had been filmed and this special edition includes the previous two: The Maltese Falcon (1931) and Satan Met A Lady (1936) which starred Bette Davis! Not only will this be a treat (I've never seen the previous 2 versions of the Maltese Falcon before) but the collection also includes another of my favourite Bogie films which has never been available on DVD until now: All Through the Night (1942) starring Bogart, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson.

This is a tremendously fun wartime drama/comedy which also features small roles with INCREDIBLY young looking Jackie Gleason and Phil Silvers! It's all about Nazi spy rings and also includes a scene which was probably "unconsciously plagiarized" years later by Alfred Hitchcock in "North By Northwest" involving Humphrey Bogart trapped by the Nazis in an auction with no way to escape but to cause a rude disturbance. The other Bogart films in this set include Across the Pacific, Action in the North Atlantic and Passage to Marseilles.