While Martin Scorsese may be uncomfortable with being called America's greatest living film director, he clearly enjoys-and takes full advantage of- his status as America's best-known film scholar/preservationist. A new collection from Republic Pictures Home Video, Martin Scorsese Presents, provides viewers with an opportunity to see great-looking restorations of neglected classics. More important for Scorsese and his colleagues, it constitutes a viable commercial forum for the preserved films, which might otherwise languish in the vaults of universities and museums.
Which isn't to say that the four movies in this series-Raoul Walsh's 1947 Pursued, George Cukor's 1948 A Double Life, Abraham Polonsky's 1949 Force of Evil, and Nicholas Ray's 1954 Johnny Guitar (all unrated, $14.98 each)-are esoteric or inaccessible. In fact, each one is terrifically entertaining. Given Scorsese's artistic predilections, it's not surprising that each is dark, tension-filled, and approaches its subject matter from an unusual angle. Pursued, starring Robert Mitchum, is a nail-biting hybrid of Western and film noir about revenge and family secrets. A Double Life, written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, is a distinct departure from their comedy work, a shadowy backstage tale of a Broadway actor (Ronald Colman) whose obsession with Othello leads to murder. Force of Evil is a highly stylized tale of a crooked lawyer about to bring his own brother to ruin. And Johnny Guitar is an anguished Western whose climactic shoot-out involves two women (Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge).
The new look of all these films is virtually revelatory, and Scorsese's three-minute introductions are cogent and informed. If his delivery is more subdued than we're used to from his commentaries on Criterion laserdiscs, well, perhaps he's mellowed. Or maybe he's bringing things down a notch for a wider audience-an audience this series richly deserves. All movies: A
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