For the Boys

In an epilogue taped for this disc, director Mark Rydell (The Rose) congratulates viewers for having ''the good taste'' to appreciate the format's ''primo quality.'' Is he fishing for a rim shot? This ''special edition'' barely beats a rental cassette. It crimps For the Boys' original rectangular images, so that when James Caan and Bette Midler take bows as a bickering USO song-and-dance team, you miss a bit of their faces. And the vibrant colors of Bette's costumes bleed so much that you end up focusing on hues instead of on her.

The four cutting-room outtakes that Rydell introduces don't add much; the one minor treat, the stars' rendition of ''Baby, It's Cold Outside,'' suffers from rough-mix sound. Given Boys' limited appeal — it's spun from hoary show-biz cliches that grow more laughably absurd with repeat viewings — maybe the very idea of packaging it as a collectible is for the birds. C-