Glenn Ford (left) and Lee Marvinin Fritz Lang's 1953 thriller "The Big Heat."
Gary Thompson: Not-so-classic noir a better buy than take-it-or-leave-it 'Pelham'
'THE TAKING of Pelham 123" and "GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra" hit DVD this week - two titles that will not be on the expanded list of 10 Oscar best-picture nominees.
I'd rather see what Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann have to say about some classic film noir - part of the package you get with Columbia Pictures' "Noir Classics Volume I," a five-movie set with commentary from top directors and crime writers (James Ellroy, Eddie Muller).
The movies are Fritz Lang's "The Big Heat" (1953), Irving Lerner's "Murder by Contract"" (1958), Don Siegel's "The Line-up" (1958), Edward Dmytryk's "The Sniper" (1952) and "Five Against the House" (1955), directed by Phil Karlson and starring Kim Novak.
The five-disc collection is not a budget buster - it's priced at better than $50, and not all of the titles are first-rate noir ("Murder by Contract" is a weak entry), but the commentary is unusually good. Scorsese, in his other life, is a fine film historian, though more aficionado than critic.
