By Steven Suskin
25 Feb 2007

Also in time for Valentine's month comes another Manhattan-based romantic charmer. Crossing Delancey [Warner] takes place some 40 blocks lower, and 40 years later, than "The Clock"; it might as well come from a different world. Boy meets girl, once again; here, he sells pickles. Yes, pickles from brine-filled barrels on the corner of Delancey. Amy Irving and Peter Reigert star, and you'll find yourself rooting for them as much as you do for Garland and Walker. "Crossing Delancey" also features Sylvia Miles and (in a smaller role) Rosemary Harris; it was directed by Joan Micklin Silver (of Rags) and features music by Paul Chihara (of Shogun, The Musical). But don't let those credits stop you from enjoying Irving and Reigert on Delancey.

****

Fascinating is the word for Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist [Criterion]. This is a four-DVD collection including seven vintage Robeson films, ranging from 1925 to 1942; a 1979 documentary; a 1958 radio interview with the actor; and four new videos, with Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones among the participants. Most interesting among the contents, by theatrical standards anyway, is the 1933 film version of "The Emperor Jones." Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play helped establish the playwright's reputation; Robeson, similarly, created a stir when he appeared in a 1925 Broadway revival. The film is a greatly expanded version, including an overly extended and not very interesting non-O'Neill prequel. (The culprit seems to be no other than DuBose Heyward, author of the novel and play "Porgy," who soon after the "Emperor Jones" film joined with George Gershwin to write the opera Porgy and Bess.) Even so, the movie does give us an idea of Robeson's performance in the play. He is supported by Dudley Digges, an important actor and director for more than 30 years; he starred in The Adding Machine, On Borrowed Time, and with the Lunts in The Guardsman. Shortly before his death in 1947, Digges created the role of Harry Hope in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.

The other films in the Robeson set include the 1925 silent "Body and Soul" (unrelated to the John Garfield movie of the same title), Zoltan Korda's 1935 "Sanders of the River," and the outspokenly left-wing "Native Land" (1942). As we've come to expect, Criterion gives us films that are expertly restored and handsomely packaged. There is also a fascinatingly illustrated booklet of essays. These include an excerpt from Robeson's 1958 book, "Here I Stand," and a recent handwritten note from Pete Seeger apologizing that he can't write a full essay (due to his advanced age). However, the note itself is a fine historical and political statement, signed by Seeger with a drawing of a banjo.

Criterion calls "Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist" a "landmark box set," and that label is on the mark.

(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)