By Steven Suskin
23 Apr 2006

Warner Home Entertainment lavishes full-disc treatment on each of its features, with supplemental documentaries, shorts, cartoons and more. Universal demonstrates a very different philosophy with its "Glamour Collections." Movies, just movies. Five or six of them, on two, two-sided DVDs; no bonuses, no extras, no nothing other than an occasional trailer. (Universal does encase the packaging in a handsome, see-through plastic slipcase.) If what you are looking for is the movies in question – most of which have never been released on DVD – this works out just fine. The major advantage to this treatment is that a six-DVD set might retail at $59.92. Carole Lombard: The Glamour Collection features six films, complete, on two discs, at $26.98. You do the math.

Glamour is a personal judgment. The three actresses presently accorded treatment by Universal are Lombard, Mae West and Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich, I suppose, epitomized a certain type of glamour. For others, Ms. West was the height of – well, something. For me, I’ll take Lombard any time. Lombard is less known today, by virtue of the fact that her career was cut short when she was killed in an airplane crash – en route from a War Bond rally -- in 1942 at the age of 33. Lombard was a firecracker comedienne, in glamorous blonde packaging; I suppose you could class her with Katharine Hepburn, Jean Arthur and Rosalind Russell, with looks closer to Harlow. Two of Lombard’s leading men fell for and married her, William Powell (in 1931) and Clark Gable (in 1939). A few minutes of "Hands Across the Table," say, and you can easily see why.

The Lombard set includes "Man of the World" (starring Powell); "We’re Not Dressing" (with Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman [circa Anything Goes], and others); "Hands Across the Table" (with Fred MacMurray); "Love before Breakfast"; "The Princess Comes Across" (with MacMurray); and "True Confession" (with MacMurray and John Barrymore). There is not an all-time great film among them; Lombard’s best films, "Nothing Sacred," "Twentieth Century" and "My Man Godfrey," are available elsewhere. But "Carole Lombard: The Glamour Collection" is pure joy.

Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection, as with Dietrich’s early-to-middle career, starts out strong and devolves into middling “star vehicles.” Not coincidentally, the early films were directed by Josef von Sternberg. The five movies included are "Morocco" (with Gary Cooper); "Blonde Venus" (with Cary Grant); "The Devil Is a Woman"; "The Flame of New Orleans"; and "Golden Earrings."

And then there’s that dirty blonde in Mae West: The Glamour Collection. ("Smart, seductive and undeniably funny,” goes the packaging blurb). The films are "Night after Night"; "I’m No Angel" (with Cary Grant); "Goin’ to Town"; "Go West Young Man"; and – in a departure – the minor classic "My Little Chickadee," boosted by the presence of W.C. Fields.

-- Steven Suskin, author of the recently released “Second Act Trouble” [Applause Books], “A Must See! Brilliant Broadway Artwork,” “Show Tunes,” and the “Opening Night on Broadway” books. He can be reached by E-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com.