Bravura Bava collection will set teeth chattering

One of Scare Cinema’s towering auteurs receives his due in the five-disc Mario Bava Collection Volume 1 ($49.95), new from Anchor Bay Entertainment. It’s our …

DVD pick of the week

Three of the late Italian fright maestro’s greatest chillers highlight the set. Up first is the longtime cinematographer’s directorial debut, 1960’s Black Sunday (aka The Mask of Satan), a supremely atmospheric black-and-white gothic excursion. Sepulchral seductress Barbara Steele stars as a murdered witch who returns centuries later to exact revenge. The eerie opening execution sequence is worth the price of admission all by its lonesome.

Boris Karloff hosts Mr. Bava’s equally effective 1964 tripartite horror anthology Black Sabbath (aka The Three Faces of Fear) and headlines in the offbeat vampire episode The Wurdalak. Jacqueline Perrieux portrays a nurse pursued by a vengeful spirit in the suspenseful The Drop of Water, while the cat-and-mouse thriller The Telephone adds a deft Hitchcockian note.

Another excellent atmospheric exercise, 1966’s Kill, Baby … Kill! (aka Operation Fear) dramatizes the lethal spell a little girl ghost (with an ominous bouncing ball) casts over the citizenry of a small Transylvanian town circa 1907. A “Seventh Seal”-like hilltop tableau and a murky descent into a cobwebbed crypt supply creepy visual highlights.

Two non-horror titles complete the collection — John Saxon and Leticia Roman in the mystery The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Cameron Mitchell in the Viking adventure Knives of the Avenger (1966).

Extras include detailed audio commentaries by Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas, bonus cast interviews, trailers and more. All things considered, those who’ve seen Mr. Bava’s films only in choppily edited, poorly dubbed video incarnations are in for a reel treat.

Collectors’ corner

Warner Home Video opts for a sunnier set of vintage films with The Doris Day Collection Vol. 2 (six-disc, $59.98). The set assembles a half-dozen of the perky singer’s 1940s and early ‘50s showcases: two with Gordon MacRae, On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), another pair with Jack Carson, Romance on the High Seas (1948) and My Dream Is Yours (1951), plus I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951) and Lucky Me (1954).

For baseball buffs, Paramount Home Entertainment fields the diamond romp Major League: Wild Thing Edition ($14.99), with filmmakers’ commentary and featurettes, while MGM reissues Pride of the Yankees, starring Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, in a fresh 65th Anniversary Edition ($14.98).

Paramount presents a radically re-edited director’s cut of Brian Helgeland’s 1999 Mel Gibson crime thriller Payback ($19.99), while 20th Century Fox resurrects the 1977 comedy Mr. Billion ($14.98), featuring Jackie Gleason and Terence Hill.

Tele-video

Crime shows dominate the new TV on DVD slate, with Paramount debuting a duo of long-running hits: Robert Stack as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables: Season 1 Volume 1, which incorporates the feature-length pilot “The Scarface Mob,” and The Streets of San Francisco: Season 1 Volume 1, complete with bonus interviews with leads Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. The four-disc sets are tagged at $42.99 each.

Acorn Media mines the British police beat with the double-disc Murder in Suburbia Series 2 ($39.99), starring Caroline Catz and Lisa Faulkner, and The Investigator, with Helen Baxendale, while Ray Winstone portrays the eponymous killer in a non-musical version of Sweeney Todd ($24.99 each).

Warner Home Video goes the animated route with a trio of new collections, the superhero series Batman: The Complete Third Season and Teen Titans: The Complete Third Season (two-disc, $19.98 each), along with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?: The Complete Third Season (two-disc, $34.98).

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