Good vs. evil struggle roils shipmates in 'Budd'

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One of filmdom's most powerful literary adaptations enjoys its digital debut with the arrival of Herman Melville's Billy Budd (1962), new this week from Warner Home Video ($19.97). It's our ...

DVD pick of the week

An Oscar-nominated Terence Stamp turns in brilliantly earnest work as the eponymous character, a guileless young merchant seaman impressed in 1797 to serve aboard the British frigate Avenger in perilous, French-patrolled waters.

The handsome youth's natural innocence soon makes him a target for the sadistic impulses of sociopathic master-at-arms John Claggart, played to spiritually diseased perfection by a sneering Robert Ryan.

Tension mounts as the tandem's battle of good vs. evil riles Billy's already restless crewmates and troubles the ship's outnumbered officers, led by deeply conflicted Capt. Vere (an excellent Peter Ustinov, who also produced, directed and co-scripted this nautical classic).

As the drama plays out, the Avenger becomes nothing less than a fragile, floating microcosm of the human condition.

Mr. Stamp, joined by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (who directed the actor in his 1999 crime caper "The Limey"), supplies a fascinating, intimate behind-the-scenes audio commentary, the disc's only significant extra but one well worth a listen.

"Billy Budd" is available individually and as part of Warner's five-disc Literary Classics Collection ($59.92), also assembling Captain Horatio Hornblower (1952), Madame Bovary (1949), The Three Musketeers (1948) and a double feature with both the 1937 and 1952 versions of The Prisoner of Zenda.

Collectors' corner

And on the topic of literary adaptations, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment introduces the five-disc Hemingway Classics ($69.98), gathering Adventures of a Young Man (1962), A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises (both 1957), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) and the hitherto elusive John Garfield vehicle Under My Skin (1950), based on Ernest Hemingway's "My Old Man."