'Casablanca' just gets better as time goes by

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

Can the classic "Casablanca" be improved on? The new DVD edition fills in plot gaps by recovering lost scenes. Among the other extras is Bugs Bunny reprising the immortal tale. Associated Press

If you would just as soon not know, you can skip the deleted and alternate scenes section of the new two-disc special edition of "Casablanca" (four stars, Warner, $26.95) — but I'm betting you won't.

Though true movie-lovers probably own one of the previous DVD versions of the 1942 drama that shows up on nearly anyone's list of the greatest movies ever made, few should resent shelling out again for this sterling upgrade. It boasts not only the best transfer yet, along with Dolby-improved mono sound, but an astounding array of extras.

Along with the outtakes — which had to be outfitted with subtitles, since the audio has disappeared — there are a number of breakdown takes (takes that were muffed or not used because of some other problem), two commentary tracks, an entertaining look-at-that companion piece by Roger Ebert and a historical analysis by scholar Rudy Behlmer.

The supplement disc includes the condensed Screen Guild Players radio production of "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid reprising their roles as Rick, the owner of the Cafe Americain; Ilsa, the old flame he never quite extinguished, and Victor Laszlo, the principled man she married.

Also on the supplement disc is a true oddity: the pilot for a 1955 TV series based on the film, which resets the story during the Cold War.

Then there are two documentaries, the excellent 1988 PBS special "Bacall on Bogart" and a 1992 doc made by Turner Entertainment to promote the brief theatrical rerelease, also narrated by Bacall. Also included are audio-only selections from vocalist Dooley Wilson and Max Steiner's score, a Bugs Bunny spoof called "Carrotblanca," assorted production notes and such, and an interview with Bogart's son Steven and Bergman's daughter Pia Lindstrom. And you are likely to watch all of it.

Criterion checks in this week with a restoration of "The Pornographers" (four stars, $29.95), a disturbing 1966 drama from Japan's Shohei Imamura about a barber who makes 8mm sex movies, rationalizing that he is being of assistance to a repressed society.

Dismissed by some as being little better than its subject when originally released, its reputation has grown with that of its director, and it's now a film-school staple.

Aside from a fine new black-and-white transfer, the disc is graced with more precisely translated subtitles.

MGM puts three '80s-era teen comedies, all priced at $19.98, back in circulation, but they could hardly be more different.

"The Sure Thing" (three stars), from 1985, was the second film from director Rob Reiner (who weighs in with a self-deprecating commentary) and the first to serve notice that John Cusack was something more than an attractive, funny kid.

Something of a teen version of "It Happened One Night," it sticks couldn't-be-more-different college students Cusack and Daphne Zuniga in the backseat of a car headed to California and driven by Tim Robbins: She's headed home for the holidays, he's looking to hook up with a fix-up his best friend (Anthony Edwards) has promised is a "sure thing." You can guess what happens, but you wouldn't guess it happens with so much style and wit.

Similarly, 1983's "Valley Girl" (three stars) — in which the totally tubular title character played by whatever-happened-to Deborah Foreman freaks out her friends fer sure by falling for the punky Nicolas Cage — turns out to be far smarter than it promises. It's a hip, smartly directed "Romeo and Juliet" variation that transcends its genre and its premise in every way.

By way of compensation, 1982's "The Last American Virgin" (two stars), in which a pizza delivery boy is determined to lose his innocence to the new girl in town, is exactly what it sounds like: An "American Pie" precursor full of shameless gags, stereotyped females (and males, for that matter) and abundant nudity.

And just in case you don't get your fill at the theater this weekend, Universal is capitalizing on the release of "American Wedding" with "American Pie/Beneath the Crust Vol. 1" (three stars) and "American Pie II/Beneath the Crust Vol. 2" (two stars ). The new two-disc sets, each priced at $26.98, append an entire DVD's worth of outtakes, production footage and new interviews with the cast and crew — all, of course, in unrated form. More cursing! More nudity! More bodily fluids! Somebody get the Pepto.