Any excuse would be acceptable to justify a DVD upgrade of Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men" (Warner), but the two-disc special edition was most likely pushed forward to reflect the self-outing (or family-outing) last year of Mark Felt, the high-ranking FBI official who had been one of various White House insiders suspected of being the clandestine source Deep Throat.

Though Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's dogged, shoe-leather reporting for The Washington Post might have resulted in unraveling the Watergate cover-up without Felt's "follow the money" nods in the right direction, he still can be credited for his role in changing history.

The film version of Woodward and Bernstein's real-life detective story was released in 1976, a scant two years after President Richard Nixon was forced to resign in the face of impeachment. In that era of pre-instant everything, Pakula maintained a sense of urgency and suspense — no small feat, because everyone who saw it knew how it would end. Casting Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, two of the biggest movie stars of the era, also was a risk: Could they be believable as previously unheralded beat reporters?

Not only did the actors pull it off, their very different working styles helped them in recreating a similar relationship between button-down Bob and long-haired (for a newsroom, anyway) Carl. The film was impeccably cast, with Jason Robards as Post editor Ben Bradlee, whose job and reputation was on the line as the paper came under attack from the White House. Hal Holbrook was the mysterious Mr. Throat — whose portrayal of someone he couldn't know is now revealed to be pretty accurate.

The film's dissection of investigative reporting sent more than a few impressed students into journalism school and the newspaper business. Many of them may spend at least part of their time revisiting the film muttering about the good old days.

Visually, the beautifully shot (by Gordon Willis), film-noir-styled "All the President's Men" is much improved upon from its original release in 1997; it's considerably crisper, and Willis' love for dark composition is far-better served.

The mono soundtrack has also been remixed to advantage, but the real draw will be the extras, especially the scene-specific commentary by Redford, who answers just about every question one might have about the film's production. Nevertheless, extras include an interesting, if, at 30 minutes, too-brief making-of documentary, "Telling the Truth About Lies." The 18-minute piece looks at the impact "Woodstein" and the story had on journalism, and the raison d'etre, "Out of the Shadows: The Man Who Was Deep Throat," addresses Felt's motivations and how his identity was protected by the reporters and Bradlee for more than 30 years.

'COWBOY' CLASSIC

Also making the case that the 1970s was the last great decade of filmmaking (even though it was released in the summer of 1969), is "Midnight Cowboy," re-released as a two-disc "Special Edition" (MGM), just in time to remind us that this year's best picture front-runner "Brokeback Mountain" is not the first film about "alternative lifestyles" to capture the academy members' imaginations.

The drama stars a young Jon Voight as Joe Buck, a Texas dishwasher who goes to Manhattan, having heard that rich ladies will pay a lot of money to be serviced by a stud like him. He winds up selling his product in men's restrooms and bunking with low-life motor-mouth Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who became one of the most indelible characters in movie history. If Ratso were alive today, he would undoubtedly be a regular guest on Howard Stern's show.

Though "Midnight Cowboy" failed to make it explicit — perhaps because director John Schlesinger figured it was unnecessary — the relationship between Joe and Ratso was clearly homo-erotic; it's one of the reasons it was originally given an X-rating. (It was re-rated R when it was re-released two years later.)

The controversy surrounding an X-rated candidate for best picture is addressed in a featurette called "Controversy and Acclaim," but the best of the newly added material is "After Midnight," a 30-minute look back at the making of the movie and its impact. This, I am told, is newly produced and not just a retitled "Midnight Cowboy Revisited," which accompanied the film when it was shown unedited on cable's Turner Classic Movies.

There is also a brief tribute to Schlesinger, who died in 2003. Again, a remastering has improved the visual quality — most notably in the black-and-white flashbacks — and the original mono soundtrack (which has been included) has been deftly remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.

BRITISH SPY FAVORITE

When "Midnight Cowboy" was released, homosexuality was still being referred to as "kinky." The word can still, however, be used in reference to the 1960s British spy satire "The Avengers." It starred Patrick Macnee as bowler-hatted secret agent John Steed, and beginning in 1965, when the series was first shown in the United States, Diana Rigg as his partner Emma Peel, whose sartorial preference was tight black leather. (Steed's original partner, played by Honor Blackman, had gone off to play Pussy Galore in the James Bond movie "Goldfinger.")

It is fair to say that much of the series' appeal was found in the thoroughly liberated-in-every-way Peel, something now acknowledged in "The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset Collection" (A&E), which contains every episode of the show in which Peel faced the state's enemies with her wits, weapons and sexual innuendo.

The 16 discs collect the 51 (now remastered) episodes from the two seasons in which Peel co-starred (the first was in black and white; the second in color) along with a chapter of the 1977 revival "The New Avengers" in which Rigg had a cameo. Also included are the three pre-Peel so-called "lost episodes" that were not included on previous collections of the series, broadcast in Britain in 1961-62.

Special attention should be paid to the memorable "Touch of Brimstone" episode, which is the source of the fetish photos of Peel in a spiked dog collar that, more than a decade later, became a staple of English punk couture.

THEATRICAL RELEASES

A two-disc, edition of "Rent" (Columbia-TriStar); the skuzzy bounty-hunter drama "Domino" (New Line); and the woefully overlooked, doleful drama "The Weather Man" (Paramount).