To refer to Robert Mitchum as underrated might be odd, but while movie fans are well-versed in the filmographies of Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas and other male stars of the 1940s and '50s, Mitchum usually gets mentioned only for his ultra-villainous turns as the vengeful ex-con in "Cape Fear" and the religion-obsessed killer in the brilliant "Night of the Hunter."

The latest of Warner's "Signature Collection" series, bringing together six Mitchum films (Warner), could help rectify that. While none of these count in Mitchum's best half-dozen, they do prove a scope and versatility that the sleepy-eyed star is often denied, and show just what he was capable of with a vast range of A-list directors.

"Angel Face" from 1952 is a lesser work from Otto Preminger. While this story of an ambulance driver manipulated into misfortune by a scheming Jean Simmons usually is slotted in the film noir category, more accurately it's a melodrama that gives Mitchum an opportunity to show how convincingly he played the underdog. "Macao," made the same year and directed by Josef von Sternberg, also is called film noir, but actually it's an oldfashioned adventure yarn set in the seedy side of Macao's port. It shows Mitchum at his manliest — which he needs to be when paired with Jane Russell as a sultry saloon singer.

Vincente Minnelli was at the helm of 1960's "Home From the Hill," with Mitchum as the patriarch in a southern family that's rife with dissension and secrets; it almost could be a serious template for "Dallas." The best-known title in the set is probably "The Sundowners," another family drama released to much more acclaim in 1960. Fred Zinnemann directed Mitchum as an Australian sheepherder.

Mitchum attempts to show his humorous side playing an aging lawman on the trail of over-the-hill outlaw George Kennedy in the 1969 Western "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys," but the part calls out for Dean Martin's sort of light-lifting.

But there's nothing light in the final film in the set, 1974's "The Yakuza," a dark, tense drama that sends a weary Mitchum to Japan in search of the kidnapped daughter of friend Brian Keith, and sees him at the mercy of a brutal crime organization. Directed by Sydney Pollack from a script credited to Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver") and Robert Towne ("Chinatown"), it will have many people wondering how they missed it.

ALSO NEW

Two of the most entertaining films by one of the world's greatest directors, Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" from 1961, and the 1962 sequel, "Sanjuro," have been paired on DVD (Criterion Collection).

"Yojimbo" has a mysterious, master-less samurai played by Toshiro Mifune hired by feuding clans to protect one from the other. It was the inspiration for the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western "A Fistful of Dollars " and, less famously, for the Bruce Willis shoot-em-up "Last Man Standing." In the accompanying essay we're reminded that Kurosawa was inspired by Dashiell Hammett's detective classic, "Red Harvest."

"Sanjuro," more lighthearted than "Yojimbo," sees Mifune hired on as an adviser to nine young and somewhat naive samurai looking to restore honor to their corrupt clan. Even the subtitle-averse will have little problem warming to these movies.

If originality wasn't an issue, last fall's "The Guardian" (Buena Vista) would be more than a passing pleasure. Still, this tale of an aging Coast Guard rescue specialist (Kevin Costner), who becomes reluctant mentor to a Top Fin swimming-savant with a chip on his shoulder (Ashton Kutcher), is worth watching. Costner and Kutcher have the macho chemistry that films like this live and die by.