Journey’s End, adapted from R.C. Sherriff’s autobiographical novel and play, has been filmed for the big screen three times, in 1930 by James Whale, in 1976 (as Aces High) by Jack Gold, and in 2017 by Saul Dibb. The play has itself been performed numerous times on stage and TV since its original success in the late 1920s.

Although the current version purports to go back to the novel, rather than the play, it is nevertheless quite faithful to Whale’s acclaimed screen debut which had been memorably referenced in flashbacks in Bill Condon’s 1998’s Oscar winner Gods and Monsters.

The 1930 version not only made a major filmmaker of its director, but stars of its lead actors, Colin Clive and David Manners, both of whom are best remembered for their roles in classic horror films. Clive was Henry Frankenstein in Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein, while Manners was John Harker in Tod Browning’s 1931 version of Dracula. Manners, who was a year younger than Clive, had his last film released in 1936, Clive in 1937, the year of his death at 37. Manners lived another sixty-one years, dying in 1998 at 97.

In Whale’s Journey’s End, Clive is Stanhope, the British officer in charge of a company of infantrymen assigned to six weeks in the trenches at the front in early 1918 as the Great War is escalating. Manners is his newly assigned junior officer, Raleigh, who had asked to be assigned to Stanhope’s company as he was Stanhope’s three years younger friend growing up. His older sister is, in fact, engaged to Stanhope. Raleigh finds Stanhope much changed as the horrors of war have made him cynical, tough, and paranoid. In the new version, Stanhope is played by Sam Claflin and Raleigh is played by a still baby-faced Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Hugo), who is ten years his junior. Although both actors acquit themselves well, the disparity in their ages stretches the credulity of their having grown up together.

The third most interesting character in Journey’s End is the older Osborne, played by Ian Maclaren in the 1930 version and Paul Bettany in the new one. He is Stanhope’s best friend and Raleigh’s mentor who keeps the peace between them. Bettany’s performance in the new version is the best in the film.

Journey’s End was the first of four major anti-war films about World War I released in 1930. It was followed by Lewis Milestone’s Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, Howard Hawks’ The Dawn Patrol, and G.W. Pabst’s Westfront 1918, a 1931 release in the U.S. Ironically, all except Journey’s End are readily available on home video. The new version of Journey’s End has been released in the U.K. on both Blu-ray and standard DVD and will be released in the U.S. on July 3rd in standard DVD.

Aces High, the 1976 version of Journey’s End with Malcolm McDowell, Peter Firth, and Christopher Plummer in the principal roles is also available on Blu-ray in the U.K. and standard DVD in the U.S.

Simultaneously released in the U.K. is an elaborate five-disc Blu-ray package of Michael Anderson’s World War II 1955 film The Dam Busters which has a BAFTA-nominated screenplay by Journey’s End author R.C. Sherriff. The film itself is available in the U.S. in several DVD only versions.

The film, which was barely released in the U.S., was a huge hit in the U.K. It was Oscar nominated for its special effects, which are quite impressive.

Michael Redgrave as the eccentric inventor of the bomb capable of blowing up Germany’s dams and thus slowing down their war production, dominates the first half of the film. Richard Todd as the lead bomber dominates the second part. Both actors are good playing characters that are similar-to, yet different-from their better-known characters in The Browning Version and The Importance of Being Earnest (Redgrave) and The Hasty Heart and A Man Called Peter (Todd).

Anderson, for whom this was his breakthrough film, would quickly follow it with the first film version of 1984 and the Oscar-winning Around the World in 80 Days.

A rare rom-com these days that is worth your time, Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon is adapted from the young-adult novel Simon vs. the Home Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli who had a hand in the screenplay.

Nick Robinson (Jurassic World, TV’s Boardwalk EmpireThe Flash) as the first boy he thinks might be his pen pal.

As a coming-of-age, coming-out film, it compares favorably to Call Me by Your Name but is much lighter in tone.

Love, Simon is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The recent Oscar-nominated Best Foreign Language Film, Loveless from Russia, is a devastating, pessimistic film about modern society in which the selfishness of the parents results in a 12-year-old boy running away from home.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you might think it’s about the boy whose sorrowful, tear-strewn face is truly heartbreaking, but it’s not. It’s about the parents, who are divorcing, each having found another lover. Neither wants the kid who (SPOILER ALERT) is never found (END OF SPOILER).

Loveless is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The first and still the best Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper tale was James Hill’s 1965 film A Study in Terror starring John Neville as Holmes, Donald Houston as Watson, and John Fraser, Anthony Quayle, Barbara Windsor, Adrienne Corri, Judi Dench, Charles Regnier, Cecil Parker, Georgia Brown, Barry Jones. John Cairney, and Kay Walsh among the various suspects and victims. Add in Frank Finley as Inspector Lestrade and Robert Morley as Mycroft Holmes and you have the perfect cast in Mill Creek’s reasonably priced no frills Blu-ray release.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray releases of The Woman in the Window and I, Jane Doe.