Not new to DVD, but of renewed interest because of last week’s Tony Awards, Small Town Girl was one of the first films released by Warner Archive when it began releasing hard to find films five years ago.

Hugh Jackman opened the Tonys by hopping for four minutes along Manhattan’s 53rd St., into Radio City Music Hall, through the theatre, up on stage, backstage where performers were getting ready for their appearances, up an elevator and back on stage to the tune of “Take Me to Broadway” performed in the film by Bobby Van. Just as Van ended his hop by singing a few bars of the song he had sung earlier in the film, Jackman ended his hop by singing a few bars as well before introducing he cast of After Midnight . Jackman’s hop had been choreographed by that show’s choreographer, Warren Carlyle who later won a Tony of his own.

The film is loosely based on a 1936 film of the same name directed by William Wellman, starring Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor and featuring James Stewart, although it is not credited as such for some strange MGM reason. The 1953 film is directed by the obscure Leslie (Laszlo) Kardos who was married to the musical’s famed producer Joe Pasternak’s sister. Kardos’ sister was married to S.Z. Sakall who has a supporting role in the film.

Jane Powell stars in the title role as the daughter of a judge (Robert Keith) who falls hard for Farley Granger, a spoiled rich kid who her father sentences to 30 days for speeding and mouthing off in court. Bobby Van, in his film debut, plays Powell’s local boyfriend, an aspiring dancer who has a huge crush on Broadway star Ann Miller, Granger’s girl of the moment. Fay Wray is Powell’s mother; a befuddled as usual Billie Burke is Granger’s mother and Sakall is Van’s father. Nat King Cole is featured as himself in a nightclub scene in which he sings the Oscar nominated “My Flaming Heart”. Chill Wills is oddly unbilled in a substantial role as Granger’s jailer.

The film’s highlights are the dances of Miller and Van who hops all over the fictional town of Duck Creek, not Broadway itself. The two would be used to even better advantage in that year’s Kiss Me Kate.

Small Town Girl was one of six major musicals of its year which also included The Band Wagon; Calamity Jane; Call Me Madam; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the aforementioned Kiss Me Kate.

While all that was going on in Hollywood, Broadway saw the debut of Kismet which MGM later brought to the screen in 1955.

Kismet has never been regarded as one of MGM’s better musicals, but Warner Archive has nevertheless singled it out for Blu-ray release probably because its handsome production design looks especially good in the format. Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray and Vic Damone do well enough under Vincente Minnelli’s direction singing their hearts out to such tunes as “Stranger in Paradise”; “And This Is My Beloved” and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads”. It’s worth a shot if you love the music and aren’t bothered by the lack of dramatic tension the Arabian Nights tale cries out for.

Criterion has released a Blu-ray upgrade of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 classic, All That Heaven Allows, a film that has grown in reputation over the years, inspiring two major homages, Rainer Werner Fassbender’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul in 1974 and Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven in 2002.

Sirk, whose films include such other 1950s classics as Magnificent Obsession; Written on the Wind Imitation of Life, died in 1987 at the age of 89, not having made a film after 1959’s Imitation of Life but living long enough to see a critical re-evaluation of his work which had been taken pretty much for granted during his working years.

All That Heaven Allows features Sirk’s visual styling at its most subversive, but also its most deliciously obvious. The look on Jane Wyman’s face reflected in the TV set her spoiled children give her as a companion for Christmas to take her mind off Rock Hudson speaks volumes. Wyman’s portrayal of an upper-class widow in love with younger man gardener Hudson is one of her best and she is almost matched by Hudson as well as Agnes Moorehead as her friend and William Reynolds and Gloria Talbot as those troublesome children.

Extras include Reynolds’ reminiscences about his early career including his work on All That Heaven Allows and Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, a 1992 documentary on the actor’s films seen in the light of his death from AIDS. The Hudson documentary is not very good. The faded clips of films readily available in much better editions on home video are particularly appalling.

Of the newer films making their Blu-ray and standard DVD debuts, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Non-Stop have the highest profile.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a reboot of the Tom Clancy series which previously gave us Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October; Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears. This time around he’s played by Chris Pine as a young CIA recruit in 2003, now in his prime fighting the Russians who are still bent on world domination in 2014. The film requires more than a little suspension of disbelief as the CIA roams covertly through the streets of Moscow while a Russian bred terrorist cell operates in the U.S. hinterlands waiting for their shot at Manhattan.

It’s OK as a time-filler, nothing more. Pine does well enough, but Keira Knightley; Kevin Costner and Kenneth Branagh, who also directed, are wasted.

Non-Stop is an exciting thrill-a-minute mystery set aboard a commercial flight from New York to London in which people are being murdered every twenty minutes once the flight reaches the point of no return. Liam Neeson brings more to his role as an air marshal here than he has in some time and Julianne Moore; Michelle Dockery; Scoot McNairy; Nate Parker; Carey Stoll; Linus Roache; Shea Whigham; Lupita Nyong’o and others do nicely in support. The film moves along so briskly you don’t have time to notice all the holes in the screenplay which are laugh out loud silly if you think about it too carefully.

This week’s new releases include The Grand Budapest Hotel and Joe.