The five films I viewed on home video this past week represent a wide swath of Oscar history. They span ninety-three years from 1928-2020 with twenty-four years between the first and second, twenty between the second and third, nineteen between the third and fourth and thirty between the fourth and fifth, four of them films I had never seen before.

The oldest was 1928’s The Garden of Eden, a romantic comedy directed by Lewis Milestone who won one of the Academy’s first two Oscars for Best Director for his direction of another comedy that year, Two Arabian Knights. The award was for Best Director – Comedy, an award that was immediately discontinued. He would win a second Oscar for his direction of 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front, followed by a third and final nomination for 1931’s The Front Page. His last major film was the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty for which he was nominated for a Directors Guild nomination.

Coincidentally, Frank Loyd would win the 1929 Oscar for directing The Divine Lady and a second one for 1933’s Cavalcade would also be Oscar nominated for the last time for his direction of the more popular 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty which won that year’s Oscar for Best Picture.

Milestone and Lloyd had something else in common, silent screen beauty Corinne Griffith, who starred in both Milestone’s The Garden of Eden and Lloyd’s The Divine Lady for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.

In contention at the 1927/28 Academy Awards, The Garden of Eden failed to receive a single nomination but is along with The Divine Lady, are the only surviving silent films of Griffith’s storied career. Film Movement’s restoration gives new life to the Lubitsch style comedy in which she plays an aspiring opera singer who poses as a baroness to lure romantic attention from the gentry in Monte Carlo. Louise Dresser as her benefactress delivers the film’s best performance in the same Oscar year as A Ship Comes In for which she herself received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

The film is an enjoyable farce but far from a lost masterpiece. It is, however, well seeing at least once.

Griffith retired from the screen in 1930. The talkie, Back Pay, also survives. She later became one of Hollywood’s richest women thanks to shrewd real estate investments. Her autobiographical novel, Papas’s Delicate Condition, which was filmed in 1963, won an Oscar for Best Song, “Call Me Irresponsible”. In 1965, she made headlines in the then 71-year-old’s divorce trial from her 43-year-old fourth husband, claiming that she was only 61, that she had replaced the “real” Corinne Griffith thirty years earlier. Her friends testified against her, proclaiming that there was only one Corinne Griffith and it was her. She died in 1979 at 84.

Growing up I had seen only two Disney animated classics, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio in re-runs on the big screen. I didn’t see Fantasia, Dumbo, or Cinderella until they were released on home video. Although I had seen many versions of Alice in Wonderland I had never seen Disney’s version until now.

The rave reviews for the 4K UHD release of Disney’s 1951 film of Alice in Wonderland made me take a look. I’m glad I did.

Whereas most versions of Lewis Carroll’s novel always struck me as clumsy forced, Disney’s version makes the whole thing seem real probably because the animated version of Alice herself is no more real than that of the other characters from the Mad Hatter and the Caterpillar to the Red Queen and White Queen, giving equal footing to them all.

Similarly, I had never seen Roman Polanski’s 1971 version of Macbeth until I finally took a look at Criterion’s 2014 Blu-ray release.

Dismissed by most critics at the time, the National Board of Review gave it their Best Picture award ahead of such acclaimed 1971 releases as A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and the Oscar-winning The French Connection. No Oscar nominations followed but Polanski’s version stands head and shoulders above all others, with Kenneth Tynan’s script providing just enough of Shakespeare’s text against the realistic background of medieval battles to sustain interest throughout.

Jon Finch and Francesca Annis are superb as the Scottish king and his evil Lady Macbeth. Martin Shaw (TV’s George Gently) is every bit their equal as Banquo whose character is given more screentime than in any other production.

Luis Mandoki’s 1990 film, White Palace, is the only one of the five I watched during the week that is something I had seen before. The brand-new Blu-ray from Colombia is a first-rate presentation of this overlooked gem for which Susan Sarandon was unjustly ignored by Oscar voters despite a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a feisty older woman who seduces a younger, uptight preppie type.

James Spader is the lucky guy who plays opposite Sarandon. There are strong supporting performances by Jason Alexander, Corey Parker, Kathy Bates and others, but the standout in the supporting cast is Eileen Brennan as Sarandon’s bohemian sister. This one is well worth discovering or rediscovering whichever the case may be.

Finally, I caught Lin-Manuel Miranda’s filmed stage version of Hamilton, a Disney streaming exclusive since 2020, now available on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.

Golden Globe and Satellite nominated, the film was declared ineligible by the Academy and was embraced by TV’s Emmys instead. Both are curious in that there is nothing original about a play filmed before a live audience four years earlier no matter how brilliantly captured. The groundbreaking musical should be seen, however, in some form or another.

The best performances are provided by Tony nominees Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Phillipa Soo as his wife and Jonathan Groff as King George, as well as winners Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr, Daveed Diggs as both Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson and Renée Elise Goldsberry as Soo’s sister, along with Emmy nominee Anthony Ramos as both John Laurens and Philip Hamilton.

Songs include “Rise Up”, “The Room Where It Happens”, and “Washington on Our Side”.

Happy viewing.