By the end of the Great War, subsequently known as World War I, audiences were tired of films and plays about the war. In 1924, however, war stories were once again popular fodder. Broadway saw three plays that had opened in rapid succession, the most famous and popular of them being Lawrence Stallings’ anti-war What Price Glory which Raoul Walsh would make into a film in 1926 for Fox. King Vidor, then one of MGM’s most popular directors, had decided to make a war film of his own and MGM hired Stallings to write the film’s story. The result was The Big Parade which put MGM on the map as Hollywood’s most prestigious and profitable studio.

Although regarded as an anti-war film, The Big Parade in actuality takes no position for or against the war. It is about three typical American foot soldiers who enlist the day America enters the war, with the focus on the heretofore wastrel son of a successful businessman played by John Gilbert. It was the first film to focus on the ordinary soldier. Following the conventions of the day, the film begins with the excitement of adventure as the three men join up and spends the first hour and a half of its two hour and twenty minute running time focused on comedy, friendship and romance. Gilbert meets and falls in love with French farm girl Renée Adorée. Their poignant farewell as he is ordered to the front marks the end of the first part of the film.

War rears its ugly head as Gilbert and his friends move to the front in the film’s second part in which Gilbert is injured, losing a leg just as author Stallings did. He returns home to find his fiancée in love with his older brother and then returns to France in search of his true love.

Featuring several iconic scenes and set pieces, the 1925 silent classic was re-released with a music soundtrack in 1931 after the success of the similarly themed All Quiet on the Western Front to further success. It was, in fact, MGM’s most successful film until Gone With the Wind.

The Big Parade is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Another iconic film about war, Fred Zinnemann’s 1953 Oscar winner, From Here to Eternity also has a slow build-up to the point when all hell breaks loose with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which signaled America’s entry into World War II.

Based on James Jones’ thought un-filmable novel, From Here to Eternity received thirteen Oscar nominations and won eight including Best Picture. All five of its stars were nominated for Oscars, with two of them winning.

Burt Lancaster as the tough but fair first sergeant and Montgomery Clift as a bugle playing reluctant pugilist were both nominated for Best Actor, losing to William Holden in another war film, Stalag 17. Deborah Kerr was nominated for Best Actress playing against type as the company commander’s nymphomaniac wife, losing to Audrey Hepburn’s runaway princess in Roman Holiday. Frank Sinatra in his comeback role won Best Supporting Actor as Clift’s ill-fated buddy. Donna Reed, like Kerr, playing against type as a thinly disguised prostitute, won Best Supporting Actress.

The film’s stunning black-and-white photography has never looked better than it does on Bu-ray.

Two beloved family classics upgraded for 3D have been released in three formats, 3D Blu-ray, standard Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The 75th Anniversary Edition of The Wizard of Oz is the same transfer as the 70th Anniversary Edition except for the enhanced 3D version. What is new n all release packages is a new Making of The Wizard of Oz documentary narrated by Martin Sheen that pretty much covers the same material as the previous documentary narrated by Angela Lansbury. Parts of that one, including mini-bios of the film’s principal players are carried over as extras here as well. Also included are numerous trailers for the film, including the most recent one for its one week 3D IMAX showing last month.

Released fifty years after The Wizard of Oz, the eye and ear pleasing The Little Mermaid brought renewed stature to Disney’s animation department such that it hadn’t known in more than two decades. Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken musical isn’t just brilliantly scored, its musical sequences are staged like a Broadway show, helping to extend its fan base well beyond that of the typical animated feature. Voiced by Broadway vets Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll and Samuel E. Wright among others, it’s easily Disney’s best film since Mary Poppins which is also slated for an overdue Blu-ray release later this year.

Another 3D Blu-ray release is House of Wax, the 1953 remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum, which restored gothic horror to box office glory and made Vincent Price a major star after fifteen years of alternating between leading and supporting roles in some of the best films of their time. Directed by André de Toth the film co-stars Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones, Frank Lovejoy, Paul Picerni, Roy Roberts and Charles Bronson.

House of Wax is playable on non-3D equipment in 2D. Extras include a making-of documentary featuring Martin Scorsese who recently made a 3D film of his own, Hugo. Also included is the original Mystery of the Wax Museum directed by Michael Curtiz with Lionel Atweill, Fay Way and Glenda Farrell which unlike the main feature has not been restored.

Two recent TV series revolving around fictional U.S. Presidents have been released on standard DVD only.

The first season of Scandal consisted of only seven episodes, but the second expanded to twenty-one. Both are absorbing with the second upping the ante on intensity.

Emmy nominated Kerry Washington heads the cast as a Washington based crisis manager with a crack team of fixers played by Columbus Short, Darby Stanchford, Katie Loews, Guillermo Diaz and in the first season, Henry Ian Cusick. Joshua Malina is the deputy U.S. Attorney. Tony Goldwyn is the sitting President with whom Washington has a clandestine affair. Bellamy Young is the duplicitous First Lady. Jeff Perry is Goldwyn’s equally duplicitous Chief of Staff. Dan Bucatisnky, in an Emmy winning role, is Perry’s reporter husband. Scott Foley makes a welcome addition to the cast late in the second season. With one surprise after another, it’s well worth catching up with before you delve into the show’s current third season.

Not quite as absorbing, but equally fascinating, the 2012 limited series Political Animals is about a former Democratic First Lady who loses her party’s nomination to the man who is elected President and then becomes his Secretary of State. Sound familiar?

Emmy nominated Sigourney Weaver is excellent in the lead, but Ciaran Hinds is somewhat miscast as her husband, more of a Lyndon Johnson than Bill Clinton type. The Irish actor’s supposed South Carolina accent is grating. Faring better are James Wolk and Sebastain Stan as their fraternal twin sons and the wonderful Ellen Burstyn as Weaver’s mother in the role for which she won her second Emmy. A subplot involving Carla Gugino as a reporter is not particularly interesting.

This week’s new releases include I Married a Witch and the Blu-ray upgrade of Stalag 17.