The British rock invasion that began with the Beatles fifty years ago was immortalized in the 1964 film, A Hard Day’s Night in which the Beatles self-satirize themselves while at the same time advancing their legend.

Filmed on a six week schedule beginning just a month after the group’s legendary appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, 1964, the film had its world premiere in Great Britain in July and immediately spread around the world, making its U.S. bow in August.

Directed by American expatriate Richard Lester, the film was like nothing seen before or since. Opening with the Beatles running down the street while being chased by screaming fans, none of the Beatles – neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney nor George Harrison nor Ringo Starr take themselves seriously. The extended train scene with Wilfrid Brambell as Paul’s grandfather and the TV rehearsal overseen by Victor Spinetti are highlights as are the songs presented in newly re-mastered 5.1. stereo. Among them are “Can’t Buy Me Love”; “All My Loving”; “And I Love Her” and, of course, the title song.

The dual format Blu-ray and DVD Criterion release is loaded with extras.

What the Beatles were to pop music in the last half of the Twentieth Century, Stephen Sondheim was and is to Broadway show music. He gets to tell his own story in the documentary Six by Sondheim containing interviews the composer has given over the course of six decades. The interviews are interspersed with extended performances of six of his songs, some with archival footage; some with new interpretations as well as snippets of other Sondheim classics.

The extensively covered songs include “Something’s Coming” from West Side Story performed by Larry Kert in archival footage from 1958; “Opening Doors” from Merrily We Roll Along newly performed by Darren Criss, Jeremy Jordan and America Ferrera; “Being Alive” from Company performed by Dean Jones in archival footage from 1970; “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music newly performed by Audra MacDonald; Sunday from Sunday in the Park With George performed by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Petersin in archival footage from 1984 and “I’m Still Here” from Follies newly performed by Jarvis Cocker. Only the latter’s bizarre interpretation disappoints.

Six by Sondheim is available on standard DVD and through streaming.

The big screen version of Sondheim’s 1988 musical Into the Woods will be in theaters Christmas Day. In the meantime the DVD release of the 1991 PBS broadcast with the original Broadway cast is still available.

Bernadette Peters; Chip Zien; Joanna Gleason; Kim Crosby; Robert Westenberg and Ben Wright star as the Witch; the Baker; the Baker’s Wife; Cinderella; Cinderella’s Prince and Jack (in the Beanstalk) in roles that will be played on screen by Meryl Streep; James Corden; Emily Blunt; Anna Kendrick; Chris Pine and Daniel Huttlestone respectively. In stage productions the actor playing Cinderella’s Prince also plays Red Riding Hood’s Wolf. In the film that role will be played by Johnny Depp which sort of undermines the irony of the dual playing. In the play, Cinderella’s Prince is a wolf of another stripe. He has the play’s biggest laugh inducing line: “I was raised to be charming, not sincere” when called out by Cinderella.

Into the Woods is available on standard DVD only.

Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale, not to be confused with Shapespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, is based on a 1983 novel by Mark Helprin. The film, which is beautifully photographed by Caleb Deschanel and scored by Hans Zimmer and Robert Gregson-Williams, is basically a lot of mumbo-jumbo about angels and demons set against the background of a one hundred years plus love story.

Filmed on location in New York, the action centers around Grand Central as it was in 1895, 1916 and the present day. Colin Farrell plays a a character who has either lived a long time without aging or has been incarnated. Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey’s late lamented Lady Sybil) is the love he meets and loses in 1916. Jessica Connelly is a woman with an ill daughter in the present; William Hurt is Brown Findlay’s father in the 1916 scenes; Russell Crowe and Will Smith are demons that transcend time and a still lovely Eva Marie Saint at 93 is Brown Findlay’s younger sister now an old lady in the present.

Available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD, extras include extended scenes including one with Matt Bomer as Farrell’s father.

Warner Archive has re-issued the 1946 classic, The Yearling which earned 12 year-old Claude Jarman, Jr. an Oscar for Outstanding Child Actor of the Year. The film which also won Oscars for Color Cinematography and Art Direction began filming in 1941 with Spencer Tracy and Anne Revere set to play the parents of the boy who raises a pet deer but World War II intervened. Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman who took over the roles both received Oscar nominations for their performances.

Also new from Warner Archive is the double bill of 1932’s Arsene Lupin and 1938’s Arsene Lupin Returns featuring the famed fictional gentleman jewel thief.

Arsene Lupin stars John and Lionel Barrymore as the suave Lupin and the detective who hounds him. Karen Morley co-stars as a convicted felon on parole. Very much a pre-code film, the dialogue is loaded with one double entendre after another, most of them delivered by John Barrymore and Morley. The climactic theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre remains one of the screen’s great comedic set pieces.

Arsene Lupin Returns is an OK programmer but not in the same league as the original. Melvyn Douglas is Lupin this time around with Warren William the detective on his tail. The gimmick here is that Lupin is innocent of the theft of a valuable necklace and helps the detective solve the case. Suspects include Virginia Bruce; Monty Woolley; George Zucco and John Halliday.

A Fever in the Blood, also from Warner Archive, is a political thriller revolving around the murder of the estranged wife of a former governor’s son. The first rate cast includes Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; Jack Kelly; Don Ameche; Angie Dickinson; Herbert Marshall; Jesse White and Carroll O’Connor.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray upgrades of Operation Petticoat and Good Sam.