It looks like I jumped the gun on Deadpool, which releases this week, not last week. That’s OK, there were other releases to keep me busy in the interim.

Acorn has released a superb version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None from the recently aired TV miniseries. There have been at least seven prior versions of Christie’s 1939 novel in release, six of them under the alternate title of Ten Little Indians. Only René Clair’s superb 1945 version had been called And Then There Were None. All except a 1987 Russian version were based on Christie’s 1944 play, which was produced on Broadway as Ten Little Indians, rather than her original novel.

(SPOILER WARNING) The difference between the novel and the play is that in the novel everyone is guilty of something whereas in the play two of the ten are innocent, one is falsely accused, the other an undercover detective masquerading as a criminal. In the novel they all die, but in the play the two innocents survive.

What made the 1945 version so remarkable was the cast. Louis Hayward and June Duprez were somewhat bland as the innocents, but the rest were all played to the hilt by a remarkable cast of great character actors. Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way) had just won an Oscar. Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), who would soon win one as well, already had three nominations under his belt. He, Judith Anderson (Rebecca), Roland Young (Topper), and Mischa Auer (My Man Godfrey) had all been nominated within the past nine years. C. Aubrey Smith (The Hurricane), the dean of Hollywood’s British colony, had just been knighted, and Richard Haydn (Ball of Fire), though like Smith, never nominated, would be in an Oscar winning film twenty years later when The Sound of Music won. Lesser known Queenie Leonard would have the last laugh, dying in 2002 at the ripe old age of 96.

Although the cast of the British made miniseries is hardly in the same constellation of stars that continues to delight in the 1945 version, they all give remarkable performances in this very dark version of Christie’s darkest novel. Aidan Turner and Maeve Dermody have much more complex roles than Hayward and Duprez, and Charles Dance, Toby Stephens, Miranda Richardson, Burn Gorman, Douglas Booth, Sam Neill, and Noah Taylor all give superb performances in the roles once played by Fitzgerald, Huston, Anderson, Young, Auer, Smith, and Haydn in that order. Stephens has the closest connection to previous Christie adaptations. His mother, Maggie Smith, starred in two of them, 1978’s Death on the Nile and 1981’s Evil Under the Sun. Smith was also in the 1976 parody Murder by Death with Estelle Winwood who played the Judith Anderson-Miranda Richardson character in the 1944 play.

Both versions of And Then There None are available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The Brokenwood Mysteries – Series 2 is also available from Acorn. Like the first series, this New Zealand-based cousin of Britain’s Midsomer Murders features four tantalizing murder mysteries that will keep you guessing until the bitter end.

Neill Ray is the disheveled lead detective, Fern Sutherland his very able female partner, Nic Sampson the up and coming detective, Cristina Serban Ionda the Russian-born medical examiner, and Pana Hema Taylor is Ray’s friend and neighbor who sometimes figures in the investigations.

Both series of The Brokenwood Mysteries are available on Blu-ray and DVD.

An early thriller from Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys from Brazil), 1956’s A Kiss Before Dying has been given a Blu-ray upgrade by Kino Lorber.

Robert Wagner plays against type as the ne’er-do-well who murders his wealthy pregnant girlfriend (Joanne Woodward), then sets his sights on her sister (Virginia Leith). Detective Jeffrey Hunter gets to the bottom of it all in this still stylish film, superior by far to the 1991 remake of the same name with Matt Dillon in Wagner’s role and Sean Young doing double duty in the Woodward and Leith roles.

Warner Archive has done their usual superlative job with their Blu-ray upgrade of Mike Nichols’ groundbreaking 1966 film version of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . Alas, aside from the obvious improvement in picture quality that Blu-ray affords, nothing has been added for this release. The special features, including two commentaries and three documentaries, are carry-overs from the 2010 DVD. Three of the film’s Oscars were in categories discontinued with that year’s awards – Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Costume Design. Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis also won for their superb performances, while their male co-stars, Richard Burton and George Segal, had to settle for nominations only.

Fox Home Video has released the 2015 Fox 2000 theatrical film Joy on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. Although the David O. Russell film is classified as a comedy, it is actually a biographical drama about Joy Mangano, the woman who invented the magic mop and more than a hundred other items over the last twenty years. There may be a few moments that will make you smile, but there are no real laughs in this essentially by-the-numbers biopic.

Jennifer Lawrence received her fourth Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the long-suffering Ms. Mangano who was/is the emotional center and often sole support of her large extended family.

Lawrence’s frequent co-star Bradley Cooper has a key supporting role as a supportive QVC honcho. Robert De Niro, who co-starred with the two in Silver Linings Playbook, plays Mangano’s father. Edgar Ramirez is her former husband, a still supportive friend. Virginia Madsen is her emotionally stymied bedridden mother, Diane Ladd her compassionate grandmother, and Isabella Rossellini her father’s newest girlfriend, a rich widow who helps fund the initial production of the miracle mop but with strings attached.

The film is interesting and informative, but it never really rises above the level of a decent Lifetime Channel movie.

This week’s new releases include Deadpool and the Blu-ray upgrade of In a Lonely Place.