It Beats Working	Bill on Movies

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New DVD set will give film fans something to 'Lean' on

It was perhaps the longest, most puzzling hiatus by a great filmmaker in cinematic history. After 1970's "Ryan's Daughter," British director David Lean said sayonara to motion pictures for the better part of 15 years, leaving devotees and film historians to ponder what landmark films he might have made during all those fallow years.

After all, this was the visionary director who gave us "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Hobson's Choice" (1954), "Brief Encounter" (1946), "Great Expectations" (1946) and "In Which We Serve" (1942). No one had a better resume, or more command of the medium.

Lean finally returned from self-imposed exile in 1984, with "A Passage to India" (1984), based on the classic novel by E.M. Forster. A fine film, to be sure, and beautifully performed by Judy Davis and a fine supporting cast. Yet it was going to be hard for Lean to live up to his own reputation, particularly after announcing that his "comeback" was to be a one-film affair. While "Passage" waltzed off with 11 Oscar nominations (winning two), somehow it disappointed.

Now, 24 years on, we can see it with fresh eyes and perhaps a more open mind, shorn of outsized expectations. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a two-disc Collector's Edition DVD (and in Blu-ray High-Def), timed to celebrate Lean's centenary. In addition to Davis, "A Passage to India" stars Peggy Ashcroft (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), frequent Lean collaborator Sir Alec Guinness and Victor Banerjee.

Church of baseball

Say what you will about "Pride of the Yankees," "Bang the Drum Slowly" or "Field of Dreams," for our money the best baseball movie ever made was "Bull Durham." Now Ron Shelton's 1988 classic is back in a Collector's Edition DVD, with new commentary from stars Kevin Costner and Tom Robbins and a featurette about life in the minor leagues.

Costner has been associated with some of the best sports-themed movies of the past 25 years, but he says that with even "Field of Dreams," "Tin Cup" and "For the Love of the Game" factored in, it's not like he's made a corner in sports movies.

"I haven't done that many," he told The Post and Courier in a recent interview, "but I have done some that are memorable. I was sent a hundred (scripts) after I did the first one and they weren't any good. And a hundred more after the second. So it seems like I've done a lot, but I've avoided more, because I do believe in the Church of Baseball. When I made 'Bull Durham' I lived those moments. And no one understood or wanted to make 'Field of Dreams.' I made those pictures back-to-back. Baseball movies were supposedly poison, but I had no fear because I was armed with the truth of the script.

"Now, somebody might say you've got history on your side now to say that. But that's the choice I made at that moment in my life, because I saw those movies as individual, very original movie experiences whose essence was in storytelling and in character.

The 'problem' with those films, says Costner, who soon may return to directing with a new western, was that he didn't make the second and third one of them, which is to say he did not succumb to the box office allure of the sequel.

"That's the real problem with my career; I didn't make 'Bull Durham II or III, or 'Bull Durham: The Early Years.' That's the big rap I have against my own business instincts. That's where the money is. But instinctively, I didn't want to fly back into the nest, into some comfort zone."

Au revoir

When Richard Widmark played the bad guy, you believed it. Just like you did when he played a sympathetic part. But even his heroes had a decided edge, with a laugh that suggested a pool of darkness lodged beneath the surface. A versatile actor with a remarkable range and eyes that bored into you like lasers, Widmark died last week at 93, leaving a legacy of polished performances over the course of 40 years and 70 films of all kinds. Whether as cackling psychopath, suave professional or rugged hero, he was top notch. And he will be missed.

Fasten your seat belts

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was as close to genuinely unique as one can get. She was a diminutive dynamo, an inimitable, intense star actress of the highest magnitude.

Worshipped by generations of aspiring actresses and admired (sometimes grudgingly) by all who worked with her, Davis was best known for her genre-spanning performances as strong, often unsympathetic women and for her ability to add extra bite to some of tartest lines ever written for film, whether in period pictures or contemporary drama and melodrama.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of her birthday (on Saturday), Fox Home Entertainment reminds of us her power with a five-disc DVD set that includes two-disc "special edition" of "All About Eve" (1950), a film which received 14 Academy Award nominations, won six, and briefly revitalized her career. Also in the birthday-release package are the DVD debut of her turn as Elizabeth I, "The Virgin Queen" (1955, with "Making Of" featurette); "Phone Call From A Stranger" (1952); her second foray into horror "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" (1964, not quite as chilling as 1962's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane"); and "The Nanny" (1965).

Admittedly, four of these latter five are hardly representative of Davis at her best. But even in lesser films Davis could bring something memorable to the table.

She is the only performer in history to earn five consecutive (1938-42) Best Actress Oscar nominations (nine total). She won twice, for "Dangerous" in 1935 and for "Jezebel" in 1938. Save for a handful who could rival her drive and her moxie, like Barbara Stanwyck or Kate Hepburn, most of the more "glamorous" star actresses were simply overmatched.