• "Black Widow" is the weakest of these, a stagey murder mystery, with Broadway producer Van Heflin helping out an aspiring young writer (Peggy Ann Garner) while his celebrity wife (Gene Tierney) is out of town ... When Garner's apparent suicide is ruled a murder, Heflin becomes the prime suspect. George Raft is the investigating cop and Ginger Rogers is the star of Heflin's play, and also his self-absorbed neighbor.

• "Daisy Kenyon" is the odd duck here, as it isn't film noir at all, but rather a melodrama about an independent woman (Joan Crawford) who loves a married jerk (Dana Andrews) but marries a downhome war veteran (Henry Fonda). Good performances by all three stars and a surprising subplot about Andrews' wife physically abusing their children. (Peggy Ann Garner is here, too, several years earlier when she was a child actress.)

• "Dangerous Crossing" offers a well-worn plot, but it's cleverly played by an appealing cast. When a newlywed (Jeanne Crain) boards a cruise liner only to have her husband disappear, the ship's doctor (Michael Rennie) must determine whether she's crazy or actually telling the truth.

Extras: widescreen/full frame, audio commentaries, featurettes (including a nice profile of "Daisy Kenyon" director Otto Preminger's Fox years), pressbooks, photo galleries, trailers

• "The Pride of the Yankees: Collector's Edition" (MGM, 1942, b/w, $14.98). This is the third DVD release for the classic story of Lou Gehrig, starring Gary Cooper. Just last year we got an anniversary edition. This one has a few more featurettes for die-hard fans.

Extras: full frame, featurettes

• "Bull Durham: Collector's Edition" (MGM, 1988; R for sex, nudity, language, violence). This funny, albeit raunchy, baseball comedy starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins also gets another release with new featurettes and a pair of audio commentaries, one with writer-director Ron Shelton, the other with Costner and Robbins.

Extras: widescreen, audio commentaries, featurettes

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E-mail: hicks@desnews.com