Biopics round out DVDs

A showcase for Lee Remick's versatility leads this collection of movies that are new to DVD.

"Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill" (Acorn, 1974, two discs, $49.99). Remick — who had been a movie star for more than a decade (with an Oscar nomination for "The Days of Wine and Roses") — may seem an odd choice for the title role in this historical British drama, which is actually a seven-part TV miniseries (almost six hours here).

But she acquits herself nicely in a performance that tests her mettle, just as Jennie Jerome's was tested as a bright, ambitious woman living in a repressed period of history. And Remick earned the English equivalent of an Emmy for her efforts.

Jennie was the mother of Winston Churchill, of course, and it's easy to see how he became such a formidable politician during World War II. But this lavish production focuses on his mother, a woman with ideas who realized she had to channel them through her husband and son, among others, and later, by writing plays in her middle age.

If it's true that behind every great man is a great woman, that was absolutely the case here.

Extras: full frame, seven episodes, Remick biography, history of Blenheim Palace (where the film was partially shot), cast filmographies, trailers

"The White Ribbon" (Sony Classics, 2009; R for violence, sex, nudity, language; b/w, $38.96). A village in northern Germany on the eve of World War I suffers a series of incidents that initially appear to be accidental but may actually be more sinister. This moody black-and-white picture starts off slow but fascinating, a la Ingmar Bergman, though it soon turns into something more sordid and, sadly, eventually loses its way.

Extras: widescreen, in German with English subtitles, featurettes, trailers

"Creation" (Lionsgate, 2009, PG-13, $27.98). Paul Bettany is excellent as Charles Darwin, the subject of this biography, with Jennifer Connelly (Bettany's real-life wife) as Darwin's religious spouse. This melodrama focuses on the naturalist's grief at the loss of his young daughter, causing him to lose his faith, and also pushing him to finish his controversial book "On the Origin of the Species."

Extras: widescreen, audio commentary, featurettes, documentary: "The Battle for Charles Darwin"