New on Blu-ray: BY CANDLELIGHT (1933) Starring Paul Lukas, Elissa Landi and Nils Asther

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Product Description: Universal’s finest horror director James Whale (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Old Dark House) brilliantly shifted genres with the dazzling Pre-Code romantic comedy By Candlelight. Josef (Paul Lukas, The Kiss Before the Mirror) is the ultra-dutiful butler to a Casanova-like prince (Nils Asther, The Bitter Tea of General Yen). Falling in love with Marie (Elissa Landi, The Sign of the Cross), whom he assumes to be a countess, Josef masquerades—quite convincingly—as his rakish master. The catch: Marie is herself a poseur, a mere maidservant of nobility. Based on P.G. Wodehouse’s (Anything Goes) adaptation of a Siegfried Geyer play, By Candlelight is a delightfully sophisticated farce of class privilege and mistaken identity that ranks as one of Whale’s most extraordinary achievements.

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New on Blu-ray: THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR (1933) Starring Nancy Carroll and Frank Morgan

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Product Description: From James Whale, the legendary director of Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, Show Boat and The Man in the Iron Mask, comes this daring drama with a touch of the macabre starring Nancy Carroll (Broken Lullaby), Frank Morgan (Fast and Loose), Paul Lukas (The Lady Vanishes) and Gloria Stuart (Titanic). When Walter Bernsdorf (Lukas) kills his wife for having an affair, lawyer Paul Held (Morgan) takes on the case. Suggesting that Walter could be acquitted by means of temporary insanity, Paul not only realizes that this defense may work but that also some of the behavioral patterns Walter’s wife showed in regard to her infidelity are appearing in his own wife, Maria (Carroll). Paul realizes that if this defense could work once, it might work a second time. The Kiss Before the Mirror is a riveting pre-Code thriller beautifully shot in glorious black-and-white by the great Karl Freund (The Last Laugh, Metropolis, Key Largo).

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DVD & Blu-ray: SHOW BOAT (1936) - Criterion Collection

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Product Description: Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s immortal musical adaptation of Edna Ferber’s sprawling novel receives its most faithful and enduring cinematic adaptation under the elegant direction of James Whale. A rich portrait of changing American entertainment traditions and race relations, Show Boat spans four decades and three generations as it follows the fortunes of the stage-struck Magnolia (Irene Dunne), an aspiring actor whose journey takes her from her family’s humble floating playhouse in the 1880s South to the height of fame in the 1930s North. The cast of show-business legends includes Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel, Charles Winninger, and the great Paul Robeson, whose iconic, soul-shaking rendition of “Ol’ Man River” is one of the crowning glories of the American stage and screen.

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