DVDs: Police Academy Collection Arrives

As unbelievable as it might sound, the 20th anniversary of the irreverent ensemble comedy Police Academy is being marked with about the same fanfare usually reserved for artists being honored by film festivals, museums and universities. Not only does Police Academy—the Complete Collection contain all seven movies in the series, but it also includes commentaries from Steve Guttenberg, director Hugh Wilson and producer Paul Maslansky; a reunion documentary; making-of featurettes; and additional scenes and theatrical trailers.

Those hoping to see compilations of the live-action and animated TV series probably won't have your dreams answered until a super-duper 25th anniversary edition is released, though.

Although Police Academy should never be mentioned in the same breath as Charlie Chaplin or Jerry Lewis, the franchise proved far more successful than it had any right to be. In domestic revenues alone, the series grossed more than $262 million. That figure doesn't include income from foreign box-office receipts, video and other ancillary sales.

The original does, however, belong in the same raunchy company as such similarly anti-establishment comedies of the period like Animal House, Airplane!, National Lampoon's Vacation, Porky's, Stripes, Meatballs and Caddyshack.

Many younger Sex and the City fans might not know that Kim Cattrall caught her big breaks playing a boisterously orgasmic brunette in Porky's and a slumming socialite in Police Academy. Former NFL great Bubba Smith was featured in six of the Police Academy movies.

Once upon a time, late-night talk shows actually celebrated the art of conversation, instead of merely providing platforms for celebrity flavors-of-the-month to pimp their new projects. Though his five-year tenure was a fraction of Johnny Carson's, recently deceased Jack Paar's name forever will be associated with The Tonight Show's glory years, when every episode could produce a surprise, guests spoke in complete sentences, and the networks didn't worship at the altar of the 18-to-34-audience demographic. Shout Factory has just released a three-disc set commemorating Paar's career, with original interview footage with the likes of Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali, John and Bobby Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Judy Garland, Jonathan Winters, Bette Davis, and of course, Oscar Levant. Select monologues from the show also are included.

Joseph Losey's career as a Hollywood director was sidetracked in 1951, after his films' liberal content and his links to left-wing theater groups got him blacklisted. The Wisconsin native moved to England and began directing under a pseudonym. His resume included choices running the gamut from noble to inexplicable, but he clearly was drawn to projects about social injustice and personal identity. Public Media has just released three of these: Monsieur Klein, La Truite and Time Without Pity.

Nearly two decades after he immortalized the character of sewer worker Ed Norton in The Honeymooners, Art Carney was cast in a pair of films which re-ignited his flagging career. In Paul Mazursky's Harry and Tonto, Carney gave an Oscar-winning performance as a retired schoolteacher who goes on a coast-to-coast road trip with his cat. That fine picture has yet to be released on DVD, but the equally enjoyable The Late Show has been. In Robert Benton's film, Carney plays a private eye whose plans for retirement are disrupted by the murder of his former partner. Two years later, Carney shared the marquee with George Burns and Lee Strasberg in Going in Style, playing an elderly trio looking for a bit of excitement as bank robbers. Burns took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in the similarly new-to-DVD The Sunshine Boys.

Back in the late '60s, when Iggy Pop was Iggy Stooge, no one could have foreseen the influence his band, the Stooges, would have on the next 30 years of rock. Iggy, the godfather of punk and a pioneer of stage diving, is featured in a reunion concert with the original Stooges in Music Video's Live in Detroit. Amazingly, he hasn't lost a step. Also from MVD are The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital and Lech Kowalski's documentary on the late Ramones' bassist, Hey! Is Dee Dee Home?

Working from a script by Dennis Potter before his death in 1994, Keith Gordon managed to turn the 415-minute BBC mini-series The Singing Detective into a 109-minute movie starring Robert Downey Jr. Few critics liked the result, but it deserves to be seen, if only for outstanding performances by Downey and a nearly unrecognizable Mel Gibson.