Hilda Crane Next Stop Greenwich Village

Supporting actors are more than just an anything-goes Academy Awards kickoff category; in the right circumstances - and despite minimal screen time -they can push everyone else right into the background. Take 1956's Hilda Crane, starring Jean Simmons as the titular modern woman, returning to her small-town roots and finding it difficult to adjust to common old-fashioned notions like marriage, kids and social compromises. The film, part of a wave of movies that questioned just what it meant to be a woman in post-war America, is predictably melodramatic and stagey (having been adapted from the play by Samson Rephaelson). It's 20th Century Fox quality through and through, but it's also a dreadful bore.

That is until the entrance of Evelyn Barnes as Mrs. Burns, the overprotective prospective mother-in-law who takes an instant dislike to Hilda's scandalous past and is intent on breaking up the romance with her wealthy son, Russell (Guy Madison). Barnes takes a character of questionable appeal and makes her more compelling that anything else in the picture. Her three scenes elevate Hilda Crane in its entirety, like a pinch hitter stepping in for a player off his game and knocking one out of the park.

Sports metaphors aside, Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray certainly has nothing to apologize for. The hi-def transfer is spot-on in all respects while the special features include and isolated music track, Jean Simmon Biography Channel profile, trailer and liner notes.

In Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), supporting actress Shelley Winters plays yet another overbearing mother hopelessly entangled with her son's social life. But in writer / director Paul Mazursky's semi-autobiographical tale, she doesn't have to do quite as much heavy lifting. With a cast of theatrical talent and soon-to-be movie stars (Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum both seem on their game already), the film is loaded with performances both subtle and entertainingly over the top. Winters falls into the latter category, pining for her son, Larry (Lenny Baker), after he ditches Brooklyn to become an actor in NYC's most Bohemian borough. Lenny himself discovers that the lifestyle he always dreamt of has some unpleasant detours along the way.

Greenwich Village is certainly Mazursky's most visually complex film, reshaping New York with the nostalgic comic strip appeal of Woody Allen and the personal pathos of Francis Ford Coppola. Initially a bit showy and self-involved, there's a cumulative appeal that makes the film more of a universal story by the time the credits role. And it's Winters who helps bridge the gap, rising above the inherent pretentions of the film's enclave to artistes to capture a woman who, tragically, only lived through her son.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray features one hell of a superb hi-def transfer along with an isolated music track, audio commentary with Paul Mazursky and actress Ellen Greene (who's equally superb here, by the way), theatrical trailer and liner notes.