The Warner Archive Collection has packaged The Shop Around the Corner, The Mortal Storm, The Naked Spur, and How the West Was Won together in the James Stewart 4-Film Collection. All of the packaged films have previously been released on Blu-ray.

Warner Archive has been rather busy releasing Blu-ray collections with some of the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Other collections include Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly, James Cagney, Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Doris Day, and Robert Taylor. Upcoming collections include Spencer Tracy, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, and Tennessee Williams. Many of the included films have been previously released on Blu-ray, but it’s nice to have them all together in one set.

Having seen all four films, I can tell you that the James Stewart 4-Film Collection is a must-own collection for any fan of the actor.

The Shop Around the Corner

Synopsis

Tell bickering Budapest gift-shop workers Alfred and Klara that they love each other and they might call you crazy. No lover can compare to the romantic, secret pen pal each knows only as Dear Friend. What Alfred and Klara don’t know, of course, is that they are each other’s Dear Friend. In the third of their four luminous screen pairings, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart star in this valentine to love wrapped in the ribbon of director Ernst Lubitsch’s trademark touch wit instead of buffoonery, sentiment instead of sentimentality, affection instead of attitude. As enchanting today as it was yesterday, The Shop Around the Corner will cheerfully reward your patronage.

Bonus Features

• A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
• Screen Guild Players (9/29/40)
• Lux Radio Theater (6/23/41)
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Ernst Lubitsch
SCREENWRITER: Samson Raphaelson
CAST: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, with Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut

The Mortal Storm

Synopsis

The Mortal Storm is the story of Hitler’s rise to power as seen through the microcosm of one German family. What may seem small and personal is instead towering, a bold revelation of the brutality of the Nazi regime that so infuriated propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels that he banned all M-G-M movies in Germany. In their fourth and final teaming, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart play sweethearts, evoking the tender, romantic empathy that always marked their work together. They lead a sterling cast in director Frank Borzage’s sweeping tale of the political and human chaos that rips a family apart, sets child against parent and lover against lover, and leads to savagery, sacrifice and heroism.

Bonus Features

• Trailer
• Cartoon: Peace on Earth
• WB Short: Meet the Fleet

DIRECTOR: Frank Borzage
SCREENWRITERS: Claudine West, Hans Rameau (as Andersen Ellis), and George Froeschel
CAST: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan, with Robert Stack, Bonita Granville, Irene Rich, William T. Orr, Maria Ouspenskaya, Gene Reynolds

The Naked Spur

Synopsis

“Plain arithmetic. Money splits better two ways instead of three,” smooth talking outlaw Ben Vandergroat reasons to his captors, three bounty hunters thrown together by chance. They’re taking to justice in Abilene, but Ben has other ideas. If he can set the men against each other — play on their greed, their fears, their vanities — he may be able to make his break to freedom. In the third of his five landmark Anthony Mann-directed Westerns, James Stewart stars as the relentless leader of bounty hunters caught in the snare of the hunted (Robert Ryan). Tough, sweating with tension and towering as tall as its breathtaking Colorado Rockies setting, The Naked Spur is simply “one of the best Westerns ever made.” (Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide).

Bonus Features

• MGM Short: Things We Can Do Without
• Cartoon: Little Johnny Jet
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Anthony Mann
SCREENWRITERS: Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom
CAST: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, with Millard Mitchell

How the West Was Won

Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following family’s move West through generations–marked by the spectacles of a heart-pounding raging river ride, a thunderous buffalo stampede and a bracing runaway train shootout.

Bonus Features

• Commentary by filmmaker David Strohmaier, director of Cinerama Inc. John Sittig, film historian Rudy Behlmer, music historian Jon Burlingame, and stuntman Loren James
• Cinerama Adventure
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTORS: Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall
SCREENWRITER: James R. Webb
NARRATOR: Spencer Tracy
CAST: Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Richard Widmark

The James Stewart 4-Film Collection is available on Blu-ray.

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