You can't spell Oscar without DVD: part II: from 1940's "Rebecca" to 1997's "Titanic," these 19 DVDs represent a cavalcade of Academy Award winners.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.
• Position: Entertainment - Digital video disk - Bibliography

THE ADVENT OF DVD has been a boon to movie buffs and collectors. Unlike videotape, which can deteriorate with repeated viewing, dries out, and may snap if rewound too tightly or quickly, DVD provides fidelity of picture, excellent sound quality, and permanence, assuming that the discs are not carelessly mishandled. Moreover, the discs' ability to accommodate far more material than tapes do leaves room for special--and, admittedly, not so special--features, adding even further to the joy of aficionados.

Once DVD players came down in price and began to overtake VHS machines in sales, home video companies realized the potential and started to cut prices on discs so they are now close to VHS versions. Immediately, sales boomed, not only of newly released movies and kids' favorites, but of studios' backlogs as well.

True, a lot of dross is being issued in DVD format along with the gold, but the gold is indeed wondrous to behold. Out of the vaults have come a multitude of past Academy Award winners, with many more in the pipeline. Thirty-two of them were cited in "You Can't Spell Oscar Without DVD" (USA Today, September 2001). Here are 19 more, including some of Hollywood's all-time greatest films.

PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT

The Godfather DVD Collection (545 minutes, $74.95) consists of a pair of classics, a failed effort to duplicate their success, and a mind-boggling three hours of special features. "The Godfather," revitalized the crime genre, but took it far beyond the James Cagney-Humphrey Bogart-Edward G. Robinson formulaic approach of the 1930s, when it first rose to prominence. Director/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola took Mario Puzo's best-selling novel and wove it into an enthralling sociological study of a family whose business just happened to be organized crime. En route, he resurrected Marlon Brando's slumping career and made stars of a trio of future Oscar winners--Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, and Diane Keaton. Impeccable casting, outstanding cinematography by Gordon Willis and editing by William Reynolds and Peter Zinner, and a haunting musical score added layer after layer to the success of the film, which received 11 Academy Award nominations. Yet, ironically, for all its success and acclaim, despite being named best picture of 1972, it won just two other Oscars--Brando for his portrayal of Don Vito Corleone and Coppola and Puzo for best adapted screenplay. Nevertheless, the picture's brilliantly choreographed intercutting between the baptism of Michael Corleone's godson and the methodical elimination of all of the family's enemies remains one of the hallmarks of filmmaking, as well as Michael's execution of a corrupt cop and the gangster who had Don Corleone shot, Sonny Corleone's massacre ata toll booth, and the Don's bizarre death. Yet, Coppola lost out as best director to Bob Fosse (for "Cabaret"), and Pacino, Duvall, and James Caan split "Godfather" supporting actor votes as Joel Grey's demoniacal emcee in "Cabaret" captured that Oscar.

Two years later, "The Godfather, Part II," arguably the best sequel in cinematic history, doubled the original's Academy Award total with six wins. In addition to best picture, the Academy this time honored Coppola's direction, while he and Puzo duplicated their earlier best adapted screenplay award. The picture cannily cut back and forth between the story of the young Vito Corleone, a role that earned Robert De Niro a best supporting actor Oscar, and that of Michael's moving of the family to Nevada as he became the new Godfather. Once again, the overall strength of the cast brought numerous supporting actor/actress nominations, with De Niro topping playwright Michael V. Gazzo and Actors Studio head Lee Strasberg, both having sly fun playing gangsters, and Talia Shire losing to Ingrid Bergman (for "Murder on the Orient Express"). Pacino, despite a chillingly complex performance as Michael, lost again, this time for best actor (to Art Carney for "Harry and Tonto").

The collection also includes "The Godfather, Part III," with which Coppola tried to revive his failing fortunes 16 years later. A muddied plot concerning a Vatican financial scandal and Michael's efforts to get out of organized crime turned off reviewers and audiences alike, and the acting debut of Coppola's daughter, Sofia, stepping in at the last minute for an AWOL Winona Ryder, was greeted with a savage blistering by the critics. Surprisingly, the movie received a best picture nomination (losing to "Dancing with Wolves"), and Andy Garcia was nominated as best supporting actor for an over-the-top portrayal of Sonny's trigger-happy bastard son, being defeated by an even-further-over-the-top-trigger-happy Joe Pesci in "GoodFellas."

The three hours of special features take up an entire disc, highlighted by "The Godfather Family: A Look Inside," a 73-minute documentary laden with interviews with Coppola, Pacino, Caan, Duvall, De Niro, Keaton, Shire, Garcia, Eli Wallach, and Joe Mantegna. Particularly amusing are Coppola's reminiscences that he feared he would be fired from "The Godfather" as the studio voiced its discontent over the casting of Brando and the little-known Pacino (the studio preferred Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal). There are screen tests of De Niro for Sonny and Martin Sheen for Michael, and hilarious commentary by Caan and Duvall concerning what went on during prerehearsal meetings before "The Godfather" began filming. Featurettes on the picture's cinematography, costume design, and sets are engrossing, especially the latter as 6th Street on New York's Lower East Side was transformed into its equivalent in the city's Little Italy three-quarters of a century earlier by production designer Dean Tavoularis and his crew. Character and cast biographies make up "The Corleone Family Tree," and there is a timeline of events beginning with 1898 paralleling the family's rise and historical events of the period. "Francis Coppola's Notebook" follows the filmmaker through the creative process to bring the novel from book to screen, and there are a pair of featurettes on the music of Nina Rota and Carmine Coppola (the director's father). It's no wonder the special features run as long as any of these epic pictures.

Titanic (194 minutes, $24.99) fractured every Academy Award record, walking off with 11 Oscars in 1997...