There’s a picture of Sean Connery in white shirt and tie riding a vintage Schwinn bicycle around the Universal back lot during the filming of “Marnie.” There’s Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth pedaling a French-made tandem bicycle on a break from shooting “The Lady in Question.” There’s a photo of Ray Walston and Anthony Perkins playing bicycle polo during a break in filming “Tall Story.” And there’s sour-faced Alfred Hitchcock awkwardly straddling a bike at the Cannes Film Festival while promoting “Frenzy.”

These are just a few of the vintage photos contained in film critic Steven Rea’s whimsical, fascinating coffee-table book “Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling With the Stars” (Angel City Press, $20), an affectionate homage to two of the author’s great passions – movies and bicycles.

The image-filled, 160-page book features candid photos and studio publicity shots of stars tooling around studio back lots and through various Hollywood neighborhoods aboard an array of bicycles – ranging from rust-bucket clunkers to sleek racing bikes and from decked-out street cruisers to odd-ball experimental rides and antique high-wheels.

The roster of stars caught in candid cycling moments is delightful and dazzling. There’s Humphrey Bogart in suit and tie, a flirtatious Sophia Loren, a teenaged Elizabeth Taylor, a young Lauren Bacall, a sprightly Shirley Temple, a cool Kevin Bacon, a nubile Brigitte Bardot and much more. It’s like the Hollywood Walk of Fame on two (and sometimes three) wheels.

Rea, longtime film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is an avid cycling enthusiast. He says he doesn’t own a car, but he does have a collection of several rare and vintage bicycles.

About a year ago, Rea hit upon the inspiration to combine his passion for cycling and his love of movie history (and his penchant for hunting down rare old photos of stars on wheels) into a Tumblr web blog (Rides a Bike). The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Soon, emails and accolades were flooding in, and Rea discovered a new world of sources for movie star photos and anecdotes.

Turns out movie buffs and bike fanatics are simpatico crowds. The blog begat the book, and now the book appears to be drawing more and more people to the blog.

And Rea, who as film critics will, waxes poetic in words and imagery about the glamour of movie stardom and the glory of whizzing around like a free and zestful child on two wheels.

With new photos being discovered every day, and with several search targets on his radar (Rea is determined to find a picture of Albert Finney on a bike), the author hints that “Hollywood Rides a Bike: The Sequel” might come rolling along in the future.

- Dennis King

Some call it “the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made.” Certainly, “Charade” has almost all the elements the Master of Suspense ever incorporated in his films, including mystery, romance, baffling plot twists, characters who aren’t who they seem to be, action, sudden jolts, gallows humor and, of course, suspense, all set against an exotic locale.

The 1963 thriller even has animated opening credits that strongly resemble the titles Saul Bass designed for “Psycho,” and a musical score that underlines the moments of tension and deadly peril with pulse-quickening effectiveness. And, hey, there’s even Cary Grant, veteran of four of Hitchcock’s best, in the lead role.

But that’s Maurice Binder’s (the early James Bond films) handiwork on the credits, and instead of Bernard Herrmann supplying the musical moodiness, we have the jazzier, more rhythmic and (at the time) more contemporary touches of Henry Mancini on the soundtrack.

And that’s Stanley Donen in the director’s chair, best known for such lighthearted musical fare as “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” So Cary gets to throw in a little of the screwball shtick he’s so good at but that Hitch would never allow, such as taking a shower wearing suit and tie, or pulling a goofy face — although such stuff is kept to a minimum here.

Grant and Audrey Hepburn are a perfect match, despite a 25-year age difference that almost caused Grant to turn down the part (he insisted on a rewrite having Hepburn’s character romantically pursue his, instead of the reverse, which seemed to him more dignified), and Peter Stone’s screenplay provides them with loads of witty and sophisticated repartee.

Hepburn is Reggie, a frustrated wife who’s about to divorce her mysterious husband when he turns up murdered, and she finds herself stalked all over Paris by three very shady characters (James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass) who think she’s in possession of money her late husband stole from them. Slovenly CIA agent Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau at his slouching, deadpan best) also believes she’s in possession of the loot, even if she doesn’t know it. And Grant is the suave, charming stranger whose motives for coming to her aid are unclear and increasingly suspect. Still, Reggie is hopelessly smitten with him. The story keeps you guessing right up to the very last scene. Delicious.

The Grant-Hepburn chemistry was so perfect it seemed they’d been working together for years, although this was their only teaming, and the film is still great fun to watch nearly 50 years later, especially for Hitchcock fans — even though Hitch had nothing to do with it, except maybe by way of influence.

Extras include two short “100 Years of Universal” featurettes: “The Carl Laemmle Years” and “The Lew Wasserman Years.”

— Gene Triplett

Each week sees literally hundreds of new releases on DVD. Big-bucks advertising and studio clout propel sales of the most high-profile DVDs. But the oddball releases that fly under the radar are often the most fun. Those bottom-of-the-list releases have been spotlighted during 2011 in the “Under-the-Radar DVD Release of the Week.”

This week, here are 10 of the oddest of the odd DVD releases from the past year:

“Sharktopus”
Legendary schlock producer Roger Corman is up to his old tricks in “Sharktopus,” a tongue-in-cheek creature-from-the-deep thriller produced for the Syfy Channel that introduces us to a diabolical hybrid of a shark and an octopus.

“Birdemic: Shock and Terror”
Alfred Hitchcock meets Ed Wood in this addition to the pop-cult library of terrible movies that we love to mock. This glorious stinker presents a tepid little love story grafted onto a clunky horror homage to Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (complete with a surprising cameo appearance by Tippi Hedren).

“Picasso & Braque Go to the Movies”
In this talky convergence of film and fine art cultures it seems the only question left unanswered is whether these two lofty figures of the Cubist movement preferred their popcorn with or without butter.

“Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula”
This oddball mash-up of gangster saga and monster movie recalls 1966’s cult favorite “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula,” only with cheaper and tackier production values.

“Affluenza”
This 1997 documentary originally aired over public broadcast stations and coined a new pop-culture word (affluence plus influenza) to describe American’s unbridled obsession with, as comic George Carlin would say, “our stuff.”

“Big Box of Cowboys, Aliens, Robots and Death Rays”
Last summer’s release of “Cowboys & Aliens” proved a good time to break out the four-disc set and look back on several old Hollywood chestnuts that mixed horse opera conventions with eerie sci-fi elements.

“Punkin Chunkin”
Since 1986, backyard engineers and garage tinkerers have trotted out their best medieval catapults and other jerry-rigged launching devises to compete in the Punkin Chunkin World Championships, an event that challenges participants to launch an eight to 10 pound pumpkin as far as possible.

“Produce Your Own Damn Movie!”
You’d be hard pressed to find someone who knows his way around a low-budget, independent film shoot better than Lloyd Kaufman, creator of “The Toxic Avenger” and founder of the storied indie film factory Troma Studios. So aspiring filmmakers looking for comprehensive how-to material could find no better source than Kaufman’s cheeky documentary.

“The Cigarette Girl From Mosselprom”
Russian silent films usually bring to mind grand, ambitious war classics such as Sergei Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin,” But early Russian cinema also had its modest, whimsical and sentimental side which shows itself in director Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky’s charming romantic comedy.

“ThanksKilling”
A profane, ax-wielding turkey takes its revenge on holiday revelers in this loony, micro-budgeted horror spoof on Thanksgiving.

- Dennis King

BY GENE TRIPLETT

When the last trick-or-treaters disappear into the dark with their sweet swag in tow, it’ll be time to turn the lights down low, pop your favorite fright film in the player and subject yourselves to a couple of hours of harrowing horror, or at least some nail-biting suspense.

Of course the master of that is Alfred Hitchcock, and if you’re planning a dusk-to-dawner, “Alfred Hitchcock: The Essentials Collection Limited Edition” (Universal) is just the ticket. This box contains five of the rotund one’s very best thrillers from what was arguably the director’s best decade, including his lessons in the dark consequences of voyeurism (“Rear Window,” 1954), falling for the wrong woman (“Vertigo,” 1958), being mistaken for someone else (“North by Northwest,” 1959), pissing off our feathered friends (“The Birds,” 1963), and, last but not least, taking a shower at the Bates Motel (“Psycho,” 1960).

Extras include original documentaries on “Rear Window” and “Vertigo,” script pages and stills from a deleted scene and storyboard drawings of the unfilmed alternate ending of “The Birds,” original trailers and production photographs.

If more graphic stabbings, impalings and decapitations are desired, Paramount’s “Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Collection Limited Edition” (only 50,000 manufactured, so hurry!) holds deluxe editions of all eight installments (1980-89), an eight-page booklet, two pairs of glasses for watching “Part 3 in 3-D,” AND a replica of the infamous hockey mask, so you can watch all the gratuitous gore from a Jason’s-eye-view.

Or if it’s unintentional hilarity you’re hankering for, the original, 1958 “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” is a towering hoot, one of those great, gosh-awful Allied Artists sci-fi/horror pictures of the period starring second-string scream queen Allison Hayes as hard-drinking rich woman Nancy Archer, fresh out of a psychiatric hospital with a philandering husband named Harry (William Hudson) keeping her constantly on edge. When an alien encounter on Route 66 causes Nancy to grow as tall as her temper, Harry and his girlfriend (Miss July 1959 Playboy Playmate Yvette Vickers) are in for a bad night. Nancy comes a-hunting, barely covered in the biggest damned sheets you’ve ever seen and crashes her giant rubber hand through the roof of the beer joint where Harry’s been making out with his gold-digging mistress, and colossal consequences are paid. This one’s available on demand from the Warner Archive Collection.

And if you really want to experience the worst of cinema’s simple-minded slop jobs, there is “‘Manos’ The Hands of Fate” (1966), but unless you’re totally masochistic, the only way to view this travesty of ineptitude is with the accompanying snarky commentary and ad-libbed dialogue embellishments of Satellite of Love captive Joel Robinson and his robot sidekicks Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot in the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Special Edition from Shout Factory. We have fertilizer salesman turned filmmaker Harold P. Warren to thank for this mess. Really bad pacing, poor photography and lighting and inept dubbing come together with terrible acting to make this story of a family getting lost and stumbling onto the lair of a devil worshipping cult a legendary low point in cinematic history, and perfect fodder for some of the funniest riffing the SoL crew ever conjured up during the entire run of MST3K.

But while the half-man, half-goat and the evil guy in the cape are the obvious monsters of “Manos,” the evil in the classic chiller “The Bad Seed” (1956) comes packaged in the unlikely form of an overly well-mannered 8-year-old girl. Based on the Broadway hit by Maxwell Anderson and the novel by William March, this highly original horror piece from director Mervyn LeRoy tells the story of prissy, pigtailed little Rhoda (Patty McCormack) who butters up her elders with exaggerated sweetness, but turns unfeeling killer when she doesn’t get what she wants. Original stage cast members McCormack, Nancy Kelly as the torn, protective mother and Eileen Heckart as the grief-stricken mother of one of Rhoda’s victims all won Oscar nominations for their electric performances in this classic psychological thriller that’s now available in a Warner Bros. Blu-ray edition, just in time for Halloween viewing.

More high-quality horror is available from Lionsgate in the Blu-ray edition of “Mimic” (1997), which has Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam as married biotech scientists who concoct a cure for a plague that mutates into giant, subway-crawling cockroaches that can mimic — and kill — people. Director and co-writer Guillermo Del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,“ “Hellboy”) mounts smart, visually stunning production with arresting special effects.

For haunted house enthusiasts there’s “The Others” (2001) from director Alejandro Amenabar, with Nicole Kidman as a mother of two small children living in a secluded island mansion behind locked doors and drawn curtains as she await’s the return of her husband from World War II. When three mysterious servants show up, it becomes disturbingly obvious that there is more to this house than meets the eye. Twists and turns keep the viewer guessing right up to the jolting surprise ending. Kidman is chillingly superb in this moody Gothic gem, available in Blu-ray from Lionsgate.

The supernatural reaches out again in “The Caller” (2011) when divorcee Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevre, “Twilight“), already a nervous wreck thanks to a threatening ex-husband, moves into a modest apartment equipped with an old-fashioned rotary phone and starts getting weird calls from a woman who implies she’s calling from the past. The caller keeps asking to speak to someone named Bobby, and when the woman starts talking about murder, Mary tries to break off contact. But the caller doesn’t like being ignored, and so she seeks revenge in a deeply terrifying way. Available from Sony Home Entertainment, it’s a nifty little creepshow from director Matthew Parkhill that also stars Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”).

From the romping stomping thunder lizard category there’s “The Giant Behemoth,” one of the scarier features of the resurrected dinosaur variety to hit the drive-ins in 1958, starring Gene Evans as a heroic American scientist, playing opposite a ticked-off, radiation-breathing palaeosaurus that can turn people to piles of ash and cities such as London to mountains of rubble. Written and directed by Eugene Lourie (“The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”), “Behemoth” features stop-motion effects by “King Kong’s” Willis O’Brien. Available from Warner Archives.

And finally, for fright fans who are also vintage television enthusiasts, the 1960-62 anthology showcase that Stephen King has called “the best horror series ever put on TV” is now available in “Thriller: The Complete Series,” a pricey 14-DVD set that holds all 67 episodes, hosted by Boris Karloff and featuring such stars and stars-to-be as William Shatner, Leslie Nielsen, Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rip Torn, Richard Chamberlain, Cloris Leachman, Robert Vaughn, John Carradine, Ursula Andress and Karloff himself, in stories ranging from not-so-scary, crime-based stuff to mostly the stuff that nightmares are made of, from the pens of such luminaries as Richard Matheson, Cornell Woolrich, Robert Bloch and Edgar Allan Poe himself.

At the end of the 1963-’64 network television season, they locked the door to another dimension and threw away the key of imagination for good, shutting adventurous viewers off from that middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge, that time period between “Route 66” and “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” every Friday night on CBS when the boob tube suddenly brightened for 30 minutes’ worth of intelligent, thought-provoking, sometimes funny, often chilling storytelling.

“The Twilight Zone” was canceled after a five-year run. Creator/host Rod Serling stubbed out his ever-present cigarette and went away to host game shows for the rest of the ’60s. But that last season of the Zone didn’t fade with a fizzle. Far from it. Some of the most iconic episodes of the entire original series aired in the fall of ’63 and spring of ’64, not the least of which was frequent contributing writer Richard Matheson’s fingernail-ripping “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” with William Shatner giving one of his career-best performances as a man recovering from a nervous breakdown who spots a gremlin on the wing of his airliner and can’t convince the other passengers that they’re all in eminent danger. Matheson also penned the heartbreaking “Steel,” starring Lee Marvin as the struggling manager of an obsolete robot boxer in the future year 1974, six years after the government has abolished the human version of the sport, leaving ex-heavyweight contender Marvin permanently on the skids.

Also in the lineup is Charles Beaumont’s “Living Doll,” wherein a cute toy stalks an embittered stepfather (Telly Savalas) with the warning, “My name is Talky Tina, and I’m going to kill you!”

Other classic episodes include “In Praise of Pip” with Jack Klugman as a father reunited with the 6-year-old version of his dying adult son; “Probe 7, Over and Out” (which was pre-empted one week by the assassination of President Kennedy), with Richard Basehart and Antoinette Bower as castaways from different planets who turn out to be Adam and Eve; “The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms,” with Warren Oates as one of three modern soldiers who find themselves at Custer’s last stand; and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” which was actually a French short subject about a condemned Confederate soldier that won a 1963 Oscar for Best Short Film.

Brilliant in Blu-ray and remastered audio, the edition boasts a mother ship-load of extras, including interviews with writers and actors from the original series, commercial spots, 22 “Twilight Zone” radio dramas and, of course, all 36 episodes from the final TV season.

— Gene Triplett

NEW YORK – While 3D movies are having a rocky summer among moviegoers grown weary of a gimmick that’s become grossly overexploited, New York’s astute Film Forum is smartly mustering its unique technology to present an exclusive weeklong run of what many film buffs consider the best 3D movie of all time – Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder.”

Anthony Dawson, Grace Kelly

Film Forum’s rarely seen presentation of the film, employing a cumbersome but historically correct double-system 3D projection, will run from Friday, June 17, through Thursday, June 23. A similar run last summer sold out every show.

In the so-called “golden era” of the technology in the 1950s, when 3D was all the rave and movies such as “Bwana Devil,” “House of Wax” and “Creature From the Black Lagoon” were wowing audiences, Warner Bros. insisted to Hitchcock that his next film be made in 3D. Hitchcock considered 3D to be a passing fad but in typical fashion determined to employ the technology on his own terms to adapt “Dial M for Murder,” a talky but compelling stage chamber drama by Frederick Knott, for the big screen.

The story concerns a retired British tennis pro named Tony Wendice (Ray Milland, who replaced an earlier cast Cary Grant), who conspires to have his wealthy, socialite wife Margot (Grace Kelly) murdered for her inheritance. Robert Cummings is cast as an American writer and friend of the couple, and John Williams plays the wily Scotland Yard detective on the case.

In deference to the 3D process, Hitchcock employed lots of low-angle shots with lamps and other decorative elements of the setting in the foreground. But for the most part he used 3D sparingly. When he did emphasize it, he did so to stunning effect, as in the gripping scene in which Margot is being attacked and strangled. At one point, she desperately reaches behind her on a table for a pair of scissors, and in 3D she appears to be grasping her hand directly into the audience.

It and a few comparable scenes, most film scholars agree, amount to the finest exploration of the artistic potential of 3D moviemaking ever put on film.

During its initial release, “Dial M for Murder” was shown only briefly in 3D and eventually went out for wider distribution in conventional “flat” format.

The most recent revival of 3D activity among studios seems to be the latest in a boom or bust cycle for the eye-fooling technology. Many box-office tracking services have noted a sharp drop in box-office grosses for 3D releases this summer. Most notably, the much anticipated “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Kung Fu Panda 2” each has seen a majority of audiences opting to view the picture in traditional 2D rather than 3D.

Some industry analysts suggest that too many 3D movies of questionable artistic substance have flooded into multiplexes, leaving moviegoers feeling disappointed and betrayed by less-than-dazzling 3D films.

At Film Forum, the remedy is to return to the work of The Master.
Film Forum will screen “Dial M for Murder” using Polaroid filters and lenses and double-system 3D projection (two big reels – one for the left eye, one for the right – running simultaneously for maximum stereo effect). Experts say this is vastly superior to the red/green glasses 3D usually attributed to movies of the early ’50s. Film Forum maintains that it is the only New York City cinema equipped to screen vintage double-system 3D.

Additional information on this and other Film Forum programming is available at www.filmforum.com.

- Dennis King

This week, the most interesting DVD to appear on release lists is:

“The 39 Steps” (1959)

Most film fans know “The 39 Steps” from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 foray into nail-biting espionage and daringly clever film craft. But the jaunty spy saga drawn from John Buchan’s novel has been adapted for film three other times as well, and the long-unavailable 1959 version, directed by journeyman Ralph Thomas and starring Kenneth More as on-the-lam innocent Richard Hannay, comes out on DVD Tuesday.

For this remake, Thomas (best known for a series of “Doctor …’ films – “Doctor in Trouble,” “Doctor in Love,” etc. ) sticks scrupulously close to the 1935 script – credited to Buchan, Charles Bennett and Ian Hay – and his film was largely discounted as a virtual shot-by-shot copy of Hitchcock’s merry and exciting masterpiece of chase and deception.

Well-regarded British screen veteran More, however, is a bit warmer and less remote than Hitchcock’s star Robert Donat in the role of Canadian businessman Hannay, who on a trip to London gets pulled into a suspenseful hugger-mugger plot by a young nanny he meets on the street.

All the familiar plot points are here – the “Mr. Memory” music hall show, the knife-in-the-back murder, the dash across the Scottish highlands to track down an evil foreign agent with a missing finger, the relevant “MacGuffins” (the vital wartime “boomerang” plans and the mysterious 39 Steps references).

Thomas’s talents are obviously modest compared to Hitchcock’s, but he does make the most of color photography to offer up some lovely vistas of heather and lake-studded Scottish scenery. And he handles the tense chase sequences – especially the dodgy escape at the Firth of Forth Bridge – with a veteran’s sure-handedness.

“The 39 Steps” also enjoyed two subsequent remakes – in 1978 by director Don Sharp with Robert Powell as Hannay, and in 2008 for TV, directed by James Hawes and starring Rupert Penry-Jones (both versions more faithful to the novel). But, as with Thomas’s 1959 effort, these pale in comparison with Hitchcock’s blithe and wonderfully improbable masterwork.

“The 39 Steps” (1959) is not rated and runs 95 minutes. It’s being released by VCI Entertainment.

- Dennis King

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:

“Birdemic: Shock and Terror”

Alfred Hitchcock meets Ed Wood in “Birdemic: Shock and Terror,” the latest addition to the pop-cult library of terrible movies that we love to mock. This glorious stinker, which has enjoyed a robust midnight movie run, is due out on DVD Tuesday.

The brainchild of writer-director James Nguyen, a computer software salesmen with a passion for environmental issues and less-than-zero talent for filmmaking, “Birdemic” has earned deliciously snarky reviews that label it a “trash-terpiece” and rank it alongside “Troll 2” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space” as a ripe new addition to the list of movies that are so bad they’re laughable and yet are compellingly entertaining to watch.

The film is a tepid little love story grafted onto a clunky horror homage to Hitchcock’s “The Birds” (complete with a surprising cameo appearance by Tippi Hedren and a half-baked environmental message about nature run amok).

In the drawn-out first act, a nerdy, newly wealthy software salesman and a sexy lingerie model (played without a hint of acting skill by Alan Bagh and Whitney Moore) head off for a romantic weekend in a quaint Northern California burg.

After much interminable billing and cooing, the second act dawns with the inexplicable arrival of millions of homicidal birds (amateurish special-effects eagles, vultures and crows), who chase our awkward lovers around and peck at them incessantly. The humans swat at the bloodthirsty birds with wire coat hangers before finally breaking out the machine guns.

That’s about the extent of it. The entertainment value – if you’re into this sort of thing – is in snickering and making fun of Nguyen’s utterly un-ironic gullibility and thorough lack of filmmaking skills (comically ham-handed editing, childish special effects, embarrassingly bad acting, laughable dialogue, etc.). Hard to believe that in this age of rampant hipster irony and pathological self-awareness, James Nguyen seems to be carving out an earnest spot for himself as the 21st century Ed Wood.

“Birdemic: Shock and Terror” is not rated and runs 90 minutes. It’s being released by Severin Films.

- Dennis King

NEW YORK – The opening of “Elling” on Broadway marks the latest in a long line of movie-based stories making their way to the stages of the Great White Way.

Some other movie-to-play translations that are currently on New York stages include:

“The 39 Steps” – This witty spoof on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 espionage thriller essentially follows the film story verbatim, except the thrills are played for laughs and all roles were frantically preformed by a cast of four actors.

“Brief Encounter” – This stage version of the sentimental 1945 British film from David Lean and Noel Coward is also a larky combination of affectionate spoof, nostalgic set piece and brilliant theater craft – at once a thing of the stage and a savvy homage to cinema melodrama.

“Elf” – For a limited holiday run, the towering elf, Buddy (with Sebastian Arcelus standing in for Will Ferrell), visits New York in a faithful stage adaptation of the Warner Bros. film. Tony Award nominees Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin provide music and lyrics.

“The Lion King” – The 1994 Disney animated feature film made a seamless safari from screen to stage and became a Broadway mainstay (as well as a worldwide touring money machine). It boasts innovative staging by director Julie Taymor, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, along with a musical score created by Hans Zimmer and choral arrangements by African composer Lebo M.

“Mary Poppins” – Another Disney film (from 1964) traipsed onto the Broadway stage and staked a claim to long-running status. This one features the wizardry of producer Cameron Mackintosh (“Les Miserables,” “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera”) and familiar songs from the Julie Andrews’ film.

“Billy Elliot” – The blue-collar tale of an British lad who escapes his hardscrabble life in a depressed Northern England mining community by becoming a world-class ballet dancer tripped the light onto the Broadway stage as a musical, with tunes by Elton John and lyrics by Lee Hal, who also wrote the film’s screenplay.

“Women on the Verges of a Nervous Breakdown” – In a most unlikely marriage of Spanish postmodernism and Broadway razzmatazz, Pedro Almodovar’s sassy 1988 comedy-drama gets the musical theater treatment in this new New York production, featuring music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a cast lead by the larger-than-life diva Patti LuPone.

“Promises, Promises” – Actually, the current production of this musical – with songs and lyrics by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and book by Neil Simon – is in its the second time around. Based on Billy Wilder’s classic 1960 film, “The Apartment,” it first came to Broadway in 1968 and ran for nearly 1,300 performances. The current show features Oklahoma native Kristen Chenoweth as the waitress who falls for a two-timing businessman who borrows an underling’s apartment for extra-marital trysts.

The Addams Family – Technically, this musical (featuring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth) is drawn from the macabre cartoon works of New Yorker magazine artist Charles Addams, but the tale of one ghoulish family of spirited misfits sprang to three-dimensional life in a popular ’60s TV show and in three big-screen adaptations (the last going straight to video). And currently there is talk of a stop-motion animated film involving that most Addams-esque filmmaker Tim Burton.

Far afield from the Broadway boards, two fairly obscure film works have recently received stage treatments. A special, campy Halloween season production of “Plan 9 From Outer Space” was offered by the Brick Theater in Brooklyn, and “Throne of Blood,” an Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Akira Kurasawa’s 1957 film version of “Macbeth,” just finished a short run on stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

- Dennis King

QUOTABLE

“It blew my mind. It terrified me. I think it made me aware of something that I had never dealt with before, which was not just my own mortality but what Hitchcock was able to do was take something that was ordinary — like taking a shower was ordinary, everybody in America took a shower — and he made it evil. And, to me, the shower became evil.”

— Janet Leigh, in a 2002 interview with The Oklahoman

BY GENE TRIPLETT

The horror film that changed the rules of cinematic storytelling and the bathing habits of many a fainthearted filmgoer turns 50 this year, but its ability to strike a deep nerve in the bravest of movie buffs is as whetstone-sharp as ever.

Considered by many to be Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, “Psycho” was actually unleashed on an unsuspecting public on June 16, 1960, but Universal Studios Home Entertainment must’ve figured the 50th anniversary Blu-ray edition would sell better during the Halloween season when people are more in the mood for having the hell scared out of them.

It certainly should top anyone’s witching-season movie-watching list, whether they’ve seen it or not. There are no supernatural elements involved in Hitch’s experiment in terror, but the hobgoblins of the human mind are far more horrifying than any monster EC Comics or George Romero could ever conjure up.

Based on a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, which was in turn based on the crimes of real-life Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, the screenplay by Joseph Stefano (later producer/writer for TV’s “The Outer Limits”) broke with all traditional three-act story structure guidelines, beginning with the plight of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a Phoenix, Ariz., real estate secretary caught in a dead-end relationship with divorced small-town hardware store owner Sam Loomis (John Gavin) who’s unable to marry due to huge alimony payments and his dead father’s debts.

In an act of desperation, Marion seizes an opportunity to abscond with $40,000 in cash from a real estate deal and flees to California to be with Sam. But along the way she gets lost in a nighttime downpour and finds herself well off the beaten path in front of an old motel, with a sinister-looking old house looming on a hilltop behind it.

There she meets shy and awkward innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who apparently lives alone with his domineering invalid mother and keeps the motel running despite the fact that paying guests are few and far between.

“Twelve cabins, 12 vacancies,” he jokes, sensing that Marion is troubled, uneasy about something as she signs the name “Marie Samuels” in the register.

Norman is obviously taken by this striking woman and invites her up to the house for sandwiches and milk, but when he runs up to grab an umbrella, Marion overhears the angry shouts of an elderly woman, berating her son for having invited a female stranger into their home, accusing him of “cheap erotic” intentions.

Norman and Marion end up eating in the parlor behind the motel office, where he apologizes for his mother’s rudeness (“She just goes a little crazy sometimes.”) and the conversation turns to the “private traps” that people allow themselves to fall into.

Before their visit is through, Norman has unknowingly led Marion to the unspoken decision to return to Phoenix with the stolen money and try to square things. She excuses herself, announcing her plans to rise early for the long drive home.

Back in her room, Marion undresses and revels in an invigorating shower that seems to be cleansing her conscience as well as her body.

And then —

Spoiler alert! If there really is still someone out there who hasn’t seen “Psycho,” read no further if you’re planning to check it out, lest you rob yourself of its deliciously jolting surprises.

— the shower curtain is ripped aside and the shadowy figure of what appears to be a tall woman wielding a very big knife gets her point across — again and again and again.

Exit Marion. The movie is no longer about her.

Now it’s all about Norman, and the lengths to which he’ll go to cover up for his crazy mama.

And in that harrowing scene and its immediate aftermath, the Master of Suspense achieves the master stroke of his career.

Never had a mainstream American film up to that time pulled off such an utterly shocking, emotionally wrenching midstream change of narrative direction, killing off a major star 40 minutes in — with all of it heightened by the shrieking strings of Bernard Herrmann’s unnerving musical score.

The remainder of the film leaves it up to boyfriend Sam, Marion’s determined sister Lila (Oklahoma’s own Vera Miles) and an intrepid private detective named Arbogast (a superb Martin Balsam) to solve the mystery of Marion’s disappearance, leading up to a totally unpredictable climax that has viewers leaping out of their seats all over again.

It was a movie of other firsts as well, because Hitchcock’s agenda ranged beyond changing storytelling conventions to the long overdue need to challenge the Production Code that had been strangling artistic freedom in film for far too long.

The opening post-coital scene between Leigh and Gavin was essential in setting up the story, featuring Leigh in bra and half-slip, which was considered next to naked in the minds of the period’s censors. Hitchcock was smooth enough to soothe the sensibilities of the scissor sisters on that front.

The close-up of a flushing toilet — never before seen onscreen but essential to the plot because it involved the disposal of incriminating written evidence — was allowed in as well.

And the shower scene itself — brutal and lurid as it seemed — remained largely intact after much negotiation because no objectionable body parts were seen (a fleeting shot of bare buttocks was clipped), and the knife blade was never shown piercing Marion’s flesh (although I can argue with this, having slow-cranked a VHS version that clearly shows the retractable knife tip appearing to inflict a shallow puncture in the victim’s belly).

The point (there’s that word again) is that Hitchcock concocted a bloodcurdling suspenser like nothing before it, and helped knock down some antiquated censorship roadblocks in the process. And he also managed to tell a weirdly touching — albeit chilling — story of two tragic figures, Marion and Norman, who sense briefly that they’re kindred spirits, just before disaster strikes.

Hitchcock also concocted an ingenious marketing campaign: “It is required that you see ‘Psycho’ from the very beginning,” the billboards declared, which of course stirred the public’s curiosity even more.

An excellent book called “The Moment of Psycho” by historian and critic David Thomson sheds some brilliant light on the effects this film has had on the American moviegoing experience in the years hence, and the “bloodletting, sadism and slaughter” that are now taken for granted on the big screen.

And it’s true that the floodgates of gratuitous and graphic gore and mean-spirited violence have opened wider and wider ever since. But it’s also true that Hitchcock paved the way for future serious-minded filmmakers to make smart and relevant movies that play on an adult level, unfettered by the moral dictates of a self-appointed few.

Mrs. Bates took care of them quite handily.

Recommended:

“Psycho” 50th Anniversary Edition in Blu-ray brings an amazing new clarity to the shadowy beauty of John L. Russell’s black-and-white cinematography, and Herrmann’s expressive all-strings score is even more imposing in reprocessed 5.1 digital sound. Other extras include a feature-length “making of” documentary, the shower scene sans music, the shower scene storyboards designed by Saul Bass, behind-the-scenes photos of cast and crew at work, 1960s newsreel footage of the film’s initial release.

“The Psycho Legacy” is a two-disc study of the film’s lasting influence and the sequels it spawned, with the late Anthony Perkins participating in a full panel discussion and a collection of extended and deleted scenes.

“The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder” by David Thomson (Basic Books).

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