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'Pickup' sticks

IT'S TIME TO put on the Ritter. No, not John Ritter – he's had plenty of sappy TV tributes of late. I'm talking about Thelma Ritter, wisecracking sidekick par excellence. She might be best known for ironing Bette Davis's clothes in All about Eve, pushing Jimmy Stewart's wheelchair in Rear Window, and fixing vittles for the over-the-hill threesome of Marilyn-Monty-Clark in The Misfits, but her peak performance can be found in Samuel Fuller's 1953 Pickup on South Street (Criterion Collection, $29.95). An acidic-as-ever Richard Widmark heists microfilm in Pickup's plot, but it's Ritter – as a world-weary stoolie nicknamed Moe – who steals the larger film. As Luc Sante notes in an essay accompanying the DVD, Moe is "pathetic, cold-blooded, kittenish, stalwart, cunning and tender, sometimes all at once." Her final monologue also might be the most affecting death scene in film noir, barely besting Gloria Grahame's last breaths in The Big Heat. (Much like Fritz Lang's classic, which was released the same year, Pickup briefly surfaces from mucky corruption to allow a tender scene between a man and a woman with a scarred face. Ah, hard-boiled romance.)

The newspaper background of Pickup's director is evident in everything from its headline-like title to smaller details – only in a Fuller film could a protagonist's trip to the public library to use the microfiche machine be so dynamic. Criterion's timing and taste are impeccable: Pickup's air of patriotic paranoia suits the Bush era all too well, and the digital restoration work, the booklet (which excerpts relevant bend-your-ear banter from Fuller's engaging autobiography), and the extras (including a short film in which Fuller explains the meaning of the term hard-on to French cinéastes) are all superb. As the man himself might say, holy smoke, this is one helluva DVD! (Johnny Ray Huston)

Hey, hey, hey

"Suggested by" the 1975 film Cooley High, the sitcom What's Happening!! ran from 1976 to 1979. Though its pop culture references (Mahogany, Gladys Knight and the Pips, disco, etc., not to mention guest stars like Wolfman Jack and Robbie "Cousin Oliver" Rist) are dated, the 21 episodes contained in What's Happening!! – The Complete First Season (Columbia Tristar, $29.95) prove the show is utterly timeless – and that no matter how often you see it, the "Rerun dance" is always hilarious. Starting off every week with Henry Mancini's jaunty theme, the exceptionally well-cast comedy follows the adventures and mishaps – inevitably caused by money troubles, school troubles, family troubles, girl troubles, or some combination thereof – of three Watts teens: brainy, aspiring screenwriter Raj (Ernest Thomas), nervous Dwayne (Haywood Nelson), and food-obsessed, suspender-and-beret-wearing Rerun (Fred Barry). The pals congregate for sodas at Rob's Place, presided over by formidable waitress Shirley (Shirley Hemphill). Other key characters include Raj's Mama (Mabel King), a hardworking single mother who rules with an iron fist (and, by each lesson-learning episode's end, a warm heart), and – possibly the greatest character in the history of sitcoms – Raj's bratty, conniving sister, Dee (Danielle Spencer), undisputed master of the lacerating put-down. The three-disc DVD set lacks any extras, which is kind of a shame, but the show itself is so strong that the value of the package is hardly lessened. (Cheryl Eddy)

Queer fears: confused teens of '70s and '80s horror

1. Jesse, who keeps something called "Probe" in the closet of his aerobics-zone bedroom, who invades the sleeping quarters of his hot, shirtless best friend, and who runs into his gym teacher at a leather bar just before said teacher is attacked with butt-snapping wet towels in A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy's Revenge (New Line, $14.98)

2. Charley, who seeks the counsel of Roddy McDowell because he'd rather look at the debonair vampire next door than butch "girlfriend" Amanda Bearse in Fright Night (Columbia Tristar, $14.98)

3. Bobby, who fends off atomic desert mutants with gymnastic back flips and high kicks in The Hills Have Eyes (Anchor Bay, $29.98)

4. Andrew, who makes a jock tormentor sprout breasts in a locker-room shower in Fear No Evil (Anchor Bay, $19.98)

5. Bubble bath-takin', man-wantin' Sam, played by Corey Haim, in The Lost Boys (Warner, $14.98)

When doves fly

"Glass Clouds," the title of a short film by Frantisek Vlacil, captures the crystalline splendor of that director's nature imagery – if any filmmaker could make clouds look like they were made of glass, it would be Vlacil, thanks to regular cinematographer Jan Curik. Vlacil's first feature-length work, 1960's White Dove (Facets Video, $29.98), contains a glass ocean: in one typically stunning sequence, windows reflect the shimmering surface of a sea at night, before a door opens to reveal a seemingly infinite pitch-black pathway. A children's fable involving an errant animal, a boy, and a girl, The White Dove might have inspired the story line of Snoopy Come Home; in filmic terms, both its stark, sun-bleached seaside visuals and the chic-jazz undercurrents of its harpsichord-dominated score foreshadow the early collaborations between Roman Polanski and Christopher Komeda. Composed and edited with refinement, it's the standout among a trio – also including Jaromil Jires's softcore fantasy frolic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders ($29.98) and Otakar Vavra's inquisition nightmare The Witches' Hammer ($29.98) – of recent additions to Facets Video's growing collection of Czech new-wave works. (Huston)