By the time he filmed the 1934 comedy Twentieth Century, John Barrymore had outlived his on-stage reputation as a masterly Hamlet and Richard III and was forging a reputation off stage as a man consumed by liquor. He would die, penniless, eight years later, at 60. But in Twentieth Century, the man roared. Given a meaty comic script by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur -- from their stage play, based on Charles Bruce Millholland's play Napoleon of Broadway -- he devoured it. His role as egocentric, tyrannical, needy, calculating stage director Oscar Jaffe was, as Barrymore described it, the role of a lifetime. "I've never done anything I like as well," he said.

The film, out on DVD next Tuesday, begins with Jaffe on top of the theatrical world, peremptorily moulding a lingerie model (the great Carole Lombard) into a star named Lily Garland. When she leaves in a huff to become a Hollywood superstar, he suffers through flop after flop until forced to flee Chicago in disguise, aboard a train called the 20th Century. As farce would have it, Lily climbs aboard with her new flame. Cue slamming doors, near-misses and a wealth of misunderstandings. Jaffe remains his scheming self, cutting off those who offend him with seven imperious words: "I close the iron door on you."

Director Howard Hawks told the French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma that the film was three years ahead of its time, because "it was the first time the dramatic leads, instead of secondary comics, played for laughs." The claim is debatable -- Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert did all right for themselves in It Happened One Night, released the same year -- but there's no doubt about the laughs and no doubt about the drama. The tale cried out to be made into a musical, and was: On the Twentieth Century, a 1978 stage hit with John Cullum in Barrymore's part and Madeline Kahn in Lombard's. The DVD's transfer is good, barring the occasional flickering and speckles. Oddly, the subtitles are in English and Japanese.

New on DVD: a two-disc Criterion edition of Howards End, from the E. M. Forster novel about liberated Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) making a surprising match in wealthy and unbending Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins). Extras include a look at the film's design and a 48-minute film on Merchant Ivory Productions. The gotcha-mentary The Yes Men sees pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno pretending to be representatives of the World Trade Organization and taking their lunatic charade as far as gullible conference organizers will let them. Rick Groen gave the film three stars.

The cult favourite Donnie Darko is out on DVD in an extended director's cut, with a fuller explanation of what the heck is going on and a commentary track in which writer-director Richard Kelly is joined by director Kevin Smith, who wasn't involved in the film's making. The critically lambasted cop-and-cabbie comedy Taxi is out in a director's cut that extends the film to 104 minutes from 97. Sure, that'll do it. One tidbit among the extras: The filmmakers were given permission to film in Grand Central Station, but only if the taxi didn't touch the floor. Instead, they recreated the New York landmark with Mexican floor tiles and computer-generated walls.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

AUTHOR, AUTHOR

Ah, the democracy of DVDs. Even authors who watch from the sidelines as their works are filmed have a chance to say their piece. The Motorcycle Diaries, which follows young Ernesto (Che) Guevara and chum Alberto Granado on a consciousness-raising motorcycle trip around Latin America, is based in part on Granado's memoir With Che in Latin America. The DVD includes a 2003 interview with Granado, who has lived in Cuba since going there in 1960 at Che's invitation. "When I have doubts," he says, "I don't ask myself what my wife or Fidel might say. I ask myself what Ernesto would say." The Notebook, a Carolinian romance, includes a thoughtful running commentary by Nicholas Sparks, author of the source novel. He says he gave himself three chances to write a successful novel. "I could live with failure. I just didn't want to die thinking I never gave it a shot."

CLASSICS FOR KIDS

If your daughter is pining for a pony on her birthday, distract her with two new DVDs in which wild horses run free. Thunderhead, Son of Flicka, out next Tuesday, is the 1945 sequel to 1943's My Friend Flicka and has much the same cast. Young Roddy McDowall lives with his family at the Goose Bar Ranch in the shadow of the U.S. Rockies, beautifully captured in colour. He's keen to race the all-white colt to which brown mare Flicka has just given birth. Young viewers will realize who sired the colt long before the adults in the movie clue in. The Young Black Stallion, a 51-minute 2004 Disney film shot for Imax, is set in 1946 in North Africa. A young girl (Biana G. Tamimi) makes friends in the desert with a wild brown colt and, yes, is determined to race him. The Namibian vistas are impressive even on the small screen. If the kids insist on a horse that talks, the second volume of Mr. Ed will be out next month.

WISH LIST

The nominations keep coming for much-wanted films not yet on DVD. Studios, take note.

1. Michelangelo Antonioni's made-in-America Zabriskie Point (1970).

2. The Tall T (1957) and Comanche Station (1960), directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott. Reader Michael Creagen: "Great morality plays set in the Old West."

3. The Mating Season (1951), comedy with Gene Tierney and Miriam Hopkins.

4. Paradise Lagoon (1957), a.k.a. The Admirable Crichton, the title of J.M. Barrie's source play about class reversal among shipwrecked Britons.

5. The Deadly Affair (1967), with James Mason, Simone Signoret, Maximilian Schell and Harry Andrews. Reader Peter Omnet: "How can a movie with this cast, well-directed by Sidney Lumet, based on an early John Le Carré novel (Call for the Dead), not be out yet on DVD?"