Rally 'round the Flag, Boys!

Studios are always looking for ways to promote their older films, but this is surely one of the most unusual packaging ideas to date. Less superstar than sexy starlet, Collins is quite fetching (especially when parading around in showgirl silks and lingerie) and at times quite charismatic in this collection of films from her ingénue days. She's not even the lead in the comedy "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!" (1958), but she is well-cast as the frustrated wife of a workaholic who attempts to seduce suburban family man Paul Newman from his neighborhood activist wife (Newman's real-life wife Joanne Woodward). Leo McCarey directs the suburban satire of 1950s commuter culture with a farcical flair, and Tuesday Weld is, like, the most as a boy-crazy teenager who falls for a soldier on the local military base. Collins is Evelyn Nesbitt, aka the "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" (1955), the woman who inspired millionaire industrialist Harry K. Thaw (Farley Granger) to murder architect Stanford White (Ray Milland), in the real-life scandal later dramatized in "Ragtime." The five-disc collection also features the survival drama "Sea Wife" (1957) co-starring Richard Burton, the espionage thriller "Stopover Tokyo" (1957) with Robert Wagner, and the casino heist adventure "Seven Thieves" (1960) with Edward G. Robinson and Rod Steiger. Each disc is available both in the box set and separately, and features audio commentary, still galleries, restoration comparisons, trailers, and various archival goodies.