The Criterion Collection

Critics writing about our new Eclipse Series 16, Alexander Korda’s Private Lives, seem to have felt compelled to pick their favorites—and, interestingly, they run the gamut. Turner Classic Movies’ Glenn Erickson calls the collection “a quartet of fine films by the famed producer-director,” but comes down for the 1936 Rembrandt, “the most mature and melancholy . . . , a tender and insightful contemplation of the artist’s relationship to society.” Michael Sragow, writing in the New Yorker, is also a fan of Charles Laughton’s portrayal of the Dutch painter, as well as the actor’s legendary performance in The Private Life of Henry VIII, a pair of films that “prove that the producer-director Korda and the idiosyncratic star Charles Laughton were, in their prime, as formidable a filmmaking team as John Ford and John Wayne or Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro . . . Laughton’s movies, with their meatiness, anchor this set and elevate it to rare artistic heights.”

Meanwhile, DVD Verdict’s Clark Douglas singles out The Rise of Catherine the Great, which Paul Czinner directed and Korda produced: “Czinner made a fine substitute, actually offering a considerably more ‘cinematic’ experience than Korda.” And Dave Kehr, in the New York Times, blazes his own trail: “The major discovery of the Eclipse set is The Private Life of Don Juan . . . As deeply felt as it is merciless, this Don Juan could almost be a lost film by Ernst Lubitsch.”