4-Film Collection ‘50s Sci-Fi (1953-1958, Warner Archive Collection, 4 Blu-rays, NR, 318 min.). Science fiction films in the 1950s mostly dealt with two subjects: exploration of outer space and the effects of the atomic bomb. In the four films in this collection, the dangers are imported from space in one film, while the other three deal with nuclear explosions resulting in three different variations of threats: giant mutated ants created by the radiation from an explosion; the release of a prehistoric dinosaur due to an atomic explosion melting the polar ice cap; and creation of an aggressive race of mutated humans in the far future after a nuclear armageddon.

“Them!” (1954, 92 min., 3.25 stars) has the giant ants – 12-feet long – who emerge nine years after an atomic bomb test at White Plains. Two members of the local state police – James Whitmore (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “Give ‘em Hell, Harry!”) is Sgt. Ben Peterson and Christian Drake (TV’s “Sheena: Queen of the Jungle”) is Trooper Ed Blackburn – come across some strange destruction of a house trailer and a convenience store when looking for a missing young girl. The area is mostly desert, but sugar had been stolen at both locations.

A strange, large print is sent to Washington D.C., which brings back bug specialist Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn of “Miracle on 34th Street,” “The Trouble with Harry”) and his daughter, Dr. Patricia Medford (Joan Weldon of “Day of the Badman”). When the young girl is found, all she can say is a repeated “Them! Them!”

As they destroy one nest of ants, the team discovers two new young queen ants have escaped and thus will be establishing new nests. One does so on a boat in the Pacific Ocean; the other, unfortunately, locates its nest in the sewer system beneath Los Angeles. The ants emit this eerie, high-pitched stridulation and are fairly decent as menaces, although I remember them as being much scarier when I first saw the film as a youngster.

The film was directed by Gordon Douglas (“Robin and the 7 Hoods”). FBI Special Agent Robert Graham is played by James Arness (“The Thing from Another World,” TV’s “Gunsmoke”). The sole extra is six test scenes of the ants (3:06).

“World Without End” (1956, 80 min., 2.25 stars). The film, directed and written by Edward Bernds (“Loose in London”), seems more likely as an episode of a series like “Star Trek” than a motion picture. Four astronauts, after circling Mars, encounter some kind of solar wind – very poor special effects here – that increases their speed hundred-fold, so they do return to Earth, but instead of 1957, the year is 2188 and decades after nuclear armageddon. What remains of normal humans live in caves and underground, while savage mutants – called mutates here – rule the Earth’s surface.

The four astronauts are played by John Borden (Hugh Marlowe of “All About Eve,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still”), Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor of “The Time Machine,” “The Birds,” “Inglourious Basterds”), Henry Jaffe (Christopher Dark of TV’s “The Time Tunnel”) and Dr. Eldon Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh of “Ma Barker’s Killer Brood”). The okay humans have mostly pretty women who wear short dresses, so two of the astronauts fall in love. Nancy Fates (“Suddenly”) plays Garnet, Shirely Patterson (“Batman,” “IT! The Terror from Beyond Space”) is Elaine and Lisa Montell (“The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold”) is Deena. Their society is led by Timmek (Everett Glass of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”), while Mories (Booth Colman of “My Gun Is Quick”) becomes an instant enemy through jealousy and tries framing the astronauts for murder.

“Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” (1958, 65 min., 2.25 stars) spends most of its time in the bickering between married couple Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes of “The Undead,” “The Crawling Hand”), who has a lot of money, and Harry Archer (William Huson of “The Amazing Colossal Man,” TV’s “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger”), who spends the rest of the time with his girlfriend Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers of “Attack of the Giant Leeches”), who is stashed away at the local hotel and apparently willing to dance with anyone.

The film opens with reports of a satellite seen falling towards Earth. Really, it is just a giant ball/spaceship with a giant man inside. Apparently, the ball’s radiation turns Nancy, whom no one believed her story of seeing the giant ball, into the title giant woman.

The large size is initially restricted to a few shots of giant hands and forearms, but in the final 10 minutes, the special effects do a good job with having a giant Nancy destroy the inn as she tries to wipe out cheating Harry.

The film comes with audio commentary by film historian Tom Weaver and actress Vickers.

Finally, there is “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” (1953, 79 min., 3.5 stars), in which the fictional rhedosaurus, extinct for 100 million years, is brilliantly brought to life by Ray Harryhausen (“Clash of the Titans,” “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad,” “Jason and the Argonauts), especially when it attacks New York City and Coney Island. The creature, which had been frozen, is released by an atomic bomb test that melts some Arctic ice.

The creature is first seen by Prof. Tom Nesbitt (Paul Hubschmid of “Bagdad,” “The Zurich Engagement”), while Prof. Thurgood Elson (Cecil Kellaway of “Harvey,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”) is the expert, with the pretty assistant (Paula Raymond of “Devil’s Doorway”) as Lee Hunter.

The film is suggested by The Saturday Evening Post story by Ray Bradbury (“Fahrenheit 451,” “Something Wicked This Way Comes”). Bradbury and Harryhausen, longtime friends, discuss their friendship in a 2003 stage event (16:51), one of the extras. Harryhausen discusses the making of the film in a separate interview (6:12) and discusses construction of the creature’s joints (59 secs.).

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

Flaming Brothers (Hong Kong, 1987, Eureka!, Blu-ray, NR, 102 min.). This action-packed film, with three extensive shootouts, stars Chow Yun-Fat (“A Better Tomorrow,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “The Replacement Killers”) as Cheung Ho-tien and Alan Tang (“Return Engagement,” “New York Chinatown”) as Chan Wai-lun, who bonded as young orphans. Now in the present, they have just opened a nightclub in Macau, but are approached by gangster Fourth Brother Kau (Patrick Tse) to do a gun deal in Thailand.

They are offered a split of 70-30 with theirs the larger share. There is a boat of armed men attacking during the purchase in Thailand and, when Chan returns, suddenly Kao says their split will only be 20 percent.

Romance blossoms for Cheung as he is reunited with childhood friend Ka Hei (Patricia Ha of “An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty”) and Chan starts dating nightclub singer Jenny. Strangely, one song is about an earthquake.

The screenplay is by Wong Kar-wai, who would go on to write and direct “Chungking Express” and “In the Mood for Love.” The director is Tung Cho “Joe” Cheung (“The True Hero,” “Kung Fu Wing Chun”).

The film comes with audio commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; an optional English dub; a look at the film’s locations  as they are today (31:36); an archival interview with the director (44:04); and alternate closing credits (3:12). The booklet contains new writing on the heroic bloodshed genre by Hong Kong cinema expert Camille Zaurin. Grade: film 3.25 stars; extras 3 stars

Invincible Swordsman (China, Well Go USA, Blu-ray, NR, 119 min.). This new film is yet another adaptation of Louis Cha's novel, “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer,” which was made into a film of that title in 1984, which starred Chow Yun-Fat (“Flaming Brothers” above) as Lingwu Chung, and also became a Chinese TV series as “Swordsman” in 2013 with Wallace Huo as Linghu Chong. In fact, the new film more closely follows “Swordsman II,” a 1992 film that starred Jet Li as Ling Wu Chung.

This time, handsome Tim Huang (“Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms”) plays Linghu Chong, a rather young swordsman who nonetheless wants to leave martial arts behind. Of course, he gets dragged into the conflict between his Mountain Hua Sect and the demon cult of Ren Woxing (Terence Yin of “The Man with the Iron Fists,” “New Police Story,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life”) and Dongfang Bubai (Yuqi Zhang of “White Deer Plain”), aka Invincible East, as she has mastered the Sunflower Manual. Dongfang has imprisoned Ren in order to take over the cult, and she sets her sights on wiping out all who live on Hua Mountain.

A wrinkle in the story is Linghu meets Dongfang, not knowing she is Invincible East. To him, she is just a new friend, whom he names “Small Fish.” (Not sure why the film is named “Invincible Swordsman” instead of “Invincible Swordswoman. There are too many invincible characters.) Meanwhile, Linghu had been expelled from the Mountain Hua Sect for his friendship, through music, of Ren Woxing’s daughter, Ren Yingying (Lu Xuan of TV’s “The Untamed,” “The Prisoner of Beauty,” “Fairyland Lovers”).

 After some training by Master Feng (the great Sammo Kam-Bo Hung of many a Jackie Chan collaboration), Linghu has adventures in which he has to fight Greed, Anger and others. He comes to realize, through Yingying, that maybe the only way to defeat Invincible East is to free her father, which they do.

Overall, it is a strange love story, and the narrative is a bit confusing initially. The film looks great, though, with lots of mystical wuxia, flying around and what not.

The disc comes with an English dub option. Grade: film 3 stars

Rather (Giant, Blu-ray, NR, 93 min.). As one watches this excellent documentary on the career on Dan Rather, who for 24 years was the face of CBS News, one is amazed at how history seems to be repeating itself.

Back in 2004, it was President George W. Bush who, facing a tough reelection bid against Democrat nominee John Kerry, brought pressure against CBS to fire Rather after Rather’s “60 Minutes II” story that questioned Bush’s military service, a story that Rather, who both narrates and is extensively interviewed in the film, still maintains was correct. The problem back then was people started questioning the sources.

At the time, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone wanted to add additional TV stations to CBS and thus did not want to upset the powers that be in Washington. Recently, President Donald J. Trump filed a suit for billions of dollars against CBS over a presidential candidate Kamala Harris interview on “60 Minutes.” At the time, Redstone’s daughter Shari needed FCC approval for a Paramount sale to Skydance. So, CBS settled the lawsuit for $16 million and 22 days later, the FCC approved the sale.

Watching the documentary and seeing Rather present at so many historical moments was like reliving my life (yes, I have been a lifelong fan of CBS News, starting with Walter Cronkite). There is his coverage of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s; his coverage in Vietnam during the fighting; the rowdy 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago, with police beating up protesters outside the hall and Rather roughed up inside the hall; the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald; coverage of Watergate and the resignation of President Richard Nixon; and his exclusive coverage from Afghanistan during fighting and China’s Tiananmen Square during the protests in 1989. In a lighter moment, Rather sings with R.E.M. on their song, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” based on a physical attack Rather suffered.

Among those interviewed are Rather’s daughter, Robin Rather, and his grandson. The film points out that Rather is reaching a new, younger audience with his 2.7 million followers for his online reporting and chatting. Grade: film 4 stars

The Hard Way (1943, Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, NR, 109 min.). This classic backstage melodrama involves two sisters, Helen Chernen (Ida Lupino, who won the 1943 New York film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress), stuck in a loveless marriage in a dirty coal town she hates, and younger Katie Blaine (Joan Leslie of “Sergeant York,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy”), who dreams of singing and dancing on stage. Lupino’s other notable films include “High Sierra,” “The Man I Love” and “They Drive by Night.”

The film opens with Helen jumping off the pier into the ocean and then being pulled out by police. The rest of the film is a long flashback, covering decades.

Just after her graduation – Katie is the only girl in the school class picture not wearing a white dress because Helen’s husband Sam (Roman Bohnen of “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “Of Mice and Men”) would not spare $8 to buy one – Katie meets the Runkel and Paul vaudeville act, with Albert Runkel (Jack Carson of ”Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Mildred Pierce,” “Arsenic and Old Lace”) seeing potential in her singing and dancing. His partner is Paul Collins (Dennis Morgan of “My Wild Irish Rose,” “Christmas in Connecticut”).

Seeing a way out of town, Helen agrees to Katie joining the act, and Katie marries Albert. Helen eventually becomes Katie’s manager as she gets a Broadway show and becomes the belle of Broadway, with hit after hit. Before that, Paul is pushed out of the act with Runkel and eventually becomes an orchestra leader, playing resorts. Of course, neither sister is truly happy.

Extras include a Lux Radio Theater version, starring Miriam Hopkins (59:35); two shorts, “Gun to Gun” (17:37) and “Over the Wall” (20:52); and two cartoons, “The Aristo-Cat” (7:20) and Daffy Duck’s “Scrap Happy Daffy” (7:59). Grade: film 3.5 stars; extras 2 stars

Emergency! The Complete Series (1972-1979, Universal, 28 Blu-rays, NR, 6,628 min.). This red box set includes all seven seasons of the TV show that followed the crew of Los Angeles County Fire Dept. Station 51, particularly the paramedic team, and Rampart Hospital’s staff who respond to emergencies. In addition to the 130 episodes, the set contains the six TV movies that continued the series’ legacy and the crossover episode with “Adam-12.”

The show was the first to portray the real-life drama of those who devote their lives to saving others. With sirens blaring, dedicated paramedics Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe of “Road House,” “Another 48 Hrs.”) and John Gage (Randolph Mantooth of TV’s “Loving”) respond to the most desperate calls. A heroic medical team, including nurse Dixie McCall (recording star Julie London, who made 32 albums and received a Golden Globe nomination for this role) and doctors Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller of “Return of the Seven”) and Joe Early (Bobby Troup of “M*A*S*H”) work on their patients at Rampart Hospital.

Ther show was produced by the legendary Jack Webb (“Dragnet,” “Project U.F.O.,” “Adam-12,” “77 Sunset Strip”). It was known for its accuracy and precision. Grade: series 3.5 stars