'Dorian Gray' headlines gallery of new DVDs

Here are some of the latest movies and TV shows to arrive on DVD, led by a classic '40s picture for which fans have been clamoring.

• "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (Warner, 1945, two discs, b/w and color, $19.97). This is the DVD debut of this excellent adaptation of the Oscar Wilde story about a morally corrupt man in 19th century London who remains youthful over an 18-year period while his hidden portrait decays, revealing the ravages of his sins.

Hurd Hatfield is fine in the title role as a man whose good looks belie his lifestyle — but it is top-billed George Sanders who steals the show in a supporting part, as a wealthy man of leisure whose witty observations on human nature (which he may or may not really believe) prompt Gray to become a hedonist.

And 20-year-old Angela Lansbury must be singled out for her brief but touching performance as Gray's initial victim, a naive, innocent music-hall singer who has been sheltered from her surroundings by her domineering mother. Gray loves her but coldly destroys her anyway. Lansbury earned a second Oscar-nomination for this, her third movie. (She was also nominated for her first, "Gaslight.")

Donna Reed and Peter Lawford costar, and unbilled Cedric Hardwicke narrates. The black-and-white cinematography here is especially good, and several times it switches to color for close-ups of the title painting. (That's Lansbury's own voice singing "Little Yellow Bird," but when the song is reprised later by Reed, her voice is dubbed.)

Extras: full frame, audio commentary (by Lansbury and film historian Steve Haberman), short film, cartoon, trailer

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• "Touch of Evil: 50th Anniversary Edition" (Universal, 1958, PG-13, two discs, b/w, $26.98). This oft-reissued classic film noir from director Orson Welles (in which he co-stars with Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich, among others) gets another release as part of Universal's two-disc "Legacy" series.

There are the expected new bonus features, but the real treat for film students is three different versions of the picture. We're used to seeing this kind of thing for newer movies, but it's rare for vintage titles. These three versions offer insight into both Welles' genius and the way in which studios interfere with the vision of moviemakers they don't understand.

"Touch of Evil," the story of a Mexican narcotics officer (Heston) and his new wife (Leigh) who get mixed up in murder and corruption in a sleazy border town, is brilliant filmmaking — but Welles was given the directing duties by default (a story that is almost as compelling as the film itself).

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