The Trouble With Harry. Most of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies are funny–that’s part of what makes them so jolting–but this one is a not-so-straight black comedy about a group of people in a small Vermont town who stumble across a corpse in the woods and can’t decide what to do with it. Shirley MacLaine made her screen debut in this 1955 film, and the rest of the ensemble cast includes such familiar faces as John Forsythe, Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Natwick, and Jerry Mathers–yes, that Jerry Mathers. Eisenhower-era audiences didn’t buy the premise of John Michael Hayes’ screenplay, and even now The Trouble with Harry is probably the least well known of Hitchcock’s middle-period major-studio pictures. Might its fey, off-center humor make it ripe for revival today? See for yourself, and be sure to note Bernard Herrmann’s droll score (his first for Hitchcock) and the gorgeously autumnal cinematography of Robert Burks (TT).

Mississippi John Hurt, Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 OKeh Recordings (Columbia/Legacy). Born in a tiny, isolated Mississippi town in 1892, Hurt taught himself how to pick the guitar in a smoothly syncopated style that had nothing to do with the rawer playing of the Delta bluesmen elsewhere in the state. OKeh cut thirteen solo sides of his singing and playing, after which he vanished into the shadows until he became the first of the Mississippi acoustic bluesmen to be rediscovered and re-recorded, not long before his death in 1966. The albums he made in old age for Vanguard circulated far more widely, but his easygoing, deliciously danceable 78s, reissued on CD in 1996, are even better (TT).

Jacques d’Amboise: Portrait of a Great American Dancer (VAI). This is not a talking-heads documentary lightly sprinkled with fleeting performance snippets, but an anthology of long-lost TV appearances in which one of the foremost male ballet dancers of the Fifties and Sixties can be seen in uncut versions of George Balanchine’s Apollo and Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun (dancing opposite the justly legendary Tanaquil LeClercq). Also included are four pas de deux and a rarity, Lew Christensen’s Filling Station, one of the very first ballets on American themes, set to a witty score by Virgil Thomson. The moldering black-and-white kinescopes are a bit on the fuzzy side, but d’Amboise’s charm and athleticism come through with immediate and irresistible clarity (TT).

The Art of Segovia (DGG, two CDs). For much of the twentieth century, Andrés Segovia was the world’s best-known guitarist, and his concerts and recordings played a key role in re-establishing the guitar as a classical instrument. Alas, he kept on playing far too long for his own good, and by the time of his death in 1987 at the age of ninety-four, his reputation was in eclipse. This two-disc set, a fabulously well-chosen anthology of Segovia’s greatest hits drawn mainly from the recital albums that he recorded for Decca in the Fifties, provides ample proof that he was every bit as good as his reputation. It contains guitar solos and transcriptions by (among others) Albéniz, Bach, Falla, Rodrigo, Roussel, Scarlatti, Tárrega, Torroba, and Villa-Lobos, all played with the grandly romantic sweep and impeccable technique that he commanded in his prime (TT).

The Westerner. Gary Cooper has been largely overlooked by postmodern film buffs, but a new DVD reissue of this 1940 film might help break through the wall of silence. Directed by William Wyler, The Westerner is a fictionalized retelling of the not-entirely-legendary tale of Roy Bean, the hard-drinking self-made Texas judge who dispensed Law West of the Pecos and had a thing for Lillie Langtry, the celebrated turn-of-the-century British actress. Walter Brennan won and earned an Oscar for his scene-stealing performance as Judge Bean, but Cooper gets plenty of licks in as a dryly amusing drifter who slips out of the judge’s noose by falsely claiming to know the Jersey Lily. Hijinks ensue, climaxing in a spectacular showdown. You’ll know who wins well before the first shot is fired, but all the fun is getting there. Gorgeous cinematography by Gregg “Citizen Kane” Toland (TT).

The Red Pony. Lewis Milestone’s uncommonly sensitive 1949 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s quartet of short stories about a fanciful boy and the ranch hand he idolizes is a “children’s movie” that adults can watch with enormous pleasure. The cast, led by Robert Mitchum, Myrna Loy, and Louis Calhern, is impeccable, Tony Gaudio’s Technicolor cinematography is quietly handsome, and Aaron Copland’s score is one of the major achievements of his middle period. Steinbeck wrote the script himself, proving yet again that his work plays better on screen than it reads on the page (TT).

Sarah Caudwell, Thus Was Adonis Murdered. Before her death, in 2000, Sarah Caudwell wrote four mysteries, each one a little jewel of comedy and elegant construction. It’s my fond wish that these will someday be published in a single omnibus volume. Alas, that day may be some time away; Caudwell’s books have fallen out of print in the U.S., although used copies are widely available (you’ll want the editions with the Edward Gorey covers). Begin with this one, which introduces Caudwell’s merry cast of young London barristers and their friend (and chronicler) Professor Hilary Tamar. Read it the first time for the mystery; then re-read it again and again for a first-class entertainment (CAAF).

The Mills Brothers: The 1930s Recordings. Long before the Mills Brothers were a middle-of-the-road quartet known for their close-harmony ballads, they were a smooth-toned, hipper-than-hip vocal group billed as “four boys and a guitar” that Lester Young once wittily described as “the best saxophone section I ever heard.” Their first 116 recordings, pristinely remastered by John R.T. Davies, have been collected in this low-priced five-CD set that abounds with musical riches, including guest appearances by Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby. The listening is easy, but the swinging is hard (TT).