Out on DVD: A vintage gay oddity, TV teens, showtunes and talking back at the screen

An eccentric and rarely-seen gay classic makes its DVD debut this week, alongside another season of South of Nowhere, a show-tune fave and a series of movies for people who get shushed in theaters.

Read on for more!

The 1957 film version of The Strange One turns up on DVD with several censored scenes — which suggested homosexuality — restored, but it's still a fascinatingly odd duck. Cassavetes favorite Ben Gazzara makes a riveting screen debut as, I kid you not, Jocko de Paris, an oily manipulator at an all-boys' military academy. George Peppard and Pat Hingle co-star in the film, which was written by Calder Willingham, based on his novel End as a Man. Vito Russo extensively discussed the chopped-up Strange One in The Celluloid Closet; one can only wonder what he'd make of this director's cut.

Also new to DVD is Chess in Concert, featuring the vocal talents of Josh Groban and Rent stars Idina Menzel and Adam Pascal. Before ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus hit the musical theater jackpot with Mamma Mia! they collaborated with Tim Rice (The Lion King) on this star-crossed romance set in the world of professional chess. The show has never broken past "cult hit" status, although "One Night in Bangkok" was a Top 10 single in the US, and you've probably heard "I Know Him So Well" if you've ever logged any time in a piano bar.

If, like me, you're restlessly awaiting the Degrassi Goes Hollywood movie on The N, you can fill the time by checking out the network's other great queer inclusive soap with South of Nowhere, Season 3. Granted, no one ends their sentences with "eh?" but it's still worth checking out.

Finally, Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans have enjoyed a wealth of material from the two main talking-back-at-the-movies comedy groups that formed after that classic cable show's demise. While I'm admittedly more of a fan of the work of Cinematic Titanic, there's also been good stuff coming from Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett at Rifftrax. If you didn't want to deal with downloading Rifftrax movies, you can now get a big batch of them on DVD; the lineup of public domain titles, complete with mocking additional soundtrack, includes Night of the Living Dead, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Carnival of Souls, Reefer Madness and the original House on Haunted Hill, among others.