A recent standout in Warner Home Entertainment's library of "on-demand" titles available exclusively online. Martin Scorsese acknowledges that this movie (along with 1949's My Dream Is Yours) helped inspire New York, New York.

Back story: Visiting chanteuse Ida Lupino serves Gershwin to customers in a shady nightspot run by Robert Alda, seen here three years before he originated the Sky Masterson role in Guys and Dolls. Heavy in atmosphere, this romance is upfront about World War II combat fatigue and loosening sexual mores. You don't see many other movies of the day where the blonde bombshell next door ignores her twin newborns to actively pursue flooziedom.

ALSO NEW THIS WEEK

Watchmen: Director's Cut
* * 1/2, 2009, Warner, R, $29 and $35 editions; Blu-ray, $36

Impersonally directed by 300's Zack Snyder and adapted so literally from a revered-and-then-some source that it suggests the world's longest book report, this critical/financial underperformer from March has enough sporadic rewards to breed suspicions that some of its flaws will be eventually forgiven. To be sure, any yarn that portrays Richard Nixon as still being president in the '80s must be in part a horror drama. But otherwise, both the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel and Snyder's visually muddy screen treatment smoosh the supernatural with Strangelove-ian political satire; twisted sex; noir-ish vigilantism spurred by superhero angst; and prison-pic violence that makes James Cagney's White Heat look tame (if hardly a lesser movie). Running three hours and change, this version adds 24 minutes (look out, an even longer DVD version is envisioned), and many additions involve Jackie Earle Haley's oddly likable psychopath "Rorschach." This is good because Haley's performance is Watchmen's premier component, though it also is true that Billy Crudup (a standout as J. Edgar Hoover in Public Enemies) nails his Dr. Manhattan character. Or, as much as you can nail a blue giant who speaks in a monotone.

Mr. Rock 'n' Roll
* 1/2, 1999, Eagle Rock, unrated, $15

Before even five minutes have elapsed, this telepic bio of pioneering disc jockey Alan Freed has Patti Page's 1957 recording of Old Cape Cod playing during his time in Cleveland, even though he left for New York in 1954. Doing the same for Little Richard's Long Tall Sally (1956), it further depicts Specialty Records' label as turquoise and white when it was famously yellow, black and white. Then, and still before the five-minute mark, here come Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' Stay (1960). In truth, the good Freed bio (1978's American Hot Wax) mangles chronology as well, yet it has a marvelous feel for one of music's most kinetic eras, plus Tim McIntire's bull's-eye performance as Freed. This version has Judd Nelson. Assuming they even know they own it, Paramount Home Entertainment is years overdue in bringing out Wax, or at least the 1957 Mr. Rock and Roll, a Paramount release that actually starred Freed.

More highlights

•The Great Buck Howard (**1/2; 2009, Magnolia, PG, $27; Blu-ray, $35): A spoon-feeding voiceover by Colin Hanks degrades an otherwise affable comedy about a law school dropout employed by a professional illusionist (John Malkovich, in another good-sport performance) in a downward career spiral. Colin's dad (Tom) has a couple of scenes, Emily Blunt looks cool in lipstick, and a few showbiz B-listers take some amusing ribbing.

•Nursery University (***; 2009, Docurama, unrated, $27): Are filmmakers Marc H. Simon and Matthew Makar being politely low-key so they could gain remarkable documentary access, or poker-faced droll so that participants can hang themselves? The result lets you draw your own conclusions about parents who contort themselves to get their children into Manhattan's most prestigious pre-schools.