This week, we start with some old-timers:

Adventure Singles: Universal Backlot Series

Coming to DVD.

Universal Home Entertainment continues with its engaging “Adventure Singles: Universal Backlot Series,” an ongoing look at some old, and some very old, movies worthy of re-examination. The last two named titles have been plucked from Universal’s library of old Paramount films. The no-frills discs arrive simultaneously but separately ($19.98).

They have been remastered, with the result being high-quality pictures. Witness the colorful hues in Lonesome Pine, one of the first films to be photographed in Technicolor. None of the films are rated, and supplements are sparse, so check labels.

Universal Studios

Kirk Douglas starred in Lonely Are the Brave in 1962, and the film has been remastered and re-released as part of the “Adventure Singles: Universal Backlot Series.”

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Lonely Are the Brave (****) Kirk Douglas starred in this excellent 1962 film after he was already a Hollywood star, but it did more to establish his reputation than perhaps any of his other works.

In the trenchant script by once-blacklisted Hollywood Ten screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, Douglas plays Jack Burns, a modern-day cowboy who refuses to join society or even compromise with it. He intentionally gets thrown into jail to see a friend, expecting to be able to break out. But when he does, he finds himself chased up, around and through a mountain range by a dogged policeman (Walter Matthau).

The DVD includes two featurettes — one an extended look on the film featuring interviews with Douglas and co-star Gena Rowlands, and the other on the film’s musical score by Jerry Goldsmith.

Not rated, 108 minutes.

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (**1/2) Bit player Jon Hall starred in this colorful sword-and-sandals mini-epic that used to be a Universal staple. He plays the main character, a Baghdad palace ward turned renegade when his father dies at the hands of the invading Mongols. But remaining in the palace is his childhood sweetheart, played by Maria Montez, who made scores of these types of films with her other co-star here, Turhan Bey.

She died at 39 after a busy career, but made enough of an impact to have the international airport in her native Barahona, Dominican Republic, named after her.

Not rated, 87 minutes.

Associated Press

In the film Beau Geste, Telly Savalas, left, plays the brutal legion commander in the second remake of the Percival Christopher Wren novel.

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Beau Geste (***1/2) In this rousing action-adventure, the three Geste brothers — Beau (Gary Cooper), John (Ray Milland) and Digby (Robert Preston) — join the French Foreign Legion when they come under suspicion after a valuable jewel goes missing at their posh ancestral home. Once in the Sahara, however, they run into a sadistic officer, played ferociously by Brian Donlevy. Renowned action director William Wellman choreographs two mysteries with fights, battles, a mutiny and a fleeting romance with the woman left behind (Susan Hayward). Look for Donald O’Connor as the young Beau.

Not rated, 112 minutes.

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (***) Veteran Hollywood director Henry Hathaway made this somewhat far-fetched 1936 romantic drama plausible and even entertaining.

Fred MacMurray plays a coal company executive who stumbles into the middle of an ongoing interfamily feud deep in the beautifully photographed Blue Ridge Mountains. In addition, Henry Fonda plays the callow young lad who takes objection when MacMurray starts paying extra attention to his woman (a miscast Sylvia Sidney). The screenplay was co-written by former Dallas Morning News reporter and eventual pulp author Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses Don’t They?).

Not rated, 102 minutes.

*

Rogue Pictures

Ethan Cutkosky stars as Barto in the supernatural thriller The Unborn.

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The Unborn (***) Although the title might suggest something political, David S. Goyer, who co-wrote The Dark Knight, wrote and directed this horror film that actually delivers some creepy shocks.

Goyer dips into several horror genres, doling out bit parts to Dybbuks, poltergeists, blue-eyed bulldogs, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and a rabbi (Gary Oldman) who does Christian exorcisms.

Odette Yustman plays Casey, a young woman suffering from bad dreams.

She thinks she might be inhabited by the soul of her twin brother who died in the womb. She might be right because the trouble begins when little brother starts haunting the family.

Surprisingly good supporting cast includes Jane Alexander, James Remar, Idris Elba and others.

The DVD offers both the theatrical (rated PG-13, 88 minutes) and the unrated (89 minutes) versions (always go with the unrated). Plus seven minutes of deleted scenes.

*

Peanuts 1960s Collection Charles Schultz’s much-loved comic strip provided material for 41 TV specials. Six of those productions that appeared between 1965 and ’69 are assembled here, along with “The Maestro of Menlo Park,” a featurette on jazz musician Vince Guaraldi, who supplied the Peanuts music and also made other lasting musical contributions both in motion pictures and in off-screen pursuits.

The collection includes: A Charlie Brown Christmas; Charlie Brown’s All-Stars; It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; You’re in Love, Charlie Brown; He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown; and It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown.

Not rated, 150 minutes.

*

Kath and Kim: Season One Based on an Australian comedy of the same name, our week’s top TV-series-to-DVD sees an unlikely pair starring as a feuding, scheming mother and daughter. Comic treasure Molly Shannon plays Kath, mother to Kim (Selma Blair). As much sisters, or rivals, as mother and daughter, the two never stop their comedic shenanigans.

Underrated and often overlooked John Michael Higgins figures in as the perfect foil. The two discs hold the season’s 17 episodes, along with commentary, a gag reel and deleted scenes.

Not rated, 353 minutes.

*

Also coming to DVD this week: Dawn Patrol, 12 Rounds.