Portraits of Bette Davis in Her Prime

MGM/UA Home Video has begun packaging star turns in beautiful black-and-white transfers, no mean feat inasmuch as many are now part of the Turner-Warner Bros. film library. The result is a series of finely etched portraits from some of Hollywood’s most high-powered stars in their prime.

Among the most fascinating in the series is “The Bette Davis Collection” ($100), which offers five of her most notable films: “The Old Maid” (1939); “The Letter” (1940); “In This Our Life” (1942); “Now, Voyager” (1942) and “A Stolen Life” (1946).

Depending on your perspective, they’re classics, pot-boilers, tear-jerkers, melodramas or “women’s” films, but never uninteresting. All are crisp transfers, and since they predate CinemaScope, the ratio works fine for the TV screen. Sound quality is excellent, all the better to hear the familiar Max Steiner scores.

The fairly detailed chapter searches make it easy if you’re looking for key scenes, including the original theatrical trailers, which are included for “The Old Maid,” “The Letter” and “In This Our Life.”

If all you want from “Now, Voyager” is Paul Henreid’s famous double-cigarette-lighting scene, you can find it easily enough from among the 86 chapter stops (Chapter 42). Many are keyed to some of screenwriter Casey Robinson’s now-classic lines: “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon . . . we have the stars” (Chapter 43).

The least of the quintet, “A Stolen Life” (with only 46 chapter stops), is in many ways the most interesting for the laser game player trying to figure out just how Davis was photographed for her dual role.

Roddy McDowall’s overweening introduction is a bit much, but forgivable.