Until 1981, when Lawrence Kasdan revived the style with "Body Heat," film noir was something sought out and discussed primarily by pale-faced film students who might have preferred to have it remain their own private reserve.

Too bad for them. Today, noir — with its shadowy rooms and shadowier characters — is a brand, so popular that studios sift through their catalogs for any film that has even a frisson of the formula. Sometimes a slouched hat and a sass-talking dame will qualify a movie for a DVD release with a noir banner.

In the 1940s and '50s, MGM was better known for musicals than mysteries and crime thrillers, but it did have Edward G. Robinson, co-star of what is one the greatest of all noirs, "Double Indemnity," and they made excellent use of his talents. He's the lead in three of the four new titles, issued under the "MGM Film Noir" banner, including the excellent "The Woman in the Window," made in 1944, the same year as "Indemnity."

Robinson is cast as a New York professor of criminology who repairs to his club for a quiet drink with his colleagues. On leaving, he stops to admire a portrait in the window of a nearby art gallery. In one of the great noir shots, the real face (a never sultrier Joan Bennett) of the subject of the painting appears in reflection, and after some conversation, the two end up at her place, where things take the ever-expected, unexpected turn. Impeccably directed by Fritz Lang, and looking better than ever on this restored DVD, "Woman" has an ending that noir lovers love to debate; it's a perfect twist or a complete contrivance. Even if it's the latter, it can't spoil a near-perfect movie.

Robinson also is the catalyst of "The Stranger," though legend has it he was the second choice of his director and co-star Orson Welles. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead in the role of the federal agent who has tracked Nazi Welles to a small town in Connecticut, where he has reinvented himself as a respected prep school teacher. If "The Stranger" feels surprisingly conventional, it's because it was one of Welles' periodic attempts to prove he could make films on time, on budget, that common filmgoers would enjoy — and they did.

"A Bullet for Joey" is not a noir, just a routine gangster film with a Cold War backdrop; Robinson gives a rare by-the-numbers performance, perhaps because he is miscast as an inspector for the Canadian police whose investigation of a murder leads him to a Russian plot employing a mobster (played by George Raft) to kidnap a nuclear scientist.

The sole title not featuring Robinson, 1952's "Kansas City Confidential," is closer in style to noir, being a crisp little B movie directed by the underrated Phil Karlson. It starred John Payne as an ex-con turned flower delivery driver who plays the patsy in a bank heist orchestrated by mobster Preston Foster.

TV ON DVD

"The Complete Second Season" of Ricky Gervais' comedy "Extras" (HBO), starring himself as Hollywood hanger-on Andy Millman, has him escaping the ignominy of earning a living as an extra when he finally sells his sitcom script, "When the Whistle Blows." But he discovers that the big time is just as excruciating as the small time. The second season, by the way, is the final season; as he did with the original British version of "The Office," Gervais wrapped it up before the joke went stale.

Those who bemoan the loss of new episodes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" will be happy to know that wiseacres Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy have reunited for "Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark." They put their kibitz-commentary to a 1968 exploitation movie released under the ludicrous title "Walk the Angry Beach." It stars none other than "Golden Girl" Rue McLanahan as an innocent girl from the Midwest who arrives in Tinseltown to become an actress. Instead, she falls into the hands of sleazy producers and ends up as a stripper, not to mention becoming the butt — heh — of the Film Crew's jokes.