Red Skelton's "Whistling Collection"

"The screen needs smooth comics like this one," The New York Times' Bosley Crowther wrote about Red Skelton's starring debut in Whistling in the Dark [Disc 1]. What was true then is true today when Red unleashes live-wire goofiness as the Fox, a radio sleuth kidnapped by crooks wanting him to devise a perfect murder. The result? Perfect chaos! Whistling in Dixie [Disc 2] plunges Red (and Whistling trilogy co-stars Ann Rutherford and Rags Ragland) into a magnolias-and-mayhem mystery about Confederate treasure. In Whistling in Brooklyn [Disc 3], the Fox is on the lam as Suspect #1 in a murder. His path leads him to baseball's Ebbets Field, where he takes the mound. The Fox doesn't just throw screwballs, he is one!

• comedy