REVISIT the classics this week with the Blu-Ray re-release of four from the heyday of John Ford in a terrific new box set. A showcase for some of the most unexpected and surprising turns in the great director’s prolific career, John Ford at Columbia is a treat for those familiar and new to his oeuvre.

First of the quartet is The Whole Town’s Talking, released in 1935 as Passport to Fame in the United Kingdom. A comedy, perhaps Ford’s closest to the screwball genre, the film unfurls with peculiar rapidity for the director’s house style but succeeds on every level.

Edward G. Robinson leads both as the notorious bank robber ‘Killer’ Mannion and his mild-mannered doppelgänger Arthur Ferguson Jones. When the latter finds himself mistakenly arrested for the former’s crimes, chaos ensues as a special ID card becomes their only distinguishing feature.

Watch for an uncredited cameo by Lucille Ball and Ford’s own brother Francis. In support of Robinson, meanwhile, Jean Arthur delights.

Based on the autobiography of Irish immigrant turned NCO and later athletics instructor Marty Maher, The Long Grey Line is second in the set and a world apart from the first.

A favourite of Ford’s, Maureen O’Hara is the film’s leading lady as Mary O’Donnell, fellow immigrant and wife of Marty, here brought to life by Tyrone Power. It’s a sterling effort by all, scrappy and yet moving and really rather powerful.

London-based and produced, Gideon’s Day is third in the line up. Jack Hawkins plays Detective Chief Inspector George Gideon of the Metropolitan Police, a family man whose efforts to get home in time for his daughter’s violin recital are consistently beleaguered by an overwhelming to do list at work.

Largely overlooked at the time of its release - not least due to a black and white issue in America, where the film was hampered with the ropey alternative title: Gideon of Scotland Yard - Gideon’s Day is well worth its place in the set. Hawkins is super.

Finally, The Last Hurrah is a drama of great political impetus, boasting the likes of Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Pat O’Brien and Basil Rathbone in starring roles.Tracy earned himself a nomination at the BAFTAs for his role in the film, as an ageing Mayor seeking one last re-election, which proved a box office bomb. A pity, it’s very rousing.