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Frank Capra is one of a handful of directors, like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg, whose name practically signifies its own genre, and like those directors, his body of work is far more complex and varied than the broad strokes by which he’s often defined. Capra tends to be thought of in one of two ways: as either the light, breezy director of handsomely crafted comedies like “Platinum Blonde,” “It Happened One Night,” and “You Can’t Take it With You,” or as the inspirational chronicler of American values and politics who made “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Both characterizations are true, but they only scratch the surface of Capra’s breadth. His full range is on glorious display in what is unquestionably the physical media event of the season, Sony’s release of the “Frank Capra at Columbia” collection.

A classy dame. A dynamite broad. A tough cookie. The language is definitely un-pc…and yet, it seems not only proper but singularly apt when talking about Barbara Stanwyck. It was the language of the day when her star soared off into the ascent, and it would remain so her over the course of a 60-year career on stage, film, and TV, it would be criminal to clean it up for politeness’ sake. It was the kind of language she unabashedly used herself in her later years, describing herself frankly, bluntly, and with characteristic modesty – as was her wont – as “…a tough old broad from Brooklyn.”

And, kiddo (as she’d probably say), she was. She had to be.

She was four-year-old Ruby Stevens when a drunk pushed her mother off a streetcar killing her, and her father, unable to cope, ran off. She bounced from one foster home to another,...