The Criterion Collection has released a 4K digital restoration of Leo McCarey’s Love Affair by the Museum of Modern Art on Blu-ray. Long consigned to public domain hell, release prints of the film until now have all been regretfully dismal.

McCarey liked the story so much he filmed it twice. His 1957 remake, An Affair to Remember, may be better known but both versions are well worth seeking out.

The 1939 film was one of that extraordinary year’s best films. It was nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Actress (Irene Dunne), Supporting Actress (Maria Ouspenskaya), Original Story (McCarey and Mildred Cram), Art Direction, and Original Song, the infectious “Wishing (Will Make It So).”

The story was adapted by Delmer Daves (A Summer Place) and Donald Ogden Stewart (The Philadelphia Story). One of the film’s two editors was future director Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny). Warren Beatty later remade it under its original title as a gift to his wife Annette Bening in which they played the Dunne-Charles Boyer roles with Katharine Hepburn in her last theatrical film in the Ouspenskaya role, changed from Boyer’s grandmother to Beatty’s aunt as Hepburn at 87 refused to play 57-year-old Beatty’s grandmother.

Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, and Cathleen Nesbitt, of course, had the Dunne, Boyer, and Ouspenskaya roles in the 1957 version.

Two years before the original version, Dunne had received her third Oscar nomination opposite Grant in McCarey’s The Awful Truth for which McCarey won his first Oscar. That same year, Boyer received an Oscar nomination for playing Napoleon in Conquest opposite Greta Garbo. He followed that up with another nomination for Best Actor for 1938’s Algiers opposite Hedy Lamarr. Now well-established, he was the ideal choice to play the Continental lover who falls in love with former nightclub singer Dunne on an Atlantic cruise.

Although Love Affair did not win any Oscars, it’s worth noting that it lost four of them (Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress, and Art direction) to Gone with the Wind, one (Original Story) to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and one (Original Song) to The Wizard of Oz. Dunne and Boyer’s follow-up film, When Tomorrow Comes, won for Best Sound Recording.

The restoration is, of course, splendid. Extras include a video essay with critic Farren Smith Nehme on the film’s complicated production history, an interview with Lobster Films founder Serege Bromberg on the restoration, two radio adaptations, and two McCarey short silent films starring Charley Chase.

Warner Archive has released a stunning Blu-ray of George Sidney’s 1948 film version of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Long considered the definitive screen version of Dumas’ masterwork, its reputation was later usurped by Richard Lester’s two-film 1973-1974 releases, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.

This was the first version of the novel to include the entire text. Previous, as well as some later ones, only filmed the first half. Gene Kelly, in his first non-musical, was D’Artagnan who wants to join the musketeers, exemplified by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (Van Heflin, Gig Young, Robert Coote). June Allyson was the demure Constance, Angela Lansbury the Queen of France, Frank Morgan the King, Vincent Price the treacherous Richelieu, and Lana Turner the evil Milady. Screenwriter Richard Ardrey (The Green Years) objected to the tomfoolery injected into the film by Sidney (Scaramouche). Turner objected to playing Milady as it was a secondary role. She was given top billing to win her over.

The most glaring deviance from the novel as well as other film version is the removal of all religious references to Richelieu, even taking away his title of Cardinal so as not to offend the Catholic Church, a rather silly move as everyone knew who he was anyway.

The gorgeous Oscar-nominated color cinematography remains the film’s greatest asset.

Extras include short subjects and cartoons as are standard with Warner Archive releases.

Disney has prepped the 20th Century-Fox production of The King’s Man for 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD release on February 22. The prequel to the hits The Kingsman: Secret Service and The Kingsman: The Golden Circle begins in South Africa in 1902 during the Boer War and fast forwards to World War I.

Writer-Producer-Director Matthew Vaughn (Rocketman) spins a tale in which the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) and his wife, representing the Red Cross, are gunned down in a battle towards the end of the Boer War. She dies, he survives, his pacifist reputation intact as he raises his son (Harris Dickinson), who was a witness to his mother’s murder, in his and his mother’s beliefs. Unbeknownst to the son, the father is a secret avenger working in consort with his servants (Djmon Hounsou, Gemma Arteton) to keep the forces of evil from taking over the world.

The principal villain of the piece is an over-the-top Rasputin played to the hilt by an unrecognizable Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man). Other villains include a duplicitous Matthew Goode (Leap Year) and burgeoning Nazi Daniel Bruhl (Rush). It all revolves around the relationships between Queen Victoria’s three grandsons, now England’s George V, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, and Russia’s Czar Nicholas, all played by Tom Hollander (Pride & Prejudice). As long as you don’t confuse it with real history, you should enjoy it.

Now in release from Disney on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD, the Oscar-nominated animated feature Encanto is a charming film if not quite the treasure that Pixar’s Latin-flavored animated winner of four years ago, Coco, was. Whereas Coco built and built to a wholly satisfying conclusion, Encanto turns repetitive after its big reveals.

The teaser song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” builds such momentum that you expect something major when the reason the family doesn’t talk about him is finally revealed, but the reason turns out to be just that, a tease. Still, it’s nice to have an animated Disney film where the heroine is an ordinary girl, not a fairy tale princess.

This week’s new releases include House of Gucci and American Underdog.