The Criterion Collection’s newly released Blu-ray of Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan is the 4K restoration of the 1951 film that was rereleased theatrically in France and Italy in 2019 and subsequently throughout the rest of world, reaching the U.S. in February 2022.

This unique film was originally written by De Sica’s frequent collaborator, Cesare Zavattini, as a novel in 1940. Intended as a film, it couldn’t be made then because of World War II. By the time it was eventually filmed, De Sica had eclipsed Roberto Rossellini as the premier director of Italian neorealist films.

Rosselini’s reputation rests on three films: 1945’s Rome, Open City, 1946’s Paisan, and 1948’s Germany Year Zero, after which he moved on to other things. De Sica’s masterpieces of the genre began with 1944’s The Children Are Watching Us and continued with 1946’s Shoeshine and 1948’s Bicycle Thieves. The latter two of which won honorary Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film before such films were given a category of their own. The neorealist fairy tale, Miracle in Milan, followed by 1952’s harshly realistic Umberto D. ended De Sica’s involvement in the genre.

Miracle in Milan was so popular in its original release that it won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Film over Rashomon and was nominated for BAFTA awards for Best Picture and Actor (Francesco Golisano).

The film begins with a little old lady (76-year-old Emma Gramatica) finding a baby in her cabbage patch. She rescues him and raises him as her grandson, calling him Toto. When she dies, he is sent to an orphanage but never loses the sense of wonder she instilled in him. Aged out of the orphanage, Toto (now played by Francesco Golisano) is unable to find work, but his infectious joy brings goodness and light to a community of shantytown shacks on the outskirts of Milan. There he falls in love with Edvidge (Brunella Bovo), a young nanny to an impoverished family forced to take up residence in one of the shacks. When it all seems hopeless, the ghost of Toto’s grandmother returns with two angels and a dove to give him, Edvige, and their friends renewed hope. The film’s fantastic ending remains one of the most satisfying in cinema history.

Extras include a new interview with De Sica’s son and archival interviews with Bovo and De Sica himself.

Kino Lorber had released a 4K UHD edition of Norman Jewison’s 1967 Oscar winner In the Heat of the Night.

Nominated for 7 Oscars, and winner of 5, In the Heat of the Night is remembered for winning the Best Picture Oscar at the height of the civil rights movement and in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. just days before the Oscars were handed out. The film, starring Sidney Poitier, won over a triumvirate of equally potent hits, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the latter also starring Poitier.

Despite his having starred to great acclaim in three of the year’s top box-office hits, To Sir, with Love being the third, Poitier failed to make the cut for Best Actor, the year’s nominations going instead to his co-stars, Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night and Spencer Tracy for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, along with his Paris Blues co-star Paul Newman for Cool Hand Luke, and first-time nominees Warren Beatty for Bonnie and Clyde and Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate. Steiger won, as did Poitier’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner co-star Katharine Hepburn for Best Actress. It was a beaming Poitier who opened the envelope announcing Hepburn’s win.

The other thing that In the Heat of the Night is remembered for is being the first and only whodunit to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Except for Witness for the Prosecution, no other whodunit had ever been nominated for the top award.

The 4K UHD release is the best-looking presentation the classic film has received. Extras include Blu-ray presentations of the film’s sequels, 1970’s They Call Me Mister Tibbs! and The Organization. Both are set in San Francisco where Poitier’s character is supposed to have been a lifelong resident, which is odd since his character in the original was supposed to have been from Philadelphia.

Neither The Call Me Mister Tibbs! nor The Organization are anywhere as good as In the Heat of the Night but at least They Call Me Mister Tibbs! is a plausible whodunit that keeps you guessing. The Organization has a great opening sequence but becomes difficult to follow as the plot thickens. Nevertheless, the inclusion of both films provides an opportunity for us to see where they went with the character, an opportunity many of us might otherwise have never had.

Also new on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber are three individually sold W.C. Fields classics, 1934’s You’re Telling Me, 1935’s Man on the Flying Trapeze, and 1939’s You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man.

Universal has released the 2021 MGM production of Cyrano on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

By my count, this is the 39th of 40 versions of Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac filmed either for TV or theatrical distribution, thus far. José Ferrer won an Oscar for portraying the character in the 1950 film version. Christopher Plummer won a Tony for the 1973 Broadway musical, one of several musical versions. Steve Martin won numerous awards for the 1987 film version retitled Roxanne and Gerard Depardieu received an Oscar nomination for the 1990 French version of the original.

Peter Dinklage received numerous award recognitions for his portrayal of Cyrano, based on yet another musical stage version, but the best the film could do with Oscar was a nomination for Best Costume Design. That was a pity because the film, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, Darkest Hour), deserved a lot better.

This week’s new releases include Blu-ray upgrades of For All Mankind and ’Round Midnight .