Warner Brothers may have stepped up production of its library of classic Warner, RKO, and MGM films on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive but upgrades to 4K Ultra HD of its major productions, which are handled by Warner Home Video, are still few and far between.

This month there are two – 1955’s East of Eden and 1959’s Rio Bravo, neither of which offer anything new. The only extras are decades-old commentaries from the late Richard Schickel.

Elia Kazan’s East of Eden from the last third of John Steinbeck’s mammoth bestseller was the first of the three Warner Bros. films in which the legendary James Dean starred. Although previous home video releases of the three Dean megahits, which also include Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, were done at the same time, Warner released them piecemeal this time around. Not only that, but they have also released them in reverse order, with George Stevens’ Giant coming out last year and Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause coming out earlier this year.

Although many of Dean’s fans contend that his greatest performance was in Rebel Without a Cause, it was East of Eden for which he was nominated posthumously at the 1955 Oscars. He received a second posthumous nomination for Giant the following year.

I think that East of Eden was his best performance. His raw talent comes through stronger than in the later two films. If he was a rebel without a cause in the Ray film, he was a rebel with a cause in this one.

Set in 1910s Salinas, California, Dean’s Cal and his brother Aron, played by Richard Davalos, live with their strict, Bible-thumping father Adam, played Raymond Massey, their mother having abandoned the family when the boys were small. Massey told them she died, but she didn’t. She is in fact running a brothel in nearby Monterey.

It’s clear from the outset that this is a Cain and Abel story with bad boy Dean and good boy Davalos both earning our sympathy. Julie Harris co-stars as the girl who loves them both and Jo Van Fleet in her Oscar-winning role is the boys’ mother.

Burl Ives is the local sheriff, Albert Dekker the local bad guy, and the still very much with us Lois Smith, in her film debut, is the young woman in Van Fleet’s employ who befriends Dean

The film won the Golden Globe for Best Picture/Drama award but failed to secure a Best Picture Oscar nomination despite nods for Dean, Van Fleet, Kazan, and screenwriter Paul Osborn. The film should also have been in the running for its cinematography and film editing, but Warner Bros. was represented in the Best Picture race instead by Mister Roberts.

Needless to say, East of Eden looks better than ever in its latest intonation but it could have been a really special release if it had been accompanied by the extras it deserved.

While many consider Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo to be one of the great westerns, I have never been one to find it so.

Hawks famously made the film as his answer to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon, made seven years earlier. Both he and star John Wayne thought it was disgraceful for Gary Cooper’s sheriff to have to take on the bad guys all by himself with only his Quaker wife (Grace Kelly) coming to his aid. They were shocked to see Cooper, who won his second Oscar for the role, throw his badge on the ground after dispatching the bad guys.

Ironically, Hawks directed Cooper to his first Oscar for 1941’s Sergeant York and Wayne accepted his Oscar for High Noon in Cooper’s absence.

Knowing that Rio Bravo would show Wayne getting the support of his townspeople and not throwing his badge on the ground after dispatching the bad guys, there is no real suspense in this film that drags on for almost 2 1/2 hours. No suspense either that Dean Martin’s reformed drunk would come through in the end or that TV heartthrob Ricky Nelson, in his film debut, would prove to be a resourceful sidekick. I, for one, could have done without toothless Walter Brennan cackling his way like an old hen through the proceedings.

The film’s one saving grace for me is Angie Dickinson as the saloon girl, “Feathers.” Wayne may well have been old enough to be her father, but the camaraderie and banter between the two works. Warner should really have included the interview that the still exuberant 91-year-old Dickinson gave at the recent TCM Film Festival.

Disney is another studio that has been lacking in its 4K Ultra HD releases. In fact, the newly released Cinderella is the first of its classic animated features to be given the upgrade.

The 1950 film looks great in the newer format, of course, but the film itself is a bore for anyone over 2.

There have been many iterations of the beloved fairy tale, the best being Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical first done for TV with Julie Andrews in 1957, then with Lesley Ann Warren in 1965, and Brandy in 1997.

At least Disney includes a separate Blu-ray with tons of extras, but where are the real classic animated gems of the studio? Where are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi in their original unvarnished glory?

A more recent classic given a proper upgrade on 4K Ultra HD is Universal’s release of Tom Hooper’s 2012 version of Les Misérables.

Hugh Jackson and Russell Crowe starred as Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in this recreation of the Broadway musical version of Victor Hugo’s classic. Jackman is great in his Oscar-nominated portrayal of the ex-convict paroled after 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. The usually charismatic Crowe is less so in his portrayal of the obsessed lawman still chasing him down for breaking parole but almost all the other actors are ideally cast including Anne Hathaway who won an Oscar for playing the tragic Fantine. Also of note are Amanda Seyfried as Colette, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, Aaron Tveit as Enjoras, and Samantha Barks as Eponine.

An accompanying Blu-ray disc is loaded with extras.

Happy viewing.