Singin’ in the Rain, newly upgraded to 4K Ultra High Definition by Warner Bros., is referred to in some quarters as the best Hollywood musical of all time. That, however, is something of an over-statement. Fans of The King and I, South Pacific, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, 1776, Chicago, and other stage adaptations might vehemently disagree. Perhaps, then, it would be better to say that it is the best original screen musical. That still puts it at odds with lovers of The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Gigi, among others. Let’s just say that the 1952 MGM film is the best musical never to have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture.

Co-directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain was nominated for just two Oscars, Best Supporting Actress (Jean Hagen) and Best Scoring (Lennie Hayton). If the film had to be nominated for just two, those were the two that most deserved the nominations.

The film is dominated by the singing and dancing of Kelly and Donald O’Conner with a dubbed Debbie Reynolds as the film’s third star. Yes, Debbie Reynolds, not Jean Hagen, is the one who is dubbed. According to the film’s deceit, Hagen, who plays the dumb blonde movie star with the high-pitched voice is the one who has to be dubbed by Reynolds’ character in the film within the film but Hagen actually did the dubbing in her own perfectly modulated real voice while Reynolds had to wear a body mike so her low voice cold keep up with Kelly and O’Connor. The song “Would You?,” which Reynolds is seen dubbing for Hagen was performed by Betty Noyes, who had a richer singing voice than Reynolds.

Kelly was a harsh taskmaster whose bullying was hated by both O’Connor and Reynolds, who he pushed. The Make ‘em Laugh tumbling routine that Kelly forced O’Connor to do was something he did as a child long before his 4-pack-a-day cigarette habit made climbing walls a task that put him in the hospital. Nevertheless, that scene and Kelly’s splashing to the title tune are the film’s musical highlights.

Reynolds, who was neither a trained singer or dancer proved she cold do both with aplomb as the years passed in such films as Tammy and the Bachelor, which gave her a hit record that became an Oscar-nominated song, and The Unsinkable Molly Brown in which she sang and danced to an Oscar nomination for herself.

Because the film was based on a catalogue of Nacio Herb Brown-Arthur Freed songs, the plot had to be built around the songs instead of the other way around as is usual with musicals. That aside, Singin’ in the Rain remains an exhilarating experience. It’s a wonderful film about Hollywood’s transition from silents to talkies that has never looked better than it does in 4K UHD.

Another film given a recent makeover on 4H UHD, this one from Kino Lorber, is Universal’s 1958 film Touch of Evil, directed by Orson Welles who co-starred alongside Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh.

The film was recut by the studio after Welles’ completion and was released on a double-bill. It did not make any critic’s ten-best lists for the year. Leap ahead forty years to 1998 when the film was recut according to Welles’ notes thirteen years after his death in 1985. It became an instant cult classic that is now rated second only to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as the best film of 1958.

A quarter of a century later, the film’s flaws are once again noticeable, particularly Heston’s weak portrayal of a Mexican detective. Leigh fares better as his distraught wife stuck in a seedy motel, but the characterization looks like practice for her soon-to-be Oscar-nominated performance in Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho. Time, however, has been kind to the supporting performances of Welles as a corrupt border sheriff, Akim Tamiroff as a sleazy Mexican gangster, and Joseph Calleia as Welles’ honest assistant. It certainly looks great in 4K UHD.

Heston and Leigh both have other new-to-Blu-ray releases.

Two years before Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments made him a superstar, Heston starred opposite flame-haired Eleanor Parker in 1954’s The Naked Jungle, directed by Byron Haskins (The War of the Worlds). He’s the owner of a coca plantation in South America. She’s the genteel mail-order bride who regrets the marriage. The climax of the film is a two-mile wide, twenty-mile-long invasion of killer ants that destroys practically everything in its path.

Extras on the Imprint Blu-ray release includes three separate commentaries and a bio of Heston.

Leigh’s career was on the downswing when she led the international cast of Grand Slam, a co-production of Italy, Spain, and West Germany filmed principally in Barcelona, Spain.

Directed by Giuliano Montaldo (Sacco & Vanzetti), the 1967 film (a 1968 release in the U.S.) is about an elaborate scheme to pull off the robbery of a Brazilian diamond company during Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The scheme is thought up by retired professor Edward G. Robinson with the help of a New York Mafia boss (Adolfo Celi) who recommends four individuals from across the globe to carry it out. They are played by Robert Hoffman, Klaus Kinski, Riccardo Cucciola, and George Rigaud. Leigh is the secretary of the company who has a key to the vault that heartthrob Hoffman is hired to seduce in order to steal the key from her handbag.

The plot sounds routine, but it is played out in anything but a routine manner with the heart-pounding execution of the heist and its aftermath scored by the legendary Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), keeping worldwide audiences on the edge of their seats.

The Kino Lorber release contains a newly recorded commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include Sacco & Vanzetti and Francis the Talking Mule 7-Film Collection.