Warner Archive has upped its game with the release of no less than five major Blu-ray upgrades of films ranging from 1938’s Three Comrades to 2007’s La Vie en Rose.

Three Comrades has one of the most fabled pedigrees in film history. Its source material was a 1936 novel by Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front), featuring the only screenplay officially credited to F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby). It was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve), directed by Hollywood’s premier director of love stories, Frank Borzage (7th Heaven), and starred Margaret Sullavan in her only Oscar-nominated performance opposite both Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford’s husbands.

Sullavan plays a young German woman dying of tuberculosis who is loved by three struggling World War I vets turned garage mechanics. She loves all three but marries the most vulnerable of them, a disillusioned Robert Taylor, at the urging of the strong leader of the group (Franchot Tone) with the approval of Robert Young, whose character is an idealistic supporter of far-left causes. All three of her co-stars deliver unforgettable performances but it’s Sullavan’s portrayal of a bright shining light about to be extinguished that elevates the film to classic heights.

The actress won the New York Film Critics award for Best Actress but lost the Oscar to Bette Davis in Jezebel. One of the most repeatedly televised films in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the film has sadly fallen from popularity in the ensuing decades. Also featuring Lionel Atwill, Guy Kibbee, Henry Hull, and Monty Woolley among others, it is well worth rediscovering.

Another Borzage film, 1945’s Rhapsody in Blue about the life of composer George Gershwin, was immediately put into production after the enormous success of 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy about composer George M. Cohan which won James Cagney his only Oscar for Best Actor. It starred newcomer Robert Alda (Alan’s father) as Gershwin with two of Cagney’s co-stars from Yankee Doodle Dandy, Joan Leslie and Rosemary DeCamp, who played the girlfriend and mother, respectively, of both Cohan and Gershwin.

The tune-filled musical was completed in 1943 and shown to G.I.s during the remaining war years but was withheld from general distribution until after the war ended in 1945. A huge success, it was nominated for Oscars for Sound and Scoring.

Two 1950 films noir, Anthony Mann’s Side Street and John Sturges’ Mystery Street, are given commentary tracks imported form their DVD releases, an usual practice for Warner Archive releases.

Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, fresh from their Bonnie and Clyde-type performances in 1949’s They Live by Night play a young couple who fall victim to vicious gangsters on the mean streets of New York in Side Street, one of the first films shot on location in the city. Mystery Street, partially shot on location in Boston, features an ensemble cast in a more conventional mystery with Elsa Lanchester stealing the film as an avaricious landlady from co-stars Ricardo Montalban, Bruce Bennett, Sally Forrest, Marshall Thompson, Jan Sterling, and Betsy Blair, all of whom are at the top of their game.

2007’s La Vie en Rose was the fourth film to be released about the life of iconic French singer Edith Piaf for which Marion Cotillard won an Oscar as the young girl raised in a brothel by her grandmother who was discovered singing on a street corner.

The film about Piaf’s sad life is not told in linear fashion and has been criticized for its music video style editing and for leaving out many details about her life including her underground work for the French resistance during World War II but it deserves to be seen for Cotillard’s magnificent performance which was something of a surprise win at the Oscars. Julie Christie was favored to win for her portrayal of an Alzheimer patient in Away from Her.

Catherine Allégret, the daughter of Simone Signoret, the first French actress to win an Oscar for 1959’s Room at the Top, plays Piaf’s grandmother.

Kino Lorber has released Terence Young’s 1965 comedy, The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders on Blu-ray for the first time.

The film, which follows the style of the 1963 Oscar winner, Tom Jones, suffers in comparison but is a fun watch if you’re not expecting too much. Kim Novak is excellent in the title role and the supporting cast which includes her husband at the time, Richard Johnson, along with Angela Lansbury, Leo McKern, Vittorio De Sica, George Sanders, Lilli Palmer, Daniel Massey, and Hugh Griffith in major supporting roles, is quite good. The BAFTA-nominated costumes are also noteworthy.

Severin Films has released a sparkling Blu-ray upgrade of the 1970 film version of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane starring Peter McEnery as Sloane, and Beryl Reid (The Killing of Sister George) and Harry Andrews (The Ruling Class) as the sister and brother who lust after him.

Four hours of extras include extensive interviews with McEnery as well as Malcolm McDowall who played Sloane in a 1975 London revival and Maxwell Caulfield who played the character in an early 1980s Greenwich Village revival.

Criterion has released a 4K upgrade of Richard Lester’s back-to-back 1973-1974 telling of The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers

Lester was successfully sued by the film’s stars who were led to believe they were making one film that turned out to be two for which they were not properly compensated.

Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, as well as his The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask have been filmed many times. Unlike the latter two which have spawned several excellent versions, none of the various versions of The Three Musketeers have been completely satisfying. This one is too jokey for some tastes but has become the most popular over time thanks to a strong cast that includes Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Frank Finlay, Raquel Welch, Geraldine Chaplin, Christopher Lee, Charlton Heston, and Faye Dunaway.

Happy viewing.