Warner Archive released Blu-ray upgrades of seven classic films in June, the most it has released in some time including a rare 4K Ultra HD release.

Getting the 4K upgrade is High Society, Charles Walters’ musical remake of George Cukor’s 1940 classic, The Philadelphia Story with the action moved from Philadelphia to Newport, Rhode Island. While I had always thought of High Society as a weak tea remake, I must admit that it looks and sounds stunning in the presentation given it by the Archive.

Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly in her last film before becoming Princess Grace of Monaco and retiring from acting, and Frank Sinatra do well enough even though they never attain the heights of Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart in the original. Also in the cast are Celeste Holm, John Lund, Louis Calhern, and Sidney Blackmer int the roles played sixteen years earlier by Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, and John Halliday. Calhern, who died shortly before the film’s release, and Blackmer first appeared together as the principal villains of 1934’s The Count of Monte Cristo. Louis Armstrong co-stars as himself.

Cole Porter’s score includes the Oscar nominated “True Love” sung by Crosby and Kelly in a memorable flashback sequence.

The Archive’s other June releases were 1938’s The Citadel directed by King Vidor, 1945’s The Enchanted Cottage directed by John Cromwell, 1948’s A Date with Judy directed by Richard Thorpe, 1951’s His Kind of Woman directed by John Farrow, 1954’s Executive Suite directed by Robert Wise, and 1961’s Splendor in the Grass directed by Elia Kazan.

The Citadel was the third of ten novels from the prolific A.J. Cronin to be made into a film. One of a handful of films of the 1930s that examined the medical profession, it stars Robert Donat in an Oscar nominated performance as a young doctor fighting ignorance and disease in the U.K. with the help of his wife played by Rosalind Russell and friends Ralph Richardson and Emlyn Williams. At a low point in his life, he is steered by former classmate Rex Harrison into catering to rich London hypochondriacs until a personal tragedy brings him back to helping the poor and disenchanted. The New York Film Critics and National Board of Review, the only major awards organizations aside from the Academy, gave it their Best Picture awards. The Oscar went to Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You.

The Enchanted Cottage was a remake of Arthur Wing Pinero’s play previously filmed in 1924 with Richard Barthelmess as a disfigured World War I fighter pilot and May McAvoy as a homely maid who become unlikely lovers falling under the spell of past honeymooners at the cottage. This highly popular remake starred Dorothy McGuire as the homely maid and Robert Young as the now disfigured World War II pilot. Co-starring Herbert Marshall as a blind pianist and Mildred Natwick as the woman who owns the cottage, it’s impossible not to fall under its spell.

A Date with Judy is a slight but charming musical featuring Jane Powell as a popular high schooler with a spectacular voice. Her boyfriend is school band leader Scotty Beckett whose sister is a conniving Elizaeth Taylor. Wallace Beery, as Powell’s father, is top-billed in his next-to-last film but isn’t given much to do. The high point of his scenes is the one in which Carmen Miranda teaches him to rhumba. Xavier Cugat as himself and Robert Stack as a soda jerk co-star.

His Kind of Woman is one of the worst reviewed films of all time, but for some reason beyond me, has emerged as a cult classic in some circles. Robert Mitchcum sleep-walks through most of it as a down-on-his-luck gambler in a Mexican border town trying to figure out why gangster Raymond Burr wants to pay him $50,000 for something. Turns out it’s because he wants to steal his identity to get back into the U.S. Mitchum and Burr are supposed to be close lookalikes. Jane Russell as a self-proclaimed heiress, Vincent Price as a movie star, Marjorie Reynolds as Price’s wife, and other well-known actors including Tim Holt and Charles McGraw meander in and out of the film.

Executive Suite is a film about office politics that still packs a punch. After the death of a furniture company’s CEO, seven board members, five of whom are vice presidents of the company, must vote to pick the new CEO. They are William Holden as the V.P. in charge of designing new products, Barbara Stanwyck as the daughter of the original owner, Fredric March as the tight-fisted finance manager, Walter Pidgeon as the longtime second in command to the late CEO, Paul Douglas as the sales manager, Louis Calhern as an outside stockholder, and Dean Jagger as the company’s production manager. Also on hand are June Allyson as Holden’s anxious wife, Shelley Winters as Douglas’ secretary and current mistress, and Nina Foch in an Oscar nominated performance as the late CEO’s secretary.

The screenplay, based on Cameron Hawley’s novel, was by Ernest Lehman who later wrote the screenplays for director Wise’s West Side Story and The Sound of Music as well as many other famous films.

Splendor in the Grass earned Natalie Wood an Oscar nomination the same year her other film that year, West Side Story, won the Oscar for Best Picture and many other awards. Playwright William Inge (Picnic, Bus Stop), won an Oscar for his original screenplay about small town social pressures in the 1920s that lead to a nervous breakdown for the star. Warren Beatty as Wood’s onscreen boyfriend as well as offscreen lover earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

Also in the cast are Audrey Christie as Wood’s overbearing mother, Pat Hingle as Beatty’s nasty father, Barbara Loden (later Kazan’s wife) as Beatty’s troubled sister, Zohra Lambert as Beatty’s eventual wife, and Charles Robinson as Wood’s future husband.

Included as an extra on the disc is the full-length documentary, Elia Kazan: A Director’s Journey, written and directed by Richard Schickel and narrated by Eli Wallach. Kazan talks candidly about the films he made from his first, 1945’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, through his last success, 1963’s America America after which he made two flops and retired from directing, becoming an author in his later years. He died in 2003 at 94.

Happy viewing.