Olive Films has rectified the decades old problem of putting out a home video release of The Quiet Man that does picture and audio justice to John Ford’s beloved 1952 film.

The previous DVD release was a direct transfer from the 1992 VHS release with its garish red faces, purple sheep, way too yellow bonnets and washed out or distorted colors in other scenes. The film also suffered sound problems, particularly with Barry Fitzgerald’s dialogue in his inebriated scenes. He always sounded like he was talking gibberish. He is in a way, but you can understand the gibberish now.

Ford struggled for years to make the film based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story. He purchased the rights in 1936, intending to make the film his third in a trilogy about the Irish “troubles” following 1935’s The Informer and 1937’s The Plough and the Stars, but no studio would touch it. The film was ready to go before the cameras in 1948 with John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara and Victor McLageln attached, but the money wasn’t there. Finally in 1950 Ford received the backing of poverty row Republic Pictures’ Herbert Yates, but only if he agreed to make a western for the studio first. That western, Rio Grande, was an enormous hit and Ford finally had what he needed to make his labor of love.

By now, the aging Ford had mellowed and his film would no longer be about an Irish born American who returns to his homeland to fight with the Irish Republican Army against the British. It would be about a boxer who returns to Ireland after he accidentally kills a man in the ring. More than that, though, it would be a fantasy love story both between a man (John Wayne) and a woman (Maureen O’Hara) and a people and their country. Irish Americans ate it up, but the people of Ireland publicly scoffed at it. Privately, though, they loved it. By the 1990s VHS copies were being sold under the counter at pubs as though it were pornography. Now, however, it is sold openly and has become as beloved in Ireland as it is in America. The film’s location scenes have all become tourist meccas.

A TV staple every St. Patrick’s Day for decades, the film has become as much of a fixture in America as It’s a Wonderful Life. Like Capra’s 1946 classic, it is a fantasy film with serious undertones and many memorable moments.

Nominated for seven Academy Awards, it won two for Best Director and Best Cinematography. The only cast member to receive an Oscar nomination was Victor McLaglen as O’Hara tightwad brother. John Wayne, playing against type in his most introspective role, was shockingly not nominated. Nor were Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick, Arthur Shields or Jack MacGowan, the standouts in Ford’s impeccable cast.

Olive has also released Indiscreet on Blu-ray. One of the most popular sophisticated comedies of its era, the 1958 film was based on the Broadway hit, Kind Sir which starred Mary Martin and Charles Boyer. The film version, directed by Stanley Donen, reunites screen legends Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant for the first and only time since Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious twelve years earlier.

Originally released by Warner Bros., the film is now owned by Paramount which licensed it to Olive. The droll comedy, which is about a diplomat pretending to be married so as not to be trapped into marrying a famous stage actress would, of course, not hold up today. It wouldn’t take an Interpol investigation to find out the diplomat wasn’t married. The truth would have come out a lot sooner, but then we would have had no story. Bergman and Grant’s easy charm and Freddie Young’s gorgeous cinematography of then contemporary London make it worth your time.

A hit in its day, Herbert Ross’ The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is in need of rediscovery. Shout Factory’s sparkling new Blu-rage upgrade of the Universal film may be just the impetus it needs.

Sherlock Holmes has never been more popular than he is today with hit U.K. and USA TV series updating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth. Ross’ film, which Nicholas Meyer adapted from his best-selling novel, has Holmes joining forces with Sigmund Freud to solve the kidnapping of a famous actress. Featuring the combined talents of six actors with 29 Oscar nominations, 6 competitive Oscars and a special award between them; four other award-winning actors; an Oscar winning cinematographer and two Oscar winning composers, this was of the prestige films of 1976.

Nicol Williamson is perfectly cast as a cocaine addicted Holmes and Alan Arkin is equally brilliant as Freud who must cure Holmes’ addiction before he can assist insolving the mystery. Robert Duvall’s stage British accent isn’t always up to snuff, but his forthright Dr. Watson is. Vanessa Redgrave makes a ravishing damsel in distress, while Laurence Olivier makes a believably sad Professor Moriarty. Joel Grey, Samantha Eggar, Jeremy Kemp, Charles Gray, Georgia Brown and Anna Quayle excel in lesser roles while Régine brings the house down as the brothel madam singing Stephen Sondheim’s wry “I Never Do Anything Twice”. That song, which failed to garner an Oscar nomination, was better than all the year’s Oscar nominated songs combined including Barbra Streisand’s Oscar winning “Evergreen” from A Star Is Born.

The film also befits immensely from John Addison’s lilting score, his best since Tom Jones, and Oswald Morris’ sumptuous cinematography, ranking with his better known work on Oliver! and Fiddler on the Roof. The film did receive Oscar nominations for Alan Barrett’s marvelous period costumes and Meyer’s adaptation of his novel.

The critics were kind to David Ayer’s documentary style End of Watch, a shaky camera ode to ultra-violence that I couldn’t take more than three scenes of. Many of the same critics were unkind to Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, which I found an endlessly fascinating coming of age story within a family drama and murder mystery,

Zac Efron handles the multi-faceted lead role admirably and Matthew McConaughey and Nicole Kidman are revelatory in award-winning supporting performances. John Cusack, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray and Scott Glenn also provide memorable support. 2012 was quite a year for McCcConaughey who I used to think was an actor of limited range and ability. Not anymore. There is a world of difference between the characters he plays in all four of his 2012 films that comprise the myriad of critics’ prizes he has one. His investigative reporter with secrets of his own inThe Paperboy is as different from his strip club manager in Magic Mike as that performance is from his killer cop in Killer Joe and his single-minded prosecutor in Bernie.

New releases this week include Downton Abbey Season 3 and Hotel Transylvania.