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Great classics, greater frills

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Times Staff Writer

Valentine’s Day might be a few weeks away still, but hopeless romantics will be able to get a jump-start on their favorite holiday with the help of several classic films making their way to DVD this week in new, embellished packages.

Have plenty of hankies on hand for 1957’s weepie “An Affair to Remember” (Fox, $20), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr as strangers who embark on a shipboard romance and plan to meet again in six months. The film, directed by Leo McCarey, is almost a shot-by-shot remake of his 1939 hit “Love Affair,” with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, but this version sparkles thanks to Grant and Kerr’s crackling chemistry.

This lovely 50th anniversary edition features commentary from historian Joseph McBride and Marni Nixon, who provided Kerr’s singing voice, and moving tributes to Kerr from her husband Peter Viertel -- he died last fall just three weeks after Kerr passed away -- and Cary Grant from his last wife, Barbara.

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Another popular romance, 1989’s “When Harry Met Sally. . .” (MGM, $20), is being released in a new collector’s edition. The comedy, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as longtime friends who eventually realize they’re in love, was penned by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner. Terrific extras include funny commentary from Crystal, Ephron and Reiner and several retrospective mini-documentaries with the trio.

Spike Lee made his acclaimed feature directorial debut with 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It” (MGM, $20). The low-budget indie, which features stunning black-and-white cinematography by Ernest Dickerson, revolves around an independent young woman (Tracy Camilla Johns) who can’t decide among her three boyfriends (Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell and Lee). Unfortunately, there are no extras.

Not all of the vintage titles are concerned with matters of the heart. The electrifying “In the Heat of the Night” (MGM, $20), the 1967 drama that took home the best picture Oscar, is being reissued in a 40th anniversary collector’s edition that includes a rich retrospective documentary featuring interviews with director Norman Jewison, producer Walter Mirisch and cinematographer Haskell Wexler among others, talking about the film’s place in the civil rights movement and Quincy Jones’ evocative score.

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Rounding out the documentary is perceptive commentary from Jewison, Wexler, actress Lee Grant and the late Rod Steiger, who won the best actor Oscar for his performance as racist Southern police chief Bill Gillespie. Star Sidney Poitier is tragically absent from the extras.

Criterion is releasing one of matinee idol-turned-director Cornel Wilde’s most influential films, 1966’s “The Naked Prey” ($40), a thriller starring Wilde as the leader of a safari expedition that runs afoul of a local tribe. Extras include commentary from film scholar Stephen Prince, original soundtrack cues and “John Colter’s Escape,” a 1913 record of a trapper’s flight from Blackfoot Indians, which was the inspiration for “Naked Prey.” Paul Giamatti reads.

Meanwhile, Criterion’s no-frills Eclipse line offers the transcendent “Post-War Kurosawa Box” ($70), which features five films from the Japanese master: “No Regrets for Our Youth,” “One Wonderful Sunday,” “Scandal,” “The Idiot” and “I Live in Fear.”

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“The Ten” (City Lights, $27): The latest from writer-director David Wain and co-writer Ken Marino, who scored a cult hit with “Wet Hot American Summer,” turns the Ten Commandments into comedic mini-movies. Extras include offbeat commentary by Wain, Marino and Wain’s parents -- who admit they liked only seven out of the 10 vignettes.

“Good Luck Chuck -- Unrated Edition” (Lionsgate, $30): One sees way too much of Dane Cook in the buff in this tasteless comedy about a cursed dentist (Cook) struggling to find true love. There are plenty of risque featurettes and commentary from Cook, director Mark Helfrich and others.

“Mr. Woodcock” (New Line, $29): How did two Oscar winners -- Billy Bob Thornton and Susan Sarandon -- get saddled in this trite comedy about a self-help author (Seann William Scott) who learns his mom is dating his former gym teacher? There are some obligatory mini-documentaries, a gag reel and audio commentary with the creative team.

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And

“Strays” (First Look, $30); “The New Adventures of Old Christine -- The Complete First Season” (Warner, $30); “Family Guy -- Blue Harvest” (Fox, $23)

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