And then there are the performances: the great Irish actor Richard Harris makes a superb, multidimensional King Arthur, very much like the one in T. H. White’s wonderful and witty novel “The Once and Future King” (on which the original musical was based). This Arthur is eminently sensible and romantic at the same time. It’s hard to tell what hurts him more, the death of his ideals or the loss of his queen, Guenevere — played by a luminously sensual Vanessa Redgrave — to his best friend and knight extraordinaire, Lancelot.

Lancelot is played by the Italian stud muffin Franco Nero (he had to learn English to play the role), who fell in love with Ms. Redgrave while making the movie. (Below, Mr. Nero, right, with Harris and Ms. Redgrave.) It’s not hard to see why. Her strength is so subtle and deep-rooted that it makes Guenevere’s eventual emotional crumbling painfully resonant to watch; the performance gleams like faintly tarnished sterling, all the more beautiful for the tracery of darkness around its edges. (Warner Home Video, Blu-ray, April 24, $35.99) STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

‘Children Of Paradise’ (1945)



Sure, the truth is all well and good. But there’s so much beauty in artifice, how can we turn away? That’s the paradox and wonder of Marcel Carné’s exquisite “Children of Paradise,” set in 19th-century Paris — a Paris of theater people, raconteurs and women of easy virtue — and made in France during the German occupation. The story unfolds as if set in the most luxurious toy theater imaginable: the mime Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault, right) has fallen instantly in love with the actress and unchained spirit Garance (played by the serenely stunning Arletty), but he hesitates and loses her to someone else. That would be the flamboyant actor Frédérick (Pierre Brasseur), but Garance is so intoxicating that she can’t be possessed by one man. Others in her orbit include the suave Comte de Montray (Louis Salou) and the scoundrel Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), whose heart is as black as his catfishy mustache.

The characters are cutouts at first, but become rounded and warm before our eyes. Carné uses the world of the theater to suggest that sometimes artifice and beauty get us through the day — just as the picture, made in a country under siege, emerged as an enduring model of emotionally and visually rich storytelling.