"An Affair to Remember"

By Susan King, Los Angeles 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.