By Peter Covino

Entertainment Editor

Lock up the china cabinet — Beauty and the Beast has arrived on Blu-ray in a new Diamond Edition from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

One of the best loved of Disney’s recent animations, Beauty and the Beast probably looks better than you ever remember with an HD TV and Blu-ray player.

This is the film’s Blu-ray debut and Disney has pulled out all the stops for Belle and company with the Diamond Blu-ray Combo Pak, a three disc set with the film in Blu-ray, standard DVD and a third disc with bonus features. A two-disc standard DVD definition set will be released Nov. 23.

This is Disney’s most requested film, according to Disney officials, and the second in the new Diamond collection series and features a state-of-the-art picture restoration.

The Diamond edition also features deleted scenes, games and hours of other bonuses. It is also the first time Beauty and the Beast has been available in any form since 2003.

If you some how missed this classic story, it’s about a young woman named Belle who lives in a French village in the 18th century. She gets  unwanted attention by boorish suitor Gaston (who is one of Disney’s better villains, even if he is a buffoon). Belle winds up being the captive of the Beast, a cruel young prince cast under a spell years earlier by an enchantress. She also turned all of his servants into dishes, feather dusters, a candelabra etc. which comes in very handy in songs such as “Be Our Guest.” As can only happen in fairy tales, the Beast and Belle fall in love, and he is transformed for the inevitable happy ending.

The film won Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Score and is one of the few films animated films to receive a Best Picture nomination as well.

The bonuses are just too numerous to mention here, but they include an original storyboard with the original film version shown with a picture-in-picture storyboard version running simultaneously; Beyond Beauty: The Untold Stories Behind Making Beauty and the Beast; Beauty and the Beast music video performed by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson; the deleted song “Human Again,”  and two games for the family.

You can save $10 on the cost of the new Diamond Edition with a coupon  found online at http://www.disneymovierewards.go.com/promotions/special-offers/batblptw-coupon.

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Also new this week are some great releases from Warner Bros. Home Video starring screen legend Humphrey Bogart.

On Blu-ray for the very first time are the classics The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and The MalteseFalcon (1941).

The studio has also released Humphrey Bogart: The Essential Collection, a set of 24 discs featuring 24 Bogart films (including The Petrified Forest, Dark Victory, High Sierra, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of Sierra Madre) and a bonus 13th disc featuring the documentary The Brothers Warner.

If you are a Bogart fan, the collection is an easy way get most of Bogart’s best films in one collection. The set also includes lots of bonus features such as classic cartoons, news reels, blooper reels, radio plays and more.

But Bogart fans who want to see the actor as they have never seen him before will want to get the Blu-ray debuts of The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Who would have thought, even just a decade ago, that films made more than 60 years ago could look this good at home.

Both films were directed by John Huston with The Maltese Falcon still ranking as probably the greatest detective story on film. The great cast includes Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor.  Everything about the legendary film is the stuff dreams are made of.

The Treasure of Sierra Madre shows Bogart’s range as an actor and his willingness to play the bad guy, and not some stereo-type gangster, but just some one who is for the most part just a dirty, unkempt scoundrel — Fred C. Dobbs.  John Huston’s father Walter gives Bogart a run for his money in the acting department as well.

Both DVDs include Warner’s Night at the Movies bonuses (these were included in the earlier standard DVD release). The disc features time period newsreels, classic cartoons, vintage radio plays and more.

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While you probably have seen The Maltese Falcon and Beauty and the Beast, chances are you missed HBO’s recent documentary Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals.

Even if you are not a basketball fan there is a lot to like in this story about polar opposites Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson.  Their story is available on DVD for the first time from HBO Home Entertainment.

The rivalry between the two men, some real, some created by the media, is legendary and dates back more than 30 years when they led their respective Midwest universities to the 1979 NCAA championship game. Bird’s team came out on top (Indiana State) over  Johnson’s Michigan State and the rivalry began.

The film includes new interviews with both Bird and Johnson as well as lot of vintage film from their pro careers with the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers respectively.

It traces their diverse roots (Bird was an introverted small- town boy, while Johnson was an extrovert from the bigger city of Lansing, Mi.), their skirmishes on the court, and remarkably a friendship that built through the years. Johnson counts Bird as one of his best friends now, someone who was there for him when he first found out he was HIV positive in the early 1990s.

The documentary also includes interview with former Lakers coach Pat  Riley; Arsenio Hall; teammates Kevin McHale, Cedric Maxwell and Michael Cooper; and sports journalists Bryant Gumbel, Jackie MacMullan, Charles Pierce and Steve Springer.

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Who doesn't love a mystery and no one does mysteries better than the British. PBS  is releasing the third  season of “England's favorite detective” Inspector Lewis.

Shown on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre, the three discs  contain five 90-minute episodes of the intellectual detective series. The show stars Kevin Whately (Inspector Morse) as Lewis and Laurence Fox (A Room with a View, Becoming Jane) as his partner Detective Sergeant James Hathaway and the adventures and murders usually take place in the English countryside and the surrounding areas of Oxford University.

This show is much more complex with much more character development than our comparable Criminal Minds or CSI-whatever geographic location.

Third season episodes include:

Counter Culture Blues — There is murder amongst aging rock stars as the the inspector explores a mystery involving a rock band from his youth. The band is trying to get back together again but murders keep getting in the way.

The Dead of Winter — Hathaway  has a homecoming of sorts after a man is shot during a battle reenactment at Crevecour Hall, the estate where he grew up. There is more murder as he has a homecoming with friends from his youth.

Your Sudden Death Questions — Lewis and Hathaway match wits with a quizmaster after the standout competitor is killed during a private quiz weekend.

The third season of the series will be released Oct. 12. If you can't find the set at area retailers it can also be ordered online at shopPBS.org.