In 1913, Peter B. Kyne’s novel The Three Godfathers offered a loose retelling of the Biblical Three Wise Men. The story enjoyed multiple cinematic adaptations, with 1948’s 3 Godfathers as probably the most famous of the bunch.

Outlaws Bob Hightower (John Wayne), Pedro “Pete” Encarnación Escalante y Rocafuerte (Pedro Armendariz) and William “The Abilene Kid” Kearney (Harry Carey Jr.) rob a bank in Arizona town of Welcome. As they escape, they come across a dying woman (Mildred Natwick) who just gave birth.

She begs the criminals to care for her newborn, and they agree. This complicates their ability to evade the law, as their need to protect the infant means they encounter risks.

Even outside of formal adaptations of the Kyne text, we see films with distinctly similar themes. 1985’s French hit Trois hommes et un couffin and its successful 1987 US remake Three Men and a Baby clearly use the same framework, and 2002’s animated comedy Ice Age develops notion as well.

At the very least, this becomes an unusual premise for a Western, and Godfathers paints our lead trio as different than the usual outlaws. Indeed, our introduction to them signals they won’t exactly offer cold-blooded desperadoes.

In the opening, Bob, Pete and the Kid come across locals Perley “Buck” Sweet (Ward Bond) and his wife (Mar Marsh). Bob and company seem awfully cheerful and friendly as they encounter the townsfolk, a choice out of step with the usual hard-bitten criminals we’d expect.

We do get a twist when Bob and the others quickly learn Buck serves as the town’s sheriff. Even then, though, the movie continues to paint the three leads as likable and compassionate.

This allows the audience to bond with the outlaws and more readily accept their abrupt shift to surrogate parent status. It helps that we don’t see Bob and the others as they ply their trade since the movie skips the depiction of the actual robbery.

While this means our three leads seem awfully soft to act as hard-bitten outlaws, it nonetheless works for the movie. In particular, Wayne adapts to the tone nicely.

I admit I expected Wayne to overplay the film’s lighter side, but he proves surprisingly adept at the comedic moments. He brings good gravity to the rest and offers a strong performance.

A sold supporting cast abets him, and Ford manages to pull off the story’s tonal shifts smoothly. Granted, Godfathers gets too sappy and sentimental toward its end, but it nonetheless keeps things balanced enough along the way to allow me to forgive these excesses.

Indeed, the third act turns surprisingly grim. The film manages real emotion as outlaws sacrifice themselves to save the baby, though I still think this might’ve worked better if they’d seemed nastier at the start and went through a real journey.

Again, Bob and his colleagues all seem like such good guys from the start that their choices don’t demonstrate much of an arc. Still, this becomes another minor deficit I can excuse because the final product works so well.

Though I can’t swallow the choice of Natwick as the new mother. The film posits the role as a woman in her late 20s, whereas Natwick was actually 43 – and looked 63.

That bizarre casting choice aside, Godfathers turns into an unusual and winning Western. It provides charm, comedy and drama.

3 Godfathers appears in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a nice presentation, especially given the film’s age.

In terms of sharpness, the movie demonstrated appealing delineation. Hardly any softness occurred, so the flick looked concise and accurate.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering materialized, and no edge haloes became apparent. Grain remained appropriate, and no specks, marks or other defects showed up at any time in this fresh presentation.

Colors were strong. Though it favored “Western brown”, the Technicolor production embraced a variety of tones, and the hues tended to be vivid and full.

Blacks seemed deep and dense without too much heaviness. Shadow detail worked similarly well, as dimly-lit shots were appropriately clear and thick. I found little about which to complain here and thought the Blu-ray brought the movie to life in a positive manner.

The DTS-HD MA monaural audio of Godfathers appeared fine for its era, and speech was more than adequate. The lines showed age-related thinness, but they were always perfectly intelligible and without edginess.

Effects resembled the dialogue. Those elements lacked much depth but they were without notable problems.

Music was acceptable for its age, as the score tended to be a bit tinny. There wasn’t much range to the music, but again, that stemmed from the limitations of the very old source. This became a perfectly decent mix for its vintage.

When we go to extras, the primary attraction comes from 1936’s Three Godfathers. As mentioned in the body of my review, the 1913 novel enjoyed multiple cinematic adaptations, and this one appears to exist as the seventh version.

The 1936 film runs one hour, 20 minutes, 59 seconds. While the pair share the same basics, they differ in quite a few ways.

Too many ways to detail, honestly, as the two versions come with a slew of different character and plot points. For instance, this edition’s Bob (Chester Morris) plays as much more cynical and hard-bitten than Wayne’s.

All these differences make the 1936 an enjoyable alternate take on the property. I don’t know which one hews closer to the source novel, but the 1936 film offers a strong rendition of the narrative.

The disc also comes with trailers for both the 1936 and 1948 versions of the story.

A mix of Biblical tale and Western, 3 Godfathers proves effective. It attempts melodrama, comedy and action in semi-equal measures and works in all these domains. The Blu-ray brings excellent visuals, appropriate audio and a different version of the story. This winds up as a quality product for a good movie.