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Posted: |
Jun 21, 2012 - 4:26 PM
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By: |
johnjohnson
(Member)
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In the fall, Universal Studios Home Entertainment will bring Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection to Blu-ray. This limited edition box set compiles fifteen titles from the legendary filmmaker's career, thirteen of which make their respective U.S. Blu-ray debut through this package.
The films include (* denotes new-to-Blu-ray):
Saboteur (1942)*
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)*
Rope (1948)*
Rear Window (1954)*
The Trouble with Harry (1955)*
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)*
Vertigo (1958)*
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)*
Marnie (1964)*
Torn Curtain (1966)*
Topaz (1969)*
Frenzy (1972)*
Family Plot (1976)*
While the exact technical specifications are still unknown for the individual discs, Universal's press release notes that the fifteen pictures have been "digitally restored from high-quality film elements." The set also includes over fifteen hours of bonus supplements, such as:
Saboteur -
Saboteur: A Closer Look behind-the-scenes featurette
Storyboards for the "Statue of Liberty" setpiece
Alfred Hitchcock's sketches
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Shadow of a Doubt -
Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock's Favorite Film behind-the-scenes featurette
Production drawings by art director Robert Boyle
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Rope -
Rope Unleashed behind-the-scenes featurette
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Rear Window -
Commentary with Hitchcock's Rear Window: The Well-Made Film author John Fawell
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Masters of Cinema
Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary
A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of The Master
Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
Hitchcock-Truffaut interview excerpts
Production photographs
Theatrical trailers
Re-release trailer narrated by James Stewart
Blu-ray exclusive BD Live and Pocket Blu functionalities
The Trouble with Harry -
The Trouble with Harry Isn't Over behind-the-scenes featurette
Production photographs
Theatrical trailers
The Man Who Knew Too Much -
The Making of The Man Who Knew Too Much behind-the-scenes featurette
Production photographs
Trailers
Vertigo -
Two audio commentaries:
Associate producer Herbert Coleman, restoration team Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, and other Vertigo participants
Filmmaker William Friedkin
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece
Partners in Crime: Hitchcock's Collaborators
The Vertigo Archives feature
Hitchcock-Truffaut interview excerpts
Foreign censorship Ending
100 Years of Universal featurette: The Lew Wasserman Era
Theatrical trailer
Restoration theatrical trailer
Blu-ray exclusive BD Live and Pocket Blu functionalities
North by Northwest -
Commentary by screenwriter Ernest Lehman
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
North by Northwest: One for the Ages
The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style
Cary Grant: A Class Apart
Music-only audio track
Stills gallery
Theatrical trailers and TV spot
Psycho -
Commentary with Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho author Stephen Rebello
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
The Making of Psycho
Psycho Sound
In The Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy
Breakdowns of the "Shower Scene" setpiece:
With and without music
Storyboards by Saul Bass
The Psycho Archives feature
Vintage newsreel: The Release of Psycho
Hitchcock-Truffaut interview excerpts
Posters and Psycho ads
Lobby cards
Behind-the-scenes photographs
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Re-release trailers
The Birds -
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Blu-ray exclusive The Birds: Hitchcock's Monster Movie
All About The Birds
Vintage Universal International newsreels:
The Birds Is Coming
Suspense Story: National Press Club Hears Hitchcock
Tippi Hedren's screen test
Hitchcock-Truffaut interview excerpts
Deleted scene
Original ending
Storyboards
Production photographs
100 Years of Universal featurettes:
Restoring the Classics
The Lot
Theatrical trailer
Blu-ray exclusive BD Live and Pocket Blu functionalities
Marnie -
The Trouble with Marnie behind-the-scenes featurette
The Marnie Archives feature
Theatrical trailer
Torn Curtain -
Torn Curtain Rising behind-the-scenes featurette
Selected scenes scored by Bernard Herrmann
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Topaz -
Alternate endings
Topaz: An Appreciation with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin
Storyboards for "The Mendozas" setpiece
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Frenzy -
The Story of Frenzy behind-the-scenes featurette
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
Family Plot -
Plotting Family Plot behind-the-scenes featurette
Storyboards for the chase scene
Production photographs
Theatrical trailer
In addition, the collection comes with a fifty-page book featuring storyboards, costume sketches, correspondence, and rare photographs.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection streets on September 25th.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=8987
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So, Amer, you don't care for Hitchcock's own personal favorite (and mine), SHADOW OF A DOUBT?
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2012 - 3:53 PM
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By: |
johnjohnson
(Member)
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Warner Home Entertainment will bring two films from director Alfred Hitchcock (The 39 Steps) to Blu-ray in October - Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder.
While the complete technical specifications are still unknown for Warner's Blu-rays, the studio offers Dial M for Murder in a Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray combo pack. Warner's press release notes that its "Motion Picture Imaging division...has meticulously and painstakingly restored the original 3D presentation...[at] a 4K scan of the original camera negative...[along with] convergence fixes to ensure perfect alignment."
The discs also contain the following bonus supplements:
Strangers on a Train:
Extended preview version of the film with adult content not present in the U.S. theatrical edition
Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich, Joseph Stefano, Andrew Wilson, Joe Alves, Peter Benchley, Tere Caruba, Whitfield Cook, Katie Fiala, Richard Franklin, Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell, Kasey Rogers, Richard Schickel, and Mary Stone
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Strangers on a Train: A Hitchcock Classic
Strangers on a Train: The Victim's P.O.V.
Strangers on a Train: An Appreciation by M. Night Shyamalan
The Hitchcocks on Hitch
Alfred Hitchcock's Historical Meeting
Theatrical trailer
Dial M for Murder:
Behind-the-scenes featurettes:
Hitchcock and Dial M
3D: A Brief History
Original 1954 theatrical trailer
Both films street on October 9th.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=9000
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Bought this, today, at Costco, for $163 and change. Best price that I've seen. They had plenty in stock! Just did a quick look at a few of the discs and I'm happy. I never had the DVD version; and, I had birthday money to spend, so a no brainer for me!
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Posted: |
Mar 28, 2013 - 6:44 AM
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By: |
johnjohnson
(Member)
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Universal Studios Home Entertainment is releasing individual versions of four films from the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection: Saboteur (1942) and Rope (1948) on May 7th, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) on June 4th and The Trouble with Harry (1955) on July 2nd.
Plans are also underway to bring six more individual Alfred Hitchcock titles to Blu-ray later this year. Pre-order listings and final cover art are already available for: The Man Who Knew Too Much, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot, although exact street dates have yet to be revealed. The Hitchcock Essentials Collection, due on June 4th, includes Rear Window, Vertigo and The Birds, but plans for individual releases are still TBD.
Saboteur
Synopsis: This riveting wartime thriller stars Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, a Los Angeles aircraft factory worker who witnesses a Nazi agent firebombing his plant. However, it is Barry who is accused of the fiery sabotage, and to clear his name he sets off on a desperate, action-packed cross-country chase that takes him from Boulder Dam to New York's Radio City Music Hall to the top of the Statue of Liberty. Hitchcock's first film with an all-American cast moves with breakneck speed toward its final heart-pounding confrontation and it remains a suspense classic.
Saboteur features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track and the following extras:
Documentary - Saboteur: A Closer Look
Storyboards
Alfred Hitchcock's Sketches
Production Photographs
Theatrical Trailer
Shadow of a Doubt
Synopsis: A young girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities. Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of all his films, made all the more chilling by the small town ambience supplied by co-writer Thornton Wilder, stars Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey, and Hume Cronyn.
Shadow of a Doubt features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track and the following extras:
Documentary - Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock's Favorite Film
Production Drawings
Production Photographs
Theatrical Trailer
Rope
Synopsis: Hitchcock's "filmed play experiment," shot in continuous 10-minute takes, follows two school friends who kill a man for the "intellectual thrill" of it, then hide the body in their apartment and host a party. James Stewart stars as the boys' ex-teacher who uncovers the crime, and Farley Granger and Brandon Shaw star as the murderous chums.
Rope features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track and the following extras:
Documentary - Rope Unleashed
Production Photographs
Theatrical Trailer
The Trouble with Harry
Synopsis: Harry's trouble is that he's dead, can't stay in one place, and has four people taking credit for his death. Alfred Hitchcock deftly blends suspense and black humor in this film, starring John Forsythe, Edmund Gwenn, Mildred Natwick, Jerry Mathers and Shirley MacLaine in her film debut.
The Trouble with Harry features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track and the following extras:
Documentary - The Trouble with Harry Isn't Over
Production Photographs
Theatrical Trailer
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=10788
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Thank you so much for the heads up about the Amazon deal upon which I pounced.
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Honestly, I did a search for something like this discussion but came up empty! So, after seeing this, I had to go back and DELETE it, lest I be guilty of duplicating something already in progress!
Here's how I started it (BEFORE seeing this very discussion!):
Has anyone seen the American (as opposed to the British) release of "Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray]?" (The British version is, in packaging, more elaborate, has one less film, and is almost twice as much money.) It's a very controversial release, although the gist of commentary seems to be that it's good to excellent, with a few very serious caveats (mostly for films that are near the bottom of the list for me). Here's what one reviewer (William McKeldin Jr. "Vertigo fan") (New York, New York) at Amazon wrote:
There are three absolutely gorgeous new transfers contained in this set of 15 Hitchcock films:
1. Rear Window
2. The Trouble with Harry
3. Vertigo [the color issues discovered in the pre-release copies have been corrected, and the U.S. edition does have a fine sounding mono option]
The two transfers that have had previous releases and are still available as "stand alones" are also stellar:
1. North by Northwest (despite some color issues)
2. Psycho
Seven of the transfers are acceptable high definition upgrades from their previous standard def releases:
1. Saboteur
2. Shadow of a Doubt
3. Rope
4. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) [This one really needs a restoration--but the problem here, isn't the transfer per se]
5. Torn Curtain
6. Topaz
7. Frenzy [The problem with the credits that were discovered in pre-release copies has been corrected]
That leaves us with three very problematic transfers:
1. The Birds -- clearly a lot of work went into this so-called restoration -- and I understand how difficult it is to work with the primitive process shots that never looked very good to begin with -- but the amount of digital artifacting that is evident in some scenes (particularly the segment involving Tippi Hedren crossing and re-crossing a bay) is simply unacceptable. Much of the movie looks better than it ever has on home video, but "traveling" video noise should never be evident.
2. Marnie - I *love* film grain, but too frequently the grain in this transfer looks like old fashioned television static from a poor signal.
3. Family Plot - Grain the size of basketballs and an overall look that implies the movie was shot through a sand filter makes this disc, by far, the worst transfer in the set. Depending on your sensitivity to such things, the movie is viewable, but still this transfer should never have been allowed to leave the studio. It's an embarrassment.
Thank you, William.
Everyone seems to agree that the most recent film, "Family Plot," has the most problems and should never have been released in that condition. But it's not among my favorite Hitchcock, and most of the ones that I'll be buying this for aren't included among those with serious flaws. So I'm going to add it to my pre-order of the 5 "Twilight" films -- surely an incongruous juxtaposition!!!
Ron
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Re: Bought this, today [11-1-12], at Costco, for $163 and change. Best price that I've seen. They had plenty in stock! Just did a quick look at a few of the discs and I'm happy. I never had the DVD version; and, I had birthday money to spend, so a no brainer for me!
PhiladelphiaSon: Glad I waited -- $109.99 today at Amazon! (Thanks, Neil.) But it was a long wait, although I wasn't even aware of the set, so it was really no wait at all, and, frankly, am glad I didn't know about it until now!
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...and a year from now it will be cheaper still. MARNIE is horrendous. Not sure why people think FAMILY PLOT is the worst of the set? MARNIE is the worst video I've ever seen. Any format.
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Re: ...and a year from now it will be cheaper still. MARNIE is horrendous. Not sure why people think FAMILY PLOT is the worst of the set? MARNIE is the worst video I've ever seen. Any format.
PS: And yet there are enough things that disappear when we don't snatch 'em up that it's a risk waiting -- Amazon had the package of all the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" movies on Blu-ray for an astonishing $20, but I didn't see the notice until past the bewitching hour, by which time it had gone back up to over double that. You snooze, you lose. I may not even watch "Marnie," so the poor quality of that one probably won't bother me. But there ARE a few Hitchcock titles I want that aren't included (such as "Dial M For Murder"), so will have to buy them separately.
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My set arrived yesterday, and the first movie I watched was "The Birds," mainly because I wanted to see those beautiful vistas AND Tippi Hedron in Blu-ray, and wasn't disappointed. Knowing how Rod Taylor looks now (anyone remember him in "Inglorious Basterds"?), it's hard to believe he was ever such a stud back then. I think I'll next try "Rear Window," although it would be fun to watch all 15 of these Hitchcock movies in sequence.
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Ron, I am also enjoying this set and am glad I grabbed it on sale. The review you posted by that guy was also quite accurate. The disc of "The Trouble With Harry" is incredibly beautiful -- stunning really. I was a bit nervous that "Vertigo" might not look OK -- but it is also a gorgeous disc. I did put on "The Birds" and it also looked quite good -- but I did notice in a couple of medium to close up shots that a strange gray smudging appeared in the face tones of the characters -- almost like they had gray makeup on their cheeks -- very fleeting. I'm wondering if this is a digital artifact of some video de-noising process?
I only put on "Marnie" for a few fleeting scenes -- and it is quite grainy in places -- and the transfer seems all over the place as other reviews have noted.
Looking forward to diving in to the rest of the set -- not sure if I will proceed in chronological order, etc.
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John McM:
Yes, how to watch all these Hitchcock films is a challenge. But I think I'm going to forego going directly to "Rear Window" or "Psycho" and force myself to go back to the chronological 1st and move forward from there -- and it'll expose me to some of his films I never saw. Thanks.
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A few weeks later, and I never did go back to watch those 15 Hitchcock films chronologically. Instead, I started with "The Birds" the day I received the collection, and last night watched "Rear Window." Funny. I had only intended to watch a little of it, but ended up watching it all, as well as nearly 3 hours of just some of the voluminous extras, which made me realize that there is so much material that I'll NEVER watch it all. But it's still nice to have it! As for "Rear Window," it looked gorgeous, and I couldn't pull myself away from James Stewart and Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter until the film ended, and then it was more hours of the extras about it!
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