Alfred Hitchcock Collection

The best of 1930's Hitchcock
Many box sets of early Hitchcock often include several of his pre-sound movies-- there are none here. For completists and silent-era fans that's something to consider. Nonetheless, this is one terrific package of early Alfred. The made-in-UK titles here include Hitch's (and England's) first sound feature ("Blackmail," which was also released in silent format**) and his final British-based production ("Jamaica Inn," Maureen O'Hara's screen debut). Hitchcock's scripts were often drawn from the greatest writers of his day-- some stories here are based on works by Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Daphne Du Maurier and Sean O'Casey.

Peter Lorre acted in a few of Hitchcock's movies. The two met in Germany, where the director spent his apprenticeship (he was fluent in German). Cyril Ritchard would go on to play an over-the-top Captain Hook in Mary Martin's musical version of PETER PAN. Barry Fitzgerald is best known for the cleric he portrayed in GOING MY WAY. Fitzgerald also...

13 Early Steps
This is a review for Diamond Enertainment's "Alfred Hitchcock Collection,"
a box set of 13 public domain films made during the early portion of Hitchcock's
career.

All of the movies in this set are talking pictures and the picture quality is
pretty fair with one exception, a very dark print of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
as well as a somewhat shorter than advertised print of SABOTAGE which is
missing a possible 5 minutes or so.

Here is a list of the thirteen films on the five discs:

DISC ONE

1) THE LADY VANISHES (1938). A nice older woman disappears on a train causing consternation among her new acquaintences. One of Hitchcock's best English films. Margaret Lockwood ,Michael Redgrave, Dame May Whitty.

2) SABOTAGE (1936). A quiet movie theater operator may be the terrorist planting bombs around London, or so his wife suspects. A suspense classic. Sylvia Sydney, Oskar Homolka, John Loder.

DISC...

Decent DVD copies of films from Hitchcock's British period
There are a host of cheap editions of Hitchcock's British films, almost all of them either unwatchable or close to unwatchable. If you want copies of many of the silent or early film versions of his films, you are stuck with getting one or another of these sets. Hopefully at some point Criterion will come out with a set of all of Hitchcock's silent and thirties films. At present only THE LADY VANISHES, THE 39 STEPS, THE LODGER, SABOTAGE, MURDER!, RICH AND STRANGE, THE MANXMAN, THE SKIN GAME, and THE RING exist in completely restored editions. That still leaves a very large percentage of his British work.

In the meantime, this collection provides some of the better editions of the public domain films currently available, with exceptions of THE LADY VANISHES (which should be seen in the Criterion edition), SABOTAGE (best seen in Sabotage, THE 39 STEPS (best seen in the beautiful Criterion edition...

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