Search results

I *think* there are only 2 volumes -- "Alfred Hitchcock Zeigt Teil 1" and "Teil 2" -- which were both released last year in Germany by Koch Media Home Entertainment. I've not gotten around to adding screen grabs to the wiki yet, but I can confirm that both sets contain excellent quality...

In the UK, HMV has recently added the following titles as "pre-release" in it's Blu-ray section: - The Birds - Torn Curtain - Family Plot - Frenzy - The Man Who Knew Too Much - Marnie - Mr and Mrs Smith - Psycho - Rear Window - Rope - Saboteur - Shadow of a Doubt - Topaz - The...

John -- it's mostly colour noise. From memory, it's the Manxman that has it the worst. The quality of the transfer drops noticably during the second half of the film (which doesn't happen with the Lionsgate transfer). Here's some text & grabs I did for another forum... When viewed on a PC...

I didn't believe it at first, until I did a side by side comparison with some of the previous DVD releases. Rich and Strange, in particular, seems to have had a lot of sounds added (footsteps, doors closing, etc) that don't appear in the PD releases. I did wonder if the sounds were there, but...

"I guess irony can be pretty ironic at times" Just loaded up the Mill Creek "Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins" set and was amused to see this (the "Ultimate Hitchcock Collection" also contains a similar FBI warning). By the way, if anyone is thinking of buying the Mill Creek set then...

Cheers John! I actually ordered that DVD from Play.com when I spotted the different packaging. When it arrived and it was the old yellow Carlton packaging (which matched the one I'd just bought from Amazon UK), I complained and sent it back. Within a couple of days, Play updated their site and...

Thanks for that Damin -- I'd definitely got the two presidents well and truly mixed up there :-D It also clears up the Copyright Office's involvement and the NIE's. I hadn't appreciated that copyright to PD works had been automatically restored (without any action required by the non-US...

This is a fascinating thread, guys! On my "list of things to do" is to write an article about Hitchcock, copyright, and "Public Domain" (partly because I'm fed up of explaining why his films aren't PD to people on Wikipedia!). I'm certainly not a copyright lawyer, so the following is based on...

John -- I was thinking specifically of the silent version of "Blackmail", currently only available on a German DVD from Arthaus.

Unfortunately I've not been able to find contact information for Lionsgate, but when I asked Optimum Releasing if they planned to source any other early Hitchcock titles (e.g. Mary, silent Blackmail, or any Granada International titles), they said "no". I've not had chance to listen to all of...

No sign of any ghosting in the Lionsgate transfers :) Here's some comparisons with the various R2 releases: The Manxman It's not often that I wouldn't agree with Gary, but I'd say that the Lionsgate is much better than the R2. Ignoring the annoying colour noise on the R2 releases, the...

Hold on -- I may have to eat my words yet! :D I've just started comparing the various transfers of "Rich and Strange" and that would definitely appear to have excessive Foley effects (esp. footsteps) added. To my ear, it also sounds like portions of the audio track have been reconstructed on...

According to Patrick McGilligan's biography after Hitchcock's death, his estate (which presumably means Pat Hitchcock) sold the so-called "missing" five films back to Universal in 1983.

I've just ripped the audio tracks from both the Laserlight/Delta and Studio Canal "Murder!" DVDs and I honestly can't detect any added Foley effects. You can listen to a comparison of the "tea scene" by downloading this MP3 file (5.34MB): tea.mp3 The left channel contains the...

Assuming you're wanting to block an IP address, then there's a couple of ways of doing it: 1) Generate the RSS feed dynamically - e.g. using PHP or Perl - and check the "REMOTE_ADDR" (IP address of remote user) environment variable. 2) If you have admin control of your web server, then use...

Patrick - I think the same script is available at Drew's script-o-rama, along with several other Hitchcock scripts.

Mark_TS - I couldn't have put it better myself :D Not only is it the UK customers, but it's also everyone in Europe, Australia, and certain parts of South America too. Given the size of that customer base, Universal's attitude does seems bizarre. Universal have also dropped the RRP in the...

Patrick - that's exactly what Universal are doing in the UK. Earlier on this year it was possible to pick up the two Universal Hitchcock box sets for less than £60 (in fact, I bought mine new for under £50). The new UK box set that appears in November is £70 on Amazon (£100 RRP). Not only...

Jonathan - I've just rewatched the last 5 minutes of the film and the audio seemed to be in sync. Having said that, there's not much dialogue in the last 5 minutes!

Hi Jeffrey The non-region 1 releases of "Topaz" are the only ones that are unmatted. Perhaps pan&scan isn't the most accurate description, but the three I mentioned are not unmatted and all appear to be pan&scan when compared to the transfer frame used for the equivalent R1 DVD. To be...

For those of you interested in the French box sets, I've just found out that Gary is going to be adding them to DVD Beaver shortly :) Now that everyone has settled down from all that mono "Vertigo" grumbling, spare a thought for us poor British DVD buyers... Universal UK has just released...

I should have mentioned this in my previous post - for anyone thinking of getting the French box sets, it's worth pointing out that (like many French DVDs) they have DVD player generated subtitles that are forced using "user operation prohibitions" (UOP). In other words, if you choose to...

Craig - I bought mine from Amazon.de and, as long as you're familiar with ordering on Amazon.com it's possible to do it without knowing any German. It's also handy if you have the Babel Fish web page up and running, so that you can copy & paste any words or phrases that you're unsure about.

Over the last year or so, we've started to get what look like PD releases in the UK from companies such as Waterfall Home Entertainment. The transfers are definitely from the same sources as Laserlight and Madacy have used, and some haven't even been converted from NTSC to PAL. I find it hard...

Hi Craig You should find them all on my site (e.g. Frenzy) - if you need larger versions, just email me.

Hi John Not heard anything yet - Granada did resubmit a selection of Hitchcock films to the BBFC for classification in Jan 2005 (39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, and Man Who Knew Too Much), but it's been quiet since then. I've tried emailing Granada Ventures several times this year, but I've never...

Hi Steve It looks like Universal have gone back to their orignal designs for the October re-re-releases: new Rear Window old 2001 Rear Window Darrell - if you can play PAL DVDs, then go for the R2 German ArtHaus release of Blackmail. The transfer is much better than the "public domain"...

Hi Ronald If it helps, here's the top 20 Hitchcock films (as voted by users of my site): 1. North by Northwest (1959) 2. Rear Window (1954) 3. Psycho (1960) 4. The 39 Steps (1935) 5. Vertigo (1958) 6. The Lady Vanishes (1938) 7. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 8. The Birds (1963) 9...

In terms of the UK October releases - although I live in hope, I've yet to see any evidence that these will be anything other than re-re-releases of the previous UK DVDs. The picture of the box set appears to list 17 titles - the original 14 DVDs, plus: 1) Psycho bonus disc: The Hitchcock...

If it's of interest to anyone, I've put together details of what Universal removed from the full "AFI Salute" broadcast: http://www.daveyp.com/hitchcock/foru...hp?p=1174#1174