12 Hitchcock films for $33.71??? What's the deal? (1 Viewer)

[Richard Hardbattle]

Does anybody out there know anything about this set - it sounds too good to be true!

Hitchcock in the Thirties

Contains 12 features of 6 double sided DVDs.

The 39 Steps

The Lady Vanishes

Jamaica Inn

Rich and Strange

Juno and the Paycock

Blackmail

Murder!

The Lodger

Secret Agent

Sabotage

Young and Innocent

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Amazon have it for $33.71 out on Feb 26th.

What’s the quality like, and are they cut?

Thanks

Richard:b

 

[DennisTuck]

The sets from RHINO, but I haven't heard anything about the quality.

DennisTuck

 

[John P Grosskopf]

These are films from Hitchcock's 1930s output, and are public domain titles.

Being in the public domain, these will probably not be from the most pristine of prints. Quality from one film to the next may vary widely.

Laserlight's DVDs of some of these titles are not too bad, meaning decent prints are out there giving this set the potential to be of pretty good quality.

It's a deal if the films are watchable and complete. Just do not expect the pristine picture or sound quality of an Anchor Bay or Criterion release of Hitch's work.

At roughly $36 shipped that's only $3 per film. I'd say it's worth a gamble when each film costs essentially the same as a rental.

 

[Scott_MacD]

Thanks for the heads up.. I can buy this cheaply, and get better versions of the films I like, for which better versions exist. (Criterion, or Anchor Bay)

 

[george kaplan]

What John said. If viewed as a rental, great, but definitely get the Criterion versions if you end up liking 39 Steps and the Lady Vanishes.

 

[Tom-G]

Just curious, how do movie rights fall into public domain? I've often heard of this happening in fact I'm pretty sure Zulu starring Michael Caine was in public domain.

I'm guessing that when no studio acquires the rights to a certain film, it falls into public domain?

 

[Jodee]

It falls into the public doman after a certain length of time. I thought it was 50 years?

 

[Damin J Toell]

Quote:

see above.
DJ

 

[Markus Lidstrom]

I own the films above, however Madacy (shudder) was responsible for them. The transfers and audio are abysmal, but the movie still shines though and wonderfully illustrates a budding Hitchcock.

 

[Dave Barth]

I don't know Rhino's reputation. The Laserlight Hitchcock disks are pretty good, whereas most anything put out by Madacy is pretty bad. I would guess this will be more like the former than the latter.

The length of current copyright terms is excessively long IMHO. I fail to see how ~100 year terms induce that much extra development of these works (be they books, music, movies, or whatever) relative to a more modest 25-50 year term. (And of course the extension for existing works did nothing to stimulate future creation...) IIRC copyrights lasted 14 years when the U.S. was formed.