The Alfred Hitchcock Filmography - A Chronological viewing (5 Viewers)

[Matt Hough]

Family Plot seemed to cover all the genres he liked to cover.

I think that's its greatest asset: it offers the Hitchcock fan a little bit of everything in his wheelhouse.

 

[TravisR]

I think that's its greatest asset: it offers the Hitchcock fan a little bit of everything in his wheelhouse.

That's one of the reasons why it's a fun movie.

 

[Mark McSherry]

Hey Mark-

That’s a very nice offer, thanks. I think I wouldn’t mind owning the entire series. There’s a lot of actors I’d like to see in a lot of the episodes as well as the episodes that Hitchcock directed. The book looks interesting too!

But it’s a little confusing as you said, there’s 7 seasons. But there is a set that has 5 seasons, then I see a set that has all 7 that looks like an import. Maybe one needs to buy the 5 season set and add the last two?

You're best bet would be to get all seven seasons at Amazon UK from Fabulous Films. In the US, Universal released the first season (back in 2005 on three flipper discs; Fabulous did S1 on six single-sided DVDs in 2015. It's important to add that the Fabulous Alfred Hitchcock Presents Seasons are Region 2 locked. Also, one of my Universal S1 flipper discs did go bad so I re-bought S1 from Fabulous.

In the US, Universal only released the first six seasons on DVD; S2-S6 are singled sided with Universal getting very cheap with Season Six (released in 2013)--- it's said to be a DVD-R release, but even if that isn't true, the five single-sided discs are stacked on a single spine with no listing of the episodes in the DVD case or printed on the discs.

Fabulous Film also released the three seasons of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

The book has long been out-of-print. Abebooks lists only a few copies, ranging from $125 to $400. Amazon sells copies from $150-$400.

 

[Osato]

That's one of the reasons why it's a fun movie.

agreed!!!

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Mark. I’d prefer to purchase Region 1/A discs. So I’ll weight the options.

 

[Cineman]

Nelson, congratulations and thanks so much for this terrific thread and all the work you put into it! It must have been daunting in the beginning. But what a ride through so many great and near great Hitchcock movies!

Hey, looking forward to you possibly tackling his TV work and other, non feature film work

 

[Nelson Au]

David, thanks a lot for the kind words! I appreciate it. Nice to know the work is being read. And I appreciate all the others who’ve chimed in to comment and enlighten.

Yes, daunting at first, I was really looking forward to the later works, but was entertained and enjoyed several of the early works that I had not seen or heard of yet. So there was some delightful discovery along the way!

 

[Nelson Au]

Bon Voyage
1944
00:24:51 (25 minutes) 1.33:1 B&W
French with English subtitles
Cast:
John Blythe: Sgt John Dougall
The Molière Players



Aventure Malgache
1944
00:29:54 (30 minutes) 1.33:1 B&W
French with English subtitles
Cast:
Jules François Clermont: Resistance leader (as Paul Clarus)
Paul Bonifas: Michel
Jean Dattas: Man behind Michel, reading a telegram
Andre Frere: Pierre
Guy Le Feuvre: General
Paulette Preney: Yvonne

Included on the Gold Series Blu Ray of Life Boat, 2013 (import from Australia by Shock Entertainment, Region B But plays on Region A player.

Synopsis

During World War 2, Hitchcock offered his services to the British Ministry of Information as he wanted to contribute to the war effort. He went over to England to make two propaganda films: Bob Voyage and Aventure Malgache.

Bon Voyage concerns the escape of an RAF air gunner shot down in German occupied France. The story is told in flash back from two perspectives, the RAF gunner’s POV and a second is from an intelligence officer.

Aventure Malgache concerns a troop of actors preparing to go on stage and one of the actors tells the story of a very difficult Vichi official who one of the other actors is portraying. He tells of knowing this official when he was part of the resistance during World War II in Madagascar.

Impressions

I was surprised these were made in French so I spent time reading the subtitles and trying to follow the stories. I can’t say I found either of them that engaging, though I liked Bon Voyage more of the two. There was a little suspense and surprise when a reveal is made of one of the characters.

I’m not sure I’ll rewatch these. They are great extras to see another kind of film Hitchcock made while he was establishing himself in Hollywood.

 

[Matt Hough]

I have these two short films on laserdisc, and I have never watched them! If I can find a moment tomorrow afternoon, I will drag out the disc and watch one or both of these. I have to pick up a friend at the airport in the late afternoon, and then we're heading out to the beach for the week, but it would finally fill one of the Hitchcock "holes" in my viewing if I would get these watched.

 

[Nelson Au]

I’ll be curious what you think Matt of those two films. I’ll be interested in what the other members think too. I have to confess I was tired when I watched them. One really nice thing, the editions of these films on the blu ray looked really good. So it was nice to see good clean copies.

 

[Cineman]

I’ll be curious what you think Matt of those two films. I’ll be interested in what the other members think too. I have to confess I was tired when I watched them. One really nice thing, the editions of these films on the blu ray looked really good. So it was nice to see good clean copies.

I am ashamed to admit I tried to watch both of them years ago and had a hard time staying awake to the end of them. And they aren't very long! They just seemed very long to me. I must have eventually watched each in its entirety but have little memory of anything about them.

 

[Nelson Au]

I’ll confess, I had a hard time staying awake too and I was trying to read the subtitles.

If what Wikipedia says is true, these films were never shown or seen until years later. So maybe they were not well received at the time.

 

[Mark McSherry]

Thought I'd just bring this to Nelson's attention. The A Talk with Hitchcock DVD was released in 2000. It is a 52 minute interview recorded on the set of Marnie in 1964. Part One is now on youtube and excerpts have come and gone over the years.

YouTube also has a "96-Minute 'Masterclass' Interview with Alfred Hitchcock on Filmmaking (1976)" which was made after the release of Family Plot.

And that leads to a link to John Williams talking about scoring Family Plot.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Mark!

I accidentally came across that Masterclass interview with Hitchcock after the release of Family Plot some moths ago and I wanted to save it to watch after I’d seen Family Plot, but I didn’t save it. So thanks, as I couldn’t find it.

That DVD of A Talk with Hitchcock sounds like it would be interesting too. Thanks a lot for those. I wonder if the John Williams piece is from the Family Plot extras.

I’m much obliged.

 

[Mark McSherry]

I wonder if the John Williams piece is from the Family Plot extras.

Yes, it's the 6m+ excerpt from the "Plotting Family Plot" extra which runs 48 minutes total.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Mark, then I don’t have to chase after a John Williams interview.

On another topic, now that I’ve seen all the theatrical Hitchcock releases available, with the exception of the new early blu rays of Murder and Blackmail and the others in the new set, which I don’t have yet, I’ve started to put all the blu rays I have away into a cabinet so they are all together for quick easy access. But it presents a new problem. Maybe it has to do with it being a new year and wanting to clean house. I have the two earlier DVD sets of Hitchcock; Alfred Hitchcock The Signature Collection Warner set and Alfred Hitchcock The Masterpiece Collection from Universal. And then there is the 8 Masterworks set on DVDs too. Plus many singles on DVD of other titles. I’m starting to figure out what to do with those. For now they will go back into a cabinet with the other sets I have. I hate to sell or give them away. Plus there are titles only on DVD in those sets, so I have to keep those. And they might have extras the new sets don’t have. Though I have not checked to compare the extras.

On a similar note: I also have a ton of other sets on DVD of other series. The James Bond sets are just nuts as I have the earlier first release single films on DVD of the early Connery, then the first complete sets on DVD at that time while Brosnan was still making the films. So there’s two sets of DVD sets, then early blu rays which I gave away and now the 50th anniversary blu ray set which is the go-to set now. There’s Die Hard and there are a couple of sets of those I have on DVD and the blu ray, and the Alien series is the same, DVD sets and Blu Ray. Seems really nuts. I guess I’ll have to look deep and pull them all out and decide what to keep and then how to dispense them.

Being a Star Trek fan, all iterations of Star Trek TOS and spin-offs and films on DVD and later formats I still have and will keep.

I guess the Hitchcock collection might be manageable. One thing I’ve started to do is make MKV files from the blu rays and also rip the DVDs of favorite films and TV shows. I’m still in the early phases of that but it sure has been making watching the collection a lot easier and fun.

 

[Mark McSherry]

You already know this but using MakeMKV on a region-locked Blu removes that lock on the rip.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Mark- yes, Josh mentioned that and it allowed him to convert two Region B blu ray discs of Young and Innocent and Sabotage into MKV files. I’ve pondered doing that for those two Hitchcock films.

It would be a way to view the UK edition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents since that set appears to have all the seasons. I’m not sure I’d want to go there for a 7 season series. I’d feel better if the DVDs were Region A so it’s a fall back to use the blu ray player. And for Young and Innocent and Sabotage, I do have the Region A DVDs. I am conflicted. . But sure, it’s an option for Region B discs.

 

[Cineman]

Nelson, on the issue of keeping physical media re movies and tv shows, you know I have mentioned I retired and moved to Thailand several years ago. I suppose if I'd stayed put in my home in America I would have done things differently. You can imagine a good 35+ years of collecting almost every version of my favorite or, imo, "important" movies on everything from Beta/VHS to, well, you know the list (up to Blu-ray) and having to decide what to toss, sell or gift and what to bring along for the move.

I have not and probably will not do whatever physical media has come since Blu-ray. Hell, I can already see the tiny hairs on the top of male actors' ears on my home theater set up and other details I'm pretty sure the great filmmakers of this art form did not intend for me to even notice. Do I really need or want to be made aware of more detail than that in order to enjoy the movies of my lifetime? lol. Ok, I understand the newer formats finally get the COLOR of those tiny hairs correct.

Anyway, I get the streaming approach and will do that for most post-2000 movies. But Hitchcock is special. Keeping the best physical media that I already owned of every theatrical release of his (except for the lost "Mountain Eagle", of course) seemed like an effort worth making. And I don't have Blu-rays of many but the pre-1940 films. However, even with Hitchcock's films on dvd and Blu-ray I forced myself to be brutal about tossing what I did not feel I needed in order to save space and stop lugging around all that stuff.

In my situation, that meant tossing the boxes. Yep, I know that renders them virtually worthless in terms of "collectibles". I don't care. I was never going to resell them to anyone. But I needed to be brutal. Sure, if there were several dvds or, better, Blu-rays already in a tightly packed box set, I would not toss that box. But all those individual dvds and Blu-rays? I took the disc and the cover artwork out of the bos and bid the box farewell. It's amazing how little space 50-60 discs can take up once you've tossed the boxes.

Some discs (many, many more than just the Hitchcocks) went into a few of those briefcase style cd/dvd storage cases. Some, prepare to be shocked, just went into sandwich size zip lock baggies with the cover art. And some of the same genre or era discs in those sandwich size zip lock baggies when into bigger zip lock baggies as a group. lol. Must be a food joke in there somewhere.

Anyway, I am not suggesting someone who lives in a world with plenty of storage space in their home town should take the extreme measures I took to save and keep certain physical media when I essentially divested myself of almost all my worldly possessions of the previous 60 years or so a few years back (BEFORE the big streaming move, btw) and decided to go for a radical change in scenery.

But I have to say in all the years I have had just the discs and no boxes, watched and shown these movies to friends, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in holding or looking at the cover art (virtually all available to be looked at online anyway), the box or anything else connected to the movie other than the picture, sound and some of the bonus extras for it on my home theater set up. Not even me.

 

[Nelson Au]

David-

Thanks for your thoughtful input on the issue of what to keep and not keep. This wasn’t something that I put too much thought into until yesterday when I took sometime to reorganize a couple of shelves of discs to put away the Hitchcock titles and I started to think more about it. I’d already been pondering a bit about this, but not too deeply. I too go back to the VHS and laserdisc days of collecting. I still have all my laserdiscs, but those take up about three or four boxes as I don’t have that many titles. Most of those titles are superseded now by blu rays. I have a cabinet I built into a cove in a wall. There are two shelves of DVDs in there of titles I have not watched in many years because they are now superseded by new and better versions. So I wondered who would want those.

My thinking so far is for what I think is essential (important and culturally significant titles) or important ( favorites) to me is I keep the physical discs. That goes for Criterion and all other labels. I like to keep them in their original packaging too. I used to think it was convenient to have a DVD copy of blu rays since they were easy to rip with Handbrake. But now that I can convert blu rays, that’s proven to be a bad idea. . But the act of transferring them to MKV files is for convenience. I keep the discs as it’s a back-up and is the source material is the thinking. I don’t know if I’ll convert everything yet, I’m still in the early stages. It does make watching TV shows a lot more fun and convenient. There’s also the idea that maybe in a few years, the blu ray players will be no longer be made or sold.

What a funny thing is this hobby. Back in the 80’s and 90’s this was such a privilege to actually own a movie. People would ask, how many times are you going to watch that? Now it’s a totally different landscape where you can watch anything on your phone. In terms of collecting, I realize I collect older titles, things I like. Newer films and TV shows will have to be really something I’d want to hold onto to collect.

And that’s funny what you said about the clarity of blu ray. I used to be amused by the blu rays of Star Trek as the prosthetic make-up for Spock’s ears are easily seen. What is beyond blu ray and 4K? I’ve not been keeping up.