"Ultimate Hitchcock Collection" Public Domain release (1 Viewer)

[John Hodson]

In a HMV; but you're right, they are undoubtedly still using up old stock. Most of these repackages are just that, but I'm told - though I can't confirm it because I can't find it anywhere - that the repackaged '78 'The Thirty Nine Steps' is now anamorpic.

 

[DavePattern]

"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 beware -- 2 out of the 4 discs in my set refused to play at all.

Getting back to the original topic, the "Ultimate Hitchcock Collection" is the usual collection of poor quality transfers (which St Clair say they have digitally restored). The claim of "20 Movies" is misleading -- there are only 18 movies in the set. The audio on some is poor (even for a "PD" transfer) and several of the films have appalling contrast levels. In fact, poor contrast dogs most "PD" transfers -- see these three examples from Vintage Home Entertainment release of Secret Agent for a particular bad example!

As is usual for unlicensed US transfers, Jamaica Inn is missing a sizeable chunk of footage. The silent films mostly have inappropriate music and are poor framed (intertitles are often cropped with letters missing).

Ignoring the legal aspects of "PD" transfers for a moment, if you're looking for a cheap way of seeing most of Hitchcock's British films and you don't mind substandard audio and video, then this is as good (or as bad) as any of the other plethora of budget unlicensed sets. At least St. Clair didn't go as far as "borrowing" the transfers from the Criterion releases (which Vintage Home Entertainment did!).

If you're a serious collector who demands nothing but the best, then none of the unlicensed sets are even worth considering. Instead, go for the US Lionsgate set or one of the many excellent licensed sets available in Europe (although I'm sure some of the extra Foley effects that appear in the Studio Canal transfers will have you vexed!)

 

[Michael Elliott]

Are those Foley effects really on the R2 sets? I thought I heard these were just a rumor.

 

[Jon Martin]

Which sets?

 

[DavePattern]

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 just quieter or hidden in the background hiss. However, a careful analysis with Cool Edit Pro showed that just weren't there at all -- the "spectral view" in Cool Edit is really useful for doing that.

Anyway, Rich and Strange contains a number of sequences where the sound is poor in the PD releases (and probably was in the original theatrical release) and my best guess is that Studio Canal worked on the soundtrack to isolate the dialogue, then added in new background sound and effects. If my memory serves me right, there's one sequence on the boat where they've added different background music and, in the segments where Joan Barry is talking, you can just make out the original background music(!)

I suppose it's in the nature of restoration (especially with early sound films that are nearly 80 years old) that there are times when you do have to rebuild portions of the soundtrack.

Having said all that, it's worth pointing out that the US Lionsgate set (which contains titles licensed from Studio Canal) does use the original soundtrack. Also, the US set doesn't suffer from any of the video transfer glitches that appear in the UK and French sets from Optimum and Studio Canal.

 

[John Hodson]

'Video transfer glitches' - can you expand on that Dave?

 

[DavePattern]

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 with WinDVD 4, they are just visible:



If you tweak the hue and saturation in a graphics package, then you can see some of the colour noise -- in particular, there's a persistent horizontal bar about 1/4 from the top (cutting across Ondra's hair):



The default settings of PowerDVD 6 on a PC amplify these so that they are visible without any tweaking of the image:

 

[John Hodson]

Yikes! Thanks Dave; food for thought...

 

[John Hodson]

Dave Pattern has some review discs from the new R2 Network Hitchcock set and has posted his thoughts, and some grabs, in his Hitchcock Wiki Forum here.

 

[whaleman]

I can echo the thoughts on the Mill Creek set...I purchased it for $5 thinking it was a 'too good to be true' deal for 20 movies. I tried watching the movies on my Pioneer DVD recorder/player which I have never had any problems with, and all four discs (while playable for the 5 seconds I gave them a chance to) caused my player to emit an alarmingly loud 'buzzing' or 'rattling' sound as soon as the discs were loaded. I exchanged the set for a new one at Wal-Mart and this time the first disc was ok (I watched the Lady Vanishes and thought the picture and sound were acceptable considering the price paid) but the other three discs did the same thing as before! So I went back to Wal-Mart and insisted on a refund (I got store credit) and got the St.Clair video set called 'The Best of Alfred Hitchock' 9 movie set for $4. Who would have thought that the 'best of Hitchcock' would not include Rear Window, Psycho, or Vertigo? Anyway, the quality of The Lady Vanishes seems about the same as the Mill Creek version (maybe a little better?). Unfortunately, the 'buzzing' or 'rattling' experienced with the Mill Creek set occurs occasionally, puzzlingly only on the 1st and 3rd movies on each disk, and usually only between chapters 4-7. The rest of the movie and the second movie on all three discs plays perfectly fine. No idea how they are making these cheap dvds but I have never had this problem with any other dvds.

 

[widescreenforever]

Just rechecked my DVD set and it not only plays fine with no rattling, but the Lady Vanishes has a pretty good picture quality.. , .