While comparing the Laserlight DVD of Hitchcock's "Murder!" to the Madacy edition I was surprised to see that the Madacy version runs a full twelve minutes longer. I scanned both discs and found that the Madacy disc has a seven minute scene that is missing from the Laserlight.

The scene occurs before Sir John (Herbert Marshall) visits the condemned woman in prison. Sir John, investigating the murder, is put up for the night in a flat and is awakened by the occupants, a shrieking housewife (Una O'Connor) and her gang of kids. The scene is mostly comic relief but a clue to the murder is given and there is a really weird bit of abstract editing.

This leaves another five minutes to account for and I am reasonably sure that the remaining 97 minutes have been compressed to play at 92 minutes, although the dialogue sounds natural and movement does not seem unusually hurried to me. It might be that what we have here is a print that is designed to fit into a two hour TV time slot.

This is really a shame because in terms of picture quality the Laserlight is a significant improvement over the Madacy. The contrast is better, the image is sharper, and best of all, the framing is much better, offering a lot more information on the top while taking away only a sliver on the bottom. Heads are no longer chopped off at the mouth as happens occasionally on the Madacy.


Andy P

I just watched Laserlight's "Murder!" and searched this sight to see if anyone noticed that this scene was cut. As for the other missing 5 minutes, I compared the disc to a tape I have, and the disc is speeded up around 2-3 seconds/minute.