Why the different retail prices on Universal's Hitchcock DVDs?
 

In adding select Hitchcock movies to my DVD library, I noticed that the more popular ones from Universal--Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds--are priced at $14.95 retail, while the slightly lesser known ones such as Rope and Shadow of a Doubt list for $22.95 retail. Why is there an $8 (more than 50%!) difference in the two tiers of movies from the exact same collection?

Back in September, 4 got price drops: rear window, psycho, vertigo, and the birds.
I guess because they were most popular, I don't really know.

the latter category was $29.95, so those had a drop as well recently. Still sucks though, and for some reason CH won't carry the non SE titles, which are the more expensive ones - i.e. great extras = lower msrp....figure that one out :hscratch:

Those with a $22.95 list can be had as low as $15 from retailers, which is about $5 more than the more popular of Hitchcock's library.

You're spoiled, son. Back when those SEs were released most of them were $34.95 MSRP, which meant that they were around $25 retail.

Luckily, I picked up many of them through CH enrollment selections back in the day.

Too bad that Psycho and Vertigo don't have anamorphic transfers. It looks like Rear Window and the Birds do though.

Frenzy, Torn Curtain, Trouble With Harry, Topaz, Family Plot, and Shadow of a Doubt are still at $29.95 msrp, and are 23.39 at DDD - the cheapest available. This is what I don't understand....the better selling and more widely available CE's got knocked down, but these have stayed at the very high list price.....I don't get it.

Where can you get them for $15? There a few that I've been wanting to get but was waiting for a good deal.

Like others, I'd be interested in buying Rope, Torn Curtain, Topaz & Family Plot should Universal do a price drop to $19.95 msrp.
(I've been lucky and picked up used copies of The Trouble with Harry and Frenzy for $12 each.)

Then again, I'd be even happier if Columbia House's DVD club would add these titles to their catalog.

Well, I assume that their thinking is something like this: four very popular and high profile movies (that have probably outsold the other titles by a wide margin already) will be impulse items if the price is cheap enough, but the other titles will continue to sell only to a limited audience no matter what the price level is.

What?! Looks like I bought another two movies in non-anamorphic transfer. I keep making the mistake of thinking that most widescreen releases nowadays are anamorphic, especially when they say "Collector's Edition" and are listed at inflated prices like $30 (they have since experienced price drops to $15). I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that I paid $50 for the Criterion release of "Brazil" and it's not even anamorphic.

This is it. Also, they have probably recouped their money on these films already and they are looking to do volume, where the more expensive films haven't sold as many.

Yeah, add another :hscratch: here... I was just talking to my GF about this issue last week... I still need to pick up The Trouble With Harry, Frenzy and Shadow Of A Doubt and keep waiting for a price drop... I'm just about ready to forget it and pay up.

gcbma - Yup... Sadly... Vertigo and Psycho were released non-anamorphic in R1. I'd pick them up again in a heartbeat if they were given a nice new transfer (hear that Universal? $$$)... But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.