I was wondering if someone could provide an overview of the Hitchcock DVDs currently and soon-to-be-available.

- I bought the "Wrong Men Notorious Women" box set from Criterion.

- I plan to buy the 9-disc Signature Collection from Warner Brothers.

But this still doesn't cover the essential Hitchcock films like Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window right? These are Universal titles apparantly? Only I think I read that Universal were morons when they made their Hitchcock box sets because some of their titles actually OVERLAP with their other box sets? Is that true?

Should I just pick up titles like Psycho and Vertigo individually?


Thanks,
cirving

Universal's boxsets are indeed moronic. And their Psycho and Vertigo are non-anamorphic.

You can get most of the Universal discs through Columbia House. I would highly recommend it for this purpose:

You can pick up:

Psycho
Vertigo
Rear Window
Marnie
The Man Who Knew Too Much

through the House.

As well as The Birds and Saboteur at CH... As is the one Image title, Under Capricorn. Also, there's one Paramount title - To Catch A Thief, also available via CH if you desire. But that leaves "essential" Universal titles not available via CH... Shadow Of A Doubt, Rope, The Trouble With Harry, etc... If you want ALL of the Universal discs, you need to buy Best Of Hitchcock Volumes 1 and 2, the 8 disc sets... These contain all of the Universal titles, plus the two Alfred Hitchcock Presents discs.

As for his earlier British work, there's a Laserlight set available called Alfred Hitchcock, The Early Years... It's a 14 disc set that covers a lot of his early films.

Useful site: The Alfred Hitchcock DVD Information Site.

That's misleading; there are *four* 'Presents' discs. The 8-disc box sets come with volumes 2 & 3 ... the three disc boxes, 'Psycho' & 'Vertigo' [non-anamorphic, both] and 'Rear Window' & 'Knew Too Much' ('56) come with volumes 1 & 4, respectively. So, yes, to get all four, and not go through E-bay to get them [which is a good option, provided you can spot bootlegs], you'd wind up with two copies of those four titles, two of which aren't anamorphic yet.

And, yeah, the Laserlight stuff is decent ... probably the best some of those movies will get. The British one comes with 'Downhill', which we don't have here. That said, it has overlap with the Criterions. You can get the discs really cheap, though; I'd reccommend finding a seller on E-bay who's got most of the ones you want at cheap prices, so you don't get jacked on shipping for these little $5 (or less) titles.

One you may not have heard of, from Digital Bits:
"We also have confirmation of the titles coming in November as part of MGM's Alfred Hitchcock promotion from the studio. These will include The Lady Vanishes, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Rebecca, Sabotage, Spellbound, The Thirty-Nine Steps and Young & Innocent. They'll be available in a box set and separately as well." That's a bit more overlap with those early ones.

They only overlapped if you bought them as they came out (which you didn't) or you are trying to get all 4 Hitchcock Presents volumes -- these include all 17 episodes directed by Hitch himself.

Since you're starting from scratch, you're actually in a pretty decent position. If you get these 2 "Best of Hitchcock" sets:

http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemid=MCA021149
http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=MCA021150


you'll have all of the Universal Hitch films, along with Volume 2+3 of AHP. Then you can just go to eBay to get Volumes 1+4, if you want.

The Universal ones are pretty good. I've got them all (including all the Alfred Hitchcock presents ones) and I think they're definately worth it. So far, the releases of the Universal ones are the best. The extras are excellent too. Go with the Criterion, Universal and coming-soon MGM ones and then go from there.

Thank you for all the quick replies. I love this board!

I meant to include in the list above...

Don't forget the disc which has the two French shorts Hitch did for the war effort ... 'Bon Voyage / Aveture Malache' [the latter is almost certainly misspelled by me] ... the disc has gone out of print, and is semi-difficult to find because a lot of stores never carried it in the first place.

It pops up on E-bay occassionally; I've seen it go as high as $30 or so, but I just got it for about $15 ... some on-line places probably still have it too.

Oh, and I agree with Grayson; other than the minor issue with the two titles not being anamorphic, the Universal sets are great. Though I'm sure that, in a few years, they'll do uber-editions of 'Psycho' and 'Vertigo' to make us all double-dip.

One caveat; E-bay is a *great* place to get them, but you really have to watch for bootlegs. All the Hitchcock titles are heavily bootlegged, but especially those (for whatever reason).

Luckily, the sellers are reasonably honest, in that they're upfront about certain things which can be used to spot bootlegs. If the picture has Chinese subtitles, it's a bootleg. If the picture is a different cover than the official cover, it's a bootleg. If the seller is from anywhere in Asia (other than Japan, *maybe*), it's a bootleg. If the special features include "Chinese subtitles", it's a bootleg. If they use strange descriptive terms (a lot of bootleg sellers seem to think that "Criterion" and/or "OOP" mean "great!", and apply the phrases willy-nilly to things they shouldn't be on), you're probably dealing with a bootleg. Oh, and, naturally, if they have feedback which says "Bootleg! Beware!", you're taking a big chance to buy from them. It might not be, but you probably want to be sure.

I'm sure others can fill in other good tips on that front.

Price-wise, #4 is generally more expensive than the others. #1 is slightly cheaper, but I don't know as you can depend on it to be.

What I did when I was collecting the Hitchcocks was, I bought the two-disc which came with Vol 4 (because it wasn't *that* much more than I saw #4 going for alone), I bought the eight disc that wouldn't have any duplication, then I bought the rest of them individually. The ones which were more expensive (ie 'Rope' ... you know, the ones which haven't had a price-drop yet), I scouted E-bay for a while and found people who were breaking up their box sets and selling individual titles ... that way, they went cheaper (not being sealed) and I saved on shipping ('cause I got three or four from the same person). But, again, lots of bootlegs out there. It'd probably be easier to do what BBO said, but I still think Vol 4 is a bit pricier than the others (if I had to guess, it's because, by the time it came out, the people who want Vol 4 would already have bought the other two discs in the 8-discers, and be reluctant to buy them again).

So, for quickness, follow BBO's method. But if you have time, you might save a bit with a little E-bay legwork.

I wish Universal would just save us the headaches and release the AHP discs individually, or in their own box.

And cirving, make sure you like the films you're buying--the films in the Criterion box are all great, but even my man Hitch was hit-and-miss. If you can find a place to rent those you haven't seen before you buy, you'll save some bank. Some of the early (and late) stuff can be a bit labored.

ThatGuamGuy--"Rope" is out? Hm. I've never seen it. If so, I'm there. It's a bit tedious, but quite the bit of camera trickery. I remember watching it a few times in a Catholic Filmmakers class, and having fun picking out the cuts.

Cheers.

- the Jesus

True dat... If the OP wants the AHP discs, it's a bit more of a pain in the ass to track em' down.

cupcake jesus - Rope was released in 2001... The camera "trickery", IMHO, does not hold up well but the film is great... Dunno why Rope gets bagged on by some folks as being not a good film, I find it quite the opposite... Extremely well done and it's one twisted little story. One of his most "morbid"... Again, IMHO...

I just want to get my hands on the four Presents discs. However, I cannot spot a bootleg, so I'm wary of eBay.

It's part of the Universal set, yeah. A lot of places didn't order too many of the "lesser" titles (ie: 'Family Plot', 'Rope', 'Topaz'), because they don't sell as well (which is also why they never price-dropped them), so it may be that they sold out and never ordered more. Or they never ordered it in the first place.

And for a long time, 'Rope' was my favorite of the Jimmy Stewart Hithcocks. I love that he's playing a guy who's kind of a jerk, and his speech towards the end ("You've taken everything I said and you've twisted it...") is great stuff.

But that's just me...

If you follow the directions I made in my other post, you should be fine. I've never gotten a bootleg off of E-bay. If you want to be safe, just check the feedback. If somebody has more than a few negatives (and these few negatives should be explained, usually), don't do business with them.

Oh, one other great tip. If you're in doubt, E-mail the seller. If it's a bootleg, they probably won't even respond, and if they do, they'll be fairly upfront. Stuff like "Official Chinese release" = bootleg (at least, for all intents and purposes).

I understand your fear, but remember the flip side ... a lot of people feel like you do, so you might be able to get a better price because people think that way. Plus, they don't turn up too often elsewhere.

The boots have asian characters on the cover. As with anything else on eBay, ask questions of the seller and only buy from established sellers with good feedback. That should do it.