A friend of mine recently gave me a copy of the Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins box. This is a budget set with mostly public domain titles, so the quality is not that great. Obviously, for titles like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, there are superior Criterion discs. However, for lesser known titles, I was wondering what are considered the best available editions? In particular, I am looking for a good copy of Secret Agent, but it looks like there are quite a few out there. Do you guys have any recommendations?

This is the copy I have:

I have that set too.

Aside from the Criterions, MGM has released better editions of:
Sabotage, The Paradine Case, Young and Innocent, and The Lodger.

They also re-released Spellbound, Notorious, and Rebecca whose Criterion editions were OOP and spendy.

This is a cut and paste of a reply that I made on a different forum to someone who was looking to collect all of Hitchcock's work. He already had picked up the Masterpiece set and the Signature set. Those are a good starting point. Also since I wrote this, Psycho and North By Northwest have received excellent Blu-ray releases that I can't recommend enough. I have also since watched all of the movies in the Premier set I reference and did have a couple instances of freezing on a couple discs, but nothing too terrible. I have also gone through most of the films that are only available on the "Begins" set that you have, and while the quality isn't great, they aren't too bad, especially for the ones without a better option. Unfortunately, with Secret Agent you are not going to find a significantly better option, at least not within the US, as none of the major studios have released that one. Only public domain budget releases exist. Of all of his films stuck in public domain hell, that's at the top of my list of ones I wish would be picked up and restored by someone! Hope this helps...


"You are off to a good start with the Masterpiece and Signature sets. That's a big chunk right there. I took a chance and also ordered the MGM Premiere set when Amazon had a crazy sale on it a couple months ago. Knock on wood I've been lucky and have so far not had any trouble with the three discs that I've watched so far. It's a beautiful set with some of the coolest packaging I've seen. It is a nice sized spiral bound book with each movie having it's own chapter. Very nice and I think too many people are skipping it because of fear of quality issues. To me it was worth the risk, and so far so good.

I then picked up Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins, which is a four disc set, from Wal-Mart for $5. Can't beat that. It adds 18 movies (+2 presents episodes to make the 20 advertised). I have only watched one of the movies so far (Easy Virtue), and while it is obviously a public domain release that hasn't been restored, it was easily watchable. This will be by far your easiest and cheapest way of adding many of the early movies without going to the overseas releases.

I also bought the Lion's Gate Alfred Hitchcock 3-Disc Collector's Edition box set. This only added one movie I didn't already have (Murder), but the rest of the movies are a nice upgrade to those in the Legend Begins set.

Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache are available together on one DVD, and is a little pricy for what it is, but is worth it for collectors sake.

That only leaves To Catch a Thief which is only available on it's own. It was released in a very nice special edition as a part of Paramount's Centennial Collection.

I also bit the bullet and upgraded both The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes from the public domain release to the Criterion Collection special editions. Another expensive venture, but these two films are worth having in the best quality possible.

That is just about everything available in the US. The Pleasure Garden, Downhill, and Waltzes from Vienna would have to be obtained from a different region. If memory serves Downhill is an extra on the French release of Waltzes, so that's probably the best way to go there. I believe I heard the best release of Pleasure Garden is the German one, but I'm not sure there. I've decided to let these three go since while I can make my player region free, I do not have a TV that can handle a PAL signal. My player can play it, but not convert it. I know there are some out there that can convert the signal, but I have no intention of changing any of my home theater equipment for quite a while!"

Very cool, thanks for your thorough response!

I don't know if this will be useful to you, but the British Film Institute is currently doing a major restoration of all nine of Hitchcock's surviving silent films, and, according to a member of the CriterionForum who works for the BFI, they will most likely be releasing them on DVD/Blu-ray after they hold theatrical screenings during the London Olympics. I don't know if you're region-free, or if you want to wait that long, but the eventual home video releases will almost certainly be a huge improvement over any currently existing versions.

Here's the official site announcing the BFI restorations.

Wow! That is great news! While I am not a huge fan of his silent era films outside of The Lodger (though Champagne and The Manxman both are pretty decent), I would still love to own nicely restored versions, especially on Blu! Hopefully they will make their way to a US release, but if not this may push me into finding a way to go region-free, especially for the three that remain unreleased here.

Now if we could just get someone to take good care of Blackmail, the original Man Who Knew Too Much, and Secret Agent (ahh heck...and Number 17 and Jamaica Inn for good measure. Screw Juno and the Paycock though... )! And more Blu-rays please!

Jediturtle, do you have a recommendation for Jamaica Inn? I have it narrowed down to the Kino and the Laserlight. Is one better than the other?

What's the best copy of Blackmail that exists on DVD?

TLK

I only have Jamaica Inn on the Mill Creek "Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins" set. Best $5 I ever spent. My understanding is that all of these low budget/public domain versions are about the same in overall quality. Criterion they are not, but they are perfectly watchable in my experience. I'd suggest the set that I have (available on Amazon and also in the Wal-Mart dump bins) as the quality is going to be the same, or very close, and you get a ton of other films with it. It's the best way to collect all of the more obscure titles all in one place. Many of the better known titles can then be upgraded to nicer versions (39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, etc), and you don't feel bad about double dipping.

Jamaica Inn gets ragged on a lot as one of Hitchcock's weakest films. I disagree and actually really enjoyed it. There is a different feel being a period piece, but there's a lot to like about it. Give it a fair chance and you might come out surprised.

Sadly, like Jamaica Inn, the only versions of Blackmail available in the US are low budget / public domain releases. My copy is again on the "Legend Begins" set I discussed above. Being one of the first sound films ever made, and not being restored, the audio quality is pretty bad in places, but it is watchable.

I have heard there are somewhat better versions available in other regions, but I honestly have not researched them too much. I believe there is a box set of early films from the UK that is generally highly regarded for some of these titles.

I really hope someone does a proper restoration of Blackmail someday. It is an important film, being not only the first with sound, but also one of the first (after The Lodger of course) with a real "Hitchcock" feel to it. Great film, even on a crappy release!

FWIW, I did some extra digging the other day and read that a lot of Jamaica Inn DVDs are missing about ten minutes of footage. The Kino version, while not being the best presentation, has the missing footage. Not sure if there are other versions out there, but I will likely seek out the Kino release at some point.

I can confirm this. When I watched Jamaica Inn a couple years ago, I ran into the missing footage problem (I think it was a Laserlight DVD). After I checked to make sure the DVD hadn't just skipped a chapter, I put in my other copy (from the Mill Creek set mentioned above), and it had the exact same problem. Since I was part-way through the film and wanted to finish it, I checked on Archive.org, and a copy they had on there had the missing footage (it's most likely a ripped copy of the Kino version).

Thanks!

TLK

According to Amazon the MGM release of Young and Innocent is OOP. Is this correct?