Friday, October 10, 2008

Alfred Hitchcock - The Masterpiece Collection (Psycho / Vertigo / Rear Window / The Birds / Shadow of a Doubt / Family Plot / Frenzy / The Man Who Kne

Alfred Hitchcock NYWTS5 out of 5 stars A Great Set to Own...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This collection comes in a beautiful velvet box with a booklet outlining the 14 films included in the collection. It pains me to give my favorite director's films anything less than 5 stars since some of his greatest creations are in this collection. However, I'm rating the box set and a box set like this should have expanded greatly on what is already available instead of just repackaging previously released DVDs.

So, what do you get for your $85.00? If you don't own all or most the 14 films included in this collection, you get the films and the extra features in one collection. But, if you already own these Universal DVDs, the answer is "not much."

I already owned all of these films on Universal DVD so as far as I can surmise after going through my newly purchased box set, my $85 gets me about an hour's worth of additional material. On the bonus disc you get the "AFI Salute to Alfred Hitchcock" (15 minutes long) and "Masters of Cinema," a 30 minute interview with Hitch. On the Vertigo disc you get the alternate foreign ending (about 5 minutes long). The Psycho disc is the only disc where Universal added any new extra features. You get something called the "Psycho Archives," which is basically just a collection of photographs and a few other minor features (more photos and storyboards and some newsreel footage about the release of Psycho) that are not on the original DVD. Strangely, the documentary, "The Making of Psycho," which is on the original Psycho DVD is on the bonus disc as is "All About the Birds," which is on the original The Birds DVD. All of the other 12 discs are practically identical to the previous Universal DVD releases.

One nuisance with the packaging is that there are multiple discs in each case. There are four cases within the box: the first three cases have four discs each and the fourth has two films plus the bonus disc. This means that the collection is really an "all or nothing" deal. You can't buy it and then resell the films you already have. In my case, the only thing really worth keeping is the bonus disc and maybe a few of the new extras on Psycho.

So, if you don't have these films-or you only have a few of them-this may be a good way to go about collecting them. If you already have these films, you'll have to decide if $85 is a good price for about an hour's worth of additional material wrapped in a pretty velvet box.



5 out of 5 stars Two Versions...Now Amazon has the better at a fantastic price September 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

When I bought this a week ago Amazon's version was inferior to the other version offered DVD Empire...now its the same (significantly better of the two)...at around half their already excellent price...A MUST BUY, particularly thru Amazon at this AMAZING price. For me I wasted $70 but don't regret it...you no longer have to.


5 out of 5 stars Hitchcock masterpiece collection speaks for itself-it's a masterpiece! August 16, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Although I haven't seen all the movies in this collection yet, "The Birds" "Psycho" "Rear Window" and "The Trouble With Harry" are all outstanding movies. I can't wait to see the rest of them!!


4 out of 5 stars Everything but North by Northwest
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

Excellent packaging and collection of Alfred Hitchcock movies. This is a great buy if you like classic films. It also looks very nice in your collection with the velvet box set.


5 out of 5 stars Hitchcock DVD at the best
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

The remastered pictures are the best, the bonus features and the subtittle are good, ehm...worth it!

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