Alfred Hitchcock - Premiere Collection (R1)

[Jordy van Buel]

MGM Home Entertainment have announced the Region 1 DVD release of Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection on 14th October 2008. This collection features eight films from director Alfred Hitchcock that have been nominated collectively for a total of 23 Academy Awards. “Beautifully restored and remastered” the eight-disc set is highlighted by Hitchcock’s Oscar winner for Best Picture Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in a dark tale of love and obsession. Silver screen siren Ingrid Bergman makes an appearance in two Hitchcock classics; first alongside Gregory Peck in Spellbound, as a young doctor in pursuit of the truth and next alongside Cary Grant in Notorious, a tale of crime, passion and espionage. Rounding out the collection is Peck once again in The Paradine Case as a lawyer defending a beautiful woman accused of poisoning her husband, the spy thriller Sabotage, the romantic murder-mystery drama Young and Innocent, the suspenseful high seas thriller Lifeboat and one of Hitchcock’s earliest films, the terrifying whodunit The Lodger featuring an all-new anniversary score.

The set boasts hours of all-new special features including audio commentaries, featurettes, screen tests, still galleries, vintage radio interviews, an AFI Tribute to Hitchcock and more, the DVD collection also includes a 32-page notebook with trivia, production notes and more about the legendary director. The Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection is priced at $119.98 SRP, while Rebecca, Spellbound and Notorious will also be available as singe discs priced at $19.98 SRP each.

Rebecca - A young woman marries a fascinating older widower only to discover that she must live in the shadows of his first wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years before.

Special features:

• Commentary by film historian/author Richard Schickel
• Screen tests
• Making of Rebecca Featurette
• The Gothic World of Daphne Du Maurier Featurette
• Original 1938 Radio Play Starring Orson Welles
• 1941 Radio Play Presented by Cecil B. DeMille
• 1950 Radio Play with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
• Four-page booklet

The Lodger - Not long after a mysterious young “medical scientist” named Slade (Laird Cregar) rents a flat in the heart of London’s Whitechapel district, a series of brutal murders begins. But despite the fact that the murder victims are all female stage performers, the landlord’s niece Kitty (Merle Oberon), an ingénue, is unphased by the crimes – or by the unusual, brooding man in her family’s midst. As Kitty coquettishly interacts with a Scotland Yard detective (George Sanders), she becomes Slade’s object of obsession in this pulse-pounding thriller.

Special features:

• 1999 Score by Ashley Irwin presented in 5.1 Dolby Surround
• 1997 Score by Paul Zaza presented in Mono
• Commentary with film historian Patrick McGilligan
• The Sound of Silence: The Making of The Lodger Featurette
• Hitchcock 101 Featurette
• 1940 Radio Play Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
• Restoration Comparison

The Paradine Case - Beautiful Anna Paradine (Alida Valli) is accused of poisoning her older wealthy husband. Her barrister, the happily married Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) takes the case but also lets his heart rule his head when he falls hard for his client.

Special features:

• Commentary with film historians Stephen Rebello & Bill Krohn
• Isolated Music and Effects Track
• 1949 Radio Play Starring Joseph Cotton
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Restoration Comparison
• Still Galleries

Spellbound - When John Ballantine (Gregory Peck), the new director of a mental asylum arrives on the job, the staff is concerned. He seems too young for the position and his answers to their questions are vague and detached. Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), while knowing he is an impostor with emotional issues, nevertheless falls in love with him. Turning to her mentor, Dr. Alex Brulov
(Michael Checkhov) and the use of psychoanalysis she tries to get to the root of Ballantine’s emotional problems.

Special features:

• Commentary with film historians Thomas Schatz & Charles Ramirez Berg
• Guilt by Association: Psychoanalyzing Spellbound Featurette
• A Cinderella Story: Rhonda Fleming Featurette
• Dreaming with Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism and Salvador Dali Featurette
• 1948 Radio Play Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: Film Historian Rudy Belhemer Interviews Composer Miklós Rózsa
• Still Gallery
• 4-Page Booklet

Notorious - Daughter of an accused World War II traitor, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is enlisted to entrap one of her father’s colleagues in Brazil, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Raines). Her American contact, secret agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) is openly contemptuous of Alicia and instructs her to wed Sebastian. It is only after she is wed that Devlin lets himself admit that he’s fallen in love with her.

Special features:

• Commentary with film historian Rick Jewell
• Commentary with film historian Drew Casper
• Isolated Music and Effects Track
• The Ultimate Romance: The Making of Notorious Featurette
• Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Spymaster Featurette
• AFI Tribute to Hitchcock
• 1948 Radio Play Starring Joseph Cotton and Ingrid Bergman
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
• Restoration Comparison
• Still Gallery
• 4-Page Booklet

Young and Innocent - In this witty, suspense thriller a police chief’s daughter helps a fugitive accused of murder prove his innocence.

Special features:

• Commentary with film historians Stephen Rebello & Bill Krohn
• Isolated Music and Effects Track
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Audio Interview: François Truffaut Interviews Hitchcock
• Restoration Comparison
• Still Gallery

Sabotage - A woman learns that her movie theater manager husband is actually a foreign agent when a bomb he has made kills her brother. Based on Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent.

Special features:

• Commentary with film historian Leonard Leff
• Audio Interview: Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Hitchcock
• Restoration Comparison
• Still Gallery

Lifeboat - After their ship is sunk in the Atlantic by Germans, eight people are stranded in a lifeboat. Their problems are further compounded when they pick up a ninth passenger – the Nazi captain from the U-boat that torpedoed them. With powerful suspense and emotion, this legendary classic reveals the strengths and frailties of individuals under extraordinary duress.

Special features:

• Commentary by University of Southern California School of Cinema & Television Hitchcock professor and film critic, Drew Casper
• “The Making of Lifeboat” featurette
• The original theatrical trailer
• Still gallery featuring photographs from the set

[Jordy van Buel]

Ook maar even hier een topic geopend, daar waar het alleen bij Hitchcock's eigen topic vermeld stond tot nu toe. Over twee maanden komt deze, op het oog, fantatische set uit!

[Richard B.]

Klinkt goed. En dan heb ik het vooral over de extra's. Maar ja: ik heb al die films al op DVD. En vaak ook in uitgaves die al best wel goed zijn.

[wiljan]

Jammer dat het niet dezelfde audiocommentaren zijn als op de Criterion versies, die schijnen erg goed te zijn. Aan de andere kant natuurlijk ook logisch, overwegend academische commentaren vind je eigenlijk nooit op uitgaven van reguliere studio's.

[Camera Obscura]

Hé, geen nieuw audiocommentaar met Peter Bogdanovich?

[Melzz]

Rebecca, Notorious en Lifebout heb ik al dus de box zal er niet gaan komen....anders had ik zeker de box aangeschaft! Helaas worden ze niet allen los uitgebracht dus zal ik me beperken tot de losse aanschaf van Spellbound.

[Wim S.]

deze gaat er zekers komen, geweldig.

[BrianB]

Ik heb ze geen van allen, dus die komt er bij mij zeker in. Jammer alleen van die boxart, die is niet echt mooi (zeker niet als je het vergelijkt met de Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection), maar goed.

[Jordy van Buel]

Dit ziet er toch wel behoorlijk goed uit!

[wiljan]

Ziet er inderdaad mooi uit. Ik neem aan dat de schijfjes ergens in het boek hangen? Ik hoop dat ze wel goed vastzitten dan, want bekraste schijfjes zo als bij Fox met hun John Ford Collection is erg zonde.

[Wim S.]

Ik heb 'm vandaag binnen gekregen, erg mooi. Het betreft een hoes van kunststof aka Shindler's list, met daarin een ringmap met harde kaft. De schijfjes hangen inderdaad in die boekjes. Ik denkdat het kunsstof voor sommige nog wel problemen kan opleveren want dat is wel breekbaar. In ieder geval ik heb 'm gekocht bij Dvdpacific en daar werdt ie goed ingepakt.

[Jordy van Buel]

Kun je misschien foto's maken Wim?

[Wim S.]

[Jordy van Buel]

Wow! Supercool! 8)

[Wim S.]

Wow! Supercool! 8)

Dat dacht ik ook toen ik 'm binnen kreeg

[Jordy van Buel]

Zitten de discs wel goed vast?

[Wim S.]

Ze zitten goed vast, heb zelfs de map even over de kop gehouden en er vielen geen disc's uit

[TheGodfather]

Let op: kreeg vandaag een aparte dvdbeaver nieuwsbrief:

Thanks to many people in private email – we have issued this statement on the DVDBeaver homepage:

Defective MGM Hitchcock Premiere Collection:

Reports are coming in by the droves about the MGM Hitchcock Premiere Collection. We do not yet own the entire set and have only covered Notorious and Rebecca which played without issue on my Malata - but we understand many individual's players are having problems with all, or selective transfers from the set. These represent faults such as the disc wobbling in the tray, unsubstantiated noise in playback, freezing and chapter skips. MGM must recall this set immediately. If you own the set please verify if you too have these problems and report them to the outlet you purchased them or MGM directly. If we find an email to use we will post it here.

Sorry we could not have identified this earlier. I suspect other sites haven’t covered it because they assumed their discs were a bad batch.

Best,

Gary

P.S. A good friend received his replacement set (second) from Amazon and most DVDs wouldn’t play on his two different machines.

[Jordy van Buel]

Hmm, dat gaat weer erg veel geld, tijd en stress kosten. Ik wacht voorlopig even (dat wilde ik sowieso al doen, financieel gezien).

[Mr. Blonde]

Let op: kreeg vandaag een aparte dvdbeaver nieuwsbrief:

damn, das minder...hij is onderweg...:sad: ....jij ergens last van..Wim?

[Wim S.]

damn, das minder...hij is onderweg...:sad: ....jij ergens last van..Wim?

1e 2 disc's aleens gecheckt en rebecca en daar is niets mis mee, ook niet dat ze wiebelen in de dvdspeler en dat heb ik toch wel eens meegemaakt met UK dvd's. Tot nu toe werkt het bij mij perfect.

Zeggen ze ook om welke disc's het nou precies gaat?

[Brakhage]

1e 2 disc's aleens gecheckt en rebecca en daar is niets mis mee, ook niet dat ze wiebelen in de dvdspeler en dat heb ik toch wel eens meegemaakt met UK dvd's. Tot nu toe werkt het bij mij perfect.

Zeggen ze ook om welke disc's het nou precies gaat?

Ik quote:

I've rarely awaited a DVD release with such anticipation. My set
finally arrived in Australia today, and it's an abomination.
The packaging is wonderful - a marvellous design. Full marks there.
But that's where compliments stop. Five of the eight movies (Rebecca,
Spellbound, Notorious, Young and Innocent and Lifeboat) all exhibit
similar problems, with intermittent stuttering and frame-freezing.
'Notorious' in fact switches itself off totally at scene 20. These
discs are totally unviewable.
'The Paradine Case' and 'Sabotage' seem, on quick inspection, to be
ok. 'The Lodger' seems ok as well, though gives out loud rattling
noises in its 'menu' setting.

en:

Just going thru my set now, so far Paradine Case, Lifeboat and Young and Innocent seem OK. However, I tried LODGER in two different DVD players so far, it makes a loud noise in player and then I get message on front of dvd playier saying no disc.

[Wim S.]

inmiddels getest :

En er zijn inderdaad disc's die last hebben van frame-freezing, dus ik ga maar contact opnemen met dvdpacific.

[Mr. Blonde]

Laat je nog even weten Wim, hoe dan verder te handelen?...tx!

[Wim S.]

Laat je nog even weten Wim, hoe dan verder te handelen?...tx!

Inmiddels contact opgenomen , nog even afwachten dus. Heb het wel eens eerder meegemaakt toen kon ik de foutieve disc's terug sturen en kreeg ik de nieuwe later gewoon toegezonden, verwacht ongeveer hetzelfde concept.