Category: Other Stuff

Happy Birthday Hitch!

It hardly seems two minutes since the centenary in 1999, but it was 106 years ago today that Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, London.
As all good Hitchcock fans will know, that means tomorrow marks the 106th anniversary of the birth of Hitchcock’s future wife, Alma Lucy Reville, in Nottingham.
For those of you in the UK, don’t forget that BBC2 and BBC4 are broadcasting three Hitchcock films today (“Dial M”, “Mr & Mrs Smith”, and “Blackmail”)!

Universal’s “Masters of Cinema”

Whilst we wait to find out if the “AFI Salute” contained in the upcoming “Masterpiece Collection is full length or just edited highlights, I’ve unearthed a bit more info about the “Masters of Cinema” extra contained on the 15th DVD.
I think most of us had assumed it would be a new documentary, but it looks like it’s actually a couple of archive interviews with Hitchcock from 1972 that were broadcast as part of CBS’s “Camera Three” series.
“Camera Three: The Illustrated Hitchcock” was broadcast in two parts – the first part was an interview conducted by Pia Lindstrom (daughter of Ingrid Bergman), and the second conducted by film historian Willian Everson.
The total running time of both parts is about 55 minutes. However, the version recently submitted to the British Board of Film Classification is only 34 minutes. Once again, I wonder if Universal is planning to include an edited version?

UK R2 – Hitchcock: The Complete Box Set

There’s still no formal announcment from Universal regarding their UK version of the Masterpiece Collection, however…
Amazon.co.uk are now listing the box set for release on October 17th, with a RRP of £99.99. Assuming we’re getting exactly the same content as the US release, then that works out at £7.14 per film – not bad, eh?
Well, at today’s exchange rate, the RRP of the US box set is only £67.50 – that’s just £4.82 per film!
I’m sure Universal will have a valid reason for charging UK customers nearly 50% more for the same thing, but for me it’s just another example of rip off Britain… grrrrrrrr!!!
The other bad news is that it looks like the bonus 15th DVD isn’t going to be all it was cracked up to be – the BBFC has just classified “AFI Salute to Hitchcock” and “Masters of Cinema“.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot that the combined running time of both extras is only 49 minutes. Not only that, but the 15 minute running time of the “AFI Salute” means that Universal have removed approximately 56 minutes of the original broadcast footage (previously released on VHS by Castle Communications PLC).
The “Masters of Cinema” running time of 33 minutes doesn’t look too good either – especially when Universal own the (currently unreleased on DVD) documentary “Hitchcock: Shadow of a Genius” (aka “Dial H for Hitchcock”) which runs for 101 minutes.
Okay – that’s my little rant over!
😀

Blackmail on BBC4

Just got an email from the BBC! 🙂

Hi there
I just wanted to let you know that we are showing Hitchcock’s classic film Blackmail on BBC Four on Saturday 13 August at 10pm:
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/blackmail.shtml
It is accompanied by a new documentary based on Matthew Sweet’s book about early British cinema, Shepperton Babylon:
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/shep-bab.shtml
I thought that your users might be interested in both programmes.
Best wishes
BBC Four webteam

I’d spotted that Blackmail was showing on BBC4 next Saturday (in fact, there’s quite a few Hitchcock films & programmes on that day), but I’d missed the “Shepperton Babylon” programme – many thanks to the BBC Four Webteam for the “heads up”!

Carry on saving those pennies!

October just keeps getting better for Hitchcock fans!
Universal have just officially announced the region 1 “Hitchcock Presents: Season One” box set.


(image courtesy of DVD Times)

Hopefully we’ll have an announcement soon from Universal about the possible UK release of the set on October 31st.
So, that now means the following are potentially going to be released in October 2005:

Phew!

Start saving your pennies!

Many thanks to Mr_Lowery for spotting the following DVDs that have just appeared on play.com:

If play.com have got the details correct, then October is going to be a very expensive month (R1 “Lifeboat” is due on 18th, and the remastered R1 “Masterpiece” collection is out on the 4th).
Paolo emailed me to say that Sony are releasing “Suspicion” in Italy in September.  Some of you may remember that MGM had announced several Hitchcock DVDs in 2004, but these were postponed indefinitely after Sony bought out MGM.  Hopefully this means Sony are starting to think about releasing further Hitchcock titles?
I’ve also uploaded the following South Korean DVDs to the site:

More budget US DVDs and Lifeboat

It looks like Fox are finally going to release Lifeboat on DVD. The unconfirmed release date is October 18th.

I’ve also got hold of a pile of US budget releases from Westlake Entertainment Group. I’ve yet to add screen grabs to the site, but the transfers appear to be similar to the old Laserlight/Delta releases. I’m not sure if these count as some of the cheapest Hitchcock DVDs to date, but they only cost $0.89 (?0.50 GBP) each at DVD Pacific!

new Universal box set

Universal have announced a new box – “Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection“.
Initial reports suggested that it would simply be a repackaging of the 14 existing region 1 releases, along with a bonus 15th disc of new material.
However, a new press releases has confirmed that although the DVDs will still contain the previously releases extras, the film transfers will be new digitally re-mastered versions.

Universal Studios Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection for 4th October 2005 priced at $119.98 SRP. This 15 Disc collection brings together 14 Hitchcock classics plus a bonus disc in a special gift set collection.
All 14 films are digitally re-mastered for the best quality ever with all bonus features from the existing releases carried across. The films are: Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubth, Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot.
The all-new bonus disc showcases Hitchcock’s films, career and legacy, while the set is presented in ultra-premium velvet packaging which includes a 36-page collectible book.
[source: DVD Times]

Hopefully this will mean anamorphic US releases of Psycho and Vertigo!

Busiest month yet!

Just looking at the weblogs for May 2005 and it was the busiest month yet for the site – for the first time ever, the site used over 3GB of bandwidth.
Not surprisingly, the majority of the bandwidth was taken up with images (2.42GB of JPGs, GIFs & PNGs).
There’s also been an increase in the number of people trying to link directly to images hosted on the site (known as leeching), but the web site is set up to disallow that so they’ll normally see this instead:

By my reckoning, there are 16,975 images on the site. Of those, 3,522 are DVD screen grabs and hi-res DVD packaging scans.
A bit thanks to everyone out there who’s spread the word about the site – it always gives me a little buzz to see people linking back to the site 🙂