Alfred Hitchcock: The British Years Network 10-disc set

[John Hodson]

Amazon UK claims what will be a 10 disc 'Alfred Hitchcock: The British Years (Box Set)' is on the way from from Network in February - I've been waiting for something like this for a while. Fingers crossed that not only will the set include the titles in the acclaimed German Concorde box (it must surely), but that they will be of the same very high quality. I'd be hoping for some decent extras, but this being Network, who knows?

A guess, but with Optimum having released an excellent early Hitchcock set this year, I would think the titles Network will license from Granada may be:

Jamaica Inn (1939)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Young and Innocent (1937)
Sabotage (1936)
Secret Agent (1936)
The 39 Steps (1935)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Downhill (1927)
The Lodger (1927)
The Pleasure Garden (1925)

10 discs; could be more (or less) than 10 films, of course.

[alfons416]

i would be really happy if pleasure garden got a real dvd-release, but i doubt it will happend in a box like this.

[daveyp]

Doubt no more! I've just got confirmation from Network that John's guess (guest?) list is correct -- those are the 10 titles and "The Pleasure Garden" is on disc 1. All of the transfers have been licensed from the rights holder (Granada International).

The only negative so far is that Network were only able to source the Rohauer Collection version rather than the original.

I'm sure I read that a church in Texas had discovered a more-or-less complete print of "The Pleasure Garden" a couple of years ago, and that the BFI provided them with the missing title sequence. I wonder if there's any chance of that getting a DVD release soon?

[John Hodson]

Thanks for that Dave; that's a damn shame isn't it? Not for the first time, Network takes a shortcut. I'd have preferred another title rather than something that looks like it may be sub-standard. I'll be waiting for a thorough review - from your good self I'm sure - before I get hold of this.

Most of the specs now up at the Network website:

Special Features:
[] Digitally restored versions of The Lodger, The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, The Lady Vanishes and Jamaica Inn
[] Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock – unseen for forty years, Mike Scott interviews Hitchcock about his life and career
[] Aquarius: Alfred the Great – taken from the 1972 arts programme, this show includes candid photography of Hitchcock filming Frenzy in London
[] Charles Barr On… - a series of featurettes in which film historian Charles Barr introduces and analyses each of the ten films contained within this set
[] On Location featurettes for both Sabotage and The 39 Steps, introduced by Robert Powell
[] Original theatrical trailer for The Lady Vanishes
[] Hitchcock: The Early Years - 25 minute documentary covering Hitchcock’s pre-war career
[] Script PDFs for The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes and Jamaica Inn
[] Image Galleries
[] Introductory booklet written by Charles Barr

[] More TBC

Excellent to see the Mike Scott / Hitchcock 'Cinema'. Shame about the box art though...

[broadwayrock]

Excellent to see the Mike Scott / Hitchcock 'Cinema'. Shame about the box art though...

Yeah, it does look like a cheapo public domain release. The extras sound interesting though.

Foxy.co.uk have the cheapest preorder so far at £42.25.

[foliagecop]

DVD.co.uk have it on for £37.99. It'll probably play around the £30 mark after release (say, late February/early March). Then HMV will do it for £7.99 in their summer sale!

[Kinsayder]

Dave, your Wiki site has a very nice writeup in the current issue of Telerama, a French listings magazine. They particularly like the 1000 Frames of Hitchcock: "Un travail de titan".

[daveyp]

Thanks for that link Kinsayder

I've not got hold of the entire set yet, but the postman did deliver two of the review discs this morning -- I've posted some initial thoughts here.

The main issue so far is that Network have used DVD5 discs. Given some of the extras that are also included in the set, that automatically limits the maximum transfer bit rate that can be used for the main film (which in turn can limit just how good the transfer will actually look).

The two discs (Secret Agent and Man Who Knew Too Much) have average transfer rates of 5.51 and 5.20 Mb/sec respectively. That's lower than the transfers used in the excellent German Concorde set from 2003 (6.45 and 7.20 Mb/sec respectively).

Although these are excellent transfers (and in a different league to any of the "public domain" US DVDs), they're not as good as they could have been. In particular, those of you who've got the new Criterion "The Lady Vanishes" will know what a huge difference a higher bitrate (in this case, 9.11 Mb/sec) and a larger capacity DVD9 can make.

Transfer rate moans aside, this is shaping up to be an "must buy" set. I guess the question is: if you already have the Concorde set, should you buy this set too?

I'll reserve my final answer until I've seen all the discs and confirmed that the review copies are identical to the retail discs. However, I suspect most serious Hitchcock collectors will put the set on their wish list if only for the exclusive extras.

Here's a few grabs (PNG format to avoid any loss of quality)...

[zedz]

Thanks davey. Even with the reduced bitrate, those captures look superb after years of eye-straining PD releases.

[The Digital McGuffin]

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