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Jeff wrote:With all of the commentaries they recorded, MGM has invested too much money in all of these titles to keep them exclusive to that ugly-ass box forever. I'm sure there will be a period of exclusivity, and then Young and Innocent, Sabotage, The Paradine Case, and The Lodger will all be quietly released individually. When they show up for $8.99 at Costco, I'll complete my collection.

If you go for the recent British set (still very cheap at HMV - 70% off), then it'll only be The Paradine Case you need to hold out for. Which is what I'm going to do.

I don't know if this belongs in this thread, but since Criterion apparently traded the Raging Bull commentary for the licensing of a full five titles, I wonder if the special features carried over here might result in more MGM licenses.

The commentaries weren't carried over, which were the only Criterion "exclusives"-- any extras that crossed over were likely independently licensed for the Crit and were thus licensed again to MGM by the rightsholders

Very odd that DeepDiscount doesn't seem to be selling this. In the past, I would have written to ask that they stock it, but the only response I ever got the few times I tried to do that was "this item is no longer in print and cannot be ordered from our distributor." Guess I'll buy it from DVDPlanet and pay the sales tax.

It's the same price on Amazon

I might as well wait for the 20% off sale.

So, I'm holding my set in my hands right now and yes, it's ridiculous. If you're planning at home, it's the size of a boxed set of 7" singles. The slipcase that the cookbook slides into is really thick and heavy acrylic though, so it should arrive fairly safe if you're ordering via mail. But the slots the discs go into aren't even, they're cut out behind the disc, guaranteeing scratches when you remove them. There's so much room in the binder that they could easily have fit thick sheets with hubs for the discs instead of the existing thin sheets. Oh well

EDIT: Actually, there is enough room that you could probably buy stick-on plastic hubs and attach them to the sheets. Might hurt resale value but if you're a big enough fan to buy this, you're probably a big enough fan to keep it

Have you tried any of the recipes yet?

Not yet but the notorious coffee blend looks simply to die for!

I expect to receive royalties for any further use of that joke.

What I'd like to see is a good recipe for the glass of milk with the light bulb submerged in it. Seems like a dangerous thing to prepare if one isn't careful.

How about Uranium-spiked Coq au Vin?

(swo17, your cheque for .07 of a cent is in the mail)

Sweet! Now all I need is like 20,000 more people to follow suit and...I'll still be nowhere near offsetting all of my expenses incurred directly as a result of that damned Bona Fide Bargain thread.

domino harvey wrote:it's the size of a boxed set of 7" singles.

Could it be possible for you to post the actual measures of the box?
I wish the studios could make the box sets like warner brothers do with most of their sets. (individual keepcases in a cardboard box)

~8 X 8 X ~1.5

domino harvey wrote:~8 X 8 X ~1.5

Thanks domino! It's actually smaller than i first thought.
It will fit perfect into the shelf, together with the rest of the hitchcocks. No shelf system failure then

better order this set soon.. if it wasn't for the crazy packing, I would have ordered it long time ago

Gregory wrote:Very odd that DeepDiscount doesn't seem to be selling this.

Actually, they are selling it. When I search for it, it never comes up, but I happened to see it advertised in one of their little boxes on the left side of the home page. They seem to be hiding it. Here's the link.

Remember those girls from the late 80s, early 90s who wore red gingham shirts tied at the waist, vintage demin with chunky sandles, along with chunkier jewellery and, if you were lucky, pigtails? You fell in love. But after a week or two, you realised how screwed you were 'cause they always drove VW beetles. Those damned, cheap, VWs. Remember the noise? The crampness? The stop/start at traffic lights? The country picnics from hell cause the car has given up 20ks from the last petrol station? The smell? You put up with it, just, for the sake of howdy doody, and the fact you really look good together. Yet, after a few more weeks, those dames with the sensible shoes in the Hyundi hatchbacks really begin to catch the eye....

Well, this Hitch set is the chick with the VW. It looks great, the desire takes over, you need to possess and enjoy. It'll (always) end in tears.

Half-way through Young and Innocent, I no longer am. That wonderful fade to black after the car has gone down the mineshaft? Down I go with it. Notorious!? I'm swimming in sensuous bliss, then drown, slowly, as Alicia and Dev's kiss goes on and on and on and on......then freezes. Was it that chilly on the balcony? I start it up again, pretending it never happened. But it did happen. It will always happen. Manderlay. I really want to go to back to Manderlay, but I'm screwed before the opening credits end. A noise so bad the dog starts howling. The stop/start-stop/start. The final hesitation as the player really can't be bothered any more. "Just give me Funny Face again, I love Funny Face" I hear it weep, before ending it all, slowly turning itself off. Another player waits in the wings - but shivers and shakes with Sabotage. As do I, with memories of grass stains, soft thighs and leaking petrol from rust worn bugs.

A lot of people on the DVDTalk forums are reporting similar problems with the set, though they worded their complaints a little differently!

Such a shame as well. I think I'd have bought the set but for the horror stories I'm hearing. I'll give Paramount that much; they've chosen the right month for it.

I like the way the box is made. ¿Estoy loco? Puede but I really love the packing. It's not so big as you complain. If you look the Book with ten dvds of Harold Lloyd by Universal in Spain, that is really huge.

From the DVDBeaver homepage:

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.

rohmerin wrote:It's not so big as you complain.

Seeing as how I gave measurements, I'm pretty sure it's exactly as big as I complained.

I've checked all the discs, and my Pioneer Region 2 converted in all regions reads all the discs withouth problem.

I'm going to read that troubles in the dvdtalk (web that I didn't know untill now)

In centimetres, all is smaller. In America the flats are bigger, so, don't complain. This Hitchcock notebook is gorgeous.

Alida Valli looks great in Paradine. I like this actress, excellent in We the living.

I love London, and many years later, without watching this films, now I'll watch the city with my new London gaze. In Paradine we can see Mayfair among others, in Saboteur is Piccadilly, Trafalgar... beautiful city before and after the blitz.

I spot-checked Rebecca and Y&I in my set, neither of which seemed to have any issues. I skipped around through most of the chapters on both discs, watching the first few seconds before skipping to the next one, and they both seemed fine.

I also watched Sabotage the other night (the only disc I've watched all the way through so far) and didn't notice any problems.