Imprint: Alfred Hitchcock Box Sets

[domino harvey]

My Movie Room order arrived safely, and as a bonus I can now trawl for fish with the packing materials

[domino harvey]

The Tony Curtis intro on the Skin Game is objectively one of the funniest extras ever. If you’ve ever read a middle school essay written by a kid who didn’t understand the assignment, you’ll be well prepared here. I don’t even know where to begin, it starts with Curtis calling the film a thriller before proceeding to list random directors for 2/3 of the running time, followed by a refusal to commit to any definite praise of Hitchcock, and ends with Curtis confidently stating that Dial M For Murder was filmed “right before” Grace Kelly left the industry. Curtis is coked up and emphasizes his script in all the wrong places throughout. An incredible artifact, I am dying to see more of these monstrosities!

Charles Barr hosts his extra from a comfy chair in a wool cardigan and his movie collection is just close enough to discern that he owns both the Legendary Jerry and Lionsgate Jean Renoir boxes, so we have a man of taste here at least

I don’t think there are any reviews yet, so here’s the approximate running times of the extras

NEW Interview with film scholar Charles Barr 21m
Introduction by Director / Film Historian Noël Simsolo 3m
Introduction by actor Tony Curtis 3m
Alma Reville: Jo Botting & Natalie Morris in Conversation 29m
Hitchcock/Truffaut – Archival Audio Interview (didn’t listen to, sorry)

As for the film, I hadn’t seen it before and I enjoyed it a lot, mostly for the technique but the material is not as bad as some of the other plays Hitchcock adapted. Especially loved all the panning to avoid shot/reverse shots

[Beloved Aunt]

I'm sort of tempted to post a certain (horrible, honestly) Billy Wilder quote--merely for my addled idea of humor, no hard feelings Tony!--but I'll keep it to myself. I've always been highly intrigued about those things ever since Gary Tooze--or someone--described the Curtis intros as "extremely strange". Glad to hear they deliver!

[Beloved Aunt]

Why does everyone hate Juno and the Paycock so much? Sounds like a juicy role for Sara Allgood, at least.

[knives]

Because it is bad. Horrible script and turgid direction. It’s as bad as Hitchcock could possibly be.

[pistolwink]

Were those Tony Curtis intros originally filmed for some public-domain label release (on Madacy or something similar) or for a TV screening or what? I definitely remember those. I guess the guy needed some spare change.

[Tom Amolad]

Were those Tony Curtis intros originally filmed for some public-domain label release (on Madacy or something similar) or for a TV screening or what? I definitely remember those. I guess the guy needed some spare change.

Laserlight, weren’t they? Unless they got them from someone else.

[domino harvey]

Here’s a compilation of Curtis intro-ing Chaplin films - how did Criterion pass these up? I haven’t made it like a minute in yet and Curtis has already taken time to reassure the audience that Chaplin was never evil

[pistolwink]

It's too bad Curtis's introductions to India Song and Zorn's Lemma never saw the light of day...

[MichaelB]

If I remember rightly, the StudioCanal disc of The Skin Game matches that feature for feature…

…apart from the Tony Curtis intro.

[Brent Reid]

For an early talkie that's essentially an elaborately-filmed stage play, Juno and the Paycock really isn't bad at all. The reason it consistently ranks at the bottom of Hitchcock's oeuvre is because the overwhelming majority of commenters have only seen the ubiquitous, terrible-quality bootleg print. To date, there has only been one decent DVD with a preserved transfer and three Studiocanal Blu-ray sets with 2024's 4k restoration. Another reason folk like to slam Juno is good old confirmation bias and, y'know, following the herd.

Note that Studiocanal's current HD masters for Rich and Strange, and Murder! which grace all Blu-rays, have seriously messed-up audio. There are full details on all the foregoing via the links.

[TMDaines]

Now we know how these are being released, I think the best bet for me is the Imprint Nine and then to also get the StudioCanal The Beginning when it drops in price. Keep my Criterions of the sound films. Sell the Criterion Lodger/Downfall set.

[domino harvey]

I have to wonder if the film elements for Secret Agent are in poor shape since it seems to have been passed over multiple times (it
also has one of my favorite Hitchcock setups).

Spoiler

When two men enter a church the soundtrack is nothing but a loud discordant noise that
plays for a good chunk of the scene until they realize that the church organist has been murdered
and has fallen forward onto the organ keys.

I just watched a copy sourced from the more recent French DVD and it looks surprisingly good. There’s definitely a decent master circulating that someone could pull from. Wonder if there was a rights issue preventing it here. You can pick up the French DVD with removable subs from Rarewaves on eBay for $20 btw

[domino harvey]

Diabolik has nine copies of the Hitchcock 9, for anyone who still needs it

[domino harvey]

The Pleasure Garden looks great. I only watched the archival Barr intro which only runs a few minutes because I don’t care about scoring-related extras. The film runs with BFI logos so perhaps a standalone is coming from them in the UK?

I did find the menu controls counter intuitive— in case this helps anyone, if you watch the film all the way through and get returned to the main screen, you have to hit the down arrow to be able to select from the special features menu. I had to eject it and reload before I figured this out. Same with playing any of the extras as well. Really baffling menu design here

Strong directorial debut from a technique standpoint from Hitchcock but the performances are unilaterally awful and broad and the film goes in directions that I did not find engaging. A curio for completists more than anything

[nowhereisaplace]

I will also note that the Bryony Dixon intro on the disc is quite good, I found it much better than the Barr intro as she does a great job putting the film in context. I also enjoyed this presentation, it was much better than the abridged version I have seen in the past - although I couldn't put my finger on what was added, per se, it made for a much more satisfying film than I was used to.

[MichaelB]

The Pleasure Garden looks great. I only watched the archival Barr intro which only runs a few minutes because I don’t care about scoring-related extras. The film runs with BFI logos so perhaps a standalone is coming from them in the UK?

They did the restoration but don’t own the rights.

(If they did, they’d have put it out over a decade ago!)

[omegadirective]

Any one else having issues with The Ring in their Hitchcock 9 set?
Mine starts to skip at 1:07:25

[omegadirective]

Also received this reply from them:
Thank you for the suggestion! We will pass this along to our product team.

At this stage, there are no plans to release Seasons 2 and 3 of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour on Blu-ray.

In the meantime, please stay tuned to our website and socials for future release updates.

Thank you for your continued support of Via Vision and Imprint Films.

Kind regards,
Althea

[domino harvey]

Any one else having issues with The Ring in their Hitchcock 9 set?
Mine starts to skip at 1:07:25

Just checked my copy and no skips at this timestamp for me on my Sony R1/A player

[omegadirective]

Thanks for checking. It may be my one player.
I played it at home and hit seemed to play ok.

It was skipping on a portable blu ray player that I use at work to watch movies while I work.

I haven't had an issue with the player before, but these imprint ones have had a few that started to skip on me.
I got my Early Hitchcock vol 2 in the mail yesterday, and Lady Vanishes started to skip at 1:22:42, but the rest of them have been fine.

[nowhereisaplace]

I didn't have any skips on my Ring either.

[Brent Reid]

Oo-er, missus!

[domino harvey]

Waltzes from Vienna looks quite good despite only being in SD. No subs though. It runs 1:20:02 if that helps anyone. Coming to it aware of its reputation, it doesn’t exceed it in any meaningful way. It is of course deeply disappointing that the film is merely an adequate operetta, with only the bare essentials done on Hitchcock’s part and a clear disinterest in the material. It’s a shame because it’s not hard to imagine how a supreme visualist like Hitchcock would stage musical numbers, but based on this I guess the only one who couldn’t picture it was Hitchcock himself. I also found the central romance deeply annoying and thought the film needed much, much more Gwenn (who, despite being second billed, is in this for like ten minutes)

[MichaelB]

Its main historical point of interest is technical rather than artistic—to say that Hitchcock’s heart wasn’t in the project overall would be putting it mildly, but he did seize opportunities for some unusually inventive sonic experimentation, at least by the standards of early sound films in Britain.

The two scenes that most struck me from a one-off viewing two decades ago are the ones where Schani is finding inspiration for the 'Blue Danube' waltz in the bakers' various activities, and then later when the waltz is premiered and the sound mix shifts from shot to shot so that musicians get “close-ups” on the soundtrack as well as visually.