Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Collection - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection



Movie:
4K Video:
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Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



WARNING: THE SCORES ABOVE ARE A COMBINED SCORE FROM ALL 6 FILMS, THE INDIVIDUAL SCORES ARE CONTAINED BELOW IN THE INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS OF THE REVIEW



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Movie
Hitchtcock films are sort of one of those film sets that you KNOW are going to get released and re-released time and time again, usually in Universal's 4 pack collections, or else in giant card board cased ultimate collections like they did on Blu-ray. However, this latest set from Universal is a bit unique. It re-releases 4 of the films from the The Alfred Hitchcock: Classics Collection released back in 2020, but also included Paramount's To Catch a Thief AND Warner's North by Northwest (which was just released a week or so back) and put them together in a really classy coffee table book filled with fantastic photos, a really heavy duty book format that is retrospective of those old old DVD era coffee table book collections of old all spliced together in one boxset.

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Rear Window:
I hate to bandy the term around “perfect film” as you can usually find SOMETHING to nitpick about in a movie, which is why so few of my reviews ever have a 5 star rating. Perfection (or at least 5 star movie perfection) is something that’s so hard to attain, but Rear Window is one of the FEW films that does. Not only is it about as close to a perfect film as you can get, it is one of Hitchcock’s best thrillers, and his most perfect family thriller. I remember watching this in grade school during a film critique class and it blew my mind. There was nothing gory and 1980s slasher to it at all, yet it was creepy, terrifying (to a 12 year old kid in the early 90s) and still accessible to people of all ages. It got me on an Alfred Hitchcock bender, with me bugging my dad to go rent a new VHS tape during Saturday family movie nights, and exposing myself to more and more of his catalog (although I was forbidden to see Psycho, due to the R rating, until I was older). Now some 25+ years later, I still think of it as the perfect Hitchcock cock, and one of the best thrillers of all time.

Rear Window is the perfect tease thriller. It sets us up with L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) suffering from a broken leg (full leg cast) in his apartment during a heatwave. It’s been 7 weeks of him doing nothing but sitting around and watching his neighbor’s lives unfold around him. 7 weeks of boredom, and 1 more week till he can get that dreaded cast of his leg and get back to his job as a photographer. The only people to keep him company are his house keeper Stella (Thelma Ritter) and Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), who is WAAAAAAAAYYY out of his league.

Nothing turns to more nothing, until it doesn’t, as L.B. suddenly sees something that he thinks he shouldn’t. The couple across the way who fight and argue (and have affairs with younger men) seem to not be fighting. In fact, the wife doesn’t seem to be there at all anymore, which is completely foreign to the last few weeks of observation. The husband is intent on scrubbing walls, walking downstairs in the middle of the night with a bag, and walking around with saws and other devices. L.B. is CERTAIN that he’s murdered the woman, but he has no proof. Lisa and Stella think that he’s creating mountains out of mole hills, or going slightly stir crazy, but L.B. is insistent that the wife is dead. Each day he watches, and each day he finds something new and suspicious to ruminate over, leading him to finally doing something about it, even if he can’t move from his apartment with that cast on.

Rear Window is simply as perfect as you can get. The pacing is phenomenal, and the cinematography out of this world. The scene where the doctor turns his head to face the lens of J.B.’s camera is an iconic shot that is hard to beat, and lets not forget Grace Kelly. Her sort of cute and sultry foil to J.B.’s harsh and cynical nature make the couple’s explorations of murder together so much fun. The film still manages to thrill and excite some 66 years later, and is STILL one of my absolute favorite Jimmy Stewart films.

Vertigo:
Vertigo was a film that wasn’t appreciated in it’s time, coming only 4 years after Rear Window, and reuniting Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart once again. Audiences were excited by the film by all reports, but it was met with lackluster success, as fans wanted a reboot of Rear Window and was put off by the pacing of the film. It wasn’t until the theatrical re-release in 1983 that it gained it’s cult status, as 25 years break seemed to have created a new fanbase for the film. I never saw the movie until I was in my mid teens, some years after I had started my Hitchcock binge that started with Rear Window, but I also wasn’t wildly impressed with it at that age. It took me almost 15 years when I re-watched the film back in the 2013 Blu-ray set and realized just how excellent the film really is. The pacing is much slower, the filming dreamier, yet the tension is not nearly so high. It acts as a great mystery, but is not as “intense” as people (my original self included) were wanting.

Did he train you!? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you what do do and what to say? These words mark the very end of Vertigo as Jimmy Stewart’s John Ferguson cries out in agony as he confronts a woman who doesn’t exist. A woman who was trained to impersonate the real love of his life. However, it’s not just agony for John, Kim Novak’s Madeline has fallen in love with the man she was meant to defraud, only to have both of their love torn out from underneath them with the deception. While spoiling the ending may seem like a bad move, it really isn’t, as the reveal is not the real guts of the film, but rather the journey of the two characters as they twist and twine their way through a complex game of cat and mouse.

Hitchcock is always known as using the same cool and icy women for his movies. If you’ve watched over the years it’s a pretty obvious trait. They’re all blonde, icy cold emotionally, and classically beautiful to the point of painfulness. Vertigo is an outward confessional of that sort of mindset, with Kim’s character being the quintessential of all traits, and John Ferguson being the weak man who falls for the facade of her character. He’s physically weak with back issues, has a fear of heights, and he has fallen in love with an image of a woman. But not just ANY woman, he’s fallen in love with a woman that he soon meets and doesn’t recognize. He molds her, shapes her, and crafts her into the mental image that he had created until he has what he wants, and then watches as it’s all torn away as it’s revealed that Madeline is actually hired to impersonate the woman he “loves” in the picture and is involved with a murder plot that he has no idea of.

Vertigo is a moral dilemma of a film, showing us the similarities and nuances of John’s control of Madeline, and the man behind the scenes who has put her in his path and torn his heart asunder. It’s almost painting a “horror” image of pain and suffering as three men lust after the mental images of two women, each trying to manipulate and mold them into what they want, and essentially creating their own warped fantasies. It’s probably this sort of emotional introspection that made Vertigo a failure back in 1958, but also what makes it one of his most impressive films, allowing it to be placed in the top 5 of his life time achievements during the 1980s when his resurgence was abounding.

Psycho:
Ah yes, while Rear Window is a perfect film, it shares that podium with another of Hitchcock’s greatest works, Psycho. Psycho is near and dear to my heart as it is essentially the grandfather of all slasher films. Yes, I know filml like Peeping Tom came out the same year (which ironically killed the film makers career while Hitchcock’s career soared), and yes I know Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street kickstarted the 80s slasher binge, but they all borrowed VERY heavily from Psycho (and it’s sequels). It’s terrifying, creepy, and created a villain who has been iconicized for decades and has had spinoffs and TV shows created about him ad nausea. It was HERE that we can see the groundwork for the knife wielding maniac, and here that we see the entire framework that the 1980s horror genre would be known for.

What makes Psycho such and engaging film is the amount of misdirection and setup that Alfred uses in the film. We don’t see the quintessential killer till half an hour into the film, and we don’t even see the infamous murder (we’ve all see it, seen parodies of it, or just memes about it) till 20 minutes later. Slasher movies that took the themes of Psycho would go straight for the jugular (so to speak), but Hitchcock would tease the audience, getting us involved in the story of two people coming to a motel, and then watching us bond with Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates, and then pull the rug out from under us as we try to figure out who the killer is. While everyone KNOWS who the “real” killer is and what the twist is from countless pop culture references ,I’ll keep that a secret for those few poor people who have never seen the film.

People have said over the years that Alfred Hitchcock was a controlling man towards women, and many of the female stars of his productions have attested to that iron fisted controlling nature of his. He has a tendency to star icy cool blondes, with a long legs and Eva Gabor esque figures. Here it is almost a confession of his sadistic views on females, as he creates the lead blonde with all of the typical qualities, but instead of being aloof and arrogant, she is introverted and furtively scared, culminating int a murder scene that was incredibly shocking for the 1960 era. Even watching it some 60 years later you can see why it shocked and horrified audience members. It may not show the gore and special effects of today, but it was a BRUTAL and terrifying assault on the lead character, and for those not accustomed (or desensitized really) to the more modern takes on death scenes, it would be quite the shocker.

Somehow, even though films like Peeping Tom were repelled by audience and critics, Psycho became Hitchcock’s biggest blockbuster at the time, and shot him to superstardom. People couldn’t get enough of the subversive horror movie, and it has rightfully been called the grand daddy of all slasher films with it’s vicious kill sequences, and an absolutely legendary performance by Anthony Perkins (who would be altered into a much different character in the sequels, which played more to the 70s and 80s horror genre which they were a part of instead of the Hitchcockian tale that we have here).

The Birds:
1963’s The Birds would mark another massive success for the iconic film maker, this time deviating from his take on monsters. Usually Hitchcock was obsessed with human monsters, murderers who twist and stab, people who manipulate and control. He had stayed away from the monster movies of the 1940s and the sci-fi of the 1950s, but decided in the 1960s that he wanted to take his own stab at the genre. In a way The Birds takes from both genres, pulling a monster movie about birds (as ludicrous as that sounds) from the past and blending it with the “nature strikes back” mantra of the 1950s Science fiction world. It’s creepy, viscerally terrifying at times, and has one of the most ambiguously terrifying ends out of all the Hitchcock films.

The Birds really isn’t even that brutal of a film. The horror is not in the birds attacking (the split screen overlays are kind of humorous in today’s world of special effects), but rather in WHY they are attacking. The suspense of them pounding through a door, and the crazed feeling of terror and hopelessness that it creates when the humans realize there is no where to go. With the creatures of the air all going crazy in this little coastal town, it’s almost like a zombie flick. There the humans are almost dead and the UNDEAD outnumber the humans a million to one. Here the creatures of the sky have always outnumbered us in staggering percentages, and now for some inexplicable reason creatures we thought of as innocent and simple are attacking at will.

Hitchcock originally wanted Grace Kelly (of Rear Window) and Carey Grant (that would have been a mix) for the film, but due to budget concerns and casting schedules he had to use Tippi Hedren and Ron Taylor, both of whom do excellent in their respective rolls. And while there are some great performances and some ethical questions that get raised, it’s really the ending that makes the film so incredibly disturbing. There’s a sense of ambiguity to it that’s unnerving, as the survivors make their way to the car. Is the assault over? Will they actually surviving in this new world? Or has a sense of balance and compromise been struck? That last one seems to resonate the most with the themes of the film, especially with the idea that “nature is striking back” due to the imbalance of humans and animal relations. However, that not knowing is part of the allure of the ending and what makes it so thought provoking. It’s been discussed over the years and theories have been raised as to what Hitchcock meant with the ending, but really, it is probably his most “leave it up to the audience” endings of his entire career, and a great change of pace for those used to his normal film making style.

North by Northwest:
Looking back over my review titles that I’ve cranked out over the last 13 years (in a few months) It looks like I have NEVER put out one for one of Hitchcock’s most iconic films. I mean, I’ve done more than my fair share of his other Blu-rays and even a few 4K discs of his, but for some reason it looks like North by Northwest has never come across my desk in a professional manner. To make matters more interesting, I haven’t seen it for almost a decade (I think 2015 or 2016 was my last viewing gong by my memory) so re-watching for this review allowed me to watch it almost fresh in a sort of ways, and boy howdy, did Warner Brothers deliver a doozy on this one.

During the 50s and 60s Alfred Hitchcock was probably one of the most celebrated, and most popular directors of the time period, cranking out hit after hit after hit, ranging from pure horror like The Birds and Psycho, to espionage thrillers like North by Northwest. And out of all of those films, no matter how much people remember Psycho in horror circles, or how arguable “different” it is, North by Northwest has to be his true masterpiece of that era. It was a brilliantly done espionage thriller, paving the way for movies like the 007 series, Jason Bourne, and countless other super agent type of films. And even though those other films are more etched in the pop culture consciousness of most viewers, North by Northwest probably stands as the single greatest film the prolific director has ever done.

In true Hitchcock fashion, our film starts out by introducing us to our protagonist, an every day man named Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) who runs an advertising firm on Madison Avenue. Thornhill soon gets mistaken for his doppleganger, one Mr. Kaplan (who ends up being a red herring and doesn’t actually exist), and is subsequently kidnapped by a couple of thugs to and brought before one Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and questioned. Naturally Vandamm doesn’t believe Thornhill’s protestations about not being Mr. Kaplan, and orders the poor guy to be executed. As you can guess by the trailer, Vandamm’s thugs end up messing things up, leaving Thornhill only one option. Go by train to Chicago and find the REAL Mr. Kaplan and proven his innocence.

Along the way he meets a sultry “bond girl” like seductress named Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who offers to put Thornhill up in her cabin for the night to keep him away from the thugs following him (of course she does). Now Thornhill has to play cat and mouse with a group of men who aren’t exactly what they seem, and nobody is to be trusted. Even if you’ve seen this sort of thing a million times, Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock bring the thrills and double crosses a mile a minute, so by the end of the 2+ hour runtime even the audience is having to second guess everything they knew going in.

The basis of the film revolves around the old “mistaken identity” trope, but does it so expertly that you almost can’t see the traditional tropes being played out. Even though Hitchcock sort of pioneered the modern day super spy thriller, those tropes were around well before his invention of North by Northwest and the audience at least has seen the general IDEA before (in that time period. Today we’ve seen the mistaken identity double cross and twist a million times). Even then, it never gets old, and leaves the audience on the edge of their seat the entire time. Honestly, this is about as perfect as a spy thriller as you can get, and I will reiterate, this is probably the apex of Hitchcock’s illustrious career.

To Catch A Thief:
To start out we’ll revisit one of my favorites. To Catch a Thief is one of the few of Hitchcock’s film that aren’t owned by Universal Studios, and also one of his more “different” films in tone and feel. It doesn’t have that spine tingling thriller/horror nature that so many of his films are known for, but instead focuses on more of a caper mystery as the motif. Along with some good old fashioned Cary Grant suave romance, and a story about mistaken blame. Maybe it’s BECAUSE it’s so different is why I tend to watch and re-watch To Catch a Thief more than some of Hitchcock’s better received films. It has such a mainstream appeal to it, but also one of the better Cary Grant acting jobs of that time period. There are almost no flaws to the film, and even some 65 years later it holds up incredibly well.

The film revolves around Post-WWII French Riviera, where rich French Socialites are losing their jewels at an alarming rate to a thief that the police have dubbed “the cat”. High on the suspect list is one John Robie (Cary Grant), a pre-war jewel thief who was sort of “pardoned” for his act in the French resistance (supposedly killing 72 occupiers getting people to safety). However, with jewels disappearing like crazy the police are certain that he’s the man. Unfortunately for them, Robie is a skilled thief, and is able to elude the police and find refuge with his friend Bertani (Charles Vanel).

After the police hound him again and again, Robie decides that the has to do what the police seem incapable of doing. Find out who is REALLY stealing the jewels and clear his name. Utilizing the help of insurance agent H.H. Hughson (John Williams), Robie is able to get ahold of a list of the top richest people in the Riviera with jewels worth stealing by the cat. Assuming a false identity, the ex thief ingratiates himself into their circles, soon earning him respect of said socialites, as well the amorous eye of one Francie (Grace Kelly). As the jewel thievery continues, Robie gets closer and closer to the perpetrator, proving that sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief.

At it’s center To Catch A Thief is pure fun escapism. It’s not nearly as twisted and convoluted as other Hitchcock films, but that’s what makes it fun. It’s a 1950s mystery with Cary Grant. The movie is superbly acted and expertly photographed, and I still have a blast watching it each year. It doesn’t have the grandiose or gravitas of other blockbuster films of the time, and actually sits back and enjoys the caper more than anything. An amazing film, and one of my favorites to revisit.




Rating:[/B]Various




Video:

Rear Window:
Rear Window was a GOOD Blu-ray, but never a great one back in 2014. It had some color issues, some tonal issues, and some compression issues in my opinion, all of which seem to have been addressed in the new 4K UHD rendition. I’m not sure if this is using a brand new master or not, but the difference is rather impressive, and is mostly done with the use of judicious HDR grading that really allows the warm colors to pop in ways that was “odd” in the Blu-ray. Colors are less flashy and garish, and more finely tuned and accurate looking, leaving it with a more dim looking image, but not one that looks overly dark. The over brightening and over saturation of the colors was something that ground my gears just a bit on the 2014 disc, and watching this 4K presentation is almost revelationary, just due to the colors alone.

However, texturally speaking, the differences are not nearly as shocking. There are definite increases in clarity and fine detail, but Rear Window has always been a soft looking film and it still looks a little soft. Grain is abundant and well done, but comparing the Blu-ray vs. The 4K UHD in terms of appreciable detail upgrade is pretty moot. I mean, there ARE more details on his cast, as well as the apartment, but the whole “stage production” feel of the set doesn’t lend itself towards massive amounts of detail. That being said, the whole color change and the tightening of the entire picture makes it a worthy upgrade in my opinion.

Vertigo:
Wowza, the difference between the Blu-ray and the 4K UHD disc here is absolutely staggering. The old Blu-ray was “good” like Rear Window, but problematic in some ways. The 4K UHD is like a breathe of fresh air and probably marks the finest looking of all the 4 discs in this set. The colors are rich and rewarding, tightening the image’s focus just a little bit, and getting rid of the smearing and crush that the Blu-ray had, especially in some of the dreamier moments such as the green neon sign scene, or the crush that was present up in the church tower. The fine details are quite impressive, and the film has NEVER looked this sharp and pristine (at least from my eyes, as I’ve never seen the film in it’s theatrical glory). Blacks are deep and inky and while there’s a few milky looking daylight sequences, the detail is just all around outstanding. The disc is all around darker than the Blu-ray, but the HDR colors and the excellent detail make this a truly no brainer upgrade.

Psycho:
Psycho also enjoys a brand new remaster, and was the only one out of the 4 to receive a stand alone re-release on Blu-ray as well, which is also remastered for it’s 60th Anniversary (which is a nice upgrade over the already good nearly decade old Blu-ray), and it is well worth the upgrade too. The Black and white photography has never looked this good, with stunning amounts of detail levels that no Blu-ray is capable of. The different shades of black show so much nuance and texture, with the shower scene being almost photo realistic in nature compared to how shadowy it has always been. The HDR really improves the depth of the grayscale and allows for so much more detail to be seen than I’ve ever seen. The old Blu-ray was known to be excellent, but after A/Bing the new discs together it’s blatantly obvious that the 4K UHD disc is much better.

The Birds:
The opening of the 4K UHD is quite nice, but shows some severe black crush, some dimming, and sort of soft look that is shockingly different than the other 3 films in the set. HOWEVER, this is actually a good thing, as the Blu-ray for The Birds was one of the most grungy pieces of mediocre “meh” that I had seen. This 4K UHD may not be perfection, but it is a GOOD disc that is absolutely light years ahead of the Blu-ray. The HDR really expands the color range, giving us more vibrant primary shades and deeper blacks that don’t crush nearly as bad. That being said, there are some limitations. The film has a ton of optical effects for the birds, and the blending of those effects is not always done that well. Part of that is due to the film source, and part is due to the new resolution showing off some of the flaws. There’s a few instances of color banding as well that get problematic in the dark. That being said, the disc shows off more detail, more color replication, and a much more finely tuned image than the Blu-ray. Hands down worth getting just for this disc alone ,as the old Blu-ray looks no better than a DVD.

North by Northwest:
Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. I really have to pick my jaw up off the floor after this one, as Warner Brothers has outdone themselves with brand new restoration specifically for this release that handily outclasses every single version of the film I’ve seen to date. This is lovingly done, with all of the nicks, cracks, hair and debris completely taken care of, and If any digital tinkering was done to grain level, I really couldn’t tell. Taking care of the 1.78:1 framed Blu-ray we go back to the original 1.85:1 framing for this release, and comparing directly against the old Blu-ray, it seems that they’ve ever so slightly altered the framing on the sides as well in a few scenes. Color timing is vastly improved, as everything lost that sort of burnished look of the old Blu-ray, and gives a more natural grading to the whole thing. We don’t get any Dolby Vision, but the HDR application on the disc really makes everything pop. The film’s color grading doesn’t lend itself towards really deeply saturated colors, but mixes sime light grays, pastel reds and sky blues to create a very historic and beautiful look that can’t be replicated today. Fine details are ridiculously absurd, showcasing every fiber on a tweed jacked, the makeup lines around Eva’s face, and even lines where wigs were much more noticeable than before. Black levels look great, and the only real complaint I have is that in a couple of scenes (usually the day for night shots) you get some mild grain spikes. But overall, this is an INCREDIBLE looking disc.

To Catch a Thief:
I still remember watching the 2020 version of To Catch a Thief in abject horror, as Paramount was usual so meticulous with their Paramount Presents lineup. Instead it was a DNR’d and scrubbed mess, with bad colors and even worse timing changes. It was supposedly given a 4K remaster back 4 years ago, so I was ASSUMING that they would use the same master for this set, but it appears that they undid what happened back 4 years ago, and POSSIBLY struck a new master (though my gut reaction is they went back and just took a new scan or the old scan they used for the previous release before all the tinkering was done and worked with that, but I have no evidence, just a gut feeling).

I’m happy to announce that the new 4K UHD disc from Paramount is a HUGE upgrade over the frustrating 2020 release. So much so that I honestly felt a huge sight escape my lips after watching the first few minnutes. Gone is the over abundance of VERY obvious DNR and shows a nice filmic look for the most part. Grain is retained, although it’s a bit lighter than I remember from back in the day, and there is plenty of detail all the way around. Sometimes I noticed a few optical shots that are at the mercy of an aged filming style that can’t really do much with, but overall those shots are few and far between. The period piece attire (especially at the end) looks fantastic, with bright garish colors enhanced by the Dolby Vision and deep rich black. They’re still using that overly green day for night shots used in the previous release (instead of the older bluer tinge), and I still feel like the image has been scrubbed at least a little bit. That being said, this is a very VERY distinct improvement over the 2020 Blu-ray abomination and well worth grabbing if you’re a fan of the film (either in this set, or in the standalone 4K UHD Paramount released a few months back)






Audio:

Rear Window:
Two of the discs in this set got new DTS:X upgrades, and two of the discs stuck with the 2.0 DTS-HD MA tracks of the Blu-ray. This is one of those two that stuck with the 2.0 track. In reality I wouldn’t have it any other way, as the 2.0 theatrical mix being upgraded to Dolby Atmos or DTS:X would have been overkill. Even upgrading 5.1 mixes to Atmos/DTS:X is controversial, but changing a 2.0 mix to a next gen track is basically making it something it’s not. Especially when the 2.0 track is so fantastic to begin. It may not be a wild action mix, but the 2.0 DTS-HD MA track is vibrant and full of life, with strong dialog, great channel separation in the front of the room, and a thrilling score. There’s no signs of distortion or hisses throughout, and outside of the 2.0 nature of the track, could be mistaken for being recorded yesterday.

Vertigo:
Vertigo was one of the two with a DTS:X upgrade and it’s quite the audio track. It’s not that much different than the 5.1 mix, but there are some neat nuances here and there that make use of the DTS:X abilities. The opening score with the credits are probably the highlight of the sound track, giving it a very robust and expansive feel with sound emanating from the surrounds, the rears, and even overhead in one of the best musically enveloping scenes in the film. It slows down a bit with a more front heavy mix, but the surrounds and low end get some good activity later on, especially with the bell ringing at the end and a few other choice sequences. Low end is a bit soft and never mixed as hot as we’re used to today, but it’s a very impressive track that slightly edges out the DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix found on the Blu-ray.

Psycho:
Psycho also got the 5.1 to DTS:X upgrade, but don’t be expecting it to revolutionize the audio mix. This is a mostly front heavy flick with a few ambient moments to bring you into the middle of it. That being said, it’s not a bad mix and it probably is on par with the 5.1 mix. There’s a few subtle uses of the score in the rear of the room, but I really didn’t hear any major overhead usage, and the channel separation is very similar to said 5.1 mix. Basically, the track has always been a front heavy mix with an emphasis on dialog, and outside of a few subtle tweaks, it’s not going to really sound that much different than the previous mix. Good to have, a great sounding mix, but it’s not going to be something it’s not.

The Birds:
The Birds was the 2nd of the two films to keep it’s original 2.0 mix, and that track still sounds as good today as it did 6 or 7 years ago. The track is incredibly crisp and clear, with no sounds of distortion, hisses, pops or other abnormalities found in older recorded mixes. There’s a little bit of a thin feeling to the mix, and the dialog is a bit treble happy, but overall the mix is very stable and faithful replication of the 2.0 experience .

North by Northwest:
As is the case for Warner’s other 4K catalog re-issues this last week, North by Northwest gets a brand new Dolby Atmos track as well as the original theatrical Mono mix in DTS-HD MA lossless. I do enjoy the old theatrical mix for it’s purity to the 1950s, and a HUGE boon to home theater enthusiasts, as pretty much every home video release (including the Blu-ray) forwent the original Mono mix for the standard 5.1 track that has been around for like 2 decades. Luckily for us it sounds superb, but even I (who leans toward a purist sort of view) was really won over by the Dolby Atmos track. It doesn’t try to really reinvent the wheel and add in a ton of ambient noise that wasn’t there, but still keeps it rather front heavy with a great 3.1 presentation for the most part. That being said, Warner has done a good job at recreating the subtle ambient sounds as Thornhill make’s his way to Chicago and to his doom. The train tracks rattle in the background, and the Bernard Hermann’s original score sounds scrumptious as it engulfs the listening position. And don’t forget, we do get some overhead activity now and again, with that infamous plane in the field flyover really taking full advantage of the heights.

To Catch a Thief:
Instead of the Dolby TrueHD 2.0 track that was on the original Blu-ray, Paramount has remixed it to 5.1 Dolby TrueHD for this release. Sadly the original 2.0 Mono track is excluded (even as a lossy mix) from the release as well, which means we’re “stuck” with only the new remix. The new remix sounds to be of the original release just upmixed to 5.1, and while the old 2.0 track was good, it had all the of the limitations of a 2.0 mix. This 5.1 mix is pretty much the 2.0 track with some filtering into other channels and focusing the dialog in the center track instead of in the mains. The surrounds get some mild usage, but 95% of the activity is straight in the front of the room. Some of the channel separation is well done though, with the dialog anchored more firmly in the center, and some of the hustle and bustle of the city in the mains. LFE is near nonexistent, but there was a couple times where my subwoofer amp flickered a bit. A good track for sure, but the purist in me was disappointed that it was the ONLY track, and we didn’t get to keep the original 2.0 Mono mix either.






Extras:

Rear Window
• Audio Commentary with Author John Farwell
• Rear Window Ethics: Remembering and Restoring a Hitchcock Classic
• Masters of Cinema
• A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
• Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of the Master
• Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
• Hitchcock-Truffaut Interview Excerpts
• Production Photographs
• Theatrical and Re-Release Trailers

Vertigo
• Audio Commentary
• Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece
• Partners in Crime: Hitchcock's Collaborations
• Hitchcock and Truffaut Interview Excerpts
• 100 Years of Universal: The Lew Wasserman Era
• Foreign Censorship Ending
• The Vertigo Archives
• Theatrical and Restoration Trailers

Psycho
• The Making of Psycho
• Psycho Sound
• In the Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho'
• The Shower Scene
• The Shower Scene: Storyboards by Saul Bass
• Psycho Archives
• Posters and Psycho Ads
• Lobby Cards

The Birds
• The Birds: Hitchcock's Monster Movie
• All About The Birds
• Hitchcock-Truffaut Interview Excerpts
• Deleted Scene and Original Ending
• Storyboards
• Tippi Hedren's Screen Test
• 100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics
• 100 Years of Universal: The Lot
• The Birds is Coming
• Suspense Story: National Press Club Hears Hitchcock
• Production Photographs
• Theatrical Trailer

North by Nortwest
• Audio Commentary with screenwriter Ernest Lehman
• NEW! North by Northwest: Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit
• Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
• The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style
• North by Northwest: One for the Ages
• A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock

To Catch a Thief
• Audio Commentary with Hitchcock Film Historian Drew Casper.
• Filmmaker Focus: Leonard Maltin on To Catch a Thief
• A Night with the Hitchcocks
• Unacceptable Under the Code: Censorship in Hollywood
• Writing and Casting To Catch a Thief
• The Making of To Catch a Thief
• Behind the Gates: Cary Grant and Grace Kelly
• Alfred Hitchcock and To Catch a Thief
• Edith Head: The Paramount Years
• To Catch a Thief Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Now, the big question for most people is going to be “why should I get THIS Hitchcock set?”, especially when the 4 universal films are already out in a boxset, and North by Northwest & To Catch a Thief have their own separate releases. Well, the answer is going to be “it depends”. If you already have the Universal release and/or the separate releases of the other two films, then this is going to depend ENTIRELY on the physical nature of the set. This is a massive artistic coffee table book that is unique, and if you don’t have any of the films (or only 1 or 2) then this would definitely be a cool avenue. I’m a huge fan of those big coffee table books from the 90s, so my nerdy artistic nature gravitates towards it, but more budget minded consumers will probably lean towards the individual releases. All in all, this is a pretty sweet set, with some great films, but buying this one will probably entirely depend on if you want the awesome looking coffee table book format more than anything.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedner, Vera Miles, Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, James Mason
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Written by: John Michael Hayes / Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor / Joseph Stefano / Evan Hunter / Ernest Lehman, Gerald Devries / John Michael Hayes (Screenplay), David Dodge (Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 AVC / 1.85:1 / 1.85:1 / 1.85:1 / 1.85:1 / 1.85:1
Audio:
Rear Window
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
Spanish: DTS 2.0 Mono
Vertigo
English: DTS:X
English: DTS 2.0 Mono
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
Spanish: DTS 2.0 Mono
Psycho
English: DTS:X
English: DTS 2.0 Mono
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
Spanish: DTS 2.0 Mono
The Birds
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
Portuguese: DTS 2.0 Mono
Spanish: DTS 2.0 Mono
Japanese: DTS 2.0
North by Northwest
English: Dolby Atmos
English: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
French DD Mono
Spanish DD Mono
German: DD Mono
Italian DD Mono
To Catch a Thief
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
German DD 2.0
Spanish DD 2.0
French DD 2.0
Italian DD 2.0
Japanese DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish (Japanese and Portuguese is only on The Birds)
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish (To Catch a Thief)
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Dutch, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified) (North by Northwest)
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG (Vertigo, Rear Window) / PG-13 (The Birds) / R (Psycho) / NR (North by Northwest) / NR (To Catch a Thief)
Runtime: 113 Minutes / 129 Minutes / 109 Minutes / 119 Minutes / 136 Minutes / 107 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 26th, 2024

Recommendation: Awesome Set

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