Alfred Hitchcock: The Essentials Collection

Great price for the Hitchcock classics! Timeless movies

Good addition to a movie collection.

There is nothing better than watching classic actors in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

You can’t go wrong with Alfred Hitchcock movies. This came beautifully packaged, with all movies as advertised, original and unabridged. I highly recommend.

DVD's arrives in great shape

The Movies:It doesn't get much better than these five, at least when it comes to the suspense/thriller genre. What is particularly notable about Hitchcock is how he transcends the boundaries of just this genre, though, and creates movies that say interesting things about humanity.Rear Window and North By Northwest are perhaps the most "standard" entries in that genre, which is not to say they are pedestrian in any way. They both display Hitchcock's mastery of pacing and tone, and are among the most entertaining movies ever made as a result.Vertigo is the odd duck, in that it is much slower and more introspective, showing us one man's journey into his own fears and desires. Not that this is a bad thing - it is a mesmerizing melding of visual and story elements.Psycho and The Birds may be the most interesting from a film appreciation perspective - they take very standard genres - the slasher and the disaster movie, and completely subvert viewer expectations of them. Psycho starts off as a typical "average person in extraordinary situation" plot, but then goes off the rails in its violent middle act. The Birds starts as a romantic comedy and then introduces the chaos of nature.In summary: they are each classics, and if a director had been responsible for just one of them, he or she would be celebrated. Hitchcock was responsible for all five. I envy the budding film buff who gets to watch these for the first time, basking in the glow of legitimate genius.The Blu-Ray:The video transfers on display here are varied. Vertigo and North By Northwest look by far the best, which is probably predictable given that they were filmed in VistaVision, a format noted for its detail and color fidelity. They show vibrant color, strong detail, good contrast levels, and little or no visible post-production tinkering. Psycho looks good but its middle third is rather soft. Rear Window looks nice, but was pretty clearly subjected to some computer tricks in restoration, which lends a bit of a digital veneer to things. The Birds is somewhat problematic, veering wildly between beautiful HD imagery, strange digital monkeying, and visual problems that are the result of the plethora of period optical process shots used to create the effects. All in all, the set as a whole is not bad. You get 2 beauties, 2 average looking Blu-Rays, and 1 dud.The audio is excellent, with DTS-MA soundtracks that range from 5.1 to 2.0 channel mixes (North by NW has a Dolby TrueHD mix). The dialogue is crystal clear, there is no hiss or crackle, and the music, especially the Bernard Hermann soundtracks on Vertigo, N by NW and Psycho, is totally immersive (the title sequence to Vertigo blew me away - turn it up!).Extras include commentaries by experts (some involved in production) for 4 of the 5 movies (The Birds excepted). Each disc contains copious making-of features, many running over an hour in length. Unfortunately, all are in SD, and have been repurposed from previous DVD releases. Oh, well. They are still quite informative and are a great option for those who will want to dive deeper into the movies. There is a commendable lack of EPK fluff pieces that plague many modern discs (e.g. stars in front of a poster, talking about how happy they were to work on Project X with Director Y).The packaging is pretty mediocre. The art looks nice, but the slipcase is thin paperboard and picks up dings quite easily. The interior is a folding (ugh) plastic tray (ugh) affair that really fails to impress. This is not the sturdy cardboard of, say, the Indiana Jones or Alien Anthology sets. Nor is it the durable blue plastic casing on many 5 disc sets (such as Star Trek TNG or Blade Runner). It feels cheap, and it is cheap. I guess this is what we get when we buy the smaller set and not the 15-disc mega set for much more money.Conclusion:Packaging aside and variable video quality aside, I basically don't think it is possible to beat the five discs here for average quality of content. 4 of these 5 movies are in AFI's Top 100 list regardless of genre, and *all* of them are in the Top 20 of AFI's Thriller list. It's the cream of the cream, there are no duds as in many collections. At its current price it is absolute highway robbery. Anybody who likes Hitchcock, suspense/thriller, or classic movies would be a fool to pass this up.

I bought this because I wanted to own a copy of Vertigo and I figured I might as well get some other classics. They're all good but they are so similar in their aesthetic that they feel like the same movie. The drama starts to seem silly in movies that otherwise seem serious (compared to contemporary films). It's great how much time is spent inside a general store making a phone call in "The Birds," as it affords a kind of mundane credibility to the world of the film, but the same perspective can't be maintained when it's a bunch of birds terrorizing the town and nobody can do anything about it. Silly threats are fine for movies - over the top threats are everywhere - but they don't mix well with long contemplative shots of everyday reality.I like Vertigo because it plays a psychological line the whole way through. Others, like North by Northwest and The Birds, don't pull me in as well.

I have watched Alfred Hitchcock movies and TV shows when I was younger. The Birds scared the life out of me especially after leaving the theater in the afternoon and seeing birds on the telephone wires, It was freaky.Psycho was another one that frightened me, but now it is a good yard and not as bloody as today's horror moviesDOA has always been a favorite movie. I remember watching it on late-night TV as a kid.North by Northwest is my favorite movie of the group. I like Cary Grant, and the suspense is just as real today as it was in the past.Rear Window is truly. a good movie. With suspense and humor.Vertigo is another suspenseful movie with its twists and turns.