The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection is a nice selection of four Alfred Hitchcock films to get the 4K treatment, which is pretty good for what I’m Universal had the rights to.
The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection
— Rear Window / Vertigo / Psycho / The Birds —
(1954-63)
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller, Drama, Crime
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment | NR – 473 min. – $69.98 | September 8, 2020
Date Published: 09/12/2020 | Author: The Movieman
Universal Studios Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
** All ratings are averages. **
THE MOVIES — 4.0/5 |
Rear Window (1954) — This is easily my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie, not his best (that goes to North by Nortwest and maybe Psycho), but the one movie I can consistently re-watch and have seen numerous times over the years. It’s a tribute to Hitchcock that the film entirely takes place in one room and most of the action, save for the finale, is viewed via binoculars. The performance from James Stewart and Grace Kelly were fantastic and there is a modern day aspect that we’ve replaced binoculars seeing into people’s lives, and instead doing so via social media. A lot of fun and highly entertaining still to this day. ****½/*****
Vertigo (1958) — I’ve probably only seen the movie a couple times over the years, and while Vertigo never was a favorite of mine, still found it mildly entertaining with a fairly intense second half, thanks to a great, and different, performance by James Stewart as well as Kim Novak. ***¾/*****
Psycho (1960) — Amazingly this was my first time seeing what is considered Hitchcock’s most iconic film, and one that has landed on numerous best-of lists over the years, and even though I pretty much knew the entire plot before hand, still found it to be suspense-filled with a charismatic yet still creepy performance by Anthony Perkins. ****¾/*****
The Birds (1963) — And finally, another first for me. As with Psycho I had watched many scenes that have replayed on various lists and afterward, while it was entertaining as a B-movie horror flick, or monster flick as some describe, some of it had some unintentionally funny moments that was at least neutralized by some great imagery, particularly at the end with all the birds gathered around the farmhouse. The acting here was pretty good by Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren. ***¼/***** |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.25/5 |
This 8-disc release (4 4Ks, 4 BDs) is housed in a digibook and side-slides in an embossed slip case. Inside is a single code for all four films. The discs are contained in slots which I personally hate and not sure why studios do this instead of just having a 10-disc HD keep case. I’m not overly concerned with the discs getting scratched or scuffed, but you will get fingerprints on them just to get them out, so you will need to clean them off… This is a similar set-up the Universal’s “Alfred Hitchcock: Masterpiece Collection”. REAR WINDOW — ****¼/*****
VERTIGO — ****¼/*****
PSYCHO — ****½/*****
THE BIRDS — ****/*****
|
VIDEO – 4.5/5 |
Each film in this collection are presented in their original aspect ratios and given 2160p high-definition transfers. The movies here look fantastic. Rear Window is just short of perfection with incredible detail and well balanced colors, on the downside, there were some ever-so minor specs that I noticed upon closer inspection. ****¾/***** Vertigo looks rather good in its own right, perhaps not as sharp during the city sequences but still respectable, the biggest advantage is a fine color boost most notably through the nightmare sequence and its psychedelic color schemes. ****½/***** Psycho is show in its original 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio and, no surprise, does look incredible. Detail is incredible sharp and well defined throughout, the natural film grain has been left intact and generally this is a clean picture, with only slight scratches in an otherwise perfect transfer. *****/***** And lastly, The Birds probably is the least of the four in terms of the picture, yet still looks good. The colors are nice without being overly vibrant and detail is more than adequate, although looking at it closely, think I detected some edge enhancements but can’t be 100% certain. ****¼/***** |
AUDIO – 4.5/5 |
No complaints about the audio tracks for any of the films.
Rear Window comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which actually shows off some nice depth as the film pans from window to window in the apartment complex. ****¼/***** Vertigo gets an upgrade of a DTS:X track over the previous DTS-HD MA 5.1, this one sounds quite good, showing off clear dialogue and some modest depth for the suspense-filled scenes as well as the great Bernard Hermann score. ****½/***** Psycho also received a DTS:X track and as demonstrated by the included featurette, some elements were expanded from a mono track such as cars driving from right to left but keeping the original soundtrack intact. ****¾/***** Last up The Birds has a DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo Mono track which I’m thinking is the same from the previous 2012 Blu-ray that was included. In any case, the audio here offers clear dialogue along with some great outputting of the horrific sounds of the birds both attacking and idling about. ****½/***** |
OVERALL – 4.5/5 |
The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection is a nice selection of four Alfred Hitchcock films to get the 4K treatment, which is pretty good for what I’m Universal had the rights to (as North by Northwest is owned by Warner I believe). There may be no new bonus features, but the audio and video transfers for all the films are top notch, just not entirely sure if it’s worth the upgrade if you own these already. |