MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

One of the most famous directors in the history of movies, Alfred Hitchcock has nine of his best films collected in this box set from Warner Bros. Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, Dial M for Murder, Suspicion, I Confess, Foreign Correspondent, The Wrong Man, Stage Fright, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are each presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio. While each of the discs boasts a making-of documentary, only the Strangers on a Train disc offers a vast array of extras. In addition to a commentary track featuring a variety of people who have an interest in the film, a second version of the film is offered. That cut of the movie, uncovered in 1991, was a preview edition put together before the theatrical cut. Although each of these discs is a available individually, this box set offers the most cost-effective way to acquire all nine titles. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 10
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1
• Screen: Black and White, Soft-Matted WSE for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: French, English, Spanish
• Features:
  • • cc All-new making-of documentaries with each movie
    • Vintage newsreels
    • Two versions of the film Strangers on a Train
    • Theatrical trailers
    • And more

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Actress - 1941 (Joan Fontaine)
•     Nominated Best Color Art Direction - 1959 (Merrill Pye, Robert F. Boyle, Frank R. McKelvey, Henry W. Grace, William Horning)
•     Nominated Best Editing - 1959 (George Tomasini)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1959 (Ernest Lehman)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Cinematography - 1951 (Robert Burks)
•     Nominated Best Dramatic Score - 1941 (Franz Waxman)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1941
•     Nominated Best Black and White Art Direction - 1940 (Alexander Golitzen)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Cinematography - 1940 (Rudolph Maté)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1940 (Charles C. Bennett, Joan Harrison)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1940
•     Nominated Best Special Effects - 1940 (Paul Eagler, Thomas T. Moulton)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actor - 1940 (Albert Basserman)

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• Chicago International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2009

• Directors Guild of America

•     Nominated Best Director - 1959 (Alfred Hitchcock)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1954 (Alfred Hitchcock)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1951 (Alfred Hitchcock)

• Edgar Allan Poe Awards

•     Won Best Screenplay - 1959 (Ernest Lehman)

• Film Daily

•     Won 10 Best Films - 1941
•     Won 10 Best Films - 1940

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1994

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Actress - 1954 (Grace Kelly)
•     Won Best Supporting Actor - 1954 (John Williams)
•     Won Best Acting - 1941 (Joan Fontaine)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1959
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1951
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1950
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1940

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Actress - 1954 (Grace Kelly)
•     Won Best Actress - 1941 (Joan Fontaine)

• New York Times

•     Won 10 Best Films - 1941

• Rotterdam International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2010

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1982

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Alfred Hitchcock

• Producer:

  Alfred Hitchcock, Walter Wanger, Harry E. Edington

• Screenwriter:

  Frederick Knott

• Play Author:

  Frederick Knott

• Screenwriter:

  Robert Benchley, James Hilton, Richard Maibaum, Joan Harrison, Charles Bennett, George Tabori, William Archibald

• Play Author:

  Paul Anthelme

• Screenwriter:

  Norman Krasna, Ernest Lehman, Whitfield Cook, Ranald MacDougall

• Book Author:

  Selwyn Jepson

• Screenwriter:

  Alma Reville, James Bridie, Raymond Chandler, Czenzi Ormonde

• Book Author:

  Patricia Highsmith

• Screenwriter:

  Samson Raphaelson

• Book Author:

  Frances Iles

• Screen Story:

  Maxwell Anderson

• Screenwriter:

  Maxwell Anderson, Angus MacPhail

• Cinematographer:

  Robert Burks, Rudolph Maté, Harry Stradling, Wilkie Cooper

• Composer (Music Score):

  Dimitri Tiomkin, Alfred Newman

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Ray Heindorf

• Composer (Music Score):

  Edward Ward, Roy Webb

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Roy Webb

• Composer (Music Score):

  Bernard Herrmann

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Louis Levy

• Songwriter:

  Edith Piaf, Cole Porter

• Composer (Music Score):

  Leighton Lucas

• Songwriter:

  Louiguy

• Composer (Music Score):

  Franz Waxman

• Editor:

  Rudi Fehr, Otho Lovering, Dorothy Spencer, Willaim Hamilton, George Tomasini, Edward B. Jarvis, William H. Ziegler

• Production Designer:

  Robert F. Boyle

• Art Director:

  Edward Carrere, George James Hopkins, Alexander Golitzen, Edward S. Haworth, Van Nest Polglase, L.P. Williams, William Horning, Merrill Pye, Terence Verity, Carroll Clark, Paul Sylbert, William L. Kuehl

• Associate Producer:

  Barbara Keon, Herbert Coleman

• Set Designer:

  George James Hopkins, Julia Heron, William Cameron Menzies, Edward S. Haworth, Darrell Silvera, Robert F. Boyle, Henry W. Grace, Frank R. McKelvey, Terence Verity, William L. Kuehl

• Costume Designer:

  Moss Mabry, Orry-Kelly, Orry Kelly, Irene Sharaff, Milo Anderson, Christian Dior, Leah Rhoads, Edward Stevenson

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Oliver S. Garretson, Frank Maher, Franklin E. Milton, Harold King, Dolph Thomas, John E. Tribby, Earl Crain, Sr.

• Makeup:

  Gordon Bau, Norman Pringle, William J. Tuttle, Colin Garde

• Special Effects:

  Paul Eagler, Lee Zavitz, Vernon Walker, Arnold A. Gillespie, Lee Le Blanc, H.F. Koenekamp

• First Assistant Director:

  Mel Dellar, Edmond F. Bernoudy, Don Alvarado, Dewey Starkey, Robert Saunders, Daniel McCauley

• Consultant/advisor:

  Inspector Oliver Tangvay, Fr. Paul la Couline, Frank O'Connor

• Camera Operator:

  Burnett Guffey

• Production Manager:

  Sherry Shourds

REVIEWS:

• Alfred Hitchcock's second American film, Foreign Correspondent is a typically skillful, well-balanced suspense thriller from the unrivalled master of the genre. Popular upon its release and still considered one of the director's most entertaining works, the picture is undercut somewhat by its lackluster leads, Joel McCrea and Laraine Day. Hitchcock originally wanted Gary Cooper for the lead, but often had trouble attracting Hollywood stars since many considered his films mere pulp entertainment. Regardless, Foreign Correspondent is most memorable for its grand set pieces. All are prime examples of Hitchcockian art: the assassin's escape into a crowd of umbrellas; the plane crash into the ocean (shot indoors on a huge set at MGM); and the famous windmill sequence. The film's blatant call for America to take arms against Nazi Germany was penned by screenwriter Ben Hecht (Scarface, Notorious). Hitchcock's other anti-Nazi movies from the World War II era included Saboteur, Lifeboat, and Notorious; he also made two French-language propaganda films. ~ Brendon Hanley, Rovi
• Alfred's Hitchcock's adaptation of Frederick Knott's play is hardly the director at his best, though it remains an above-average suspense-melodrama with a typically Hitchcockian villain. It focuses on the efforts of Ray Milland's character, an idler who fears that his wealthy wife might leave him and wants her murdered so that he might inherit her money. The machinery of the play is standard but enjoyable in its tight construction, with only the business of the key being of dubious plausibility. Its most compelling element is Milland's character, who has shades of Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941) and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951). Most memorable is an ugly scene in which he blackmails an old "friend" into agreeing to kill his wife, played by Grace Kelly. Milland is near the top of his game here, and John Williams turns in his usual fine performance as the wily Scotland Yard inspector. Kelly, and Robert Cummings as her lover, are forced to contend with underwritten stock characters. Neither comes off particularly well. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
• From the opening shots of two pairs of shoes walking, two train tracks crisscrossing, and those shoes accidentally bumping toes, Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) explores one of his signature concerns: the coexistence of good and evil in one person. In a story adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel and structured through a series of doublings, Robert Walker's Bruno becomes the flamboyant homicidal id to Farley Granger's stiff arriviste Guy, obliging Guy's desire to eliminate his wife and expecting Guy to return the favor with Bruno's father. After the murder, dreamily reflected in a pair of eyeglasses, Bruno haunts Guy, menacingly popping into Guy's life in Washington and on the tennis court. Yet, with Walker's charisma and Granger's weakness, Bruno is the more charming figure, revealing the appeal of moral chaos even as that chaos must be punished. Hitchcock's persistent pairs -- shoes, train tracks, crossed tennis racquets on Guy's lighter, two fateful carnival trips, two bespectacled women -- point to the ineffable connection between Bruno and Guy, and the (literally) dark psychosis that lurks beneath everyone's bright, well-ordered surface. A popular success, Strangers on a Train was Hitchcock's return to form after several failures. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• Equal parts sly identity crisis, suspenseful cross-continental chase, and cool romance, North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most enjoyable films. Done with the irreverent brand of humor that the director made his trademark, the film balances somewhere between suspense thriller and urbane comedy, its considerable wit both complementing and fueling its intrigue. As memorable for the sexy, sophisticated banter between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint as for the famous crop-dusting sequence or the climactic chase atop Mount Rushmore, North by Northwest is one of those films that inspires any number of readings. Chock-full of phallic references, conspiracy paranoia, Freudian subtext (made particularly apparent in Thornhill's relationship with his mother, who in reality was played by an actress born the same year as Grant), and featuring a token sinister homosexual, watching the movie is like watching an ode to the forces at work against the single, successful white man in Cold War America. As played by the superb Grant, he's a glib, increasingly befuddled man who perfectly represents the film's breezy yet cautionary tone, a playboy and a mama's boy in one charming yet vaguely troubled package. His true identity, Hitchcock seems to be saying, is as open to question as the one he is forced to assume. For her part, Saint put her stamp on the Icy Sex Goddess role as Eve, allowing just the right measure of vulnerability to melt through the character's freeze-dried exterior. She provided an able foil for Grant, easily matching his personal brand of suave charm with her own. Their pairing was one of the most delightful in Hitchcock's films, elegant yet with a delicate tinge of frenzy. Elegant frenzy could describe the film as a whole: stylish and taut, North by Northwest is Hitchcock at his gleeful best. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith is an enjoyable romantic comedy that mines the screwball vein without quite finding a rich lode therein. It has the elements that great screwball comedies require -- an eccentric leading lady with madcap tendencies, a leading man at odds with her, a series of comic misunderstandings that all evolve from one central plot point, an able supporting cast, a setting among the Park Avenue class -- but this particular highball doesn't get the mixtures right and so lacks a kick. Part of this is due to Alfred Hitchcock, whose direction is assured when it needs to be frantic. Hitchcock gives us the laughs, mind you, but they're laid-back chuckles rather than guffaws. Still, even if one misses the frenetic pacing that the material seems to call for, there's something reassuring about the unhurried, confident tone Hitchcock lends to the piece. Certainly, one is in very amiable company with the likes of a luscious Carole Lombard, a smooth Robert Montgomery, and an amusing Gene Raymond. If Smith never quite explodes, it still fizzes along very nicely. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
• A middling effort from Hitchcock, apparently attempting to adapt to the faux-documentary style then fashionable for crime stories, it features an interesting, turn by Clift. The film literalizes the symbolism of Catholic clergy as the representatives of Christ, with Clift's priest taking on the guilt for a murder due to the sanctity of the confessional. It's difficult to understand why the director chose to shoot such a musty contrivance of a play with the trappings of naturalism. Although, in The Wrong Man (1957), he was somewhat more effective with this style, his lack of interest in the normal range of human behavior hampered these films. Clift, who often chose to play characters seeking martyrdom, is well cast here, and provides what interest the film has in an underwritten part. It might have been better if the director had considered emphasizing the visual record of Clift's response to his public torment a la La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928). ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
• Joan Fontaine gives a splendid, Oscar-winning performance in Suspicion, but this 1941 Alfred Hitchcock film falls apart during its much-debated ending. Based on the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (pseudonym of Anthony Berkeley) and adapted for the screen by Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison (Hitchcock's assistant), and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife), Suspicion stars Fontaine as a spinsterish young woman who revolts against her parents by marrying a spendthrift playboy (played perfectly by Cary Grant). As Grant leads their marriage and his own gambling debts into a crisis situation, Fontaine begins to suspect that her beloved husband might be capable of murder -- perhaps even her own. The suspense builds perfectly around the two characters in typical Hitchcock style before running aground in the stunted finish. The final act went through numerous script changes between the director, the writers, and RKO Pictures -- which refused to let Grant be cast as a killer. The result is a hasty conclusion written just prior to shooting that fails to satisfy. Hitchcock's preferred ending had Grant killing Fontaine with poisoned milk, but not before she has him post a letter that implicates him in the crime. Ironically, Hitchcock faced the same studio interference with Ivor Novello's character in 1926's The Lodger, a fight he also lost. The director's cameo has him mailing a letter at the post office about midway through the film. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi
• Alfred Hitchcock's effort to remain true to fact-based source material is the only thing that prevents this gritty picture from rising above his middle-tier thrillers. Based on a story Hitchcock found in Life magazine, The Wrong Man is a pseudo-documentary version of the director's favorite theme: an innocent man blamed for a crime. Henry Fonda stars as the poor guy who finds himself the prime suspect in a series of robberies. The actor is solid in the role, but co-star Vera Miles (who later appeared in Hitchcock's Psycho) steals the show in the tragic role of Fonda's wife, who cracks under the stress of the false accusation and must be committed. The Wrong Man was a critical hit, but a commercial failure, and it would have benefited significantly if Hitchcock had taken some dramatic license to fire up the film's final act. Instead, the director went strictly for authenticity, going so far as to cast lesser-known actors and even people who were actually involved in the real-life case. He also shot many scenes on-location in Queens and Manhattan. The mental institution scenes were lensed in the actual building with the real doctors playing themselves. Bernard Herrmann's biting score adds a terrific additional dimension to the suspense -- as it does in every picture he collaborated on with Hitchcock. The director's cameo comes in the form of an introduction to the story that is reminiscent of his appearances at the opening of his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He shot a more discreet cameo that would have been placed in the film's opening reel, but it was cut to avoid detracting from the film's documentary feel. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi
• Alfred Hitchcock returns to the well of his favorite subject -- an innocent man framed for a terrible crime -- and puts an intriguing twist on it in this otherwise ordinary thriller. In this case, Richard Todd stars as the mark whose opening flashback reveals how he accidentally took the blame for a murder committed by his treacherous mistress (Marlene Dietrich). This revelation turns out to be the film's biggest mistake since it is a lie -- an interesting twist, but one that should have been detailed in real time rather than in a flashback. Another gaffe is that none of the characters ever appear to be in any real danger. In his interviews with François Truffaut, Hitchcock fully admitted that these errors are the film's biggest undoing in addition to his feeling that Todd's villain was rather weak. Stage Fright's real gem is Jane Wyman who portrays a willowy young actress whose crush on Todd leads her to helping hide him while trying to prove his innocence. Her beguiling turn as the attractive and earnest Eve is taken up a notch when she uses her acting talents pretending to be a madcap replacement maid for Dietrich's mistress. Interestingly, Wyman turned out to be a handful for Hitchcock when she continuously tried to make her character more glamorous to keep up with the sexy Dietrich. Alastair Sim, in a role just prior to his classic turn as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, is excellent in a small role as Eve's father. "It'll be one woman to another," Wyman's Eve explains to him on a proposed confrontation with Dietrich, to which he comically replies, "An impressive situation at any time." Based on the novel by Selwyn Jepson, Stage Fright is a film that falls somewhere in the middle of Hitchcock's canon. His cameo comes 40 minutes into the picture when he passes Wyman on the street and then turns to stare at her. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi