Rating: 
Summary: Can You Find the Short Knight?
Review: This is a mixture of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's directorial productions from both the Silver and Television screens. Hitchcock directed several episodes from his half-hour TV series. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is one of the best. Barbara Bel Geddes was excellently cast. In "PSYCHO" and "VERTIGO" we see characters tormented by their own uncontrollable obsessions. In "PSYCHO" Hitchcock attempts to metaphorically unveil some hidden episode in his life that has driven him as a film director. In his masterpiece "VERTIGO," Hitchcock unveils the character within the director to his public in attendance, embodying, in James Stewart's character his own obsessions and desire to physically reconstruct women in an unobtainable image created by his own psyche. This is also peripherally evident in "MARNIE." Kim Novak's character in "VERTIGO" is an actress of disposition, a woman whose role-playing supports one man (Gavin Elster and Hitchcock) in captivating another ("Scottie" Ferguson and the viewer). In "PSYCHO" we see Norman Bates physically alter his own appearance driven by a distorted obsession to satisfy his mother against his own desires for the touch of women. By becoming his mother he frees himself of his own guilt and his failures as a man and simultaneously satisfies his mother's wishes for him by carrying those wishes to fruition. Scottie, the main character of "VERTIGO," and Novak's in the role of a woman who feels compelled to deny her own identity and allow herself to be degraded in order to satisfy the men who ask her to act their schemes and fantasies, is equally intriguing. This is similar in "MARNIE" but with a twist. Marnie satisfies her own hidden passions as she degrades men, in her eyes, by stealing from them. What both Scottie and Hitchcock look for in their perfect woman is the erotic, carnal female disguised within the gray suit and pinned-back hair. Again, this was very evident with Sean Connery as Mark Rutland in "MARNIE." Strutt tells an interested Mark Rutland that "she (Marnie) hides her legs like some national treasure." Scottie (and Hitchcock) are unattracted to Barbara Bel Geddes' candid and thus uninteresting Midge, who clearly lacks feminine mystique. Madeleine, by contrast, is never as forthcoming remaining distant and enigmatic and is all the more alluring because of it. When she tries to reveal something of her true self, Judy Barton to Scottie, he resists her, becoming all the more determined in his obsessive confusion of illusion and reality. Equally, Mark Rutland wants to hear none of Marnie's pleas to release her when she attempts to tell him that she is not what he thinks. "I've got hold of something really wild this time and I don't intend to let go." In "PSYCHO" Norman Bates really has something wild, several things in fact. His stuffs birds in response to a repressed sexual state that his mother has subjugated him to. Bates does have something wild and he equally will never be able to consummate his desires just as Scottie ultimately never will. Hitchcock gives himself an escape route in the character of Mark Rutland, but that is left to the imagination of the audience. By revealing the murder plot midway through "VERTIGO," Hitchcock deepens our psychological understanding of the characters and their romantic dynamics. Freeing us from Scottie's point of view, Hitchcock allows us to study his romantically idealized fixation in an objective light that reveals its hopelessness, at the same time letting us sympathize with Judy, who becomes the victim of his quixotic fixation. As Hitchcock pointed out, Scottie's relentless pursuit of the image becomes a "form of necrophilia." It also makes him a voyeur who observes and imagines rather than acts in the real world. In "PSYCHO" Norman Bates literally acts out his "form of necrophilia." However, Bates does not have actual sexual consummation. His sexual release is symbolic in the form of slashing, cutting and bloodletting. Afterward he is at peace with his mother until the urges of his passions overcome in. His mother remains ever present. In "VERTIGO," when Scottie really does lose his ideal image, Madeleine, to death, he can no longer function and must re-create her in the new Judy. The person under the disguise means nothing to him, however; all that matters is that she looks and act like the ideal woman. His love is in fact not love at all but a romanticized fetish, a yearning for an unobtainable image that is forever lost. A happy ending to his dilemma is not possible. Unlike Scottie, Mark Rutland is able unravel the enigma that is Marnie and in doing so he is released from his own fetish and is given the possibility to pursue real love with her. Norman Bates remains trapped by the fixation of his mother's hold on him. Norman Bates like Scottie is reaching out and trying to obtain the unobtainable. Scottie can not return the love lost. Bates can never satisfy the whims of his mother, which prevents him from love he was never even permitted to explore.
Rating:
Summary: MUST OWN!
Review: This smashing package should be on every Hitchcock lover's shelf. It contains two of the master's greatest works, VERTIGO and PSYCHO, restored and letterboxed, with extra material galore, and 4 episodes of the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV series (which cannot be bought separately). Even if you have seen the movies, seen the "making-of" specials on TV, it would still be worthwhile to obtain this set. Any Hitchcock lover would want to watch the films again and again in the best video and audio qualities ever available.One regret is the restored DVD version of The Birds isn't included in this package. Together with Psycho and Vertigo, these are 3 of the best DVDs made for Hitchcock films I've seen. Hoooooorray to Universal! I wound up buying this set AND The Birds. This set was put together in commemoration of Hitchcock's 100th birthday. So I have a feeling Universal won't keep making it after all the copies are sold. Get it before it goes out of print! To echo another user's comment, some of the supplements on the Psycho DVD are hard to get to. You need to press left or right on the remote to flip through the menu and content, but it is sometimes not obvious. And on my DVD player, there is often a delay after I press the key before the screen changes.
Rating:
Summary: You know you want them all
Review: You can look up the individual reviews. Of course some individual titles will go out of stock. Others may not be your favorite. However you will have friends and relatives that will want to compare Alfred's various styles. Look for his cameos. A single case makes the movies easier to keep track of and look better on your video storage wall. Being DVDs this is a one-time investment. With the advent of multiple DVD changers you will be able to keep Alfred ready at a moments notice. I tried buying individual as I had the money and found shipping was getting very expensive that way. So bite the bullet and buy the collection. Also check out The Alfred Hitchcock Collection I.
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