Jamaica Inn (1939), his last film before moving to Hollywood and making Rebecca (1940), is an anomaly, mostly due to Charles Laughton's interference and demands as one of the producers, and is considered by many to be his worst movie (including Hitchcock himself), in spite of its box office success. From the film he made just before it, The Man Who Knew Too Much, through The Lady Vanishes (1938) are the very best of his UK era. The films in this set are not considered his best work, although The 39 Steps is often required viewing in cinema classes because it's considered the film with which he firmly established himself. Until he became a known entity with name recognition among the general public, he was a standard contract director making two or three films each year. He didn't always have the complete directorial freedom he enjoyed later, either. The suspense and thrillers are the best among his earliest work. A couple, such as The Lodger, a crime thriller, show hints and glimmers of the style that would begin to emerge recognizably with The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock's very early films, most notably the silents, are quite different from his later film, especially from his US era. It's not too difficult to fill in the missing ones. This set It includes most of his eight surviving silent feature films (a ninth silent is considered lost). The problem is very poor quality of the source films used and of the transfers (more on this below). It may sound like a lot of films and it is, encompassing most, but not quite all, of Hitchcock's films made before he moved to the US. You get what you pay for with this one and I'm very glad it wasn't any more than I did pay.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |