Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection

This is a fantasic set, featuring some of the best transfers I've seen and some great new extras... however, it's becoming clear that MGM needs to recall this set a.s.a.p. In the set I bought, three of the discs refuse to play completely in my standalone DVD player, and the other jitter and jump occasionally.

I run the Alfred Hitchcock Wiki site and I've received dozens of emails and messages from people who've bought the set and are unable to play one or more of the discs. Clearly whoever handled the physical manufacturing of the DVDs has foobar'd big time.

Ideally I'd have given this set 5 stars but, under the cirmcustances, I've got to say "buyer beware" and that you should wait for MGM to recall the set.

I received my collection last night and what a treat!

I love the casing. I think the plastic case is durable and great. The spiral notebook feature could not be nicer.

However, I too had problems getting the discs out without scratching them. And I watched Notorious last night ... well at least I tried to.
About an hour into the film the most unbearable stops, starts, pixels, lack of sound all started destroying the movie!

Right when Dev and Alicia get out of the wine cellar and are in the garden devising a way to get out of the situation, the picture becomes distorted. After a while it returns to normal, only to start up again! Whole scenes are skipped until the final scene.

The disc is defective and Rebecca looks as though it is too : ((.

A replacement should already be on the way (thank you Amazon!), but I warn you to check the discs carefully right away.

Hitchcock and the movies are amazing nonetheless.

***UPDATE***

Even after replacements, still the same problems! Notorious is unplayable from certain scenes in the scene selection option on the menu. I have watched every other DVD in the collection and although there were some slight distortions, nothing as bad as Notorious.

I am so disappointed in this product.

***Update for the Update***
I have finally received a quality product. It took a very long time, and many attempts to get it. I think Amazon has discovered the bad batch and removed them from their stock. Thank goodness too, right in time for the holidays!

The quality of Hitchcock's movies is, I think, no longer in dispute. These are some of his best, and they're worth owning without question. This review will focus completely on the 8-disc set itself, the transfers, and the packaging.

I'll start with the packaging: it sucks. Big time. How manufacturers continue to produce these expensive sets and package the DVDs in cardboard sleeves is BEYOND me. I opened the set, saw the cardboard sleeves, and quickly removed the discs from the sleeves and put them in a slim case for shelving. As careful as I was... and I was VERY careful... I still ended up scratching the discs a little. I popped the discs in to check to see if, slight as the scratches were, they affected playback... and they seem to play fine. Still, I have a set that's 2 hours in my possession, and the discs are scuffed... and that bothers me.

They made an effort at cool packaging which caused this... the discs come in a very cool spiral-bound book that has a few pages on each movie, and then you flip to where the disc sets. I admire the design, I even like the book, but it would have been better served if the movies were OUTSIDE it. In cases, maybe? Anyway.

The transfers seem very, very good. Given a lot of these movies are probably from significantly degraded transfers, I have to applaud the restoration efforts. I've watched The Paradine Case and am now watching Young and Innocent... Paradine was practically spotless, Young and Innocent looks the same. Audio is crisp, noise and film scratches are gone. I'm impressed... this set will make a dandy replacement for the Criterion set featuring Notorious, Spellbound and Rebecca, assuming the same standards hold throughout the set.

All in all, I'd have still bought the set, it's the only way to get a lot of these movies, and the quality is good. I really wish I'd been in the marketing meeting when they decided on the blasted cardboard sleeves, but what can ya do, ya know?