Whether you’re an aspiring filmmaker or Hitchcock devotee, the Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection has got to be on your want list. Universal has just announced the ‘The Masterpiece Collection,’ a compilation of 15 films from Hitchcock’s portfolio including 13 never-before-seen in high-definition Blu-ray. The boxed-set also includes over 15 hours of bonus features including a new documentary about Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds (a Blu-ray Exclusive) and a collectible 50-page book. BD Live and Pocket Blu features are also available for Hitchcock’s well known films Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Birds. ‘The Masterpiece Collection’ will release on September 25, 2012 celebrating Universal’s 100th Anniversary this year.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection is the ideal gift for film lovers, Hitchcock fans—or anyone who wants to discover for themselves what makes him the undisputed Master of Suspense.
Synopses and Bonus Features
Saboteur (1942)
This riveting wartime thriller stars Robert Cummings as a factory worker who is falsely accused of sabotage and sets off on a desperate, action-packed cross-country chase to clear his name.
Bonus Features:
- Saboteur: A Closer Look
- Storyboards: The Statue of Liberty Sequence
- Alfred Hitchcock’s Sketches
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
This thriller about a young woman (Teresa Wright) who comes to suspect that the uncle (Joseph Cotton) she idolizes may in fact be a murderer was considered Alfred Hitchcock’s personal favorite.
Bonus Features:
- Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock’s Favorite Film
- Production Drawings by Art Director Robert Boyle
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Rope (1948)
Two friends strangle a classmate and then hold a party for their victim’s family and friends while their former teacher (James Stewart) becomes increasingly suspicious that his students have turned his intellectual theories into brutal reality.
Bonus Features:
- Rope Unleashed
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Rear Window (1954)
James Stewart and Grace Kelly star in this voyeuristic masterpiece about a photographer who becomes obsessed with watching his neighbors and discovers a possible murder.
Bonus Features:
- Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary
- A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
- Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of The Master
- Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
- Hitchcock-Truffaut Interview Excerpts
- Masters of Cinema
- Feature Commentary with John Fawell, author of Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Well-Made Film
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
- Re-Release Trailer Narrated by James Stewart
- Blu-ray exclusives: BD Live, Pocket Blu
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
While no one really minds that Harry is dead, everyone has a different idea about what should be done with his body in this quirky mystery starring Shirley MacLaine and John Forsythe.
Bonus Features:
- The Trouble with Harry Isn’t Over
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
James Stewart and Doris Day star as a vacationing American couple who accidentally become involved in an international assassination plot and must take matters into their own hands after their son is kidnapped.
Bonus Features:
- The Making of The Man Who Knew Too Much
- Production Photographs
- Trailers
Vertigo (1958)
James Stewart and Kim Novak star in this dizzying web of mistaken identity, passion and murder involving an acrophobic detective and the mysterious blonde he rescues from the San Francisco bay.
Bonus Features:
- Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life for Hitchcock’s Masterpiece
- Partners in Crime: Hitchcock’s Collaborators
- Hitchcock / Truffaut Interview Excerpts
- Foreign Censorship Ending
- The Vertigo Archives
- Feature Commentary with Associate Producer Herbert Coleman, Restoration Team Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, and Other Vertigo Participants
- Feature Commentary with Director William Friedkin
- 100 Years of Universal: The Lew Wasserman Era
- Theatrical Trailer
- Restoration Theatrical Trailer
- BD Live, Pocket Blu (Blu-ray Exclusive)
North by Northwest (1959)
Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint star in this edge-of-your-seat thriller about an adman who gets plunged into a realm of spy and counterspy and is abducted, framed for murder, chased and crop-dusted.
Bonus Features:
- Feature Commentary by screenwriter Ernest Lehman
- The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style
- Cary Grant: A Class Apart
- North by Northwest: One for the Ages
- Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
- Music-only audio track
- Stills gallery
- Theatrical trailers and TV spot
Psycho (1960)
Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh star in this shocking classic about an unsuspecting visitor to the Bates Motel who falls prey to one of cinema’s most notorious psychopaths, Norman Bates.
Bonus Features:
- The Making of Psycho
- Psycho Sound
- In The Master’s Shadow: Hitchcock’s Legacy
- Hitchcock-Truffaut Interview Excerpts
- Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho
- The Shower Scene: With and Without Music
- The Shower Scene: Storyboards by Saul Bass
- The Psycho Archives
- Posters and Psycho Ads
- Lobby Cards
- Behind-the-Scenes Photographs
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
- Re-release Trailers
- Feature Commentary with Stephen Rebello (author of Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho )
The Birds (1963)
‘Tippi’ Hedren and Rod Taylor star in this horrific tale of nature gone berserk when thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.
Bonus Features:
- Deleted Scene
- Original Ending
- The Birds: Hitchcock’s Monster Movie – New! (Blu-ray Exclusive)
- All About The Birds
- Storyboards
- Tippi Hedren’s Screen Test
- Hitchcock-Truffaut Interview Excerpts
- The Birds Is Coming (Universal International Newsreel)
- Suspense Story: National Press Club Hears Hitchcock (Universal International Newsreel)
- Production Photographs
- 100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics
- 100 Years of Universal: The Lot
- Theatrical Trailer
- BD Live, Pocket Blu (Blu-ray Exclusive)
Marnie (1964)
‘Tippi’ Hedren stars as Marnie, a compulsive liar and thief, who winds up marrying the very man (Sean Connery) she attempts to rob in this psychological thriller that races to an inescapable conclusion.
Bonus Features:
- The Trouble with Marnie
- The Marnie Archives
- Theatrical Trailer
Torn Curtain (1966)
Paul Newman and Julie Andrews star in this action-packed thriller about a world-famous scientist who goes undercover to get top-secret information and ends up running for his life from enemy agents.
Bonus Features:
- Torn Curtain Rising
- Scenes Scored by Bernard Herrmann
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Topaz (1969)
John Forsythe stars as an American CIA agent who hires a French operative to travel to Cuba and investigate rumors of Russian missiles and a spy codenamed “Topaz”.
Bonus Features:
- Alternate Endings
- Topaz: An Appreciation by Film Historian and Critic Leonard Maltin
- Storyboards: The Mendozas
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Frenzy (1972)
In this morbid blend of horror and wit, the “Necktie Murderer” has the London Police on red alert and an innocent man (Jon Finch) is on a desperate quest to find the real criminal and clear his own name.
Bonus Features:
- The Story of Frenzy
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
Family Plot (1976)
Chaos ensues in this suspense-comedy when a phony psychic and her not-so-bright boyfriend cross paths with a slick diamond merchant and his beautiful girlfriend.
Bonus Features:
- Plotting Family Plot
- Storyboards: The Chase Scene
- Production Photographs
- Theatrical Trailer
