Product Description

A supreme technician and innovative stylist, Alfred Hitchcock always left his indelible stamp on his productions. From the wit, romance, and fast-paced action of 1935’s British-made The 39 Steps to the bittersweet blend of lush romance and spy- thriller in the 1946 Hollywood production Notorious, Hitchcock continually flaunted a peerless formal mastery as he capitalized on a wide variety of genres. In the 1940 Academy Award™ -winning Rebecca and 1945 psychoanalytic thriller Spellbound, Hitchcock also proved himself a keen surveyor of the human mind, incisively exploring the psychology of fear and sexual repression within the context of films that both entertained audiences of the day and ensured that his career would be one of the most illustrious in the history of cinema.

Starring Robert Donat, Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Claude Rains, and Cary Grant, these five acclaimed films bridge Hitchcock’s early British masterworks with his triumphant American collaborations with producer David O. Selznick, and present the legendary director at his unparalleled best, creating films that are exemplars of suspense and cinematic virtuosity.



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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80142 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 526 minutes

Amazon.com
Wrong Men & Notorious Women is an irresistible set: five early Alfred Hitchcock thrillers--The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Spellbound, and Notorious--in sumptuous Criterion Collection editions that offer pristine transfers, commentary tracks by film scholars, and other bonus features such as screen tests, essays, rare photos, and radio broadcasts.

The 39 Steps (1935) is a prime example of the MacGuffin principle in action. Robert Donat is Richard Hannay, an affable Canadian tourist in London who becomes embroiled in a deadly conspiracy when a mysterious spy winds up murdered in Hannay's rented flat--and both the police and a secret organization wind up hot on his trail. It's classic Hitchcock all the way, a seemingly effortless balance of romance and adventure set against a picturesque landscape populated by eccentrics and social-register smoothies, none of whom is what he or she appears to be.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) begins innocently enough, as a contingent of eccentric tourists spend the night in a picture-postcard village inn nestled in the Swiss Alps before setting off on the train the next morning. Attractive young Iris (Margaret Lockwood) clashes with brash music student Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) when his nocturnal concerts give her no peace. True love is inevitable, but not before they are both plunged into an international conspiracy. Hitchcock effortlessly navigates this vivid thriller from light comedy to high tension and back again, creating one of his most enchanting and entertaining mysteries.

Rebecca (1940) is an ageless, timeless adult movie about a woman who marries a widower but fears she lives in the shadow of her predecessor. This was Hitchcock's first American feature, and it garnered the Best Picture statuette at the 1941 Academy Awards. In today's films, most twists and surprises are ridiculous or just gratuitous, so it's sobering to look back on this film where every revelation not only shocks, but makes organic sense with the story line. Laurence Olivier is dashing and weak, fierce and cowed. Joan Fontaine is strong yet submissive, defiant yet accommodating. Brilliant stuff.

Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in Spellbound (1945), in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali--complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"--i.e., the power of pure visual associations.

Notorious (1946) features a cast to kill for: Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains. Bergman plays the daughter of a disgraced father who is recruited by American agents to infiltrate a post-World War II spy ring in Brazil. Her control agent is Grant, who treats her with disdain while developing a deep romantic bond with her. Her assignment: to marry the suspected head of the ring (Rains) and get the goods on everyone involved. Danger, deceit, betrayal--and, yes, romance--all come together in a nearly perfect blend as the film builds to a terrific (and surprising) climax. Grant and Bergman rarely have been better.

Customer Reviews

About to go out of print...
This collection of Hitchcock films will no longer be available from Criterion as of December 31st 2003 - their rights to the films have expired. In previous such instances the DVDs quickly become collectors' items and trade at horrendous prices. So order now if tempted by these titles.
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Hope this helps a few film fans avoid frustration.

What More Could You Really Ask For??!
I already own each of the five films individually in this box set. I am a huge fan of cinema, and Mr. Hitchcock is probably my favorite director. This collection of his earlier works is excellent! Each film is, simply put, flat out brilliant. The set includes Rebecca (2 disc), The 39 Steps, Notorious, The Lady Vanishes, and Spellbound. The extra features on these movies are also outstanding (especially on the Rebecca 2 disc set). There's no need to go into the plots because they are above on this page. I had to pay top dollar for each of these dvds, but luckily, for some who do not own them yet, they are avalible in this handsome box at a reduced price. So save your pennies if that's what it takes to get this collection. It's worth it! Thanks for reading.

A walk on the dark side
Alfred Hitchcock's directorial brilliance is undeniable, especially in these five taut thrillers. Full of classic great actors like Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck, "Wrong Men & Notorious Women" gives a glimpse not only into how good Hitchcock was, but how wide his cinematic range was.

"The 39 Steps" is the cryptic phrase that Richard Hannay (Robert Donay) gets, along with a map and a lot of people on his trail. A woman has been murdered in his apartment, and now he's on the run from police and spies alike. He ends up handcuffed together with another woman (Madeleine Carroll), on the lam, in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

"The Lady Vanishes" on a train, when elderly Mrs. Froy (Dame May Whitty) mysteriously vanishes. Iris (Margaret Lockwood) and music student Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) must band together to unravel what happened, even though they have a back history of driving each other nuts. They must learn who Mrs. Froy was, why nobody wants to be involved -- and what happened to the military secrets she was hiding.

"Spellbound" opens with the cool, professional Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) as the new head of a psychiatric hospital arrives. She's immediately attracted to Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck), but his increasingly odd behavior leads her to think that he isn't who he says he is. She learns that he's an amnesiac, who is somehow linked to the real Dr. Edwardes. Taking the man under her wing, she leads him on a desperate search for the memory -- and sanity.

"Rebecca" still haunts the vast manor of Manderly. When a timid young woman (Joan Fontaine) suddenly marries the moody, handsome Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), she finds herself in over her head. His late first wife -- beautiful, vibrant and mysterious -- still lingers in the minds of those who knew her, especially the icy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. When she learns the truth about what Rebecca was really like, and how she died, it might tear her away from Maxim forever.

"Notorious" again stars Ingrid Bergman, here as Alicia, a young woman seeking to prove her patriotism after her dad turns out to be a spy. She's sent by agent Devlin (Cary Grant) into the thick of the Nazis, even to the point of marrying Alex (Claude Rains). Problem is, she's fallen for Devlin, but obeys him anyhow. Except that when Alex catches on to her plans, he plans to kill her...

Hitchcock had a rare talent for making romantic and/or spy movies, without making anything in them seem silly. While three of the movies are spy-romance films, where two people fall for one another while embroiled in dangerous international schemes, it also includes two very different stories. One is an exploration of psychoanalysis and the human mind (and a romance), and the other is simply the unravelling of an unsupernatural haunting (and a romance too). These two aren't just different; they also show the range of what Hitchcock could do.

The quality and the kind of writing varies from movie to movie (some are subtle and sophisticated, some are almost slapstick in places), since they came from different parts of his career. The acting is fantastic in almost every movie; at times some supporting characters can be slightly flat, but the leads are perfectly chosen.

These are some of Hitchcock's best movies (although viewers should also check out stuff like "Rear Window"). Dark, funny, romantic, complicated and always suspenseful, these are well worth it. Amazing.