Hitchcock: The British Years (1925-1939) [2008]

Celebrated for his suspense-packed thrillers, macabre plots and endings with a twist, Alfred Hitchcock, born in London's East End in 1899, is one of cinema's greatest auteurs. He directed over 60 films throughout his career and this unique box set contains ten of his most significant pre-war British films, from his rarely seen 1925 silent The Pleasure Garden through to landmarks such as Sabotage, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes and Jamaica Inn. It was these films that would pave his way to success in Hollywood.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest film makers in the history of cinema, Alfred Hitchcock directed over 60 films in his lifetime, in a career spanning 50 years from the 1920s to the 1970s. The undisputed master of suspense, his films were always massive commercial hits and highly popular with the viewing public. None more so than this collection of films made by Hitchcock for British studios between the 1920s and 1930s, before he departed for Hollywood.

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Patsy Brand is a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden music hall. She meets Jill Cheyne who is down on her luck and gets her a job as a dancer. Jill meets adventurer Hugh Fielding and they get engaged, but when Hugh travels out of the country, she begins to play around.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock - (1966) (40:47)
- Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock (1969) (07:48)
- Image Gallery

A serial killer known as "The Avenger" is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Bunting's daughter is a blonde model and is seeing one of the detectives assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect he may be the avenger.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- 'The Lodger' (archival version) (01:10:39)
- Image Gallery

Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's theft and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Image Gallery

Bob and Jill Lawrence are on a winter sports holiday with their teenage daughter Betty. When their friend Louis Bernard is shot whilst dancing with Jill, he tells Bob of an assassination about to take place in London. Fearing that their plot will be revealed, the assassins kidnap Betty in order to keep the Lawrence's quiet. Bob and Jill return to London and take matters into their own hands.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Aquarius: 'Alfred The Great' - taken from the 1972 arts programme and includes some footage of Hitch making Frenzy (35:33)
- Image Gallery

Richard Hannay is a Canadian visitor to 1930's London. After a disturbance at a music hall, he meets Annabella Smith who is on the run from foreign agents. He takes her back to his apartment, but they are followed and later that night Annabella is murdered. Hannay goes on the run to break the spy ring and thus prove his innocence.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- On Location: 'The 39 Steps' (13:01)
- Image Gallery

British soldier and novelist Edgar Brodie returns home during WWI to find that a government agency has faked a report of his death. They get him to change his name to Richard Ashenden and travel to Switzerland to track down a German agent.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Image Gallery

Mr. Verloc is part of a gang of foreign saboteurs operating out of London. He manages a small cinema with his wife and her teenage brother as a cover, but they know nothing of his secret. Scotland Yard assign an undercover detective to work at the shop next to the cinema in order to observe the gang.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- On Location: 'Sabotage' (11:13)
- Image Gallery

A film actress is murdered by her estranged husband who is jealous of all her young boyfriends. The next day, writer Robert Tisdall (who happens to be one such boyfriend) discovers her body on the beach. He runs to call the police, however, two witnesses think that he is the escaping murderer. Robert is arrested, but owing to a mix up at the courthouse, he escapes and goes on the run with a police constable's daughter Erica, determined to prove his innocence.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Hitchcock: The Early Years (24:37)
- Image Gallery

Travellers on a trans-European train are delayed for a night due to bad weather in an unnamed country. The passengers cram into the small village hotel where socialite Iris Henderson meets an old governess called Miss Froy. Shortly after the journey restarts, Miss Froy disappears.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (01:55)
- Image Gallery

Irish orphan girl Mary is sent to stay with Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss in Cornwall. Joss is the landlord of Jamaica Inn and also the head of a gang of pirates who lure ships to their doom on the rocky coast. Mary soon finds herself in trouble when she discovers the truth.

Special Features:
- Introduction by Charles Barr (Film Historian)
- Image Gallery

Notes:
* Digitally restored versions of The Lodger, Sabotage, Young and Innocent and Jamaica Inn
* The 1966 "Cinema" extra opens with the following captions:
–- In May 1966, Alfred Hitchcock was interviewed for Granada's 'Cinema' programme by presenter Mike Scott. Talking extensively about his pre-war work, the programme was eventually transmitted in October 1966.
–- The transmitted programme no longer exists and what follows is a compilation of the existing 'rushes' material which includes scenes not shown in the transmitted programme. Despite the rough technical quality of the footage it shows a unique insight into one of cinema's greatest auteurs.
* The 1969 "Cinema" extra opens with the caption:
–- Alfred Hitchcock was interviewed once again for Granada's 'Cinema' programme in November 1969. Unfortunately, only Hitchcock's responses remain so it it's (sic) down to the viewer to guess the questions he was asked…
* Alfred the Great - taken from the 1972 arts programme and includes some footage of Hitch making Frenzy.
* On Location featurettes for Sabotage and The 39 Steps, introduced by Robert Powell.
* Hitchcock: The Early Years – a 25 minute documentary covering the director's pre-WWII career.

Focussing on the early years of the famous British director, the list of titles in this collection will be surprisingly unfamiliar to some. Although there are certain films which have rightly entered the modern British psyche, others have been overlooked in favour of the filmmaker’s subsequent Hollywood films.

The menace of The Lodger is the highlight of this collection. Although the ‘big hits’ started primarily with The 39 Steps, the trademarks are evident from early on. Mistaken identity and modern-day thriller conventions of that ilk are obvious, but at the time these titles were released they were clearly a revelation. Imagine having sat through tedious Keystone Kops comedies or soppy melodramas and then having a grimy vision of life presented to you in a world before TV? This was frightening and edgy stuff, not just in its onscreen presentation but even in the very idea of some of the subject matter.

Hitchcock himself went on to remake some of these films with bigger budgets and higher profile casts, and there have been many imitations by other directors since his death, but no definitve list of the director's best work would be complete without a selection of these titles. Not only that, but the films stand up as some of the best examples of second generation British cinema, and a forerunner to American cinema of today.

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