Alfred Hitchcock Presents-Season Two (1956) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | TV Series | Booklet-8 pages with 14 pics, detailing each episode. | |
Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1956 | ||
Running Time | 1014:56 (Case: 1017) | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL (25:00) Multi Disc Set (5) |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By |
Robert Stevens Paul Henreid Herschel Daugherty Norman Lloyd |
Studio
Distributor |
MCA TV / Universal Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Hune Cronyn Jessica Tandy Barbara Cook Vic Morrow John Williams David Wayne Sir Cedric Hardwicke Mildred Dunnock Claude Rains Ellen Corby Inger Stevens Steve Forrest Robert Culp |
Case | Amaray Variant | ||
RPI | $49.95 | Music | Guonod |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) | |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | Yes | ||
Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes, In context of 1950s drama |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes |
Happy News! Madman have recently made available Alfred Hitchcock Presents : Season Two. Here, as with the excellent Season One released a few months ago, we have all thirty-nine of the half-hour episodes of the second season, spread over five discs. Licensed from Universal, this set matches the previous release both in content and presentation. Here is the supreme example of the golden age of television anthology, presented by a host without peer in the history of television, the enigmatic and complex genius of popular cinema, Alfred Hitchcock himself.
Alfred Hitchcock is a true genius of the cinema. His career began in England in the 1920s and saw him move from British silents into talkies, then came Hollywood and critical acclaim right through the thirties and forties. The early fifties saw growing commercial success with mass appeal, colourful entertainments which included Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and The Trouble with Harry. In July of 1955 he completed filming the fourth of these sunnier films, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and August saw the release of To Catch a Thief. Despite popular acclaim, The Hollywood Reporter's criticism of the Cary Grant and Grace Kelly starrer sent Hitchcock to bed for three days, prostrate with grief and anxiety. His next film, The Wrong Man, was to be a return to the darker themes of Hitchcock's earlier work. One evening while watching a TV drama the director became intrigued by the young, blonde star, Vera Miles. He saw in the lovely actress a replacement for Grace Kelly as his new blonde heroine. At the same time agent Lew Wasserman was urging Hitchcock to expand into television with a suspense anthology series. The CBS network came up with an offer that persuaded Hitchcock to take the plunge. For supervising the project, and directing only when he wished, Hitchcock was to be paid an astonishing $129,000 per episode, with all rights of sale and rebroadcast reverting to the director after the first airing. Vera Miles was signed to a seven year contract, and grooming began for her big screen debut opposite Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man. The second season of the series did not include Miss Miles, but the acting line-up has names of outstanding stars of stage and screen, although sadly today many may not be familiar. Possibly the biggest surprise is the appearance of Barbara Cook in the penultimate episode. Miss Cook was the original star of The Music Man on Broadway, and is today still enthralling audiences with her clear bell-like soprano. This is a rare, if not unique, screen appearance by the legendary star.
The full list of episode titles and their stars includes :
Disc 1 :
Wet Saturday : Directed by Hitch himself, and starring Sir Cedric Hardwicke and John Williams
Fog Closing In : George Grizzard and Phyllis Thaxter
De Mortus : Henry Jones, Cara Williams and Robert Emhart
Kill with Kindness : Hume Cronyn and Carmen Mathews
None Are So Blind : Hurd Hatfield, Mildred Dunnock and K.T. Stevens
Toby : Jessica Tandy and Ellen Corby
Alibi Me : Lee Philips
Conversation Over a Corpse : Ray Collins, Dorothy Stickney and Carmen Mathews
Disc 2 :
Crack of Doom : Robert Horton and Robert Middleton
Jonathan : Georgann Johnson and Corey Allen
The Better Bargain : Henry Silva and Robert Middleton
The Rose Garden : John Williams, Patricia Collenge and Evelyn Varden
Mr Blanchard's Secret : Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with Robert Horton, Meg Mundy and Mary Scott
John Browne's Body : Leora Dana, Russell Collins and Hugh Marlowe
Crackpot : Biff McGuire, Robert Emhardt and Mary Scott
Nightmare in 4-D : Barbara Baxley, Henry Jones and Norman Lloyd
Disc 3 :
My Brother Richard : Royal Dano, Inger Stevens and Harry Townes
The Manacled : Gary Merrill and William Redfield
A Bottle of Wine : Herbert Marshall, Robert Horton and Jarma Lewis
Malice Domestic : Ralph Meeker and Phyllis Thaxter
Number Twenty-Two : Russell Collins and Rip Torn
The End of Indian Summer : Steve Forrest and Gladys Cooper
One for the Road : John Baragrey, Georgann Johnson and Louise Platt
The Cream of the Jest : Claude Rains and James Gregory
Disc 4 :
I Killed the Count : Part 1 : John Williams
I Killed the Count : Part 2 : John Williams and Rosemary Harris
I Killed the Count : Part 3 : John Williams and Rosemary Harris
One More Mile to Go : David Wayne
Vicious Circle : Dick York and Kathleen Maguire
The Three Dreams of Mr. Findlater : John Williams and Barbara Baxley
The Night the World Ended : Russell Collins
The Hand of Mr. Ottermole : Theodore Bikel, Rhys Williams and Torin Thatcher
Disc 5 :
A Man Greatly Beloved : Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Evelyn Rudie and Hugh Marlowe
Martha Mason, Movie Star : Judith Evelyn and Robert Emhardt
The West Warlock Time Capsule : Henry Jones and Mildred Dunnock
Father and Son : Edmund Gwenn
The Indestructible Mr. Weems : Robert Middleton, Joe Mantell and Russell Collins
A Little Sleep : Barbara Cook and Vic Morrow
The Dangerous People : Albert Salmi and Robert H. Harris
This is an outstanding TV series, the likes of which we will probably never see again. Originally telecast in the United States between September 1956 and June 1957, Season two won three Emmy Awards and the Golden Globe, and it is a joy to have this award winning material available in such fine quality. We can only hope that Madman will continue to make further releases in the series available to local fans.
There are no subtitles.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | SONY BLU RAY BDP-S350, using HDMI output |
Display | Samsung LA55A950D1F : 55 inch LCD HD. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS777 |
Speakers | VAF DC-X fronts; VAF DC-6 center; VAF DC-2 rears; LFE-07subwoofer (80W X 2) |