April 2012
Hitchcock Comes to MoC
Now available: our first-ever release of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and it’s a beauty: Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) wartime Hitch, in the form of one 20th Century Fox feature and his two half-hour French-language works made in support of the Resistance — all beautifully restored and presented on the Blu-ray in 1080p HD.
Lifeboat found Hitchcock challenging his dramatic skills with this self-imposed limit: tell the story of the ragtag assemblage of survivors of a Nazi-bombed ocean liner in a single setting — a lifeboat adrift in the middle of the sea. The result is a glorious success, a nail-biting suspenser with an entrancing female lead (fiery force-of-nature Tallulah Bankhead) which, in typical Hitchcock fashion, dazzlingly pulls out all the stops of pure cinema technique. Bon voyage concisely sketches a daring escape from behind enemy lines back to the home-front, shot through with the same wry humour that pervades Aventure malgache [Madagascan Adventure], a gripping tale of hidden identity and pirate radio in the milieu of a French theatre troupe. This pair of short works presages the economy and speed that would later distinguish Hitchcock’s own entries over a decade later in the popular Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.
The release is accompanied by a 20-minute video documentary on the making of Lifeboat; a 12-minute excerpt from the audio record of François Truffaut’s epic 1962 interview with the director that would serve as the basis for Hitchcock/Truffaut; and a packed 36-page booklet including a new essay on Lifeboat by Hitchcock scholar Bill Krohn, and new essays on both of the propaganda shorts by Krohn, and French critics Arthur Mas and Martial Pisani — the first extended critical examinations of those works. The entire package is also available in a gorgeous SteelBook edition…
If that weren’t enough, also available now are our 1080p Dual Format upgrades of four Kenji Mizoguchi masterpieces: Ugetsu monogatari with Oyû-sama, and Sanshô dayû with Gion bayashi. Watch this space for more details about these remarkable, essential films.
New releases :
- Sansho Dayu April 2012
- Ugetsu Monogatari April 2012
- Lifeboat April 2012
- The Gospel According to Matthew March 2012
- Accattone March 2012
