"Director: Alfred Hitchcock"

• To Catch A Thief | DVD | (07/05/2007) from £7.75   |  Saving you £2.24 (28.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A supposedly reformed cat burglar out to prove himself innocent of a recent crime spree tries to capture the thief who's terrifying the French Riviera. Cary Grant is devastatingly elegant as the reformed thief John Robie and charming enough to attract the attention of the lovely Frances Stevens (Grace Kelly) a wealthy and spoiled American traveling the Riviera with her widowed mother (Jessie Royce Landis). However things do not begin on a romantic note. Robie is more interested in clearing his name than in pursuing the beautiful American but the two will not go their separate ways so easily. Classic suspence and romance from director Alfred Hitchcock.

• Vertigo | Blu Ray | (23/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Dreamlike and nightmarishly surreal, Vertigo is Hitchcock's most personal film because it confronts many of the convoluted psychological issues that haunted and fascinated the director. The psychological complexity and the stark truthfulness of their rampant emotions keeps these strangely obsessive characters alive on screen, and Hitchcock understood better than most their barely repressed sexual compulsions, their fascination with death and their almost overwhelming desire for transcendent love. James Stewart finds profound and disturbing new depths in his psyche as Scotty, the tortured acrophobic detective on the trail of a suicidal woman apparently possessed by the ghost of someone long dead. Kim Novak is the classical Hitchcockian blonde whose icy exterior conceals a churning, volcanic emotional core. The agonised romance of Bernard Herrmann's score accompanies the two actors as a third and vitally important character, moving the film along to its culmination in an ecstasy of Wagnerian tragedy. Of course Hitch lavished especial care on every aspect of the production, from designer Edith Head's costumes (he, like Scotty, was most insistent on the grey dress), to the specific colour scheme of each location, to the famous reverse zoom "Vertigo" effect (much imitated, never bettered). The result is Hitch's greatest work and an undisputed landmark of cinema history. On the DVD: This disc presents the superb restored print of this film in a wonderful widescreen (1.85:1) anamorphic transfer, with remastered Dolby digital soundtrack. There's a half-hour documentary made in 1996 about the painstaking two-year restoration process, plus an informative commentary from the restorers Robert Harris and James Katz, who are joined by original producer Herbert Coleman. There are also text features on the production, cast and crew, plus a trailer for the theatrical release of the restoration. This is an undeniably essential requirement for every DVD collection. --Mark Walker

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season One | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £29.49   |  Saving you £5.50 (18.65%)   |  RRP £34.99

  ""Good evening. I'm Alfred Hitchcock and tonight Im presenting the first in a series of stories of suspense and mystery called oddly enough Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I shall not act in these stories but will only make appearances. Something in the nature of an accessory before and after the fact. To give the title to those of you who cant read and to tidy up afterwards for those who don't understand the endings."" Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an anthology seri

• To Catch A Thief | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £7.59   |  Saving you £8.40 (110.67%)   |  RRP £15.99

  From the undisputed master of the suspense-thriller Alfred Hitchcock's (Rear Window The Birds) To Catch A thief is a stylish and witty thriller starring Cary Grant (North by Northwest) and Grace Kelly(Rear Window). The on-screen chemistry between the two protagonists enhances Hitchcock's subtle and ambiguous story of a retired jewel thief forced to uncover the identity of a copycat thief before he is framed for the crimes himself. Grant's charm and sophistication as the retired cat-burglar set opposite the sensuous character of Kelly's socialite ensure that the atmosphere of the film is sexually charged leaving the audience with no doubt that the relationship could unravel at any point...

• Psycho (1960) | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £7.12   |  Saving you £4.87 (68.40%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Hitchcock's most notorious work remains terrifying after all these years, digitally presented, this reissue marks this milestone work's 50th Anniversary.

• Family Plot | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £7.98   |  Saving you £4.00 (66.78%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alfred Hitchcock's final film Family Plot is understated comic fun that mixes suspense with deft humour, thanks to a solid cast. The plot centres on the kidnapping of an heir and a diamond theft by a pair of bad guys led by Karen Black and William Devane. The cops seem befuddled, but that doesn't stop a questionable psychic (Barbara Harris) and her not overly bright boyfriend (Bruce Dern, in a rare good-guy role) from picking up the trail and actually solving the crime. Did she do it with actual psychic powers? That's part of the fun of Harris's enjoyably ditsy performance. --Marshall Fine

• James Stewart - It's A Wonderful Life/Harvey/Rear Window/Mr. Smith Goes To Washington | DVD | (27/09/2010) from £25.63   |  Saving you £4.36 (17.01%)   |  RRP £29.99

  It's A Wonderful Life (Dir. Frank Capra 1946): Starring the unforgettable James Stewart as George Bailey the man who receives the greatest Christmas gift of all. A superb ensemble cast includes Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore this high spirited Christmas tale is Directed by the immortal Frank Capra and ranks as an all-time favourite of fans and critics alike. Harvey (Dir. Henry Koster 1950): James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd a wealthy alcoholic whose sunny disposition and drunken antics are tolerated by most of the citizens of his community. That is until Elwood begins to claim that he has a friend named Harvey who is an invisible six foot rabbit. Elwood's snooty socialite sister Veta determined to marry off her daughter Myrtle to a respectable man begins to plot to keep Elwood's lunacy from interfering. Rear Window (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock 1954): Alfred Hitchcock amply demonstrates why he's been called The Master of Suspense with this both witty and macabre tale of voyeurism and murder starring two of cinema's all-time favourites James Stewart and Grace Kelly. L. B. Jeffries (Stewart) a photographer with a broken leg takes up the fine art of spying on his Greenwich Village neighbours during a summer heat wave. But things really hot up when he suspects one neighbour of murdering his invalid wife and burying the body in a flower garden. Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Dir. Frank Capra 1939): James Stewart Jean Arthur and Claude Rains star in this award-winning 1939 classic about an idealistic small-town politician who heads to Washington and suddenly finds himself single-handedly battling ruthless politicians out to destroy him.

• Wrong Man | DVD | (04/02/2008) from £5.22   |  Saving you £9.03 (228.03%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Classic Hitchcock movie starring Henry Fonda & Vera Miles. Manny Ballestero is an honest hardworking musician at New York's Stork Club. When his wife needs money for dental treatment, Manny goes to the local insurance office to borrow on her policy. Employees at the office mistake him for a hold-up man who robbed them the year before and the police are called. The film tells the true story of what happened to Manny and his family.

• Rope | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £18.57   |  Saving you £-8.58 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  James Stewart stars with Farley Granger and John Dall in this highly charged 1948 Alfred Hitchcock thriller that has intrigued fans because of its chilling subject based on a true story and its unique 'unedited' cinematic style. Granger and Dall are two friends who strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills and then proceed to invite his family and mutual friends for dinner - with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. Their former teacher (Stewart) suspects wrongdoing. Before the night is over he finds out how brutally his students have twisted his own academic theories.

• Place In The Sun, A / Roman Holiday / To Catch A Thief | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £9.44   |  Saving you £10.55 (111.76%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A Place In The Sun (Dir. George Stevens 1951): George Stevens' stunning adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's 'An American Tragedy' garnered six Academy Awards (including Best Director and Best Screenplay) and guaranteed immortality for screen lovers Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. Clift stars as George Eastman a poor young man determined to win a place in respectable society and the heart of a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor). Shelley Winters plays the factory gir

• Shadow Of A Doubt | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £5.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (49.90%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alfred Hitchcock considered this 1943 thriller to be his personal favourite among his own films, and although it's not as popular as some of Hitchcock's later work, it's certainly worthy of the master's admiration. Scripted by playwright Thornton Wilder and inspired by the actual case of a 1920s serial killer known as "The Merry Widow Murderer," Shadow of a Doubt sets a tone of menace and fear by introducing a psychotic killer into the small-town comforts of Santa Rosa, California. That's where young Charlie (Teresa Wright) lives with her parents and two younger siblings, and where murder is little more than a topic of morbid conversation for their mystery-buff neighbour (Hume Cronyn). Charlie was named after her favourite uncle, who has just arrived for an extended visit, and at first Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) gets along famously with his admiring niece. But the film's chilling prologue has already revealed Uncle Charlie's true identity as the notorious Merry Widow Murderer, and the suspense grows almost unbearable when young Charlie's trust gives way to gradual dread and suspicion. Through narrow escapes and a climactic scene aboard a speeding train, this witty thriller strips away the fa ade of small-town tranquillity to reveal evil where it's least expected. And, of course, it's all done in pure Hitchcockian style. --Jeff Shannon

• Foreign Correspondent | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The first of Alfred Hitchcock's World War II features, Foreign Correspondent was completed in 1940, as the European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Its titular hero, Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea), is an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, his nose for a good story (and, of course, some fortuitous timing) promptly leading him to the "crime" of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones (who's been saddled with the dubious nom de plume Hadley Haverstock) walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring, and, not entirely coincidentally, falls in love--a pattern familiar to admirers of Hitchcock's espionage thrillers, of which this is a thoroughly entertaining example. McCrea's hardy Yankee charms are neatly contrasted with the droll English charm of colleague George Sanders; Herbert Marshall provides a plummy variation on the requisite, ambiguous "good-or-is-he-really-bad" guy; Laraine Day affords a lovely heroine; and Robert Benchley (who contributed to the script) pops up, albeit too briefly, for comic relief. As good as the cast is, however, it's Hitchcock's staging of key action sequences that makes Foreign Correspondent a textbook example of the director's visual energy: an assassin's escape through a rain-soaked crowd is registered by rippling umbrellas, a nest of spies is detected by the improbable direction of a windmill's spinning sails and Jones's nocturnal flight across a pitched city rooftop produces its own contextual comment when broken neon tubes convert the Hotel Europe into "Hot Europe". --Sam Sutherland

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Seven (5 disc box set) | DVD | (02/11/2015) from £23.15   |  Saving you £6.84 (29.55%)   |  RRP £29.99

• The Trouble With Harry | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Trouble with Harry is a lark, the mischievous side of Hitchcock given free reign. A busman's holiday for Alfred Hitchcock, this 1955 black comedy concerns a pesky corpse that becomes a problem for a quiet, Vermont neighbourhood. Shirley MacLaine makes her film debut as one of several characters who keep burying the body and finding it unburied again. Hitchcock clearly enjoys conjuring the autumnal look and feel of the story, and he establishes an important, first-time alliance with composer Bernard Herrmann, whose music proved vital to the director's next half-dozen or so films. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Topaz | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £6.48   |  Saving you £3.51 (54.17%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Alfred Hitchcock hadn't made a spy thriller since the 1930s, so his 1969 adaptation of Leon Uris's bestseller Topaz seemed like a curious choice for the director. But Hitchcock makes Uris's story of the West's investigation into the Soviet Union's dealings with Cuba his own. Frederick Stafford plays a French intelligence agent who works with his American counterpart (John Forsythe) to break up a Soviet spy ring. The film is a bit flat dramatically and visually, and there are sequences that seem to occupy Hitchcock's attention more than others. A minor work all around, with at least two alternative endings shot by Hitchcock. --Tom Keogh

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Five (5 disc box set) | DVD | (02/11/2015) from £19.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (50.03%)   |  RRP £29.99

• Hitchcock Vol. 2 | Blu Ray | (23/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The Volume 2 of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest films including The Birds Vertigo Frenzy Topaz Marnie Torn Curtain and Family Plot. Vertigo (1958)A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the activities of an old friend's wife whilst becoming dangerously obsessed with her. Special 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 The Birds (1963)A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a Northern California town that takes a bizarre turn when birds of all kinds begin to attack people in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness. Special 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 Marnie (1964)Mark marries Marnie although she is a thief and possesses serious psychological problems. Mark tries to help her confront and resolve the issues. Special Features: The Trouble with Marnie The Marnie Archives Theatrical Trailer Torn Curtain (1966)An American scientist defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the solution for a formula resin and has to figure out a plan to escape back West. Special Features: Torn Curtain Rising Scenes Scored by Bernard Herrmann Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Topaz (1969)A French intelligence agent becomes embroiled in Cold War politics first uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and then back to France to break up a Russian spy ring. Special Features: Alternate Endings Topaz: An Appreciation by Film Historian and Critic Leonard Maltin Storyboards: The Mendozas Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Frenzy (1972)A serial killer is murdering women in London with a necktie the police have a suspect but he isn't the correct man... Special Features: The Story of Frenzy Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Family Plot (1976) Plotting Family Plot Storyboards: The Chase Scene Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Family Plot (1976)Suspense film about a phony psychic/con artist and her taxi driver/private investigator boyfriend who encounter a pair of serial kidnappers while following a missing heir in California.

• Young and Innocent | DVD | (18/08/2008) from £5.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  When a woman's body is discovered on the beach by one of her former lovers he races off to call the police. But two witnesses see him run and think he is the escaping killer. After being arrested he manages to escape in the confusion at the courthouse. With the assistance of the Police Constable's daughter he tries to prove his innocence while avoiding the police...

• Rope | Blu Ray | (23/09/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  James Stewart stars with Farley Granger and John Dall in a highly-charged thriller inspired by the real-life Leopold-Loeb murder case. Granger and Dall give riveting performances as two friends who strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills then proceed to throw a party for the victim's family and friends - with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. As the killers turn the conversation to committing the 'perfect murder' their former teacher (Stewart) becomes increasingly suspicious. Before the night is over the professor will discover how brutally his students have turned his academic theories into chilling reality in Hitchcock's spellbinding excursion into the macabre. Special Features: Rope Unleashed Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer

• Mr & Mrs Smith | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Before Hollywood had entirely typecast Alfred Hitchcock as the master of suspense, with Mr & Mrs Smith he was allowed to fashion an elegant romantic trifle starring Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard. It probably won't replace Rear Window or Psycho in your affections, but the film is more than a curious footnote to the director's career. The two leads play David and Ann Smith, a devoted but endlessly squabbling couple who discover their three-year marriage isn't legal. When he unexpectedly hesitates to arrange a second wedding, she storms out in a huff and soon begins dating his solid, dependable business partner Jeff (Gene Raymond). The rest follows the formula laid down by such previous screwball comedies as The Awful Truth (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938): David employs fair means or foul to win back Ann's heart, causes all sorts of complicated mischief, then... well, three guesses what happens in the end. The intriguing thing about the movie is how Hitchcock takes Norman Krasna's paper-thin script and adds sly undercurrents of menace. You may note, for instance, that the ostensibly happy Smiths treat each other with subtle sadism right from the start, and that David's tactical pursuit of his ex-wife (spying on her and deliberately offending Jeff's parents) involves them both in humiliations that are really quite sinister and ugly. Violence seems about to erupt in the recurring scenes where Ann shaves her husband (suggestively holding a razor up to his throat)--and make what you will of our hero's symbolic nosebleeds. There's a touch of Vertigo in one scary moment when a jammed amusement park ride leaves two characters dangling helplessly high above the ground--and a touch of shall we say relief for Hitchcock's well-known love of toilet humour in another oddball sequence. Montgomery and Lombard keep the mood acceptably frivolous, while indicating the flawed nature of the marital relationship. From the evidence of this one-off, Hitchcock might have been among the best comedy directors in the business, had he so wished. --Peter Matthews