Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 5 (Charlie Chan At The Wax Museum/Murder Over New York/Dead Men Tell/Charlie Chan In Rio/Charlie Chan In Panama/Murder Cruise/Castle in the Desert) Review

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(More customer reviews)Sidney Toler's Chan was nothing like Warner Oland's characterization. But if the truth be told, it's Toler who comes through in the pages of Earl Derr Biggers novels, not Oland. I know because as an inveterate Oland fan, I tried very hard to see my hero in the six Chan novels but, alas, it was Toler who showed up in my mind's eyes and ears. As for the Toler films, it took Fox awhile to reposition the series to capture Toler's strengths. If Oland's Chan was like a stately mandarin, Toler's was more of a gritty, Sam Spade-like characterization.
By late 1940, Fox had tailored the scripts to suit Toler's personality and replaced the globe-trotting Oland formula ("At the Race Track," "At the Olympics," "On Broadway") with a compact film noir-like mystery format that was closer stylistically to "The Maltese Falcon" than to "Sherlock Holmes." And it worked too. "Wax Museum" and "Dead Men Tell" are especially adroit little films that benefit from the Fox studio's top technicians, set and costume designers, and superb supporting cast of contract players. Even a pre-Superman George Reeves shows up in "Dead Men Tell." The last of the Fox Chans, "Castle in the Desert" ended the series on a high level of quality. Presumably, the coming of World War II cut off the overseas markets and cut deeply into the potential revenues of these films, thus ending the series.
My favorite Toler is included in the set, CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA. The story is surprisingly timely with spies (today we call them terrorists) plotting to blow up the Panama Canal as the U.S. Naval Fleet is going through it. Charlie is working undercover in this one as a shopkeeper but considering how well known he was supposed to be, wouldn't he stand out like a sore thumb? (Maybe the bad guys are still looking for Warner Oland) The plot takes its time to get going but the climax is as suspenseful as any of the higher-rated Chans. The killer is exceptionally well hidden and the writers exploit our subconscious biases so we keep the individual off our suspect list without even realizing it.
While the earlier Tolers of 1939 only served to emphasize that the "real" Charlie Chan was gone, these last entries show a successful evolution in format and are quite enjoyable if you can just let Toler be Toler, forget (albeit momentarily) about Oland, and ironically see the Chan that Earl Derr Biggers probably had in mind when he wrote his stories. I am sure (this is a pre-release review)that the print quality of these films is excellent if the short-lived Fox Movie Channel airings of a few years back were any indication - they offer stunning b/w photography when the studio system was at its peak.

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Disc 1: Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum Disc 2: Murder Over New York Disc 3: Dead Men Tell Disc 4: Charlie Chan in Rio Disc 5: Charlie Chan in Panama Disc 6: Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise Disc 7: Castle in the Desert Disc 8: Charlie Chan: The Fox Years

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Naked City - Criterion Collection (1948) Review

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(More customer reviews)I can't remember another movie that took as many chances as THE NAKED CITY and successfully pulled it off. It doesn't look quite like any movie I've seen before and doesn't play quite like any other movie.
The story is simply enough - a young model is found murdered and the Homicide Squad is called in to solve the case.
Even before the murder, though, we're introduced to something new. We're given and aerial sweep and pan shot of the skyline of New York City. A voice over narrator emphatically tells us that this movie was NOT photographed in a studio; the stars perform "in the streets, in the apartment houses, in the skyscrapers of New York City itself." And so it is. No matter how well the set is designed, you can usually spot it as quickly as you can CG animation, and this ALL looks like NYC to me.
The casting is out of the ordinary, as well. I mean, Barry Fitzgerald as top-star in a crime story? Come on. Get serious. Yeah, maybe if you want a pleasant little slightly inebriated Irish chap - but a homicide detective? Yeah, right.
But it works. Fitzgerald is just right as Lt. Daniel Muldoon because this movie doesn't rely on Mike Hammer-ish brutality, or a brilliant and intuitive crime solver. I think the film makers here were looking for a cast who could meld into the city rather than rise above it, and Fitzgerald is a surprising and inspired choice.
This is a movie about dusting for fingerprints and putting evidence in plastic bags. It's about wearing out shoes interviewing potential witnesses and striking out 90% of the time. The Fitzgerald character works because he fits into the world better than a major star would have. The film-makers seem to be striving for a documentary feel to things (I trying not to use the term cinema veritie here).
Scenes are bracketed by location street scenes - hordes of people entering a subway station, a horse-drawn milk cart and milkman on a quiet city street, two young women admiring a gown in an upscale store window.
There's a price to be paid for relying exclusively on location shots. There are a few scenes that sound like the voice recording were done in an echo chamber. And the film has a flat look to it (not all that bad for a noir-ish crime drama.) The reason we can tell studio shots so quickly is because they look good - the photographer has control over lighting and light sourcing.
If there are detective movies and gangster movies and any number of other sub-genres in the Crime category, I guess you'd call this a police procedural movie. There are a couple of punches thrown and a few guns fired, but for the most part attention lingers on characters and procedures. This is one of the first movies, to my knowledge, that seems to recognize that crimes are more likely solved in the lab than in the brain of an inspired crime fighter.
I unhesitatingly recommend this to everybody. For crime and noir buffs, this is a must see.

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"There are eight million stories in the Naked City," as the narrator immortally states at the close of this breathtakingly vivid film-and this is one of them. Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin and newspaperman-cum-producer Mark Hellinger’s dazzling police procedural was shot entirely on location in New York City, as influenced by Italian neorealism as American crime fiction. A double Academy Award–winner, The Naked City remains a benchmark for naturalism in noir, living and breathing in the promises and perils of the Big Apple, from its lowest depths to its highest skyscrapers.

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The Spiral Staircase (1945) Review

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(More customer reviews)Robert Siodmak's "The Spiral Staircase" is one of my all-time favorite thrillers. It was adapted from the book "Some Must Watch" by the prolific Ethel Lina White. 2 of White's books had been made into films by Alfred Hitchcock. "The Wheel Spins" became "The Lady Vanishes", and "Before the Fact" became "Suspicion". "The Spiral Staircase" deals with a pretty creepy premise: An unknown killer has been murdering women with "afflictions". (One victim was disfigured, another feeble-minded, another lame). Helen, a young mute servant girl working in a gloomy old mansion, is the killer's next intended victim. The killer is in the house with her, but who is it? Siodmak, a master of film noir, holds your attention for approximately 85 minutes, and never lets go. All of the classic elements are here: Old gloomy house, thunderstorm, chiaroscuro lighting, eerie musical score, colorful performances. The sets, by the way, are leftovers from Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons", the music score by Roy Webb, who had composed other goose-pimplers such as "The Cat People", "I Walked With a Zombie", "The Body Snatcher" and Hitchcock's "Notorious". Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman on the Theremin is featured on this score, providing added goosebumps. And the cast! Pretty Dorothy McGuire is excellent as the endangered Helen, in a house peopled by the likes of the very grand Ethel Barrymore, the wooden George Brent, marvelous character actors Elsa Lanchester, Rhys Williams and Sara Allgood, handsome Kent Smith and Gordon Oliver, and lovely Rhonda Fleming. Ellen Corby is in the film too, in a bit part-watch for her! Robert Siodmak was an excellent "B" movie director, having made masterpieces on relatively small budgets. His other films include "The Killers", "Phantom Lady", "Son of Dracula", the camp classic "Cobra Woman", "Criss Cross", and the Burt Lancaster romp "The Crimson Pirate". So, in this age of over-inflated budgets, it's a wonder and honor to see these well-made films from an era of almost non-existent special effects, modest budgets, and great actors. The picture and sound quality on this DVD are excellent-very clean and crisp, so you can really appreciate the gloomy Victorian sets and eerie musical score. There are practically no extras on the disc-just the theatrical trailer, but who's complaining? So, lock your doors and windows, because you never know who's watching you, and maybe even look under the bed, just to be on the safe side, and watch "The Spiral Staircase"-you will be thoroughly, enjoyably chilled!

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A murderer is targeting disabled young women in a sleepy New England town, and Helen (Dorothy McGuire), a mute servant in a Gothic mansion, is terrified she's next! Mrs. Warren (legendary actress Ethel Barrymore in an Oscar®-nominated* performance [Best Supporting Actress, 1946]), the invalid, bullying mistress of the house, warns Helen to leave at once, rather than rely on her weak son and stepson for protection. But even as Helen is packing her things, she suspects she may be too late and the murderer is closer than she ever imagined!

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Repo Man (Collector's Edition) (1984) Review

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(More customer reviews)Repo Man is completely unclassifiable. Funny, dark, biting, thrilling, confusing, action, adventure, it's all there. Emilio Estevez plays Otto, a "white suburban punk" living in LA's sprawl, with a nowhere job that he loses in the film's second scene. When his hippie parents admit they sent his college fund to a TV preacher (We're sending Bibles to El Salvador!), Otto meets Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a cocaine-driven Repo Man who needs an extra driver. Otto joins the firm and soon learns the Repo Code; Bud's version (You see, a Repo Man gets himself INTO tense situations), and the other regulars at Helping Hand Auto share their philosophies too. Light finds Bud's view tedious but is willing to handle shoot-outs when he's not reading parodies of Scientology (Diuretix), Miller seems completely neuron-fried (The more you drive, the less intelligent you are), and Oly is along to make a four-pack. (Did you notice the four experienced Repo Men are named after beers?) Let's go get a drink, kid!
Multiple plot strands at first seem unrelated, but bind together closer and tighter as the film moves along. Otto and the other Repo Men are on the lookout for a 1964 Chevy Malibu, with a $25,000 bounty. So are some creepy FBI agents, who stalk and kidnap Otto. And so are Helping Hand's arch-rivals, who careen into the plot whenever things are getting dull. The car's driven by a nuclear physicist in from Los Alamos, who warned a CHP officer not to look in the trunk (with deadly results). Otto's punk friends find the car while breaking into a pharmaceutical factory, but they're too stupid to keep it. (These three are some of the dumbest criminals ever shown in film, including Kevin Kline's Otto in _A Fish Called Wanda_) Otto finds love, after a fashion, but since this is Reaganesque LA, even his girlfriend has her own motives. ("Otto! What about our relationship?" Otto's reply is a brilliant retort to Cary Grant's last line in Gone with the Wind.)
The film abounds with hilarious throw-away lines, signs, and labels. Several scenes take place in food stores, and all the food is generically labeled. Multiple viewings are required to catch them all; be sure to read all the signs in the windows. Even the TV preacher shows up on several television sets. Repo Man takes its structure from Miller's bizarre rant about the cosmic latticework of interconnectedness, because everything is interconnected, and Miller turns out to be right about all of it by the end. "And flying saucers are... You got it. Time Machines."
Top it off with a TERRIFIC sound track by Iggy Pop, Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, and a host of others from the punk scene and this is one of the best movies ever made.

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Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series) (1944) Review

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(More customer reviews)Double Indemnity is obviously a classic film but this DVD transfer is appalling. Almost every scene is incredibly grainy, the source print is obviously not in very good conditon (perhaps needing to be refurbished), and to top it off, there are no deluxe features and the extra packaging is rather inadequate(with no information booklet or history of the movie).
This would be frustrating for any film but is downright shameful treatment of a cinema classic. We can only hope someone will spend the time and money necessary to restore the print for a new theater run, as has been done with other older films. Perhaps then, DVD buyers will get the version of this classic they deserve.

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Alfred Hitchcock - The Masterpiece Collection Review

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(More customer reviews)There are both pros and cons to this remastered/rereleased Hitchcock boxed set. The pros are that all have been remastered (all of them were anamorphic despite what other reviews have stated except for the first edition of "Vertigo" on DVD--read the boxes of the original releases or better yet watch them)and the remastering job has resulted in colors being bolder in many cases (Do a comparison as I did)with images being crisper and with slightly better resolution. There is an exception to this--"The Man Who Knew Too Much" actually looks worse than the previous release. While colors are good the image clarity and detail are off. I'm not exactly sure what happened here but it must have been during the Telecine transfer process from film to video (and then DVD). This is based on a head-to-head comparison with the other edition of the film and isn't based on a bad DVD. Instead, it's related to the transfer not being quite as good for this new updated version. So if "Man" is one of your favorites I'd advise you to keep the previous DVD. Also, there's no paper inserts with chapter stops listed as on previous editions. Also, a couple of films didn't have a huge difference but they were still noticeable for the most part.
The DVDs are housed four to a DVD "book" with two on each side one on top of the other. I know what you're thinking--they'll get scratched--but I didn't notice any potential for that. Still, you'll need to be careful taking them out and putting them in and these holders are not as secure as the individual keep cases. Each cover is decorated with images from the original posters for each movie overlapping each other.
Extras are exactly the same as the original releases for each disc. "The Making of Psycho" and "All About 'The Birds'" which were on the original discs themselves have been relocated to the bonus discs. There's also three new bonuses included. The first is a 15 minute excerpt from the AFI tribute focusing primarily on Hitch's droll comments when he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award. I've long wanted to have this on DVD but do wish that Universal had licensed the entire AFI tribute as it was a charming and worthwhile evening. The second extra is a 30 minute interview featuring Pia Lindstrom and William K. Everson and is a vintage videotape interview with Hitchcock from the 70's. It's quite a revealing interview with Hitchcock charming the hosts as usual. He discusses quite frankly his likes (pre-production) and dislikes (method actors like Montgomery Clift). The third bonus is a 36 page booklet that, like the booklet that came with "Jaws", is hardly essential. It does include credits for each movie, some photos and brief comments about each film. It'll be something you might look at once or twice.
The box itself has a crushed velvet exterior and is quite attractive. The cover has a door that slides into the box to access the movies. So the pros are better transfers for most of the films. If you don't have all of Hitch's movies on DVD yet, this is a great deal. The new extras aren't worth the price of admission if you don't already have all of these and while they look better, the difference may not be all that striking to you. With the release of Hitch's TV show and other new stuff coming out, it's a matter of spending where one can.
I gave this set 4 stars for two reasons; 1) There are a number of so-so Hitchcock films in this set ("Torn Curtain", "Topaz", "Marnie" which is one that, despite Robin Wood's absurd arguments to the contrary, I find to be substandard Hitchcock and the enjoyable but light "Family Plot"). 2)"The Man Who Knew Too Much" should look BETTER than the previous edition but, in fact, looks a bit worse for the wear with less clarity and definition. 3)While we do some some new extras they are slim pickings. I would have loved to get more commentary tracks on these classic films from Hilton Green (Assistant Director on "Psycho" and a number of Hitch's TV episodes), Bruce Dern or Karen Black (on "Family Plot") and others on the important films.
Some of Hitch's finest films are here "Vertigo", "Rear Window", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "The Trouble With Harry" (an acquired taste), "Psycho", "Shadow of a Doubt", "Sabotage", "Frenzy", etc but also some of his weaker thrillers as well. It's a good concise and inexpensive way to get them all.

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14 of the finest works from the universally acclaimed Master of Suspense come together for the first time in one collection. These captivating landmark films boast three decades of Hollywood legends, including James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery and Doris Day. The premium packaging and collectible book make Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection the must-own, definitive anthology of gripping works by a true genius.

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Dirty Harry Collection (Dirty Harry / Magnum Force / The Enforcer / Sudden Impact / The Dead Pool) Review

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(More customer reviews)Since the plot of these five movies has been discussed over and over again by other reviewers, I thought it best to comment on the transfers of this Blu-Ray collection.
Let me start off by stating that these classic movies have never looked better. Each movie after Dirty Harry just keeps getting better and better in terms of sharpness, contrast, and color. Dirty Harry showed the most grain out of the five movies but it was minimal and only in certain scenes. Also, it's to be expected considering its age. It isn't until you watch Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool where the 1080P resolution really starts to show its magic.
Anyway, if you're Dirty Harry fan, go out and buy this set. And when you do sit down to watch these classic detective movies, watch them all during a rainy weekend. Bad weather really brings out the grittiness that is Harry Calahan.
By the way, the only reason I didn't give this amazing collection five stars is because of the way the discs were packaged. They are staggered in a way that makes it a bit difficult to remove, but not impossible. I may be picky here so you'll have to judge the packaging on your own.

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DIRTY HARRY Streetwise San Francisco police detective Harry Callahan will nail the serial killer Scorpio... one way or the other... no matter what "the system" prescribes. Don Siegel directs one of the best police thrillers ever made. MAGNUM FORCE Sharpshooting rookie motorcycle cops have turned vigilante, eliminating crooks the courts can't touch – thereby venturing into Harry's cross-hairs. Written by future directors John Milius and Michael Cimino. THE ENFORCER When terrorists rob an arms warehouse and go on a bloody extortion spree, city leaders seek out Callahan, who's now teamed with a lady partner (Tyne Daly) with two jobs: tracking down the terrorists – and winning Harry's confidence. SUDDEN IMPACT On an out-of-town assignment, Harry tracks a traumatized rape victim (Sondra Locke) coldly gunning down her bygone attackers. Fueled by the line that became a national catchphrase: "Go ahead. Make my day." THE DEAD POOL Fame isn't Callahan's style. He'd rather not be lumped in with a rocker, a film critic and a talk-show host. They're slain celebrities named in a mysterious betting pool. And Harry just joined the list.

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Murder Rooms - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes (2000) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Murder Rooms" consists of five episodes, starring Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, the historical personage on whom Arthur Conan Doyle allegedly based Sherlock Holmes; with Dr. Watson based on Doyle himself. The 116-minute first episode ("Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle, The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes") was a BBC series pilot released in January 2000. In "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle...," Robin Laing starred as the young Doyle in medical school. This pilot has been available in NTSC for two years (see Amazon's listing) and IS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE. In the remaining four 90-minute episodes comprising this set (on BBC in September-October 2001), episode chronology begins three years later, Charles Edwards assuming Laing's role as the young, idealistic but adult Doyle with his own medical practice. Information on source books, author David Pirie, screen credits, histories, plot synopses and cast are available at murder-rooms.com
FOR BEST APPRECIATION, ONE MUST TREAT THIS SERIES AS AN INTEGRATED FIVE-PART, EIGHT-HOUR MINISERIES, beginning with the pilot "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle..." setting the backdrop against which the other four, described IN ORDER below, play out. Missing "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle...," this reviewer STRONGLY RECOMMENDS you purchase this set now and set it aside until that pilot can be seen. In "The Patient's Eyes," a black-shrouded cyclist repeatedly stalks a lady patient cycling to Dr. Doyle eye appointments through eerie wooded terrain, leading to a mysterious abandoned house, love-interest conflicts, betrayal, and murder. (There are striking scene similarities to "The Solitary Cyclist.") In "The Photographer's Chair," a series of murder victim corpses bearing strange marks lead to mesmerism, spiritualism, séances, apparitions, erotic mutilation, daguerreotype photography, and genuinely chilling moments. In "The Kingdom of Bones," the publicized spectacle of unwrapping an apparent Egyptian mummy for scientific study yields highly unexpected results leading to suicide, dinosaur bones, gypsies, kidnapping, attempted murder, multiple murders, and political terrorism. And in "The White Knight Stratagem," Doyle and Bell come to a near falling-out involving a Dickensian business climate leading to suicide and murder; with a curious chess enigma hovering over everything. This last episode concludes the miniseries and should be viewed last.
These adaptations get this reviewer's highest commendation, being at least the equal (or better?) of the David Suchet / Jeremy Brett adaptations in their prime.The general tone is exceedingly dark, uncompromising, and far more menacing than the light-hearted Poirot-Holmes adaptations. (The atmospherics remind this reviewer of that excellent film "From Hell.") Excepting as discussed below, nothing in these episodes is short of first-class: plots, incredible principal and supporting cast, direction, cinematography depicting 1880s Victorian Edinburgh, hauntingly mysterious musical score, period mood, and the appallingly brutal times with modern medicine in infancy. Sound is fine; extraneous background noise is nil; diction is clear with no accent barriers.
So superior is MPI's production that current PAL DVD owners may want to buy the NTSC release anyway! The widescreen 16x9 anamorphic picture is excellent, with night scenes sharp yet still mysterious. This reviewer doesn't know how the original episodes were recorded, but suspects that the widescreen image seen here was likely achieved by slicing off top and/or bottom portions of an original 4x3 TV image: some close-up shots have head-tops suspiciously out of range, a typical symptom. But such trimming is a small price for what one sees on an HDTV system as contrasted to the original PAL release. Unlike that release, MPI also provides both running time display and chapter breaks; and the periodic PAL scene blackout interruptions (presumably omitting advertisements) are gone, greatly enhancing the narrative flow. There are two DVDs contained in one keep-case with an inner leaf. Each DVD has two episodes on the same side with full menu accessibility.

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Item Name: Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes; Studio:Bfs Entertainment

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Classic British Thrillers (The Phantom Light / Red Ensign / The Upturned Glass) Review

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(More customer reviews)The two Michael Powell directed pictures in CLASSIC BRITISH THRILLERS give good indication of the great work he'd produce later, although they are somewhat hampered by small budgets. The James and Pamela Mason murder mystery is quite engaging.
SYNOPSES--
THE PHANTOM LIGHT-- The lighthouse keeper at a quaint Welsh coast village dies mysteriously, and his lighthouse is now supposedly haunted-- an unexplained light keeps shining on the scene of his death. The story's atmosphere is literal, with lots of blanketing fog, plus a murder mystery that's equally shrouded and obscured. Primarily filmed within a lighthouse, this whodunit has more than its share of ethnic humor.
RED ENSIGN-- Leslie Banks plays a somewhat pushy manager of a shipyard whose revolutionary boat design encounters much opposition and skullduggery from the competition and his own financers.
THE UPTURNED GLASS-- A story told in flashback. Neurosurgeon's affair with a married woman ends with her defenestrated death. Suspecting the woman's sister is involved, the surgeon plots revenge on her. Easily the best of this small collection. Co-written by Pamela Mason.CLASSIC FILM NOIR, Vol. 3 - 10 Movie Pack (from ST. CLAIR) contains one very fine British-made suspense movie, plus many other unusual stories.Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.
(5.3) The Phantom Light (UK-1935) - Binnie Hale/Gordon Harker/Ian Hunter/Donald Calthrop/Milton Rosmer
(5.8) Red Ensign (UK-1934) - Leslie Banks/Carol Goodner/Frank Vosper/Alfred Drayton/Donald Calthrop
(6.5) The Upturned Glass (UK-1947) - James Mason/Rosamund John/Pamela Mason/Ann Stephens/Morland Gray

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he British Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 was passed to give motion pictures made in the United Kingdom an edge over Hollywood imports. However technically crude, these low budget quota quickies provided on-the-job training for some of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of British Cinema. THE PHANTOM LIGHT (1935)The disappearance of two lighthouse keepers stationed on the desolate coast of Wales is linked to the specter of a rogue beacon that lures freight ships to their destruction on the rocks. Gordon Harker (Alfred Hitchcock s THE RING) and Binnie Hale (LOVE FROM A STRANGER) star as bickering sleuths who must solve the mystery of The Phantom Light or become its next victims! RED ENSIGN (1935)With England s commercial fleet in decline, idealistic shipbuilder David Barr (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME s Leslie Banks) conceives a radical new design to revolutionize the industry. Denied capital to proceed by his firm s board of directors, Barr funds the project himself, attracting the support of a beautiful heiress and the attention of a ruthless rival who will stop at nothing, even murder, to obtain Barr s top secret design. THE UPTURNED GLASS (1947)After sparing the eyesight of a young patient, Dr. Michael Joyce falls in love with the girl s grateful mother, Emma Wright (Rosamund John), whose husband has been absent for years. When her man returns unexpectedly, Emma reluctantly ends the affair, only to be killed in a mysterious fall. Using his surgical skills to trace the killer, Michael begins his own investigation but has no intention of handing the murderer over to the police.

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Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Two (1955) Review

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(More customer reviews)Well, the long awaited DVD set of AHP is here at last. There are 39 episodes in this second season set. The 39 are as follows:
Disc 1
1: WET SATURDAY
2: FOG CLOSING IN
3: DE MORTUIS (ABOUT THE DEAD)
4: KILL WITH KINDNESS
5: NONE SO BLIND
6: TOBY
7: ALIBI ME
8: CONVERSATION OVER A CORPSE
DISC 2
9: CRACK OF DOOM
10: JONATHAN
11: THE BETTER BARGAN
12: THE ROSE GARDEN
13: MR. BLANCHARD'S SECRET
14: JOHN BROWN'S BODY
15: CRACKPOT
16: NIGHTMARE IN 4-D
DISC 3
17: MY BROTHER RICHARD
18: THE MANACLED
19: A BOTTLE OF WINE
20: MALICE DOMESTIC
21: NUMBER TWENTY-TWO
22: THE END OF INDIAN SUMMER
23: ONE FOR THE ROAD
24: THE CREAM OF JEST
DISC 4
25: I KILLED THE COUNT (1)
26: I KILLED THE COUNT (2)
27: I KILLED THE COUNT (3)
28: ONE MORE MILE TO GO
29: VICIOUS CIRCLE
30: THE THREE DREAMS OF MR. FINDLATER
31: THE NIGHT THE WORLD ENDED
32: THE HANDS OF MR. OTTERMOLE
DISC 5
33: A MAN GREATLY BELOVED
34: MARTHA MASON, MOVIE STAR
35: THE WEST WARLOCK TIME CAPSULE
36: FATHER AND SON
37: THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MR. WEEMS
38: A LITTLE SLEEP
39: THE DANGERIOUS PEOPLE
I know everyone will enjoy these episodes as much as I did. I've spent the last 24 hours watching all 39 episodes & let me tell you there Great!! The picture quality is great, the sound is great. No problems here!! There are many well known stars in this set that were just starting out when AHP aired on tv. A lot of the episodes seen in this set, were never seen on Nick at Night. I used to watch them when they were on & I would have remembered them. I know everyone will be very pleased with this set. Universal finally did the right thing by putting them on 5 single sided DVD'S. I wish I could give this set more than 5 stars. This set is well worth the money that you will pay for it. THANK YOU UNIVERSAL FOR FINALLY DOING IT RIGHT!!!!!

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With dramatic flourish, Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcockused these simple words to introduce all of his 39 timeless episodes ofhorror, mystery and intrigue in Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Two, nowavailable in a 5-disc collection. Not only loved by millions of TV viewersaround the world, this legendary season also received three Emmy awards aswell as a Golden Globe for Television Achievement. Loaded with twists,turns, and things that go "bump" in the night, these classic half-hourtales of menace and mayhem feature such iconic stars as Jessica Tandy, HumeCronyn, Rip Torn, Vic Morrow, and many more. It's time to tune in once moreto the master storyteller as he delights viewers with some of the mostdeliciously wicked and chilling television ever aired!

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