DAVID RAYNER

On Saturday afternoon, I tried to watch the BBC2 presentations of Hitchcock's late 1930's classics The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps and was appalled at the BBC's gaul in running two of the worst transfers I have seen and heard in a long time.

They seemed to be tenth generation copies of poor 16mm prints. The pictures were very grainy and floury and the sound had a tinny, rasping quality that was so indistinct in the lower registers that most of the dialogue was almost impossible to hear.

Younger members of this forum, not knowing any different, may wonder why these films were such hits in their time if the technical quality was as low as this and the answer is that the original 35mm prints were, in fact, very clear in both image and sound.

So why do the television companies, who no longer seem to have a quality control department, insist on flaunting this on us poor licence payers? Isn't it about time that copies like this, probably transferred donkey's years ago when video recording of old films was not as technically sophisticated as it is today, were got rid of and a brand new print of the film struck from the original negative and transferred to video or DVD properly?

It can be done. I have the Carlton video of The Thief of Baghdad, a film that was made nearly 65 years ago in 1940 and the sound and picture quality on it are excellent, as is the rendition of its original Technicolor hues. If I was the BBC person responsible for showing those two Hitchcock films on Saturday afternoon, I’d be ashamed of myself for running such awful copies. But then the modern television executives don't seem to have an ounce of showmanship (or pride in how things appear on their screens) between them.

MrT

David, Your comments are spot on. I started to do a dvd recording of The Lady Vanishes but gave up after 10 minutes when it became clear that the quality of what was being transmitted was WORSE than my VHS copies of the film. (The best "take" of The Lady Vanishes I ever got was in 1985 when films were transmitted "live" on ITV before theadvent of video taping etc)
There is no excuse for this. The latest Carlton dvd releases of both films are far superior, especially The Thirty Nine Steps, although minus its British Board of Film Censors intro that was present on Crlton's VHS release. Perhaps the leasing of inferior prints is policy - to make true fans "buy" the commercially released "digitally rematered" copies etc - but as David says this will not endear these films to a younger generation of moviegoers who now expect perfection.

Mike (MrT)

Lord Brett

Have you put any sort of complaint in to the BBC? Viewer complaints are often regarded as a source of amusement by BBC staff, I am led to believe, but it's just about our only voice.

This contrasts greatly to yesterday’s Channel 5 screening of North by Northwest, which was pin sharp and in widescreen, possibly for the first time on UK TV. This really showed up both Hitchcock’s compostions and the incredible sharpness the Vistavision process was capable of.

Steve Crook

Let's see what BBC2 manage to do with The Battle of the River Plate (1956). That's on BBC2 at 18:35 tonight. That one should be in VistaVision as well.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DAVID RAYNER

Yes, the Channel 5 transfer of North by Northwest was excellent and certainly did justice to the original VistaVision print.

I shall again be watching The Battle of The River Plate tonight on BBC2. They've run a good transfer of that VistaVision and Technicolor film a few times now, so if it's the same transfer tonight, it'll be okay. The sunset scene at the end, with all those golden pink scudding clouds looks marvellous, even on a television screen.

Imagine how good this film looked when I went to see it as a ten year old on a big cinema screen in April, 1957 (it was supported by the award winning short film, The Red Balloon. A truly memorable programme from my childhood).

Yes, I have considered writing to the BBC about the poor quality of their Hitchcock transfers on Saturday afternoon, but I think that if I have to write to them to tell them how to do their job, they're not worth writing to, really.

Paul E

I was watching it my brother's place (N by NW that is) and just assumed it was his big swanky telly that made it look better than usual!

The_Late_Peter_Cook

Didn't they make a bit of a cock-up with that showing? For the first ten minutes or so the picture was very small (a square surrounded by black) then just as I was about to switchover it changed to the 'normal' widescreen format.

Very strange.

DAVID RAYNER

Yes, Peter, it was a little postage stamp type picture in the middle of the screen for the first fifteen minutes. They've never shown any film like that before. Oddly enough, it was a full quarter of an hour before someone at the BBC realised it didn't look right and threw a switch that enlarged the picture to fill the screen.

We used to have a saying in my old projectionist days when something went wrong like that when we were watching a film in a cinema: "The chief's gone to the pub and left the lad in charge!"

DaveB

I stopped recording films off BBC2 when they showed appalling prints of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies a while back. At least, I assume it was BBC2's fault - it might be the bit-rate now assigned to the channel by Sky.

Whatever - when it comes to films like "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes", I have no hesitation buying a pre-recorded DVD.

You can't always rely on THEM, however. I bought the DVD of Hitchcock's "The Lodger" - and it was nowhere near as good quality as the bfi VHS I bought some years ago.

JamesM

Which "Lodger" DVD? (region company?)

ollie

BBC2 and C4 have been doing this for a while now(with some films),i figured it's, for when a film has credits at the begining,and because the've been mucking around with aspect ratio's you would'nt see all of the text.

cheers Ollie.

"Bullseye !!"

Wetherby Pond

The problem with DVDs of British Hitchcock films is that most of them are from American companies like Madacy and Laserlight, who are taking advantage of the fact that many of the films are in the public domain over there, through a quirk in US copyright law. As a result, there's little incentive to do a decent job, since anyone with access to a crappy 16mm copy or video master can slap it on a disc and release it at a rock-bottom price - the sole saving grace of many of these DVDs is that they're often astonishingly cheap. Aside from Criterion's The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes - and even the latter is merely adequate - I've been resoundingly unimpressed by what I've sampled.

Unfortunately, it's very hard for British companies to compete effectively, since the films still are under copyright over here and will remain so for some considerable time - so you have to factor in licensing (Granada and Canal own virtually everything) and BBFC charges that US rivals don't have to worry about. As a result, here's not much commercial incentive to release anything other than the most obviously high-profile titles, which I imagine is why very few have emerged.

Has anyone sampled this German DVD box set? The reviews look pretty positive, but my German doesn't extend much beyond the star ratings!

nobbywoods

Checking at www.daveyp.com/hitchcock/index.php which reviews everything Hithcockian the version of The Lady Vanishes in the German box set is better than Criterions. I've seen their version of Sabotage and thought it was excellent.