Score : 9.5/10
Year : 1959
Country : USA
Language : English
Duration:2h16
North by northwest. ... in the medias
I've seen North By Northwest over a dozen times thus far. First, about 20 years ago (maybe a bit less), on a 4:3 tv (mid to late 90s), aired on some channel. As I absolutely loved it, I bought the French DVD edition EAN 7321950650163
It's limited to zone 2, and was released in 2001.
The movie is presented in a slightly shortened version, to 2h11 (instead of 2h16. Is it Pal speedup? ), in 16/9, 1.85:1 format, in its original color image.
The French dub which never interest me is in 2.0 whilst the English is 5.1, both in dolby digital.
Subtitle : French, English, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, German and English (hard of hearing)
Bonuses :
Making of (39:27)
Still gallery
Audio commentary by Ernest Lehman
isolated score (Dolby Surround)
TV Trailers
Although a good dvd, it needed to be updated. First, there were collector editions, but the one I wanted was a boxset offering some goodies, and never affordable.. then, I bought the UK 50th anniversary bluray edition, EAN 5051892007023
The movie is in full duration (2:16:26 to be exact), in FULL 1080p HD, with a truly stunning image transfer which gives North by Northwest its youth as if it'd been a brand new, modern movie!
The aspect ratio is 1.78:1 (16/9), slightly different than the DVD (1.85:1) - I'll have to find out what the exact difference is for those ratios.
English sound has been upgraded to Dolby TrueHD in 5.1 ; the dubs are in dolby digital 1.0 for French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese
Subtitles : English (hard of hearing), French, German, Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish
Bonuses - all in standard 480p definition, 2.0 sound and 1.33:1 ratio except when noted otherwise (duration in minutes and seconds) :
1. Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest documentary (39:27)
2. Audio commentary by Ernest Lehman (in 2.0 English and no subtitles)
3. isolated score (5.1 Dolby Surround)
4. Still gallery
New bonuses on BD :
1. North by Northwest: One for the Ages (25:29) - aspect ratio 1.78:1
2. Cary Grant: A Class Apart (87:12)
3. The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style (57:52) - aspect ratio 1.78:1
4. Trailer & A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock
5. TV spot - aspect ratio 1.78:1
The langages and sound options as well as bonus materials are the same for the following editions :
USA EAN 88392948900 & 8839291757563 (both are zone A, untested on B & C).
USA & Canada 50th EAN 883929064953. (this edition seems region free). It's packaged in a Warner Blu-Ray book, comprising character profiles, trivia, stills, vintage art, as shown in the image bellow. All other details are identical.
USA Limited edition steelbook. EAN 0700220326293. (again Zone A confirmed. B&C untested). Same material but different artwork as shown bellow (the back is again different but I cannot display). This edition comes with an Ultraviolet code, but seen it's out of print and chances are you'd only buy it second hand, that code wouldn't be active anymore.
Last USA edition is the Hitchcock Masterpiece & Ultimate collections, which, contrary to the UK equivalent boxed-sets, includes North By Northwest. EAN for the masterpiece are 0025192117305 and 0025192340802 ; whilst Ultimate is 0191329032404.
On the other hand, the Canadian equivalent to this masterpiece collection does include this movie, which makes it even harder to understand why the UK one hadn't. EAN is 025192155390.
UK Blurays
EAN's 5051892007023 (my own copy seen at the start of this entry - the second edition that I presented, just after the French dvd).
5051892128490 as seen here :
Zaavi steelbook 5051892123747 (same art as USA steelbook EAN 0700220326293 seen above)
Canada has an additional EAN 8839291036683
France
5051889131311 (released in 2011) ;
5051889010029 (released in 2009). This is called Édition spéciale Fnac (which is a cultural chain much like Virgin) and is presented in the same book as USA & Canada's 883929064953, but all texts, as far as I can tell, were translated to French.
5051889575696 (released in 2016).
In Germany, the movie is sold under the name Der unsichtbare Dritte.
BD EAN 5051890009616 (released 2009) and seems to have the same exact material, and German sound hasn't even been upgraded for this edition (1.0 like all other editions). Artwork is the same, and everything have been translated to German (texts about the content and I presume that the menus can be displayed in German).
In Spain, the title is Con la Muerte en los Talones. EAN 5051893016338. Same remarks as German edition, adapted for this one.
The last country I'll talk about is Italy where the title is Intrigo Internazionale and the EAN 5051891009332.
Out of all DVD editions that I saw, I had wished to get either USA limited edition collector set (EAN 0663286201242 & which is a zone 1) or UK Deluxe series (EAN 5060051630156, zone 2), presented thusly
Both contain :
* Set of 6 glossy Black & White Film stills
* DVD with special features (the same as the French collector)
* Lobby Cards: 8 original Limited Edition lobby card prints
* Collectible Film Cell - Exclusive Limited Edition image from movie with 35mm film frame.
* Original Theatrical US one sheet cinema poster (40" x 27")
Evidently, there have been also numerous Hitchcock box-sets which included this movie.
I'll direct you to dvdbeaver's page, comparing several editions, with technical details and screencaptions.
There are also CD's of Bernard Hermann's music for this movie, which I'll detail on my music blog.
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