North By Northwest [Blu-ray] [1959] [Region Free]

This review is for the 50th Anniversary Blu Ray. I make no apology for starting on a somewhat negative note...Yes...Subtitles. They are here, but boy did I find them hard to access. First of all no Menu comes up. Straight into the opening titles. So I use my Pop Up Menu on the remote and "languages comes up. So far so good. Click on that and it goes a bit chaotic. Try as I might to click on English subs my cursor (?) wouldn't move. At one point I got German dialogue with English subs. Long story mercifully...You can get subs and they are good. (Meanwhile the titles are still running on - not good enough, but what can I do?) Maybe I am just not very clever!. The BLURAY is superb. Gorgeous colour, crystal clear picture and sound, and those good elusive Subs. Plenty of extras - Commentaries, documentaries, stills and trailers. So Value for money. On a personal note I consider this to be one of Hitchcock's best films, and every 3-4 years I watch it again and it still seems fresh. One of my pleasures is noting how Hitch casts so many excellent character actors in small parts. Among those I recognised...Phillip Ober,Ed Platt, Les Tremayne, Ed Binns,Ken Lynch, Stanley Adams, Malcolm Atterbury, Walter Coy and more, and in a real cameo, our own Patricia Cutts. Part of the fun with this movie is also Grant at his peak, and his rel;ationship with his Mother (Jessie Royce Landis (great, but an odd bit of casting). The action and plot are first rate (Ernest Lehman), and the Vistavision transfer is spot on. Whether you have the DVD or not it is worth investing in this BluRay. Highly recomended

With no less than three brilliant Brits as the director and the main actors, with an intelligent script and a cool delivery, this is a SUPERFILM to watch again and again.Talk about how to find a wife!The story is one of mistaken identity and the film shows how we think we would support each other in public but in the masses of crowds in cities, would we assist a stranger? Even by the 1950s people were suspicious of the stranger, especially a man.I was born in the same town that the baddie lead was born in - Huddersfield, UK. James Mason hated Huddersfield, Cary Grant was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, UK and Alfred Hitchcock was born in London UK.I find the professor's line ' We haven't won the Cold War yet' to be very revealing of all the Left Wing highly active in the U.S. in the 1950s.This was filmed in 1958; the final decade when marriage was seen as as normal as breathing, divorce was unheard of in the UK anyway and the family was a reliable institute which was the bedrock of the growing wealth of the nation. Women of middle class families worked for their own family and this allowed the family to thrive economically.The film shows the cruelty of people and the sacrifice that some people would make to even die for someone.In the extras here we see families and working women as well as working men. Feminism has already grabbed middle class young women in the U.S.A.Now, in 2020 in the UK, we have few children born to married parents, the family has been almost systematically destroyed and few people have a job for life!There is never a perfect time to live but it is interesting to see the families in this film.

I've seen a few Hitchcock films but for some reason I've never seen this film to be honest I only purchased the dvd cause 2 of my favourite actors are this film and it was cheap. I love mistery and suspence films and this was a lot better than expected . I've got a few carry grant films and a few films TV series of Martin Landau good film carry grant as usual was brilliant it's to bad Martin Landau didn't get a bigger part in the movie I loved the sinister way he looked at grant and his suspicious way he looked at everybody and of course those gorgeous bright blue eyes of his. Excellent acting all round from all actors. Great film.

This is a review of the blu-ray edition of this film and while it's ok I have sharper DVDs of almost the same era. Some of the close ups are ok but not really outstanding, while the skin tone of the characters changes every now and again, even with seconds, that looks odd - or maybe not really bothering to do anything with the orginal film negative. The film has the appearance of a fair amount being filmed with projected scenes in the backgound.The sound is clear but since for the most part it's a musical score there isn't any real benefit, at least to my ears of any improved quality, if there is any and for a blu-ray there should be.The film itself has a couple of plot flaws near the end which don't really spoil it unless you are sharper than me to spot them. Still a good film that might make 4 or 5 on DVD but for a blu-ray release I can't give it more than 3.