Alfred Hitchcock's - The Manxman

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

UK 1929

The Blu-ray of The Manxman is compared to these DVDs HERE

Hitchcock's final silent film is the story of two friends on the Isle of Man, lawyer Phillip (Keen) and fisherman Pete (Brisson), who both fall in love with the daughter of the local landlord, Kate (Ondra). When Pete asks the girl to marry him, her father will not hear of it until he can support her, so he sets off from the island to earn some money and prove himself, asking his friend to look out for his sweetheart. Inevitable consequences lead to the birth of an illegitimate baby, suicide attempts and final pleas for happiness.

Excerpt from Channel 4 located HERE

Alt Covers

Theatrical Release: December 6th, 1929

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DVD Comparison:

Studio Canal (2-disc) - Region 2 - PAL vs. Lions Gate - Region 1- NTSC

(Studio Canal (2-disc) - Region 2 - PAL LEFT vs. Lions Gate - Region 1- NTSC RIGHT)

DVD Box Cover
	Boxset contains: The Manxman (1929), The Farmer's Wife (1928), Champagne (1928) and The Ring (1927)
Studio Canal (France) have put together three beautiful boxsets of "The Masters" early films. This silent set with The Manxman (1929), The Farmer's Wife (1928), Champagne (1928), and The Ring (1927) listed HERE and a 'talkie' set with Blackmail (1931), The Skin Game (1931), Murder! (1930) Reviewed HERE and another with Rich and Strange, Number 17 and Foreign Correspondent HERE. The transfers are stupendous - certainly outdoing the many DVD production companies who thrive on Public Domain material in NTSC. Extras are all in French with no English subtitles, but thankfully the Feature presentation subtitles (again French only and mandatory with most DVD players) are player generated and can be easily removed with any PC with a DVD burner as all films take up less than 4.75 Gig thereby fitting on a single layered blank DVD (see tutorial HERE)

Contains: Blackmail (1929), The Skin Game (1931) and Murder! (1930)

Contains: Rich and Strange, Number 17 and Foreign Correspondent

Contains: The Manxman (1929), The Farmer's Wife (1928), Champagne (1928), and The Ring (1927)

Lions Gate package (The Ring / The Manxman / Murder! / The Skin Game / Rich and Strange):

Distribution	Studio Canal - Region 2 - PAL	Lions Gate - Region 1- NTSC
Runtime	1:20:06 (4% PAL speedup)	1:23:27
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.49 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	1.33:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.55 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Studio Canal
Bitrate: Lions Gate
Audio	Silent - Music in Dolby Digital 2.0	Silent - Music in Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles	French (non-removable on most systems)	None (but other two discs have English Close Captions)
Features	Release Information: Studio: Studio Canal Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Edition Details: • An introduction (in French - no subtitles) by Noel Simsolo • Picture Gallery (11 stills) DVD Release Date: October 3rd, 2005 Bookstyle Digipak Chapters: 12	Release Information: Studio: Studio Canal Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Edition Details: • none NOTE: Bonus Featurette on Disc 3 of the boxset - 'Pure Cinema: the Birth of the Hitchcock Style' DVD Release Date: February 6th, 2007 Bookstyle Custom (see image above) Chapters: 24

Comments:

The Blu-ray of The Manxman is compared to these DVDs HERE

ADDITION: Lions Gate - Region 1- NTSC - Feb 07': The new Lions Gate release entitled simply The Alfred Hitchcock Box Set contains The Ring / The Manxman / Murder! / The Skin Game and Rich and Strange. It comes on 3 dual-layered discs in the NTSC standard coded for Region 1. The films are divided as follows:

Disc 1: The Ring and The Manxman (no optional subtitles or extras)

Disc 2: Murder! and The Skin Game (No extras but English or Spanish optional subtitles)

Disc 3: Rich and Strange and a Bonus Featurette - Pure Cinema: the Birth of the Hitchcock Style (English or Spanish optional subtitles on Rich and Strange)

The images look far better than anyone has seen for these 5 films in NTSC with the multitude of Public Domain releases available on DVD. But there are some weaknesses. Firstly the transfer is from Studio Canal (their logo appears before the start of each feature) but there are some differences. The NTSC set is encoded slightly differently and may be marginally contrast boosted. It shows more digital artifacts and the PAL is that much smoother. Contrast seems to go in favor of the Lions Gate with possible minute black boosting to counter the brightness enhancement. Unusually the first disc offers no subtitles but the following 2 do (English and Spanish) - that and the generic naming of the set lead me to suspect that it was not produced with as much care as one might hope. Occasional rounded corners are another sign of that. The package is quite nice - fairly simple artwork but relatively flimsy (I can't put the first disc back in its spindle holder?!). The disc reviewed here offers no extras but the set does have a featurette - Pure Cinema: the Birth of the Hitchcock Style - a scant 15 minutes with input from Pat Hitchcock and perennial DVD contributor Peter Bogdanovich. It is my contention that Lions Gate didn't do much here - they purchased (or were given) the Studio Canal's transfer - compressed it a bit - stuck it on three DVDs with some basic packaging, added subs to 2 of the 3 discs and stuck a video supplement in. I'll repeat though it is the best we have seen these film in North America on digital. The big advantage over the French DVDs are the lack of forced French subs (and the time consumed removing them and re-burning).

I'd like to review this whole Lions Gate set in full but at present our recommendation is to purchase from the UK The Early Hitchcock Collection 9-disc (The Ring, Champagne, The Farmer’s Wife, The Manxman, Blackmail, Murder!, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange and Number Seventeen) by Optimum Home Entertainment coming out on February 26th, 2007. The image transfer will be as good and there are more films offered.

***

RE: the Studio Canal: I am very impressed with this transfer.

This image is amazingly sharp and the contrast and grayscale are marvelous - hardly any damage at all and only the occasional flicker as a complaint. There is just a smattering of visible film grain. Audio is excellent as well with the original score re-recorded. Intertitles are original but look very clean. Extras include the Noel Simsolo introduction - but it is only in French dialogue with optional French subtitles.

The French subtitles on the feature are player generated and mandatory on most DVD playback units, but easily removable on all computers with DVD burners (see HERE) - software is free, each film is less than 4.75 Gig (single layered) and the blanks are less than $1. We strongly recommend, but the DVD loses a half point for the mandatory French subtitles and the minor hassle to remove and re-burn them. out of

Gary W. Tooze

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(Studio Canal (2-disc) - Region 2 - PAL LEFT vs. Lions Gate - Region 1- NTSC RIGHT)