Mill Creek Entertainment's "Alfred Hitchcock: A Legacy of Suspense
While "early" means "public domain" — in other words, expect no "Psycho" — don't think these aren't worth viewing. While not every feature is a winner, most show the legendary director's genius at work. In particular, 1936's "Sabotage" stands strong in suspense today, as does, unfortunately, its relevance, being about terrorist acts of planting bombs in public places.
Also worth a look are 1934's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," which he later remade to greater effect; the class satire of 1932's "Rich and Strange"; 1935's enduring spy romp, "The 39 Steps"; 1938's more contemporary thriller, "The Lady Vanishes"; and 1926's "The Lodger," a mystery in which the title person may be a serial killer. It's one of the silents that isn't noticeably lagging.
Extras include roughly half an hour of trailers of his more well-known and beloved classics, plus a 20-minute documentary that's mostly footage of a kindly senior citizen in a sweater talking to the camera, like a too-long Turner Classic Movies introduction that lacks polish, but it beats nothing. One curious omission that keeps this from being your one-stop shop of Hitch in his cinematic infancy: 1930's "Murder!" Its disappearance is a crime. —Rod Lott
