Reissues offer best of Hitchcock

Of all the movie directors to gain fame for their craft, none has ever had the staying power of Alfred Hitchcock.

OK, I can hear film buffs of all levels groaning. What about John Ford or Howard Hawks or Frank Capra? Or Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese? Or Francois Truffaut or Ingmar Bergman? Or George Lucas?

I'm not suggesting that Hitchcock is the best or even the most artistic; those are subjective conclusions, and we all have our own opinions and favorites. Or that his films are the most popular; many other directors' works earned more money at the box office.

Hitchcock also never won an Academy Award, if that's your barometer ... although he was nominated five times. (He received a special Oscar in 1968.)

But for the general public, no filmmaker has been such a part of the zeitgeist for both his lengthy period of activity and the generations that have followed.

He directed more than 50 films over five decades, from the mid-'20s to the mid-'70s, and had a prominent British career before coming to Hollywood in 1939 to direct "Rebecca."

Hitchcock's brief cameos in his movies and his hosting duties for his long-running anthology television series made him a celebrity on a level that took him far beyond any other film director. For the TV show, he drew a line caricature of himself in profile that remains recognizable to this day.

And the works of few filmmakers can approach the number of his movies that have been recycled again and again on home video.

So, here come more reissues — three double-disc sets (Universal, 1954-60, $26.98) and "Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection" (MGM, 1927-1946, eight discs, $119.98).

The Universal films are his undisputed classics "Rear Window," "Vertigo" and "Psycho," each with more bells and whistles than earlier editions. But much more interesting is the "Premiere Collection," yet another Hitchcock box set.

True, there are plenty of Hitch boxes out there. But aside from the Universal's "Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection" and Warner's "The Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection," the rest are public-domain collections that contain good-to-lousy prints.

"Masterpiece" has Hitch's later films — including "Rear Window," "Vertigo" and "Psycho." "Signature" is a broader mix —"Strangers on a Train," "North by Northwest," "Dial M for Murder," etc.