Film Review: North by Northwest (Blu-Ray)

I never had the pleasure of watching North by Northwest in a theatre, but with the 50th anniversary release of the film on Blu-Ray, I am getting close - watching the remastered film on my home theatre setup made me appreciate the film even more than before. This has always been one of my favorite works of Alfred Hitchcock - it's very funny (this is probably one of Cary Grant's best performances), very suspenseful, fast paced, beautifully shot, featuring a great score written by the wonderful Bernard Herrmann and sporting two of the most memorable action scenes in film history (I don't want to spoil it for you in case you haven't seen the film, so let me just say crop duster and Mt. Rushmore). The Blu-Ray release looks fantastic - the colours are vibrant, the picture is as sharp and crisp as can be expected from a film shot in 1959 and the remastering is very successful in avoiding that artificial, overly smooth look you often find with remastered films; in the contrary, the picture shows a good level of fine granularity that you would see in a non-digital projection as well. I wish much more recent films (such as Heat) would have received that kind of treatment before transferred to Blu-Ray!! The soundtrack (presented in TrueHD 5.1) blows you away as Herrmann's score is opening up the film with a horn section only bettered by the soundtrack to Cape Fear (by the same composer). The extras are plentiful and very interesting, including a brilliant Audio Commentary by the screenwriter Ernest Lehman (84 years old when he recorded the commentary), a 90 minute documentary on Cary Grant (many Non-English people may be surprised to learn that the "American Icon" Cary Grant was really born in Bristol, England), a 40 minute Making of, a 60 minute documentary about Hitchcock's style and finally a 25 minute feature with contemporary directors including William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 1&2). One of the best Blu-Rays I own!

10/10   It doesn't get much better than that, highly recommended!