I’ve just spotted that Elephant Films are releasing a batch of Hitchcock Blu-rays in France during October, including the British Film Institute’s recent restorations of Easy Virtue (Le Passé ne Meurt Pas), Downhill (C’est la Vie) and The Lodger (Les Cheveux d’Or).
The 3 films are also being released in a box set along with The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps.
The releases are listed on Amazon France:
If anyone has further details, please get in touch!
DVD Classik has a review of “Easy Virtue”: http://www.dvdclassik.com/test/blu-ray-le-passe-ne-meurt-pas-elephant-films-combo-blu-ray-dvd
It’s worth bearing in mind this statement from the BFI about the restoration:
Of all of Hitchcock’s surviving silent films, Easy Virtue has proved the most challenging for the BFI’s restoration team. It survives only in a number of more or less identical 16mm projection prints, all in very poor quality and considerably abridged. The original running time of the film at 7390 feet — amounted to approximately 94 minutes depending on running speed. What survives is equivalent to 5434 feet a mere 69 minutes. We don’t know if a major section is missing or if (more likely) there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of little trims. We hoped at the beginning of the project that more or better material would turn up, but this has proved elusive. We will of course continue to search. The international search for this Easy Virtue has brought in prints from the U.S., Australia and the Netherlands as well as the UK. Unfortunately, all the existing copies are 16mm prints that have been much projected, resulting in surface wear and tear. All the copies derive from the same source and contain the same printed-in damage. The biggest problem is the underlying picture quality which, thanks to much duplication, is lacking in resolution. Working from such limited material, the best that we can do is to minimize scratches and damage and remake the intertitles. We have chosen the best source and replaced several shots from a second print where they helped to improve quality. All the main titles and intertitles were reconstructed using the original fonts, as in the other Hitchcock restorations.
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