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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9786304870211
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 6304870213
Label: Madacy Records
Manufacturer: Madacy Records
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Madacy Records
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 20, 1998
Running Time: 92 minutes
Sales Rank: 123799
Studio: Madacy Records
Theatrical Release Date: November 24, 1930
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
This 1930 drama was an early field day for Alfred Hitchcock and his evolving ideas about the blurring of opposites: reality and illusion, guilt and innocence, observing and doing, men and women. A rare whodunit in the director's canon, the story finds a stage actress (Norah Baring) convicted of murdering a female friend. Herbert Marshall stars as a veteran theater actor and, coincidentally, member of the jury who has grave doubts about the verdict and decides to investigate the crime on his own. His efforts lead him through a world with which he is sufficiently familiar--that of backstage intrigues--and toward what some critics have charged is an unfortunate link between villainy and a gay stereotype. But that limited critique completely misses the playful overlapping of faulty perceptions invited by this movie, in which Hitchcock deliberately confuses us at times about whether the action we're seeing is real or occurring on a stage. Even when the distinction is obvious, thematic echoes bounce wildly between the two, such as an early scene in which policemen observing a play don't realize the solution to the real murder is weirdly foretold in what they're watching. The print of the film used in the DVD release is serviceable and probably comparable to an average 16mm classroom or museum presentation. The DVD also includes a Hitchcock filmography, trivia questions, a director biography, and scene access. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - An older Hitchcock - but still great
I got this DVD because I like the English Hitchcock better than the commercialized version that Hollywood saw and marketed.
If you are a fan of Hitchcock, this movie is for you. Good acting and storyline. Most importantly, this movie will show where the inspiration for many classic Hitchock moves comes from. I recopgnized several elements, both technical as well as content-related, that reappeared in later Hitchcock movies. As if Hitchcock, while testing out the sound technology, was also experimenting ... Read More
Rating: - Worth 3 1/2 stars really
There's something about a silent film, a good silent film, that is just captivating to watch; and "watch" is what we do with silent films, after all, isn't it? Too many more modern films, by comparison, are all talk (often inanely so), devoid of much visual appeal. I think this accounts for Hitchcock's success (John Ford's and others too); his having started in the silent era when "Lights, camera, action" had to carry the day without the added benefit (or crutch as it is sometimes) of sound. That's why this ... Read More
Rating:  - A very early Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Format: Black & White
Studio: Timeless Video, Inc
Video Release Date: February 4, 1994
Cast:
Herbert Marshall ... Sir John Menier
Norah Baring ... Diana Baring
Phyllis Konstam ... Doucie Markham (Doucebelle Dear)
Edward Chapman ... Ted Markham
Miles Mander ... Gordon Druce
Esme Percy ... Handel Fane
Donald Calthrop ... Ion Stewart
Esme V. Chaplin ... Prosecuting Counsel
Amy Brandon ... Read More
Rating: - Madacy DVD of MURDER! is uncut 104-minute version
This 1930 British sound film is an early effort by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, to continue to experiment with the use of sound in film. One year before, Hitchcock made the first British sound film, BLACKMAIL, which is famous for the scene where we hear the subjective thoughts of a character via creative sound editing. While BLACKMAIL is still largely a silent film, MURDER! is a more complete attempt to make artistic use of sound to advance storytelling and character depiction. In the opening moments ... Read More
Rating: - Weirdly captivating
Parts of this film have more in common with the works of Resnais than with any of the overwhelming bulk of Hitchcock's other films. At times achieving a bizarrely effected comic realism: stylistically, Murder is his most severely surrealistic work.
It is very weird, peculiarly paced, and at stages either 35 or 70 years ahead of its time. Here Hitchcock is wildly experimental. Amidst heated tete-a-tetes, the camera may rest on the listening face of a silent participant for some minutes on-end. The hosery scene ... Read More
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