Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Guide: To Catch a Thief (1955), Part 4

2020s revisions

Lifeless sentence: latest “restoration” badly botched on Blu-ray, streaming and DCP
Posthumous: five decades after the director’s death, film now has unsound audio
It’s been unjustly condemned to two fake stereo remixes replacing the original
Smooth criminal: costly so-called “restoration” is a smeary, grain-free mess
Paramount refuse to admit fault with their clearly collapsed French soufflé
Nonetheless, they soon revised it again but it’s still far from acceptable

Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

To Catch a Thief: Writing on a Classic | Making of a Masterpiece | Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Soundtrack and audio mixes, 3: Home video, 4: 2020s revisions

Japanese poster

And now we come to the darkest and most shameful chapter in To Catch a Thief’s otherwise generally sunny transfer history, with one of the most misbegotten major label releases in years. Paramount’s 2020 wreckstoration – I won’t dignify it by calling it a restoration, which it most assuredly is not – does almost nothing right (the aliasing on Grant’s stripey top is now gone but negated by an untimed day-for-night sequence). It’s literally sub-DVD quality, but purports to be from a 6K scan of the OCN. That’s either a complete lie from Paramount or the underlying scan was summarily ruined en route to the finished product. The latter is certainly possible, as Paramount manages to do that on a regular basis. Just look at their disappointing new transfer of It’s a Wonderful Life (way too dark); and the tealed, grain-free, DNRed disasters they’ve made of Grease and Flashdance. I’m sure there must be plenty more where they came from; let us know of any in the comments.

As if being tealed, DNRed and badly cropped wasn’t enough, this Thief runs in the other direction, being way too pale and sorely lacking in contrast, having all the visual integrity of a dropped trifle. What Paramount should have done was restore the film’s two original audio tracks and its original, highly detailed appearance, and left it at that. The only (possibly) acceptable tweak would have been for them to ‘fix’ the colour of the theatrical print’s night scenes, which Hitch was never truly satisfied with, finding it hard to achieve his intended effect with photochemical processes. From Hitchcock/Truffaut:

“The only interesting footnote I can add is that since I hate royal-blue skies, I tried to get rid of the Technicolor blue for the night scenes. So we shot with a green filter to get the dark slate blue, the real color of night, but it still didn’t come out as I wanted it.”

↑ 2020 transfer | teaser

In the four distinct home video transfers to appear on digital disc and streaming to date, the first, from a preserved print, renders the night scenes in Technicolor blue. The second, mostly taken from an interpositive newly struck from the original negative in 2006, has them with a distinct green tint which, while not perfect, appears very close to Hitch’s intention. However, thirdly and leastly is the utterly screwed wreckstoration which – you guessed it – has the scenes in Technicolor blue again before the green tint was reinstated for the latest revision. You couldn’t make it up. But I think even Hitch, with his famed sense of humour, would struggle to laugh at Paramount’s ineptitude.

The 2006 restoration isn’t perfect by any means but it is very, very good overall and before the 2020 BD arrived, no one had any issues with it. However, some folk still did their damnedest to pull it apart in the face of overwhelming condemnation of the wreckstoration. The reason? Good old confirmation bias wouldn’t let them believe their latest disc wasn’t the greatest. Hell, even any of the DVDs beat it, especially those with the original audio. Whatever the reason for Paramount’s Hitchcock-up, give it a wide swerve. I’m all for supporting the dwindling number of classic titles being released (or re-released) on home video, especially physical, but not when they’re botched this badly. One would think results like this must surely have been supervised by that notoriously assiduous, internationally renowned doyenne of restoration, Cecilia Giménez.

Paramount’s revisionist mindset goes right to the top: Andrea Kalas has been in charge of several of the world’s biggest archives since the mid-’90s, and Paramount’s since 2009. She routinely rubber-stamps gross alterations of classic films and blatantly calls it “restoration”. There are numerous examples and at the same time To Catch a Thief was revised and released, she expressed disappointment at not remixing Roman Holiday’s audio: “…we often do an “upmix” because it’s sort of a modern way people are used to doing that. [Who, exactly?] But we only do it if the materials are actually available to do that. [False: as with To Catch a Thief and many others] We can’t fake it all the time. We have to have a multitrack source material to start with.” It’s mentioned in the press release too, by way of an apology for ‘only’ having the original mix. Unbelievable.

To Catch a Thief (1955, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) US Paramount Presents Blu-ray, 2020

US Blu-ray (UK rear)

And now, with AI being lazily tossed into the mix, other Paramount catalogue projects, such as the I Love Lucy Complete Collection BDs, are having new (Captain Howdy-like) horrors visited upon them. Incidentally, though Paramount have not admitted fault nor issued corrected sets, there’s a replacement for the worst-affected disc. In all, the current regime at Paramount seem pretty contemptuous towards their legacy, clueless about what restoration really entails, and I don’t know on earth they got or keep their jobs. I’d bin off the lot of them and get in respectful fans of film who know their profession and honour their remit.

The wreckstoration first appeared on Blu-ray in April 2020 and though it was met with immediate revulsion on social media and film chat forums like those here, here and here; Paramount didn’t take the opportunity to do a recall or even just quietly correct and reissue the disc itself. Instead, they knowingly, shamefully opted to release it worldwide, unaltered, over the ensuing months, followed in 2024 by a 4K reworking which, again, is far from a restoration and can best charitably be referred to as a revision. Its mostly-improved visuals are reframed to 1.85:1 and still cropped on all sides, as opposed to the preferable 1.78:1 of all previous widescreen releases. So Paramount are listening, despite typically refusing to admit any fault, but this still falls way short of what it ought to be. Remember, it’s based on a 6K scan of a VistaVision negative, so should blow the 2006 restoration out of the water, rather than still being deficient – even disregarding the fake stereo audio. Just compare and contrast Universal and Warner’s impeccable and consistent recent work based on elements of wildly variable quality.

The cherry on this rotten cake is that most of the copious extras on previous editions have been dropped from the Blu-ray, which is usual for the Paramount Presents line (even the trailer remaining in Flashdance’s much-depleted extras is edited). In their stead is a seven-minute “Filmmaker Focus” featurette with film critic Leonard Maltin but it’s simply a puff piece with him recounting some basic facts and blithely extolling the virtues of this clearly collapsed soufflé. In another sign Paramount were stung by the criticism, they reinstated all the more recent missing extras bar the interactive travelogue and HD photo galleries; a first for their Presents line. Here are all the revisions’ releases; note that both formats are region 0 and include five dubs, omitting the Portuguese and Latin Spanish. All discs are identical and the duff, barebones Blu-ray is often packaged alongside the superior, extras-heavy UHD disc.

Prime Video HD | YouTube
US: BD and UHD-BD (steelbook), also in 6-UHD-BD AH: The Iconic Film Collection
Canada: UHD-BD steelbook
UK: BD, UHD-BD and BD/UHD-BD (steelbook)
Italy: BD/UHD-BD (steelbook)

Worldwide screenings

Germany: BD and BD/UHD-BD (steelbook), also in 6-UHD-BD AH: 6 Movie Collection (2024)
France: BD and BD/UHD-BD (steelbook)
Spain: BD/UHD-BD (ltd ed, steelbook)
Scandinavia: UHD-BD (ltd ed)
Japan: BD and BD/UHD-BD
Australia: UHD-BD

All the foregoing underlines the ongoing importance of physical media if you care about classic films – or any film, for that matter. It’s the only way you can be sure exactly which version you’re watching and hearing, and in what quality. When streaming, or watching a DCP in the cinema, you have little to no control over the image, audio or any cuts, whether for censorship reasons or otherwise. Even if you “buy” a streaming copy you don’t actually own it; it’s more of a long-term lease, good for only as long as the service is active or you relocate! In this case, all streaming platforms originally carried To Catch a Thief’s previous HD transfer with the stereo remix and no extras, thus replicating the standard BD; but it was eventually, ahem, “upgraded” with the 2020 then 2024 revisions. Three major “restorations” in 18 years and Paramount still can’t get it right. Now that’s criminal.