Cinephiles celebrated the 105th anniversary of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's birth in August. And I mean celebrated: The man's legacy is staggering and the manner in which his reputation is slipping away into oblivion -- at least among young filmmakers and young audiences -- is a crime.

There is hope -- in DVD.

By mining the past, the digital format becomes a living history, an educational treasure that often demonstrates how the best of modern filmmaking, with its sophisticated command of technique and film language, could have never evolved without the pioneers.

The bonus is that many of the early films -- and this is almost always true of Hitchcock -- are as vibrant, interesting and entertaining now as they were in their original release.

So, in September, true believers welcomed the arrival of the riches in a nine-film, 10-disc box set called Alfred Hitchcock: The Signature Collection.

The nine films come from periods during which Hitch was under contract to Warner Bros., but also include several other titles acquired by the studio's library. The stars are a parade of some of Hollywood and London's greatest names.

The films are: Foreign Correspondent (1940) with Joel McCrea; Mrs. & Mrs. Smith (1941) with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery; Suspicion (1941) with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine; Stage Fright (1950) with Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding and Marlene Dietrich; Strangers On A Train (1951) with Farley Granger and Robert Walker; I Confess (1953) with Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter; Dial M For Murder (1954) with Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Commings; The Wrong Man (1956) with Henry Fonda and Vera Miles; and North By Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.

All the films are presented in their original screen ratio, which means fullscreen until he switched to widescreen for The Wrong Man. All are in B&W, except for Dial M For Murder and North By Northwest. Visually, the most dynamic films here were the B&W ones, especially Strangers On A Train and I Confess. Throughout his career, Hitchcock relied on rear screen projection, which viewers might find quaint now. But other aspects of his technique -- unique camera angles and elegant tricks such as the murder in Strangers reflected in a pair of glasses -- were cutting edge and yet superbly served the story and the suspense.

Each film comes with bonus materials, most notably featurettes with interviews from such Hitch fans as his own daughter Pat Hitchcock O'Connell and wry, articulate filmmaker-historian Peter Bogdanovich (who even mimics the master in recounting their conversations together).

Each title is a one-disc release, except for the two-disc Special Edition of the marvellous and still atmospheric thriller Strangers On A Train. This DVD set offers -- along with a bounty of extras that eclipses most of the other releases -- both the theatrical release version and a slightly different and more conservative preview version uncovered in 1991.

So this Warner box set perfectly complements the Universal Studios releases that have already set out Hitchcock's banquet table with titles such as Rear Window, Vertigo, Pyscho, The Birds and so on. The titles in the Warner and the Universal box sets are also available individually. Many of Hitch's early English titles, including some of the silent films, are also available on DVD from other sources.

So, remarkably, the man's life work is almost all accessible, with the notable exception of some films from the 1920s, such as the unfinished first film of 1922, most of which is lost, the fate of many fragile and combustible early films.

So why the fuss? Hitchcock, who was born on Aug. 13, 1899, in the Leydonstone district of London, England, died in Los Angeles on April 29, 1980, having emigrated with his family to America when World War II engulfed Europe. He was both successful and productive to near the end. His last feature, Family Plot, was released in 1976.

In both his English and Hollywood periods, Hitchcock created and perfected the template for the murder mystery/suspense thriller genre. He did it with such a deft touch that lesser filmmakers today still find Hitch's tonal balance and thriller mechanics as elusive as box-office success.

For evidence of his skill, watch psychopath Richard Todd's eyes burning as he stares at Jane Wyman under the stairs in Stage Fright. Or witness Robert Walker's casual viciousness as he pops a boy's balloon and soon after strangles a woman at the fairgrounds in Strangers On A Train. Or watch the killer in priest's garb leave the scene of the crime as a silhouetted menace creeping along cobbled Quebec City streets in I Confess. Or trail Cary Grant, who casts a foreboding shadow, while he carries a glass of milk up to Joan Fontaine, who fears it might be poisoned, in Suspicion.

Watching the old Hitchcock films is instructive in other ways. The support characters are colourful, idiosyncratic and memorable: Alistair Sim as Wyman's accordion-playing, booze-smuggling, quip-slinging father in Stage Fright; or Dietrich as the sexy bitch-goddess who sings The Laziest Girl In Town in the same film.

Another crucial aspect of Hitchcock that the new box set reveals -- or revives -- is the notion of how bloody funny Hitch was. Both in his private life -- the hilariously charming family movies on the Strangers On A Train DVD -- and in his work. Even in his murder mysteries, characters crack jokes and play with sexual innuendo. The end of North By Northwest -- the train hurtles into a tunnel -- is an obvious sexual metaphor and Hitch's films are loaded with them.

But the Master of Suspense also made one flat-out funny film and it's in the new box set waiting to be re-discovered. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, with the peerless comedienne Carole Lombard as a the quintessential daffy (but not dumb) blond, is a screwball comedy of the first order, as brilliant and clever a romantic comedy ever made. Hitchcock never stops surprising us.


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