Warner Bros. does a good job with putting collections together. They have had a series of collections for musicals, action films, dramas and more specifically for actors/actresses – The Jerry Lewis 50th Anniversary of The Nutty Professor comes to mind (it included additional movies). Sadly, not everything is perfect in their collections. For example, the 20 Best Thrillers collection was basically a repackaged set of first disc original DVDs. While certainly the point of the collection was to bring you the best movies, and the collection delivers in that department, the laziness involved in delivering that visually in terms of packaging was a bit unforgiveable.
Don’t get me wrong, the movies were great, but the packaging just seemed like an afterthought.
So today, we have Warner Bros. releasing The Grace Kelly Collection and this time they certainly got things right.
The first thing you’ll notice is that the movies packaged within the collection are solid choices. You get such highly touted films as Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, and High Society. Each showing the brilliant range of Grace Kelly’s talent and beauty. Here is a list of what to expect from this collection:
High Society
Dial M for Murder
The Country Girl
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
To Catch a Thief
Mogambo
In my humble opinion, the highlight of the entire collection has to be To Catch a Thief, a Cary Grant led film that has a good mix of humor, suspense and mystery to it. Obviously, the charm that Grant brings to every film thrives in this one, but thanks to the direction of Alfred Hitchcock (and that Hitchcock feel that he can only deliver), it really plays to Grant’s strengths and illuminates Grace Kelly’s acting range.
With all the films you also get a bevy of special features with them. The only exceptions to that statement is Mogambo and The Bridges of Toko-Ri, which only deliver theatrical trailers in that department. The only film with no features is The Country Girl. With the other films, you get lots of making of featurettes and behind the scenes stuff. Again, a good set of movies plus good features to boot, though they are features brought over from previous DVD releases.
In addition to the films with features, you also get a stand-alone disc featuring a rare interview of Grace Kelly as Princess Grace De Monaco, which is fascinating to see. It’s a bit old and rundown, but darn interesting considering shortly after that interview Grace Kelly tragically lost her life. It’s a good addition to the collection, though, and, more importantly, appropriate for the DVD set.
If you’re a Grace Kelly fan then you will adore the movies packed in. While I wish they were Blu-ray instead of DVD, the quality of films are good enough to warrant looking into this, especially since you get a bet more with nearly each film.
Now, for the added value to this set, Warner Bros. did a great job with package delivery of the DVDs. Instead of just pulling the films from previous DVDs and slapping them into one collection, WHV has made a nice stylish package with unique DVD print for each movie. The print is directly related to the outside packaging and the collaboration with Paramount Pictures with some of the films is just the icing on the cake. Also included with the set is a package of cards for each film. You get postcard sized cards that have each original movie poster for all films inside and some scenes on cards. It’s neat to see this stuff, but honestly I would have preferred a high-quality booklet with all these prints and pictures inside one package. I do appreciate the stock quality of the photos and posters, though.