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Video: How Does The Disc Look?
By the time North by Northwest hits its famous cropdusting sequence, it becomes official: This transfer is solid (and, for the record, it appears to be the same transfer afforded the movie's BD debut). Presented in 1.85:1 1080p, this Technicolor marvel sports a high-def presence that is completely free of compression artifacting and edge enhancement, and is punchy, vibrant and beautiful. Black levels are robust and strong - they never resort to crush - and color accuracy, both in terms of flesh tones and wondrous, full saturated hues, is stunning. What is truly impressive here, though, is how clean North by Northwest looks on Blu-ray - Warner has cleaned up the film's print so pristinely that there's nary an example of dirt or grime to mention. Finely detailed textures also come across with excellent precision and definition. Hitchcock fans - you'll be happy here.
Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
The film's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sound mix is a different story, however (it also is a port-over from the movie's last BD edition). It's nice to hear the film's stellar musical score through surround channels, to be sure, but I found the lossless mix a little heavy on low-ends - when the cropduster crashes into a bus during the film's midpoint sequence, its boominess was waaay too heavy in the mix. Dialogue sounds great, to be sure, and Hitch's excellent sound design comes through strong, but at the end of the day, I found this track to be more than a little overaggressive. And when will vintage releases from big studios start coming with lossless mono tracks?
English Dolby Digital 5.1 and French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese Dolby Digital 1.0 tracks are included, as are English SDH, French, Spanish, Danish, German SDH, Italian, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish subtitles.