THE LASER BIN : Technology Catches Up With ‘Northwest’

“North by Northwest”(MGM/UA 100104 CLV Extended Play, under $25; Criterion Collection, CAV Standard Play, under $125).

These two discs sum up the state of laser video discs ’89. The MGM/UA Extended Play edition is a replica of the videotape version--a cropped, pan-and-scan movie with sharper picture and better sound. It takes no advantage at all of the current laser-disc technology.

The Criterion edition, however, is a revelation. It not only presents the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film in its original VistaVision wide-screen format, with a pristine picture and digitally processed sound track, but it also uses the technology to supplement the film with a grab bag of memorabilia and scholarship. Included on the three-disc set are production and publicity photographs, a biography of composer Bernard Herrmann, and the original theatrical trailer. Also in the set are storyboards of three key sequences and a storyboard reprise in which the illustrations dissolve into the actual film sequences, plus a fascinating black-and-white film made in France in which Hitchcock talks in detail about the famous crop-dusting chase sequence.

Even if the “North by Northwest Supplement” is of marginal interest to the average viewer, the film itself in its original wide-screen format is certainly worth seeing. When Grant and co-star Eva Marie Saint meet in the woods at opposite ends of the wide screen, an important story point is made. The same scene on the cheaper disc is cropped and panned until it makes no sense at all. Whether you want to pay $100 to see the director’s vision is another matter.