The Collector (1965) [HD]

Brilliant, despite the editing
"The Collector" falls within the "Psycho" tradition in focusing on the repressed sexual longings of a quietly alienated loner, but it's closer to "Peeping Tom" in portraying the sympathetic side of the killer. This is highlighted, first, by the performances themselves, which are superficially cold but in reality display a great deal of underlying warmth. But it's also underscored by the fact that William Wyler's madman is only an accidental murderer, his intention being only to harbor his object of desire, not murder her (murder, as it happens, being simply the "collateral" result of his own perversity).

"The Collector," in fact, is probably the most humanized portrait of a sociopath ever put on film, and Terence Stamp makes us realize in every scene just how starved for affection he is. Not even "Peeping Tom" rivals it in this respect, since the analytical approach of Michael Powell toward his deranged protagonist, not to mention the peculiar fetishism involved, prevents us from...

BAD BAD Video Transfer - Shame on you Sony/Columbia
One STAR is too many, but there was no goose egg!

I really hate to slam this beautiful movie, but after buying it, I felt betrayed and wanted to try to prevent others from having the same problem.

Wyler's work is always fabulous, which makes it especially hurtful to see his film butchered in this fashion - yes I said BUTCHERED.

I just purchased "The Collector" on DVD (Columbia 07893 - ISBN 0-7678-8288-1) after already owning the same title on LaserDisk.

I have criticisms of both the TRANSFER, and the CONTENT.

Transfer:

IMDB Lists the original film as "Spherical 1.78:1 aspect ratio" - If this is true, then the DVD has been way over-masked because the LaserDisk version has a mask that shows about 30% more picture content on the top and bottom of the field. It appears that the studio simply took a 4:3 version of the film and transferred it to DVD by cutting off the top and bottom to make it 16x9, rather than finding an...

Belongs In Your Collection
This 40-year-old specimen by legendary director William Wyler will enhance any collection of fine film. You may have trouble recognizing a very young Terence Stamp, whose performance as a painfully shy office clerk who hits the lottery will give you chills. Samantha Eggar, lovely as the focus of his attention, gives a compelling performance and is in many ways the film's centerpiece. Based on the novel by truly gifted author John Fowles, The Collector chronicles a subtle, incremental descent into madness and cruelty with such skill that viewers are engaged throughout, indeed, it is the ability of the film to penetrate the viewer's own psychology that gives it its real power.

Stamp's Freddie Clegg, newly rich, is free to indulge his eccentricities fully, without fear of repercussion. While his passion has always been butterfly collecting, Freddie, socially inept and pathologically lonely, slips into another level; he "collects" Eggar's Miranda Grey and keeps her captive...

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