The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection [DVD]

Only the first three movies in the collection feature Edna May Oliver in all her awesome glory. Edna May Oliver IS the one and only Hildegarde Withers. Edna May Oliver rocks in the role of Hildegarde Withers her almost gaunt drawn prudish face is almost the spitting image of an old maid. Edna May Oliver's vocal intonation, prim proper speech and how she carries herself as a matronly old spinster school teacher of both quality and breeding is played to absolute perfection. When she is paired with the dour but manly Inspector from the New York City Police Department she really shines. The police inspectors blue collar, street wise roots contrast nicely against Hildegarde Withers Mysteries upper-crust natures and sensibilities. There is enough comedy in these mystery movies to keep one entertained but the comedy never gets in the way of the who-done-it. The Mysteries stand on their own in quality as they are not watered down to make room for the comedy. The comedy comes natural as the banter between Hildegarde Withers and the police detective center on class differences, the inspectors limited schooling \ logic and the detectives rather pugnacious bulldog like tendency to chase all suspects with equal vigor. Hildegarde Withers constantly reins in the good police inspector as she slowly methodically over time ferrets out the wrong-doer. These movies are great despite these being among the worse prints of the Penguin Pool Murders I have seen.I purchased a rare DVD print of the Penguin Pool Murders that had Chinese writing as part of the introduction but; BOTH the sound and picture quality was the best I have ever seen anywhere! The Penguin Pool Murders copy on this DVD is in video at best only poor to fair at 6 out of possible 10 in quality. The video is very dim at times making it difficult to see what is going on. The video at times us to bright so details are washed out in a sea of intense brightness. The video is watchable for a person with reasonably good eyes but only just. People with poor eyesight will get nothing but a killer headache from watching this low quality video transfer.The sound quality of the Penguin Pool Murders is barely a 5 out of a possible 10. The sound fades in and out. Generally the sound is so low you must turn your sound to max volume just to hear what is being said. At such high volume there is the annoying hum of equipment of some sort throughout the movie. The audio is hard to hear in some areas degrading to impossible to hear in other areas. The quality of the sound is just bad enough to make you struggle to understand what is being said which prevents one from becoming fully immersed \ involved in the fine acting and strong plot.The sound and video image in the Murder on the Blackboard is only just slightly better than the first offering at 6 out of 10 and barely that. Murder on the Blackboard had essentially the same flaws as I reported in the Penguin Pool Murders consisting mostly of equipment noise and bad image quality.The Murder on a Honeymoon the final DVD movie to feature Edna May Oliver as Hildegarde Withers is by far the best in the bunch regards sound quality. The sound is loud and relatively clear given the poor sound of the earlier movies in this collection. Sound in Murder on a Honeymoon is 7.5 out of 10 but video is still only fair to poor in most places.You might ask if the video and sound are so bad why did I give this The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection my highest 5 star rating, those who read my reviews know I tend to be hard on everything. I demand quality always. Those who know my reviews might wrongly think I am going soft. NOPE I'm just as hard core as ever! The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection is just such a rare collection of the finest work that I can't let technical imperfections deprive potential buyers of these gems. Edna May Oliver is just so completely priceless as Hildegarde Withers that even if I factor every horrible aspect of the digital copy into my equation I still get FIVE STARS. I am soooo happy The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection is part of my DVD library I don't care about the lapse in quality. Before The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection there were NO legal copies of Murder on the Blackboard and Murder on a Honeymoon to be had anywhere. The now out of print Penguin Pool Murders DVD sells for ridiculous prices. If you were lucky you might make a copy of a Hildegarde Withers Mystery movie from a showing on cable but that your best hope till now. The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection shows us the power of a strong woman in a man's world long before the 1960's. Of course The Hildegarde Withers had to faint at the sight of dead bodies and cling to a strong man when things got rough due to the conventions of the day. Yet Hildegarde Withers even diluted was still a stong woman in a world where good proper ladies were seldom portrayed as so powerful, strong willed and capable! HORRAY for The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries Movies Collection, it was a LONG TIME COMING BUT NOW THAT ITS HERE I'M BROUGHT MINE WARTS AND ALL....HOW ABOUT YOU?!

I’ve never seen or heard of this set of movies before, but once I got into them, they were fine. I enjoyed them not exactly what I expected, and in the five movies they were three different actresses play in the lead character, and they were all played differently, but basically the same if you just wanna have some fun, do watch

Arrived on time, just as described and well packaged.

I knew what ai was purchasing. The character is iconic. What more can I say? The quality is not the best. I wish they could have been cleaned up more. Hildgarde>3

I was initially surprised about all the negative statements by other reviewers. I received the discs yesterday and today played the first three movies that are on the first disc. The first movie started off with a little static, but it got better as it went on. The second and third movies played fine. I will watch the second disc at a later date but I am confident that they will play well. I had seen the first movie on TCM, do I was familiar with the actors. James Gleason played as a cop in a lot of movies. I do recommend these movies. I actually did watch the last three movies, the 4th was just ok, the 5 & 6 were fine.

very amusing

cant wait to watch and in very good condition

First, I did not detect any sound issues with my DVD-R set of the Hildegarde Withers mysteries. But yes, at times, the picture quality does tend to be a bit scratchy in appearance. This is not constant. Otherwise, this is a pretty good transfer for movies this old.The first three movies are the best because they star Edna May Oliver. Her performance of Miss Hildegarde Martha Withers is peerless. The mysteries are fun; the first involves a class outing that soon turns into murder, with Hildegarde as one of the unlikely suspects. She's determined to find the killer because she has no confidence that the police ever will. Enter James Gleason as the harried Inspector on the case. He's the perfect foil for Hildegarde; their verbal exchanges are hilarious. It's a pity they weren't paired for the full six films. Unfortunately two other actresses took over the lead role alongside James Gleason who deservedly got star billing against them. The first was the mother of actor Broderick Crawford, Helen Broderick. Although best known as a wisecracking character actress, Broderick stumbles with her interpretation of Hildegarde, turning her into an aloof sidekick given to the occasional acerbic wit. She is stiff and formal and presides over every scene with a smirk, there's nothing remotely lovable about her. Even stranger though, is the casting of ZaSu Pitts as the next Hildegarde Withers (in the last two films offered in this collection). ZaSu handily killed the series by making Hildegarde a bumbling idiot who stumbles onto the correct solution more by accident than any brilliance on her part. She reduces Hildegarde to a dizzy distracted ninny, "Oh dear, oh my............"Oh well, three out of the six films are great, the others are just okay. (But I did miss Edna May by the end of them.)Favorite verbal exchange: "Could it be suicide?" "Not unless he was a contortionist!"

Really enjoyed these films

I am a fan of these old mystery movies. They reflect the times and society of the day.I really enjoyed James GleasonThe picture is crisp and the audio is clear and not fading out or crackling. These are delightful entertainment. Bodies but not blood.

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the first 3 episodes of this series. The 4th episode was okay but the last 2 were awful. They changed actresses playing the leading role and boy did they get it wrong.

While the DVD worked my husband discovered you can easily copy movies form this seller (I've ordered multiple movies from them) into our portable hard drive. Not encrypted. Price should be a lot less than what they are charging.

I watched the second dvd, surprized to find Edna Mae was not Miss Withers. I enjoyed it immensely. And it was delivered right in between the doors. Thanks to the delivery man. lrc