We were due to have a Hitchcock night on Friday featuring the 39 Steps and Rear Window. Unfortunately despite buying if off ebay ages ago Rear Window still hadn’t arrived. Fortunately I had prepared for such an eventuality and rang the local library to confirm that the one hey had out back was still available, so the lady on the phone went and checked, and then proceeded to put the video in some obscure place so that when I went in 90 minutes later it was completely lost & unfindable. Fortunately Mel saved the day (and my blood pressure after a fruitless hunt round town) by both finding a copy of Psycho and being willing to see it (despite my concerns as she’s a bit sensitive to some stuff) and we were able to go ahead and entertain our friends, largely inline with what had been promised.

Next day guess what arrived in the post…

Having been so keen to see it a number of us got together after church and sat and watched that too. A veritable “Hitchcock Weekend”. Anyway all this brings me to ask (having now watched 5 hitchcock films) what are your favourites and why?

For me I guess I’d order them as so…

1 - Psycho
2 - The Birds
3 - Rear Window
4 - Vertigo
5 - 39 Steps

3 & 4 I’m still not sure on the order on. I found the middle section of Vertigo compelling when watching it, but once Hitchcock gives the game away to focus in the obsessional nature of it, I have less interest in it. I appreciated it the second time, but as I find myself wanting to watch Rear Window again almost instantly. Psycho I found compelling and great camerawork, but I was in the minority of those in the group, in fact most preferred 39 Steps – I’m put off paradoxically by both my familiarity with the story (I watched the 70s version not long ago) and Hitchcocks infidelity to it – though I still enjoyed it.

The Birds I watched a few years ago, but still sticks in the memory (particularly when a seagul swooped on me on holiday this year and practically took the food out of my mouth).

How about everyone else?


Matt

One of my favorites is the quieter Shadow of a Doubt, where a killer visits his family (including his neice, who practically worships him) in a small, idyllic town. Watching this film almost feels like watching a play, and the slower pace allows you to get to know the characters more. The cast, including Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton, are all top-notch.

Diane

Fave five:

1 - Vertigo -- shot to the top after a recent viewing... needs to be seen twice to fully get its rhythms. Of Hitch's films, the one with the story that sears in the head the most.
2 - Psycho -- the one that revolutionized cinema, and did it on the cheap.
3 - Notorious -- the casting is perfect, the character studies are three dimensional and you really root for all these characters.
4 - Rebecca -- the biggest surprise to me--the one film that Hitch got nominated for Best Director, his first US film, and the most romantic, and yet, oddly eerie.
5 - To Catch A Thief -- the one with the most style over substance, but, what style!

Nick

Nick, you are so right on that top five, though I think I would stick "North by Northwest" in place of "Notorious," though maybe it's just because I haven't seen "Notorious" (on my notorious list of classics I haven't yet seen). Rebecca is my all-time favorite Hitchcock.

Call me "Weird" (see sig), but North by Northwest does nothing for me. From the very get-go, I cannot get into its convoluted plot, and the complete lack of danger that Cary Grant seems to be in, as he's quipping all these one-liners throughout. Sorry. Perhaps it will get points for style, but "To Catch a Thief" has that trumped.

Go see Notorious. It is less gothic than "Rebecca", but is simultaneously Vertigo-cynical, Rear Window-suspensful and Rebecca-romantic. It's a great story, well told.

For me, other great Hitchcocks I have yet to see "Shadow of a Doubt", "Strangers on a Train", "I Confess!" (the Catholic in me), and "Marnie." My wife has yet to see "Psycho" in its entirity, and I cannot wait to spring this on her around Halloween.

Nick

Top eight ( in no particular order) from the IMDB list:

Vertigo

• The Man Who Knew Too Much ('56)
  
• The Birds
  
• Rear Window
  
• Dial M for Murder
  
• North by Northweset
  
• Rebecca
  
• Spellbound
  
  
  
  That was hard!

I think Rear Window and Psycho are the only Hitchcock films that I have seen more than once, and it's been so long since the Hitchcock retrospective at the Cinematheque several years ago that I don't think I remember the films well enough to rank them.

Nick Alexander wrote:
: Call me "Weird" (see sig), but North by Northwest does nothing for me.

Yeah, I don't remember being all that impressed with this one the one time I saw it, either.

I also didn't get what all the fuss was about when I caught the restored Vertigo a few years ago. It didn't help that I saw it in a theatre with an audience, since there were a few things in there that apparently tend to make modern audiences laugh, and not in the way that you suspect Hitchcock would have wanted them to laugh -- Hitchcock's films do date themselves, at times.

: . . . "I Confess!" (the Catholic in me) . . .

I, of course, had to see this one because it's the only film Hitchcock made in Canada, and in 1995 or thereabouts, Robert LePage (co-star of Jesus of Montreal, director of Possible Worlds and The Far Side of the Moon) made his directorial debut with Le Confessional, a movie that takes place partly in Quebec City while Hitchcock happens to be making his movie there. (Apparently one of the child actors in Hitchcock's film went on to become a news anchor, so there is one sequence in LePage's film in which Hitchcock auditions child actors, and the camera goes for a close-up on this one girl as she reads her line, and then we cut to the modern-day news anchor on TV in the present-day part of the story.)

My top ten:

Rear Window
Vertigo
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest
Psycho
Rebecca
The Birds
Marnie
Rope
The Man Who Knew Too Much

Rear Window--love the POV stuff, the interplay between Stewart & Kelly, and the suspense of the final scenes, and the structure of the whole thing

Marnie--the combination of bogus psychosexual mystery romance is irresistible, as sold by Hitchcock, Hedren, and Connery

Rebecca--a classic

I've never seen Psycho from beginning to end. The others I acknowledge intellectually as masterpieces of suspense, but I just don't enjoy suspense that much, so none of them are my favorites.

[quote]
Nick Alexander wrote:
: Call me "Weird" (see sig), but North by Northwest does nothing for me.

Yeah, I don't remember being all that impressed with this one the one time I saw it, either.
[/quote]

You're both crazy. "North by Northwest" is Hitch's all-around best entertainment. I love it more every time I see it. Plus, Eva Marie Saint is a total babe in that film (my motivations have been exposed!).

[quote]
I also didn't get what all the fuss was about when I caught the restored Vertigo a few years ago. It didn't help that I saw it in a theatre with an audience, since there were a few things in there that apparently tend to make modern audiences laugh, and not in the way that you suspect Hitchcock would have wanted them to laugh -- Hitchcock's films do date themselves, at times.
[/quote]

I had the same experience when I saw the restored "Vertigo," but that wasn't my first exposure to the film. I find it difficult not to rank that as Hitchcock's best film, but the darkness and obsessiveness that appeals to so many critics is less appealing to me these days than it once was. Like others, if I had a choice, I'd rather rewatch "Rear Window," which is my favorite Hitchcock film.

So I've named the "best," the most entertaining, and my favorite. It's so hard to pick just one! And I haven't mentioned some of the others cited above, all of which are outstanding:

Shadow of a Doubt
Strangers on a Train
(both of which I'd watch before)
The Thirty-Nine Steps
The Birds
Psycho

I tried years ago to watch "To Catch a Thief" and just couldn't get into it. My wife recently received the DVD as a present, so maybe I'll watch it next.

I didn't care at all for "Frenzy."

The five that have a permanent place in my affections are (in order of preference):

Rear Window
Vertigo
The Trouble with Harry
North by Northwest
Rope

The first two are very hard to choose between, especially as my favourite actor is the star of both.

The Trouble with Harry is one I find absolutely enchanting, though it tends to get dissed by the critics. Everything about it--the macabre, ironic humour, the autumnal New England scenery, Bernard Herrmann's rustic score--captivates me. I have a stage adaptation in the pipeline, probably based more on Hitchcock's version than Jack Trevor Story's original novella, which is proving a tad disappointing.

Rope is another one that gets short shrift with the critics, but again, I find it mesmerizing. The way the set is lit as dusk falls over the NY skyline lends the film a lot of atmosphere, I think. Again, the source material was a rather mediocre, quaint stage thriller, and the film is a great improvement on that.

North by Northwest speaks for itself.

As runners-up, I might mention the following:

Psycho
The Birds
The 39 Steps
The Lady Vanishes
Marnie

To be honest, Psycho is a great film, but I overwatched it so much when I first discovered Hitch that I can rarely muster up the enthusiasm to watch it these days.

Of the American films (1940--), there are none I have yet to see (oh, I tell a lie, the two non-thrillers, Mr and Mrs Smith and Under Capricorn I haven't seen). The only one that totally bored me was Topaz, which I remember only as an incoherent mess.

[quote]You're both crazy. "North by Northwest" is Hitch's all-around best entertainment. I love it more every time I see it. [/quote]

I'm with you Christian. North By Northwest is a brilliant film. One of my alltime favorites for certain. The movie developed so many of the elements of the spy thriller that I can't help but have a goofy grin when watching it. Along with To Catch A Theif (Cary Grant is just a cool guy), North By Northwest is one of Hitchcock's purest entertainment films and I love 'em both.

That said, Rear Window stands out easily as my favorite Hitchcock film. It's brilliant.

I also think that Vertigo and Psycho are brilliant films.

Just for the record, the Hitchcock films I've seen are:

Rear Window
Vertigo
North By Northwest
Pyscho
To Catch A Thief
Rebecca
Rope
Marnie

Oh my! Frenzy is one film that I wish I *hadn't* seen.

Matt, I think my top 5 list would be the same as yours, except for my already-mentioned love for Shadow of a Doubt. I can't make a call on 39 Steps, never having seen it.

Diane

[quote]Call me "Weird" (see sig), but North by Northwest does nothing for me. ...[/quote]
Call me even weirder, but for the most part, Hitchcock does nothing for me.

I find his films clinical, detatched, cerebral. This would be a problem in any genre - it's a real problem when the genres are horror or suspense, where the audience's emotional response is central. Indeed, both genres more or less name themselves after the feelings they aim to evoke in their audience.

PSYCHO affected me, and parts of THE BIRDS - while other parts of THE BIRDS just seemed plain dumb. Un-thought-through or careless - particularly damning charges to level at a film-maker who prided himself on the meticulous care he took in constructing his films.

He's celebrated for his meticulous care: I think it's the big problem. A film-maker I know celebrates the fact that every single camera angle and facial expression was planned in advance by The Master, after which it was only a matter of manipulating the cameras and the meat puppets to capture the images already frozen in Hitchcock's mind. As a director, actor and playwright, I've learned to seriously mistrust that sort of controlling, obsessive instinct to pre-plan and calculate effects: if you don't remain alive to the process of rehearsal, the discoveries that emerge collaboratively instead of in your own brain (or indeed, half your brain - the left half), the work rarely comes alive.

Clearly, lots of people respond to Hitchcock's stimuli exactly the way he fore-ordained. Can't argue that. But to these eyes, the Emperor of Suspense has no clothes.

I've enjoyed most of the Hitchcock films that I've seen (though there are several that I haven't seen, and I wasn't too thrilled with Frenzy or North by Northwest), but my ultimate favorite is Rear Window, for the reasons already mentioned by others on this thread-- structure, performances, cinematography, etc.

And Alvy, good call on Rope. That's one of Hitch's finest films, in my opinion, and it's criminally underappreciated.

I have many favorite Hitchcock movies but I am only going to mention rope here. It needs to be separated from the pack. The film feels more like a play with the 15-minute scenes and these long scenes are done so well. I also appreciate the biting sarcasm in this film.

Ron wrote:
: Call me even weirder, but for the most part, Hitchcock does nothing for me.
: I find his films clinical, detatched, cerebral.

I dunno, sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not, and I'm sure one could point to moments of genuine emotion in his films. FWIW, I really like what whatshisface said on the Kill Bill thread about Tarantino and Hitchcock both being very stylish and kinda empty. Although in Tarantino's case, I would argue there, too, that he isn't quite as empty as he seems.

whatshisface=Alan

I can't go for that comparison of Hitchcock to Tarantino, though, unless I come around to the idea that genre filmmaking is actually the highest and most transcendent form of art. There's way too much psychology and morality present in the best of Hitchcock to lay so much stress on his stylistic impulses.

Russell Lucas wrote:
: There's way too much psychology and morality present in the best of
: Hitchcock to lay so much stress on his stylistic impulses.

Actually, I think the psychology is one of the reasons Hitchcock leaves some people cold. Freud is so passé, and I suspect he never appealed all that much to those of a more Romantic disposition.

You're right about that. To that end, if "coldness" or neutrality is the touchstone, it seems to me that Hitchcock and Kubrick is a better comparison.

BTW, as you've mentioned getting review copies of books before, did you get a copy of the new Hitchcock biography recently released?

Russell Lucas wrote
: To that end, if "coldness" or neutrality is the touchstone, it seems to me
: that Hitchcock and Kubrick is a better comparison.

I could see that.

: BTW, as you've mentioned getting review copies of books before, did
: you get a copy of the new Hitchcock biography recently released?

Nope.

[quote]BTW, as you've mentioned getting review copies of books before, did you get a copy of the new Hitchcock biography recently released?[/quote]

Another Hitchcock biography? Who wrote this one, and what's his/her angle?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006...4940319-9139352

It has been prominently displayed at local chain bookstores.

[quote]FWIW, I really like what whatshisface said on the Kill Bill thread about Tarantino and Hitchcock both being very stylish and kinda empty. Although in Tarantino's case, I would argue there, too, that he isn't quite as empty as he seems.[/quote]
Um, thanks, guy. (I think.) And I agree that Tarantino may have more to offer--perhaps he has more to say than Hitchcock.

AlanW wrote:
: Um, thanks, guy. (I think.)

Sorry, AlanW, I didn't mean to slight you -- I've been giving the Kill Bill thread only the briefest and most intermittent of skims lately, because I suspect that, if I do sit down to READ it, it will take up a fair chunk of my time. So I remembered your remark, but not who made it.

Apologies

After starting this thread I then forgot all about it. Has anyone seen torn curtain? Being a Paul Newman fan and Hitch fan (now) I'm keen to see it even though its not rated too well.

Also a few people mentionned North by Northwest. IIRC this is largely the same story as 39 Steps (or did I just make that up I've not seen NbyNW).

Matt

Yes, the two films are very similar in many ways.

The critic Robin Wood (author of the classic Hitchcock's Films, revised in 1989 as Hitchcock's Films Revisited) identified five plot formations basic to Hitchcock's films:

The Falsely Accused Man (The 39 Steps, Strangers on a Train, The Wrong Man, North by Northwest etc.)

The Guilty Woman (Rebecca, Psycho, Marnie etc.)

The Psychopath (Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Psycho, Frenzy etc.)

Espionage/Political Intrigue (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Notorious, Torn Curtain etc.)

Marriage (Rebecca, Suspicion, The Man Who Knew Too Much etc.)

I have seen Torn Curtain, and I enjoyed it immensely. I think the critics are a tad unfair on this one: It is no classic, by any means, but it isn't bad entertainment, and there is plenty of evidence of the director's usual flair.

Can't say I am much of a Newman fan, though I did enjoy rewatching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) the other night, for which he turned in an absolutely sterling performance.

: Can't say I am much of a Newman fan,

Stone the unbeliever!! Heretic (I'm being serious here in case you think its all a joke.



: although I did enjoy rewatching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) the other night,

Its one Newman film I've not seen (OK there are plenty), but one on my list. One eye fixed on Ebay!


: for which he turned in an absolutely sterling performance.

But of course. Can I just ask - have you seen either Cool Hand Luke or The Hustler. I think they're his best work IMHO





Back to Hitchcock...

The five plot lines thing isn't very convincing as it ignores both Rear Window and Vertico usually acknowledged as two of Hitch's best films. Furthermore both of these seem to be examples of one of Hitchcocks favourite themes - voyeurism. Surely any of Hitch' work has to include this?


Matt

Originally posted by MattPage:
But of course. Can I just ask - have you seen either Cool Hand Luke or The Hustler. I think they're his best work IMHO

I did see Cool Hand Luke about a year ago, but was dreadfully sick with a cold at the time, so didn't fully appreciate it.

Back to Hitchcock...

The five plot lines thing isn't very convincing as it ignores both Rear Window and Vertico usually acknowledged as two of Hitch's best films. Furthermore both of these seem to be examples of one of Hitchcocks favourite themes - voyeurism. Surely any of Hitch' work has to include this?


Matt

The examples of specific films I gave were my own. Rear Window would fit easily into "Psychopath" and "Marriage". Vertigo fits well into "Guilty Woman," though it is in the subtext, as that theme often is in Hitchcock.

: The examples of specific films I gave were my own. Rear Window would
: fit easily into "Psychopath" and "Marriage". Vertigo fits well into "Guilty
: Woman," though it is in the subtext, as that theme often is in Hitchcock.


I think I'll have to disagree with you there. The murderer in Rear Window isn't a pychopath - he's just killed his wife (and OK he tries to escape detection by bumping Stewart off as well) - as for marriage who-se were you thinking Burr's or Stewarts (or both). "Guilty woman" as a subtext, but then doesn't classifying them by one of their many sub-texts kind of take away the point?


Matt


PS - You need to see The Hustler - it's just a superb film. Cool Hand Luke is a grower FWIW

Don't start contradicting me, Matt--I was taught this stuff as gospel truth at college, and it's too late to start thinking different now!

Actually, the Rear Window classification as "Psychopath" was my idea, not Wood's, who has it under "marriage," in view of the centrality of Jeff and Lisa's on-off/will-they-won't they relationship (as often in his films, the central "quest" is about one half of a partnership trying to prove him/herself to the other, eg. as in the 1958 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much). Re: Vertigo, actually, the "guilty woman" theme is quite explicit (Madeleine, ostensibly, in the first half, and Judy in the second); it is the whole process of her being brought to justice and paying for her crimes that is subtextual (eg. in the same way that the idea of Marion's premature death in Psycho is punishment for her crime).

Bear in mind that the context in which Wood was drawing up the five categories was a defense of the idea of Hitchcock as an auteur, given the recurring centrality of certain themes in his films (there are a million and one sub-themes as well). This he does very well, even if the categories are a bit fuzzy.

OK that makes a bit more sense. Do you not think though that voyeurism desrves a categoory as well, or is it more of a theme running throughout?

Matt

Matt,

Although voyeurism is a constant theme in Hitch's work, I don't know that it is central to the plot of enough films to make it another category--Rear Window is the only one I can think of where it is anything like the main plot.

Now I'm really confused.

Is the point of these five categories that they are for the main plot, or for any of the sub-themes?

The fact that Voyeurim is the main theme of Rear Window suggests that if the categorisation is for the central plot then it hasn't included arguably Hitch's greatest work.

OTOH if its just for sub-themes then Voyeurism is a subthem of plenty of his movies I've only seen five, but it was a major theme in at least 60% ( :wink: ) of those. I think its just as central to Vertigo as the guilty woman theme.


Matt


PS - I realise that this is not your theory, but someone else's. Thank you for defending it so articulately and allowing me to learn in the process.

I'll try quoting from Robin Wood this time.

One of the clearest ways to demonstrate, simultaneously, the validity of the auteur theory and the necessary qualifications to it, is to examine the relationship between Hitchcock's British and American films, a relationship of both rupture and continuity.

This is the main reason for Wood's categorization--not to prove that every single one of Hitchcock's films fits into one of these categories, per se, but to demonstrate that there is a thematic continuity between the films, and prove that Hitchcock can rightly be viewed as an auteur.

I list here what seem to me to be the basic formations (without claiming that the list is exhaustive or that it accounts for all the films), giving what appears to be the work in which the formation is first clearly established (a British film in every case), followed by a list of its major successors, British and American.

So he says himself that the list is not exhaustive--my bad that I didn't explain all this more clearly.

1. THE STORY ABOUT THE FALSELY ACCUSED MAN. The Lodger; The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent; Suspicion, Saboteur, Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, To Catch a Thief, The Wrong Man, North by Northwest, Frenzy.
2. THE STORY ABOUT THE GUILTY WOMAN. Blackmail; Sabotage; Rebecca, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn, Stage Fright, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds (arguably), Marnie.
3. THE STORY ABOUT A PSYCHOPATH. The Lodger; Murder!; Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Psycho, Frenzy.
4. THE STORY ABOUT ESPIONAGE/POLITICAL INTRIGUE. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); THe 39 Steps, The Secret Agent, Sabotage, The Lady Vanishes; Foreign Correspondent, Notorious, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), North by Northwest, Torn Curtain, Topaz; also The Long Night, the film which Hitchcock was planning when he died, and of which a draft screenplay has been published.
5. THE STORY ABOUT A MARRIAGE. Rich and Strange; Sabotage; Rebecca, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Suspicion, Under Capricorn, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956--which I see as being about a marriage in a sense which the British version is not), Marnie; to which I would add Rear Window and Frenzy, neither centered exactly on a marriage, but in both of which "marriage" is a pervasive preoccupation. Family Plot also has its relevance here.

Hope those excerpts clear things up a little.

I highly recommend Wood's book Hitchcock's Films Revisited (1989), in which he analyzes eight of Hitchcock's films (Strangers, Rear Window, Vertigo, Northwest, Psycho, Birds, Marnie and Torn Curtain), and then has several supplementary chapters covering some interesting topics such as homophobia in Hitchcock's films and the plot formations that we have been discussing. It is certainly widely regarded as the definitive work on the subject.

Thanks Alvy,

That clears things up a little

Matt

FWIW, I caught The Lady Vanishes last night, and found I had Ron's remark that Hitchcock leaves him cold running through my head. Don't get me wrong, it's an entertaining film and all, but it's very much an exercise in genre, in which people seem to do certain things just because that's what they are supposed to do in these sorts of movies (e.g. the woman, who is about to be married off to a man with a fortune, decides spur-of-the-moment to ditch that guy in order to marry a man she met just a couple days ago and initially disliked -- I thought the film had given us only the flimsiest of reasons to accept that she would make such an abrupt decision, and no reason at all to believe that this would truly lead to a happy ending).

FWIW, I just heard that Criterion is deleting three of their Hitchcock titles, namely Rebecca and Suspicion and Spellbound, come January.

I also heard that they're going out-of-print, but the middle title above should be Notorious. I know, cause that's the one I need to get!

How come they're pulling those titles? Rebecca is a classic, and certainly one of Hitch's most popular; Spellbound ain't bad; and Suspicion (minus the ending) exhibits some of his finest work.

I think their licenses expired.

Favorite Hitchcocks:

Rear Window (this is #1; the rest are in no particular order)

Shadow of a Doubt

Notorious

Strangers on a Train

North by Northwest

I'm also fond of Vertigo, Rope, To Catch a Thief, Spellbound, and Trouble with Harry. I'm ashamed to say (as a big Hitchcock fan) that I haven't yet seen Psycho.

It's probably true that Hitchcock didn't have much to say, but was he ever good at it. At least I care about his characters, which is more than I can say about Tarantino's latest effort (which I detested, for the record).

Incidentally, I caught the last half of Notorious on TCM last night and thought two things in particular:

1. The abrupt-ending style that characterizes several of Hitchcock's films (notably this and Vertigo) and other films I've seen from that era (notably Mr Smith Goes...) is really something, and so unfamiliar to modern filmgoers.

2. It's fun to look through Claude Rains's filmography and think of the places one has seen him. "Oh, yeah! There. And, there!"

Yes, both those films end very abruptly, especially Notorious, which I remember watching and thinking, "Can't wait to see what happens next!" only to discover it was the end of the film already.

Do you think that is a flaw or a quite deliberate technique? It does tend to impair Hitchcock's accessibility to modern audiences.

(Incidentally, Suspicion has the most abrupt ending of all, although in that case it is definitely down to a fault--the studio tagged on a happy ending at the last minute, ruining what could have been one of Hitchcock's greatest.)

I'm sure it's deliberate. It certainly avoids addressing some unpleasantness (what does Stewart's character possibly do next in Vertigo?), but leaves interesting ambiguity as well (how do Grant and Bergman end up in Notorious?). It's an interesting feature, even if it leaves me wanting some mop-up. Of course, the byproduct of having a filmography as sprawling as Hitchcock's is that he's got plenty of contra- examples as well. There's a scene of familiar denouement in Rear Window and NXNW. And Psycho is sometimes accused of too much end-baggage (see Ebert's Great Movies review for one criticism of the interminable psychoanalyzing).

Answer: who knows?

Russell Lucas wrote:

The abrupt-ending style that characterizes several... films I've seen from that era (notably Mr Smith Goes...) is really something, and so unfamiliar to modern filmgoers.

Well said, Russell. I've only seen Mr. Smith once, and I have to say the abrupt ending significantly impacted my enjoyment of the film in a negative direction. (By contrast, it didn't bother me at all in Notorious. Somehow I accepted the extreme tension of the last scene as the final payoff in a way that I didn't accept Mr. Smith's last stand as the final payoff of that film.)

Yeah, I agree. It seems there's so much more that could have been said in a brief scene or two to tell us that democracy, goodness and love win in the end. And it's funny that despite Capra's flag-waving reputation he gives us so little of the affirming payoff that would reward us and Smith for his travails.

We might have the opposite problem today with needless sentimental epilogues that just repeat clumsily what the film has already told us will happen. A prime example: Wonder Boys.

Russell Lucas wrote:

We might have the opposite problem today with needless sentimental epilogues that just repeat clumsily what the film has already told us will happen. A prime example: Wonder Boys.

Haven't seen Wonder Boys, but you are so on the money. Movies today just go on and on beyond all reason with falling action, denouement, epilogue, tag, and so on, often giving us two, three, or even more postscripts to the same story. The old error feels unsatisfying; the new one feels insulting.

Did any of you see the abrupt ending that was tagged on to Vertigo (for foreign distribution)? It's an Easter Egg, and it's a chapter at the end of the documentary. It didn't add anything, but it was classy all the same, and it attempted to begin tying one loose end of the film.

I think the best abrupt ending goes to "The Birds".

Nick

Yes, definitely The Birds. Also the most effective. My jaw drops every time.