I know I'm practically the only one to read this post anymore, but I've got a few updates to make to my list having watched The Birds (again) Rebecca (a couple of week back, but couldn't say as I'd bought it for another board member as a present) and Rope twice.

In terms of my favourites list

1. Psycho
2. The Birds
3. Rebecca
4. Vertigo
5. Notorious
6. Rope
7. Dial M for Murder
8. Rear Window
9. I Confess
10. Torn Curtain
11. 39 Steps
12. North by Northwest

Some thoughts on Rope FWIW

I watched this on Monday night and then decided to go back and watch it again - mainly cos I'd only noticed half of the blends (as into when two reels are joined by the camera going behind someone's back and emerging from out behjind it again at the start of a new reel), and only 1 of the cuts (when the camera cuts to a different POV for the new reel) - and that was the most obvious one at that.

Its a common fallacy that this was made all in one take, but as has been pointed out elsewhere the camera would only have been big enough to take about 10 minutes of film. There's another common fallacy which is that all the joins between the reels are "blends" this isn't the case either - Hitch deliberately uses a cut at certain key points in the film. In my second viewing I was able to pinpoint these and how they relate to the story

1 - At the end of the credits, which would be of no consequence except it occured to me later that this cut actually takes place as the murder is being comitted (so its dramatic action)

In fact most of the other cuts also highlight a dramatic or key moment

2 - Is the scene where Janet & Kenneth are talking and they find out that Brandon has told them conflicting stories - this is effectively the first crack in the ice so to speak (which interestingly occures even before Rupert arrives)

3 - Probably the most dramtic cut. The third one is when Philip blurts out "I've never strangled a chicken". The camera holds on him for a while before cutting to Rupert and holding on him for a moment while he smells a rat (that's a metaphor for those not familiar with it)

4 - Rupert seems like he is on the verge of sussing it all out when the house keeper interupts the conversation and the camera cuts to her (implying the train of thought is broken)

5 - In the final confrontation when Rupert and Brandon are going through how he (Rupert) would do it. Whilst considering what he would do with the body his eyes fix on the trunk, and then there's a cut as he says "I'd get Philip to help me carry him to the car". This is the moment he susses all the details - the cut emphasises this, and shoes us that Rupert is now just playin along (pressumably through fear - FWIW I love how Rupert as the hero is still able to say he is afraid in the siuation - twice, once when he's even holding the gun.

Matt

Oh Matt, I'm still reading...

Anyway. I didn't notice the cuts really, although thinking about it, the bit where Rupert is telling Brandon how he would do the murder did come across as particularly effective, especially when he lies because he's scrared of giving himself away.

Also, I remembered how the play version I saw ended it - once the two of them knew that Rupert had sussed it, Rupert blew a whistle to attract the police straight away, there was no discussion between them once it was out in the open. This meant that there was just one point of tension release, rather than that rather strange lull with the moralising in it. I don't know if it's a better ending or not, but it certainly means that it ends with a bang, so to speak.

How many blends did you notice in the end? I guessed it was about five...

I'm fairly sure it was 5. There's one down the side of the trunk when Brandon goes to pick up some books, one when Kenneth walks past the camera, one on Brandon's back in the main room, one on his (I think) back in the hall, and then one on the back of the chest.

In fact to be really boring here's the full list:

1 - Cut - At the end of the credits, from outside to inside during murder.
2 - Blend - down the side of the trunk when Brandon goes to pick up some books
3 - Blend - one when Kenneth walks past the camera
4 - Cut - Where Janet & Kenneth are talking and they find out that Brandon has told them conflicting stories
5 - Blend - one on Brandon's back in the main room
6 - Cut - When Philip blurts out "I've never strangled a chicken".
7 - Cut - Rupert seems like he is on the verge of sussing it all out when the house keeper interupts the conversation and the camera cuts to her
8 - Blend - Brandon's back in the hall
9 - Cut - When Rupert and Brandon are going through how he (Rupert) would do it.
10 - Blend - When Rupert opens the chest.


Matt "so boring" Page

Yeah, I'm still reading, too.

If I could, I'd change my vote to The Trouble with Harry. Although it certainly isn't Hitch's greatest, I'd have to say it's my favourite. It's just a film I feel at home in.

Hey, I'm reading it. I love Hitch too!

The problem with Hitch films is that there are so darn many of them, and I have this ultra completist streak (you should see my Jesus films collection). I mean I've seen 12 of Hitch's now, but there's ones I'd not really heard of that just keep leaping up and saying now watch me. Rope, I thought, was the last in a line, but now I'm thjinking "maybe I shoulld watch one of his silents", or To Catch a Thief or Marnie or (now) The Trouble With Harry.



Matt

Nice to know people are still reading. BTW

Matt

The autumnal New England scenery, beautifully lensed by Robert Burks. Bernard Herrmann's rustic, quintessentially American score. The ironies of the narrative and the dialogue. (I see irony as the major theme of my life.) The smalltownish, cosy feel of the Vermont neighbourhood, and the relationships they have, the perfect way the cast bounce off each other and gel together as an ensemble.

I just get a warm feeling about it, which you can't often say about a Hitchcock film!

See, I think that's what was "off" for me ... never expecting a Hitchcock film to have a warm feeling or cozy ensemble! I know I keep saying this, but I've gotta watch it again .....

Just caught North by NW and while I really loved the first two-thirds of it, and really liked Cary Grant in it, I really had trouble stomaching the Mt. Rushmore ending. It was just SO goofy and barely more exciting than the monument itself.

I've seen more than one hitch fall apart to some degree at the end. (including my favorite, Rear Window) And I'm starting to wonder if he was so good at building the suspense, that the climactic moment never has the payoff the viewer is led to believe is coming. I know that's a big statement to make, and I'm hardly an authority on the Hitch, but it happened in Vertigo BIG time as well.

Other observations: I've been spoiled by Grace Kelly, all other steely blondes are cheap imitations.

Wow, Martin Landau was creepy when he was young.

There's a good discussion of Vertigo brewing at my blog, so I thought I'd repost the comments here:

Here's what I said:



Followed by Doug:



And, finally, Christian:



Back in a bit with a response....

Funny. Since I posted yesterday, I now feel that I have very little to add to this conversation. Both Doug's and Christian's comments, however, were worth sharing.

I guess I'll just quote Peter here:



I pretty much agree with this. I mean, I could buy Scotty's obsessiveness to some degree, but the whole thing seemed to get really extreme really suddenly. I guess my main problem is that I really didn't sympathize with Scotty and Madeleine's relationship. I was too busy thinking about Scotty and Midge. Now THAT relationship was the most interesting to me.

Interesting reaction, Diane. I had missed Peter’s earlier comments, but accessing them now, I see that he came to his conclusions after seeing the film a second time.

So much for my theory that you’d gain more from the film in a year or two, after returning to it.

Looking over the quotes that Doug posted, however, makes me a true believer all over again. Vertigo is such a dark, fascinating film, and such an intense expression and summation of the themes Hitchcock deals with in his other films, that I find the lack of emotional connection with today’s viewers somewhat mysterious.

This film, even when I saw it as a very young man, moved me in a way I couldn’t express, and it wasn’t until I saw it again, years later (in college, I think), as part of a Hitchcock class, that I more fully understood the film on an academic level. But the emotion was there first, from my childhood, so I don’t remember ever sharing the disconnect that you and Peter have with the film.

Jimmy Stewart could read the proverbial nutritional label off a can of food and bring me to tears. I know of no other actor who elicits such intense, natural empathy.

I remember being chastised by Ron for what he saw as my lukewarm regard for Vertigo after my first viewing. Looking back after 3 viewings I know I appreciate it more than the first time, eventhough I remember the suspense of the first time being totally gripping.

Matt

I am the only one to vote for The 39 Steps. He is able to produce in that film the same suspense he was able to produce in all of his later films...but with much less equipment. Truly a treasure.

AS a first viewing I wasn't particularly impressed with 39 Steps, although plenty of the people I watched it with were. I think this is because the first time I watch a suspense film, the suspense is in not knowing the ending. As I was familiar with the story, even Hitchcocks variations meant I kind of knew the end.

I've yet to have a second viewing, buyt I think that would offer a fairer comparison to the suspense in other films I have appreciated more.

Matt

I love 'The 39 Steps', and it would certainly be in my top five Hitchcock's, I think. I used to much prefer 'The Lady Vanishes', and thought Steps was a bit of a bore, but I really love it now. When I read Buchan's brilliant novella, I couldn't get Donat's distinctive voice out of my head as I read through the witty dialogue in those early apartment scenes. It's only recently I've really appreciated the cinema of the '30s and '40s. I've always had my favourites, but now I can't get enough of that slightly stagey, but intimate '30s feel.

I think if I were to reformulate my list of favourite Hitches, it would now look like this:

1. The Trouble with Harry
2. Vertigo
3. Rear Window
4. Rope
5. The 39 Steps

They're favourite, as opposed to best.

What I recall of 39 Steps, is how he managed to do his trademark pull in shot without a dolly. City/Street/buliding/stairway/door/interior...

Oh, it isn't impressive. It watches in parts like a practice film. But it is so inspiring to see Hitchcock figuring out just how to create tension visually, just exactly how to use the cameras he has to their maximum psychological effect. And some of the lengths he goes through to catch the sense of turn-of-the-century Edinburgh are breathtaking, there is that great Waverly Station sequence and the fantastic shot across the Firth Bridge. He lends the film a sense of place that few other films of the period tried to do.

That being said, I thought about it for longer and was sad that I picked 39 Steps when I could have picked The Lodger. But my adoration for that film (which is solidly in my top-five list of favorite silent films) may stem from the Maddinesque fixation I have on that period that has crept up on me via Stef's insistence. I need to watch it again to comment on it more at length, but it is flat out amazing how many completely expressionist moves he makes in that film. It has to be his most completely formal exercise. There is the classic ceiling-through-plate-glass shot, the numerous uses of text and newpaper media to continue the storyline, great urban tracking shots and a supremely romanticized use of lighting, and almost campy intertitle cards. It is a supremely confident silent masterpiece.

If I am not mistaken, Hitch did his first two unreleased films in Germany under Murnau's influence. Unfortunately, I don't have a bio. on him handy so I can't flesh out those historical details. Murnau's influence on The Lodger, being his third film, is undeniable.

I hereby rescind my choice for 39 Steps and move it to The Lodger.

Well I've nudged my Hitchcock tally up to 14, which is not bad to say that 2-3 years ago I hadn't seen any. Along the way I've managed to enthuse a number of my firends as well.

The last two I saw were Marnie (1964) and Blackmail (1929), just the fact that the same director was making such great films ove 35 years (and more) is amazing.

I saw Marnie first, and enjoyed it very much, it was good to see Connery before he became a huge huge star, although there were seeral of the flourished that would distinguish him as Bond as that franchise grew. (It was only 2 pictures old at that point). Tippi Hedren was superb. (I hadn't realised she was in I Heart Huckabees) and I think she maybe my favourite Hitchcock Blonde, , and probably he role is the definitive Hithcock anti-heroine, wicked / distant / vulnerable. Overall the film felt a bit like a cross between Vertigo and Psycho. In places it did drag, but what I most appreciated was Hitch's humour here, beofre the fashion of doing things just to be clever became a horribly boring fashion, hitch had already taken it to its extreme. The two highest moments of suspense and tension turn out to be manipulation for the sake of it. He gets us all worked up for nothing [spoiler]the moment with the cleaning lady and the shoe is incredibly tense, and an object lesson in montage, and then when it finally falls and you realise she's deaf you can do little more than laugh at what hitch has just done to you - great shot as well half of the safe room, half of the corridor. The other is when we think she's dead in the pool, and was totally expecting a Vertigo / Psycho heroine kill off, only to find she's actually still alive[/spoiler]. And I for one buy the artificiality of the sets is deliberate argument.

Blackmail has a high curiosity factor, being Hitch's first talkie (and the UKs). It's incredibly reminiscient of the antics that go on in Singin' in the Rain, especially as it was shot originally as a silent film. Furthermore I read that the female lead's voice was dubbed because of her accent! ("I keyn't stan it"). The start of the film is also like a silent film, no speech for the first 5 minutes, and you get a taste for what a great director hitch was even without sound with the early arrest scene. There are quite a few interesting things with regard t the advent of sound too. This is the earliest talkie I have seen so there's a bit of ignorance behind these comments, but here goes... Firstly, surpringly, there was an awful lot of silence. This shows great restraint (possibly influenced by finances). Most of the silents I have seen have almost continual music in the background (Am I right in thinking that these would have been scored and then played live in the theatre?) If so, in some respects it is strange that the advent of sound actually brought about quiet, and Hitch uses this to bring out the tension in the main act. My second observation was how dull a lot of the dialogue was. I guess after years being very very limited as to how much could be conveyed by intertitles, scriptwirers were unused to the freedom, and so their new found freedom lead to them leaving in a lot of slack. I guess this is also influenced by the fact it was a silent originally. There are a few really innovative moments though - the part where a woman gossips off screen hwilst the camera fosuses on the anti-herine and all we hear is "murmur murmur KNIFE, murmur murmur KNIFE, murmur murmur KNIFE, murmur murmur KNIFE" as is the cut between two women screaming.

Anyway, not sure how I rate my fourteen in order. My top 5 (in no order) are probably Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, Marnie and Rope oh and The Birds... and Notorious...and Rebecca. Heck putting them in order is just plain Dumb.

I want to get a book on Hitch now - any ideas as to what is good (and reasonably priced)?

Matt

I know I can't vote twice but it makes me sad to see poor old The Lady Vanishes and Shadow of A Doubt stuck on zero votes. They're great films, especially Shadow of a Doubt which has a sense of evil about it that few movies have matched. Glad to see 39 Steps getting respect, two scenes have always stuck with me. 1. The scene in the crofter's cottage, there's almost a whole novel there implied about the loneliness of the wife and how much it has cost her to make the gesture of friendliness towards Hannay. 2. The political meeting where he doesn't know which side he's supposed to be on so comes out with platitude after platitude. It's unfair, I know, but it reminds me of Tony Blair or some other vaguely centrist spin doctored to death politico.

Matt, someone else may know better than I, but Robin Wood's text seems to be the classic Hitchcock primer. I believe in 2002 a version of that book came out with additional essays and commentary. Other than that, Truffaut's book on Hitchcock has been on my "must read" list for ages.

Rathmadder, it is funny that you mention that first scene from 39 Steps. It was the one I had in mind when I first picked it as my favorite. There is such a pathos to that scene, stripped right out of the subtext of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, that really comes to bear in Hitchcock's later films. What is more scandalous than an innocent man on the run shut up in a house with a lonely lady? Thanks for noting the almost camp atmosphere of the later political rally, I had forgotten about that. I wonder how Private Eye reviewed the film when it came out.

Thanks Mike - the Truffaut one I vaguely knew existed, and now you mention the Wood one it vaguely rings a bell. Thanks for the tip.

Matt

Matt, try to find a copy of The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto. A very good read.

As a critical piece, Robin Wood's book is great.

For trivia and the rest, there's a great book out called Hitchcock's Secret Notebook, containing excerpts from scripts, interviews, storyboards, behind-the-scenes accounts and the like.

Why Can't They Leave Well Enough Alone???

You'd think the disaster that was Gus Van Sant's Psycho remake would have learnt them somethin'.

But the original had no good car crashes and explosions. What kinds movie is that?

Actually, quite a few Hitchcocks have been remade and/or sequelized -- he himself made two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The thing that startles me here is that this proposed remake is being pursued by the same company that just made remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. It never would have occurred to me to lump The Birds in with those films.

Stu and I and others from Loughborough watched it again on Sunday night - just so good, eventhough the next day's picnic in the park with my wife was slightly spoiled by nervous glances darting around.

Matt

PS ANyone in the you-kay oughta know that loads of Hitchcocks are going cheep () for £6.49 in WHSmiths at the moment

Just bought one of the Hitchcock collections second hand, it has Sabatuer, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. On the back of the pack it says it has Psycho, but there is not a disc space for it, so I guess it's a printing error.

Of these I've only seen Rear Window and Rope, so I hope the others are reasonably good.

I got The Man Who Knew Too Much for my birthday, but there's plenty their 've not seen. Let us know when you're watching them so I can see them too.

Matt

FWIW I also got Robin Woods book on Hitchcock "Hitchcock's Films revisited" and the version I got was the revised edition. It's the funniest strcture in any acadmic non-fiction book I can think of. I read 80 odd pages before I got onto any info on Hitchcock at all. All fascinating stuff though. You get to read the original book as it was, with only endnotes commenting on how he disagrees / finds weaknesses with it. Then you get a transition essay from the 70s, then you get a collection of updating essays he wrote in the 80s, and then as this is the revised edition you also get a substantial preface to the revised edition in which he explains his whole life which he says gives a context to the film criticism he produces (he's a strong believer in the personal nature of film criticism rather than the objective school).

Matt

Saw Strangers on a Train this morning and was able to read up on Wood afterwards. I quite liked the things he said, but I was surprised that some of the things he didn't say. Firstly. he made no comment on the way that the younger sister was more emotionally attached to Guy than her sister. The physical affection shown between the two when he first comes in is much more heartfelt than the interaction between Guy and Anne. I wondered if just as Barbara becomes a replacement / reminder for Bruno, whether she also acts in some way as a link to Miriam for Guy as well, and all that she brings with her.

Secondly I couldn't help but wonder whether the A to G inscription was somehow linked to the musical scale. I can think of no other evidence to hang this on, but it seems a bit of a coinicidence.

I also wondered whether Bruno ever intended for Guy to kill his father, or whether it was all a plan for him to commit the perfect murder. He seemed far to taken with his own ability and he gets more and more brazen in entering into Guy's life. Whilst this does represent a threat to Guy, it is also Bruno's way of showing off. And the results of it allow him to get Guy to frame himself more and more as he takes more and more risky suspicious actions (evading police trails etc.)

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Matt

I figure this is the best place to mention this, because it involves Hitchcock spoilers.

Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Jodi Foster film, Flightplan? I mention this because it very much reminds me of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

Anyone watched TLV? My brother got the disc in the Criterion Box Set and I think it's one of his more underappreciated films.

Yeah, I saw that trailer and loved it -- I'm looking forward to this one. (I almost started a new thread for that film, in fact. You know SOMEone's gonna do it some day.)

It's been a while since I saw The Lady Vanishes, but the superficial similarities, at least, are almost too obvious.

Stu inadvertantly left his copies of Shadow of a Doubt and The Trouble With Harry at our house and I managed to watch both of them, bringing my tally up to 18. STu do you have Saboteur as you said above, or not (as I thought you said on Friday)?

FWIW the 18 are:
39 Steps
Blackmail
Dial M for Murder
I Confess
Marnie
North by Northwest
Notorious
Psycho
Rear Window
Rebecca
Rope
Shadow of a Doubt
Strangers on a Train
The Birds
The Man who Knew Too Much
The Trouble With Harry
Torn Curtain
Vertigo

Plus IO completed Wood's book a while back.

Matt

The Lady Vanishes is in my top three or four of Hitchcock films I've seen. Matt, if you have not seen it, I highly encourage that you make it your next choice.

Thanks Michael - I certainly do need to see it - not quite sure whether I'll be able to get hold of it next though.

Matt

Just watched Shadow of a Doubt this evening, reinforcing that Joseph Cotton is really one of the all time most underrated and underpraised actors of all time. Very enjoyable film.

Ah I watched that just on Sunday. It's good isn't it? Wood compares and contrasts it to "It's a Wonderful Life" which is quite interesting. BAsically saying it's a sbversive film about the american family. I liked the way it showed the isolation of the family, even though on the surface they are an ideal, they also effectively all live independently submerged in books, stats, details of murders etc., and obviously this normal Uncle actually being a serial killer is a massive subversion of it as well. And Freud would have had a field day with the various sexual leanings towards Uncle Charlie.

Defintely one to re-watch I think.

Matt

Took my tally up to 19 yesterday with a late-ish night viewing of Spellbound (not the spelling bee documentary before anyone says it). I guess the obvious comparisons are with Marnie (which has that whole pscyhoanalytical thing going on, only the genders work the other way), and Notorious which also stars Ingrid Bergman, again starting the film as a emotionally detached woman forced into her role by the man's world she finds herself in, but quickly reverting to an emotional lover once she meets a man a man who is somehow detached (detached emotionally in Grant's case, and detached from is memories in Peck's)

Also similar with Marnie is [spoilers]the way that Hitch tricks the audience into fear over sokmething that turns out ot be nothing[/spoilers].

The shadows of this are marvellous, and combined with the whole trying to solve a crime give this a more noirish feel than in most of Hitchcock. The up close camera work and the low angle shots that populate it give a real edge to the atmosphere, and the use of the shadow and the PoV shots are brilliant. I particularly liked the one that linked Bergman to the gaggle of male doctors as they watch Peck getting out of the car. For most of the rest of the film she will be alone on one side of him, and they will stand together against him on the other, both of them looking down on him as he attempts to emerge.

Dali's much-vaunted dream sequence was only so so, but that's after years of seeing stranger things, I guess at the time it was pretty groundbreaking, but once you've seen Mullholland Drive...

Sadly the plot has a few too many holes (but that's never really the point with Hitchcock).

My brother much prefered Spellbound to Marnie, my sympathies lie the other way, but this is still worth seeing, the creepy atmosphere feels slightly Vertigo in tone (which has also been cited as a Hitchcock noir).

Matt

Mark Steyn on The 39 Steps.

I saw Murder! yesterday. Two things I noted were:

1 - The resemblance to 12 Angry Men. This must surely have inspired that film, as if the writer saw this film and thought "what if the one dissenting voice didn't back down in the jury room, but worked through his doubts there rather than afterwards".

2 - This was Hitch's second "full" sound film (or third if you include Blackmail), and I guess by that stage it was a relatively new innovation, so it's interesting to see Hitch pushing things so early on. There's one scene where the 11 other jurors pressure Sir John into backing down, gradually their voices increasing in unison. There's another early scene where we hear Sir John thinking to himself via a voiceover whilst he looks at himseelf in the mirror. This is such a common technique nowadays, but I wonder if this was it's first ever usage?

Matt

We saw [i]Jamaica Inn] on Saturday, which is a bit of an unusual one, seeing as it's set in 1819. So there's no Hitch cameo - just the thought of it made me snigger.

It's really a bit of a Charles Laughton vehicle. I don't suppose it's giving to much away to say he plays a slimy mad ruler of sorts.

It also stars somebody Nelson who went on to give the definitive Long John Silver performance in another pirate movie in 1950, only here he's a goodie. Reminiscient of both Flynn and Robert Donnat - perhaps it was just the 'tasches and the style.

But the star of the show is Maureen O'Hara's Mary, who reminded me how women use to get far better roles in the 30s than they do today. Of course she's in the film cos she's beautiful (and quite Ingrid Bergmann-esque), but her character is clever, brave, witty not dependent on the male of the story etc. etc..

The film is certainly not one of Hitch's best - it's no surprise that he didn't return to genre films, but one of the scnes between O'Hara and Nelson absolutely crackles in a similar style to the 39 steps.

Matt

RIP: Kasey Rogers (aka Laura Elliot), who starred in one of my favorite Hitchcocks.

FWIW, my article on Hitchcock for CT Movies' 'Filmmakers of Faith' series.