Peter, read your article last night. Excellent.

Denny

Thanks!

As I was telling someone else yesterday, it was a rather daunting article to write because I've only seen about 30-ish Hitchcock movies, which means there are about 20-ish Hitchcock movies that I have NOT yet seen, so there is always the possibility that I was leaving out some really crucial bit of cinematic evidence. Not to mention there are lots and lots of biographies and critical analyses, many of which conflict with each other. (One biographer says Hitchcock refused to let a priest come to his home to serve mass; another simply says a priest "insisted" on coming to his home, and the biographer neglects to state explicitly whether or not Hitchcock actually let the priest do this. That sort of thing.) But, well, I wasn't being paid to do years of research or to write anything exhaustive or definitive, so I eventually just went for it, and wrote what I wrote.

Have been continuing to work my way through the master's tome, and finally re-visited Psycho (which was as good as I'd remembered), and took a first viewing of the Skin Game and Foreign Correspondent. The Skin Game is rather unHitchcockian and it seems incumbent on anyone who comments on it that Hitchcock said he didn't want to make it but was forced to. It does feature two great performances Edmund Gwenn (also good in Foreign Correspondent and Olivier's Pride and Prejudice), and Phyllis Konstam - whose performance is truly memorable - particularly towards the end. PLus it has one interestin use of camera work and an amusing use of sound when a legal man stands up to read out the legal clauses at an auction and Hitch gives it audio equivalent of what we do today everytime we're faced with reading Terms and condition before we sign up to something from the internet. (as in the man's voice becomes inaudibly quiet).

The Foreign Correspondent is up there with HItch's best for me. There seems to be some confusion as to whether this is Hitch's second Hollywood film or his last British one. I'd go with the former option. Given it's war time context (and the Hayes code) the sympathetic. non-demonising approach to the villian is breathtaking, the humour is particularly thick, especially for Hitchcock fans, there are memorable, oft references scenes such as the chase through a crowd of umbrellas, a top notch MacGuffin and there are numerous interesting shots. Plus George Sanders is at his humorously, quintessentially-English best here.

The love story is a little heavy handed at times, and the ending a little hokey (although apparently it was prophetic - London was not being bombed at the time it was being filmed, but was by the time it was being released.

I think my tally of films is now 35 as follows:

The Lodger (1927)
Blackmail (1929)
Murder! (1930)
The Skin Game (1931)
Number Seventeen (1932)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Sabotage (1936)
Secret Agent (1936)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Rebecca (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Saboteur (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Rope (1948)
Stage Fright (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
I Confess (1953)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Wrong Man (1956)
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1966)
Frenzy (1972)

Matt

Strangely enough, in a Search for Titles Containing "Hitchcock", this thread does not come up.

So I started this thread, which has now been closed.

Can we move that content over here? Can we change the title of this thread so that people looking for posts on Hitchcock can find it more easily?

Yeah FWIW I've searched numerous times for it under Hitchcock in the past, until eventually I learned that you had to search for Hitchcocks.

Having read the new thread, (which it would be good to merge with this one) I'd like to comment on Greg's point about Hitch making stage plays. Firstly, I'm a bit confused as to what is being said. On the one hand you say "Hitchcock leaves much to be desired, cinematically" but then your later comment seems to be more about saying they are dialogue heavy than an actual criticism of his visual ability. Personally I think one of the reasons that Hitch is so great is that his scripts are so good, and that is combined with an equally brilliant grasp of the visual. And for experimentation he's hard to top. Rope is, of course, based on a stage play, but it's a visually experimental film nevertheless. The long takes is incredibly complex, particularly given it also takes place all in a single apartment. But he also went on to do Psycho which is fairly revolutionary (I think...) in terms of it's quick short editing.

I've actually been checking out some of his earlier films, and watched The Manxman the other night, and the opening few scenes are all about communicating through the images and not just the dialogue, so much so in fact I might use a clip for the film class I'm starting next month.

Anyway I've gone on enough. FWIW though I've only seen 2 of Hitchcock presents, but I'm up to about 37-38 of his movies now.

Oh and Wood's book is great, as is the pocket essentials one if you fancy a brief, but relatively comprehensive book on Hitch.

Matt

Just watched Lifeboat and love it. Don't know if it would make my top 5 or not, but certainly worth 97 minutes.

Lifeboat is in my top five Hitchcock films; it really gets better each time. I thought it'd be fun to work on a stage adaptation of it.