Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

Saw Rebecca tonight for the first time in years. George Sanders looks like a young LBJ.

Anyway, it's easily in his top ten, despite the phony denouement. Joan Fontaine = most underrated element? Fontaine handles the awkwardness of a parvenue so well that we squirm, like the scene in which Mrs. Danvers quietly mocks her ("Mrs. De Winter was very particular about sauces") is grueling.

and, yeah, it's better than the novelette.

Looney writer for The Believer: "James Stewart, an amiable actor of limited resources, was the wrong man to play Scottie. The right man, the only man, would have been Henry Fonda."

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200803/?read=article_mckinney

Vertigo is called a masterpiece, but it can’t be. Stewart lacks the physical and psychological ingenuity to embody this dreadfully twisted character. Perfect for Rear Window’s humor and shivery suspense, in Vertigo he is a soft center neither projecting nor inspiring fear, his madness a monotonous mimicry.

OTM!

Casting Stewart against type was one of the best things in Vertigo. It makes his descent towards the end all the more affecting, because you don't expect Jimmy Stewart to go that low.

OTM

blah.

that guy wasted an awful lot of time on this non-question.

xpost

not entirely against type. he'd been playing crazy muthas for anthony mann for a few years by then. and an obsessive in 'rear window' obviously.

I guess you guys have never seen Rear Window, xp

it's not a non-question; it's addressing the weakest link in a ridiculously critically-regarded movie that isn't as good as the other parts of its triumvirate and that people basically like because it's more auteurist and fetishistic and doesn't have any jokes or fun that might interfere with its greatness. also, nice scenery, ok, but it looks like a graphic novel.

I don't think Vettigo is a perfect film or Hitchcock's best, but IMO this isn't because of Stewart. As for Rear Window, there's a big difference between Stewart's obsessiveness in that one and in Vertigo. In Rear Window he remains sympathetic throughout the film, because his obssession is of the sort almost everyone can relate to.

Also, Fonda might've been a more nuanced "psychological" actor, but criticizing Vertigo because of its lack of psychological realism is sorta missing the point. It's not supposed to be realistic.

isn't as good as the other parts of its triumvirate

I hate to ask, Laughing Boy, but what's the third one?

doesn't have any jokes or fun that might interfere with its greatness

RONG. Most of the stuff w/ Midge early on is fun, and even her nasty Portrait of Carlotta joke. Also "You fell into SF Bay," "The gentleman certainly knows what he wants" ... Why are ppl so clueless about the Hitch humor?

While Stewart's mania in Vertigo is odder than in RW, I don't find it 'unrelatable.'

James Stewart, an amiable actor of limited resources

WAHT. Does he mean David Niven?

He could be referring to Joan Fontaine in Rebecca.

I hate to ask, Laughing Boy, but what's the third one?

the one with the train going into the tunnel

RONG. Most of the stuff w/ Midge early on is fun, and even her nasty Portrait of Carlotta joke. Also "You fell into SF Bay," "The gentleman certainly knows what he wants" ... Why are ppl so clueless about the Hitch humor?

no, I get all those, thanks, we just have different notions of fun (yes, that's a six-foot engraved invitation), and i don't think anything about the shopping scene is supposed to be funny

that's like saying The Birds attacking the school kids isn't supposed to be FUN!

I'm not fond of Vertigo either, but with all the problems of pacing and plot incoherence, picking on Stewart makes no sense.

plot incoherence -- IT'S A DREAM

I'm not fond of Vertigo either, but with all the problems of pacing and plot incoherence, picking on Stewart makes no sense.

yeah, he's only the heart of the movie

how is 'vertigo' in a trilogy with 'rear window' and... 'nnw'? not consecutive, not even for the same studio, not with the same leading man, not with the same writer, and thematically different. 'nnw' was self-consciously fun. don't see how it fits.

oh no, not from the same studio! i called them a triumvirate, not a trilogy, as i believe many regard them - all from a short, mid-period span, all in color, all concerning similar themes (nnw certainly fits) - as the three greats. why, you prefer the declasse little b&w genre flick that opened the 60s?

yeah, he's only the heart of the movie

And if the movie works, it's thanks to how well he handles the conceit: the aw-shucks demeanor is a mere facade.

(Anatomy of a Murder does this better, though).

The problem for me has always been the denouement in the middle of the movie.

you mean the 'secret' that AJH moved because he didn't want it to be the crux of the film?

oh no, not from the same studio! i called them a triumvirate, not a trilogy, as i believe many regard them - all from a short, mid-period span, all in color, all concerning similar themes (nnw certainly fits) - as the three greats. why, you prefer the declasse little b&w genre flick that opened the 60s?

-- gabbneb, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 4:13 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ech, hitchcock's style changed pretty markedly from studio to studio. anyway i have no idea what links nnw to the other two, any more than other hitchcock films. i'm not sure if i prefer 'psycho' but it's no more of a genre flick than 'nnw'.

Jeez, guys, I'm very fond of Vertigo and feel no reason to say I'm not.

Vertigo's just suffering the inevitable backlash because it's been "Hitchcock's best film" for too long.

<i>you mean the 'secret' that AJH moved because he didn't want it to be the crux of the film?</i>

Yeah, I can see Hitchcock's point but I don't think it works. It kind of deflates the movie putting it where he does.

i liked it well before it knew it was a A Big Deal -- one of the first hitchcocks i even saw. the believer article feels pretty inconsequential.

xp: well, it deflates a lesser movie that he didn't want it to be! SURPRISE, she fooled ya Scottie!

C/D - Chicago Hope's Hitchcock tribute episode, filmed in black and white and featuring Tippi Hendren as a mad motel owner. I wish I were making this up.

or "The Flintstone" episode parodying "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," complete with monocle-sporting neighbor named "Alvin Brickrock."

the impact of vertigo would be severely weakened if scottie were a haunted nutcase from the start -- a lot of its power comes from the fact that for the first half-hour or so, he's just plain old jimmy stewart.

complaining that vertigo has pacing problems is kind of like complaining that king lear is too long: it's probably true but who cares?

I'd rather read Gloucester's speeeches than watch Kim Novak stare blankly, but that's just me.

yeah, i'd say that's just you.

"Vertigo's just suffering the inevitable backlash because it's been "Hitchcock's best film" for too long."

I'm pretty sure, if this is true, it's a recent phenom. It wasn't always so critically well-regarded.

it's been that way since its re-release in the 80s

I don't think it's GREAT but it's got awesome set pieces (Jimmy Stewart shaking Kim Novak: "You were a very apt PUPIL!").

although it's a masterpiece next to Marnie.

I'm rooting for a Topaz reassesment

Marnie's fine (mainly because everything in it is just a little "off"). I do believe though that as good as Hedren is in the lead, the film would have perhaps been better off w/a different lead actress. Hitch's blonde tunnel-vision hurt him a little bit there.

14 disc box set for £18.

why no North by North West?

These boxed sets are often a bit random. Great tip though, Gooblar. I think it's just on the side of not being likely to be a pricing error, so I've ordered it.

Yeah, there are actually a bunch of good deals there now; I think they're probably trying to get rid of a bunch of overstock.

that's a box set of (most) of the hitchcock films owned by universal - warner bros own the rights to NORTH BY NORTHWEST. again, you can get it as part of a cheap box set

the universal box has been available pretty cheaply for a couple of years, btw, but this is the first time I've seen it under £20

Amazon has it for £17.97

VAT-slashing price war!

whoa i forget how cheap amazon is (looking at other dvd box sets); you can really blow a lot of money there

paul merton's hitchcock docu on bbc4 last night was a pretty weak runthrough of the brit years that celebrated hitch as, first and foremost, a kind of melies-like visual trick specialist - nice to see gil taylor and roy ward baker interviewed tho

doc was bookended by a pinsharp digital print of THE LADY VANISHES - as if to disprove merton's 'thesis', the obvious model shots are by far the weakest part of that movie - and then REBECCA, which i am slightly shamefaced to admit that i'd never seen before. the opening sequence ("i dreamed...") is so good and strong that it takes a while for the film to recover - olivier's performance/line delivery is especially ODD and distracting - but all the scenes w/ mrs danvers are of course pure gold, and the final image of the burning embroidered pillow is powerfully evocative on all sorts of levels. some of the material - mrs danvers' obsessive passion/lust for rebecca, maxim's sexual ambivalence, rebecca's adulterous affair and suspected pregnancy - seems quite 'daring' for the time. and george sanders is a great blackmailing cad.

also: hilariously dated scenes of pub landlords and friendly coppers showing forelock tugging deference to lord of the manor mr dewinter

i was pretty meh on the p-mert doc... but also extremely relieved. i've been working on english hitchcock for, like, ever, and had they uncovered the amazing new shit that i've uncovered, i'd be pretty miffed. to say the least. anyway: they didn't.

i dunno if it was more interesting for newcomers, but i found the film-by-film approach got a bit boring. also, it relied way too much on interviews with hitchcock, who was a pretty evasive guy.

we simply do not know very much about his first 27-odd years on earth. i was hoping they might have uncovered something there, rather than retailing the 'he got locked up' story.

closer to what i am working on, 1) nobody used the word montage when hitch made 'the ring' (1927); 2) hithcock claimed to have seen only one russian film as of 1930, 'potemkin'; 3) the kuleshov experiment bit was all wrong. the whole point is that the actor's face is blank, not smiling.