Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv4BwEGPQbM

I thought this was a stunning, stunning take (warning lengthy film crit):

http://www.chrismarker.org/a-free-replay-notes-on-vertigo/

definitely worked up my appetite for a Rescreen.

has anyone here seen ALL of hitch's films, including the silents? it's my goal for the new year.

I know ONE person who's seen Waltzes from Vienna.If you ever come across a copy, let us know!!!

But I've seen all of the ones I can, even Elstree Calling which Hitch dismissed.

http://www.thecastrotheatre.com/coming-soon.html

You know about this, right, Steve?

ooh, thx !!! i did not know!

I've seen everything post-1939 except Stage Fright, most of the British talkies and a couple silents.

vertigo (no matter how many times you see it, it's always more twisted than you remember)

also funnier, but maybe that's just me.

― sarahel, Wednesday, 30 December 2009 08:32 (1 week ago) Bookmark

i am watching this tonight. after rear window and nxnw i am ready to have my mind blown and my senses thrilled a third time round

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 6 January 2010 18:32 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is such a slow-burner!! gotta say i didn't see the twist coming. i'd already worked out a far more outlandish one in which midge was madeleine :D that'll teach me to second-guess!

midge is way hotter and saucier and generally more attractive than the kim novak character obv. snappy chick who paints and has a sense of humour? will take that ahead of doomed tragic...oh wait maybe that's the point of the movie!

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Thursday, 7 January 2010 04:47 (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(it's not, but it's telling that he can only pursue a remembrance of death, like madeleine in her act...as that chris marker crit piece says, midge is painted out entirely for the second half)

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Thursday, 7 January 2010 05:22 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

wonder if this movie wd have been better if it had confirmed the dream by ending with stewart in the hospital sitting bolt upright and grinning painfully like jonathan pryce at the end of 'brazil'

hmm

btw now i've seen the 'holy trinity' i've gotta say they're all AWESOME, wd rank them maybe rear window > nxnw > vertigo, but they're all different. first one's the date movie, second's the james bond, third's the slow descent into the inferno. vertigo suffers a little from being a mite unsatisfying right at the end, although i hadn't formulated the dream theory at that stage, and it'd have been better if i had. the main thing is that even with the dream theory, even with this expression of a man trying to reclaim something impossible, it doesn't feel quite as fundamental as the other two.

of course, rear window is one of the all-time great date movies (what a fucken script!) and nxnw is better than every james bond film put together and given a healthy anabolic injection of awesome

maybe need to see vertigo again more than the other two?

also it's unclear how much the kim novak character loves james stewart, or what her motivations are? i quite like to read it that stewart semi-deliberately destroys her, whether in actuality or in his 'dream'. because then stewart becomes evil. which makes the movie twice as cool as it already was. this man, becoming evil!

it isn't as breezy as the other two movies. it's poetic, but anguished. rear window is poetic, and it is as light on its feet and as exhilarating as movies can be. also the chemistry between the two leads in RW is WAY more powerful. in V it's more desperation than chemistry. they're brought together by duress, deception and illusion. in RW they're brought together by mutual belief and understanding. aw maybe i'm just an old sop.

i'll stop now.

man i LOVE the final act of Vertigo absolutely! find it incredibly satisfying all way through to the "i heard.."

you're totally right about the chemistry/desperation in the films' respective couples - but i think that's why i personally have to love Vertigo more, it's just a swarming, encompassing dream-sickness that you're watching in the final bits, vs. a more linear though still quite effective tightening of suspense in RW

also adding to what you're saying Novak's motivations - i don't know if she really fell if love with Stewart up through the first tower scene, but after that she basically became the husband's plaything and was tossed aside and abandoned, so by the time she meets in the third act she's also been at least somewhat devastated, used, broken, guilty - heck she's still hanging on to that souvenir - alone in that apartment. does she really believe he's never going to figure it out, or does she actually want to be caught?

not to slight the other two even a bit - NXNW especially, probably the most flat-out entertaining Hitch film, and RW's pretty great too but Vertigo's the one to me that really, really gets under the skin

Well, as many have said there's the chance that the second half is Stewart's vision, which makes her dilemmas less interesting (albeit that the way he 'turns' her possession into a something far more literal is delicious). There's the tiniest element of Vertigo that it's fucked-up for the sake of being fucked-up, and a weeny bit contrived (with the vertigo); I know it's expressionist and I know it's basically a horror movie but the concerns of RW and NXNW held me in a slightly more vice-like grip. Vertigo is still a fine, fine movie. Wondrously shot, and the pursuit scenes (all of them) are glorious.

I think the thing that puts Vertigo over the top is that you'll find yourself watching it literally dozens of times, all the while the experience only gets richer.

second's the james bond

hmmmm, NxNW is more like Bond with humanity.

btw From Russia w/ Love ripped off the cropduster scene.

Yes (xp). It has the escapism, free spirit and pacing of a Bond movie (Bond applies screwball tropes to action), but it has a believable, confused and wholly sympathetic character in the main role, and James Mason as some sort of awesome Bond/Bond villain superhybrid. It's Bond but with acknowledgement that life is one big accident. It has you cheering where Bond has you glazed.

I was saying to myself throughout 'this is James Bond! but three-dimensional'

NxNW totally rips off 39 steps.

(and with a killer script. OH btw the train scene in Casino Royale...take out the Rolexes and the Oxbridge oneupmanship, and put in a bit of chemistry...)

NxNW totally rips off 39 steps.

Not seen 39 Steps for about 10 years (true story) and need to see it again but there's nothing wrong with a director trying to refine his own craft and express something he can express in terms he prefers.

it's a refinement. xp

a believable, confused and wholly sympathetic character in the main role

sort of, but Grant is established as enough of an asshole in the first 3 minutes to make his predicament a blast.

He's a fast-talking, illusory ad exec, and his taxi patter is intended to be both boring and assholish, yeah. Plus, he's an entertainingly coarse drunk. He's not a 'nice guy' at all; he's a city slicker half living on his wits and half barely surviving a gloriously escalating situation.

However, he's sympathetic, because he's assholish in ways we can see in ourselves! Aspirational, well-to-do, grand.

...and then he becomes a superhero.

he has that line about "expedient" lying, and then no one believes him for most of the film.

Call it Morbs' feminine intuition.

(an accidental superhero)

Haha! This is actually true. Especially in the auction scene where he plays that to his advantage. He's never quite pinned down by anyone (except the girl).

The very last shot is one of the funniest things I've ever seen btw

It's like the end of Preston Sturges' Hail The Conquering Hero turned up to 15

Hitchcock called it "the only symbol" in the movie. xp

Love the look on Mother's face when she snatches the bribe from his hand in the Plaza lobby.

"That was mother" might be the funniest line of the film

just saw 'stage fright' and i'd say it's possibly my favorite hitch without stewart or grant. genuinely unpredictable and funny, and the acting somehow feels a lot more natural than the other hitch films of that period (much as i love AH, i often find the acting in a lot of his work off-puttingly wooden).

and jane wyman, damn!

http://www.classicfreemoviedownloads.com/jane%20wyman%2001%20500.jpg