Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

jesus tell me that's fake

It's absolutely for real. The more I think about it, the more this seems like the worst movie ever. It's riotously shitty.

"He helps her into the car" = "He pretends she's a steak at Ernie's and smears horseradish on her."

so does this movie have a shot at the coveted My Week With Marilyn slot

It's absolutely for real. The more I think about it, the more this seems like the worst movie ever. It's riotously shitty.

― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Thursday, November 29, 2012 9:08 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i have no problem believing this

oh my god at that script picture

Helen Mirren could probably slip into Best Actress, especially since her character keeps saying "I am Alma Reville." Actor's too crowded for Hopkins to have more than an outside shot.

it reminds me of the fake michael bay's batman script

http://my.spill.com/profiles/blog/show?id=947994%3ABlogPost%3A355506

they don't call the Academy the Masters of Suspense for nothing!

It gives you a PECK on the cheek.

Did I mention a raven lands on Hitchcock's shoulder at the end of this movie?

there's so many lines in the trailer alone that make me cringe. like a reporter going "mr. hitchcock, you're the most famous director in the history of the medium... but you're 60 years old!"

Did I tell YOU there's a scene where Hitch sits down in a train and Robert Walker goes "Excuse me -- is this seat taken?"

Did I tell YOU there's a scene where Vera Miles is wearing a black bra? Or was it a white one?

Also, he loves him some imported, canned foie gras.

Does this at least approach Mommie Dearest levels of camp, or is it completely worthless?

It's not really campy at all. Just a run-of-the-mill hatchet job that highlights each and every one of the pitfalls of this pitfall-heavy genre.

this O'Hehir piece is kind of intriguing, as he finds Hitch's craft a "baleful influence in film history."

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/24/the_strange_case_of_alfred_hitchcock/

tbh there aren't many directors who do Hitch well so if he's to be judged by the baleful qualities of his hack imitators...

It’s clearly relevant to Hitchcock’s films that he was a neurotic mess (and quite likely a highly unpleasant and unhappy person) who had unresolved mommy issues and lusted fruitlessly after a parade of icy blondes. But those things don’t explain his seductive, paranoid, mistaken-identity dreamscapes any more than Scott Fitzgerald’s alcoholism and bigotry can explain “The Great Gatsby,” or Richard Wagner’s anti-Semitism can explain “The Ring of the Nibelungen.” Indeed, as Richard Brody of the New Yorker recently suggested in a post about Hedren and “Marnie” (a movie I pretty much can’t stand), the fact that Hitchcock was a defective personality may make his artistic achievement greater rather than lesser.

It and Gertrud form the great 1964 diptych of defective sexuality.

I like Marnie too, tho it falls a little short of Gertrud.

(add Dr Strangelove for a triptych)

True and true.

is Bruce Dern the last working actor who's been in 2 Hitchcock films? I guess Norman Lloyd is retired.

Hedren has 5 credits in the last 2 years and 3 in various stages of production.

ok, i wondered about that

btw, UK MWKTM on Criterion in January. Need to resee.

http://www.criterion.com/films/27999-the-man-who-knew-too-much

Me too. I need to rewatch a lot of the British ones. Don't have particularly fond memories of many aside from The Lady Vanishes.

The one w/ Sylvia Sidney & husband running the movie theater is pretty amazing. (I keep forgetting it's based on a Conrad novel)

Sabotage, and my favorite of the Britcocks.

the PBS outlet in NY used to show the Britcocks ALL the time when I was a teen.

Kinda starting to think that non-Lifetime biopics are the absolutely worst film genre.

Oh right, I liked that one too. Best bomb theory in practice.

funny you mentioned Sabotage as I remembered it yesterday when watching Day Night Day Night.

xxpost they very much are. Want to lobby a mod to change this thread title:

biopics - which ones are good?

to a "defend the indefensible"

Hoberman enthuses about Lorre in the Brit Man Who... (dead rong about the '50s version tho).

http://blogs.artinfo.com/moviejournal/2013/01/02/hitchcocks-peter-lorre-is-too-much/

yeah, the 50s version is lazily criticised by people who won't recognise it's a different film to the original. Lorre is amazing of course, cos he's Lorre. really wish he'd made a dozen B&Ws with Hitch.

watched Saboteur all the way thru for maybe the first time this week - i seem to know the last 15 minutes by heart but have always managed to miss bits from earlier. really enjoyed it, obv - some lovely set pieces and the only real negative for me is the clunkiness of some of the more obvious propaganda speeches. i figure he actually reworked it as much into the second Man Who Knew Too Much as he did NxNW, the whole society ball section especially. nice to have an unfamiliar guy (to me) as the wrong suspect for a change.

anyway, i was just in the mood. it's probly a shade long but it's an under-rated blast imo.

Robin Wood gets mentioned a number of times on this thread; found a cheap copy of his Hitchcock book with this cover on the way home tonight (only s second edition, unfortunately).

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/wood-hitchcock.jpg

now you can get Revisited and compare

Isn't there something after Revisited as well, Re-Make/Re-Model?

US tour of BFI-restored early flms:

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/rare-early-hitchcock-pics-to-tour-u-s-1200326013/

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/576925_10151486503447488_1840767835_n.jpg

Maybe this photo is famous, but I'd never seen it until this morning:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1nr5p7YBC1qm1ld5o1_500.jpg

(From a TV intro, I'm guessing.)

yeah yeah yeah

Guillermo del Toro's brief analysis on the Man Who Knew Too Much Criterion is rich. I wonder if his book on AJH will ever be translated? or has it?

watched north by northwest last night. that is all, tbh, i don't need morbs shouting at me this time on a sunday

lol

fine, u & Eric have had yr masterpiece vaccines

I find the best times for a lecture from Morbius are Wednesday mornings or Thursday afternoons. I have no explanation.