Poll

Your Favorite Alfred Hitchcock Film Is:

haven't seen any
0 (0%)
don't like any
0 (0%)
other
0 (0%)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
0 (0%)
Blackmail (1929)
0 (0%)
Murder! (1930)
0 (0%)
The Skin Game (1931)
0 (0%)
Rich and Strange (1931)
0 (0%)
Number Seventeen (1932)
0 (0%)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
0 (0%)
The 39 Steps (1935)
0 (0%)
Secret Agent (1936)
0 (0%)
Sabotage (1936)
0 (0%)
Young and Innocent (1937)
0 (0%)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
0 (0%)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
0 (0%)
Rebecca (1940)
1 (0.9%)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
0 (0%)
Mr and Mrs Smith (1941)
0 (0%)
Suspicion (1941)
0 (0%)
Saboteur (1942)
0 (0%)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
3 (2.8%)
Lifeboat (1944)
0 (0%)
Spellbound (1945)
0 (0%)
Notorious (1946)
3 (2.8%)
The Paradine Case (1947)
0 (0%)
Rope (1948)
3 (2.8%)
Under Capricorn (1949)
0 (0%)
Stage Fright (1950)
0 (0%)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
3 (2.8%)
I Confess (1953)
0 (0%)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
3 (2.8%)
Rear Window (1954)
28 (25.7%)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
0 (0%)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
2 (1.8%)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
0 (0%)
The Wrong Man (1956)
0 (0%)
Vertigo (1958)
36 (33%)
North by Northwest (1959)
10 (9.2%)
Psycho (1960)
13 (11.9%)
The Birds (1963)
3 (2.8%)
Marnie (1964)
1 (0.9%)
Torn Curtain (1966)
0 (0%)
Topaz (1969)
0 (0%)
Frenzy (1972)
0 (0%)
Family Plot (1976)
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 109

Author Topic: Hitchcock, Alfred  (Read 30105 times)

oneaprilday

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #180 on: January 14, 2017, 04:35:33 PM »
Blackmail  (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929)  [Sound version]

Watching England's first talkie, I kept thinking that it could have been a really great sound film in another five years; or a really great silent film a year earlier. I didn't realize until reading up on it afterwards after that a silent version does indeed exist. I'll definitely be giving it a look as part of this marathon, especially since the talkie version of Blackmail is plagued by many of the typical troubles of early sound films, with the new technology having a limiting effect on visual artistry. Much of Blackmail is clumsy and uneven, with a very poor sense of rhythm and, in many scenes, a surprising disregard of spatial orientation. There are two great scenes: the culmination of the first act (see screenshot) and the chase through the British Musuem. Most everything else  teeters between between adequate and disappointing, with the latter response ultimately winning the day. Even at eighty-minutes, the sound version of Blackmail tried my patience too much for me to recommend it.

Grade: C+

pixote
I hear what you're saying about the sound, technology, the limiting of visual artistry (it does seem a step back, in that regard, from something like The Lodger, which, when I go through it, has so many gorgeous, communicative frames - here's PowerPoint of some stills I made for my students: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BWviJPOhh3e33G8vSnUjy94TKz2hxgSv7UtUx8obGuQ/edit?usp=sharing ), the odd rhythm - but still, I loved it and found it as effectively unsettling as The Lodger. Anny Ondra's face is akin to a Lilian Gish face relative to silent cinema (I wonder how her line readings would change her performance? She was, of course, only mouthing the words while English actress Joan Barry spoke the dialogue out of the frame), and I actually liked the disorienting rhythm - the long sequence of the police procedure in the beginning (loved that sequence when the cops arrive in the bedroom), then the crowded tea room, then the long sequence in the artist's studio leading up to the essential event. It's an event that feels like it should come sooner, perhaps, but I appreciated how long a time we spent in that studio, with the artist, who doesn't seem threatening at all at first (his cat-and-mouse singing was so effective, I thought). And the little visual joke of the curly shadow on the artist's lip - like an old-timey villain's mustache - is pretty great. I also really loved the aftermath - Alice wandering through the streets and making her way, finally, home, where she finds no real haven.  Perhaps the most draggy sequence is in the shop, but I liked the shift we witness from the blackmailer as a threat - and mockingly enjoying his status - to Frank becoming, essentially, the same mocking threat to the blackmailer, and Alice's discomfort in the face of both. The mirroring of the blackmailer and Frank is evocative, touching on one of Hitchcock's interests, of course, in the moral ambiguity of the "good" characters, of those standing in for moral authority and order.

Did you read about the fact that Hitch initially wanted a different ending but the producers said it was "too depressing"? He wanted the end to mirror the beginning, but to instead have the wheels of the justice system working against Alice--someone we know and care about--leading to her arrest and prosecution. And then, instead of seeing Frank, like we do in the beginning, casually joking around with the other officers and swinging handcuffs, we see him going home, now burdened with the weight of police-work in a way he hadn't been at the beginning. I do like the ending as is - that jester/joker portrait is quite effective (and that brief glimpse we get of Alice's sketch on the back as it is carried away) - but it would have been interesting to see Hitch's original idea played out and would have perhaps made more sense of the beginning sequence.

pixote

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #181 on: January 20, 2017, 12:44:23 PM »
I'll return to your post after I watch the silent version, but before I forget:

And the little visual joke of the curly shadow on the artist's lip - like an old-timey villain's mustache - is pretty great.

There were at least two shadows-across-the-face shots in Blackmail, both of which reminded me of this.

Did you read about the fact that Hitch initially wanted a different ending but the producers said it was "too depressing"? He wanted the end to mirror the beginning, but to instead have the wheels of the justice system working against Alice--someone we know and care about--leading to her arrest and prosecution. And then, instead of seeing Frank, like we do in the beginning, casually joking around with the other officers and swinging handcuffs, we see him going home, now burdened with the weight of police-work in a way he hadn't been at the beginning. I do like the ending as is - that jester/joker portrait is quite effective (and that brief glimpse we get of Alice's sketch on the back as it is carried away) - but it would have been interesting to see Hitch's original idea played out and would have perhaps made more sense of the beginning sequence.

Ooh, yes, that would have been really good, if he could have pulled it off. Symmetry in all things!

pixote
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oneaprilday

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #182 on: January 21, 2017, 01:56:40 AM »
And the little visual joke of the curly shadow on the artist's lip - like an old-timey villain's mustache - is pretty great.

There were at least two shadows-across-the-face shots in Blackmail, both of which reminded me of this.
Yes! Me, too.


Did you read about the fact that Hitch initially wanted a different ending but the producers said it was "too depressing"? He wanted the end to mirror the beginning, but to instead have the wheels of the justice system working against Alice--someone we know and care about--leading to her arrest and prosecution. And then, instead of seeing Frank, like we do in the beginning, casually joking around with the other officers and swinging handcuffs, we see him going home, now burdened with the weight of police-work in a way he hadn't been at the beginning. I do like the ending as is - that jester/joker portrait is quite effective (and that brief glimpse we get of Alice's sketch on the back as it is carried away) - but it would have been interesting to see Hitch's original idea played out and would have perhaps made more sense of the beginning sequence.

Ooh, yes, that would have been really good, if he could have pulled it off. Symmetry in all things!

pixote
Indeed! Mirroring - mirrored characters and literal mirrors - is something Hitch seems to like, and I suppose the desire for symmetry fits into that. So satisfying when you notice it.  Was just reading Robin Wood's essay on 39 Steps today (prepping to teach it on Monday), and he points out the beautiful symmetry of structure relative to the series of episodes in that film. Not sure if you've seen it recently, but here's what Wood points out:

1. The film's opening mirrors the ending: music hall/ London Palladium; interrogation of Mr. Memory in both; gun fire in both

2. The negotiation of the relationship between Hannay and the spy Annabella in Hannay's apartment mirrors the negotiation of the relationship between Hannay and Pamela at the inn: in the first, Hannay ends up agreeing to help Annabella; in the second, Pamela ends up agreeing to help Hannay.

3. The comic episode in the train with the lingerie salesmen mirrors the comic episode of the political meeting: both include a police/faux police search for Hannay; both are marked by an introduction/re-introduction of Pamela and her denouncing of Hannay to the authorities; both culminate in Hannay’s escape.

4. The central sequence with the evil professor is framed on either side by the puritanical crofter and his poor wife Margaret: in the first, Hannay spends the night at their house and Margaret helps him escape, and in the second, we see how Margaret's gift of the overcoat saved Hannay's life.

Anyway. :) Fun stuff.

pixote

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #183 on: February 07, 2017, 09:15:43 PM »




























Easy Virtue  (Alfred Hitchcock, 1928)

This is the most underrated film I've seen in quite some time. I'm completely mystified by the low rating on IMDb (5.7), unless it's a result of people wanting only crime thrillers from Hitchcock. Perhaps, too, the film suffers from the same problem as something like Siodmak's The Killers, where the opening fifteen minutes are almost too masterful, overshadowing the film that follows, which maybe then seems underwhelming by comparison.

The opening of Easy Virtue is masterful indeed, with Hitchcock seeming to channel Fritz Lang as he brings life to a divorce trial. The editing here is fanastic, with some playful graphic matches moving us back and forth in time between the trial and the events it recounts. Hitchcock's direction is showy, but wonderfully so. After this tragic prologue, he changes style, moving from Lang to Lubitsch, and the results are just as good, albeit more subtle. Easy Virtue really showcases the power of the visual storytelling of silent cinema, with great reliance on composition and the spatial relation of the actors between each other and between the wonderful sets. It'd be another few years until Lubitsch adapted a Noel Coward play of his own (1933's Design for Living), but Hitchcock really beats him at his own game here. Good stuff.

Grade: B+

Up next: Blackmail (1929) [silent version]

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« Last Edit: April 09, 2017, 02:27:54 AM by pixote »
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Corndog

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #184 on: February 08, 2017, 07:30:24 AM »
Have you seen the Jessica Biel version? lol
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

pixote

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #185 on: February 08, 2017, 01:28:17 PM »
Have you seen the Jessica Biel version? lol

lol, no, but I'm actually somewhat curious about it. I glanced at a handful of newspaper reviews of it earlier, and I was surprised that only one referenced Hitchcock's version (expressing incredulity that such a talky story could exist in silent form).

The Farmer's Wife (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Writer. Eliot Stannard, 1928)
Rating: 3.5/4

Easy Virtue (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Writers. Noel Coward & Eliot Stannard, 1928)
Rating: 3/4

21. The Farmer's Wife (3)
29. Easy Virtue (2.5)

Did these each lose a half a rating point upon reevaluation? (I noticed because my appreciation of Easy Virtue has me wondering if I need to add more films to my marathon, rather than jumping ahead to The Man Who Knew Too Much [1934] as originally planned.)

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« Last Edit: February 16, 2017, 10:44:54 AM by pixote »
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Corndog

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #186 on: February 08, 2017, 02:06:17 PM »
Not reevaluation, just time. The ratings business is a fickle thing.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

Slacker

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #187 on: February 16, 2017, 12:55:38 PM »
Top Ten
1.) North by Northwest - I love this movie!
2.) Rear Window - The set design and ambience are mesmerizing.
3.) Shadow of a Doubt - Odd and dark, with some humor
4.) Strangers on a Train - I love the noir feel of this one
5.) Foreign Correspondent - masterful adventure thriller like N by NW
6.) Rope - many interesting technical things in this movie.  great suspense.
7.) The Wrong Man - highly engaging docu-drama that raises interesting questions
8.) I Confess - also raises interesting questions
9.) Psycho - knew everything about it before I saw it but can still appreciate it
10.) Lifeboat - I love a good shipwreck tale

More that I like:
The Lady Vanishes
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Young and Innocent
The Birds
Stagefright
Suspicion
Sabotage

Appreciated but not beloved:
Dial M for Murder
Notorious
Rebecca

Not impressed:
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - sorry, doesn't work as well as original
Saboteur - some plot issues
39 Steps - plot is just too silly.
To Catch A Thief - mediocre romantic comedy.
Vertigo - plot is too silly.
Torn Curtain - some nice set pieces, overall doesn't work.
Marnie - good idea, fails to gel into a particular engaging story
Jamaica Inn - mediocre period mystery thriller.  charles laughton nearly ruins the movie.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith - only of interest to Carole Lombard fans, everyone else stay far away.

There are still plenty I need to watch like Frenzy and Spellbound.  I also haven't seen anything of his prior to 1934.

pixote

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #188 on: February 16, 2017, 01:05:26 PM »
Nice lists! Interesting to see The Wrong Man and I, Confess other so many of the more celebrated films. I look forward to catching up with them soon.

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Corndog

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Re: Hitchcock, Alfred
« Reply #189 on: February 16, 2017, 01:30:38 PM »
I look forward to catching up with them soon.

pixote

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