The Lady Vanishes

The Lady Vanishes (1938) is Alfred Hitchcock's most inventive British film. A meticulously crafted thriller, it transcends even The 39 Steps in its streamlined plotting and tonal blend. An appealing cast, headed by the radiant Margaret Lockwood, helps too.

Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) travels to her wedding through Bandrika. While waiting for a train struck in the head and is tended to by Ms. Froy (May Whitty), an elderly English matron. After falling asleep Ms. Froy appears to have vanished, and her fellow passengers claim she never existed. Iris suspects something's afoot, joining Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) to unravel a curious spy plot.

The Lady Vanishes takes cinematic duplicity to an extreme. Iris herself isn't sure if Ms. Froy existed or not, between her injury and everyone contradicting her. But it turns out her passengers have hidden agendas: the Todhunters (Cecil Parker) are hiding an affair, Caldecott and Carothers (Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford) want to reach a cricket match, the Doctor (Paul Lukas) is treating another patient and several passengers are spies. Even after confirming Ms. Froy's identity Iris still needs to uncover other passengers' agendas. Lady delights in baffling both its characters and audience.

Hitchcock incorporates this playful sleight-of-hand into his direction. An extended set piece has Iris and Gilbert fighting the magician Doppo (Philip Lever), who uses a false-bottomed case to escape. Amusingly, Doppo's rabbits watch the fight from a nearby crate! Several double-exposure dream sequences (a train wheel montage a la I Know Where I'm Going!, Ms. Froy's face imposed on other passengers) and miniature sets further enhance the unreal atmosphere.

For all its frivolity Lady has a serious undertone. Unlike many late '30s films it's grounded in pre-WWII tensions, though the only overt acknowledgment is Caldecott and Carothers worrying about England's cricket team. At film's end the disparate passengers must unite against the villains. One character makes a surprise sacrifice while a misguided pacifist naturally eats a bullet. A musical code provides the clever Macguffin.

Margaret Lockwood might be Hitchcock's most endearing heroine. In contrast to the usual femmes fatale, nutcases or confused victims, Lockwood's Iris is pleasingly plucky, shrewd and quick-witted. Michael Redgrave makes a good romantic match. May Whitty makes a strong impression and Paul Lukas excels against type. Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford's doubles-act proved so popular they revived it in a half-dozen films.

The Lady Vanishes is a delicious cinematic confection. Even among Alfred Hitchcock's oeuvre it has few equals in mixing comedy, suspense and romance.

Experiments in Hitchcock: Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949)

Alfred Hitchcock was nothing if not an experimenter, finding clever new ways to present movies. Two of his most divisive films are his most unconventional: Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). Before Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese and Alexander Sukurov, Hitchcock makes extensive use of long takes and unbroken master shots. Whether the movies are worthwhile, of course, is another matter.

Rope (1948)

Rope is Hitchcock's most notorious experiment, using a "single take" to adapt Patrick Hamilton's play. Critics rarely list Rope among his best work; Hitchcock himself called it a "stunt," telling Francois Truffaut it violated his focus on "the importance of cutting and montage." Rope holds up better for its thematic content than its directorial sleight-of-hand.

College students Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) murder classmate David, hoping a "perfect crime" will prove them superior. Hiding the body in a chest, they invite David's friends and family for dinner. Among the guests are David's fiancee Janet (Joan Chandler), jealous friend Kenneth (Douglas Dick), his straight-laced father (Cedrick Hardwicke) and aunt (Constance Collier). Also invited is Rupert (James Stewart), the boys' old teacher and intellectual mentor. Brandon and Phillip credit Rupert with inspiring their murder, and indeed Rupert quickly grows suspicious.

Rope can't be discussed without dissecting its direction. In 1948 Hitchcock could only achieve ten-minute takes and strains to maintain the illusion of unbroken shooting. Unable to cut at will, he employs a tracking camera, keying in on individuals and objects of importance. As Rupert unravels the murder, the camera follows his narration through the apartment. A time-elapse matte painting of the sky (including Hitchcock's cleverest cameo) changes subtly through the film. That Rope is first Hitchcock's first color movie is its least notable aspect!

Such technical virtuosity is a double-edged sword. The one-take gimmick appears impressive but on closer examination the seams show. Track-ins on characters' backs are awkwardly staged and Hitchcock even sneaks in a few undisguised cuts. Even if flawlessly executed Rope might seem an artificial exercise in craftsmanship. It's to Hitchcock's credit that things work so well.

Rope indeed seems primitive after the Steadicam achievements of Russian Ark and Children of Men. Then again, modern directors have more tools at their disposal. Long take shots are now an obvious, overused way of showing off. Joe Wright stages a five minute tracking shot in Atonement, but as a digitally-aided, self-contained sequence it's far less impressive. Hitchcock can't be faulted for using cruder methods, though his intent is ultimately similar.

Fortunately, Rope proves well-crafted on all levels. The story draws on Leopold and Loeb's Nietzsche-inspired murder with appropriate perversity. The homosexual content is surprisingly frank, with Brandon and Phillip engaging in sexual banter ("Can we stay like this for a minute?") and bickering like an old couple. Arthur Laurents seeds banal conversations with deathly puns that provide an air of black comedy. Brandon secretly gloats in his crime, dining off the chest with David's body and flaunting the murder weapon. This mixture of ghoulish humor and suspense proves delightfully Hitchcockian.

Some critics attack Rope as "anti-intellectual" but the film plays more ambiguously. Certainly its critique of Nietzsche and the "Superman" idea carries through strongly: when a character makes the obvious Nazi comparison, Brandon attacks Hitler merely for indiscriminate killing. But while Brandon and Phillip quickly credit Rupert with their idea, Brandon's pushy personality suggests individual inspiration. It's unclear whether Rupert's comments arose from a casual bull session or a more serious debate. Rupert's final speech is either self-serving or a pointed author's message about misusing ideas.

James Stewart seems awkwardly cast but provides a wry, intelligent performance. He certainly delivers the final peroration with conviction. John Dall (Spartacus) was never so well-used, playing a suitably charming creep, while Farley Granger's (Strangers on a Train) simpering nervousness makes an ideal contrast. The supporting cast performs competently, with Constance Collier's scatterbrained biddy standing out.

Under Capricorn (1949)

Rope transcends its gimmick through good acting and a compelling story. Under Capricorn has no such luck. Its main asset is cinematographer Jack Cardiff, whose Technicolor eye makes Capricorn pleasant to watch. It remains however a stolid, awkwardly-cast melodrama with few surprises.

Ne'er-do-well Charles Adaire (Michael Wilding) arrives in colonial Australia as a guest of the new Governor (Cecil Parker), his cousin. Charles hopes to strike it rich but soon gets embroiled in a love triangle. He falls for Lady Henrietta (Ingird Bergman), the distant, alcoholic wife of Samson Flusky (Joseph Cotten), an emancipated convict-turned-landowner. Servant Milly (Margaret Leighton) stokes Sam's suspicions, leading to an attempted murder and several shocking confessions.

Drawing from Helen Simpson's novel, Under Capricorn presents a class-driven melodrama. Australia is a nation of convicts, self-made nouveau riche clashing with snooty English gentry. This certainly plays into Milly's schemes, as she turns the proletariat Sam against his aristocratic wife. The concept's intriguing but never achieves take off. With so many indoor scenes Australia becomes an afterthought. The only native touches are a shrunken head and a throwaway line about platypuses.

The plot mechanics aren't impressive either. James Bridie's script apes Hitchcock's Rebecca, with its tormented wife, scheming servants, class differences and verbose murder confessions. The second half bogs down in long speeches while crucial events occur off-screen. Audience interest in the story dries up long before the climax.

Michael Wilding (The Scarlet Coat) is, at best, a likable stiff. Ingrid Bergman proves unusually flat and unengaged. Joseph Cotten gave his best performance in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, and here contributes one of his worst. Margaret Leighton (7 Women) excels in her Iago act but Cecil Parker (The Ladykillers) plays an officious bore. It's a shame seeing such good actors go to waste.

As before Capricorn makes a fine technical showpiece. Hitchcock uses more conventional long takes than Rope, with Cardiff's camera exploring governor's mansions, vast estates and dinner parties at length. The shots are visually impressive but don't distract from the dull story. Where Rope is entertaining, Under Capricorn is soporific.

* * *

Stay tuned for more Hitchcock reviews, and perhaps even a horror flick or two. After all, Halloween looms right around the corner...

I Confess

I Confess (1953) is middling Alfred Hitchcock. Another variant on Hitchcock's "wrong man" plot, its religious trappings don't compensate for sloppy plotting. Montgomery Clift helps with a strong performance.

Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift) hears the confession of church gardener Otto Keller (O.E. Hasse), who's murdered a lawyer named Vilette. Logan cannot break the seal of the confessional, even when police suspect him of the murder. Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden) finds Logan has a perfect motive: his past relationship with Ruth Grandfort (Ann Baxter), now unhappily married to a businessman (Roger Dann). Can Logan prove his innocence?

I Confess leans heavily on its priest plot to avoid familiarity. Hitchcock, a devout Catholic, no doubt felt its religious angle sincerely, and this aspect works well-enough. This doesn't stop I Confess from being contrived and profoundly muddled.

I Confess succeeds showing Logan's conflict. He fears not only breaking his clerical vows but exposing his shameful past, a credible characterization. His ambiguous relationship with Ruth torments him, while he scuffles with superiors afraid of the image problem generated by police suspicions. Hitchcock and writers George Tabori and William Archibald handle Logan's dilemma with sensitivity, saving I Confess from being gimmicky glop.

Move beyond Logan's characterization though and you've got a trifling, illogical plot. Is Larrue really so dense he can't guess why a Catholic priest might not cooperate? Ruth proves a selfish ninny who only makes things worse. Good thing that Keller blows his secret by publicly shooting someone. Hitchcock sets up Logan as a martyr with Calvary imagery - yet it's not Logan who's sacrificed. I Confess proves confused in its story and muddled in its message.

Hitchcock's direction is a mixed bag. He provides lots of moody photography, contrasting bright, scenic Quebec with cavernous church interiors and cramped police quarters. Ruth's romantic flashback, with glowing costumes and sunny scenery, provides an idyllic interlude. Hitchcock's a master of set pieces and the climactic chase works dramatically for all its illogic.

But the religious iconography proves insultingly obvious. As Logan walks to the police station, he passes a Calvary statue. Later, he testifies at his trial with a crucifix highlighted in the background. Presumably Hitchcock thought Logan healing lepers and turning water into wine was too on the nose.

Montgomery Clift provides a solid turn. His brooding intensity, repressed romanticism and religious devotion make him a compelling hero. His supporting cast is less commendable. Ann Baxter (All About Eve) suffers playing a ninny, while Karl Malden (On the Waterfront) is required to be snide and obtuse. O.E. Hasse (Decision Before Dawn) provides cartoon villainy and Dolly Haas's killer's wife is underutilized.

I Confess unfortunately proves mediocre. Its production values and Clift's acting salvage what would otherwise be forgettable.

Psycho (1960)

As big of an admirer as I am of Alfred Hitchcock, I find certain tendencies of his annoying. His talent is unquestioned, but his tendency to choose nonsensical narratives and cinematic experimentation over sensible plotting and genuine artistry is often grating. When it works, it works brilliantly (Rear Window, North by Northwest), but just as often you'll get nonsense like Spellbound and Under Capricorn which isn't the sum of its pretentious parts. Which brings us to today's subject.

Psycho is probably Hitchcock's most famous and well-loved work (with Rear Window and Vertigo close behind); it's certainly his most influential, providing the template for the "slasher film" which dominated horror through the '70s and '80s. I can definitely understand the acclaim for Vertigo, a film that's fascinating even if it's not very good. But Psycho seems more an exercise in craftsmanship than a great movie. At its center is one of the all-time great movie characters, but everything surrounding him is fairly rote and uninteresting.

Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is carrying on a sordid affair with Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and is looking for a way out of her wretched life. She steals $40,000 from her boss (Vaughn Taylor) and flees to Phoenix, stopping at the remote Bates Motel on her way out of town. The hotel proprietor is Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a nice-enough fellow who seems dominated by his invalid old mother. Marion meets a ghastly fate, and Sam, Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam), not expecting foul play, realize that Norman's mother holds the key to the mystery.

Psycho mostly seems like an artist directing beneath his talent; not as much as To Catch a Thief, but then To Catch a Thief doesn't have long Robin Wood-penned books claiming it an all-time masterpiece (at least I hope not). That Hitchcock deliberately eschewed the Technicolor vistas of his previous films for a chintzy black-and-white B-Movie does not make Psycho a masterpiece. To this cynical viewer, it seems an exercise in bad faith. What he does, he does well, but why do it this way at all?

Compared to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, released the same year, Psycho is an extremely safe and conventional film, its shocking twist aside. Its simplistic Hollywood morality is rather tiresome: Marion steals from a sleazy businessman and her nebbish of a boss, the cops are creepy as hell and she has a good reason to do it. Sam and Lila are onhand to provide us with bland "conventional" leads. The rough edges of Norman's psychosis are smoothed over by an obnoxious exposition scene, with Simon Oakland's psychiatrist providing an interminable monologue about Norman's psychosis. With a few tweaks, Psycho could easily have been an episode of The Twilight Zone (or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, for that matter). One could easily say this banality enhances the terror once Norman's true nature is revealed, but I'd argue it neuters it.

Psycho's greatest triumph is Norman Bates, who remains one of Hollywood's greatest killers. He seems affable if awkward at first, but his lengthy scene with Marion reveals a disturbed individual, a routine conversation degenerating into a psychiatric examination. Norman embodies all the neuroses only hinted at in previous Hitchcock films, specifically sexual deviancy and transsexuality: the crass shorthand of homosexuality as psychosis becomes something more direct and horrifying. Helped by Anthony Perkins, Norman remains the most compellingly creepy psycho in Hollywood history.

In this regard, Psycho is unquestionably ahead of its time. The characters in the story, and presumably 1960 viewers, couldn't fathom warped sexuality as a motive for crime, with serial killers still a rare phenomenon. Post-WWII America was still innocent enough to be shocked by Howard Unruh's New Jersey killing spree and Ed Gein's sordid antics in Wisconsin. After several decades of far more gruesome serial killers and exploitative horror films, Norman's relatively subdued psychosis remains disturbing, and explains Psycho's enduring reputation.

Hitchcock's direction is excellent. He provides stylish set-pieces - an extreme close-up of Marion's dead eye, the creepy cop (Mort Mills) stalking Marion, Marion's guilt-driven mental musings, Norman's parlor packed with stuffed birds - helped immeasuribly by George Tomasini's frantic editing and Bernard Herrman's shrieking score. The infamous shower scene has been dissected to death, a masterpiece of editing, music and primal terror, but for my money Arbogast's demise is equally striking. Again, there's no quibbling with Hitchcock's technical finesse, even if it's at the service of a lame story.

Anthony Perkins (The Tin Star) is brilliantly subversive casting. After a decade as a bland, pretty boy star, Perkins eclipses his entire career, in an even more shocking turn than Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West. He captures Norman's in subtle ways, with a nervous laugh and that manifests itself at inopportune moments. The final scene of him alone in a prison cell, his mother's "voice" providing an insight into his thoughts, is more horrifying and enduring than anything else in the film.

Hitchcock handles the other actors just as well. Janet Leigh (Act of Violence) gives her most memorable performance, convincingly desperate and guilt-ridden, and she makes a compelling protagonist for the first third of the film. Martin Balsam (All the President's Men) gives his best performance, and John McIntire (Winchester '73) and Simon Oakland (The Sand Pebbles) make the most of weak parts. Even the wooden John Gavin (Spartacus) and annoying Vera Miles (The Searchers) come off well under Hitch's direction.

I don't mean to sell Psycho as a bad or mediocre film, by any means. It has more than enough virtues to justify watching it, but it's far from Hitchcock's best, either in artistic or entertainment value.

Rebecca

Alfred Hitchcock's only Best Director nomination came for Rebecca (1940), a meticulous, long-winded adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's novel. It's not one of Hitchcock's best films, and his attempts to turn a melodrama into a thriller are a mixed success. Still, it's a technically perfect film, and a slew of great performances makes it well worth watching.

A unnamed young woman (Joan Fontaine) meets handsome widower Maxim DeWinter (Laurence Olivier) while on vacation in France. The two marry quickly, but the new Mrs. DeWinter is disheartened to find that Maxim is obsessed with the memory of his late wife Rebecca, who died in a tragic accident. Mrs. DeWinter is anguished to find herself in the shadow of Rebecca, and it doesn't help that the demonic Miss Danvers (Judith Anderson) tries to drive her insane. Also intruding is Rebecca's cousin Jack (George Sanders), who suspects that Maxim murdered Rebecca.

Rebecca's biggest problem is its schizophrenic tone. Producer David O. Selznick clearly wanted a woman's picture, while Hitchcock seems to have wanted a thriller. The melodrama sections are fairly bland, with lots of dull dialogue and throat-clearing exposition, but the second thread, where Hitchcock's interest clearly lies, is excellent. The murder investigation plot is good if a bit too conveniently wrapped up, but the scenes of Miss Danvers terrorizing Mrs. DeWinter with mind games and suggestions of suicide are superb. It helps that our protagonist is a beautiful and charming lady, and we can easily sympathize with her dilemma. Miss Danvers truly is a nasty piece of work, and her omnipresent, demonic character nearly overwhelms the rest of the film - not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hitchcock's direction is superb. In his Hollywood debut, Hitchcock relishes his large budget, making exquisite use of George Barnes' creepy shadows and lighting, and Lyle Wheeler's cavernous, expansive sets, to create an atmosphere of foreboding, isolation and dread. The movie is a bit more conventional than his later works, but it's still an impressive achievement. Franz Waxman's bombastic score is the only major technical flaw. This is a first-rate production, and certainly deserving of its technical accolades.

The radiant Joan Fontaine (Suspicion) gives a wonderful lead performance: self-conscious, inadequate, vulnerable and easily tormented, she's an easy protagonist to sympathize with. Laurence Olivier does well in a rather colorless role. Late in the film, Olivier is given the thankless task of spouting ten minutes of non-stop exposition, and somehow pulls it off. Judith Anderson (The Furies) is one of the all-time great villainesses, making Miss Danvers a chilling, omnipresent force of evil. George Sanders (All About Eve) plays his usual smooth-talking cad, and C. Aubrey Smith (The Four Feathers), Nigel Bruce (The Charge of the Light Brigade), Gladys Cooper (My Fair Lady) and Leo G. Carroll (North by Northwest) round out the supporting cast.

Rebecca isn't a truly great film, but Hitchcock and his cast make it an entertaining and engrossing movie.

Topaz

Topaz (1969) is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most-maligned films, a dry, slow, "realistic" Cold War spy caper with a non-star cast. Some of the criticisms are fair - it's long, slow-paced, and unfocused, with a wooden plank of a lead in Frederick Stafford - but it's far from the bad, boring film its reputation suggests. Its brilliant scenes come in spurts, but parts of Topaz are Hitchcock at or near his best. If nothing else, it's miles better than the interminable, dull-as-dirt Torn Curtain.

In 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis heating up, KGB Chief Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius) defects to America. French intelligence Agent Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) is approached by CIA Chief Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) to investigate Kusenov's information of Russian missiles in Cuba. Devereaux uses his Cuban spy ring, including lover Juanita De Cordoba (Karin Dors), to gain information, only to run afoul of Rico Para (John Vernon), Castro's vicious right-hand man - and Juanita's paramour. Devereaux also uncovers the existence of Topaz, a ring of KGB spies operating out of Paris, and tries to smoke out the culprits - including several of his high-ranking colleagues.

Topaz's biggest problem is that it seems like two movies in one. The two main plot threads - Devereaux's work in Cuba, and the unravelling of the Paris spy ring - are loosely connected at best, and both halves seem strangely underdeveloped. The Cuba scenes are fleshed out with the Deverauex-Para-Juanita triangle, which plays as a retread of Notorious, and some liberally-used stock footage of Castro and Che Guevara. Throw in a trite subplot about Devereaux's family troubles, and Topaz is all over the place, with too many characters to follow, and too many plot threads left hanging. To be fair, the movie is never boring, but at the same time so much is going on that the story doesn't properly come together. The ending is a bizarrely unsatisfying non-climax - and yet it's the best of the three filmed endings.

Despite his supposed disinterest in the project, Hitchcock does a fine job directorally, and the movie excells at individual set-pieces, some of which rank among Hitchcock's best. The most famous is Para's murder of Juanita, with her purple dress spreading out beneath her like a pool of blood. Hitchcock makes brilliant use of silence in a number of scenes, from the tense escape of the defectors at the film's onset, to Philippe's (Roscoe Lee Browne) infiltration of a Cuban-occupied hotel, to the ingenious way a pair of Cuban spies are unmasked, and the disturbing post-torture scene. Jack Hildyard's striking photography and Maurice Jarre's low-key score certainly help matters, though Samuel Taylor's script is clunky and overloaded with exposition. Even if the underlying story is subpar, the movie is worth watching for these individual scenes.

Frederick Stafford, an unknown Austrian actor, is a handsome dud, giving a thoroughly wooden and stiff performance. John Forsythe (The Trouble With Harry) is equally one-note, while the beautiful Diane Dors (You Only Live Twice) is left hanging with a half-developed character. Dany Robin and Claude Jade go through the motions as Andre's estranged wife and daughter. The most interesting performances are in the corners: John Vernon's (Animal House) fearsome strongman, Philippe Noiret (Cinema Paradiso) and Michel Piccoli's (Belle du Jour) French spies, Roscoe Lee Browne's (The Cowboys) Harlem florist and Per-Axel Arosenius's obnoxious defector.

Topaz is a mess, but it's at least an entertaining one. There's a germ of a good idea or two here, and some excellent individual scenes; it's too bad that it doesn't quite come together into a great film. Ultimately Topaz is one of those films that's more interesting than good.

Notorious

Jeez, reviews of Sergio Leone, John Ford, David Lean AND now Alfred Hitchcock, all in the first week of 2010? This decade is off to a rousing start...

Notorious (1946) is one of Hitchcock's more serious spy flicks, a radical departure from the frilly escapism of The 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondant and North by Northwest. A masterpiece of suspense and direction, it also paints the spy game in a wonderfully dark, ambiguous light.

Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is the daughter of an executed Nazi spy, living as a dissolute playgirl in Florida. She gets taken home by Devlin (Cary Grant), a handsome stranger who turns out to be an American intelligence agent. Alicia is reluctantly recruited by Devlin to woo Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), an American businessman in Rio De Janiero working with a group of Nazi exiles. Alicia falls for Devlin, but Devlin rebuffs her advances, convincing her that it's in her best interest to bed (and marry) Alex while finding out what his associates are working on. Alex eventually wises up to Alicia's game, and he and his mother (Madame Konstantin) begin to poison her - and Devlin must decide whether or not to save her.

Notorious is a product of the morally-ambiguous post-war period which also provided Gilda and The Third Man. The film's elliptical plot about Nazi refugees harnessing uranium ore is really secondary to the character interaction and the story's marvellous moral ambiguity. The Cold War had not yet set in, yet the film presages the dark spy stories of John Le Carre, where neither side has the moral high ground; any superiority the US government can claim is undermined by their cold, callous manipulation of Alicia, and ultimately Alex, destroying their lives for a higher yet more ephemeral purpose. Hitchcock makes the film wonderfully entertaining, balancing story and characters with dark realism, unlike the stultifying boredom of Torn Curtain and Topaz, which sacrifice entertainment for contrived, stilted "realism".

This is one of Hitchcock's strongest film's character-wise, wonderfully developing its three central characters. Alicia in particular is a beautifully drawn protagonist, a sad, isolated "fallen woman" with a past who finds herself manipulated, used and nearly killed by men who see her solely as a useful tool or sex object. Devlin is a cold-hearted agent who callously uses Alicia, only to fall for her in spite of himself. Alex is a charming man whose affection for Alicia seems genuine, and despite his Nazi ties he is sympathetic - particularly when things begin to stack up against him. These three characters play off each other marvellously, their interaction driving the film's plot, heightening suspense, and providing. The film's ending is even more problematic; is it a happy ending because our protagonists get away alive, or is it otherwise, because a likeable (if not exactly innocent) man is left hanging out to dry?

Hitchcock's direction is typically impressive. Ted Tatzlaff's cinematography is perfectly striking, with lots of inventive camera angles and lighting (particularly the scene where Alicia suffers a blackout, imagining her husband and mother-in-law as shadowy demons), creating a unique, striking atmosphere. Ben Hecht's script is wonderfully constructed, emphasizing character and atmosphere over plot, with a boatload of sharp, quotable dialogue. Add Theron Wrath's pitch-perfect editing and Roy Webb's fine score and you have a technically perfect film.

Ingrid Bergman gives perhaps her best performance. Never more beautiful or vulnerable than here, Bergman successfully draws her difficult character, making her convincingly desperate, charmingly in love, and tragically out of her element. Cary Grant does a fine job adding a dark edge to his usual charming cad persona. Claude Rains makes Alex a remarkably sympathetic character, as much a victim of events as Alicia; his reaction to discovering Alicia's perfidy is a moment of incredible poignancy. The supporting cast is equally accomplished, from reliable hand Louis Calhern (Juarez) as Devlin's boss to Austrian actress Leopoldine "Madame" Konstantin, who gives a chilling turn as Alex's domineering mother.

Notorious is an all-around fine film. It only avoids classification as a "Great Movie" because I save that category for my absolute favorite films, but I'm more than happy to acknowledge this as a fine piece of work in its own right.

The Wrong Man

Today is the 110th birthday of the great Alfred Hitchcock, and to celebrate a gave a rewatch to one of his most overlooked films, The Wrong Man (1956). Although a very atypical Hitchcock film - a docudrama about a real-life case - Hitchcock invests the film with his usual style and skill. The result is one of Hitchcock's very best films, deserving of far more praise than it usually receives.

Christopher "Manny" Balestrero (Henry Fonda) is a musician at New York's Stork Club. While trying take out a loan for wife Rose (Vera Miles)'s dental surgery, he is mistaken by an insurance clerk for a man wanted for several robberies. A chain of events sees Manny arrested by the police, who use witness testimony and circumstantial evidence to indict him of murder. While Manny struggles to clear his name, he notices his wife, wracked by grief and despair, is slowly slipping into dementia. Manny enlists the help of ambitious lawyer Frank O'Connor (Anthony Quayle) to help clear his name legally, but his wife may be beyond saving.

The Wrong Man is a combination of social problem films with Hitchcock's usual preoccupations. The wrong man theme is, of course, one of Hitchcock's favorite storylines, but rarely was it so pointedly explored as here. Similarly, Hitchcock's psychological musings, often obnoxious, overwrought and dated (Spellbound, Marnie), take on a wholly realistic tone, with not only Manny's plight but Rose's heartbreaking dissent into madness. By applying it to a real-life case, Hitchcock allows many of his to apply to fruition. The movie obviously isn't as fun or entertaining as, say, Psycho or North by Northwest, but it's a fascinating, thoughtful work in its own right.

Hitchcock's fear of police has made for many a memorable scene in his films (Mort Mills in Psycho perhaps epitomizing this), but his portrayal of the cold, police system is chilling. The title and the casting of iconic good guy Henry Fonda as Manny indicate that a question of guilt is not at stake; the film is not about guilt or innocence, or suspense in any meaningful way, but about how wrong the whole system inherently is. Manny is arrested without a warrant outside his own home, paraded in front of witnesses and interrogated, without having any rights provided to him, without even a lawyer. Though the cops (Harold J. Stone and Charles Cooper) patronizingly tell Manny that they're on his side, they immediately transform Manny into a criminal at the slightest provocation; indeed, it seems that the cops are taking advantage of a legally-ignorant man for their own sake. The whole scene is chilling, something that might be expected in a fascist state, but not 1950's America. The whole ordeal is, in its own way, as terrifying as Hitchcock's horror films; we can only hope that things have improved somewhat since the film was. The film would make "problem directors" like Sam Fuller, Robert Aldrich and Gillo Pontecorvo proud; arguably, it's even more pointed and venomous than their works.

The film is not nearly as stylish as most of Hitchcock's films, but the warped, surreal nightmare of Vertigo wouldn't suit the material. Drawing heavily on Italian neo-realism and the wave of American "kitchen-sink" drama, Hitchcock provides a stark, look, aside from a few style touches of mixed quality (the painfully obvious "spinning camera" as Manny languishes in jail) and Robert Burke's nice deep-focus photography that would make Orson Welles proud. Still, Hitchcock is to be commended for marrying his usual style to the film's docudrama tone with relative ease - a testament to his talent and versatility. Bernard Herrman provides a lively, nervous jazz score that perfectly counterparts the action.

Henry Fonda gives one of his very best performances as Manny. Fonda underplays the role wonderfully; his Manny is not a righteous Atticus Finch, giving speeches about social justice or the evil of his tormentors, but a normal guy trying to navigate through an unjust system without complaint or comment. Equally impressive is Vera Miles in her break-out role; so annoying as a comic relief foil in John Ford's The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, she shows a remarkable amount of range and subtlety, perfectly playing Rose's mixture of guilt, despair and anguish. The always-dependable Anthony Quayle gives a fine, layered performance as the lawyer Connor, though his English accent seems out of place; Harold J. Stone, Charles Cooper, Esther Mincotti, and Richard Robbins provide strong support. Hogan's Heroes star Werner Klemperer has a nice (uncredited) role as a psychiatrist.

The Wrong Man is a great film, and makes it into my top three Hitchcock movies. Those expecting a typical Hitchcock film (if there is such a thing) might be disappointed; expect a fine film and you will pleased.

North By Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) is one of Hitchcock's most outstanding achievements, a near-perfect distillation of his cinematic style and penchant for bravura entertainment. Out of this film came pretty much every James Bond adventure, and any number of other action films and thrillers. Its madcap, deliciously complex plotting, however, holds up amazingly well fifty years later, despite innumerable inferior imitations, and the film remains among the best of its type.

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is a bored, middle-aged Manhattan ad man whose life takes a turn for the unusual when he is kidnapped by a pair of thugs during happy hour. He meets with Phillip Vandamm (James Mason), a menacingly cultured man who seems convinced Thornhill is a man named Caplan, and narrowly escapes death at the hands of his thugs. Thornhill inadvertently finds himself in the midst of a complex CIA scheme - Caplan is an invention of a CIA chief known as "the Professor" (Leo G. Carroll), to throw Vandamm (a freelance criminal selling government secrets to foreign governments) off the trail of an agent - and somehow Thornhill gains Caplan's identity. Thornhill winds up accused of murder, tracked by police, the CIA and Vandamm's goons, and falls for a girl, Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who isn't what seems to be at first, second or even third glance. It all leads to an explosive denouement atop Mt. Rushmore as Thornhill's attempts at survival and Vandamm's scheming comes to a head.

North by Northwest is a no-stops, breakneck thriller, full of innumerable twists, turns, betrayals, double-crosses and revelations, each more absurd and incredible than the last. Ernest Lehman's wonderfully inventive, perfectly-constructed and endlessly witty screenplay keeps things moving at a lightning pace. The plot is set in motion by a stray line by a bar waiter, and quickly builds to wonderfully absurd proportions. As in Hitchcock's earlier spy capers - The 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondant and Notorious - the fact of the film's plot (at heart, a rather banal catch the spy story) is not so interesting as how it develops. In this film, Grant's stock broker is ingeniously transformed from a loser mistaken for a super-suave spy, to an actual (if unwitting) hero by film's end - all he needs is the Walther and a Martini and he's James Bond. It's all excrutiatingly absurd, but it works perfectly for that very reason; one doesn't care about the leaps of logic because the whole thing is so damned entertaining.

As usual, Hitchcock excells in set-pieces, and this film featuers some of his very best. The film's most iconic scene is, of course, the six-minute long sequence where Thornhill is buzzed by a crop duster while waiting for a bus. This scene is Hitchcock at his absolute best; with virtually no dialogue and completely without music, he creates an incredibly suspenseful, brilliantly shot sequence - its tertiary relation to the plot hardly prevents it from being a gripping set piece in its own right. The Mt. Rushmore climax, where Roger and Eve dodge Vandamm's thugs, is more conventionally exciting, helped along by Bernard Herrmann's intense, driving score, but manages to almost meet the standard set by the earlier scene. The cinematography, screenplay and music are all perfect, the art direction particularly ingenious - it's really hard to find fault with the movie unless one is looking at from a logical standpoint, which is just silly.

Cary Grant is pitch-perfect as Thornhill, the Hitchcockian Everyman forced into an impossible situation; this is arguably his signature role and he plays it to the hilt, investing the reluctant spy with suave, cynical world-weariness and clipped, witty charm. James Mason easily matches Grant, having some choice dialogue and stealing his every scene through sheer charisma. Mason was often typecast as cultured bad guys, but rarely more affective than here (I exempt Lord Jim, of course); one doesn't mind typecasting when the actor is perfect for it. Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront) is wonderfully cast against type as the beautiful, sexy and conflicted Eve - the archetypical "Hitchcock blonde" - and her chemistry with Grant is wonderful. The supporting cast includes fine performances by Hitchcock regular Leo G. Carroll, Martin Landau as Vandamm's chief thug, and Jessie Royce Landis has an amusing bit as Thornhill's exasperated mother. (Also keep an eye out for one of Hitch's most amusing cameos.)

North by Northwest is a near-perfect piece of classic Hollywood entertainment. The only reason it doesn't get a ten is because I wouldn't rate in my personal top five, but such arbitrariness in number ratings should not dissuade you from seeing it ASAP.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation

Family Plot

Another day, another Hitchcock film. Today we'll be taking a look at Hitch's final film, the comic thriller Family Plot (1976). Family Plot is generally ranked in the bottom tier of Hitch's work, for whatever reason - the slight plot? The lack of big-name glamorous stars? Like Topaz, it has been unfairly maligned by critics as a general rule, when it really is a fun, entertaining ride - at the very least it's more enjoyable than our previous Hitchcock film. It's more Charade than North By Northwest, but that's not a bad thing.

Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) is a fake "psychic" who runs a con-game with her cab driver boyfriend George (Bruce Dern), swindling money off of old, rich widows. However, when one of her clients (Cathleen Nesbit) offers a reward of $10,000 to find her illegitimate nephew - the heir to the family's fortune - Blanche and George engage in a major investigation, finding their job not as easy as it may seem, given that the heir is presumably dead. Unfortunately, Barbara and George find that he is very much alive - only now he's posing under the name Arthur Adamson (William Devane), who along with his girlfriend (Karen Black) is running a lucrative business of kidnapping and extortion.

Family Plot is very slight in content; it lacks the style and depth that characterize Hitchcock's best films. It's Hitchcock lite, but it's much more enjoyable in this regard than many of Hitchcock's other day at the beach films (To Catch a Thief and the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much). The film is consistently funny and well-written, allowing Hitch to indulge his dark sense of humor to the fullest. The movie is basically a very dark comedy of errors, expertly plotted by Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman, the surprisingly intricate and clever plot providing. George and Blanche's oblivious investigations bring them in touch with a very dangerous criminal - and yet, they are extremely successful at their con game, making them interesting and sympathetic protagonists. The film only becomes truly dark towards the end, when Blanche and George find themselves in mortal peril, but it's very much in keeping with the rest of the film.

Hitchcock's direction is good if unspectacular: the movie isn't driven so much by direction as the plot and characters, which are expertly drawn. John Williams provides a nice early-career score. As with Frenzy, Hitchcock makes great use of a B-list economy cast: Bruce Dern is excellent as the faux-detective George, Barbara Harris is hysterical as the fake psychic Blanche, William Devane is appropriately slimy and menacing as Adamson, Karen Black alluring, sexy and sympathetic, and fine supporting performances are provided by Ed Lauter, Cathleen Nesbit, Nicholas Colasanto and Katharine Helmond.

Family Plot isn't one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, but it's a fun comic thriller and never really tries to be more than that. Am I saying that it's better than Vertigo? Maybe not artistically, but it's sure more enjoyable.

Rating: 8/10 - Highly Recommended

Vertigo

So, Vertigo. This is my second viewing of the film widely considered Alfred Hitchcock's magnum opus, and my reaction remains largely the same: underwhelmed. It's certainly easy to see why Vertigo gets so much critical acclaim: Hitchcock is at the top of his creative game, it features an extraordinary lead performance by James Stewart, and the movie deals with a fascinating subject matter. Unfortunately, much of Vertigo's 129 minutes is a slog, well-made but laboriously paced, with the real meat of the film not coming until the last half hour or so.

John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) is a police detective who quits the force after his acrophobia (fear of heights) leads to the accidental death of a colleague. Struggling to recover from his injuries physical and mental, he's recruited by an old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to investigate his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), whose increasingly erratic behavior has led him to believe she's been possessed by a malevolent spirit. Scottie and Madeleine fall in love, but their romance is short-lived, as Madeleine commits suicide during one of her trances - leaving Scottie even more distraught and guilt-ridden. Scottie, however, meets Judy (Novak), whom he obsessively makes over into the spitting image of his departed love - only to discover belatedly that she was the Madeliene he knew, both pawns in Elster's elaborate plan to murder his wife.

Vertigo's biggest problem is its story structure and pacing. The film shifts gears from a study of guilt to sexual obsession two-thirds of the way through. The early sections of the film is driven primarily by Scottie's sense of guilt - first in allowing his police colleague to die, and then Madeleine. The early scenes of his investigation of Madeliene are very slow, very talky and ultimately a drag - Hitchcock at his worst, without much of his virtues aside from gorgeous photography and art direction. The movie's complete lack of humor, dark or otherwise, is also an odd flaw; Hitchcock excels in inserting humor into even the darkest of his movies, but there's not a trace of his usual wit to be had here, other than the brief scene with Scotty's friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes). Towards the end, the movie takes a sharp left turn towards an examination of sexual neuroses, where it becomes really interesting - but it seems only marginally connected to the previous sections of the film, with Scottie's overwhelming guilt complex being sublimated by something even more disturbing.

Indeed, the meat of the movie is its dealing with male sexual obsession - in that regard, it's fascinating and more than a bit disturbing. Scottie slowly falls in love with Madeleine, the archetypical cool, calm and distant Hitchcock blonde - or rather, the image of her, rather than the person herself. Scottie has the pretty, smart and affectionate Midge, his ex-fiancee, right under his nose, but he's too wrapped up in Madeleine to pay her any attention, ultimately driving Midge away for trying to make him see how ridiculous the whole thing is. Scottie would rather accept the fantasy of Madeliene, unable to realize its illusory nature, thanks to the acquiescence of Judy. This does have an interesting biographical tinge, considering Hitchcock's personal life, but in doing so reflects the perversity of male sexuality and the gender roles. Unfortunately, the film takes it time getting to this point - it's not until after Madeleine's death that this part of the story really takes hold, and thus it's the better part of 80 minutes before the story finds its real focus and point of interest.

Certainly, Hitchcock has rarely made a more artistically impressive film. Aside from the cheesy dream-sequence two-thirds of the way through, the movie shines technically, with impressive art direction/set design, wonderfully creative cinematography, and gorgeous use of San Francisco and California locations - no studio sets or painted backdrops here. Bernard Herrman provides a wonderfully dramatic and atmospheric score which adds immeasuribly to the film's atmosphere.

James Stewart gives perhaps his best screen performance as Scottie. Stewart had already radically departed from his pre-World War II nice guy image, with increasingly dark and neurotic characters in films like Winchester '73, Rope, and The Naked Spur, but Vertigo provides perhaps the ultimate seperation from his Mr. Smith Goes to Washington/The Shop Around the Corner persona, exploring the depths of neuroses lurking beneath Scottie's nice guy exterior. Kim Novak does a wonderful job balancing both sides of Judy's character, the icey blonde romantic fantasy and the average girl caught between a rock and a hard place. The supporting cast is largely non-descript, aside from Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge, tragically unable to connect with her increasingly distraught friend.

I'm not going to condemn those who acclaim Vertigo as Hitchcock's finest work and a cinematic masterpiece. But the movie has severe narrative and structural flaws that prevent me from giving it that title. A second viewing only confirmed my initial feelings: that Vertigo is a frustratingly disappointing film that is more interesting than entertaining. If it seems I'm being unduly negative in a review of a 7/10 film, it's only because of the film's reputation as a flawless masterpiece.

Rating: 7/10 - Recommended

Shadow of a Doubt

Well, since I can't get to sleep, I'll get Easter off to an early start by writing a comment on Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). I watched this film for the third time on TCM, and it just gets better with each viewing. Of the 26 Hitchcocks I've seen to date, it may very well be my favorite, or at least in the top five. I already did a bit of a discussion of this film in my roasting of The Stepfather, a low-rent '80s remake/rip-off, so forgive me if I have nothing new or insightful to say on the film. Certainly it's been analyzed and reviewed to death already, but in my insomniac state I might as well give it a go.

Young Charlie Newton (Theresa Wright) is a teenaged girl in the small-town of Santa Rosa, California, bored with her staid small-town life. As if by a "miracle", the family receives a visit from Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), young Charlie's namesake and the charming, successful brother of her mother Emma (Patricia Collinge). The family and community give Charlie a warm welcome, but the arrival of a pair of detectives posing as surveymen (Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford) and some decidedly strange behavior by Uncle Charlie make young Charlie suspicious. It turns out that Uncle Charlie is a serial killer, the "Merry Widow Murderer", and Charlie is torn towards her affection for one of the detectives and love of her Uncle. Pretty soon, however, Uncle Charlie's psychosis boils to the surface, and his niece must find a way to drive him out of town - and keep herself alive in the process.

Shadow of a Doubt is among the first films to really explore the underbelly of small-town America. As cliched and overexposed an idea this is nowadays, it was certainly novel and shocking at the time. With the help of playwright Thornton Wilder (Our Town), Hitchcock constructs a dark, gothic film that defies categorization - horror film? family melodrama? film noir? thriller? satire? - showing the horrors and dirt lurking in the corners of the most sterile American household.

The character of Uncle Charlie is one of Hitchcock's greatest creations. He is, as others have commented, an evil, ominous, even vampiric figure: earning his lifeblood of women, hiding in the shadows (with his private compartment on the lengthy train journey), his charm and influence over his sister and others in the small town, refusing to be photographed - he's an evil presence who has slipped into an idyllic small town without them noticing, and now that he's here there's little chance of him leaving. Through the course of the film, cracks in his charming facade gradually emerge, most notably in several misogynist and nihilistic rants worthy of August Strindberg, raging against the evil of a world he sees as "a foul sty... a hell" - but it seems only Charlie (and perhaps her brainy little sister Ann (Edna May Winnacot)) has a true understanding of his nature. The relationship between the two Charlies is decidedly uncomfortable, bordering on the incestuous, giving an even more repulsive and disturbing undertone to the storyline. The film implies that an accident as a child unhinged him, but as the film presents him, Uncle Charlie - charming, handsome, successful, but also a cold-blooded killer keeping his hatreds and neuroses close to his chest - is Evil Incarnate.

The film also functions as a satire of small-town, middle-class American values - an odd choice of target for the British Hitchcock, but one he succeeds with completely. Charlie's inert and boring father (Henry Travers) endlessly talks about murders with his bothersome friend Herbie (Hume Cronyn), completely unaware of the successful murderer in their very midst - Hitchcockian black humor at its finest. Charlie's mother Emma is an almost tragic figure: Enraptured by the return of her beloved brother, seemingly not all there mentally, she clings onto an illusory happiness. The nuclear family is revealed as being a simmering , and Charlie only helps to bring these to the surface. Emma is more than a bit facetious when she tells the detectives that "We're not a normal American family"; it's hard to argue against the assertion. Long before David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Desperate Housewives, Hitchcock shows us that beneath even the most idyllic small town lurk hidden desires, repressions, and dangers.

Hitchcock is at his best directorially. It's not his most flashy film but he certainly adapts well to the material. He gives Charlie a clear aura of evil throughout with his shadowy cinematography, and manages to make the most "normal" of American households look menacing. Dimitri Tiomkin creates a moody, effective score that enhances the movie's atmosphere immeasuribly.

The cast is generally solid. Joseph Cotten is not an actor I'm inordinately fond of, but cast very much against type as Charlie, he gives by far his best performance. He is subtle and restrained to the extreme, making Charlie's slow unravelling all the more unsettling. Theresa Wright gives a lovely performance as the younger Charlie, in an intelligent, loving and restless girl caught in an impossible situation. The supporting cast varies in quality: Hume Cronyn and Henry Travers provide some great moments of comedy, and Patricia Collinge is effective as Charlie's confused Mother, but Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford as the two detectives are stiff, and the romance subplot between Carey and Wright seems awkward and only detracts from the main story.

Shadow of a Doubt is simply one of the greats. I hesitate at listing it as my favorite Hitchcock film (though it's up there with Strangers on a Train, Rope, and Frenzy), but it's definitely on the short list. A film that gets better with each successive viewing is certainly a worthy contender for such a title.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation (awful close to a 10)

Frenzy

A serial killer is on the loose in London - a sex maniac who rapes his victims and then strangles them with his tie. This couldn't matter less to Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a bitter, washed-up veteran who loses his job at a pub and is generally mad at the world. But Blaney soon becomes the prime suspect after his ex-wife (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) becomes a victim of the killer - and the circumstantial evidence implicating him becomes overwhelming. With the help of co-worker/lover Babs (Anna Massey) and the reluctant help of an old RAF buddy and his wife (Clive Swift and Billie Whitelaw), he goes on the lam, further implicating him. After Babs is found strangled, Blaney is arrested - but Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowan) of Scotland Yard begins to doubt his guilt. Soon, he realizes that the wrong man is in jail - and that the murderer is actually Blaney's buddy Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), a seemingly cheerful Covent Garden grocer. However, Blaney has escaped from jail, and Oxford must get to Rusk before Blaney does in order to sure that the right man is caught.

On the surface, "Frenzy" is a rather typical Alfred Hitchcock film, exploring the familiar ground of a man implicated in a crime he didn't commit, but against whom the evidence is overwhelming. But Hitchcock is able to add some new twists, and a great deal of darkness which make the film stand out in his canon. While not held in terribly high regard by most Hitch enthusiasts, I would name Frenzy as being one of his two or three best films.

After years of self-imposed exile from his homeland, Hitchcock makes a triumphant return to London, and the early sections of the movie show a director sending a big coming-home Valentine to his native land. But the movie is more than that; the attitude quickly becomes dark, sour and sardonic. A British official (John Boxer) giving a speech on pollution is interrupted by the discovery of a body in the river beneath him. Two Englishmen have a rather dark discussion about serial killers and their "appropriateness" in London; indeed, London is the home of Jack the Ripper, so a serial killer on the prowl is business as usual for most. Unlike Americans, the British are rather blasé about the prospect of a murderer in their midst. This essentially British attitude pervades the film, as Hitchcock employs his trademark dark humor to accentuate the violence going on around him.

The movie has several striking images and scenes which make it stand out. The most obvious is the murder of Barbara Leigh-Hunt, an uncomfortably long and graphic scene of rape and violence, where Hitchcock takes full advantage of the increasingly lax censorship. The shot of Leigh-Hunt's corpse with its tongue dangling out is extremely chilling. Even more effective is the murder of Babs, as Hitchcock sets us up, then pans back through the apartment and out into the bustling street - a bravura piece of film making that says more than another, equally graphic strangulation could have. The scene where Rusk rides a potato truck to recover a bit of evidence from one of his victims (another typical Hitchcock device - making us sympathize with the killer) is effectively suspenseful. The scenes of comedy, particularly the Inspector's gourmet dinners with his wife (Vivien Merchant), go along with rather than provide relief from the violent goings-on in the main plot. And the denouement is classic Hitch.

Another ingenious twist is the character of Dick Blaney. Blaney is another Hitchcockian "wrong man" who, seemingly trapped by circumstantial evidence and afraid of the police, goes on the run, seemingly implicating himself. But unlike previous such characters - Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man, Grace Kelly in Dial M For Murder, Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief and North By Northwest - Blaney is a completely surly, unlikeable character who nags his ex-wife, carries on in public, and is a complete an utter jerk (as evidenced by a surprisingly affective shot where he tramples a box of grapes on the street). Bob Rusk, by contrast, is cheerful, friendly and helpful - when he's not strangling women, of course. It's very hard to work up much sympathy for Blaney; while some consider this a drawback, I'd actually consider it a benefit, and it's an intriguing twist on a hoary old idea that Hitchcock pulls of brilliantly.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Hitchcock probably benefits from the lack of established stars; the B- and C-list actors here are probably better for not having the baggage of a screen persona with them. Jon Finch pulls off his rather difficult character well, avoiding the temptation to make Blaney likable. Barry Foster turns in a chillingly effective performance as Rusk, making him one of Hitchcock's greatest villains. Anna Massey and Barbara Leigh-Hunt are both charming, while Jean Marsh is effective as the cold-hearted, man-hating secretary who is key in convicting Blaney. Alex McCowan and Vivien Merchant provide several scenes of hysterical black humor as the Investigator and his wife. Clive Swift, Billie Whitelaw, Elsie Randolph and Michael Bates round out the cast nicely.

Frenzy is arguably the best of Hitchcock's later efforts, and it stands up very well even next to his best work. By adding a few neat twists and a welcome edge of darkness, the Master of Suspense creates another masterful thriller.

Strangers on a Train

"What are you so high and mighty about? I might be a psycho, but you're a block of wood."

And after a rough weekend, I return to Alfred Hitchcock. After my pre-written review of the abomination that is Torn Curtain, here is a fresh review of a Hitch film that's actual good.

This is only the third Hitchcock film I've reviewed for this blog (after Torn Curtain and The 39 Steps) - plus an IMDB comment on Frenzy - and with a fair amount of reason. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a literary and character-minded person, and dealing with a director as overtly stylistic as Hitch is problematic for me. It's not that Hitchcock's films don't have character or plot or interesting subtext and themes - I might even say the exact opposite is true - but I concede my limitations as a critic by admitting that I don't enjoy reading symbolism into every single frame, or every oddly-placed paperweight on a character's desk. And I'm not one for the laughably fake faux-Freudian "psychology" on display in many of films either - perhaps the reason I didn't care for Vertigo. And the excrutiatingly vague and lightweight plots of his movies tend to irritate at times - it's all a joke by Hitchcock that his MacGuffins don't really matter, I guess.

Still, in spite of such irritating foibles, Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors. And aside from a few missteps, it's hard to argue that he isn't one of the best. No director could ring as much out of a seemingly insignificant image or symbol as Hitchcock; few directors had such a brilliant sense of the dramatic, suspenseful, and almost no one could supercede him with style, use of color, shadows, close-ups and intercutting to create an indescribable style and atmosphere that leaps off the screen and engrosses. Hitchcock embodied pure cinema in his best work, in a way few other directors could hope to emulate.

Such is the case with Strangers on a Train. Although far from perfect, it is perhaps the quintessential Hitchcock movie, and certainly the best in my humble opinion. It has all of Hitchcock's greatest attributes, as well as many of his failings, and succeeds if for no other reason than having one of the most disturbing villains in movie history. It's a fine piece of work from beginning to end, with some of Hitchcock's greatest set-pieces and finest moments as a director.

The plot is classic Hitchcock, springing as always from his wonderfully sick and twisted sense of humor. Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is a big-shot tennis player in a bit of pickle: his philandering wife Miriam (Kasey Rodgers) won't grant him a divorce, even though he's fallen in love with pretty socialite Anne Morton (Ruth Roman). On a train ride, he runs into Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), a chatty and eccentric guy who he seems enamored with the idea of murder. Guy jokingly agrees to "criss-cross" murders with Bruno - killing Bruno's domineering father while Bruno takes care of Miriam. But Bruno does kill Miriam, and the situation immediately becomes serious. Caught in a web of circumstantial evidence (that's how you know it's a Hitchcock movie), Guy must find a way to clear his name and prevent Bruno from killing again.

Nevermind the plot, which rarely matters as such in a Hitchcock film anyway. Rather, Hitchcock was a master of set-pieces, of moments, and this film is bristling with strong scenes. I will focus on three of the film's exceptional sequences, to illustrate the brilliance that Hitchcock at his best was capable of achieving.

The first is the murder scene, where Hitchcock pulls out all the stops. This sequence is nothing short of astonishing. Hitchcock makes brilliant use of silence, using ony diagetic calliope music and background dialogue throughout, creating. The cinematography by Robert Burks is brilliant - Miriam and her male friends spend their time in the light, in the crowd, while Bruno remains hidden in the shadows, a barely visible, dim gray presence following them from shadow to shadow before he finally strikes in the darkness. The atmosphere of this scene is indescribable - seemingly banal and safe, but punctuated with dread and foreboding. We don't really care about trampy Miriam, but the palpable sense of menace is nonetheless inescapable.

The second is another key scene, where Guy plays a tennis match, hoping to win early in order to flee his police escort, while Bruno races to plant an incriminating lighter at the scene of the crime. This sequence makes brilliant use of editing (for which credit must go to William Ziegler as well as Hitchcock), turning two scenes - a tennis match and Bruno finishing for his lighter in a sewer grate - that on their own would mean nothing, into an exciting counterpoint of rising actions and effectively generating suspense for the climax.

The final scene, of course, is the chaotic, almost surreal carousel sequence which climaxes the film. It's extremely, feverishly over-the-top, but it works. After all of the subtle, repressive build-up, a frenetic action sequence is perhaps the only way to end the film satisfactorily, and the scene is endlessly thrilling even if the conclusion is obvious from the get-go (also a mite disturbing is that the film doesn't pay any attention to the children who were injured in the wreck, merely on our protagonists, but I imagine Hitch does so on purpose). The montage here is truly frightening - dreamlike yet very, very real and dangerous, with the children hopeless hostages and involved witnesses of the situation. Like the rest of the film, it's a nightmare, but of an entirely different sort than the Boogeyman in the shadows.

The movie has one huge flaw, which in any other film would have been a fatal one. The entire cast, with one exception, is dull, more wooden than a Keanu Reeves convention. Farley Granger gives a performance worthy of Orlando Bloom as our protagonist; he's a passive, emasculated wimp who is thrown around by the plot, and it's really hard to care much for or about him. Ruth Roman is stiff while Leo G. Carroll has nothing to do - only Patricia Hitchcock as Roman's smart aleck sister provides any levity. But fortunately, there is one truly exceptional performance to ballast this weak spot - Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony.

Bruno Anthony is truly one of Hitchcock's great creations. Superficially charming, yet immediately giving off a disturbing vibe, he's an unsettling character from the get-go. Many critics have read a homosexual subtext into Bruno's character - his voice and mannerisms, his affection towards Guy, his relationship with his mother - which I think has some degree of merit, but for one who is sick to his gallbladder of Criticspeak, it's much more important that he's a psychopath. The murder scene - where he stalks Miriam through with the expressionless determination of The Terminator - is genuinely chilling, as are the scenes of him watching Guy from a distance, or in a crowd. His machinations are clearly the product of a sick mind, and the fact that he genuinely believes what he's doing is, if not right, then certainly nothing unusual. He is a villain who is grimly determined and can't be escaped, can't be stopped, can't be negotiated with - a genuine psychopath. Hitchcock did villains very well - Judith Anderson in Rebecca, Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt, Claude Rains in Notorious, James Mason in North by Northwest, Barry Foster in Frenzy, and of course Anthony Perkins in Psycho - but none of those great characters quite match the psychotic genius of Bruno Anthony.

Robert Walker was an up-and-coming 32 year old actor, with an established screen image as a pretty boy romantic lead. For Hitchcock to cast him as a psychotic murderer was quite an audacious feat. It's a horrible shame that Walker died so shortly after the film's release, for he gives a pitch-perfect performance, capturing Bruno's nuances and slowly revealing him for the psychopath he is while maintaining an unsettling charm. In a film so bereft of interesting protagonists, it wouldn't be hard for even an adequate villain to steal the show; but Walker's performance certainly transcends that. It's an amazing performance from top to bottom, one of the most compelling screen villains in cinema history, and truly one of the best performances period.

Strangers on a Train is not a perfect film, but like its director, it does what it does better than pretty much any other movie. It's Hitchcock at his best, and you can't get much better than that.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation

Even Hitchcock Can Suck

Hitch, you bastard! You told me we were watching Shadow of a Doubt!

I wrote this awhile ago and I haven't seen this movie since, nor have the will to. Strangers on a Train is on TCM tonight so you'll get to see my thought of a good Hitchcock movie in the near-future - in theory, anyway. Still, pre-written reviews are a good way to pad the blog out, don't you think?

Torn Curtain is perhaps the lowest point in Hitchcock’s oeuvre (at least of the 21 or so seen by me). After the James Bond films began to rip off his own spy flicks (North By Northwest in particular), Hitchcock decided to respond by making realistic looks at espionage as a counterpoint to Bond’s escapism. The result is not pretty. By draining all fantasy out of the spy film, Hitchcock succeeds in making a film that is very realistic. After all, real life is often dull, banal, and excruciatingly boring. Looking at it that way, Torn Curtain is an unequivocal success. That doesn’t make it entertaining.

The movie’s staggeringly inventive plot involves Paul Newman (RIP) as an American physicist who surprises his assistant (Julie Andrews) during a trip in Sweden by defecting to East Germany. It turns out that Newman is working on a super-duper-secret-covert mission for the CIA to gain information about Soviet missile programs. Hijinks ensue as Newman and Andrews go about their mission in a rather inept way, using the reluctant assistance of a network of anti-Communist agents to escape the authorities.

The word which comes to mind repeatedly is dull. By dull, I mean excruciatingly dull. Painfully dull. Mind-numblingly dull. Pencil at the end of an SAT dull. Kenneth Branaugh Hamlet dull. John Kerry dull. The movie is so boring and dry, it’s impossible to generate any interest in the story or characters. This results from several factors: Hitch’s competent but lazy direction, a ridiculously slow pace, way too much exposition, a cast that seems disinterested in their cardboard characters, and a number of lame sequences.

It’s a reasonable idea to make a “real” spy film which lacks the fantasy trappings of James Bond or Jason Bourne; many of John Le Carre’s novels have been successfully adapted into films and miniseries (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; The Tailor of Panama), not to mention Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal and The ODESSA File. But those films have well-drawn characters and interesting stories. Torn Curtain has neither. The idea has potential, but it’s so cliché that it needs a degree of inventiveness and flare to make it work.

Here’s the biggest problem: too much exposition. I didn’t go into this film expecting Paul Newman to be blowing away dozens of Commies at a time or escaping a cackling Donald Pleasance with the aide of Q’s latest gadget. But the movie consists of nothing but endless talking scenes which give us background, but surprisingly do little to advance the story. They’re so busy talking about what Newman is doing and why, that we don‘t really care about how he does it - which is what generates interest. Characters are introduced but none are developed in any way. I’m all for dialogue when it’s well-done or has a point. Torn Curtain’s screenplay fails both tests.

The movie has one outstanding sequence, which has (for good reason) been written about by pretty much anyone commenting on the film. Attempting to reach a contact, Newman is tracked to a farm by his East German handler. Along with the farmer’s wife, Newman engages in a brutal hand-to-hand fight with the hulking policeman, who survives being stabbed and beaten with fists and shovels before ending up gassed in an oven. It is a brilliantly executed scene, and it’s the one instance where Hitchcock’s style meshes with the dry “realism” purportedly being provided by the film.

Aside from that glimmer of brilliance, Torn Curtain is completely dead. Scenes which should be suspenseful fizzle out and die. Hitchcock kills off the film’s one interesting character halfway through. Key scenes, like Newman’s blackboard duel with a German scientist, are overlong and tedious; even Hitchcock can’t make swapping Math equations interesting. Alternately, Newman’s intense grilling by East German authorities is ended almost before it begins. (For that matter, Newman is a rather inept spy, but hey, he is a professor.) Every potential for suspense or interest is short-circuited or bungled, and thus we remain detached viewers.

But Hitch saves the worst for last, in an unbelievably tedious and long final third. In what should be a suspenseful denouement, with our protagonists fleeing East German authorities, we get a ridiculously drawn-out trip through unconvincing sets and back-drop projections. They get on a bus and ride through the countryside, enduring whining passengers and periodic stops by the police. They briefly link up with an annoying Polish baroness. They chat with a CIA guy. And they escape a crowded theater as police close in on them. This is done without any flare or evident interest by Hitchcock, and instead of building suspense, we get forty-five minutes of stuff happening. And the viewer only looks at his watch, praying the movie will end soon. (It’s also not a good sign when a two-hour movie seems like four.)

Needless to say, our talented leads seem completely at a loss to account for their presence in this film. Newman’s character is inherently uninteresting and he barely expresses an emotion of any kind. Andrews fares slightly better, but not much, generating a few flickers of emotion but no chemistry with Newman. The supporting cast is completely unremarkable, consisting as they do of lightly drawn pencil sketches played by unknown actors.

Overall, Torn Curtain is an utter failure. My rating is generous, because I find it very hard to find anything positive about it. The biggest lesson learned from this movie is that even Hitchcock can make utter shit - a lesson that would be reinforced by The Trouble With Harry and The Paradine Case. But as deadeningly dull as both of those movies are, at least they aren't the festering corpse that is Torn Curtain.

Rating: 4/10 - For Hitchcock purists and masochists only

The 39 Steps

Well, another largely wasted day - although, I did find out that the Pitt library has all of David Lean's feature films on DVD! This Dedicated Leaniac will have to get on that ASAP.

Tonight's feature is The 39 Steps (1935), one of Alfred Hitchcock's first "classics". It is very interesting to view it as a predecessor to pretty much of all his subsequent works. The plot, in a nutshell, involves a man (Robert Donat) who finds himself accidentally caught up in a tangled web of espionage and intrigue beyond his comprehension - all the while, being hunted by sinister spies and unknowing authoritarians. While it bares an obvious resemblance to North by Northwest, Hitchcock's later (and much better) prototypical spy thriller/action film, one can see echoes of nearly all of Hitchcock's later works here - distrust of police/authority, the wrong man accused of a crime and damned by insurmountable circumstantial evidence, dubious spies and elaborate, creatively-staged set-pieces.

You know, I've always found it very hard to actually write about Hitchcock. Maybe there's some Freudian-Jungian subconscious thing about my not wanting to deal with sexual and violent themes explored in his works (I highly doubt that), maybe it's just because Hitch's films are largely visual, with very lightweight plots and characters that don't hold up to any real scrutiny. The 39 Steps is a case in point. In the last analysis, it's a rather banal Hitchcock - as mentioned above, Hitchcock would deal with these themes many, many times in the future and much better. And this movie also features one of my least favorite Hitchcock touches - the maddening vagueness as to what exactly is going on, and what the stakes are (like, who are the spies working for? What are they doing? Why should we care, if you won't let us know?). I know that's the concept of the Macguffin, and I know it ultimately doesn't matter a great deal, but dammit, the way Hitchcock used it on occasion (and uses it here) is just aggravating.

All things considered, though, The 39 Steps isn't a bad watch. It's fast-moving, with nice cinematography and editing, good performances and snappy banter by Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll, and at a mere 86 minutes it doesn't even have. But really, it's best seen as a stepping stone - and foundation - for Hitchcock's later, better works. 7/10 seems a fair rating.

Anyway, classes start tomorrow, though, so we won't have this much time for that much longer. I have an intro to Film Genres class, which will hopefully be interesting. At least it will give me the opportunity to write (a lot more than I'd like to, I'm sure) and check off some films on those 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die books. I'll admit it; I'm a listomaniac.