Official Alfred Hitchcock Thread

He reminds me of Stanley Kubrick
WHO'S BETTER ?
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Respect to mr. Hitchcock from Latvia. Movies like Psycho and Vertigo can i always make my day.

Thoughts on Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945)? Just saw it today and like any other Hitch film, it's instantly absorbing. I loved it. Interested to hear what you guys have to say about it. It often goes under the radar over his various masterpieces but I think it deserves more appreciation.

My favourite Hitchcock film is The Birds which I've enjoyed since childhood and while objectively it's not his best story, the bird attacks are pure thrilling entertainment, I think the slow buildup of the action to present the characters also works out really well.

In terms of story, direction and characters, Lifeboat might be my favourite, it's incredible what he could do with only one scenario and a handful of actors. Tallulah Bankhead obviously had the showier role and made marvels with it, but the rest of the cast was very consistent too. It also presented a very interesting conflict, considering WWII had not yet reached its end.

Respect to mr. Hitchcock from Latvia.

Hitchcock for the Holidays Teaser

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VERY nice collection. I wonder how much it costs?

I think that's just on the Criterion Collection

It's on the 'Criterion channel' for $10,- a month; https://www.criterionchannel.com/dir...fred-hitchcock

$10/month is reasonable. Does one have to have a cable subscription package to access it? Presumably it can be subscribed to via Roku or other. And can films be selected for streaming, or do they simply offer continuous programming similar to TCM?

Thanks,
~Doc

The Lady Vanishes, Jamaica Inn, Dial M for Murder, Notorious and Sabatoge are on Tubi. Saw Jamaica Inn last night. It was OK.

Selected/click for streaming at any time you want, not sure but I don't think you'll need a cable subscription for it.
~Conner

Two of his most underrated movies I have seen are Lifeboat and Frenzy. I might put these both in his top 3 next to Vertigo, but people do not hold these ones as high.

I would never think to rank either of them as Top 3, but both would definitely be in a top 10 for me

I agree. Lifeboat and Frenzy would definitely be in Hitchcock's top 40 or so..

Without tallying them, the two would not likely be higher than the low 20s to my taste. Lifeboat did have an ingenious method of having Hitchcock appear..

BUMP.


For those who are interested and who subscribe and are huge advocates (put me on payroll Criterion!) now is the time of year for Hitchcock for the Holidays streaming on Criterion Channel.



Here is the link to Criterion:

https://www.criterionchannel.com/hit...r-the-holidays

They have 19 of his films currently streaming and a good number from before his Hollywood days while still in Britain. Pre-1940 when he made his first Hollywood film, the excellent and all time favorite of mine, Rebecca.

While I haven't seen all of his work, I have seen a majority of it, including at least half a dozen or so of his pre-Hollywood films. I was mentioning in a thread somewhere (can't remember) which one, but I really do like Hitchcock's films, but I do find them to be hit or miss and sometimes he gets in his own way with his clever ideas or knack to try things in a different way such as his camera angles, set pieces, or his experiments with ideas on how to present a film. Sometimes his bizarre ideas work well and are wonderful such as in Rope where he attempted a "single shot" chamber play of murder and then other times they might sound cool on paper, but are droll, wear thin, can't hold an entire film, or just meh. I would put The Trouble With Harry and Torn Curtain in those categories.

Of the films streaming on Criterion, the best pre-Hollywood Hitchcock for my money is The Lady Vanishes which is just a helluva a lot of fun and entertaining with some cool shots and camerawork. Like a lot of Hitchcock films, the premise is completely idiotic, but when it works it works so well and The Lady Vanishes works so well.

I don't put Hitchcock in the echelon of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I put directors like Howard Hawks, John Ford, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, William Wyler, Orson Welles, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Kubrick and a handful of others in that absolutely S-tier of filmmakers out of the Golden Age of Hollywood period, but Hitchcock does solidly fit in the level just under them at A-tier. Again, I think some of his stuff is a bit gimmicky and as a director I don't think he has near the range of a filmmaker like Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder who could do anything and make a film in any genre, but Hitchcock was a work horse and made film after film after film and stay incredibly active through a career than spanned six decades.

I think maybe one of the reasons why Hitchcock is so well known is that he's generally one of the first filmmakers of the Golden Era that young people and students in school discover because his films are pretty accessible. Also Psycho is ubiquitous and a cultural touchstone. Even if you haven't seen the film or any Hitchcock film for that matter and know nothing about film at all and couldn't even name the film Psycho, you'll at least have heard the Bernard Herrmann theme and the be aware of the shower scene through countless, parody and pop culture references.

Also Hitchcock was a showman and exhibitionist who loved to talk about his films, the industry, suspense and film theory, and many of us have read or at least know about Truffaut's film book and interviews with Hitchcock. Also putting himself in his own movies as a "where's Waldo" easter egg and his opening monologues full of wit and acid sarcasm in "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" no doubt made him a part of the American and English conscious - even today. So it's no wonder he continues to fascinate and people still talk about him and his films and he's the entry point for many into older pre-1980s cinema.

I didn't really get into Hitchcock until I was in the latter part of high school and into my first year or two of college. It was when I was in Middle School that I really started to get into older films and Hitchcock was not my "gateway drug" into cinema. It was Howard Hawks with Sergeant York, Rio Bravo, and of course Red River.

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I will say Hitchcock made what I consider to be three perfect A+ films being:

1. North by Northwest
2. Rebecca
3. Notorious

Films of his that are close to being near perfect masterpieces are: Vertigo, Psycho, The Lady Vanishes, Rope, The 39 Steps, and Suspicion.

I'd say his most "overrated" film is Rear Window. I like it a lot and will watch it any day of the week, but it's not a film I really ever find myself having the urge to watch or in need of revisiting. I watched it last year when it was on Criterion Channel and enjoyed it, but I don't understand really how it has become.

When I say gimmicky my thing about Hitchcock is it seems like a lot of his films are certained more around an experiment or set piece, as though he's saying "Hey I'd like to film a movie entirely on a lifeboat, I wonder what kind of story I can attached to that?" Or, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if we had a film where it concluded with a chase across Mt. Rushmore or up in the Statue of Liberty... I wonder how we can pull that off or get our characters up there?" or "Hey, let's do a horror thing where birds attack and people are just all up in a panic!" or "Hey, I like murder stories, but let me try one now where people stumble across the body and no one seems to be too bothered by it or maybe a film that shows it's actually difficult to kill someone." You get the point. It seems like Hitchcock films are centered at their core around a premise and then see to where they spiral out.

But yappers, Hitchcock made three distinct and perfect masterpieces that work so well:







What makes those work I think is the writing. With Rebecca we have the source material of the novel, Ben Hecht with Notorious, and Ernie Lehman's hilarious treatment and perfect dialogue in North by Northwest and each of those three films you have a perfect cast and you have very minor characters almost stealing the show from the main actors.

Rebecca is a film that is absolutely owned by Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers... probably one of the best and most creepy characters in all of film history. It's a chilling and perfect performance and she completely upstages Olivier and Fontaine and in a good way.

Notorious similarly has a dame villain with Leopoldine Konstantin as the Nazi mom, who I can't help but think was the template and inspiration for Rosa Klebb in From Russia From Love and inspired Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. And it's an absolutely iconic role for Claude Rains... every bit as great as his role in Casablanca. So without that dynamic of those two characters, the performances of Cary Grant and Bergman in Notorious wouldn't mean near as much.

And with North by Northwest... Hell, that's a one man show by Cary Grant who is brilliant in a role and character far different than Notorious, but it's James Mason and Martin Landau as the "ambiguously gay duo!" heavies that truly elevate North by Northwest into something miraculous and brilliant... again along with that Ernie Lehman script (which I have an almost 25 year old DVD copy where he actually gives commentary on the film). And Jessie Royce Landis as Grant's mother completely steals the scenes they're in together too.

So North by Northwest, Rebecca, and Notorious are his masterpieces and each one is very different from one another.

I do love me some Vertigo too. I've seen it maybe half a dozen times or more and while I think it has its issues, I don't rate it as highly as some, nor do I have any problem wrapping my head around the completely stupid premise nor problems in taking it seriously at face value the way some critics do.

Psycho is wonderful as well and having a chance to see it on the big screen last year, Anthony Perkins is the one who stood out to me with how strong of a performance that is, but the unassuming and polite but probing detective played by Martin Balsam is the unappreciated champion of Psycho. It doesn't work nearly as well without him in the film to "carry the torch" after Leigh is out of the picture, even though it does something of a brilliant bait and switch by turning Norman Bates into the audience's sympathy and our protagonist. Sure, he's covering for his mother's act of murder, but he's a sweet boy and we can understand a young man's moral conflict and urge to help cover for his sick mother. Too many people forget that aspect of the story, if you can accept the film for what it is and watch it at face value without knowing what we know by the end of the film.

I posted this in the "What Have You Seen Lately Thread" but figured it could fit in here too:

Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951)



Farley Granger is so perfect and amazing in this as is Robert Walker, but Walker's character is under-explored and despite an interesting premise and build up, the faux tension of the "ticking bomb" tennis match and race to the carnival and of course Walker losing the lighter to plant at the murder scene and then the whole fight on carousel with some unsuccessful and tonal inconsistencies at comedy (the kid and some of the reactions by the extras as faceless crowd members) all seems like an easy way out and a cheap ending.

This is my second or third watch of this film. It could have been so much more, but this is one of those films where I don't think Hitchcock can get out of his way or come up with good enough writing to meet the reach of a clever premise and setup.

But yeah Farley Granger is soo wonderful and just magnetic on film, just as he was in Rope with Hitchcock previous to this film. It's too bad he didn't have a better writer to showcase his performance and the role.

Grade: B-

Oh and one last quick thing...

Neither North by Northwest nor Vertigo or even Psycho would be quite what they are without those brilliant Bernard Herrmann musical scores. You can have your John Williams or Ennio Morricones, both are truly great and amazing and unmistakable, but let's not pretend for a single second that any other answer as to who the GOAT of film composers is, that doesn't begin with Bernard and end with Herrmann, is a wrong answer:







https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/when-hitchcock-met-herrmann#:~:text=Universal%20who%20were%20releasing%20Hitchcock's,spoke%20or%20worked%20together%20a gain.

http://bernardherrmann.org/articles/...ain/index.html

I know this post and the question it responds to are a few years old at this point, but you don't need a cable subscription or satellite TV or anything like that to subscribe to the Criterion Channel. Yes, it's called a channel, but it's more of a service like Netflix or Hulu where you can stream it through various devices either direct on the website or through downloading the app in your app store. They use to have a three device limit, but I wonder if that has expanded because I have access to it on four. My main one to is through my XBOX Series X which is how I watch most films, but I also have the app on my phone, iPAD, and now apparently I can just Google Criterion Channel and watch it through my Google Chrome browser on my old laptop once I'm signed in.

It's really great and should be an essential service for us film buffs if you can afford the $10/month or whatever it comes too. Of course I do know times is tough and budgets can be tight.