Dun think I seen anything b'fore Rope.
Film Threat to thread, tho.
― libcrypt, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 01:53 (seventeen years ago) link
vertigo is not his "perfect" movie, it's too long, but it's his deepest,richest, and timeless, imo.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 01:54 (seventeen years ago) link
39 Steps, but it could have been Rear Window, The Wrong Man, Strangers on a Train or Vertigo.
― C0L1N B..., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:10 (seventeen years ago) link
Rear Window > Vertigo > Notorious > 39 Steps > Psycho > Rope > Strangers on a Train > I don't care to rank much else
xpost
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:11 (seventeen years ago) link
Voted pragmatically and went with Rear Window, though it kills me to not vote for Vertigo, The Wrong Man, The Lady Vanishes, the two Tippi Hedren ones, et al.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:13 (seventeen years ago) link
I have never seen The Wrong Man. I will.
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:15 (seventeen years ago) link
It's great, dour and with surprising gravitas. That and I Confess.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:18 (seventeen years ago) link
ok, about The Birds... dumb monster movie or great monster movie?
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:19 (seventeen years ago) link
dumb in the mute sense, yeah
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:19 (seventeen years ago) link
great in every other sense
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:20 (seventeen years ago) link
The Birds is great!
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:20 (seventeen years ago) link
no, I thin kit's great, too, II guess I'm wondering if it's dumb just because it is, essentially, a monster movie. And Hitch does not reforn the genre, he adheres to it nicely.
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:22 (seventeen years ago) link
i once did a work during my studies about the story-board as used in "shadow of doubt": hitch new how to get into details i tell you.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:24 (seventeen years ago) link
hitch shot from his storyboards and nothing else, if you believe the stories.
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:26 (seventeen years ago) link
Strangers On A Train, which has his least ridiculous plot, a couple of good supporting performances (by Ms. Hitchcock and Ruth Roman), homo overtones, and a crackling script.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:27 (seventeen years ago) link
and he knew perfectly how the scene would go before the actual shooting, all was in his head, if you believe the stories
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:27 (seventeen years ago) link
OH GOD I MISSED Notorious! Can I retract??
Also: can anyone tell me if the seventies films are worth the trouble?
frenzy is great,one of his best really, family plot havent seen though heard not such good thing
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:29 (seventeen years ago) link
x2 yes
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:30 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah, Family Plot is totally fun. I haven't forced myself to watch Topaz yet, tho.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:38 (seventeen years ago) link
... which isn't in this poll, unsurprisingly
― Eric H., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:39 (seventeen years ago) link
I feel like waiting until Redacted comes out to to my inevitable Brian De Palma poll.
Strangers On A Train, which has his least ridiculous plot
That's not true. All his plots are "ridiculous."
But "crackling" is a good word for the dialogue, for sure.
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link
'Strangers...'
god it rocks so hard.
― pisces, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link
All plots are ridiculous.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:41 (seventeen years ago) link
The thing about Strangers is that it might be his MOST ridiculous movie... the end scene of the merry go round? Come on, that's just silliness. But it's great.
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:44 (seventeen years ago) link
But Strangers... does the wrong-man anxiety with greater ease than North By Northwest and, er, The Wrong Man (or earlier films like Foreign Correspondent and The 39 Steps). By tapping into the horror of the most banal circumstance -- how talking to a creepy stranger who buys you an expensive lunch and won't leave you alone -- he comes closest to defining what life must be like in a police-state.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link
like douglas sirk, he worked in hollywood most of the the time, so he had to fit to the genres rules, but he liked it probably, and it made his films as great and popular as they are.
― Zeno, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link
*talking to a creepy stranger who buys you an expensive lunch and won't leave you alone can lead to the most absurd mix-up.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link
*and is gay
― kenan, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 02:49 (seventeen years ago) link
i voted for notorious (=most perfect hollywood movie ever), but vertigo is the best.
― J.D., Tuesday, 4 September 2007 03:14 (seventeen years ago) link
too many defensible candidates to make a rational choice, so i went with most fun. (i.e. north by northwest)
― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 03:58 (seventeen years ago) link
(strangers on a train and vertigo are probably the MOST defensible, but really there's an embarrassment of options.)
― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 04:00 (seventeen years ago) link
this is correct!
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 4 September 2007 04:08 (seventeen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― ILX System, Wednesday, 5 September 2007 23:01 (seventeen years ago) link
The Birds is actually ABOUT THE HUMAN CHARACTERS, shhhhhh
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 6 September 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link
Too hard. My brain is exploding.
― Tom D., Thursday, 6 September 2007 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link
nbnw
― DavidM, Thursday, 6 September 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link
I wonder if anyone alive has seen The Pleasure Garden.
― Alba, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link
It's great, dour and with surprising gravitas.
Hm. The Wrong Man I found pretty good, certainly dour, and with a disappointing ending title card. Not that I wish harm on the woman, but that card took the air out of the scene before it. But it was very pretty and had Henry Fonda.
― kenan, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link
The end card is the most obvious Studio Imposition ever, and so I just pretend it isn't there.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:53 (seventeen years ago) link
(oh - maybe 2d most-obv to the framing scenes of Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers)
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link
Strangers On A Train for me. The first Hitchcock film I ever saw and still my favourite.
I saw Torn Curtain one afternoon years ago, I think I was home from school "ill". I remember being surprised at how violent it was. For a film on at 2 in the afternoon, anyway.
― nate woolls, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:56 (seventeen years ago) link
Dr Morbius - what are your favorites?
― humansuit, Thursday, 6 September 2007 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link
birds foreva
― Surmounter, Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:01 (seventeen years ago) link
rope and vertigo are my favorites
― and what, Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:02 (seventeen years ago) link
Too many to name, but I make a habit of Vertigo, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Frenzy, Psycho, North by Northwest, the second Man Who Knew Too Much, Birds, Marnie, 39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, Sabotage, Foreign Correspondent. (Few duds aside from Topaz and Torn Curtain.)
and let's not forget "Lamb to the Slaughter."
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link
Wow. I totally managed to block that card. Doesn't really change my view on Hitch's filmmaking control, but ... yeah.
― Eric H., Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:06 (seventeen years ago) link
Or "One More Mile To Go" (aka "Test Run For First Reel Of Psycho")
― Eric H., Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link
"39 Steps". I think. Far too difficult to choose tho.
― Tom D., Thursday, 6 September 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link
I forgot how garrulous and moldy Dial M For Murder is. It would have taken a stronger actor than Ray Milland and his terrible accent to redeem this stagebound material. Talk, talk, talk.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:59 (nine years ago) link
http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Talk_Talk
― EPMD Conference 2015 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:01 (nine years ago) link
spatially it's quite nice
(dont think ive ever watched in 2D)
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:04 (nine years ago) link
yes the negotiations of space among Milland, the police inspector and Cummings in that apartment is shrewd in its way.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:05 (nine years ago) link
also like the conceit that it's a sequel to Strangers on a Train
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:06 (nine years ago) link
I kept thinking what would Preminger have done with this material and remembered Bunny Lake is Missing.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:06 (nine years ago) link
Just rewatced Dial M for Murder for the first time since high school. Not a great Hitch, but maybe a pretty good episode of Columbo. Why this was his foray into 3D is puzzling, though, given how this may be one of his least visually dazzling films.
― Bitch I'm in the 2112 (cryptosicko), Thursday, 31 December 2015 05:09 (eight years ago) link
the use of the 3D is kinda the point and i can't really name a 3D film i prefer.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 31 December 2015 05:58 (eight years ago) link
I wonder if the final title card for The Wrong Man was forced upon Hitchcock (or if it was even possible to force something on Hitchcock in 1957). It's jarringly false, although the film is allegedly based on a true story, so maybe that's what actually happened. Anyway, take that title card away, and wow, what a depressing ending (admirably so). Reminded me in an odd way of Carrie's ending. Fascinating as a '50s film: one anonymous man in a gray flannel suit has his life turned upside down by another man in a gray flannel suit, wife understands the pointless of it all and sinks into clinical melancholy.
― clemenza, Monday, 23 May 2016 01:20 (eight years ago) link
I recognized Werner Klemperer, but had no idea that was Tuesday Weld and Bonnie Franklin as the girls, and Harry Dean Stanton I completely missed.
― clemenza, Monday, 23 May 2016 03:12 (eight years ago) link
Notorious really is his best.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 July 2017 11:42 (seven years ago) link
I love any Hitchcock poll that doesn't put Vertigo on top.
― some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko), Monday, 3 July 2017 13:25 (seven years ago) link
who gives a fuck what's best? Vertigo is great, so is Notorious, Rear Window etc. Enjoy.
Ingrid is put through some p kinky stuff in the overly maligned Under Capricorn.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 July 2017 13:29 (seven years ago) link
I have it in queue at the public library (it's been checked out for two weeks, funnily enough).
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 July 2017 13:33 (seven years ago) link
xp Counterpoint: Topaz is not great. But Frenzy is.
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Monday, 3 July 2017 15:08 (seven years ago) link
This. Dude has at least six or seven hard-red masterpieces. I don't care if you prefer one over the other. Just prefer a few of them and we're good.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 3 July 2017 15:20 (seven years ago) link
I wanted to like Stage Fright a lot (Jane Wyman is great) but man, what a mess. Or just confusing? I do have the urge to watch it again - at some point - unlike the bottom 5 or 6 of the 32 Hitchcock movies I've seen.
― flappy bird, Sunday, 15 April 2018 03:31 (six years ago) link
Some howlers in the subtitles for Murder!, such as NEWS CUP IN JAR for New Scotland Yard.
― U or Astro-U? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 July 2019 23:11 (five years ago) link
Forgot about Michael Powell working on Blackmail
― U or Astro-U? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 28 July 2019 12:10 (five years ago) link
so how's Stage Fright? Been too long.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 18:15 (four years ago) link
Talking on twitter recently to the chap responsible for the great big 600-page Hitch Taschen book and he recommended Young and Innocent as a lesser-known classic. I've never heard of it! Can't wait to check it out now though.
― piscesx, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 18:44 (four years ago) link
Young and Innocent is grebt. Don’t won’t to say much more to avoid spoilers.
― Something Super Stupid Cupid (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:12 (four years ago) link
Now I want to buy this book Hitchcock’s Music.
― Something Super Stupid Cupid (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:16 (four years ago) link
Stage Fright is OK--Jane Wyman's attempt at an English accent is really rough, but Dietrich is great and Wyman is too otherwise, it's solid lower-middle tier Hitchcock imo.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 25 February 2020 19:42 (four years ago) link
I've warmed to Shadow of a Doubt, despite the script's overemphatic small town Americana and the way Teresa Wright gives every line the expected stresses.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:33 (three years ago) link
the script's overemphatic small town Americana
Wasn't the script literally written by Thornton Wilder? Anyway, it's a great one, and a great (early-ish) Joseph Cotton role.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 22 February 2021 21:36 (three years ago) link
Yep.
Cotton is well-cast.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link
*Cotten
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:38 (three years ago) link
Feel like the relationship between the two Charlies is the apex/epitome of Hitchcock "doubling."
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:44 (three years ago) link
Did you ever watch Stage Fright, Alfred? flappy bird's assessment is pretty accurate.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:50 (three years ago) link
a meh
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:55 (three years ago) link
Yeah. I remember exactly one line from it, when Dietrich wanted to tart up her widow's weeds.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 21:57 (three years ago) link
Which I see I mentioned upthread ten years ago. Time flies.The Hitchcock Poll
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 22:07 (three years ago) link
Teresa Wright the GOAT. I actually think she gave a better performance in the Hitchcock Presents episode she did, "Lonely Place" or something, Bruce Dern is in it. it's on streaming sites that are not youtube that are easy to find. Absolutely astonishing performance. Frankly last time I watched SOAD I thought she was a bit too gee-shucks for some of it, but it's necessary for the incest subtext
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 06:44 (three years ago) link
Right as usual, Morbs.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 16:15 (three years ago) link
You can enjoy the movies AND enjoy discussing what's best!
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 16:18 (three years ago) link
"no need to argue about movies when we can all enjoy our different favorites without conflict"
LOL who posted that and what did they do with morbs
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 16:35 (three years ago) link
Lol, exactly.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 16:56 (three years ago) link
Although truth be told, that seems to be a classic flanking maneuver that I believe he employed upon more than one occasion.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:55 (three years ago) link
It had been so long since I last saw "Rebecca" that I not only forgot so much of it *doesn't* take place at the house, but I forgot basically the last half hour deviates from the Gothic stuff entirely and becomes kind of the George Sanders show.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 13:39 (three years ago) link
ha yeah, i always forget about that part too, and then when it comes its like a whole extra bonus movie!
watched marnie last night for the first time in a couple decades and man, is that movie such a bizarre misfire. i was enjoying the first two thirds or so just watching these two characters who initially seem super cool and sexy and together, and then the layers get peeled back until we eventually see that theyre both completely twisted walking disaster areas - almost reminded me of phantom thread, love story between two deeply warped people whose pathologies nevertheless complement each other. but as the freudian stuff takes over more and more it just gets so goofy. at the end my partner was like "oh so she bonked bruce dern on the head, big deal", which made me lol in agreement.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Wednesday, 24 February 2021 15:20 (three years ago) link
This was just on, I'd never seen it before, it was good!
― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Saturday, 3 July 2021 13:57 (three years ago) link
Yes
― Planck Generation (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 July 2021 14:31 (three years ago) link
To-Night'Golden Curls'
― Build My Gallows Hi Hi Hi (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 26 June 2022 00:48 (two years ago) link
Saw Notorious for the first time today and as much as I fell for Bergmann, the character I can't stop thinking about is Claude Rains'. Only Hitchcock could/would make me feel sorry for an actual Nazi (notwithstanding John Boyne's efforts)?
What I came to ask: is there a definitive Hitchcock documentary?
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, 22 July 2022 21:20 (two years ago) link
Hitchcock/Truffaut maybe?
― Meme for an Imaginary Western (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 22 July 2022 22:53 (two years ago) link
Watching Rebecca for the first time in a while, I'm struck by Laurence Olivier's proto-Method performance: mumbles, ear pulling, tossing lines away.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 12 March 2024 20:50 (six months ago) link