The Hitchcock Poll

We have to accept Hume Cronyn's approximation of New York cocktail party chatter and Jimmy Stewart as a philosophy professor, both of which are, admittedly, funny in lots of ways.

I think Rope is really good up until the final self-righteous Jimmy Stewart speech. but maybe that's a joke on his character?

yeah ROPE has aged badly i think but i loved it when i was a kid.

Top five are absolutely great (masterpieces, even)! Voted for the winner myself. Surprised that Psycho didn't do better.

Sadly, lots of great ones received zero votes.

I wish I'd voted for Rebecca now, don't think I got around to picking one.

Jimmy Stewart as a NIETZCHEAN philosophy professor takes the cake. Rope is overrated? Isn't it universally regarded as an interesting failure? I mean, Farley Granger is hot as hell, but he and John Dall are both quite terrible.

(Having to pick ONE film doesn't reflect rejection of all the others, for fuck's sake)

As for early vs late, Sabotage is the only British one that has the depth of the better Hollywood films (39 Steps and Lady Vanishes are 'just' near-perfect confections). He had it (relatively) right in telling Truffaut that he was "a talented amateur" in the '30s.

hitchcock said a *lot* of things, and was always conscious of his audience. he knew that truffaut preferred the american ones by the time of that interview (1962). at their earlier meetings he had said all of his american films were bad; that was what critics wanted to hear.

he was not a talented amateur in the '30s. he had been fussed over since his third movie, in '26; he was probably the highest paid director in europe when he made the (contentious but...) first british sound feature in 1929, in a studio that wasn't so far off hollywood levels of lavishness.

i don't think '39 steps' is any more or less shallow than the majority of his american output. none of the british films come up to 'rear window', but they do have other things to recommend them over technical accomplishment.

nrq OTM, and i'd rate "39 steps" in particular with hitch's v. best.

the '50s "man who knew too much" is better than the '30s one but there's something to be said for the earlier film's much stronger sense of vivid threat (and as i recall it's a much more violent film than the later one).

nrq OTM, and i'd rate "39 steps" in particular with hitch's v. best

Agreed. It would make my top ten Hitchcock (wonderful small performance by Peggy Ashcroft as lonely bitter wife is one of my favorites).

Is there a better thread in which to discuss Vertigo? Watched it last night (working my way through a box set) and was really disappointed. I guess, by the result above, that's about to earn me a pillorying.

I'm not a huge Vertigo fan either. I admire it, in a detached way, but would much rather watch at least four or five others from the list above--not to mention Citizen Kane, which Vertigo may finally overtake in 2012's Sight and Sound poll.

Ha, I was moaning about CK only a few weeks back in another thread.

It's not that I don't appreciate the classics (I think), because I've gone through Rear Window, Psycho, The Man Who Knew Too Much from Hitch alone in the past few weeks (lot of catching up to do, as you can see) and loved every one of them.

I'm not terribly fond of Vertigo either.

Citizen Kane, which Vertigo may finally overtake in 2012's Sight and Sound poll

Man, I am so popping a cork when that happens.

Here's how the gap's been closing since Kane's appearance on the '62 list (just the critics poll for the last two):

1962: Citizen Kane--1st (22 votes)/Vertigo--not listed
1972: Citizen Kane--1st (32 votes)/Vertigo--11th (8 votes)
1982: Citizen Kane--1st (45 votes)/Vertigo--7th (12 votes)
1992: Citizen Kane--1st (43 votes)/Vertigo--4th (18 votes)
2002: Citizen Kane--1st (46 votes)/Vertigo--2nd (41 votes)

It would seem inevitable that Vertigo takes over #1 next time, although there was such a dramatic spike last time, maybe that was something of an abberation and Kane's lead will stabilize. (The Godfather's coming up fast too.)

"aberration"...I cannot get through a single post on this board without a typo or a misspelling.

Any prospect of a left-field entrant, aside from those 3?

i'd have thought mis-spelling tbh btw

The Godfather's strong showing was a cheat. They combined the votes of the first two.

that's a bit...cheeky?

Starts @ 1:37. The Birds, you see, are actually the physical manifestation of Mitch's mother's jealousy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sFqfbrsZbw

I think he's definitely on to something.

I'm not a huge Vertigo fan either. I admire it, in a detached way

Did anyone else catch the irony of this?

I should have mentioned that about GF I/II...I'm an agnostic on that issue; I can see valid arguments for and against. I don't know if there's anything that might make an unexpected appearance in the Top 10 next time. Nothing that came out since the last poll, anyway--unlike the '72 poll, where 8-1/2, Persona, and L'avventura all appeared in the Top 10 within 15 years of release, it seems to take a while now. I think Raging Bull was the most recent film to show some movement last time.

i think 'rules of the game' absolutely deserves the top spot, but i suspect it's condemned to hover just under the contested top 2-3 forever and ever.

My dream would be for the order of the 2002 top 3 to be reversed.

(And for the Godfathers to be counted separately.)

wait why the hell don't people like Vertigo

I don't dislike Vertigo; I just find it a very cold film. I realize that those who love it find it very emotional.

Eric H.: Do you want the Godfathers separated because you think there's a significant difference in quality, or is that you just think counting them together is inherently unfair? For me, they're equally great--sometimes I prefer one, sometimes the other--and, largely because of Pacino, they come together in my mind as a single film. But I think the inherently-unfair argument is a valid one.

Any prospect of a left-field entrant, aside from those 3?

Ingl**rious B*st*rds, when Idiocracy comes true.

I don't dislike Vertigo; I just find it a very cold film.

You do realize that it's interpreted, biographically, as an intensely personal, passionate film by Hitchcock, and he was sufficiently hurt by the lukewarm commercial response that he never risked another of its type?

I understand totally how personal it was to Hitchcock; obviously he had an obsession with finding the perfect blonde, and I'm sure it was personal on many other levels I'm not aware of. I don't react to films through Hitchcock's (or any filmmaker's) eyes, though; I react to them through my own.

I actually think that evaluating Vertigo on how personal a film it was to Hitchcock is just about the weakest argument you can make for its greatness. I assume that the 41 people who named it as one of their 10 favourite films in 2002 had much more personal reasons than that.

but that doesn't make it cold, tho, even if it doesn't hit you on a gut level. xp

Among many things, I partic find Midge's last line moving: "I don't think Mozart's going to help."

I actually think that evaluating Vertigo on how personal a film it was to Hitchcock is just about the weakest argument you can make for its greatness

Exactly. I just don't find it as entertaining as Notorious, Strangers on a Train or Rear Window.

it hasn't got any lousy Ruth Roman like Strangers on a Train.

Soto, I thought you'd have gone for the groovy dressing-the-corpse necrophilia!

Well, it was really more that it was unplausible nonsense, which kept bringing me out of the movie. Performances were all great, it looked fantastic, the cahracters were all taking it very seriously, but... it was too silly, I guess? And, as I've said, that didn't bother me with Psycho or The Man Who Knew Too Much so it's not like I'm too easily thrown by a ropey plot.

Soto, I thought you'd have gone for the groovy dressing-the-corpse necrophilia!

I love the last half hour, but forty minutes of languorous shots of Stewart following Novak and anomic conversations and the corpse starts to stink.

Again (I think it's a distinction worth making), I didn't say it was cold; I said that I find it a cold film, and acknowledged that defenders feel very differently.

I'll give it credit for one thing: it's reputation grows as more and more people see it. When it was fairly high in the '72 and '82 polls, I think it was out of circulation at the time; I saw it for the first time in the early '80s, a pirate screening at a small rep, and I wondered if part of its stature was tied in with its inaccessibility. But since it was officially re-released sometime after the '82 poll, its standing has just grown and grown.

Wasn't RW also out of circulation?

Yeah--also The Trouble with Harry. I saw Rear Window at the same time (possibly even a double-bill); now that film I love, give or take a bit of stilted dialogue between Stewart and Kelly.

I watched RW with my mom this afternoon during my weekly visit -- I can watch it anytime.

RW is still probably one of my 3 favourite films ever - the thing's unstoppable.

One of my favorite shots ever: the close-up on Kelly wiggling the ring, followed by the camera gliding up to Raymond Burr, who shifts his gaze from the ring to Stewart.

Oops: spoiler alert.

or Wendell Corey, Kelly, and Stewart swirling brandy snifters in the evening light.

you know when a director reaches a zone where every single shot is immaculate? yeah that

midge is my favourite character in vertigo - dunno if that means I didn't get the film

it was really more that it was unplausible nonsense

ah, so you're one of 'The Plausibles' Hitchcock sniffed about! :)

forty minutes of languorous shots of Stewart following Novak and anomic conversations

love it all.

Those three '50s films you mentioned, plus Man Who Knew Too Much '56 and Rope, were held out of circulation by Hitchcock and his estate until they were re-released theatrically with great fanfare in '84. You can imagine how maddening how maddening it was coming of age as a Hitchcock fan in the late '70s not to have those films available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phmDP4LSz1Y

I wonder whether this accounts for Pauline Kael's silence. She had something to say on almost every Hitch film from the early thirties through The Wrong Man, then there's a gap between it and Psycho.

ah, so you're one of 'The Plausibles' Hitchcock sniffed about! :)

guilty, guilty. i'm certainly missing something, it seems.

any single frame of rear window would make a great poster.