The Hitchcock Poll

yeah the IMDB top 250, barometer of casual watchers/non-critic fans, has Rope on there.

had no idea. philistines are weird.

It was the first one I saw in high school, and I liked it because I believed then in auteurism. It's so obviously regarded as a directorial triumph that its merits are beside the point.

loved sabotage. only the kid on the bus should have been intercut w/ the guy being questioned at home watching the clock.

no-one's fave is The Lady Vanishes?! for shame.

I had never seen The Wrong Man before last night, not sure how that happened. Don't want to call it a dud, it's an interesting curio, but coming just before Vertigo it's certainly a minor film. I like the premise, but thought Henry Fonda's stoicism in the face of terrifying, Kafkaesque events was offputting and eventually kind of boring.

I think it's pretty major, but def not a very easy movie to love.

helps if you're Catholic imo (not that I love it)

Haven't seen it for years but I wdn't put it in the first rank of Hitch's work. It's no I Confess for example.

hmmm, I prefer it to I Confess. I could imagine Woody Allen loving it bcz despite the slapped-on epilogue card, it leaves you with that life-is-a-bitch-then-you-die feeling.

I like tangling with both Wrong Man and I Confess, even if they don't manage to negotiate Hitch's dark side with his showmanship as entertainingly as Vertigo.

Couple of good scenes in Dial M but yeah, not his best.

I like Fonda well enough but I like Monty Clift a lot more I guess

I Confess is as immobile as Clift's facial muscles.

It's meditative!

This has reminded me I've always wanted to see Le confessionnal, is it worth it?

I like the scene in the Fonda one where he takes the big escalator down to catch the subway back to Jackson Heights.

In retrospect, it was a little bit of a miscalculation to include I Confess in Slant's list of 100 essential movies.

really didn't love vertigo or rear window, i feel like i'm missing something? or maybe i'm just never going to be a hitchcock fan.

dial m for murder is prob the hitchcock i enjoyed the most. noticed that didn't get any votes here. i've seen about 1/3 of the ones in that list.

Dial M seems notable only for its relatively confining use of 3-D. In almost every other respect, it seems pretty stilted compared to Window or Train.

A contrarian, Crackle Box? Welcome to ILX!

I don't mind Dial M at all, very much enjoy it in fact. Not top Hitchcock, but mid-pack of the ones I've seen.

i don't care for 'wrong man' or 'dial m for murder' at all, really. though the first at least has a good opening and the second inspired troy mcclure's 'dial m for murderousness.'

'stage fright' is my favorite of that weird early '50s period.

Wasn't The Wrong Man one of Truffaut's favourites from the Hitchcock book? I watched it again about a year ago. It was credibly grim, but I doubt that I'll ever go back to it a third time.

Stagefright has some great Dietrich stuff, Such as when she is first fit in her widow's weeds and she says "don't you think you could make it ... plunge a little?"

This has reminded me I've always wanted to see Le confessionnal, is it worth it?

― aka best bum of the o_O's (Noodle Vague), Thursday, June 16, 2011 11:17 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

I liked it.

The first time I saw Marnie was when the podcast I co-host did a Mother's Day show wherein we got each of our moms to pick one of their favourite films, which we would then discuss. Marnie was my mom's choice. I was shocked at how strange and upsetting it was! (the other two picks: Badlands and Iris.)

A mom who'd pick Badlands is pretty unusual, to say the least.

total hipster family.

Shakey should have been on that show

The Wrong Man tonight, which I've never seen.

The Wrong Guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyXoM-62lX0

Dial M For Murder coming to Blu Ray *IN 3-D*!

http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/56709/hitchcocks-dial-m-murder-coming-blu-ray-3d-house-wax-next

Finally diving into this cheapo box set of British Hitchcock features... loved The Lady Vanishes.

rewatched Rope last week, i won't say it's underrated but i do think it's misunderstood, often.

I liked The Lady Vanishes a lot when I saw it three or four years ago for the first time. Struck me as superior to a few of his more acclaimed American films.

i think there was a cliche about his 30s Brit flicks being his best work but i think it's a reasonable case to make

Rope = dope.

I didn't know about the 15-movie Blu Ray set!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91tuY8UKEnL._AA1500_.jpg

a vote for the lodger! saw it today, pretty funny. killer had an oedipus map, then it turns out he's misunderstood and crucified on a fence. shots of murdered women, only their faces.... amazing to watch silent film do all of this. the father (arthur chesney) is amazing.

The Trouble With Harry is so good. Edmund Gwenn is so beautiful he makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

I saw it a few years back and it just didn't work for me. The sweet, idyllic setting and the dark comedy were such a jarring match that I don't think that the film ever found a proper tone. I dunno. One to revisit when I have the time, perhaps.

Showed Rear Window to a class last week, which was a lot of fun. I heard a bit of condescending laughter during the early parts of the film (at Wendell Corey's misogyny, for the most part) but a good number of the students had gotten pretty jumpy by the time Burr showed up to Stewart's apartment.

I just watched The Lady Vanishes and despite its many silly aspects, it somehow adds up to an entertaining movie. It's a script that is neither fish nor fowl, trying at once to be a political drama, slapstick comedy, romcom and thriller. How Hitchcock managed to make that heap of ill-assorted oddments into a watchable movie is a small miracle.

political drama? that's just Macguffin hooey.

most of Hitch's pre-WWII movies basically take place in Ruritania

quite a few of the post-WWII come to think of it

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.

― clemenza, Friday, July 16, 2010 9:19 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark

This may have been discussed in some other thread. But yeah, this did happen!

"Admire it in a detached way" is totally how I've always felt about Vertigo too, despite watching it once every 10 or so years since first seeing it as a Hitchcock-loving teen just to check and see if I've grown into it yet. Kane is way better, as are a ridiculous number of other Hitchcock films.

Okay, who was the joker who voted for The Mountain Eagle?

when did you guys have your hearts detached?

I only saw Citizen Kane and Vertigo for the first time within the past 6 weeks. I prefer Vertigo by a decent margin, enough that it whet my need for 5 or 6 more Hitchcock movies. Besides Vertigo, I probably enjoyed Frenzy and North By Northwest the most. I may give Notorious another shot, but I found it kinda boring.