The Hitchcock Poll

Dun think I seen anything b'fore Rope.

Film Threat to thread, tho.

vertigo is not his "perfect" movie, it's too long, but it's his deepest,richest, and timeless, imo.

39 Steps, but it could have been Rear Window, The Wrong Man, Strangers on a Train or Vertigo.

Rear Window > Vertigo > Notorious > 39 Steps > Psycho > Rope > Strangers on a Train > I don't care to rank much else

xpost

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.

I have never seen The Wrong Man. I will.

It's great, dour and with surprising gravitas. That and I Confess.

ok, about The Birds... dumb monster movie or great monster movie?

dumb in the mute sense, yeah

great in every other sense

The Birds is great!

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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.

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.

hitch shot from his storyboards and nothing else, if you believe the stories.

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.

and he knew perfectly how the scene would go before the actual shooting, all was in his head, if you believe the stories

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

x2 yes

Yeah, Family Plot is totally fun. I haven't forced myself to watch Topaz yet, tho.

... which isn't in this poll, unsurprisingly

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.

'Strangers...'

god it rocks so hard.

All plots are ridiculous.

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.

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.

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.

*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.

*and is gay

i voted for notorious (=most perfect hollywood movie ever), but vertigo is the best.

too many defensible candidates to make a rational choice, so i went with most fun. (i.e. north by northwest)

(strangers on a train and vertigo are probably the MOST defensible, but really there's an embarrassment of options.)

i voted for notorious (=most perfect hollywood movie ever), but vertigo is the best.

this is correct!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Birds is actually ABOUT THE HUMAN CHARACTERS, shhhhhh

Too hard. My brain is exploding.

nbnw

I wonder if anyone alive has seen The Pleasure Garden.

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.

The end card is the most obvious Studio Imposition ever, and so I just pretend it isn't there.

(oh - maybe 2d most-obv to the framing scenes of Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

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.

Dr Morbius - what are your favorites?

birds foreva

rope and vertigo are my favorites

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."

Wow. I totally managed to block that card. Doesn't really change my view on Hitch's filmmaking control, but ... yeah.

and let's not forget "Lamb to the Slaughter."

Or "One More Mile To Go" (aka "Test Run For First Reel Of Psycho")

"39 Steps". I think. Far too difficult to choose tho.

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.

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Talk_Talk

spatially it's quite nice

(dont think ive ever watched in 2D)

yes the negotiations of space among Milland, the police inspector and Cummings in that apartment is shrewd in its way.

also like the conceit that it's a sequel to Strangers on a Train

I kept thinking what would Preminger have done with this material and remembered Bunny Lake is Missing.

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.

the use of the 3D is kinda the point and i can't really name a 3D film i prefer.

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.

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.

Notorious really is his best.

I love any Hitchcock poll that doesn't put Vertigo on top.

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.

I have it in queue at the public library (it's been checked out for two weeks, funnily enough).

xp Counterpoint: Topaz is not great. But Frenzy is.

who gives a fuck what's best? Vertigo is great, so is Notorious, Rear Window etc. Enjoy.

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.

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.

Some howlers in the subtitles for Murder!, such as NEWS CUP IN JAR for New Scotland Yard.

Forgot about Michael Powell working on Blackmail

so how's Stage Fright? Been too long.

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.

Young and Innocent is grebt. Don’t won’t to say much more to avoid spoilers.

Now I want to buy this book Hitchcock’s Music.

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.

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.

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.

Yep.

Cotton is well-cast.

*Cotten

Feel like the relationship between the two Charlies is the apex/epitome of Hitchcock "doubling."

Did you ever watch Stage Fright, Alfred? flappy bird's assessment is pretty accurate.

a meh

Yeah. I remember exactly one line from it, when Dietrich wanted to tart up her widow's weeds.

Which I see I mentioned upthread ten years ago. Time flies.

The Hitchcock Poll

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

who gives a fuck what's best? Vertigo is great, so is Notorious, Rear Window etc. Enjoy.

Right as usual, Morbs.

You can enjoy the movies AND enjoy discussing what's best!

"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

Lol, exactly.

Although truth be told, that seems to be a classic flanking maneuver that I believe he employed upon more than one occasion.

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.

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.

Forgot about Michael Powell working on Blackmail

This was just on, I'd never seen it before, it was good!

Yes

To-Night
'Golden Curls'

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?

Hitchcock/Truffaut maybe?

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.