Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

I don't know how many of you folks have teenagers, but it's tricky. She's really bright and patient, but there are some classic films that just don't do it for her, so I have to be careful what I show her for fear of turning her against something. For example, something like "The 39 Steps." It's a great movie, but it's still from 1935, which is close to 100 years ago, which might as well be a million years to someone who thinks movies from the '70s and '80s or even '90s are "old." The challenge I've sort of set for myself is that when I show her a square-image black and white movie (which are innately challenging to someone who has grown up in a colorful widescreen world) I've been trying to find movies that, yeah, aren't the least stodgy, or have an air of modernity to them. For example, she loved "His Girl Friday" and "Sullivan's Travels" because the dialogue was so fast and alive and they featured compelling female leads. But if I showed her a movie that came off too stodgy and old fashioned or dull, she might put a hold on classic B&W for a while. Another couple of examples: I forget the straw that broke the camel's back, but at one point she complained that too many movies we were watching were just men shooting at each other. And when I thought about it, she wasn't wrong! So we took a break from action movies for a bit. Or "2001," I think I showed her part of it when she was too young, and now she equates it with "boring." Which, tbf, it is, but it's the right kind of boring. I just showed it to her at the wrong time. Or "Seven Samurai" and "Lawrence of Arabia," she just couldn't get onboard (granted, a couple of years ago), but she more recent;y saw "Yojimbo" and loved it. But would I show her a movie even as perfect as 'Tokyo Story?" That might be a tougher sell at her age.

That's kind of why I picked the Hitchcocks I picked first. I think we started with "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest," because those are his two most perfectly entertaining movies, but they also set the stage for his other movies, most of which are also fortunately immensely entertaining.

Hmm, she might like some more Powell/Pressburger. She loved "The Red Shoes" years ago, so might dig at least a couple of their other movies. Maybe A Matter of Life and Death or Black Narcissus would be good choices.

Tokyo Story would go over well I think! Evergreen story

It's been forever since I'd seen "The Birds," possibly decades, but boy is that movie impeccably directed. Also tons of stuff I never put together until this viewing. The biggest is that, reading between the lines, it seems pretty clear, or at least is heavily implied, that Cathy (Veronica Cartwright!) is Rod Taylor's child with Annie, the school teacher, and that his mother (Jessica Tandy) is raising her as his sibling. What's less clear is how Taylor, 33 at the time of the movie's release, looks at least 10 years older than that, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, my daughter liked it. Hitch still batting 1000.

What's less clear is how Taylor, 33 at the time of the movie's release, looks at least 10 years older than that

Three packs of unfiltered Camels a day?

Ha, that was one theory! Also, Australian and super-tan? It's further confused by Jessica Tandy, who was 54 but still looks like they and she tried to make her seem older. So you've got a son who is 33 irl but looks 50, and a mother who is 54 irl but could probably pass for younger. Tippi Hedron looks her age (33; she's just a week younger than Taylor), but she's acting against a man who in a stretch could probably get away with playing her dad. The sexual dynamics of this movie are so messed up, anyway, it makes me wonder if it's all intentional.

I disagree that he looks particularly old – men in their 30s back then tended to look really old by modern standards, just because of the way they dressed and carried themselves in the pre-kidulthood era.

But even if he's 33, the age gap is odd, you're right. I'd never consciously thought it before; it's just hung there, making the whole thing more peculiar. And your theory doesn't seem outlandish, even if I can't see anyone else suggesting it on a quick Google search.

https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/rod-taylor-the-birds.jpg

Yeah, for sure, people looked older. But this is a particularly old looking 33, imo.

Still, not too old to be the son of a 54 year old. And same age as Tippi, so that all works out on paper. But yeah, the younger sister throws things off in a really conspicuous way. I'd like to think I am pioneering new ground on one of the most written about Hitch films!

No way does he look 50. I completely bought him as Tandy's son. The Cathy/Annie theory is interesting, however. There does seem to be a significant age gap between brother and sister.

Just for the sake of comparison here is fellow mama's boy Robert Walker, also 33, in "Strangers on a Train:"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Robert_Walker_in_Strangers_on_a_Train_trailer_%282%29..png

But he's also playing the character more flamboyantly/youthfully.

Sorry, strictly rabbit hole stuff here, but here's Joseph Cotten, 38, in "Shadow of a Doubt:"

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTQyOGM3YjAtNDE5OC00ZmZkLTk0ZGItMjk0MGZlMTQ0NDcxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzc5NjM0NA@@._V1_.jpg

Maybe Taylor's makeup and general swarthiness/manliness accounts for appearances?

I seem to recall one of the earliest bits of casting trivia I learned was that Cary Grant was originally considered for "Vertigo" but Hitch thought it was too old. He would have been 51. FWIW, Jimmy Stewart was himself 47.

("thought *he* was too old)

And when Vertigo underperformed at the box office, Hitch blamed Stewart for being too old.

Shuddering to think of a Vertigo starring John Gavin.

*shudders*

Of course "Notorious" was a big hit here, though my daughter has gotten kind of annoyed at all these films where more or less the instant the male and female leads meet they are magically "in love." The best I could come up with is that in the era they had to be "in love" to make the romance morally acceptable, because god forbid the affair be an actual casual fling.

On that tip, you should tell her about why the big kiss scene is so broken up and stretched out.

Book on Hitch by a former ilxor.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-520-34356-6

Cool, guess I should finally get round to watching The Lodger ...

It's really good!

Also want to the see the 1944 remake (one of a number) with Laird Cregar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lodger_(1944_film)

what was his ILX moniker?

what was his ILX moniker?

my guess is either ENRQ (posted a lot about how ahead of the rest of the UK Hitch was iirc) or garu g

ah that's where NRQ ended up!

Mutuals with NRQ on twitter it's not like he just disappeared.

That, um, doesn’t sound like NRQ’s govname

He has posted under different names.

Oh, wait, I was reading wrong, d’oh! Of course that’s him.

It's really good!

― xyzzzz__, Friday, November 19, 2021 5:22 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Second on this endorsement (the Criterion disc is excellent). But approach The Phantom Fiend (1932) with extreme caution (even if you are a completist crank like myself). The 1944 version had already been on my informal list to watch.

TY - I only have The Lodger in this box set, but the quality has been dece on the ones I've watched, and there are good intros from Charles Barr:

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Hitchcock:_The_British_Years_-_Network_(UK,_2008)_-_Press_Releases

NRQ has written good stuff about early English film studies/culture for Sight and Sound and elsewhere for quite a few years now. Just today, this fun little piece popped up in a newsfeed:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/greatest-films-all-time/1941-quiz-film-classics

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEwcNJfVcAQipJz?format=jpg&name=large

a signed certificate of rewatchability

Interesting! A re-release of Rear Window on the back of Psycho; I had to check, and apparently RW was withdrawn from circulation between 1968 and 1983, so this must be early 1960s?

In other news, the Lodger disc in that box set I linked to above looks great - nicely tinted and generally well preserved - but it's presented mute ie without a soundtrack of any kind. It makes it feel more like a Stan Brakhage joint than a Hitchcock one - so I think I'm going to check if the Criterion version has music. Even a basic piano accompaniment would be fine.

I watched it at the BFI with live piano.

The DVD I have has a truly atrocious soundtrack. Vocals, even wordless, are a bold move on a silent film score and this one sure doesn't pull it off.

That does sound bad. And not necessary.

I'm guessing that no record of the Lodger's original score/accompaniment has survived, as it doesn't seem to feature on any disc release. The Criterion Blu-Ray has "a new score by composer Neil Brand, performed by the Orchestra of Saint Paul s-Downhill". I've seen Brand live accompanying various silent films as a pianist and he's excellent - and he may well have been the pianist you saw at the BFI, xyzzzz.

Honestly can't remember. But yes I do love the (I'm assuming) live improv-y accompaniment to silents.

New restoration of Shadow of a Doubt is grebt!

classic

With support from the Robert Jolin Osborne Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

Patrick McGilligan makes it pretty clear that Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder both really enjoyed the collaboration. Wilder didn’t even seem to mind that Hitch brought in another writer after he left to join Army Intelligence to punch up the script and make it a bit more modern. Patrick Collinge who played the mother/sister (DO U SEE?) also rewrote a lot of her own lines and helped touch up the garage scene between young Charlie and the detective.

those ridiculous "backgrounds" in scenes involving cars highlight the artificiality of Hitchcock in general & this frankly silly concoction in particular. he certainly is an overrated director--really a cynical puppet-master manipulating gullible audiences. https://t.co/EDY3dko30S

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 5, 2023

Hahahahaha!

I'll put aside her overall evaluation of Hitchcock, but those horrible matte shots make me wince too.

man those gullible audiences, overrating Hitchcock because they foolishly believe those backgrounds are part of the shot!

O yes, clutch the pearls and whip the fooles! I'll put aside her overall evaluation(s) of many things, in predictably snotty-shallow tweets esp.

while most boomers, and even much of gen x, struggles to adapt to a fully online life, this octogenarian member of the silent generation is a true poster, an effortless annoyance on par with any 22 year old whose brain has been destroyed by the computer since kindergarten https://t.co/gmXVp6vxPR

— Jess Harvell (@cheaptrickrules) January 5, 2023

Those matte shots are...what all Hollywood directors did back then?

Was gonna say