The Hitchcock Poll

this is toooooooooooooooooooooo fucking hard, esp. since with a lot of the later stuff I've only got my middle school memories to rely on (the Criterion stuff is what I've seen more recently).

also, WOAH, I had no idea Strangers On A Train came after Rope.

I'm stuck between North By Northwest, Strangers On A Train, Rebecca and Shadow Of A Doubt.

[/i]It will get about 12 votes total, like every other ILX poll.[/i]

You get the idea.

The problem with Hitchcock: Joel McCrea wasn't in enough of the early American ones, and Thelma Ritter wasn't in enough of the later ones.

Leo G. Carroll was in about 7 though, right?

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, September 4, 2007 3:48 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

'cept for the 20-odd films he made in england...

You mean Hollywood East?

Oooh watch Blackmail and the original The Man Who Knew Too Much. Both are quite qorthwhile.

-- Alex in SF, Thursday, September 6, 2007 4:21 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, those seem to be the two that everyone mentions. I will when I can! What about all the others, though?

-- Alba, Thursday, September 6, 2007 4:23 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Oh, and The Lodger I hear talk about. The others, never.

-- Alba, Thursday, September 6, 2007 4:24 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

'rich and strange' is the conoisseur's choice.

the other '30s thrillers are good too.

the pre-'man who knew too much' ones get slept on. but even in america, until the early '60s, everyone preferred the british ones to the flabby hollywood ones. the turn-around came when the publicity budget for 'the birds' was used to pay for a full MOMA retrospective and peter bogdanovich's book.

but even rohmer and chabrol liked the english ones -- they liked 'the ring' and 'the manxman' especially.

stunned to recently learn he never won a Best Director Oscar

I wonder if anyone alive has seen The Pleasure Garden.

-- Alba, Thursday, September 6, 2007 3:20 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i'm fairly convinced it was never released, just trade-shown, in britain. though i have a feeling it was shown in germany. pretty unlikely all the same.

xp

why stunned? The thriller was not judged to be 'art' by Academy standards, at least not til Demme/Lecter, and Rebecca was considered Selznick's picture (esp since it was AH's first).

When they gave him an honorary Oscar he said "Thank you" and walked off.

Selznick's name on Rebecca's credits are bigger than Hitch's.

Sabotage, based on Conrad's Secret Agent (not to be confused with, er, Hitch's Secret Agent), is my favorite of the Brits.

"stunned" may be too strong, obviously the academy doesn't have a track record of rewarding quality or innovation or being massively influential ... I guess that given his prodigious output, mainstream success, and general omnipresence in the film world (altho maybe I only see this omnipresence in retrospect) I had just expected that he would've won at least once

The four nominated for Best Picture were Rebecca (the only one to win), Suspicion, Foreign Correspondent, and Spellbound.

And he did get four Best Director nods.

as i recall, orson welles was among those who said "early hitch yay, later (hollywood) hitch nay."

Welles also said, "Hitch has said he doesn't much like actors; watching his films you just don't think he likes people very muc."

As a sign of his cosmospolitan art-house cred, The Lady Vanishes won Best Director at the New York Film Critics Awards that year.

Welles also said, "Hitch has said he doesn't much like actors; watching his films you just don't think he likes people very much."

Which is a strength.

how so

Cold dead glare of camera eye aesthetically preferable to vaseline-smeared faux empathy or something.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A one-two I can definately live with.

I'm really glad The Trouble With Harry got a vote. It's always been a bit unfairly maligned, I've felt, and it's probably Hitchcock's most "fun" movie. Well, North By Northwest is also a great deal of fun.

This is a false binary opposition. Can you accuse Jean Renoir or Satyajit Ray of vaseline-smeared empathy?

I didn't really mean it, I was just glibly responding to Shakey Mo's glib questioning of my glib response to Welles' glib criticism,

I mean, what I like most about lots of Hitchcock movies is the (allegedly atypical) warmth of his depiction of everyday life; Sabotage and the 2nd Man Who Knew Too Much especially.

I voted for Psycho, but I wish I had it to do over again. I would have voted for Rear Window.

as i recall, orson welles was among those who said "early hitch yay, later (hollywood) hitch nay."

I want to believe this is a direct quote.

wow i really must see NOTORIOUS then.

i'm surprised at the strong showing for STRANGERS... but *god* what a movie.

wow i really must see NOTORIOUS then.

Yep, pretty much.

The most surprising in the top 10 for me is Rope.

Notorious might be my favorite movie ever. Ingrid Bergman is so so so amazing in it.

It's one of the few Hollywood films of the period -- or ever -- to understand sex and what men expect from women who enjoy it as much as they do.

On the other hand, Rope is shit.

what men expect from women who enjoy it as much as they do

disavowal?

marriage or whoredom; it's all the same in Cary Grant's eyes.

what? rope is pretty overrated but it's a decent film, nothing at all wrong with it. xx-post

i like strangers on a train but the way hitch films that murder scene creeps me the fuck out.

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).