Alfred Hitchcock thread

When I was a little kid, around 1980 or was it 1982, Hitchcock had died. Many of his films had not been seen for years.....one of these was Vertigo.
So my dad started renting a lot of them. It was the first time he had seen them too. So it made the experience good.

 

Doesn't make my all-time favorites list, but I like it a lot.

 

My favorites:

North By Northwest
To Catch a Thief
Vertigo
Rear Window
Rebecca
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
The Man Who Knew Too Much
The 39 Steps
Strangers on a Train

 

Conducted by Elmer Bernstein for his Filmmusic Collection. A must have for Herrmann fans. A few scenes on the DVD, including the Main Titles, can optioned to play with Herrmann's recordings albeit in mono.

12 flutes were the go for the score, which Herrmann described as "TERRIFYING." It also uses 12 horns, 9 trombones, 2 tubas and 2 sets of timpani. Quite powerful stuff.

Back to Mr Hitchcock. Even in his last, FAMILY PLOT, he still shows touches of brilliance and attention to detail. The one I don't like at all is TOPAZ. Yuck.

 

Which was his "Dark Side. . ."?

I like the location filming in old Quebec City for this one. Great if you are a pre-accident Montgomery Clift fan. And it's always great to see Karl Malden.

 

My faves,

Rear Window
North By Northwest, (I am constantly amazed by the picture quality on this disc - looks like it was made yesterday!)
Rope.

 

Rear Window (except Grace Kelly distracts me almost to the point of obsession )

Rebecca

Notorious

It would be much easier to list the ones I don't like. You really can't go wrong buying the Universal, Warner or Criterion box sets that are available. Great stuff!

 

I love the way Hitchcock introduces her in the film. The "kiss" is a classic shot (Hitch had obsessions of his own). If only you could see her in the 3-D version of "Dial M For Murder". . . And don't forget about her in the musical "High Society", the remake of "Philadelphia Story", which is also part of the Cole Porter box set (if you like that kind of thing).

 

When someone mentions "the most beautiful woman I've ever seen" I think "Grace Kelly". I know...sad.

 

Nothing sad about that, my friend.

When I look at the "Top Babes" thread and see all of the flavour-of-the-month girlies that the guys are drooling over, that's sad.

Trivia: For which movie role did she win an Academy Award?

 

Really?!

 

"Vertigo" is Hitchcock's dark side, his greatest movie, and all the more affecting if you know and/or love San Francisco. "Shadow of a Doubt" is another great Hitchcock film where the location---the Small Town Americana of Santa Rosa---serves practically as a character in the film. But "Vertigo" really captures the sense that the City is a player in the film, and it was unnerving to walk or drive by so many of the shooting locations in the film for so many years, locations that look every bit as scary or surreal in real life as they do in the film. Jimmy Stewart is possessed in his portrayal of "Det. John 'Scottie' Ferguson", and presents an unnerving mutation from an "Aw Shucks" kinda guy to the walking wounded. Eventually, he becomes as repellent and alien as Peter Lorre was in "M". I don't know (and probably don't really want to know) how Hitchcock got Kim Novak to be so perfect for her parts, but it's her best work. Bernard Hermann's score is the greatest work he ever composed. Note while watching the film how much of the emotional content is carried by Hermann's score, how many scenes have no dialog and appear to be cut and timed to the score. There's a dreamlike quality to many scenes in "Vertigo", a quality underscored by Hermann's slowly unfolding scoore, so full of echos from "Tristan und Isolde".
The strongest emotion that Hitchcock ever put on film was that of a broken heart. I'm sure he mourned the loss of Grace Kelly and became exasperated in his search for a suitable replacement. And I'm equally sure he felt the same way about San Francisco.

 

I got to see a screening of the 3-D DMFM in the early 80s.

 

I have to agree it is an amazing interstice of film and music! No doubt the score makes Vertigo all the better.

But Herrmann's best?! Some days, I think so too, but he has so many outstanding scores.
My current fave is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It is lovely and amazing, and I can't get enough of it right now! Psycho is stunning for his use of strings for terror, Ciitzen Kane is amazing for the many moods set throughout the picture. I can't forget the amazing menance in Cape Fear...or the delicious fandango in North by Northwest, or the humor in The Trouble with Harry...

Heck, almost all of Herrmann's scores are top notch. He is my fave film composer by a long shot!

 

Rewatched Vertigo on Blu-ray last night, and the film (well, most of it, anyway) was simply magical - definitely one of the greatest films I know. Freakin' gorgeous cinematography and editing.

 

North by Northwest
Suspicion
Psycho
The 39 Steps
Spellbound
Frenzy
Notorious
The Wrong Man
Rear Window
The Trouble with Harry
Blackmail
Young and Innocent

... to start with.

 

I just bought an ultra cheap box set which has all his earliest movies (I think up to The Lady Vanishes). I started backward with The Lady Vanishes and loved it. All his famed visual trickery aside, he was just a really good director at bringing humor and characterization out.

 

I saw this last week for the first time ever. I usually like almost anything Hitchcock but I was disappointed. I thought it was very far fetched.

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/your-top-5-alfred-hitchcock-movies.281951/

I did a later thread on this similar topic and these were my choices:

1. North By Northwest
2. Frenzy
3. Rear Window
4. Psycho
5. Strangers On A Train

 

Oops. Really embarrassed by the fact I missed Strangers on a Train off my list. My second favourite Hitchcock after North by Northwest.

 

It's interesting that Rebecca doesn't get mentioned very often yet it is the only Hitchcock film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Saw it for the first time last year; a superb movie!

 

Out of the films on my list, that is the one I last watched the longest time ago. I've seen it a few times, but I believe at the last viewing, I was still a teenager.

Maybe I need to see this one again!

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

I wanted to like it.

I just thought the scenes where people were talking about each other while sleeping one foot away was a bit far fetched, the man with one foot gets dumped overboard and no one hears him screaming, how could the German know exactly where his ship was based on one needle of the compass and for that matter how could they know where Bermuda was based on another needle of the compass?, how they escaped sinking during the storm and escaped the bombs at the end, etc.

I just thought it was a little weak for a Hitchcock film, maybe if someone else had directed it I would have thought more.

The Bill Heder commentary after the film on TCM "Americans could now understand the Nazis" was a bit much, too.

No offense to your original positive review.