Hitchcock Film By Film Thread

This is a great film. I wish I could have seen it's initial screening back then when people thought it was going to be some sort of adventure/drama film.

Besides of course the shower scene, I think my favorite shot is the above camera angle when Norman bursts out of the room to kill the investigator and again as he is falling down the stairs.

Anthony Perkins was perfectly cast as he almost always IMHO seemed to have this "timidness" in his acting, like there was this underlying uncomfortableness or lack of confidence (for lack of a better term). This of personality of course was perfect to play Norman Bates and Perkins really did seem in his element.

The score of course as noted above is amazing.

 

Psycho

I have not seen all of Hitchcock's films but of the ones I have seen, Psycho is my favorite. It still holds up very well today. I cannot say that about all of them.

 

Psycho and "The Birds" were my first 2 Hitchcock movies I ever saw (in the late 60s, early 70s on BW TV) and will always have a special place in my heart.

 

Hitch originally prevented theaters from admitting people to the movie after it started, because the star of the move (Janet Leigh) is killed off in the first act. Unusual to have the hero die, or so early in the story. Many of us have only seen "Psycho" knowing in advance about the shower scene, so it isn't a surprise. First-time watchers today know what's coming when Janet Leigh starts preparing for a shower.

Did anyone see "Psycho" when it was first released -- was it a real shocker at the time to have the lead actress get killed right away?

Now that we are rolling into "Psycho", it would be too easy to point out the influences in Brain De Palma's films. However, I will say that when I first saw Brian De Palma's "Dressed To Kill", where he uses many of Hitch's tricks, I got caught off guard with the tricks. That is the only way I can imagine how audience members felt seeing "Psycho" upon its original release.

The shower scene is one where Hitch, the "Master of Suspense", uses surprise instead of suspense. He explains the difference in the interview book, "Hitchcock/Truffault".

 

Psycho and The Birds were the last times Hitch made cinema history.
I always thought it was staggering how well Psycho would work as a silent film. The photography and camera work are fantastic and the plot directions really innovative!
Psycho is not my favorite Hitchcock but I believe it to be his best. Like in all of his other movies, you never believe for one second that you are watching real people there on screen and suddenly there is Norman Bates. The reality of this character is outstanding in Hitch's catalogue.
It feels as if Hitchcock wanted to say: look, this is what is behind everything bad that ever happend in one of my movies. Norman Bates.

 

I originally saw this movie probably in the early 1970's as a kid. Local tv stations used to always show 'horror' films late at night and I saw it then. What I really remembered from that viewing were the end scenes where the investigator gets killed on the stairs and 'mother' is found in the basement. Both scared the bejesus out of me. I must have missed the shower scene because I have no memory of it during this viewing. The funny thing is that I didn't realize it was Psycho or that it was a Hitchcock film when I saw it. Those scenes stayed with me however and it wasn't until many years later (early 80's) I was watching it and everything fell into place for me and I realized those scenes were from a true classic.

It also took me many years to realize that Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween fame), the queen of horror, was Janet Leigh's daughter.

Psycho gets shown every Halloween at my house.

 

I recently saw "A Touch of Evil" for the first time, I'm surprised that Janet went to another hotel after that...

 

"Touch of Evil" was an influence on "Psycho". If you watch the film Dennis Weaver plays a character that could be an older version of Norman Bates (minus the killer instinct) and Leigh is put in peril much as she was in "Psycho". What's interesting is that I believe a lot of people miss the point that Hitchcock used knowledge of "Touch of Evil" to his advantage with "Psycho". In the former film while Leigh is threatened, she isn't killed. That may have played to audience expectations given that "Touch of Evil" was prepped and shooting began the year before "Psycho" (but released in 1960).

Clearly Hitchcock also was influenced by "Diabolique" which was released before "Psycho" (Joseph Stefano and Hitchcock both watched "Diabolique" a number of times prior to making "Psycho"). Stefano was the third known screenwriter that worked on "Psycho" and he brought the most to the table; he was currently under going psychoanalysis and brought that experience to the table.

Likewise, Stefano suggested to Hitchcock that they show the toilet in the movie because he felt it would unnerve the audience (the bathroom was off limits when it came to bodily functions at the time).

Hitchcock relished the idea although he knew he would have to fight for it and used an overhead shot of a "nude" (well, she was wearing a mole skin outfit) Janet Leigh slumped in the shower after the murder but prior to the slow dissolve from her eye to the drain (which was actually a still image --because Alma though she saw Leigh's eye move slightly--printed on the optical printer).

just a thought--Hitchcock had worked with many stars in the industry and all were for the most part his peers in terms of age, experience, etc. With "Psycho" and every succeeding film he worked with actors and other crew members that largely considered him a "giant" in the industry--a legend--and it leads me to wonder if that shift from talented filmmaker to "legend" damaged his later films since he often didn't have any of the his earliest collaborators outside of Alma contributing (and she couldn't contribute much after her massive stroke).

I suspect that Hitchcock who found himself suddenly revered began to believe his decisions couldn't be wrong and that prevented him from being second guessed by everyone except the studio suits (for example Hitchcock's decision to replace Bernard Herrmann's score for "Torn Curtain" for something catchy was a mistake that damaged a film that suffered other short comings as well). Once Hitchcock was no longer surrounded by collaborators who might be seen as peers that's when his art began to suffer.

He also got caught in a generational tidal wave that washed over him and made his work seem less relevent to many people (although we know this wasn't true)--he was hugely influential and there was a generation of filmmakers following in his footsteps. That along with the European film directors who were allowed more freedom than Hitchcock was in making films without interference from the suits may have hobbled his film career towards the end of his life.

Add in that along with his late life ailments and studio/audience expectations as to what a Hitchcock film SHOULD be (if you look at his career historically while the same themes do crop up throughout his work he alters his style with time, experience and the material at hand) and you have a director that was wandering in a motel so-to-speak with his baggage and no where to settle for the night (if you'll pardon the metaphor).

"Frenzy" captured Hitchcock revitalized--whether or not you like the film it was a bold, daring movie for a man in his 70's and not something that you'd expect (much like John Huston's "Wise Blood") from a director in the fifth decade of his carreer.

"Psycho" likewise found Hitchcock wanting to try something new and daring even if it was at the time a "run for cover" project because the other more involved projects he wanted to tackle were grounded. I suspect that his affection for the material itself allowed him to do something like "The Lodger" (a project that he had proposed as a remake for some time as a "talkie") and get it out of his system.

 

Silly, I guess, but I still find it very hard to watch Marion Crane's life end so shockingly halfway through the film (or is it more like one third)? I still think sometimes about what might have happened had she lived, as if she were a real person. That's the power that Hitchcock, the writers, set designers, and of course the actors and actresses brought to some of his great movies--characters that you care about.

It's strange how you start first identifying with her, as she commits what really is a substantial crime. Back in 1960 you could buy a mansion in many places for the $40,000 she stole. I think middle class to lower middle class people like teachers made only $6000 or so a year back then. Anyway, you identify with her and you don't want her to be caught. And you see her turning around things in her mind and deciding to return it.

Then, of course, in an infinitely more creepy way the viewer identifies a bit with Norman. When I saw it the first time and the car didn't sink for a few seconds--I thought "oh no!!" Then I was like, wait, why am I thinking that?

Why does Marion die? I mean I know that without that there's no movie. But sometimes in horror movies when people die isn't there sometimes a reason. I don't really watch slasher films (of which this is the great grandmother, I guess), but I've heard that the woman who sleeps around sometimes goes first, while the innocent one battles to the end with the evil and is sometimes triumphant.

In this case, Marion, as sympathetic as she is, is a somewhat scandalous woman. She's with someone who is not her husband, and she's more undressed that most women were in a movie in 1960. Plus she's stolen the money. This is maybe part of why she dies, even though clearly she's decided to try and redeem herself.

Great posts by Matt, wayneklein, turnaround, the panda and others on this film. I've learned some things and it's deepened my understanding of the film.

 

Of all the reasons you state for Hitchcock's struggle for cinematic relevancy after Psycho, that's the one that makes the strongest sense to me, even if it could be argued very well that Psycho and The Birds were critical parts of that wave.

Hitchcock's classic style of filmmaking, which he departed from famously in Psycho and The Birds and a few times before that (like The Wrong Man) to lesser effect, was to present a film as a piece of entertainment, where we knew the actors were acting, the settings were film sets, etc., much the way you would take in drama in a theater, which was Hitchcock's upbringing.

After a few decades of filmmaking like Hitchcock's, the cinema verite movement took off, and people (especially those writing for influential film journals) began rejecting the artificiality incarnate with older films. Ford, Sirk, Hawks, Capra, et al began being seen by the early 1960s as guys who didn't get it. Films were tough, slices of life, with real-looking people who talked like you and me. Eventually the pendulum swung back, and by the mid-1970s and 1980s artifice was back in (though not without casualties - witness the demise of musicals and lighter cowboy films). But that decade when it was out also saw Hitch at a painful crossroads, his creative and romantic partner hobbled, his own age a factor, and a creative community he no longer saw eye to eye with.

Yes, he also had the misfortune of choosing bad scripts, and not impressing himself enough in their production. But he also was dealing with a wave, like you say; one ironically he did a great deal to nurture and develop.

 

The precursor to Bond!

Almost from start to finish action. Cary could do roles like this in his sleep. Great performances from James Mason and Landau (the character's gay?), and (possibly) Hitch's fave character actor, Leo g Carroll, later Mr Waverly. Great opening titles.

I have great respect for scenes with very little dialogue, like the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West. The crop dusting sequence is like that--just a series of well thought out shots placed on top of each other to have a fantastic total effect. Hardly any dialogue except the understated threat of 'that plane's dustin' where there ain't no crops'. I wince at the end when Cary is almost hit by the truck--just not very realistic. (can you spot the wheel prints of the dollies in the dirt of the fields?)

I think Eva's good, but I can't go with the people who think she ranks with Ingrid and Grace as his best blondes. Yea, I'd agree that the witty dialogue echoes Rear Window, good point.

I have a vague memory of seeing a 'movie makers' trailor about NxNW that showed them shooting some of the crop sequence....or am I imagining things?

All in all, a classic film from the master. I'll always give it a view if I see it on and enjoy it for the fun and the techical skill.

 

That was always my read on it. What's the line, "My woman's intuition, if you will"? I'm sure homosexuality will be coming up again when we get to Rope...

I also love James Mason in North by Northwest. Great villian and equally as suave as Cary Grant. I actually wish he did more with Hitchcock.

A couple of great cuts, too, in NxNW: The train entering the tunnel (some obvious innuendo there) and the hand reach that goes from Mount Rushmore to the cabin bunk.

 

1. The homosexuality of Landau's character is not just one line he offers, but his whole manner of barely concealed jealousy for the Eva character as the object of James Mason's eye. It's like a Burns-Smithers thing between the flunky and the boss.

2. I think you can almost imagine Carroll is playing Waverly in this role. He's based in Manhattan, outside the U.N. building no less, and playing with people's lives from a safe distance. All we need is Napoleon and Illya in the background, and we're at U.N.C.L.E.

 

Classic opening title/credits sequence:

 

Landau certainly thought so. I think Hitchcock intended that to be the case with his character being "gay".

"North by Northwest" was a return to the wrong man theme but the key crop dusting scene was borrowed from one of the novels by the author of The 39 Steps that had always appealed and captured Hitchcock's attention.

Is it logical? No. It's a brilliant sequence though and as Hitch realized no one would ever question it because they were caught in the moment.

Saul Bass' opening titles are brilliantly conceived. Interestingly, the character that plays Grant's mother Jessie Royce Landis was 8 years older than Grant.

MGM wanted Gregory Peck for the role and Jimmy Stewart wanted to play the role but Hitchcock knew that both were wrong for the role. Hitch would discuss plot points of "North by Northwest" with Stewart and Stewart assumed that Hitchcock was going to cast him in the role. Hitch put off production long enough so that Stewart was busy shooting "Anatomy of a Murder" so he wouldn't have to say no to his old friend.

The film was inspired by a real event called Operation Mincemeat where the British used a random body with a fake identity, papers and plans to lure Italian and German troops from Sicily. Hitchcock used this story to build the premise of "North by Northwest".

Hitchcock was originally supposed to be working on "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" and pitched the idea to Ernest Lehman to write it. Lehman wasn't interested in "Wreck" but Hitch wanted to work with him so much that he pitched "North".

The O in Roger O. Thornhill which means "nothing" was inspired by David O. Selznick's middle initial which, likewise, meant nothing.

Hitchcock had been planning a scene for years where we follow the manufacture of an automobile and after the car is manufactured the door opens and a body falls out. Hitch and Lehman couldn't figure out how to integrate the scene into the film convincingly.

Landau was nervous that he was doing a bad job on the film because Hitch didn't speak to him and give him direction in the film. Hitch pointed out to him that if he was doing something wrong he WOULD tell him. He was very happy with his performance.

Yul Brynner was considered for the role of Vandamm at one point.

The best part of reading about this film was finding out that Cary Grant would charge fans 15 cents for every autograph--I find it funny that a man as wealthy as Grant would do so.

Rumour has it that someone in the story department came up with the title but Hitchcock knew his Shakespheare and it wasn't the first time that he had used the Bard for a title. He did name the airline in the film Northwest as an internal visual pun on the title. He had the title in mind all along even when it was originally called "In a Northwesterly Direction".

 

North by Northwest is my favorite film (not just of Hitch, but overall). There is just so many great elements to it. Several others of his films that are favorites as well, but to me this is how a popcorn type of movie can be incredible (like one of my other all time favorites, Raiders of the Lost Ark).

From the opening credits until the end ones, it's non stop. Many great points have already been commented on, so I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Fascinating to look at all the projects Hitchcock had in development in the 1950s, but never got to. Wreck Of The Mary Deare was another he had going at the same time, which he passed on to do North By Northwest. It was made with Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston, two actors who would have made for interesting Hitchcock collaborators.

Considering Hitch made 11 movies in the 1950s, it's pretty impressive how much energy he had at a time he was in his own 50s.

 

In watching a bit of NORTH BY NORTHWEST this morning, I thought I'd mention two little items.

One is that Doreen Lang, the frightened mother in THE BIRDS, and the frightened office-worker in THE WRONG MAN, once again shows up in a Hitch film, here as Maggie, secretary to Roger Thornhill. Looking on IMDB, I see that Ms. Lang was also in a television episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as one of my favorite episodes of THE FUGITIVE, "Nightmare At Northoak".

The other item is just a little unexplained oddity. In the scene in the Plaza restaurant in the beginning. When Cary Grant is greeted by the three businessmen, watch the one on the left. He's either hard of hearing, or playing hard of hearing. He places his hand up to his ear several times in the scene. Knowing that few minor details ever escaped Hitch, I have to assume this was intentional, but cannot imagine why.

Harry

 

That's a classic misdirection ploy. When you watch the film the first time, you notice the guy and expect a plot point of some kind to develop from it. It keeps you off-guard, not knowing quite what to expect even if you have read a review or talked to a friend who saw the movie. Once the scene moves on, you dismiss and forget it. But Hitchcock's decision to incorporate it was quite deliberate.

It would be very interesting to collect other such misdirection plays, big and small, in other Hitchcock films, things that generate interest and suspicion while you watch them but which turn out to be red herrings, like the guy in the diner who says "We're doomed" in The Birds or "Carlotta" disappearing in the apartment house in Vertigo.