What Are Your Favorite Hitchcock Films?

Shadow of a Doubt

Psycho

Rear Window

 

Psycho, one of my all time favourite movies.

 

Interestingly, Shadow of a Doubt was Hitch's personal favorite.

 

I started watching "Vertigo" today and it's really hard to justify critics placing that film at the pantheon of the cinema. My immediate problem with the film is it's very "drawing room" for a long time. First a scene with his girlfriend and then with the shipping magnate. It's just not very "cinematic," even by the standards of a film like "Citizen Kane" which races along with the energy of kinetically charged scenes and images. In my book, it's still "Citizen Kane" by a mile.

 

I don't doubt it. It's a really insidious movie. Joseph Cotton is probably the baddest guy in any of Hitchcock's film, except for the strangler in "Frenzy." Cotton is a real remorseless serial killer.

 

To me, in chronological order, it's:

The 39 Steps
The Lady Vanishes
Rebecca
Foreign Correspondent
Saboteur
Notorious
Strangers On a Train
I Confess
North by Northwest
Psycho
The Birds

I have to admit, I've never watched The Wrong Man, Vertigo or any of his stuff after The Birds save Frenzy. And I have the 14-film Blu-ray set! Well, one of these days I'll get around to later Hitch, I guess.

 

Top 3;
Rear Window
North By Northwest
Strangers On The Train

 

Psycho
Vertigo
Shadow Of A Doubt

 

And then, suddenly, it goes silent.

For almost a quarter of an hour the only dialogue is a few brief words between James Stewart and an anonymous museum guide. Meanwhile we drive down the hills of San Francisco. Down and down - to a church, a gravestone, a flower shop, a shabby old hotel - following a woman who, just as we catch up with her, raises the blind in an empty window and disappears.

 

You really should check out Vertigo. The Wrong Man is a good film not great IMHO but it is at least as good as I Confess in its own way (Hitchcock chose not to use most of his usual camera creativity letting the actors and the film, along with the lighting, tell the story. I would add The Lodger as the first great Hitchcock film and Murder! Is also notable.

I would also add Shadow of a Doubt which is one of the earliest films to use the hero and villain "reflection" concept
Later used so well in Strangers on A Train. I also found it interesting re: the casting with the murderer implied to be gay while the hero wasn't and the actor that played him (Stuart Granger) was. The whole obsession of Bruno (Robert Walker-- a marvelous actor who died due to his alcoholism) went far beyond the cross cross and was played as such in a coded way in the film.

My favs:
The Lodger
Murder!
Blackmail
The Secret Agent
The 39 Steps
The Lady Vanishes
Rebecca (although it's more of a Hitchcock-Selznick collaboration with Selznick meddling quite a bit)
Foreign Correspondent
Saboteur
Shadow of A Doubt
Notorious
Strangers on A Train
I Confess
The Wrong Man
Rear Window
The Man Who Knew Too Much (remake)
Vertigo
North by Northwesr
Psycho
The Birds
Frenzy

 

And it's all dreadfully dull. It's a great-looking film with some memorable scenes but I find it very plodding.

 

There isn't a single Hitchcock film thst I admire in its entirety but there are passages in just about every film that I love. A few faves:

The restaurant scene in The Birds -
The way Hitch frames the various characters in and around the space; the restaurant itself as a centerpiece, not only in the besieged town but in the overall narrative (seems to be every kind of reaction to the supposedly homicidal fowl) and the characters themselves are great fun to watch in relation to each other. It's one of the best set-pieces in film, imo.

The 90 minute muguffin in Rope -
Of course, it's the trunk-turned-dining table in which the two young murderers have hidden their victims body. The story is predicated on the concealment of the trunk, and in effect, the murder. Works beautifully, imo.

Marnie, played by Tippi Hedren, with a newly lifted 10 grand from her boss' safe, tip-toes past the cleaning lady in an attempt to evade discovery. All the while Hitch slips in shots of Marnie's shoe slowly making its way out of her coat. Suddenly it drops to the floor with a thud! Marnie looks up in horror. The cleaning lady keeps mopping. Suddenly "a colored fella" walks into the room opposite of Marnie (so he can't see her) and nearly yells to the cleaning lady, "In an awful rush, ain't you, [Dora?]". "I just wanna get to bed!", she replies. Marnie relaxes and makes her way out. Search if you will but you won't find a scene of a deaf cleaning woman in the Winston Graham novel!

 

Psycho
The Berrds

 

How does The Lodger (new Criterion Blu-ray) look now?

Anyway pick that up yet?

Rebecca is forthcoming from Criterion in September.

 

With Bernard Herrmann's score filling in pretty much everything we need to know about what's happening. The other scene of note in this regard is where Judy is finishing her transformation into Madeleine while Scottie stares out the window. While she's out of the room, there's no dialogue, only music, and Stewart has his back turned, and yet there's loads of tension. We get a very strong sense of what his character is feeling, and of the danger in the air.

I get why people don't exactly love Vertigo, but it's a beautifully crafted film. As a photographer, I'm into that kind of thing.

 

My favorite is either Rear Window or Vertigo. Other favorites worth mentioning are Rope, Frenzy, and Psycho.

 

Psycho
The Birds

 

Rebecca
Notorious
Strangers on A Train
Rear Window
Vertigo
North by Northwesr
Psycho

 

Notorious
Shadow of a Doubt
Rebecca
Suspicion
The Paradine Case
Strangers on a Train

I love many others, but those stand out.

 

It looks really good. If I recall correctly, it uses the same U.K. Source.

 

I'm in the "everyone is good" camp but I love the old school Hitch:

The Lady Vanishes (my all-time favourite Hitch)
Foreign Correspondent (love the set pieces, the windmills, the umbrellas)
Saboteur
The 39 Steps
Notorious

But then the mid career hits:
Rear Window
The Birds
Psycho
Vertigo
North By Northwest

Just a little shout out for Family Plot (1976) not a lot of love for it here but this remains a favorite due to it being one of first Hitchcock films I saw (it was on TV). Good cast and it still holds up for me.

 

I enjoy Family Plot but it looks a like too much was shot by the second unit crew on this film. Even using Hitch's storyboards, I was a bit disappointed in some of the sequences which look a bit old school especially after Frenzy. Still, it has it's high points with a delicious performance by William Devane and Karen Black as the bad guys.

 

Indeed, it's a film about obsession something that doesn't always resonate with filmgoers. While the film did pretty good back in the day, it wasn't a break out hit underperforming compared to Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much and, the following film, North by Northwest.

 

Today my fav' Hitchcock film is Hitchcock staring Anthony Hopkins....since I watched it last night.

 

Anthony Hopkins didn't star in a Hitchcock film although itmwould have been a pretty good idea. Do you mean Perkins?