Narrowing it down: North by Northwest The 39 Steps Rear Window Notorious If forced, I would probably have to opt for North by Northwest
That surprises me, because if you like The 39 Steps there are so many others that I feel you "ought to" like as well. Although admittedly Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll had an on-screen rapport that was consciously (?) denied many of the later screen pairings.
Yeah, I'm not sure why I don't particularly get on with his films. The only other two I ever re-watch are the original The Man Who Knew Too Much and Dial M For Murder.
Well, I love both of those, so I'm certainly not going to argue with your preference. How about The Lady Vanishes? Shadow of a Doubt? You can almost divide his films into the warm-hearted and the cold-hearted.
I've not seen Shadow Of The Doubt. The Lady Vanishes is okay but - and apologies in advance for this - I prefer the 1979 version.
Were there any truly bad Hitchcock movies? I notice that no one here is naming Iron Curtain or Family Plot, for example, but even those had their charms.
I thought The Birds, To Catch A Thief, Topaz, Frenzy, Notorious and the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much were all pretty poor.
Vertigo, Rear Window, North By Northwest and Psycho, in that order, with Vertigo out in front by a fairly wide margin.
I always found Vertigo overrated from the first time I saw it and after subsequent viewings. The pacing isn’t top Hitchcock, the interplay between Stewart and Novak is tiresome and unconvincing, and it has a creepy sweater wearing old man stalks a young girl vibe that mars the film from the beginning till the end. In hindsight, a rather subversive film along with many other ridiculous hey this twenty something or even teen digs this disgusting old guy movies (American Beauty, Ghost World, et al) coming out of Hollywood and its oft intentional bizarro mores. Is it any wonder the #MeToo movement happened ? A rhetorical question. Psycho and Rear Window are probably his two best.
Under Capricorn has two of my favorites, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten, and I hated it. Period piece in Australia. Just a huge let down. That's about the only one I can think of in his prime that was poor, discounting his very early or very late films. Been ages since I saw it, but I didn't like Paradine Case either.
Maybe you have seen it on the big screen but if you haven't do. It's even better. I saw it at the New Beverly.
