Alfred Hitchcock

[J-Sun]

I'm not the biggest Hitchcock fan and haven't seen much of his stuff but he seems to merit a thread and some interest had been expressed in What was the last movie you saw? so I thought it might be good to have a place to discuss all things Hitchcock.

For a memory refresher, here's a list of all his major extant flicks, drawn from a few contradictory wikipedia lists, so I hope I got it more or less right.

Silent
  The Pleasure Garden (1925)
  The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
  The Ring (1927)
  Downhill (1927)
  The Farmer's Wife (1928)
  Easy Virtue (1928)
  Champagne (1928)
  The Manxman (1929)
British
  Blackmail (1929)
  Juno and the Paycock (1930)
  Murder! (1930)
  The Skin Game (1931)
  Rich and Strange (1931)
  Number Seventeen (1932)
  Waltzes from Vienna (1934)
  The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  The 39 Steps (1935)
  Secret Agent (1936)
  Sabotage (1936)
  Young and Innocent (1937)
  The Lady Vanishes (1938)
  Jamaica Inn (1939)
Hollywood
  Rebecca (1940)
  Foreign Correspondent (1940)
  Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
  Suspicion (1941)
  Saboteur (1942)
  Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
  Lifeboat (1944)
  Spellbound (1945)
  Notorious (1946)
  The Paradine Case (1947)
  Rope (1948)
  Under Capricorn (1949)
  Stage Fright (1950, UK)
  Strangers on a Train (1951)
  I Confess (1953)
  Dial M for Murder (1954)
  Rear Window (1954)
  To Catch a Thief (1955)
  The Trouble with Harry (1955)
  The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
  The Wrong Man (1956)
  Vertigo (1958)
  North by Northwest (1959)
  Psycho (1960)
  The Birds (1963)
  Marnie (1964)
  Torn Curtain (1966)
  Topaz (1969)
  Frenzy (1972, UK)
  Family Plot (1976)

I'm a bit of a heretic in that my least favorite movies are the ones from what I gather is his "master" era. The Birds may be good but isn't anything I care to see again, being a sort of horror flick. I was underwhelmed by North by Northwest (can't even quite remember what it was about) and Vertigo (Jimmy Stewart and a femme fatale and a fear of heights). I don't even like Rear Window entirely, but it's pretty good (Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly and a peeping Tom's delight of an apartment complex - does Jimmy Stewart always play someone with a disability in Hitchcock films?). But I'm crazy about Notorious - it's not only my favorite Hitchcock film, but is on a (long) list of general favorites. Ingrid Bergman is recruited by Cary Grant to be a spy in post-war South America to deal with a gaggle of still-Nazis. Bergman and Claude Rains (as one of the Nazis) are brilliant and the script by Ben Hecht is possibly more so. The only ones I've seen before that are Spellbound, which is pretty good but overly Freudian (another Bergman picture in which she's a shrink and so is Gregory Peck - or is he?), and I just saw Shadow of a Doubt last night. It's right in there with Spellbound and Rear Window and probably tops them. Teresa Wright (Pride of the Yankees) is the daughter and actual head of house of a "typical American family" in the then sleepy village of Santa Rosa, CA, and is thrilled when she seems to telepathically connect with her beloved uncle who is heading into town from the Big East.The movie slides brilliantly from cheerful innocence to darkly murderous thrills'n'chills. (I also have Dial M for Murder but haven't seen it yet.)

On the negative side of the ledger, there are two or three things I think of when I think Hitchcock. He's brilliant at starts and middles but I'm often not happy at all with the endings[1]. Even in those middles there are often things that strike me as fairly gimmicky - sometimes a clever gimmick (the upside down and rolling shot of Cary Grant from Ingrid Bergman's PoV as she's suffering through a hangover), and sometimes not so much. And he's really horrible with his on-location phobia and the really bad looking rear projection shots. Everybody did it and it never really looked good but I somehow notice it a lot more with his flicks. Sometimes the gimmick, the rear-projection, and the weird ending combine. On the positive side, they are usually gripping and thrilling and some or all of the cast is brilliant and most of the look is otherwise great.

But that's all I've got. Hopefully the genius film buffs of the Chrons can add a lot more and set me straight on where I've gone all wrong. Tell everybody why North by Northwest is so great! Tell us what films we can't miss!
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[1] I get to try out the new spoiler tags!

Spoiler

The ending of Rear Window is what keeps it from being entirely satisfactory to me - well, that and the creepy aspects of "our hero". The strobing camera as a killer-blocker could be seen as thrillingly wonderful and I bet it seemed good in theory but, for me, the actual effect is just kind of silly and overdrawn. That is one easily deterred vicious killer.

 

[MontyCircus]

Rear Window and Psycho are two of my very favourite films. Love the dark comedy in The Birds; the fact that all the birds that flew out of that chimney in that one scene, the fact that they were animated, drawn on the film, blew my mind as a kid. There's a lot of Hitch I haven't seen yet. I've held DVD collections in my hands many times but never picked them up. One day!

 

[Vladd67]

I love the 39 Steps, the other year as a birthday treat my wife got tickets to see the play. I was a little concerned as it is actually a comedy and I thought I might not enjoy seeing a favourite film ridiculed, however it was so well done with a cast of four, playing 130 characters, a lot of the dialogue is even lifted from the film. One other favourite of mine is Suspicion, Cary Grant is great as the shady hero, with solid support from Nigel Bruce. Of course with Hitchcock's films part of the fun is playing spot the director.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

I adore Hitchcock, but like you I prefer some of the "less well known" ones. Shadow Of A Doubt I adored, Notorious also. Dial M For Murder is a lot of fun, too, and more Grace Kelly being wonderful. The weird one is The Trouble With Harry, which is possibly his most comedic film, and provided a début for Shirley MacLaine. I love it to pieces.

 

[Foxbat]

Rope is one worth watching.

 

[Jesse412]

One of my all-time favorite directors. I have watched more of his films than I can count. Murder! was just on TCM the other night and I thought it was quite good especially the ending.

Rope is one worth watching.

One of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies and definitely an under appreciated Hitchcock film.

 

[Rodders]

I've not seen a single Hitchcock movie. I must remedy that soon.

I would recommend Mel Brooks' High Anxiety. The film parodies Hitchcock in a big way.