78/52 (2017)

Director: Alexandre O. Philippe

Cast: Marli Renfro, Alfred Hitchcok, Tere Carrubba, Alan Barnette

Have I Seen It Before: Probably not, and yet I feel like I’ve seen more than enough fawning retrospectives of Psycho (1960)—to say nothing of docudramas like Hitchcock (2012) or The Girl (2012)—that I can’t say so with complete certainty.

Did I Like It: That previous statement wound tend to think I have a bit of a withering view of the film, but I can say there will probably be no further deep dives on the shower scene of Psycho. This has done the job. A fawning fan documentary—that still manages to poke holes in both Anthony Perkins’ ADR reading and wig choices—we do spend more than a little bit of time watching people of varying levels of fame watching the scene.

The film is far stronger when it is interviewing Renfro—when you think you’re seeing parts of Janet Leigh that you’re not supposed to be seeing, you’re actually seeing Renfro—and marveling at her indelible impact on cinema and subsequent lack of fame.

It also manages to delight when it confronts the complete unraveling of the magic contained in Hitchcock’s classic, namely in trying to recreate the death of Marion Crane in Gus van Sant’s Psycho (1998). That later film has the dubious reputation of being a shot-for-shot remake of the original, but there’s a decent runner in here where we learn that a 1:1 transcription of the shower scene didn’t work in color, or with far more of Anne Heche than we could have ever hoped to see of Leigh or Renfro. The thread at the fine sweater already pulled, the scene had to be re-made to far diminishing returns. I didn’t know that. I usually judge a documentary by its ability to teach me something, and it is difficult not to view a documentary kindly when it teaches me something I didn’t know about something I thought I knew quite well.

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis. John Williams

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know, I’m not very happy with myself, either. Luckily, tripping over it during a rainy Santa Fe day (they exist, I assure you) on vacation recorded from TCM was something of a coup, as this one is somehow missing from all the Hitchcock collections I can’t help buying.

Did I Like It: Even the master has to have a weak one, right? I start a Hitchcock film expecting it to be a finely tuned plot machine designed to deliver thrill after thrill. That’s just not the case here. Grant and Kelly are nice to look at, and nice to see play off of one another. The locations are the kind of pure movie escapism that usually keep the worst of the James Bond films from being complete bores. But is the movie thrilling? Does it insist you look at the story without blinking for fear of missing something key to set up the surprises that are to come? Is there even that much jewel thievery going on?

The film is charming, but low on thrills. One wonders how Hitchcock got through the exercise, relying solely on the charms of his two leads to get the film over the hump. I would say watch the film, but marshal expectations. Or maybe opt for North by Northwest (1959). It’s got all the charm and all the thrills. You don’t have to settle for one or the other.

And now I would be remiss if I didn’t say a word about motion blurring. As a movie seen at my parents’ house, the movie played less like a Vistavision wonder of the 50s, and more like an Eastern European soap opera shot sometime earlier that afternoon. Normally, I would have made a stink about the matter. I merely asked if they knew about motion blurring, they said they didn’t, and I let the matter lie there. Be nice to your parents, but if they’re not involved, turn off your motion blurring, would ya?

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I’m desperate to go through the whole Hitchcock library like I did with the Carpenter library last summer. But considering I never quite got myself through to Ghosts of Mars (2001), it may take me a while.

Did I Like It: You get to a certain point with films where you can’t help but begin to think you know where it’s going.

But then you hit a Hitchcock film and you should really know he’s playing with you from beyond the grave and you should never feel comfortable you know what you’re getting.

You is me, in this equation, if anyone was wondering.

Hitchcock, with this subject matter, memories of Rope (1948), and with a little bit of Farley Granger to add into the mix and one (one is me) would be forgiven for thinking that this would be a tale of two different sociopaths find each other and think that murder is just one way for adult men to forge friendships.

Once it is clear that Granger is playing something of a milquetoast who quickly finds himself in over his head, the construction becomes one of a fairly typical film noir. Hitchcock sees me coming from a mile away and just as I’m confident that Guy Haines (Granger) will unfairly get overwhelmed in both matters of tennis and murder by the machinations of Bruno Antony (Walker), a flashy, borderline ridiculous sequence involving a merry-go-round later and I should have really known that the whole thing was never going to go the way I thought.

Add in just enough of the macabre humor that elevated Hitchcock on spec beyond his contemporaries, and I really, really, must make a point to follow through on that promise to go through the rest of his films.

Rope (1948)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Joan Chandler

Have I Seen it Before: No. Let me tell you a story. Bouncing around the various streaming services in which I am somehow now obligated to subscribe, I was delighted to find Peacock possessed a wide array of Hitchcock films (to say nothing of the entire run of Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour) including this one which, if you’ll remember from the beginning of this paragraph I had never seen.

Once I had cleared out some larger projects from the pending pile and was in a place where I felt I could actually enjoy an hour and a half of uninterrupted anything, I sat down to finally watch the movie.

Only Peacock had dropped it in those intervening weeks, and if it went to some other platform, it was one for which I wasn’t already paying.

What was I to do? Obviously, I could just rent or purchase the film from Amazon Prime or iTunes, but where is the fun in that? I’m not sure if immediate access to any film ever created for nominal prices has ruined film appreciation, but it has dinged the ecstasy a bit, hasn’t it?

So I ventured out into the world and tried to find Rope (I wasn’t just going to wait for the serendipity of stumbling over it again) on DVD (kids, ask your parents). I scoured ever used DVD shop in town, with no luck. I even drifted into a used music shop in some vague hope that they might also carry DVDs as well. They did have a very thin collection of films, but the more pressing issue was the earful I got from the proprietor about how I really needed to get into vinyl again. One antiquated thing at a time, pal.

At that point, one might have forgiven me if I had indulged the Bezos in his wares and at least ordered the disc to be shipped to me. Indeed, I could have done so, and the disc would have come to me within 48 hours.

This also feels like too quick, especially when I’ve already put so much work into this quest, just on avoiding getting on the music shop’s email newsletter alone.

So then I went to Barnes & Noble. Even in the before times, when people didn’t give you funny looks when it comes up in casual conversation that your DVD/Blu Ray collection measures up to in the 700s, B & N was never the place you’d go to grab discs. They’re prices were preposterously high, and are even more so now that the second-hand market is practically giving away discs by the truckload.

But I found it. Right there. For 30% off, no less. My gasp in the middle of that store tweaked the air pressure in the building, I’m sure.

There are so many moviegoing experiences which are in a state of flux, both post-COVID and in the midst of the streaming wars (which is what started this whole crusade in the first place), that it’s hard to imagine that the singular pleasure of going out into the world to track down a specific form of entertainment may be all but extinct.

Thus, the experience of taking in the movie was an imminently pleasurable one before I even hit play.

Did I Like It: After all that, what is left to say? The film itself is weighed down by the same problem which weighed down a lot of early talky films: the feeling that we’re watching a recorded stage production. This is certainly not an early talky, by any means, but in its experimental attempts to tell a story in one (albeit deceptive) shot, it can’t help but limit itself in this way. Reportedly, both Hitchcock and Stewart agreed with this sentiment.

Ultimately, the chief triumph of the film isn’t in its plot, or its performances, or even really in its staging, which is what everyone remembers. It’s a triumph of stage lighting, as the panorama outside the apartment slowly (although improbably) descends into night. But to call a motion picture a triumph of lighting is to pointedly damn it as a stage play recorded, so the object strengths reinforce its ultimate weakness.

But as far as films that might not have worked quite as well as everyone would want, there are far worse times to be had. There was one moment where Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson) is just about to open the chest. I have my feet up. I am eating some coffee ice cream with some dark chocolate syrup. I am having the time of my life. Even when Hitchcock trips up, he does so with ambition in his heart, and he still pairs great with coffee ice cream.

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

Director: Kent Jones

Cast: Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, Bob Balaban, Wes Anderson

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Although Hitchcock is certainly in the pantheon of great directors for me, I’m sad to say Truffaut barely registers for me, outside of his appearance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). 

Did I Like It: It’s probably hoary in the extreme to proclaim that I would probably have liked the book better than the film, especially when I… ahem haven’t read the book, but nevertheless, that’s where I land on the subject. I picked this up from the local library, and the pull quote “This changed the way I see cinema”* certainly appealed to me, but I can’t help but wonder if that critic was also speaking about the book, too.

The documentary-as-literary-adaptation is a tricky needle to thread. I can’t readily think of an example of the form that accomplished anything more than being an afterthought. The whole prospect eschews the more interesting artistic aspects of the adaptation process, and leaves one going beyond the aforementioned tired cliche. It isn’t merely enough that the book feels like it would be a more fulfilling experience than the film. I’m not getting anything out of the film—in a truncated form, no less—that I couldn’t have gotten out of the book. Shouldn’t we all be wondering if reducing the documentary to televised Cliff’s Notes diminishes the form and the material?

Still, I do wonder what either Hitchcock or Truffaut might have said on the subject, so at least that’s something. If only there were a book I could obtain that would further illuminate their thoughts on the finer points of cinema…

*I don’t remember who said the quote. Indeed, who can ever remember the source of a pull-quote, aside from a stray “Two Thumbs Up” in the 90s…?

North by Northwest (1959)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau

Have I Seen it Before: It’s one of those movies which, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, it feels like I haven’t seen it enough. 

Did I Like It: I usually try not to look at any other reviews of a movie before I write the review, but in this case I couldn’t help but notice the film’s Rotten Tomatoes rating of 99%.

Who could possibly bring themselves to give a negative review to North by Northwest? When I found out that the only dim view of the the film apparently comes from a contemporary review featured in The New Yorker, I seriously contemplated cancelling my subscription. The reviewer declared that with this film, Hitchcock had irretrievably descended into self-parody. One can’t help but wonder what he might have made of Psycho (1960). Bad takes can certainly have a shelf life...

How could anyone possibly not be head-over-heels in love with this movie? More moments from the aforementioned Psycho may have seeped into the collective cultural consciousness, but there’s a reason that every espionage thriller made after this film is helplessly trying to toil in its shadow. I’ve often said From Russia With Love (1963) is far away the best of the Bond movies (and that every Bond movie since is well-advised to reach for that standard), but even that peak of Bondanalia wants so desperately to be this movie, one can’t help but feel an inch of pity for it. Even a movie like Follow that Bird (1985) is built upon its back. Go watch it and tell me I’m wrong. My wife even thought I had been watching Batman (1966) from the other room, and honestly I can see the corollaries, and not just aurally. I could go on and on. 

Any film past its sixtieth birthday would be forgiven if parts were to have aged unfortunately, but no one seems to have given that permission to Hitchcock. Every second of tension locks into the viewer. Every joke in the film—and the film is deeply, deeply funny—still works and doesn’t sour after the wisecracks are now eligible to collect Social Security*.

It is a perfect Hollywood entertainment. As much as nearly every movie after it apes it in hopes of recapturing its magic, the movies were also originally created in hopes the form would be brought to full fruition with something like this.

*I don’t know how great I feel about that remark, but I digress... 

Psycho (1960)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin

Have I Seen it Before: Please... Is it weird that I view this movie as cinematic comfort food? I’m reasonably sure Hitchcock didn’t mean it to be so.

Did I Like It: I don’t think there’s enough written—except by me—about how Psycho is, at it’s core, the greatest B movie ever produced. The budget is nearly non-existent, especially in relation to Hitchcock’s immediately preceding production, North By Northwest (1959). The biggest star in the movie (and one hopes this isn’t exactly a spoiler) is killed before the plot truly gets running.

And that plot is, objectively, a muddled mess. In any other circumstances, a story that begins about a woman (Leigh) making a run for it with thousands of dollars of her employers money, only to veer wildly into the events after her sudden murder.

In another time, and another place, and most importantly, with another filmmaker at the helm, the film would have become a salacious, forgettable thriller that would have dropped off the face of the earth the instant drive-in movie theaters became all but extinct.

But we’re talking about Hitchcock here. In his hands, it single-handedly launches the slasher genre, inspiring an army of lesser sequels, homages, and echoes. The plot that shouldn’t work is a pure mis-direction fueled magic trick. We trust Hitch to tell us a story of the woman on the run, and after everything changes, we can never feel settled for the rest of the picture, or for any movie ever again. 

Or, maybe, it has nothing to do with trust. Hitchcock works on a level few, if any of us, can fathom. This film is arguably his most famous, and he makes the whole thing seem effortless. It is a marvel to watch each and every time I have spun it in my Blu Ray player.