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.

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.