Family Plot

Family Plot (1976) 

Notable cast/crew: Karen Black as Fran.  Bruce Dern as George Lumley.  Barbara Harris as Blanche Tyler.  William Devane as Arthur Adamson.  Ed Lauter as Joseph Maloney.  Katherine Helmond as Mrs Maloney.  Original Music by John Williams.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 121 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A fake psychic and her cabbie boyfriend are hired to find a missing heir who turns out to be a career criminal in the middle of a kidnap for jewels caper.

MacGuffin: The diamonds

Hitchcock cameo: In silhouette behind the door at the registrar of births and deaths

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain
• Blondes
• Stairs

Verdict: Lighthearted at times with a touch of menace describes both William Devane's performance and Family Plot.  The movie balances four lead roles with what initially appear to be unrelated plots.  It ties in nicely upon our finding out William Devane's crook is the missing heir.  There's a bit of a twist here on Hitchcock's usual theme of a man wrongfully accused.  This time, it's a man who doesn't want to be recognized because he is guilty trying to thwart the "heroes" who only want to tell him he's heir to a fortune.  The couples are played off as opposites: Devane and Karen Black as well-to-do, cunning, cool, dark; Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris as scraping to get by, clever but not sharp, volatile, and sunnier.

Roy Thinnes was originally hired to play Arthur Adamson, but Hitchcock's first choice, William Devane, became available so Hitchcock fired Thinnes without a reason and hired Devane.  Some key scenes had been shot prior to this. Everything that had been shot was re-shot except for long shots which to this day remain as Roy Thinnes and not William Devane like the bishop being carried out of the church.

This is Hitchcock's final film.  Its final shot, the final ever shot in all of Hitchcock's 53 movies, is Barbara Harris breaking the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera and winking at the audience.  Bruce Dern had almost convinced Hitchcock that Alfred should come down the stairs and do the wink, but they stuck with this instead.  It's a sly acknowledgement that she's letting the audience in on the joke that Dern's character didn't get, but it also is unusual for a Hitchcock film where everything was normally so tightly controlled to never break the mood of the picture nor to take you out of the world the film had created.  It was not a planned end to Hitchcock's career (he has working on another movie script, The Short Night, before he died), but it ended up being a fitting one.  It's not his best film, but it's interesting and fun, and he hadn't really done a fun film since North By Northwest.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Warriors.  We've covered all of Hitchcock, so we'll be switching gears and jumping around between genres.  With my travel schedule picking up, I'll also be cutting back to one post per week.  See you next time!

Frenzy

Frenzy (1972) 

Notable cast/crew: Jon Finch as Richard Ian Blaney.  Alec McCowen as Chief Inspector Oxford.  Barry Foster as Robert Rusk.  Billie Whitelaw as Hetty Porter.  Anna Massey as Babs Milligan.  Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Margaret Blaney.  Bernard Cribbins as Felix Forsythe.  Jean Marsh as Monica Barling.  Clive Swift as Johnny Porter.

Running time: 116 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A sexual psychopath is terrorizing London by raping and strangling his victims.  The police think they have the right man, but do they?

MacGuffin: Bob Rusk's tie pin

Hitchcock cameo: Standing in the crowd at the start of the film

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain
• Hero falsely accused

Verdict: Frenzy was Hitchcock's "comeback" film.  His previous three films (Marnie, Torn Curtain, and Topaz) had been flops, and critics were beginning to think he was tired, that film-making had passed him by.  Hitchcock decided to return to Britain to film for the first time since 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much.  He ended up making a surprisingly modern film; one that still feels current today, and certainly more current than his other films.  The ratings system had been implemented after the removal of the Hays Code in 1968.  Hitchcock uses more vulgarity than before, and he uses nudity for the only time in his film career.  Unfortunately, the latter detracts from the film as it is entirely gratuitous.  There's no reason to show it, and it feels like he does it simply because he can in an effort to be "current".

Frenzy finds Hitchcock returning to ideas that recur in his movies.  The man wrongfully accused on the run (The 39 Steps, North By Northwest), the misogynist killer (Psycho), the detective who searches for the real killer after the innocent is convicted (Dial M for Murder), all things we've seen before, but there's a welcome familiarity to them.  These are ideas Hitchcock knows well and knows how to do well.  If this was his answer to the young, rising auteur directors of the 70s, it's a good one.

It's a British cast, and Jon Finch does a fine job glowering through the film.  He's down on his luck, and the juxtaposition of his volatile personality with the exposition provided by other characters initially sets us up to think he might be the killer.  However, it's made clear early on that Barry Foster's Bob Rusk is the real villain.  Michael Caine was Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Rusk, but Caine thought the character was disgusting and said, "I don't want to be associated with the part".

The film and its source book, "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square", were inspired by the real-life unsolved crimes of the serial killer known as "Jack the Stripper".  Unlike in the story, the real killings (which terrified London in the early 1960s) mirrored elements of "Jack the Ripper" in that the killer attacked prostitutes and that the killings mysteriously stopped.

Henry Mancini was originally hired as the film's composer. His opening theme was much darker than the final music composed by Ron Goodwin.  Goodwin's final music is good in places, but his opening theme is too bright, too triumphant, for what is a dark film.  Hitchcock thought Mancini's theme sounded too much like Bernard Herrmann's music.  According to Mancini, "Hitchcock came to the recording session, listened awhile and said 'Look, if I want Herrmann, I'd ask for Herrmann'".  Mancini was fired, never understanding the experience, insisting that his score sounded nothing like Herrmann.  The irony was that Mancini was now being second-guessed for being too dark and symphonic after having been criticized for being too light before.

Alfred Hitchcock originally planned to do his cameo as the body floating in the river.  A dummy was even constructed to do the shot.  The plans were changed, and a female body, a victim of the Necktie Murderer, was used instead.  Hitchcock instead became one of the members of the crowd who are listening to the speaker on the river bank.  The dummy of Hitchcock was used in the trailer hosted by Hitchock himself.

There is a great Hitchcock moment when Babs is murdered.  The camera moves away from the door, backwards down the stairs, out into the street.  The pullback is one continuous motion with only one cut hidden as a man passes in front of the camera.  This was due to the interiors being shot with an overhead track in a studio and the building exterior being an actual location.  The silence of the shot until the street noise comes in adds to the unsettling feel of the shot.  We know what is occurring in the apartment, but the rest of the outside world goes on about its business oblivious to the evil living in its midst.

Taking a foot fetish to extremes

A second sequence set in the back of a delivery truck full of potatoes provides the usual suspense for the murderer as Rusk, after realizing he's lost his monogram pin, attempts to retrieve it from the corpse of Babs.  Rusk struggles with the hand and has to break the fingers of the corpse in order to retrieve his tie pin and try to escape unseen from the truck.  The sound effect is morbidly played for humor later when the inspector's wife breaks breadsticks as her husband recounts the incident.

This doesn't rise to the level of Hitchcock's greatest works, but it is easily the best film from the last decade of his career, albeit flawed by going too far in an effort to shock the audience.  He was better when he used the visual medium of film to suggest action rather than explicitly showing everything.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Family Plot

Topaz

Topaz (1969) 

Notable cast/crew: Frederick Stafford as Andre Devereaux.  John Vernon as Rico Parra.  Karin Dor as Juanita de Cordoba.  Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois.  John Forsythe as Michael Nordstrom.  Forsythe had previously been in The Trouble With Harry.  Original Music by Maurice Jarre.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 143 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A French intelligence agent becomes entangled in the Cold War politics of the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and is later involved in the breakup of an international Russian spy ring in France.

MacGuffin: The spy ring

Hitchcock cameo: Seated in a wheelchair then standing to greet a man he walks off with

Hitchcock themes: 

• Sophisticated villain

Verdict: Topaz is probably Hitchcock's largest failure from his American films.  The frustrating thing about it is that there is buried in it the possibility of a great film, but it is too laden down with plot dead ends and a colossal failure to end the movie.  The film was forced on him (he wanted to do Frenzy which the studio wasn't interested in yet), and it resulted in the script being written as the movie was filmed.  The result is a very disjointed movie that doesn't seem to go anywhere.  In fact, the first 100 minutes are largely irrelevant to the title of the film.  Imagine The 39 Steps where the first 2/3 of the movie are about something other than foiling the spy ring's plot.  It gets even worse in that we don't even know what Topaz is (aside from a brief mention of the word early in the movie) until after the entire affair in Cuba has been wrapped up.  We aren't introduced to the villain until the final 30 minutes of the film.

The cast is largely foreign and unfamiliar to American viewers which also hurt the box office.  John Forsythe is solid in one of the larger roles, but he is given little to do other than transition the narrative from one area to the next.  Roscoe Lee Browne is excellent (as he is in everything) in his brief role as a French operative infiltrating the Cubans' hotel in Harlem.  John Vernon (better known for playing Dean Wormer in Animal House) is outstanding playing a high-ranking member of Castro's revolution.  The rest of the cast is serviceable but unremarkable.

Based on the 1967 Cold War novel "Topaz" by Leon Uris, the story is closely based on the 1962 Sapphire Affair, which involved the head of French Intelligence, SDECE, in the United States and spy Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli who played an important role in helping the U.S. discover the presence of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba.  This film was Hitchcock's biggest financial failure. It cost approximately $4,000,000 to make and received only $1,000,000 at the box office.  Running at 143 minutes, this is Alfred Hitchcock's longest film.  However, this is edited down from the original, longer running time that tested negatively with audiences.  Realistically, the idea of the spy ring should have been worked into the story much earlier to make it more relevant to the plot.  The result is what feels like two movies that were stuck together: one about the Cuban Missile Crisis, the other about a French spy ring leaking NATO secrets to the Soviets.  The spy ring plot could have been removed entirely (while also requiring a title change to the film) and made into a sequel continuing with Devereaux as the main character, and it would have resulted in two better films.

The major failing of the movie was the inability to come up with an ending that made sense and was satisfying.  In the original ending, there was a duel between André Devereaux and Jacques Granville in a French football stadium, shot by associate producer Herbert Coleman when Hitchcock had to return to the U.S. for a family emergency.  This ending was panned by audiences during test screenings.  It made no sense: after foiling the spy ring, why would the hero then accept a duel from the head of the ring who has already been defeated?  Under pressure from the studio, Hitchcock shot an ending he actually liked better with Jacques escaping on an Aeroflot flight to the Soviet Union just at the same time as André and Nicole are boarding their Pan Am flight to the States.  This ending was also controversial as after two and a half hours the bad guy gets away unscathed.  As a compromise, Hitchcock used existing footage to create a new ending: Granville is exposed and expelled from a NATO meeting and commits suicide behind his drawn curtains.  This was necessitated by the fact that it was too late to reshoot so they did a zoom-in freeze frame on the house as a gunshot rings out.  While better for wrapping up the plot, it was obviously rushed and feels like the movie ends abruptly just for the sake of getting it over.  Eventually, the studio decided to release different endings in different countries: the suicide in the U.S. and France, and the airport ending in Britain.  The duel ending was thought lost until Patricia Hitchcock found it in her father's garage after his death.

Death in Cuba

There are a number of good scenes and shots in the film: the zoom-in on the house to a man's reflection in the mirror, the hotel in Harlem scene, Devereaux looking to Jarre at lunch.  The film is best known for the shot of Juanita's execution.  We see her, terrified, in Parra's arms as he describes what will be done to her for betraying the revolution, and then the gun fires, unseen.  After cutting to the gun being lowered in Parra's hand (which had been on the other side of her body where we couldn't see it), the scene cuts to an overhead shot looking down on her as she slowly slides to the ground.  Her robe slowly spreads out under her giving the impression of a pool of blood flowing out of her.  This was done with several strings being attached to her robe which were pulled by stagehands and results in a striking image.  You feel as if you've seen a very bloody death, but there is no blood to be seen unless you look closely at Parra's hand as he lets her body slip to the floor.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Frenzy

Torn Curtain

Torn Curtain (1966) 

Notable cast/crew: Paul Newman as Professor Michael Armstrong.  Julie Andrews as Sarah Sherman.  Lila Kedrova as Countess Kuchinska.  Wolfgang Kieling as Hermann Gromek.  Ludwig Donath as Professor Gustav Lindt.  Costume Design by Edith Head.

Running time: 128 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Professor Armstrong defects to East Germany.  Not knowing this was his intent, his fiancee, Sarah Sherman, follows him there.  He is defecting because the US abandoned his anti-missile research.  He is going to collaborate with Professor Lindt to devise a defensive weapon that will make the threat of nuclear war obsolete.

The Big 50

Armstrong isn't really defecting.  He's seeking out Lindt because he thinks Lindt has cracked the solution that eluded him.  Once he has that, Armstrong is going to escape back to the West.  He ducks his East German handler, Gromek, and meets up with his contacts who are arranging his escape, but he's tracked down by Gromek at a farmhouse where his contacts live.  After Gromek threatens to report them, Armstrong and the woman kill him.  The cab driver who drove Armstrong to the farm recognizes Gromek in the news when he is reported as missing and alerts the authorities.

The security service doesn't want Armstrong talking to Lindt while there is suspicion of what Armstrong was doing, but Lindt is due to leave for Leningrad at any moment and needs to know what Armstrong was able to do in his testing in America.  Armstrong tricks Lindt into revealing his discovery, but the police are closing in.  They have found Gromek's body.  After securing the formula, Armstrong begins his flight to the West with Sherman.

After an elaborate escape involving decoy buses, post office rendezvouses, and stowing away on a ship in a ballet company's equipment, they are able to make it to Sweden.

MacGuffin: Professor Lindt's secret formula

Hitchcock cameo: Sitting in the hotel lobby with a small child

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes

Verdict: Torn Curtain marked a break with Hitchcock's old movie-making team due to retirement, death, and disagreements.  The last four films of his career suffered for it as the quality is not there that had marked the run of films he'd made from the early 50s to the early 60s.  It was Hitchcock's 50th film.  It is a decent enough story, but there are some glaring plot problems.  The film was also poorly cast.  Most of the problems are rooted in the studio forcing Hitchcock to use their choices.  Hitchcock wasn't satisfied with the script (a problem that would also plague his next movie, Topaz), and the studio forced him to use Julie Andrews and Paul Newman because they wanted bankable stars.  The script couldn't be reworked partly because Andrews had a narrow window to film this as she was a hot commodity having just come off of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.  She's miscast, and although Newman does a decent job, they have no chemistry together.  It was reportedly one of Hitchcock's most unhappy directing jobs due to the studio interference and disagreement with Newman over how certain scenes should work.  Hitchcock was so unhappy with this film that he decided to not to make a trailer with his appearance in it.

The idea behind Torn Curtain came from the defection of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to Russia in 1951.  Hitchcock was particularly intrigued about Maclean’s life in the Soviet Union and about Melinda Marling, Maclean’s wife, who followed her husband a year later with the couple’s three children.

Bernard Herrmann wrote the original score, but Universal Pictures executives convinced Hitchcock that it needed to be more upbeat.  Hitchcock and Herrmann had a major disagreement, the score was dropped, and they never worked together again.  The resultant score is too lighthearted for what is a rather serious film and is at times jarring in the context of what is occurring on-screen.  It's hard to believe Herrmann wouldn't have provided a better, and more appropriate, score.

In the shot in which Alfred Hitchcock's cameo occurs, the music briefly changes to "Funeral March of a Marionette" by Charles Gounod, which is best known as the main theme for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

According to the book It's Only a Movie, Hitchcock said: "There was an ending written which wasn't used, but I rather liked it.  No one agreed with me except my colleague at home [his wife Alma Reville].  Everyone told me that you couldn't have a letdown ending after all that.  Paul Newman would have thrown the formula away.  After what he has gone through, after everything we have endured with him, he just tosses it.  It speaks to the futility of it all, and it's in keeping with the kind of naivete of the character, who is no professional spy, and who will certainly retire from that nefarious business."

There are a few distinctive sequences/shots.  The scene where Newman is being chased through the museum by an unseen man is done with long shots of Newman walking through the empty halls with nothing but the echo of his footsteps and the echo of the footsteps of his pursuer.  The suspense builds until Newman exits onto the street, and we think he has gotten away.  The suspense resumes when we find Gromek has somehow followed him which leads to the scene the film is most known for: murder by oven.  Hitchcock prolonged the scene to show how difficult it can be to kill someone quietly who is resisting.  There is also a subtle twist of having the German authority getting gassed that echoes the Nazi gas chambers.

Unfortunately, these scenes display some of the sloppy writing.  How did Gromek track him down when he clearly leaves before Gromek has exited the museum?  Not only did he not see where he went, he arrives only minutes later so we can't even assume he tracked him down through the cab company.  How did he suffocate in an open oven in a largely empty room while Armstrong and the woman were unaffected six inches from him?  Why didn't she just brain him with the shovel she hit his kneecaps with?  Why did Gromek never yell for help with the cabbie right outside?  We're also required to make some leaps of faith in how the ballerina figured out they were hiding in the luggage or how they moved through the streets of Berlin undisguised and virtually unrecognized with a widely publicized manhunt looking for them.

In a minor role, Lila Kedrova shines as the Countess Kuchinska.  She is a very sympathetic figure as a woman needing only a sponsor in America to be allowed to leave East Germany.  She is a reminder of how desperate people were to flee from behind the Iron Curtain, and the film does serve as a depiction of the daily paranoia of living in a closed society where everyone is a potential informant to the secret police.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Topaz

Marnie

Marnie (1964) 

Notable cast/crew: Tippi Hedren as Marnie Edgar.  Sean Connery as Mark Rutland.  Diane Baker as Lil Mainwaring.  Martin Gabel as Sidney Strutt.  Louise Latham as Bernice Edgar.  Alan Napier as Mr Rutland.  Mariette Hartley as Susan Clabon.  Bruce Dern as Sailor.  Costumes Designed by Edith Head.  Original Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 131 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Mr Strutt has been robbed by a former employee.  The thief is Marnie.  She takes some of the money and buys gifts for her mother in Baltimore.  Marnie has deep mental problems stemming from her mother's coldness towards her going so far as refusing to even touch her.  Marnie becomes catatonic at the sight of the color red.

I do my most serious acting in the stalls

She applies as a payroll clerk for Rutland and Co, not knowing that Mark Rutland, who owns the firm, is friends with Mr Strutt and knows of the description and mannerisms of the woman who robbed Strutt.  Rutland has her come in on Saturday to work and notices her complete terror at a thunderstorm.

After spending time with Mark at the track and his home, she makes her move to rob his office.  After everyone else has left, she gets the combination to the safe.  Mark is there to meet her when she thinks she's gotten away.  Mark gives her an ultimatum: marry him or he turns her in to the police.  They wed and go on a honeymoon where Mark determines to get to the root of her psychological problems.  Mark also begins working on finding out about Marnie's past.

Mark's former sister-in-law, Lil, concerned for what Mark has gotten himself mixed up in invites Strutt to a social function at Mark's house.  Rutland decides to ask Strutt and the others Marnie has robbed to not press charges if he will pay them back.

When she tries to flee again, Mark takes her to Baltimore to get the truth from her mother.  There they learn Marnie's mother was a prostitute.  One night during a storm, Marnie's mother attacked a sailor she thought was molesting Marnie.  Her mother was injured during the fight, and Marnie killed the sailor with a poker.  She had repressed the memories since.  Mark will take care of her now.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Leaving a hotel room

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Identity

Verdict: It's a decent movie, but after the run of films Hitchcock had made prior to this, it's a bit of a letdown.  Sean Connery has great presence and seems completely in command throughout the movie, but Marnie is such an unlikable character that it's hard to root for her to get off clean.

This was intended to be a Grace Kelly comeback vehicle, but between problems in Monaco and dissatisfaction from her citizens in having her return to the screen, she backed out.  Hitchcock went with Hedren again after doing The Birds with her despite her not being up to it as a model turned actress.

When Louise Latham came onto the set in her "young" makeup to film the film's climactic flashback, she looked so different that the cameraman began to ask around to find out who the new actress was.  Latham, who played Tippi Hedren's mother, is in reality only 8 years older than her.

To film real horses riding without having to work outdoors, Alfred Hitchcock came up with the idea of running the horses on a gigantic treadmill.  Crew members objected to the idea because it was considered highly unsafe and because they simply didn't think it would work.  Still, Hitchcock wanted to at least try it, and when they did, it worked without a problem.  Originally, a harness was attached to Tippi Hedren during these shots for safety reasons, but it was removed when it was found to impede shooting.

Marnie became a milestone for several reasons.  It was the last time a 'Hitchcock blonde' would have a central role in one of his films.  It was also the final occasion when he would work with several of his key team members, who had figured so prominently in his films: director of photography Robert Burks who died in 1968; editor George Tomasini, who died soon after Marnie's release, and music composer Bernard Herrmann, who was fired during Hitchcock's next film, Torn Curtain (1966), when Hitchcock and Universal studio executives wanted a more contemporary 'pop' tune for the film.  Hitchcock had noticed a strong similarity between Herrmann's score for Joy in the Morning and Marnie and believed Herrmann was repeating himself.

Alfred Hitchcock put Edgar Allan Poe references throughout this film.  Marnie's last name is Edgar.  In the novel, Marnie's last name is Elmer.  Like Poe's characters, Marnie Edgar is subject to psychological terror.  Unlike the film, the novel takes place in England.  The film takes place in New York (Strutt's office), Virginia (Garrod's Stables) and Philadelphia (Rutland Publishing and Wickwind).  These are the three places that Edgar Allan Poe lived throughout the better part of his life.  The film's climactic scene takes place at Marnie's mother's home in Baltimore, the city where Poe died under mysterious circumstances in 1849.  Tippi Hedren played Marnie.  Both Tippi Hedren and Edgar Allan Poe were born on January 19.  In the novel, Marnie's mother's name is Edith Elmer.  In the film, Alfred Hitchcock changed Marnie's mother's name to Bernice Edgar.  "Berenice" was a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.  In a 1960 article called "Why I Am Afraid of the Dark", Hitchcock noted this information: "...it's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films."

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Torn Curtain

The Birds

The Birds (1963) 

Notable cast/crew: Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels.  Suzanne Pleshette as Annie Hayworth.  Rod Taylor as Mitch Brenner.  Jessica Tandy as Lydia Brenner.  Veronica Cartwright as Cathy Brenner.  Costumes Designed by Edith Head.  Sound Consulting by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 120 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Birds attack the seaside town of Bodega Bay without warning.  Why are they doing this?  Will they stop?  Will anyone survive?

MacGuffin: Why are the birds attacking?

Hitchcock cameo: Walking his dogs out of the pet shop

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Birds

Verdict: This is an entertaining film if you don't think too hard about a lot of the characters' decisions.  Rod Taylor looks the part of the rugged hero, but Tippi Hedren remains pretty annoying throughout the film.  In fact, most of the women throughout the film are pretty annoying with the exception of Suzanne Pleshette who unfortunately gets killed off.  All in all, not Hitchcock's best film, but still enjoyable for suspense, cheap thrills, and fine special effects for its time.

The technical aspects are particularly impressive.  The movie features 370 effects shots. The final shot is a composite of 32 separately filmed elements as well as painted elements.  The shot filmed above the town as the gas station burns is again a mixing of a central shot of the people and fire which is composited with a second painted matte.  The entire town surrounding the activity in a strip in the center of the screen is a painting.  The angle was considered a "God's eye view" shot by Hitchcock because it is a done from an objective angle looking down on the town that no person could have.  The shot looking back on Bodega Bay from across the bay is all done with matte paintings of the town composited with film of the bay.

There is no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the mixtrautonium, an early electronic musical instrument, by Oskar Sala, and the children singing in the school.  The sound of reel-to-reel tape being run backward and forward was used to help create the frightening bird squawking sounds in the film.

Rod Taylor claims that the seagulls were fed a mixture of wheat and whiskey. It was the only way to get them to stand around so much.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Marnie

Psycho

Psycho (1960) 

Notable cast/crew: Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.  Vera Miles as Lila Crane.  John Gavin as Sam Loomis.  Janet Leigh as Marion Crane.  Martin Balsam as Detective Milton Arbogast.  Simon Oakland as Dr Fred Richman.  Patricia Hitchcock as Caroline.  This was her third and final picture with her father.  John Anderson as California Charlie.  Original Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 109 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: In Phoenix, Marion Crane is dressing after a tryst with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis.  She wants him to marry her, but he says he can't between his alimony payments and paying off his father's debts.  She returns to work and is entrusted with $40,000 in cash by her boss to put in a safe deposit box at the bank.  She feigns a headache and asks for the rest of the day off.  Then she goes home and decides to steal the money.

Never shower with the door unlocked

After running into her boss and an incident with the police after she fell asleep in her car after driving during the night, she sells her car and buys a new one with some of the cash.  She continues on, intending to meet Sam and pay off his debts so they can run away together.  She pulls into the Bates Motel during a rainstorm to find shelter for the night.

There she meets Norman Bates who runs the motel and lives with his mother in the house atop the hill overlooking the motel.  He's amiable enough and rents her a room for the night.  He offers her a warm meal at the house, and she accepts.  He leaves to get it ready, and she unpacks, contemplating the stolen money as she does so.  She hears Norman arguing with his mother, and Norman returns with dinner which they eat in the office due to his mother's refusal to let Marion in the house.  Norman discusses his taxidermy hobby with Marion, as well as general philosophies and how they both want to escape feeling trapped in their lives.  We do get the feeling that while Norman seems like an awkward, nice young man, there's something not quite right about him.  He's a little too intense, and there is a hint he may have spent time in an institution.  After their talk, Marion resolves to drive home in the morning and return the money.  Unknown to her, Norman watches her through a peephole in the wall before he heads back to the house.

While Marion showers, a figure enters the bathroom.  The curtain is thrown aside, and a woman wielding a knife attacks her and murders her.  Norman's voice rings out from the house yelling, "Mother!" and "Blood!"  He runs down to the motel and is horrified to find Marion dead.  He cleans up the room, packs Marion's things and her corpse into the trunk of her car, and rolls the car into the swamp behind the motel.

Marion's sister, Lila, goes to see Sam hoping she's with him.  Sam hasn't seen her either.  Arbogast, a PI, arrives hoping for a lead on Marion and the missing 40 grand.  Arbogast backtracks towards Phoenix and comes across the Bates Motel.  Norman's nervous behavior makes him suspicious.  Arbogast notices a woman sitting by the window at the house and asks if he can speak to her.  Norman becomes even more defensive and asks Arbogast to leave.

Arbogast notifies Lila then returns to the house to see if he can get to Mrs Bates.  When he can't find Norman, he heads up to the house and enters.  At the top of the stairs, Mrs Bates comes out of her room and stabs him.  He falls down the stairs, and she pounces on him, repeatedly stabbing him.  Norman disposes of the evidence again in the swamp.

Sam and Lila go to see the deputy when Arbogast doesn't turn up.  They want to know what happened to him since he was only going to talk to the mother and come back.  The deputy knows this can't be true: Norman Bates' mother has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cemetery for the past 10 years.  It was a murder-suicide by poison.  Norman's mother was dating a man and found out he was married.  Norman found their bodies together in bed.  Sam insists he saw the old woman in the window, and Arbogast said the same.  This makes the deputy question who is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery.  We then jump to Norman carrying his mother to the cellar over her protests so that she will be safe until every thing blows over.

When the deputy won't do anything further, Sam and Lila go to the Bates Motel themselves posing as a couple needing a room.  Once Norman leaves them, they search Marion's cabin.  Lila finds part of a note Marion had written in the toilet that hadn't flushed down.  Sam goes to the office to stall Norman, and Lila proceeds up to the house.  She finds the home empty but evidence of the old woman there.  Sam has continued to press Norman and accuses him or his mother of stealing the $40,000.

Norman cracks Sam over the head with a vase and heads to the house.  Lila sees him and goes down to the cellar.  There, Mrs Bates is sitting alone.  When Lila touches the chair she's in, it spins to reveal Mrs Bates' corpse.  Norman bursts in wearing a wig and his mother's dress, brandishing a knife.  Before he can attack, Sam runs in and grabs him, wresting the knife from him.

At the police station, the psychiatrist explains he got the story of what happened, not from Norman, but from Norman's mother.  Norman Bates no longer exists.  Norman has developed two personalities, and the dominant personality has won.  Norman murdered his mother and her lover.  The psychological shock of it fractured his personality.  He dug up her corpse and a weighted coffin was buried.  To perpetuate the idea his mother was still alive, he took on her personality in addition to preserving her corpse, even dressing as her at times.

Norman as "Mother" now thinks he will get off because a harmless, old lady couldn't kill anyone.  The scene closes with Mrs Bates' skull superimposed over his face as we transition to the car being towed out of the swamp.

MacGuffin: Stolen money

Hitchcock cameo: Outside Marion's office wearing a cowboy hat

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Mothers
• Stairs
• Identity

Verdict: Psycho continued a string of excellent movies that started with Vertigo and ended with The Birds.  Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh are superb and carry the movie.  By hiding the twist until the end, Hitchcock is able to transfer the audience's sympathy from Marion to Norman after her murder because we think he's as much a victim of his mother as she is.  Martin Balsam is also very good as Arbogast.  Vera Miles and John Gavin are okay, but they're not given much to work with.  They're more plot devices to capture Norman.

Obviously the idea of killing off your star halfway through the movie was shocking; it's still a shocking idea today, but it really emphasizes that anything can happen in this movie.  That plays into the heightened paranoia you've already experienced seeing the first third of the movie from Marion's perspective.  Then to find out at the end that the other star of the film is really the killer?  It's a bold move, and it works.

Hitchcock deliberately wanted Psycho to look like a cheap exploitation film.  He shot it, not with his usual expensive feature crew (which had just finished North by Northwest), but with the crew he used for his television show.  He filmed in black and white with long passages containing no dialogue.  His budget, $800,000, was cheap even by 1960 standards; the Bates Motel and mansion were built on the back lot at Universal.

The murder of Janet Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema.  It was shot from December 17 to December 23, 1959, and features 77 different camera angles.  The scene runs 3 minutes and includes 50 cuts.  Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder.  The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than it would have been if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience.  "Mother" was played by a stand-in during the shower scene because the feeling was Anthony Perkins' silhouette was too recognizable and would give away the twist too early in the film.  "Mother's" voice was provided by three different people (one, a man) to further disconcert the audience over what was really going on.  In order to capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.  The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled "The Murder".  Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence, but Herrmann insisted he try his composition.  Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary.  The blood in the scene is reputed to have been Bosco chocolate syrup, which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood.  The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.  There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath.  In an interview with Roger Ebert, and in the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated she was in the scene the entire time, and Hitchcock only used a stand-in for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car.  The 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots.

There is a second great scene when Arbogast is in the house and heading up the stairs.  The camera follows him up until he reaches the top where an overhead shot shows "Mother" emerge and stab him sending him back down the stairs in a shot reminiscent of Norman Lloyd falling off the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur.

The most controversial move was Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film, which was unusual for the time. It was not entirely original as Henri-Georges Clouzot had done the same in France for Les Diaboliques.  Hitchcock thought that if people entered the theater late and never saw the star actress Janet Leigh, they would feel cheated.  At first theater owners opposed the idea, claiming that they would lose business.  However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film.

This was Alfred Hitchcock's last film for Paramount.  By the time principal photography started, Hitchcock had moved his offices to Universal, and the film was actually shot on Universal's back lot.  Universal owns the film today as well, even though the Paramount Pictures logo is still on the film.

The Bates house was largely modeled on an oil painting called "House by the Railroad" painted in 1925 by Edward Hopper.  The architectural details, viewpoint, and austere sky is almost identical to that seen in the film.

Immediately prior to the closing sequence of Norman Bates in his jail cell, as the camera moves down the hallway to where the police have confined him, the uniformed guard at the cell door is Ted Knight, best remembered as pompous, dim-witted news anchor Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The last shot of Norman Bates's face has a still frame of a human skull superimposed on it, almost subliminally.  The skull is that of "Mother".  Hitchcock tested the fear factor of "Mother's" corpse by placing it in Janet Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she screamed when she discovered it there.  Hitchcock had a canvas chair with "Mrs. Bates" written on the back prominently placed and displayed on the set throughout shooting.  This further added to the enigma surrounding who was the actress playing Mrs. Bates.

The novel upon which the film is based was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who was also the inspiration for Deranged (1974), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

This is the first American film ever to show a toilet flushing on screen.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Birds

North By Northwest

North By Northwest (1959) 

Notable cast/crew: Cary Grant as Roger O Thornhill.  This was his fourth and final film with Hitchcock.  Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall.  James Mason as Phillip Vandamm.  Jessie Royce Landis as Clara Thornhill.  She was previously in To Catch a Thief.  Leo G Carroll as The Professor.  This was his sixth and final film with Hitchcock.  Martin Landau as Leonard.  Edward Platt as Victor Larrabee.  Robert Ellenstein as Licht.  Original Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 136 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Ad executive Roger Thornhill is kidnapped after two spies mistake him for George Kaplan, an agent of some sort.  He protests to the contrary, but they refuse to believe him, totally convinced he is Kaplan.  When he refuses to cooperate (because he has no idea what they want), they force him to drink bourbon and put him in a car on an ocean cliffside.  He has enough presence of mind to steer clear of the cliff and get away.  A policeman who chases him down for driving drunk saves his life as it scares off the spies who have been pursuing him.

Faster than a speeding...wait, wrong film

No on believes his story.  When they return to the house where he was held, the police are told Thornhill was there for dinner and got too drunk to handle.  The room has been cleaned up, and the woman of the house acts as if she knows him.  This seals his fine for driving intoxicated.

He returns to the hotel where he was kidnapped, and he tries to contact George Kaplan.  Kaplan is out, but when he goes up to the room, the chambermaid mistakes him for Kaplan.  However, she's never seen Kaplan; she justs assumes he is him because he was at the room.  As he encounters more hotel staff, they all think he's Kaplan, although none of them have ever actually seen Kaplan.

The spies who kidnapped him return, and he escapes and heads for the UN where he has learned the head spy is.  He has him paged only to find that who he thinks is Lester Townsend is not.  The real Townsend works at the UN and meets him.  He has been living in his apartment and is shocked to hear there are people living in his house.  Before Thornhill can show him a picture of the head spy, one of the spies trailing him throws a knife into Townsend's back, killing him.  As he falls into Thornhill's arms, Thornhill grabs the knife.  People seeing it think Thornhill has murdered Townsend.  Thornhill flees the UN fearing a reprise of the last time the police arrested him.

The CIA is reviewing the case, but they're baffled as to how Thornhill got mistaken for Kaplan.  Kaplan doesn't exist.  He's a decoy created by the CIA to misdirect the spies from their real agent who has infiltrated the spy ring which is run by Phillip Vandamm, the man Thornhill thought was Townsend.  The CIA leaves Thornhill to his own devices for fear that any indication that Kaplan doesn't really exist will expose their agent.

Thornhill hops on a train to Chicago where he had learned Kaplan had reservations and is aided by Eve Kendall in avoiding the police as the train departs.  He has dinner with her onboard the train, and she reveals she knows who he is.  She cozies up to him because she's working for Vandamm, who is also onboard in another car with his henchman.  She claims to have set up a meeting with Kaplan and sends Thornhill out into a corn field to meet him.  A man arrives, but it's not Kaplan.  They chat for a moment until the man notices there's a crop duster dusting a field that has no crops.  The man leaves on the bus, and when Thornhill is alone again, the plane moves in trying to dive bomb and shoot him.  After several failed attempts, Thornhill runs back out to the highway where he stops an oil tanker.  The plane crashes into the tanker causing an explosion.

Thornhill escapes and makes it to Kaplan's hotel only to find Kaplan had checked out that morning before Eve ever could have contacted him.  His next address is a hotel in South Dakota.  He sees Eve in the lobby and follows her up to her room.  Neither lets on they know she didn't talk to Kaplan.  She sneaks out to an auction while he showers, but he follows her again to find her there with Vandamm.  Thornhill realizes Vandamm doesn't want him getting to the police when he puts his men in place to remove Thornhill from the auction so Thornhill causes a disturbance to get himself arrested.  As the police are bringing him in, they are rerouted to an airfield.  The CIA has decided Thornhill has become too much of a problem to risk having him running loose.  They still need more info on Vandamm's organization so they won't move in yet.  The Professor explains to Thornhill that Kaplan doesn't exist and why they need Vandamm to think Thornhill is Kaplan anyway.  Thornhill refuses to help until he learns the agent undercover is Eve.

Vandamm is leaving the country that night, and they need Thornhill to keep up the game long enough for Eve to finish her mission.  At the base of Mt Rushmore, Thornhill confronts Vandamm again.  Vandamm has a house atop Mt Rushmore that he's using as his base of operations.  After an argument, Eve shoots Thornhill who is critically wounded.  It's a ruse to throw off Vandamm.  The CIA wants to keep Thornhill on ice until after Eve can leave the country with Vandamm, but he slips out to the house.  He doesn't want her leaving with Vandamm since they've fallen for each other.  Vandamm's henchman found Eve's gun filled with blanks and knows what really happened.  Thornhill overhears their plan to kill her once they're in flight and sneaks into the house to help her escape.

Thornhill grabs a car, Eve grabs the figurine holding the microfilm, and off they go down the face of Mt Rushmore!  They're flanked by Vandamm's men, clinging to the side of the faces, no way to go further down.   Thornhill holds Eve on the cliff face as she dangles above space.  Leonard, the henchman, begins to step on Thornhill's hand.  A shot rings out.  Leonard is dead.  The CIA has arrived.  Thornhill pulls up Eve...into a train sleeping berth.  They're safe and now married.

MacGuffin: George Kaplan and the microfilm

Hitchcock cameo: Running for the bus with the door closing in his face

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Man falsely accused
• Sophisticated villain
• Identity

Verdict: This a wildly fun film, like Hitchcock's other action-suspense films on steroids.  The only two drawbacks to the film are the completely idiotic criminals who mistake Thornhill for a man who doesn't exist and the abrupt ending which is a bit jarring.  The story is an olio of ideas just thrown together with a plot about spies loosely holding it all together.  It was designed with the intent of making the Hitchcock of all Hitchcock films.  There are a number of excellent sequences in the film from the seaside cliff chase, to the crop duster attack, to the flight down Mt Rushmore.  The most remarkable shot is a matte shot from way overhead when Thornhill flees the UN.  Classic Hitchcock stuff.

The score by Bernard Herrmann is lively and memorable and was reworked as the opening music for the miniseries V in 1983 as an homage to Herrmann.  The film also features a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass.  It is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.  The opening credits of Catch Me If You Can (2002) have been considered an homage to this sequence.  This was the only Hitchcock film released by MGM.

While filming Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock described some of the plot of this project to frequent Hitchcock leading man and Vertigo star James Stewart, who naturally assumed that Hitchcock meant to cast him in the Roger Thornhill role, and was eager to play it.  Actually, Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant to play the role.  By the time Hitchcock realized the misunderstanding, Stewart was so anxious to play Thornhill that rejecting him would have caused a great deal of disappointment.  So Hitchcock delayed production on this film until Stewart was already safely committed to filming Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959) before "officially" offering him the North by Northwest role.  Stewart had no choice; he had to turn down the offer, allowing Hitchcock to cast Grant, the actor he had wanted all along.

The casting is well done although Jessie Royce Landis was only 7 years older than Cary Grant, who plays her son.  Grant is still fit enough to pull off the action sequences and relies more on his wits than brute strength to get out of scrapes.  Eva Marie Saint is spot on playing a spy with a romantic interest in him.  Watch closely and you'll see where she had to re-dub a particular line during post-production to satisfy censors.  The original line was, "I never make love on an empty stomach", but was changed to, "I never discuss love on an empty stomach".  James Mason epitomizes the suave Hitchcock villain, and Martin Landau adds just the right air of creepiness.  There are a number of well-known character actors in this film including Edward Platt, the Chief from Get Smart.  Leo G Carroll concludes his work with Hitchcock appearing in more credited roles than any other actor.

Thornhill appears on the left side of the screen for almost the entire movie.

It was journalist Otis L. Guernsey Jr. who suggested to Alfred Hitchcock the premise of a man mistaken for a nonexistent secret agent.  He was inspired by a real-life case during WWII, known as Operation Mincemeat, in which British intelligence hoped to lure Italian and German forces away from Sicily, a planned invasion site.  A cadaver was selected and given an identity and phony papers referring to invasions of Sardinia and Greece.  A British film, The Man Who Never Was (1956), recounted the operation.

Roger Thornhill's mother tells him jokingly, "Pay the two dollars," after he futilely attempts to shed light on his kidnapping and be exonerated from his DWI charge.  The line is a reference to a Depression-era Willie Howard vaudeville sketch written by Billy K. Wells.  A man is in court to pay a $2 fine for spitting on the subway, but his lawyer insists on fighting the case.  As the lawyer incurs greater and greater sentences, his defendant keeps pleading, "Pay the two dollars!"  This sketch also appeared in Ziegfeld Follies (1945) with Edward Arnold portraying the attorney.

According to screenwriter Ernest Lehman (who worked in close collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock), the working title was "In A Northwesterly Direction."  The head of the Story Department at MGM said, "Why don't you call it 'North by Northwest'?"  Lehman says that he and Hitch adopted that as the new working title, always assuming that they'd come up with something better.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Psycho

Vertigo

Vertigo (1958) "Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere."

Notable cast/crew: James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson.  This was his fourth and final film with Hitchcock.  Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton.  Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge Wood.  Tom Helmore as Gavin Elster.  Henry Jones as Coroner.  Raymond Bailey as Scottie's Doctor.  Ellen Corby as Manager of McKittrick Hotel.  Costume Design by Edith Head.  Original Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Running time: 128 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A rooftop chase, two policeman following a suspect.  The second policeman, Scottie Ferguson, doesn't make one of the jumps.  As he dangles from the gutter, his partner comes back and reaches to help him up.  He slips and falls to his death while Scottie looks on in horror.

Spiral descent

Scottie spends some time recuperating and visits his friend, Midge.  Scottie has resigned from the police force.  He mentions that an old college friend of theirs, Gavin Elster, has called asking to meet with him.  When he meets with Elster, Elster questions him about his vertigo.  He then proceeds to ask Scottie if he can look into a problem he's having with his wife.  Elster's wife has an obsession with a dead ancestor, and Elster is concerned his wife may even have been possessed by this ancestor.  Scottie is reluctant, but after seeing her at a restaurant, he agrees to take the case.

He begins by following her around San Francisco.  First, she stops at a flower shop and purchases a bouquet.  Then, it's a visit to a cemetery behind a church.  The grave she views is of Carlotta Valdes.  Next, she visits the Palace of the Legion of Honor, where she sits contemplating a painting of Carlotta.  Her bouquet matches the one in the painting, and her hairstyle is the same as Carlotta's, as well.  Lastly, he follows her to the McKittrick Hotel where he sees her in an upstairs window.  When he asks the desk clerk, she says no one has come in, and when they go to the room, it's empty.  The room is rented to Carlotta Valdes.

Scottie talks with a local historian and learns the hotel used to belong to the real Carlotta.  Carlotta was brought young to the city by a rich man who built the house for her.  They had a child, but afterwards he tossed Carlotta aside.  She went mad wandering the streets asking, "Where is my child?  Have you seen my child?"  She then committed suicide at an early age.

After meeting with Elster where Elster confirms his fear that his wife may think she is Carlotta and try to kill herself, Scottie follows her to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.  She jumps in the bay, but Scottie rescues her.  He takes her back to his apartment, but she leaves while he's on the phone with Elster.  She returns the next day to thank him, and they decide to begin driving around town together.  They drive out to a forest where Madeleine talks as if she's Carlotta.  She tells him of a place in her dreams that Scottie recognizes as the old mission San Juan Batista.

He takes her there, and they walk the grounds.  She remembers things from Carlotta's life, but she then runs for the mission's bell tower.  Scottie tries to follow her up the stairs, but his vertigo recurs leaving him helpless.  Through a window, he sees her fall to her death, and, shaken, he leaves the scene.  The inquest rules it a suicide but is particularly hard on Scottie for not having done what he was hired to do: prevent Madeleine from harming herself.  Scottie begins having nightmares of Carlotta and falling, and he is committed to a sanatorium.

After some time, possibly a year, he recovers.  He goes back to Madeleine's apartment and sees her car and what appears to be her emerging from the building.  It's someone else, though, who has bought the car from Elster.  He returns to Ernie's where he first saw Madeleine, and again thinks he sees her only for it to be another woman.  He sees a woman who resembles her and follows her home.

Her name is Judy Barton, and while the face is the same almost everything else is different.  Scottie speaks with her and asks her to dinner.  She agrees after finding out she reminds him of someone who had died.  When Scottie leaves, we find out in flashback that Judy was Madeleine.  Elster had hired her to play his wife to lead Scottie on.  When she ran to the top of the bell tower, Elster was already there and threw his wife off the tower.  Scottie had never known the real Madeleine.  Judy starts to write a letter confessing to the deception but also to her love for him, but she tears it up instead.

She wants him to love her for herself and not for the false image she portrayed, but it becomes evident as they begin to see each other that he is still haunted by Madeleine.  Reluctant at first, she allows him to change her hair, her makeup, her wardrobe to match that image in order to remain with him.  The result is his approval and love.

Some time later, they are preparing to go to dinner, and she puts on a necklace that Scottie recognizes as one Madeleine wore that matched the painting of Carlotta.  Realization dawns on Scottie, but he doesn't reveal what he has figured out.  He takes her down to the old mission where he declares there's, "One final thing I have to do, and then I'll be free of the past."  He forces her to go into the bell tower with him, but this time he's able to climb the stairs.  He reveals he knows what she did and what Elster did to him.  Elster had already broken his wife's neck and tossed her body off the tower.  As Scottie and Judy reach the top, Scottie questions why she did this.  She's afraid of him but still loves him.  As she tells him this, a ghostly form rises behind them.  It's a nun come to investigate the voices she heard.  Judy recoils in terror thinking it's Madeleine's ghost and falls from the tower.  Scottie looks down in horror having lost her again.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking past the shipyard entrance carrying a bugle case

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Stairs
• Red/green
• Sophisticated villain
• Identity

Verdict: This is not just my favorite Hitchcock movie; this is my favorite movie ever.  The first time I saw it, I jumped out of my chair and yelled, "No!" at the end, and even now I get goosebumps at the scene describing Carlotta's life and at the finale.  There is an elegiac air that permeates the film, an almost tangible sense of impending loss.  The casting of James Stewart has been criticized for him being too old to play the romantic lead, but I find this critique lacking.  I don't find it implausible at all that an older, single man would precisely be the perfect target to be set up to fall for a woman in a murder plot.  Having a younger woman supposedly fall for him would directly play to his vanity and engender his protectiveness that is then exploited in his weakness that allows them to get away with the murder.  Kim Novak is excellent playing two completely different women believably.  There are layers to her performance in playing a role within a role, and there is something profound in Judy's mutual obsession with Scottie to the point that she is willing to subsume her own sense of identity in order to remain with him.

The driving question Vertigo presents us is when does love cross over into obsession?  Early in the film, it is clear that Scottie loves Madeleine.  But what we see later when he has lost her, is an obsession to regain what he had lost.  He is still in love with the image of the woman he lost to the point of being willing to remake another woman into her image so that he can convince himself he has regained what was stolen from him.  Judy parallels this in her willingness to give up her own identity to gain his love, even if that love is based on an image of another woman so long as she is allowed to play the part of that other woman.  There is a profound sense of sadness in two people who are so damaged they are willing to treat and to be treated this way in order to cling to a distorted impression of regaining lost love.

This is one of the Five Lost Hitchcocks.  This is the only one of Alfred Hitchcock's films in which the killer is not punished.  Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted Vera Miles to play Judy, but she became pregnant and was therefore unavailable.

Roger Ebert found the moment when Judy finally transforms fully into Madeleine's image particularly important.  "This shot, in its psychological, artistic and technical complexity, may be the one time in his entire career that Alfred Hitchcock completely revealed himself, in all of his passion and sadness. (Is it a coincidence that the woman is named Madeleine--the word for the French biscuit, which, in Proust, brings childhood memories of loss and longing flooding back?)"

Martin Scorsese considers this Hitchcock's most personal film, and he thinks that is why the film has endured: because of its honesty, truth, and psychological complexity.  What he means by this is that what Scottie does to Judy (remaking her in the image of the woman he wants her to be) is exactly what a director does with an actress when he gets a specific performance from her, turning her into the character she's portraying.

The film is noted for its location shots all over San Francisco and for the repeated use of the dolly zoom.  The effect is done by zooming in the lens while physically pulling the camera away.  Ebert was impressed with the visual style of the film.  "He was a great visual stylist in two ways: He used obvious images and surrounded them with a subtle context. Consider the obvious ways he suggests James Stewart's vertigo. An opening shot shows him teetering on a ladder, looking down at a street below. Flashbacks show why he left the police force. A bell tower at a mission terrifies him, and Hitchcock creates a famous shot to show his point of view: Using a model of the inside of the tower, and zooming the lens in while at the same time physically pulling the camera back, Hitchcock shows the walls approaching and receding at the same time; the space has the logic of a nightmare. But then notice less obvious ways that the movie sneaks in the concept of falling, as when Scottie drives down San Francisco's hills, but never up. And note how truly he 'falls' in love."

The use of color also plays prominently in the film.  Green and red are used alternately to bring out subtle themes.  We see green in Madeleine's stole, her car, the neon lighting outside Judy's apartment, Judy's dress, Scottie's sweater, and the flower boxes in the shop.  The green illustrates Scottie's desire and takes on almost a dreamlike quality.  The reds (Scottie's door, Midge's sweater, the interior of the restaurant, Madeleine's robe, the flowers, Judy's necklace) are signals of reality, and that something is forbidden.  There is even a streetlight that forebodingly changes from green to red.

Graphic designer Saul Bass used spiral motifs in both the title sequence and the movie poster, emphasizing what the documentary Obsessed with Vertigo calls, "Vertigo's psychological vortex".

The score is arguably Bernard Herrmann's best work, and there are few films that incorporate the score into the narrative of the film better.  Scorsese described it thus: "Hitchcock's film is about obsession, which means that it's about circling back to the same moment, again and again ... And the music is also built around spirals and circles, fulfillment and despair.  Herrmann really understood what Hitchcock was going for — he wanted to penetrate to the heart of obsession."

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: North by Northwest