Under Capricorn

Under Capricorn (1949) 

Notable cast/crew: Ingrid Bergman as Lady Henrietta Flusky.  This is her third and final Hitchcock film.  Joseph Cotten as Sam Flusky.  He was previously in Shadow of a Doubt.  Michael Wilding as Charles Adare.  Adaptation by Hume Cronyn.

Running time: 117 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Charles Adare moves to Australia with his cousin, the new governor.  He has come from Ireland hoping to make his fortune.  He's introduced to Sam Flusky who is a wealthy businessman and former convict exiled for murder.  Charles knew Sam's wife, Henrietta, when they were children.  She's become an alcoholic and an embarrassment to Sam.

Keep your head on straight

Sam hopes that having someone his wife knows will lift her spirits and help her break her problem.  Charles works with her to bring her around, and pushes for the removal of the maid, Milly, who he thinks has been a detrimental influence on Henrietta.  Milly leaves the house in a snit, and Henrietta takes over managing the house.

Charles takes Henrietta to the Governor's Ball, and Milly returns to the house and tries to poison Sam's thoughts toward his wife and Charles.  She has been manipulating the house for some time hoping to get rid of Henrietta.

After Sam causes a scene at the ball, Henrietta tells Charles why she followed Sam to Australia.  She and Sam had eloped, and when her brother found out, he came to put an end to it.  Henrietta killed her brother, and Sam took the blame.  Sam returns home still angry and in a confrontation shoots Charles.  He's facing a sentence for a second offence, but Henrietta confesses to her brother's murder.  Sam finds out and continues to believe his wife has fallen for Charles.  Milly consoles Henrietta by getting her to drink again.

Sam decides to leave with Henrietta, and Milly tries to convince him to stay.  Her plan to have him for herself is falling apart.  Henrietta has become drunk again which makes Charles disbelieve her when she sees something in the bed again.  She finds a shrunken head, and feigning sleep, catches Milly hiding the head.  Milly has been doing this for some time making everyone think Henrietta is a drunk and falling into madness.  Milly tries to kill her with poison, but Henrietta cries out.  Sam finds the head and the poison.  He realizes Milly has been making her drunk all along and is the root of the sickness rotting the household.

Charles, Sam and Henrietta all cover for each other which prevents the authorities from being able to do anything.  Charles leaves the Fluskeys a restored family.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: In the town square during the parade wearing a hat and coat, and on the steps of the Government House ten minutes later

Hitchcock themes: 

• Long takes

Verdict: It's a mediocre movie at best.  Some of the technical work looks good, but too much of the movie drags.  It gets going for about 20 minutes in the last hour, but then goes on 15 minutes too long at the end.  Wilding is very good as Charles, Cotten isn't given much to do as Sam (although he broods well), and Bergman is very hit and miss as Henrietta.  Altogether, not worth seeing unless you're a Hitchcock completist or dig period costume dramas.

The film was a box office flop.  It was a drama and not a thriller which was not what audiences expected from Hitchcock.  The title is also a tad confusing as it refers to the Tropic of Capricorn and thus tangentially to Australia where the film takes place.  In his autobiography "Vanity Will Get You Somewhere", actor Joseph Cotten referred to this film as "Under Corny Crap".  Supposedly he had also done so on set, invoking Hitchcock's ire.  It was during the filming that Bergman began her notorious affair with Roberto Rossellini.  That has led some to think it was also a contributing factor in the poor reception.

Hitchcock again used long takes of continuous one-reel shooting which he had enjoyed refining on his previous film Rope, but as the process proved far more difficult here than in the enclosed set, only a couple of sequences were ultimately shot for the finished print.  It doesn't have the same intensity as Rope, and that makes the long sequences feel longer than they are.  The technique doesn't work as well here.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Stage Fright

Rope

Rope (1948) "Murder is...an art...and as such, the privilege of committing it should be reserved for those few who are really superior individuals."

Notable cast/crew: John Dall as Brandon.  Farley Granger as Phillip.  He would also star in Strangers on a Train.  Cedric Hardwicke as Mr Kentley.  He was previously in Suspicion.  Constance Collier as Mrs Atwater.  She co-wrote the play, Down Hill, that Hitchcock turned into Downhill.  James Stewart as Rupert Cadell.  This is the first of four films he would make with Hitchcock.  Adaptation by Hume Cronyn.

Running time: 81 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: David Kentley is strangled by Phillip and Brandon in the living room of their apartment.  They place his body in a wooden chest in the room.  Phillip is very nervous, but Brandon is thrilled by it and revels in it.  To cap off their exploit, they're holding a dinner party for David's parents, girlfriend, her ex (who was also a classmate of David, Brandon, and Phillip), and the housemaster from their former school.  They push the brazenness of their crime by serving dinner off the chest David's body lies in.

Diagram for a play on murder

Phillip is unnerved by the rope they used which is dangling from the chest.  He wants to dispose of it, but Brandon makes a display of playing with it before placing it in a kitchen drawer.  Phillip wants for things to be over, but as guests arrive Brandon continues to drop hints of what they've done.  He enjoys making the others uncomfortable to illustrate his contempt for inferiors.

Brandon was a disciple of their housemaster, Rupert Cadell, who used to expound on his Nietzschean ideas about some men being superior and unbound by ordinary morals including being able to kill whomever they chose whenever they chose.

Rupert enjoys gently teasing others, bordering on rudeness.  He begins to discuss the benefits of murder with Brandon joining in.  This upsets Mr Kentley who finds the idea of superior men free to dispose with others as they please repugnant.  While Rupert seems playful and not quiet serious despite his protests to the contrary, Brandon is quite serious and quarrels with Mr Kentley.

Rupert notices subtle hints that something is amiss:  Brandon's excited state, Phillip's nervousness, eating off the chest instead of the dining room table, David's absence.  While the others are concerned that David hasn't shown up, Rupert has concerns because of Brandon's quarrel with Mr Kentley over murder.  He begins to question Phillip about what's wrong and where David is.  When Brandon uses the rope to tie up some books for Mr Kentley, Rupert has nearly all the pieces to the puzzle.

As the party breaks up, the maid gives Rupert the wrong hat.  The initials inside are "D K".  Rupert appears dazed as he leaves.  Once everyone else has left, Rupert returns to look for a cigarette case he "lost".  Phillip nearly comes undone when Rupert calls, but Brandon is resolute and invites him up.  Rupert continues to probe them for the truth.  Brandon verbally jousts with Rupert, each trying to see what the other knows.

Brandon has been holding a gun in his pocket which Rupert asks him about.  Brandon laughs it off and tosses the gun on the piano.  When Rupert produces the rope and says he knows exactly what happens, Phillip panics and grabs the gun.  He and Rupert struggle for it with the gun firing into the floor.  Now holding the gun, Rupert opens the chest and confirms his fears.  Brandon tries to justify himself by reminding Rupert of his own words.  He has lived what Rupert only talked about.  Confronted with the ugliness of his own words, Rupert is horrified at how far Brandon has carried it.  He sees the ugliness and arrogance of the belief in superior men.  After chastising them and telling them they are going to die at society's hands, he opens the window and fires more shots.  He stands guard as the sirens approach.

MacGuffin: The body and the rope

Hitchcock cameo: Red neon sign shows his famous silhouette caricature (possibly also walking down the street at the start of the movie)

Hitchcock themes: 

• Murder
• Likable villain

Verdict: This is one of my favorite movies. There is so much going on that repeat viewings are really rewarded.  There are narrative layers with a running subtext.  There is the technical aspect of staging a play in real-time on a movable set with long takes.  The acting is superb, and even though Jimmy Stewart is miscast, his part still works.  Every character serves a purpose so there are no wasted scenes.  It also fulfills the three classical unities: unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time.  This was Hitchcock's first color film.

The movie is adapted from a play of the same name (also known as Rope's End) which was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case.  The set was designed with movable walls so that the camera could follow people from room to room.  This was all done by stagehands as filming took place.  The idea was to shoot the movie as if it occurred in real-time with continuous long takes.  Hitchcock shot for periods lasting up to ten minutes (the length of a film camera magazine).  Every other segment ended with a zoom in on something (a dark jacket, a table top).  The next segment would start on the same image then pull back, hiding the cut from magazine to magazine.  The other cuts are not hidden because when shown in theaters, every 20 minutes a projectionist would have to change the reel (two magazines of film make one reel of film on the projector in the movie theater).  Therefore Hitchcock had no need to hide the cut to a new setup.  The ten segments are:

1. Strangulation through to Blackout on Brandon's back (09:34 duration)
2. (Black screen) pan off Brandon's back through to Kenneth: "What do you mean?" (07:51 duration)
3. (Unmasked cut) men crossing to Janet through to Blackout on Kenneth's back (07:18 duration)
4. (Black screen) pan off Kenneth's back through to Phillip: "That's a lie." (07:08 duration)
5. (Unmasked cut) closeup on Rupert through to Blackout on Brandon's back (09:57 duration)
6. (Black screen) pan off Brandon's back through to Three shot (07:33 duration)
7. (Unmasked cut) Mrs. Wilson: "Excuse me, sir." through to Blackout on Brandon (07:46 duration)
8. (Black screen) pan off Brandon through to Brandon's hand in gun pocket (10:06 duration)
9. (Unmasked cut) closeup on Rupert through to Blackout on lid of chest (04:37 duration)
10. (Black screen) pan up from lid of chest through to End of film (05:38 duration)

The cyclorama in the background is impressive.  It was the largest backing ever used on a sound stage, and it included models of the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings.  Chimneys smoke, lights come on in buildings, neon signs light up, and the sunset slowly unfolds as the movie progresses.  Within the course of the film the clouds (made of spun glass) change position and shape eight times.

The film runs 81 minutes and takes place in real-time.  The period of time that it covers is slightly longer, about 100 minutes.  This occurs because the action is sped up: the formal dinner lasts only 20 minutes, the sun sets too quickly, and so on.  The effect of this has been studied and found to show that most people think they have watched a longer movie than they did.

This is Hitchcock's second creative cameo which reused an idea from Lifeboat.  Using the fictitious weight loss company "Reduco", a red neon sign in the far background shows Hitchcock's profile with "Reduco" below it, as the guests are escorted to the door.

The screenwriter, Arthur Laurents, claimed that originally Hitchcock assured him the movie wouldn't show the opening murder itself.  He thought it heightened the mystery by creating doubt as to whether the two leading characters actually committed murder and whether the trunk had a corpse inside.  Hitchcock showed the murder which instead heightened the suspense of whether they would be caught or found out.

The unspoken subject of the movie is homosexuality.  Due to the censors at the time, it couldn't be discussed in a movie.  In fact, off camera, Rope was discussed as being about "it".  It led to a negative reaction, with some theaters refusing to show it.  Dall and Granger were actually homosexual in real life, as was screenwriter Arthur Laurents.  Because it is never openly mentioned, it is sometimes missed altogether.  The first time I watched Rope, my brother watched it with me, and about halfway through he asked me if the characters were supposed to be gay.  I knew nothing about the intended subtext, and when we were watching the making of feature, he was proven correct.

This leads to the miscasting of Jimmy Stewart.  This was the only movie he made with Hitchcock that he did not like. Stewart himself he felt he was badly miscast as Rupert.  In the original play, Rupert allegedly had an affair with one of the two murderers while they were students.  Jimmy Stewart was much too well known for playing clean-cut characters, and it ruined the dynamic they were going for.  However, he is still excellent being charming at the beginning of the film and then selling the turn to mortification at what his disciple has done.  Cary Grant was the first choice to play Rupert, and Montgomery Clift was originally to play Brandon.  Both turned down the roles for fear it would have fueled the rumors they were gay.

This film is unique so far as I know in that the trailer shows a prequel scene not in the film.  It is the only scene where David speaks, and it leads up to the party where he is killed.  Dick Hogan played David, and his death scene was Hogan's last appearance in a movie.  He retired from the business after Rope.

Eleven years after being mentioned in Rope as making an excellent villain, James Mason was cast by Hitchcock as one in North by Northwest.

Rope was unavailable for decades.  Its rights, along with the rights to Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble With Harry, and Vertigo, were bought back by Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter, Patricia.  They were known as the "Five Lost Hitchcocks" among film buffs (despite there being other British films that were also lost), but they were re-released in theaters around 1984 after a 30-year absence.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Under Capricorn

The Paradine Case

The Paradine Case (1947) 

Notable cast/crew: Gregory Peck as Anthony Keane.  This is his second and final Hitchcock film.  Ann Todd as Gay Keane.  Charles Laughton as Judge Lord Thomas Horfield.  This is his second and final Hitchcock film.  Charles Coburn as Sir Simon Flaquer.  Ethel Barrymore as Lady Sophie Horfield.  Louis Jourdan as Andre Latour.  Alida Valli as Mrs Paradine.  Leo G Carroll as Sir Joseph.  This is his fourth of six Hitchcock films.

Running time: 114 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Mrs Paradine is arrested!  She is charged with murdering her husband by poison.  Her solicitor calls in Anthony Keane to defend her at trial.  Keane meets with her, and the more time he spends with her, the more he falls for her.  This upsets his wife, but she tells him to stay on the case when he offers to remove himself from it.

This is my gang sign

Keane focuses on a servant named Latour to pin the blame for the murder on, but Mrs Paradine is against it.  Keane travels to the Paradine estate and encounters Latour who tells him he has misjudged Mrs Paradine, that she is an evil woman.

At trial, Latour says Mrs Paradine lied to her husband in telling him Latour was abandoning his position of valet to Colonel Paradine.  He claims she was trying to get rid of him.  Keane goes ahead with painting Latour as the potential killer even if it was a case of assisted suicide.

Mrs Paradine is upset that Keane went after Latour.  Keane tries to impress upon her that the case boils down as either suicide or one of Latour or Mrs Paradine murdered him.  She doesn't care and insists Latour not be made out a murderer.  Keane hounds Latour until Latour admits to having had an affair with Mrs Paradine that he was deeply shamed of.  The Colonel had found out before his death.

While Mrs Paradine is on the stand, the court learns Latour has killed himself.  Mrs Paradine breaks down and admits to having loved Latour, but Latour would not have her because of his feeling of duty to the Colonel.  She then confesses to murdering her husband.  She spews hatred at Keane for having killed Latour and thus having also killed her.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Struggling with a cello at Cumberland station

Hitchcock themes: None

Verdict: This is a solid movie, a court room drama, but it moves a little slowly.  The ending is a slight surprise, but not a complete one.  The current existing print is 114 minutes, but that is a reduction from the original release of 132 minutes.  There is some debate as to whether this would have been a superior version, but the only known copy of the long print was lost in a flood in 1980.  There have been rumors that the Library of Congress has a single copy of the 132 minute cut, but this has never been confirmed definitively.  It would be interesting to see the two in comparison.  The original raw cut was over three hours, but David O Selznick cut it down to 132 minutes.  He was also responsible for the further shortening.  Hitchcock never made a finalized cut of his own, so there's a possibility that he could have made a different movie depending on his own choice for cutting.  The continual conflicts with Selznick led to this being the final film Hitchcock made for him under the contract that had brought him over from England.

When Keane goes to the Paradine house in Cumberland, he walks over to Mrs. Paradine's piano.  On the piano is a page of music called Appassionata Op. 69 by Francesco Ceruomo.  Francesco Ceruomo is an Italianized version of Frank Waxman, who wrote the background music for the film.  The music shown on the piano is the actual music that is playing on the soundtrack at that point.

An exact replica of the Old Bailey courtroom was constructed for the court scenes for $400,000.  For the courtroom sequence, Hitchcock used a new technique by utilizing four cameras shooting simultaneously, each focused on one of the principal actors in the scene – multiple camera photography had been used in the past, but only to shoot the same subject.  This set-up, including elaborately choreographed crane shots, allowed Hitchcock to shoot long 10 minute takes, something he would push to the limit on his next two films, Rope and Under Capricorn.  In particular, there is a great shot following Latour in background around the court room while Mrs Paradine remains in the foreground.  The use of light and shadow is well balanced throughout the film keeping the answer hidden as Mrs Paradine is shown in light early in the movie while Latour is mostly in shadow.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Rope

Notorious

Notorious (1946) 

Notable cast/crew: Cary Grant as Devlin.  This is his second of four films for Hitchcock.  Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman.  This marks the second of three movies she made with Hitchcock.  Claude Rains as Alexander Sebastian.

Running time: 101 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Alicia Huberman's father is convicted of treason against the US government.  She meets Devlin at a party.  She flies into a drunken rage when she finds he works for the government claiming they are hounding her to try to get her, too.  He recruits her to help infiltrate a group of Nazis who are working out of Brazil following WWII.  They need to find out what is being done using Alexander Sebastian's house as a cover.  Sebastian used to be in love with Alicia which complicates things as she and Devlin have fallen in love while preparing her for this mission.  They want to use Sebastian's attraction to Alicia as their way into his operation.

It's going to take three more cups to keep me awake
through this movie

She does her job so well, Alex asks her to marry him.  Alex' mother doesn't trust her, though, and she's suspicious about the coincidence of Alicia turning up in Brazil.  They wed, and she is assigned to find a way to get into the wine cellar.  There is something about the wine cellar that has the Nazis edgy so the secret must be there.

She steals the key and smuggles it to Devlin at a party thrown by Alex.  Devlin goes to the cellar while Alicia watches the door.  While searching through the room, he accidentally breaks a bottle and finds not wine but a powdered metallic ore.  He slips out with a sample.  Alex heads to the cellar to get more wine for the party and notices his key is missing.  Having caught Devlin and Alicia outside the door earlier, he suspects what they were up to.

He gets up in the middle of the night and finds the key back on the ring.  He goes down to the cellar to check on things and discovers evidence of that they found the fake wine bottle.  Alex tells his mother that he has married an American agent.  His mother ruthlessly decides Alicia must die, and that they will poison her slowly to make it appear she has simply fallen ill.

The ore is uranium.  Now that they have this information, Devlin is transferring to Spain.  He sees Alicia and knows something is up.  He's still her handler until his transfer, and when she misses a meeting, he drops by to see how she is.  Alicia is slowly being poisoned, and she suspects it.  Devlin escorts her from the house, telling Alex if he tries to stop him he will tell his Nazi friends that Alex is married to a spy.  Alex knows this will get him killed so he begs to go with them.  Devlin leaves him to his fate instead.

MacGuffin: The uranium ore

Hitchcock cameo: Drinking champagne at the party

Hitchcock themes: 

• Stairs
• Suspense
• Spies

Verdict: This is the most wildly overrated film in Hitchcock's canon.  When you read about this film, you'll find breathless praise and talk about perfect films and best movies.  I find this inexplicable as the first half to two-thirds of the movie drags on interminably.  It's overly talky, none of the relationships are remotely believable, and it is slow-paced to the point of tedium.  That said, the last part of the movie, from the party with the cellar scene on shows that there was a decent germ of a movie buried in there.  Unfortunately, that last 40 minutes is not good enough to make up for the first 60.  Cary Grant gives a one note performance, Ingrid Bergman is passable although not pretty enough to be the femme fatale men fall in love with at first sight, and Claude Rains is too old to play a romantic rival to Grant.  Rains was made to stand on a box for several of his scenes with Ingrid Bergman. This causes his height to vary wildly throughout the film.

Hitchcock claimed that the FBI had him under surveillance for three months because the film dealt with uranium.  Hitchcock consulted Nobel Prize winner Dr. Robert Millikan on how to make an atomic bomb. He refused to answer, but confirmed that the principal ingredient, uranium, could fit in a wine bottle.

The overhyped on-again, off-again kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was designed to skirt the Hayes Code that restricted kisses to no more than three seconds each.

There are several shots looking down from above the stairs which are well done with the most well-known being the one that follows down the stairs across the room and zooms in slowly on Bergman's hand holding the wine cellar key.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: The Paradine Case

Spellbound

Spellbound (1945) 

Notable cast/crew: Ingrid Bergman as Constance Peterson.  This marks the first of three movies she made with Hitchcock.  Gregory Peck as John Ballantyne.  This was his first of two films with Hitchcock.  Michael Chekhov as Dr Alexander Brulov.  Leo G Carroll as Dr Murchison.  This was the third of six films with Hitchcock.  Rhonda Fleming as Mary Carmichael.  Norman Lloyd as Mr Garmes.  Lloyd was previously in Saboteur.  Dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali.  Score by Miklós Rózsa.

Running time: 111 minutes (118 minutes with overture/exit score)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: At Green Manors, Dr Constance Peterson works as a psychiatrist.  She's treating Mary Carmichael who has violent outbursts and a schizophrenic relationship towards men.  Dr Murchison oversees the facility, but he's retiring soon with Dr Edwardes taking his place.  Dr Edwardes arrives and is introduced to everyone.

Eye put a spell on you

At dinner, Dr Peterson makes some lines on the tablecloth with a fork which unnerves Dr Edwardes.  As they spend time getting to know each other, a romance blossoms.  While embracing her, he is again unnerved by lines on her robe.  When Mr Garmes, another patient, injures himself in a violent outburst, the doctors rush to emergency surgery.  There, Dr Edwardes has some kind of breakdown, talking incoherently.  Dr Peterson tends to him, but she notices his signature from a note that morning does not match her old autographed copy of a book he wrote years before.  She realizes he is not Dr Edwardes.

"Dr Edwardes" says the real doctor is dead, and he killed him.  He claims to not know who he is, having complete amnesia, but somehow came to be posing as Dr Edwardes though he thinks he killed him.  He has a cigarette case on him with the initials "J B" which makes his head ache when he sees it.  He leaves for New York to try to find out more.  Dr Peterson tracks him down there and vows to help him remember who he is and what happened.

He seems to know quite a lot about psychiatric medicine so she believes he was a doctor.  The newspaper article on Edwardes' disappearance says Edwardes was last seen with a patient of his which is who the fake Dr Edwardes believes himself to be.  They head to Rochester to see Dr Brulov who is an old colleague of Dr Peterson.

"JB" goes into a surreal dream sequence filled with symbols as Dr Brulov psychanalyzes him.  After intensive therapy, they find he has been stricken by the memory of accidentally killing his brother as a child.  His name is John Ballantyne, and he is a doctor.  He had met Edwardes while he was recovering from trauma suffered during war.  He saw Edwardes fall off a cliff while skiing and had taken on Edwardes' identity as a kind of dissociation with seeing another death.  When the authorities find Edwardes' body, they find a bullet in his back.  Ballantyne is still missing the final piece.  He is arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder.

Dr Murchison comforts Peterson and mentions he knew Edwardes only slightly...but previously he had claimed never to have met the man.  She confronts Dr Murchison and finds he had in fact known Edwardes: he had considered Edwardes stealing his practice at Green Manors, and it was he who killed Edwardes, not Ballantyne.  Murchison pulls a gun on her, but she convinces him there is enough evidence to prove his guilt.  She reasons with him that he won't kill her because he can still use an insanity defense for Edwardes' murder, but he'll lose this defense if he kills her.  She leaves, and he kills himself instead.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking out of the elevator at the Empire Hotel

Hitchcock themes: 

• Identity

Verdict: A great film, but it falls a little short.  The ending wraps up rather quickly and neatly, and the large focus on psychoanalysis has not held up as well over time.  However, this is a very visual movie, and the aesthetics have held up well.  The music is also top notch and really sets the mood for the mystery, suspense, and dreamlike quality to much of the movie.  The shot where the audience sees the killer's view down a gun barrel pointing at Peterson was filmed using a giant hand holding a giant gun to get the perspective correct. Although the film is in black and white, two frames where the gun shot goes off while pointed at the camera are tinted red.  This sequence even now holds up quite well.  The famous Dali sequence was originally longer but was cut down to a scant two minutes.  While it's not as strong as those involved in making the movie wanted, it still has a striking quality and the effect has clearly lasted as the imagery used is still remembered by people decades later.

Spellbound won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael Chekhov); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Director; Best Effects, Special Effects; and Best Picture. Ingrid Bergman received the New York Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress for the film in 1945.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Notorious

Lifeboat

Lifeboat (1944) 

Notable cast/crew: Tallulah Bankhead as Constance "Connie" Porter.  William Bendix as Gus Smith.  Walter Slezak as Willy.  Mary Anderson as Alice MacKenzie.  John Hodiak as John Kovac.  Henry Hull as Charles J Rittenhouse.  Heather Angel as Mrs Higley.  Hume Cronyn as Stanley "Sparks" Garrett.  Canada Lee as George "Joe" Spencer.  Written by John Steinbeck.

Running time: 96 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A ship and a German U-boat sink each other.  A handful of survivors make their way through the wreckage to a lifeboat.  John Kovac from the engine room swims up first and finds Connie Porter already seated there in a fur coat.  She's a reporter who got photos of the entire incident.  A cry for help leads them to Sparks Garrett, another crewman.  He blows a whistle which elicits a reply from three others who are stranded on flotsam: Alice MacKenzie (a US Army nurse), Gus Smith (another crewman), and Charles J Rittenhouse (a wealthy industrialist).  They're brought aboard, but Gus has an injured leg.  While they're discussing treatment for his leg, another cry for help alerts them to Joe Spencer, the ship's steward, who is holding up a woman (Mrs Higley) and her baby.  The baby dies moments after they bring them aboard, and Mrs Higley refuses to relinquish the body.  She's suffering from shock and doesn't realize the child is dead.  Lastly, a sailor hauls himself into the boat: Willy, a survivor from the U-boat.

Hitchcock's best cameo

Willy, speaking only German with Connie, says the U-boat was under Captain's orders to sink the ship, but he denies being the Captain or even an officer, just a crewman.  A debate ensues on whether to toss him overboard or let him live.  As they debate, Mrs Higley realizes her child is dead.  She lets the body fall, and it lands in Willy's arms.  Mrs Higley has to be restrained from beating Willy, clearly blaming him.  They bury the child at sea, and Willy is allowed to stay in the boat.  They have to tie Mrs Higley down to prevent her from jumping into the sea after her baby, but through it all Willy appears completely unconcerned if not bored.  When they awake the next morning, Mrs Higley is gone.  The rope she was bound with is still tied to the chair, but it leads down into the water.  The rope is cut, and she is now rejoined with her dead child.

Willy secretly has a compass.  The rest of the survivors begin to organize and assign duties.  They craft a makeshift sail.  Willy gives them a different heading than they think will point them to Bermuda, and Connie tricks him into revealing that he was actually the captain of the U-boat.  Kovac and Sparks refuse to listen to him and set course for a different direction.  After some time has passed, Gus' leg becomes gangrenous.  Willy claims to have been a surgeon in civilian life and offers to do the amputation.  Kovac is suspicious since Willy is not in the Medical Corps, but there's no one else to do it.  They give Gus an entire bottle of brandy and amputate his leg.

Willy claims to lose his confidence in the heading he has been trying to get them to use and says one can't know without a compass, which he has been secretly checking.  The urgency of needing to get Gus to a hospital makes them change to follow Willy's course.  As night falls, Sparks uses the stars to figure out Willy's course is wrong.  The others begin to mistrust him again.  They have Joe lift Willy's watch to discover it's his compass.  As they argue, they are hit by a storm.  Sparks is flung over the side, and they scramble to rescue him.  At this point, Willy begins shouting instructions in English directing them in how to save the boat.  In fact, he speaks several languages.  They lose their rations and water, as well as the mast.

As days pass, Gus begins drinking seawater surreptitiously.  He falls into delirium, and when he sees Willy secretly has a flask of water, Sparks doesn't believe him and goes back to sleep.  Willy takes advantage of it.  As the others sleep, he pushes Gus overboard into the ocean.  Willy lies to the others and claims Gus threw himself over the side.  They don't trust him, and Sparks remembers Gus saying something about Willy having water.  The sweat on his brow gives him away.  Joe searches Willy, but the flask is dropped and breaks.  Willy reveals he has been rowing them towards a German supply ship.  In a rage, the rest of them, save Joe, beat Willy to death and cast him over the side.

The German supply ship comes into view, but before the landing party can reach them, they turn back and see their ship under fire from Allied forces.  The German launch is destroyed, and the ship takes off, barely missing the lifeboat.  The German ship is hit and explodes.  A young German sailor climbs aboard and pulls a gun on them.  Joe disarms him, and they decide not to kill him despite his expectation of it.  The Allied ship will soon arrive to rescue them all.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: In the newspaper ad for "Reduco"

Hitchcock themes: 

• Identity

Verdict: This an absolute masterpiece.  Hitchcock used the construct of a war-time sea disaster to explore morality, rules of civilization, class, and race.  It is the first in Hitchcock's "limited-setting" films, the others being Rope, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window. The film is unique among Hitchcock's American films for having no musical score during the narrative; the Fox studio orchestra was only utilized for the opening and closing credits.  It received Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Original Story and Best Cinematography - Black and White.  Tallulah Bankhead won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.  It was named one of the 10 Best Films of 1944 by Film Daily and was nominated for Best Picture of 1944 by the National Board of Review.

Illnesses were a constant part of the production from the beginning. Before shooting began, William Bendix replaced actor Murray Alper when Alper became ill, and after two weeks of shooting, director of photography Arthur Miller was replaced by Glen MacWilliams because of illness.  Tallulah Bankhead came down with pneumonia twice during shooting, and Mary Anderson became seriously ill during production, causing several days of production time to be lost.  Hume Cronyn suffered two cracked ribs and nearly drowned when he was caught under a water-activator making waves for a storm scene.  He was saved by a lifeguard.

This contains my favorite Hitchcock cameo, and easily the most original one in his films.  The problem arose of how do you have a cameo in a film where all of the movie takes place within a lifeboat cast adrift on the sea?  Hitchcock originally considered posing as a body floating past the lifeboat, which he later considered again for his cameo in Frenzy, but after his success with weight loss, Hitchcock decided to pose for "before" and "after" photos for an advertisement for a fictional weight-loss drug, "Reduco", shown in a newspaper which was in the boat. Supposedly, he later received hundreds of letters from people asking where they could buy "Reduco", which he used again in Rope, where Hitchcock's profile and "Reduco" appear on a red neon sign.

It is supposedly still the smallest ever Hollywood film set with most of the shooting having been done in a boat in a water tank.  Hitchcock insisted that the boat never remain stationary and that there always be an added touch of ocean mist and fog compounded of oil forced through dry ice.  During filming, several crew members noted that Tallulah Bankhead was not wearing underwear.  When advised of this situation, Hitchcock observed, "I don't know if this is a matter for the costume department, makeup, or hairdressing."  During the beginning of filming, Mary Anderson asked Hitchcock what he thought, "is my best side." He dryly responded, "You're sitting on it, my dear."  Canada Lee (Joe) was allowed to write his own lines.

There is a subtle jab at the Nazi mythos in that Willy, while rescuing everyone, gives off the "Superman" image of being able to row for days unfatigued without food or water.  In reality, he has a hidden water supply and energy pills.  His "superiority" lies not in any genetic or physical advantage; rather, it resides in his preparedness and single-mindedness of purpose.  Once the others stop squabbling and band together, they are able to overpower him with ease despite having had no food or water.  It is telling that the weakest among them, Alice, leads the charge to kill him conveying the ultimate humiliation for the "Master Race".

Class, race, and the trappings of civilization quickly fall away on the boat as survival takes preeminence.  Rittenhouse and Joe are contrasted as Ritt, stripped of his wealth and possessions, falls into pessimism and despair while Joe is strengthened by his faith in God and remains above the fighting.  There is some question in my mind as to whether they regained their civilized attitudes toward the young sailor only because they knew rescue was imminent.  Had there not been a ship in sight, would they have killed the sailor after the trouble Willy caused when they allowed him to live initially?  That question hangs over the end of the film, and the question of what to do with a people who behaves that way is left up to the dead to judge.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Spellbound

Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 

Notable cast/crew: Teresa Wright as Charlie.  Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie.  Henry Travers as Joseph Newton.  Patricia Collinge as Emma Newton.  Hume Cronyn as Herbie Hawkins.  He also appeared in Lifeboat and would help write Rope and Under Capricorn.  Wallace Ford as Fred Saunders.  Thornton Wilder contributed as a writer.  Dmitri Tiomkin scored the film, the first of four he would score for Hitchcock.

Running time: 108 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Charlie Oakley is on the run from unnamed pursuers.  He's flush with cash and decides to head to the small town of Santa Rosa to lie low.  His namesake, his niece Charlie Newton, gets the idea at the same time, that she's bored with life in Santa Rosa and would like to see her uncle.  She's elated to find out via a telegraph he'd already sent that he's soon to arrive.  The family picks him up at the train station, and it's clear he has a close connection with Charlie.

Pardon me; I have a train to catch

He gives his niece a ring which she notices has an inscription in it.  He claims the jeweler rooked him and sold him a used piece, but it clearly upsets him more than it should.  Niece Charlie gets the "Merry Wives of Windsor" waltz stuck in her head which again unnerves her uncle.  Family friend Herbie Hawkins arrives to discuss his hobby, the perfect murder, with Charlie's father, Joseph.  While they're outside, Uncle Charlie sees something in the paper that disturbs him, and he takes the page out so no one sees it.

Charlie notices the page and playfully teases her uncle that she knows his secret: that there's something in the paper about him that he didn't want anyone to see.  He again reacts strongly but convinces her to drop it.  The next morning his sister, Charlie's mother, tells him there are men taking a government survey who want to interview them and take their picture for a program they're doing.  Uncle Charlie wants no part of it.

Charlie figures out the men are really detectives.  She confronts one of them, and he explains they're looking for a killer on the loose who may be her uncle.  There's a second suspect back East, but they aren't certain which of them is the killer so both men are being tracked.  Charlie begins to suspect her uncle given all of his suspicious behavior so she goes to the library to look up the newspaper from the day prior to see what it was her uncle was hiding from them.

The article is a notice of a manhunt for the Merry Widow Murderer, a man who had strangled three rich widows and taken their money.  The latest victim's initials match the inscription inside Charlie's ring.  At dinner that night, Uncle Charlie makes a blatant diatribe against old, rich women even questioning their humanity.  Herbie arrives to talk to Joseph, and their discussion of murder disturbs Charlie enough that she runs out on dinner.  Uncle Charlie goes after her to talk to her.  He gives her a lecture on his view of the world: it's a sty, and the people in it are swine.

He all but confesses to her, and he resolves to leave if she will just give him a few days' head start before she tells the detectives.  In the interim, the other suspect was killed and dismembered in an airplane accident, and the authorities have assumed he was the killer.  Uncle Charlie is delighted he's off the hook, but Charlie knows better.  She tells him to leave, but he's decided to settle down there in town.  She threatens to kill him herself if he doesn't leave.  He tries to kill her by locking her in the garage with the car running, but Herbie notices the exhaust and alerts the family.  Uncle Charlie decides to leave town.

He has Charlie accompany him onto the train to see him off.  Uncle Charlie detains her until the train starts to depart.  He attempts to kill her by throwing her from the train, but in the struggle she pushes him from the train.  He falls onto the tracks as another train approaches from the other direction and is killed.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Playing cards on the train to Santa Rosa

Hitchcock themes: 

• Identity
• Murder
• Suave villain

Verdict: This was Hitchcock's favorite film.  He loved the thought of bringing menace into a small town according to his daughter, Pat Hitchcock.  In the score, Dmitri Tiomkin quotes the famous "Merry Widow Waltz" of Franz Lehár as a leitmotif for Uncle Charlie and his serial murders.  During the opening credits, the waltz theme is heard along with a prolonged shot of couples dancing and is referenced several times throughout the film, ultimately at his death.

There is an overhead shot early in the film when Uncle Charlie is being chased that became a staple of Hitchcock films.  The camera is high above the action giving almost a God's eye view.  He'd use this again all the way up to his last movie, Family Plot.

The rest of the film is more of a character study, and Joseph Cotten is riveting as Uncle Charlie.  His two monologues late in the film take what had been a charming, affable character and pulls down the mask to reveal a man who hates the world and despises the people in it.  Cotten was a close friend of Hitchcock's, and he does an excellent job in the role playing against type.  The rest of the cast works well enough, but are mostly serviceable playing people from a small town.  Hume Cronyn stands out in his film debut as a nebbishy man obsessed with a murder he'd never be capable of committing.  There is an interesting contrast there between him and Cotten who actually is a murderer but never speaks of it.

The film is solid enough, but feels a bit too slowly paced at times.  It doesn't hold up under repeated viewings like Vertigo or Psycho do, largely because we don't get more than a glimpse of the real Uncle Charlie.  Worth a watch for Cotten's performance, though.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Lifeboat

Saboteur

Saboteur (1942) 

Notable cast/crew: Priscilla Lane as Pat Martin.  Robert Cummings as Barry Kane.  Otto Kruger as Tobin.  Norman Lloyd as Fry.  Ian Wolfe as Robert.

Running time: 109 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Barry Kane, Ken Mason, and Frank Fry all work in the same airplane factory.  When a fire breaks out, Fry hands Kane a fire extinguisher which he passes to Mason.  The extinguisher is filled with gasoline which immediately explodes killing Mason.  Later, Kane tells the investigators what happened and that Fry gave him the extinguisher.  The police come looking for Kane when they can find no record of someone called Fry.  He goes on the lam in search of Fry whose address he had seen on an envelope Fry dropped.  He hitches a ride with a trucker and sets out for Deep Springs Ranch.

You're in good hands

He meets Charles Tobin who owns the ranch but claims to have never heard of Fry.  While Tobin steps inside to phone his neighbor to ask about Fry, Tobin's toddler granddaughter plays with the mail left outside.  In doing so, she drops a letter addressed to Fry care of Tobin which Kane sees.  Tobin has been calling the police and has Kane arrested.  The police refuse to listen to Kane's accusations that Tobin is behind the factory fire, but he is able to make his escape again and flees into the woods.

He comes across a cabin in the woods inhabited by Pat Martin and her blind uncle.  Her uncle convinces her to help Kane and not turn him in.  She accompanies him to Soda City in search of Fry, but it appears to be a ghost town.  They find a hideout for the saboteurs, and Kane tricks one of them into taking him with them to New York by making them think he's one of them.  Unfortunately, he arrives to find Pat has been captured and is waiting there for him with Tobin.

Tobin is leaving the country now that the police are closing in on them all thanks to Pat's uncle having notified the police before she left for New York.  Kane is knocked out, comes to the next morning, and effects his escape by setting off the fire alarm.  He heads to the Brooklyn Naval Yards where the saboteurs are planning on striking again that morning.  As he runs through the Yards, he sees Fry.  They struggle, and Fry fights him off long enough to set off the explosive charge at the ship launching but too late to destroy the ship.  Kane is held at gunpoint, but when they arrive back at Rockefeller Plaza, the police are waiting for them having been alerted by Pat.  Fry escapes into the Radio City Music Hall.  Pat follows him down to the Statue of Liberty, and the FBI bring Kane with them to round him up.  Kane chases him to the top of the torch, but Fry panics and falls over the rail.  He clings to the hand while Kane climbs over to try to pull him up.  Kane can only get a grip on Fry's jacket sleeve, but the sleeve tears off sending Fry to fall to his death.

MacGuffin: Whereabouts of Frank Fry

Hitchcock cameo: Standing in front of Cut Rate Drugs

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Falsely accused hero
• Suave villain

Verdict: This was Hitchcock's first film for Universal. The idea had been developed by David O Selznick, but he sold the rights and loaned Hitchcock with the production.  Hitchcock did not get his first choice for Kane, Pat, or Tobin.  Bob Cummings and Priscilla Lane are solid as the leads in roles that really only require them to move the plot along, but we know virtually nothing about them.  Otto Kruger is unctuous as Tobin; however, Hitchcock wanted to go with a more "all-American" villain to play up how the saboteur Fifth Column could hide in plain sight.  He felt Kruger was too obvious as a stereotypical villain.  Norman Lloyd makes his screen debut as Fry and does an excellent job mixing menace, arrogance, smugness, and panic in a role largely devoid of spoken dialog.

The film is structured much like The 39 Steps including an escape scene in a river under a bridge, a handcuffed suspect on the run with a blonde, and an early confrontation with a traitorous villain who chases the hero the rest of the movie.  There is also a scene that, if not an homage, borrows heavily from The Bride of Frankenstein, where Kane encounters a noble, blind man living in a cabin in the woods who aids him.  All told, the movie is a straight-ahead adventure/thriller, and generally the plot holds up well.  The pacing is good, and the climactic scene on the Statue of Liberty is one of the most well-known in Hollywood history.

For that scene, they built a full-scale model of the hand and torch and filmed the scenes on the torch.  The torch was then able to be rotated at an angle to make Fry appear to be dangling and looking up at the camera.  In reality, he is lying on his stomach looking up (forward) towards the camera.  There are several shots composited with matte paintings and matte film to give the illusion of the real Statue of Liberty being used.  The final shot of Fry falling to his death was done with Lloyd seated on a saddle-like chair with the camera mounted to a platform above him.  The saddle and background (floor) were black, and matte film was placed on the background to show the ground below (essentially how blue/green screen effects work today, but done without benefit of digital effects).  The camera platform then was hoisted up into the air with Lloyd stationary on the saddle, occasionally moving his arms or legs for effect.  Even though Lloyd doesn't look completely natural, the shot was technically innovative for its time, and it still holds up well today.

There are a surprising number of loose ends unresolved: did Tobin make good on his escape being the main one, but they aren't enough to drag the film down.  The movie is entertaining, and the final scene leaves a lasting impression.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Shadow of a Doubt

Suspicion

Suspicion (1941) 

Notable cast/crew: Cary Grant as Johnnie (the 1st of four Hitchcock films).  Joan Fontaine as Lina (she previously starred in Rebecca).  Sir Cedric Hardwicke as General McLaidlaw (he would also appear in Rope).  Nigel Bruce as Beaky (he had been in Rebecca).  Dame May Whitty  as Mrs McLaidlaw (she was previously in The Lady Vanishes).  Isabel Jeans as Mrs Newsham (marking her third and final Hitchcock film).  Leo G Carroll as Captain Melbeck (the 2nd of 6 Hitchcock films).

Running time: 99 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: Johnnie encounters Lina on a train and imposes on her for some change to pay his fare when he comes up short.  She obliges and recognizes him in the society page.  He next sees her at a fox hunt and recognizes her as the woman from the train and finagles an invitation into meeting her.  She initially resists his advances, but hearing her parents' talk that she's turning into a spinster changes her mind.  She begins to despair after several cancelled dates, but she then receives a telegram from Johnnie telling her to meet him at the next ball.

Got milk?

Johnnie insinuates himself into her father's party at the ball since he has no invitation of his own and sneaks off with her.  Johnnie does not think her father cares for him and openly comments about it.  There is a whirlwind romance followed by a hasty elopement and honeymoon.    He buys her a house with a staff of servants.  But then she learns he has no money.  He's a cad who has conned and worked angles his entire life to get by while maintaining a high society lifestyle.  She convinces him he needs to get an honest job and to stop borrowing money.

Her father sends them antique chairs as a wedding gift which suddenly go missing.  Johnnie's friend Beaky shows up and mentions Johnnie has been racking up gambling debts and bets the chairs were sold to pay them.  It turns out he had indeed sold them.  Beaky laughingly suggests Johnnie is less than forthright about how he sold them which upsets Lina.  Lina is more upset when she sees the chairs in an antique shop which confirms Beaky's suspicion.  He sold them to pay his bookie and in turn parlayed that into a winning bet at the track.  Then he bought the chairs back.

She finds out more and more about Johnnie and comes to believe he is of poor character and that legal action is going to be taken against him for his debts.  She considers leaving him.  Her father passes, and Johnnie is disappointed with the inheritance having hoped to cash in and pay off his debts.  She later counsels Beaky not to let Johnnie use his money to fund a business venture where Johnnie alone controls the finances.  This upsets Johnnie.

She begins to suspect Johnnie capable of murder to solve his financial plight.  Beaky turns up dead in Paris, heightening her suspicion.  Johnnie had been with Beaky but went missing right before his death.  He returns home saying he left Beaky in London.  She suspects Johnnie of having murdered Beaky to get the money that was invested in their corporation.  She then suspects Johnnie may be planning her murder when she finds a telegram informing him that a loan against her life insurance cannot be made: it will only pay out on her death.

He brings her a glass of milk which she supposes to be poisoned and refuses to drink.  He takes her to her mother's for a vacation, but he flies around curves causing her to fear he's trying to kill her.  They have it out, and she finds he has been contemplating killing himself to get out of his debts.  He was not in Paris with Beaky, and she has misjudged him.  They return home to face their trials together.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Posting a letter at the village post office

Hitchcock themes: 

• Blondes
• Identity
• Murder

Verdict: This is a well-regarded movie, but it starts slowly and is undercut by the ending.  The movie is well-cast, and Joan Fontaine won Best Actress for it (although some think she was rewarded as a make-up for not having won for her superior performance in Rebecca the previous year, which I concur with).  The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.  In the most famous scene, where Johnnie brings a glass of milk up to Lina, there is a light hidden in the glass to make it stand out with an ethereal, sinister glow.  There is an earlier scene where Lina faints, and her dress billows out beneath her like pooling blood.  It is a subtle hint at her state of mind as murder has just been suggested for the first time.  Hitchcock would use this effect much more blatantly and effectively in Topaz.  The dog in the movie was Hitchcock's: a Sealyham Terrier named "Johnnie".

Hitchcock originally wanted the ending from the book the movie was based on: Johnnie to be guilty, but the studio insisted that the public wouldn't accept Cary Grant as a murderer.  As William L. De Andrea states in his Encyclopedia Mysteriosa, Suspicion "was supposed to be the study of a murder as seen through the eyes of the eventual victim."  In Hitchcock's own words: "Well, I'm not too pleased with the way Suspicion ends.  I had something else in mind.  The scene I wanted, but it was never shot, was for Cary Grant to bring her a glass of milk that's been poisoned, and Joan Fontaine has just finished a letter to her mother: 'Dear Mother, I'm desperately in love with him, but I don't want to live because he's a killer.  Though I'd rather die, I think society should be protected from him.'  Then, Cary Grant comes in with the fatal glass, and she says, 'Will you mail this letter to Mother for me, dear?'  She drinks the milk and dies. Fade out and fade in on one short shot: Cary Grant, whistling cheerfully, walks over to the mailbox and pops the letter in."

Hitchcock's ending was never filmed. Several reasons for changing Hitchcock's preferred ending to the one in the movie have included: the audience reacted badly to Hitchcock's preferred ending (unlikely if the ending had never even been shot), the studio (RKO) wouldn't allow Cary Grant to play a murderer, and the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (the Hays Code) mandated that a murderer could not get away with it in the end.

Regardless of the reason, the change to Johnnie being misunderstood undercuts the tension and suspicion that has been building throughout the movie around his character and makes Lina look like a twitchy nutcase.  It's an okay film, but it's overrated for my tastes.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Saboteur