Yep, I'd say that's by design. And like @Dr. pointed out, very much in the style of the Alfred Hitchcock people had been watching on TV on a regular basis.
Nope, I've only seen the Gus Van Sant remake, which was crap. Can't say I have a burning desire to see the sequels. I agree turning it into a franchise feels wholly unnecessary. I didn't even care for the Bates Motel TV show, which a lot of people liked.
5.) North by Northwest (1959)
If you’re one of those who likes Hitchcock’s techniques or appreciates him on a technical level but prefer his spy capers over terror/suspense, then you’d probably consider North By Northwest to be the ultimate Hitchcock film. It’s got all the classic Hitch staples – the case of mistaken identity, the mysterious MacGuffin, the icy cool blonde, murder, and of course, suspenseful set-pieces. All wrapped in a gorgeous package of masterful camera work, a lush Bernard Herrmann score, and the ever-so-stylish Cary Grant. As great as Saboteur and The 39 Steps are, in many ways, they feel like early drafts of this – the movies Hitchcock needed to make in order to perfect his spy caper model. And make no mistake; the model has reached peak form with North by Northwest. The plot keeps surprising, the banter crackles more than ever and the set-pieces have never been more spectacular.
Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, the smooth but hapless ad exec who gets mistaken for a secret agent named George Kaplan by a couple of thugs in a swanky New York hotel bar just because he happened to flag down a waiter at precisely the wrong moment. As a result, Thornhill is a kidnapped, interrogated and almost killed by James Mason’s evil spy character, Phillip Vandamm (what a name!). After surviving the attempted murder, Thornhill ends up getting framed for an actual murder, and decides the only way to clear his name is to go on the run, get to the bottom of this and track down the real George Kaplan. While trying to evade police on a train, he meets the charming but mysterious (and yes, blonde) Eve Kendall, played with pure coolness by Eva Marie Saint. Their meeting is seemingly happenstance as she helps hide him from the police, but really, Eve secretly works for Vandamm. Of course there’s a flirty rapport that develops between the two, and of course Eve’s gonna catch feelings for the guy she’s setting up, but it’s hard to deny it’s all damn fun to watch regardless of perceived predictability. And don't let the tropes fool you - some major beats may be predictable, but Hitch is a master at surprising audiences and there is no shortage of surprises here.
As much as many might consider this the ultimate Hitchcock film, I think even more might consider it the ultimate Cary Grant film. Whenever someone imagines quintessential Cary Grant, whatever they’re imagining is almost certainly present somewhere in this film. The hapless, goofy side, the suave side, the romantic side, and the sly, calculating side – they all show up here. It’s a credit to Grant’s charisma and unique talents that this character, on paper, should be an enviable, untouchable Don Draper type, and yet, Thornhill so often feels like an everyman. You pretty much want to root for him instantly. His chemistry and interplay with Saint is dynamite and is absolutely vital to the audience’s connection to and investment in what could otherwise come across as a rather outlandish spy adventure.
North by Northwest is also arguably Hitchcock’s biggest film. The set-pieces have to be the largest scale of his career. There’s of course the iconic sequence where Thornhill is left to fend for himself amid some cornfields and is suddenly chased down by a terrifying crop-duster, the sequence which probably comes closest to rivaling the Psycho shower scene as the most spoofed and referenced of his career. There’s also the near-equally iconic climax at Mount Rushmore, which is both grand in heart-pounding suspense and in visual scale. The film’s scope isn’t just big in its set-pieces, it’s in the sprawling nature of the adventure. It starts out in a hotel bar in New York City, and takes us to all sorts of locations including Long Island and Chicago, giving us a wide variety of snapshots of Americana imagery, landing us at that iconic South Dakota landmark. When the film finishes, the audience truly feels like they’ve been on an epic adventure across the country. It’s also a brilliant textbook example of pacing and rising stakes. When the film starts, Thornhill’s bad luck is largely played for laughs, but the stakes just keep going up as the film progresses, and by the time he and Kendall get to Mount Rushmore, the audience is riveted.
Yeah, I have no doubt this film was hugely influential on the spy films that followed, particularly the Bond films. I had no idea about the working title of the film. "The Man on Lincoln's Nose" would've been....a choice, lol. But for all the comedy in the film it might've been fitting! The auction scene is indeed great. Can't believe I forgot to even mention Martin Landau. Totally editing him in real quick.Great review FlickChick. This would definitely be among my favourites and has some of the best set pieces. In fact, this would be an excellent template for many other action films. Even James Bond seemed to try to mimic the crop duster scene with the helicopter chase at the end of From Russia With Love. I would've loved to have seen what Hitchcock could do with a Bond film.
It's funny how the crop duster scene was probably become the most iconic of the film that everyone remembers. Hitchcock originally conceived the movie out of the idea of a chase across Mount Rushmore and then tried to figure out a plot for how to get Thornhill there. In fact, I believe the name of the film was originally going to be "The Man on Lincoln's Nose."
I also love the auction scene with Thornhill interrupting the bidding and purposely bidding lower than the current price instead of raising it. Whenever I go to an auction it always reminds me of this scene and I'm tempted to do the same thing.
It has a great cast with Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau all joining Cary Grant.
Yeah, I have no doubt this film was hugely influential on the spy films that followed, particularly the Bond films. I had no idea about the working title of the film. "The Man on Lincoln's Nose" would've been....a choice, lol. But for all the comedy in the film it might've been fitting! The auction scene is indeed great. Can't believe I forgot to even mention Martin Landau. Totally editing him in real quick.
Great review flickchick. Funnily enough, I was going to watch this today but ended up choosing Vertigo instead. I'll probably end up getting around to it this weekend. One of my personal favorites.
"The Man Who Sneezed in Lincoln's Nose" sounds even better.
Vertigo may be a bit higher on my list, but North by Northwest is definitely more of a go-to comfort film for me. Perfect flick to curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
I really like Vertigo up until the twist reveal. Never been a fan of Judy actually being the Madeleine Scottie loved as it took away some of the compelling nature of Scottie's descent to insanity for me. That said, the movie is still a filmmaking master class. The dolly zooms are still impressive today.
I've never been a blogger and I wouldn't know where to start there, but I'll look into it, because I think I'd like a more permanent, easy-to-find place to put these, if only for archival purposes for myself, along with any future viewing odysseys I go on. Thanks for the suggestion, CC!
It's from Vertigo, right after he wakes up from his nightmare. Guess I should edit the one in the Rear Window post, lol! I never even noticed Hitch made TWO movies with Jimmy Stewart being upset while wearing pajamas until this moment!BTW, isn't this image from Rear Window rather than Vertigo?
Well you've used it already for Rear Window on the previous page lol.
I appreciate the push, CC.
These are gonna start getting a little more long-winded as we start getting into the ones that are more interesting to me, so apologies ahead of time, lol.
37. Marnie (1964)
I’ve often seen this film referred to as Hitchcock’s last classic, which is funny, because it was not well-received when it came out. Personally, there are a few of his films made later than this that I prefer, but I get why this has that rep. This was the last film he made with his regular cinematographer, editor and of course composer Bernard Herrmann, so it does indeed feel like the end of an era in his career. And of course, controversy runs deep in this one. This is his 2nd and final collaboration with lead actress Tippi Hedren, who now alleges that he sexually assaulted her on the set of it, after she refused his advances that started on the set of The Birds. This horrifying backstory is made all the worse by what’s happening on screen. Marnie is the story of a woman who’s essentially a career kleptomaniac – she gets jobs as bookkeeper for various companies, steals their money, then changes her identity. She eventually makes the mistake of pulling this con on Mark, played by Sean Connery, whose company was a client of another one that she stole from, and he recognizes her. Mark hires her anyway for his own amusement, becomes infatuated with her, and when she eventually makes her move to steal from him, he tracks her down and instead of turning her in, makes himself an accomplice and forces her marry him. Marnie is a character with some deep sexual trauma in her past, and she’s got a lot of psychological hang-ups. Mark takes advantage of this on multiple occasions, and also becomes obsessed with finding the root of it. He also, in his lust and desire to possess her, rapes her after they’re married, even after playing “the good guy” and promising not to touch her just a day or two before. Mark is a monster in every sense of the word, who doesn’t see Marnie as a person so much as a puzzle to solve. So you can see how this would be extra disturbing to watch, given the real-life context. The parallels of Mark and Marnie’s relationship to Hitchcock and Hedren’s is downright eerie at times, and I get the fascination with this because it’s like we’re seeing Hitchcock’s own psychological hang-ups and sexual obsessions splayed out for all to see. But, I just don’t really hold this in as high esteem as others do because if you look past all that, and just look at the film itself, there are aspects that just aren’t that great by my estimation. The technical aspects are fantastic as only late Hitchcock could be, but the acting. Hoo boy, the acting. Sean Connery is borderline awful in this role. You never see his feelings change toward Marnie, one way or another. The lust and obsession we’re supposed to be seeing from him never materialize. In fact, based on this performance, if I had to guess, I would say he never even spoke to Hedren off-screen, that’s how little interest he shows. This next bit I feel bad saying because of what she went through, but Hedren honestly isn’t much better. She puts in a lot of effort, but she’s just not cut out for such a complex role as this, and it often comes across as a middle school drama version of this grisly subject matter. She’s far from my favorite Hitchcock leading lady, I’ll admit. The other aspect that doesn’t work so well for me is the armchair psychology at work that comes across as downright goofy at times. Now, Spellbound, a film I rank much, much higher on my list, has this same problem, but in that film it actually somewhat adds to the charm, because the story is more wild and escapist to begin with. When dealing with subject matter more sensitive and real such as this, it becomes much harder to find the charm in it.
36. Torn Curtain (1966)
Right on the heels of Marnie, Hitchcock returned to a well-worn, far less controversial stomping ground – a spy thriller. A more effective one at least, than Topaz, due in no small part to the more streamlined plot with one clear, central protagonist. Paul Newman stars as a rocket scientist (lol yes) who pretends to defect to East Berlin in order to procure some intel for US intelligence. This is complicated by the involvement of his fiancée, played by Julie Andrews, whom he didn’t let in on this little scheme, but who knows something’s up, knows he wouldn’t defect, and is determined to get to the bottom of it. As Hitchcock spy pictures go, this one’s more run-of-the-mill than most, but even a run-of-the-mill Hitchcock spy flick can be quite entertaining, and this one certainly has standout moments. There’s a fun cat-and-mouse sequence inside a Berlin museum, a couple of memorable chases, and one killer fight sequence in a farmhouse that is absolutely Hitchcock at his finest. Newman and Andrews as leads were apparently forced on Hitchcock by the studio and he reportedly wasn’t happy with them at all, but while their characters were a bit flat, I thought they acquitted themselves just fine here (certainly better than Connery and Hedren!). All that said, this is definitely one of those - like Topaz - that goes on too long and outstays its welcome.
35. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Yes, Alfred Hitchcock directed a Hollywood screwball comedy, and it actually turned out pretty well. Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard star as David and Ann, the titular married couple who naturally fight for days and make up on a regular basis, and who one day find out that, due to a technicality, their marriage of three years isn’t actually legal. When David doesn’t propose marriage again, Ann becomes indignant, believing he doesn’t want to be married to her any more, and this sets off a series of hijinks involving friends, lawyers, misunderstandings and the 1939 World’s Fair, all of which of course ultimately leads to our couple finding their way back to each other. There’s not a lot to digest here as this is really a “what you see is what you get” kind of film, and what you get is an entertaining movie carried by two charming leads.
34. Under Capricorn (1949)
Here’s where I need to go on a little tangent and state something that may be an unpopular opinion: Ingrid Bergman is the best female lead Hitchcock ever had. They collaborated 3 times, and I get the sense that if Bergman hadn’t been “exiled” from Hollywood immediately following this film (for the heinous crime of having an affair and getting pregnant out of wedlock!), the collaborations would have continued. I think it was in a Bergman documentary I once saw, where, when asked to describe their relationship, a mutual friend said he got the sense Hitchcock was always a little bit intimidated by Bergman, though they were very close and became lifelong friends. I’d buy that, because there’s a respect there in the characters he had her playing that isn’t present in most of his other female characters. There’s a fierceness and agency to them that is rare for Hitchcock heroines. Her characters from the two other films on the list have more of that than her character in Under Capricorn, who is more of a broken woman than we’re used to seeing her play, but she’s still ultimately a pretty strong character who nearly single-handedly gives this movie life. The movie is a period drama about a couple that has moved to Australia in the 1800’s (then populated by convicts) in order to escape a horrible secret from their past in Ireland, have started a new life, and face the threat of a newcomer determined to unravel the mystery of their previous life. Joseph Cotton, who’d previously collaborated with Hitchcock on Shadow of a Doubt, is solid here as the husband and convict Sam. Bergman plays his wife Henrietta, a former aristocrat who’s now an alcoholic recluse. Michael Wilding plays the upper-class newcomer who was Henrietta’s childhood sweetheart, and in trying to help her get back to some semblance of her former self, begins to unravel the secret they’ve worked so hard to bury. I’ve often seen this mentioned as one of Hitchcock’s worst, and I just can’t get on board with that. Sure, it’s far from one of his best. The story isn’t particularly thrilling and it doesn’t seem to know exactly what kind of movie it wants to be - for example there’s a weird subplot with a shrunken head that’s, well, weird – but it’s got a lot going for it. For one, the actors are great (including Margaret Leighton as their scheming housekeeper), and the cinematography and production design are lavish. That weird shrunken head bit, while seeming out of tune with the rest of the film, is decently creepy. The most impressive part to me, however, is the extended takes. Hitchcock made this right after Rope and employs a similar approach, albeit far less extreme, in using many extra-long takes. And when one of those extended takes is nearly 10 minutes of Ingrid Bergman monologue-ing her heart out, really, what’s there to complain about? Famous French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema named this one of Hitchcock’s very best, and while I wouldn’t go that far either, I think it’s a very worthwhile entry in his canon.
33. The Wrong Man (1956)
This is not your typical “wrong man accused” Hitchcock movie, because this film is based on a true story, and Hitchcock himself appears upfront and tells you so. It is, essentially, a docudrama, and he makes a point to keep it as true-to-life as possible (for him). This means he doesn’t sensationalize as much and exercises peak restraint over his more natural cinematic sensibilities, and that in and of itself makes this an interesting watch. Henry Fonda stars as a man who, through a series of bizarre coincidences, ends up being arrested and charged with armed robbery. Now don’t get me wrong, there are still some very nice, creatively composed shots in this film, so it’s not a “point and shoot” like some of his earliest stuff, but Hitchcock’s flashier flourishes are kept to a minimum as he tries to sell the authenticity. It’s cool to see him do something like this because it serves as a brilliant contrast to his other, more outlandish “wrong man” capers. Unlike the sensational conspiracies that usually drive those plots, the stylistic treatment of this as a real-life scenario brings home the chilling realization that all the outlandish stuff here really happened to someone, and therefore, could actually happen to anyone.
Next up, we've got a couple more pre-Hollywood pics, a couple seemingly overlooked ones from his most popular period, and one I'd consider to be an unfairly maligned late entry in his career.
3.) Strangers on a Train (1951)
I think at some point, we’ve all met that person. The stranger we encounter on a bus or at a store or at the airport who just comes on too strong. You’ve never met, yet this person is suddenly chatting you up like they’re your best friend. And sure, maybe they were just raised to be friendly, but most of us who’ve been raised in civilized society have been conditioned to believe there’s a such thing as boundaries, and there’s a such thing as too friendly. And most of us have at least a vague idea of where that line is. So when someone moseys on across that line, we inevitably start to feel like something is off with this person. Scenarios start running through our head of just how off this person might be, and what they might be capable of, even if all that’s really off with them is that they weren’t taught the same boundaries that we were. Well, no one knew better than Alfred Hitchcock that nothing is scarier than our own imaginations, and so with the Strangers on a Train, he was able to take that familiar paranoia and anxiety that comes from a common “what if” scenario we’ve all imagined, and channel it into the perfect thriller premise – what if this far-too-friendly stranger I just met is actually a dangerous psychopath? Well, correction: Patricia Highsmith (author of The Talented Mr. Ripley) did that when she wrote the book this is based on, and Hitchcock and his talented writing team, which officially included crime king Raymond Chandler but unofficially included his wife Alma Reville instead (Chandler and Hitchcock clashed big-time and Hitchcock vowed not to use a word Chandler wrote), took that novel and crafted it into the perfect cinematic thriller.
The film begins by introducing us to Farley Granger’s Guy Haines, a celebrated tennis pro with aspirations to go into politics. While on a train to see his fiancé, he meets Bruno, played to slimy perfection by Robert Walker. Bruno is that person to Guy – he walks the line between charming and creepy, and chats Guy up as if they are old friends. Guy responds the way I think most of us do. He plays along and humors him until he can politely escape when the train reaches its destination. And there’s where he gets into trouble. See, the more we learn about Bruno, the more he could be considered the polar opposite of Guy. For every point in his life Guy seems to have been blessed – be it upbringing, looks, romance or success - Bruno has, well, not. But it turns out, the two men have one crucial thing in common. They both have one person in their lives holding them back from their chance at happiness. For Guy, his fiancé Miriam is the problem. He and Miriam are separated due to Miriam’s constant cheating, but Guy has found love with Anne, the daughter of a Senator, and wants a divorce so that he can marry Anne. Miriam has decided not to grant Guy a divorce, and has revealed she is pregnant by one of her other lovers and will claim the child is Guy’s to ruin him in the press if he tries to leave her. Bruno’s problem is with his father, whom we learn little about beyond Bruno’s claims that he was neglectful parent and Bruno hates him. So what may start off as “friendly banter” on a train between strangers turns into Bruno casually presenting a scenario in which they solve each other’s problems by “swapping murders” – he would kill Miriam for Guy, and Guy would kill his father for him. They have no motive and no obvious connection to each other, so this would be a "perfect murder" plot (one of Hitchcock's favorite concepts!). Guy is visibly a little unsettled by this turn in conversation while ultimately taking it all in jest, but of course, this being a Hitchcock film means that Bruno is in fact a dangerous psychopath, and therefore, he wasn’t joking. And he takes Guy’s agreeable disposition as an actual agreement to do the deal. What follows is a masterful exercise in escalating suspense as Bruno carries out his end of the “bargain” by murdering Miriam, and then insinuates himself into Guy’s life when he realizes the latter has zero intention of following through with “his” murder. To heighten the stakes, Guy accidentally left his distinctive cigarette lighter on the train after his initial meeting with Bruno, and Bruno retained it to incriminate guy should he refuse to play his game.
Hitchcock uses a lot of his classic tricks here, one of the most effective being the characters’ relative situational naivety compared to the audience. We know things they do not, which is Hitchcock's ideal foundation for suspense. This is fantastically utilized in the extended sequence of Bruno stalking Miriam at a carnival. Miriam notices Bruno a few times, and out of context, he looks harmless enough. She just thinks him an admirer (she’s out having fun with other…admirers at the time). But while we haven't seen any violence from Bruno yet, we know of his conversation with Guy, and we know there’s something off about him, and we instinctively know the mere fact that he sought her out for real means he’s dangerous. Walker plays these scenes with just enough casual nonchalance to make us feel like Bruno’s friendly exterior is truly a well-practiced façade, making him exceedingly creepy the more we watch him. So watching Miriam willingly take herself to more and more secluded and vulnerable environments while this guy is following her is stressful as hell to watch. Hitchcock also employs a nice visual motif throughout the film involving dual counterparts. The way he films Guy and Bruno’s initial meeting looks almost like mirror images. Miriam’s ultra-thick glasses through which Hitchcock films her murder are so similar to the glasses worn by Anne’s sister (played by Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia), that they’re actually triggering to Bruno later in the film. Hitch is on record about including as many doubles in his shots as possible – double taxis, double drinks, etc. meant to emphasize duality within the story. After the one primary interaction we see Guy have with Miriam before her demise, we see him venting to Anne about how he’s so frustrated that he wants to kill her. Actually, he wants to strangle her. Which just so happens to be how Bruno later murders her. So Bruno could be said to be a dark mirror of Guy (or for Dexter fans, his “dark passenger” manifested into reality), hence their total contrasting characteristics. It’s also a light and dark theme he has going on, with Guy being gradually forced out of his bright world and into Bruno’s dark one. As usual, Hitchcock is very interested in the darkness lurking just below the surface (none more so than in my next entry on this list), and in Strangers on a Train, he uses this duality motif to illustrate that. Outside of the duality motif, there’s something gloriously fitting and bookend-ish about the fact that the iconic showdown at the climax of this film takes place on a runaway carousel – something fun and innocuous-turned-dangerous and deadly, as that’s essentially how the whole premise of the film kicks off. This film is more than just a cautionary tale about talking to strangers, it’s an exploration of privilege and obsession, a common theme in Highsmith’s other works as well. Highsmith and Hitchcock seem so well-suited in their creative sensibilities, I think it’s a damn shame this is the only time he adapted one of her books. I would have killed to see his take on Tom Ripley. And no, I don’t mean that literally, but then…how can you ever really know? We’re strangers, after all.
I could see Holden working in that role. Though I agree he likely wouldn't have projected the same nervous energy as Granger.
It's the 2nd gif I used!BTW I'm surprised you didn't include this iconic shot that apparently is studied in film classes today:
Another one I have not seen. Gotta add it to the list.
