DVD: ALFRED HITCHCOCK SEASON -TORN CURTAIN (1966)

Hitchcock didn't get on with his method-actor lead Paul Newman who kept wanting to know what his motivation was and wasn't satisfied with Hitchcock's answer: Your cheque. Hitchcock wanted Eva Marie Saint but had big star Julie Andrews forced on him. The script was a mess and British writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall had to do extensive and uncredited rewriting before it was even barely filmable. Hitchcock had a bust-up with long-term musical collaborator Bernard Herrmann over the score and even after a second attempt by BH, Hitch hired someone else for the final version. And just to put the nail in the coffin, there is no discernable chemistry between the two lead actors.

Despite all that, it's actually quite a watchable film if you can ignore the various stupidities of the plot. The standout scene is the extended killing of Newman's East German minder in  a farmhouse which was intended to show how hard and how grisly it is to actually kill someone. Shocking at the time, it now seems relatively tame but does retain a certain emotional impact.

Aside: Newman plays a scientist visiting a conference in Denmark, with fiance Andrews, when he defects to East Germany where she follows. It's a con of course as he's really there to steal an important scientific secret which will help his own work for the US government. When the East German authorities realise there's something amiss -like finding the dead body of the minder- Newman and Andrews go on the run.

Now, the most painful plot stupidity. Newman loses his minder and goes to visit his contact. Where is the contact? In a seedy hidden backstreet in East Berlin? No, it's in the country, on a farm, which neccessitates him taking a taxi. Spotted the weakness in the plan? Yes, the taxi driver can, and does, identify him and tells the authorities where he went.  While at the farm, he and a woman murder his minder (see above). Now where is the body (and the motorbike) buried? Is it miles away? No. Is it on the farm where the authorities can easily find it (them)? Yes. Superspies these people aren't.

Just one other thing. Hitchcock was known for making a brief appearance in every film he made and as a result this little piece of vanity lead cinema-goers to watch out for his appearance. They didn't have to try hard to spot him hear because the music blasts a loud cue that he was associated with from his TV show. They may as well have had a giant cardboard arrow onscreen pointing at him. It completely takes you out of the film.

(As usual, thanks to Wikipaedia for some details.)

DVD: ALFRED HITCHCOCK SEASON -THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955)

 

It's autumn in Vermont and not far from a very small town there's a body on the hill which is extremely inconvenient. For various reasons four people keep burying and then digging up the corpse and love blossoms. This is a gentle romantic comedy with four quirky characters, two elderly and two just past their early youth. And that's pretty much it. Harry the body is the macguffin that has the four of them involved with each other. Shirley MacLaine in her first lead role is very good displaying a great talent for comic dialogue. Bernard Herrmann, with his first score for Hitchcock, does a good airy job.

And that's it really. A minor pleasure allowing the director to show he can direct light comedy.

(The screenplay is based on a novel of the same name by the prolific British writer Jack Trevor Story who these days, alas, has all but been forgotten.)

DVD: ALFRED HITCHCOCK SEASON -VERTIGO (1958)

A few weeks ago I bought a 14-disc box set of Alfred Hitchcock movies and last night I began working my way through them. I started with this one because it happened to be the first in the box working from left to right and that's the way I'll continue until, some weeks or months hence, I conclude with The Birds. There's a curious connection between that and Vertigo. Both starred Hitchcock's favoured ice-blondes, in these instances Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren. Both actresses gave up acting in favour of looking after animals.

I like that.

Watching a documentary on the Vertigo disc about how it was restored from faded prints, there is the frequent refrain (repeated by Martin Scorsese who appears) that this is Hitchcock's best movie. Great, I thought, it's all downhill from here. Whether that is the case or not, I'll  let you know some time. Now I have seen Vertigo before and it's not impossible that I saw it on its first release as I'd have been about 10 and my mum and I were regular cinema-goers. I certainly remember the big twist about Novak's identity and what was really going on.

But I don't think that affected my reactions to it. What I did notice is how slow it is. Once the story has actually got into gear -he has vertigo, a friend has hired him to follow his wife- a considerable amount of time is spent with James Stewart driving around San Francisco as he tails Novak. Why does she go to a gallery and sit before one portrait? Why does she rent a room in an hotel and only stay a couple of hours a week? Why does she visit the grave of a woman dead for 60 years? Of course what's really happening is that Stewart himself is becoming obsessed with her, falling in love with this mysterious haunted (?) beautiful woman before he even speaks to her. Not much actually happens by contemporary standards but Hitchcock is slowly weaving his spell.

Once they do get together, things move quickly and end with her death when she runs up a tower where Stewart is unable to follow, or at least not quickly enough, and throws herself off. Some time later he sees her double and the love for the presumably dead woman becomes an obsession as he wants to transform this double into an identical duplicate.

I'm being deliberately vague here in case you don't know the story but honestly, you;'d have to be pretty slow not to work it out before Stewart does. That isn't really the point. To me it's about an obsession for the unknowable. He never understands Novak in either of her incarnations. It's as if he's in love with the mystery of her. This is given emphasis by his lack of romantic interest in an old friend played by Barbara Bel Geddes. This character is pretty and witty, and wise and in love with him but all he can offer her is friendship and she isn't even seen once the film reaches its halfway mark and the obsession completely takes over.

Great work from the three main actors, beautiful photography, and well Hitchcock is Hitchcock, a legend of cinema.

Is this really going to be the best of the 14? Well, it's a good start.