Alfred Hitchcock

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Wrong Man [+extras] (1956)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockClassicsFilm NoirUSA

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    Synopsis:
    Manny Ballestero is an honest hardworking musician at New York’s Stork Club. When his wife needs money for dental treatment, Manny goes to the local insurance office to borrow on her policy. Employees at the office mistake him for a hold-up man who robbed them the year before and the police are called. The film tells the true story of what happened to Manny and his family.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

    1931-1940Alfred HitchcockComedyRomanceUnited Kingdom

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    A bizarre entry in Alfred Hitchcock´s filmography: Johann Strauss Jr. is the son of the famous conductor and composer, and plays the violin in his father’s orchestra. He hasn’t had any of his own compositions performed or published because Strauss Sr. sternly discourages it. Not dismayed, Strauss Jr gives singing lessons to his gifted sweetheart Resi, the daughter of a pastry chef, and dedicates all his songs to her. Then he meets a Countess who has written some verses and asks his help in setting them to music. When her husband hears from a servant that a young man is upstairs with his wife, he storms into the music room, but the name of Strauss placates him. Later, Resi isn’t so easily placated, for she senses a rival. However, the Countess essentially has Strauss Jr’s best interests at heart. With a publisher friend, she successfully plots to have the elder Strauss delayed one night so that Jr’s new composition, “The Blue Danube” may receive a performance. Strauss Jr. conducts the waltz himself, becoming the sensation of Vienna. Soon afterwards, though the Prince’s suspicions have briefly been aroused again, everyone is finally reconciled.
    In his interview with François Truffaut in 1964 and in many other interviews, Alfred Hitchcock referred to this film as “the lowest ebb of my career”.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Number Seventeen (1932)

    1931-1940Alfred HitchcockMysteryThrillerUnited Kingdom

    A gang of thieves gather at a safe house following a robbery, but a detective is on their trail.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Lady Vanishes (1938)

    1931-1940Alfred HitchcockClassicsDramaUnited Kingdom

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    In this best-loved of Hitchcock’s British-made thrillers, a young woman on a train meets a charming old lady (Dame May Whitty), who promptly disappears. The other passengers deny ever having seen her, leading the young woman to suspect a conspiracy. When she begins investigating, she is drawn into a complex web of mystery and high adventure.

    If one film challenges the idea that Hitchcock ‘found himself’ as a director only after he arrived in Hollywood, it is The Lady Vanishes. Released in 1938 by Gainsborough, it is arguably the most accomplished, and certainly the wittiest of Hitchcock’s British films, and is up there with the best of his American work.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

    1941-1950Alfred HitchcockComedyRomanceScrewball ComedyUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Mr. and Mrs. Smith represented a change of pace for director Alfred Hitchcock. Out of his 50+ films, this one was his only comedy. Sure, The Master of Suspense usually added humorous touches to all of his films, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith was his only out and out farce.

    The plot revolves around the Smiths, an otherwise happily married couple (Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery) who have a shocking conversation over breakfast in which Mr. Smith reveals that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t get married. This sends Mrs. Smith into a huff and she starts PMSing on him. Then the Smiths learn through some contrivance that their marriage isn’t legal and after Mr. Smith doesn’t propose right away, Mrs. Smith goes into a snit and starts seeing other people. From there, the couple vie for each other’s affections by making the other one jealous until they finally realize they’re still in love.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Blackmail (talkie version) (1929)

    1921-1930Alfred HitchcockCrimeThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Blackmail [Silent Version] (1929)

    1921-1930Alfred HitchcockThrillerUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    about the production
    The film began production as a silent film. To cash in on the new found popularity of talkies the film’s producers, British International Pictures, gave Hitchcock the go-ahead to film a portion of the movie in sound. Hitchcock thought the idea absurd and surreptitiously filmed almost the entire feature in sound along with a silent version for theatres not yet equipped for talking pictures.

    Lead actress Anny Ondra was raised in Prague and had a heavy Polish accent that was felt unsuitable for the film. Sound was in its infancy at the time and it was impossible to post dub Anny’s voice. Rather than replace Anny and re-shoot her portions of the film actress Joan Barry was hired to actually speak the dialogue while Anny lip-synched them for the film. This makes Ondra’s performance seem slightly awkward.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – I Confess (1953)

    USA1951-1960Alfred HitchcockClassicsThriller


    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:  Based on the turn-of-the-century play Our Two Consciences by Paul Anthelme, Hitchcock’s I Confess is set in Quebec. Montgomery Clift plays a priest who hears the confession of church sexton O.E. Hasse. “I…killed…a man” whispers Hasse in tight closeup–and, bound by the laws of the Confessional, Clift is unable to turn Hasse over to the police. But police-inspector Karl Malden has a pretty good idea who the guilty party is: all evidence points to Clift. It seems that the dead man had been blackmailing Anne Baxter, who was once in a factually innocent, but seemingly exploitable compromising position with Clift. Tried for murder, Clift is released due to lack of evidence, but he is ruined in the eyes of the community. Then it is Hasse’s turn to make that One Fatal Error. I Confess is frequently dismissed as a lesser Hitchcock, due mainly to the quirky performance of Montgomery Clift (who, it is said, steadfastly refused to take direction). Today, four decades removed from its on-set intrigues, the film has taken its place as one of the best of Hitchcock’s “between the classics” efforts. — Hal EricksonRead More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo [+Extras] (1958)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockAmos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtMysteryThrillerUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Review
    One of Hitchcock’s most discussed films. Retired police detective Stewart, who has a fear of heights, is hired by old school chum in San Francisco to keep an eye on his wife (Novak), eventually falls in love with his quarry and that’s just the beginning; to reveal more would be unthinkable. Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor scripted, from the novel D’entre les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Haunting, dream-like thriller, with riveting Bernard Herrmann score to match; a genuinely great motion picture that demands multiple viewings.Read More »

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