Alfred Hitchcock

  • Alfred Hitchcock – I Confess (1953)

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    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

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    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 »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Suspicion: Four o Clock (1957)

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    NBC’s “Suspicion” was a 40 episode series (which ran from 1957 to 1958) in a similar mold to “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”. Alfred Hitchcock directed the series permiere episode, “Four O’Clock”. It was originally broadcast on 30/Sep/1957.

    Synopsis :
    Paul Steppe, a successful watchmaker, begins to suspect that his wife Fran is seeing another man. Consumed with jealousy, Steppe decides to murder her. His plan, he feels is ingenious. Painstakingly Steppe applies all of his watchmaking skills to the construction of a time bomb. He plans to slip into his house in the afternoon without his wife’s knowledge, leave the bomb and then return to his jewelry store unnoticed and unsuspected.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Juno and the Paycock (1930)

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    From Channel 4 Film:

    Early British Hitchcock which has the future master of suspense trying to make a living with this faithful adaptation of O’Casey’s classic play, chronicling the ups and downs of an Irish family in the Dublin of the 1920s. Most of it is a straight filming of the play – and was acknowledged as such by Hitchcock – even though handsomely photographed and acted. When the action opens up towards the end, Hitch gets a chance to flex his cinematic muscle with a predictably dramatic ending.

    Chris Hughes says this:

    By 1929 Alfred Hitchcock had established himself as a significant rising star in British cinema. Hitchcock was in the formative stage of his career and though he was gaining new respect with every project, he didn’t yet wield the clout necessary to choose his own scripts, actors and crew. Still, the ‘Hitchcock touch’ was apparent in many of his early films and they bear viewing today as important milestones in a soon to be legendary career.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Notorious (1946)

    1941-1950Alfred HitchcockFilm NoirThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    One of Hitchcock’s finest films of the ’40s, using its espionage plot about Nazis hiding out in South America as a mere MacGuffin, in order to focus on a perverse, cruel love affair between US agent Grant and alcoholic Bergman, whom he blackmails into providing sexual favours for the German Rains as a means of getting information. Suspense there is, but what really distinguishes the film is the way its smooth, polished surface illuminates a sickening tangle of self-sacrifice, exploitation, suspicion, and emotional dependence. Grant, in fact, is the least sympathetic character in the dark, ever-shifting relationships on view, while Rains, oppressed by a cigar-chewing, possessive mother and deceived by all around him, is treated with great generosity. Less war thriller than black romance, it in fact looks forward to the misanthropic portrait of manipulation in Vertigo. — GA, Time Out Film Guide 13Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Psycho (1960)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockHorrorThrillerUSA

    from AllMovie
    In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen’s master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Strangers on a Train (1951)

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    ‘Strangers on a Train,’ Another Hitchcock Venture, Arrives at the Warner Theatre
    It appears that Alfred Hitchcock is fascinated with the Svengali theme, as well as with his own dexterity in performing macabre tricks. His last picture, “Rope,” will be remembered as a stunt (which didn’t succeed) involving a psychopathic murderer who induced another young man to kill for thrills. Now, in his latest effort, called “Strangers on a Train,” which served to reopen the Strand Theatre last night under its new name, the Warner, Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it will stand up without support.Read More »

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