Alfred Hitchcock Geek

Alfred Hitchcock and Art: Edvard Munch

2009-11-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

The Scream, by Edvard Munch, 1893. Wow, this painting really goes well with the new color scheme on my blog, which was in turn inspired by Saul Bass' movie posters. I wonder if Bass had The Scream in mind when he created the posters for Vertigo, Anatomy of a Murder or West Side Story?

“The overall design I had for the film from the very beginning was inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream.” That’s what production designer Robert Boyle had to say about his creative contribution to The Birds (1963). Take a look at a couple of shots from the scene in which the the students try to make a run for it from their schoolhouse, and I think you'll get the point:

Boyle added that The Scream conveys a “sense of bleakness and madness in a kind of wilderness suggesting an inner state.” (Italics mine.)

On the surface, parallels between the painting and the film are obvious. The brooding, malevolent sky of the painting is echoed in the sulfurous grey skies in the film. Albert Whitlock, another longtime Hitchcock collaborator, spent a year painting the complex matte scenes (analog precursors to modern bluescreen technology), which added buildings to the town of Bodega Bay and changed the blue maritime sky into a cloudy one “to give it mood,” as Whitlock said.

Other elements in the painting, such as its location near a body of water are similar to The Birds’ location, in which the bay prominently figures. Meanwhile, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and other characters get plenty of exercise running from terrorizing situations, as does the main figure in The Scream. But beyond those surface similarities, there’s more to say.

The Scream is a unified work of art. That is, each element reinforces the other. The hellish sky and lake are a projection of the terror reflected in the principal figure’s face. A great deal of the horror of the painting is in the figure’s eyes. They convey that what he is running toward is no shelter from the dreadful place he’s trying to escape.

Yet, the painting is ultimately subjective. Note the two figures complacently, calmly, traversing the bridge behind the main character. Though it seems that his mood has actually changed the weather, the main character's emotional frenzy is uniquely his own. That’s an important distinction to make.

Regarding The Scream as inspiration, Boyle added, “It was just what Hitch wanted. He insisted on a subjective approach, so that the audience would emotionally share in the characters’ feelings as well as their fears of physical danger.”

The fact is, Hitch, who had always been known for making deeply subjective films, outdid himself this time. Says Ken Mogg in The Alfred Hitchcock Story:

“Reportedly, as shooting progressed, Hitch began to enter into the characters in a way he’d never done before, becoming far more subjective than he had originally intended. ... He became more empathic — or sympathetic — towards the characters, especially Melanie.”

In this way, The Birds echoes the spirit of The Scream, not just its content. The painting's emphatic subjectivity is what makes it universal. Because who doesn’t feel alone in his or her anxiety?

Within the movie's own context, the only plausible rationale for the bird attacks is either a purely subjective one — they are brought on by Melanie's arrival in Bodega Bay and hence are an exterior manifestation of the emotional chaos triggered by her frivolous romantic intrusion in to the lives of Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and his family — or they are objective and random and therefore abstracted into meaninglessness. (Attempts to explain the attacks as either payback for man's abuse of animals, or as expressions of divine wrath are discredited at the scene in the Tides Restaurant.) Both explanations are plausible, and comfortably hang side by side, contradictions be damned. And that brings us right back the The Scream, which is also both deeply personal and emotionally abstracted.

Well, that’s all nice theory. But here’s the real test: who doesn’t look at The Scream and immediately “get” what it’s about? The same is true of The Birds: it endures because its appeal is both personal and universal. Nobody doesn’t get The Birds.

Hitchcock and Art - Part 1

2009-11-09T20:14:00.000-08:00

In Vertigo, "Madeleine" seems to face her ghosts of her past by visiting an art museum.

Watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie can be like going on the coolest Easter egg hunt ever. Spot the director’s cameo! Watch out for the domineering mother! Catch the Freudian symbol! Once you’ve tired of those games, you can move on to what I think is the best hunt yet: Spot the Art Reference!

Here’s one of my favorites, a scene from Vertigo, filmed at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, that was inspired by popular Classical and Romantic depictions of Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden:

The exit of Scottie and "Madeleine" from the redwood forest is curiously reminiscent of classical paintings of Adam and Eve, like this one from Thomas Cole, circa 1827.

Hitch routinely dropped such artistic references in to his films. I've mentioned a couple of them in previous posts. For instance, take a look at my May 6, 2009 post from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and comments I made regarding the dream sequence in Vertigo on May 29, 2007.

Are these mere Hitchcockian touches --- or was there more involved in these sometimes elaborate maneuvers? I think there's a lot to be explored here. Let's take a closer look at the Garden of Eden shot, above. To view it on YouTube, click here and move to the 3:40 point.

Vertigo is very much about art and beauty, and their power to hold us transfixed. So, it’s natural that art figures so prominently into the movie. (I’ll have to write a separate post about that!) So, what was Hitch up to when he added an Expulsion from the Garden shot in Vertigo? Was it just a gratuitous riff, like a jazz saxophonist alluding to another tune? Or did he have something more in mind?

Most paintings of Adam and Eve being expelled are unspeakably sad, mournful even. They are about loss of favor and of innocence. There is a sense of resignation and destiny. In Vertigo, The dreamlike scene that culminates in the Expulsion shot takes place in an ancient stand of gargantuan Redwood trees, --- more precisely, "Sequoia sempervivens, always green, ever living," as Scottie (James Stewart) says, and “the oldest living things” as “Madeleine” (Kim Novak) describes them. Clearly, it’s a reference to Eden. She goes into a trance in which she ‘recalls’ her own timeless past and then breaks down in tears, imploring Scottie not to ask her too many probing questions. It’s an intense, haunting scene. When it ends with the Expulsion shot, the effect is one of carefully attenuated release. The tension has been let out, but not the haunted, brooding, foreboding mood that Hitchcock wanted to maintain into the next scene. And so the Expulsion shot serves as the perfect transition piece as it slowly dissolves to the sea cliff at Cypress Point, where “Madeleine” surrenders to Scottie’s kiss.

Whether or not audiences cognitively connect the scene to its artistic or Biblical origins is immaterial. I think Hitch trusted his audience enough to get the feeling such a scene conveys. That was the point. Any further explication is best left for undergrads and bloggers.

There’s lots of evidence that Hitchcock was consciously thinking about art history as he developed his films. Stop back and I’ll tell you why.

Alfred Hitchcock Geek: Now 20% Geekier

2009-10-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Woo! I finally added a proper masthead to this blog and it looks pretty cool, if I do say so, m'self.

I created the text portion using a very sweet font created for this Saul Bass fan site. (As you may know, Bass designed the titles and posters for many Hitchcock films, including North by Northwest, and Vertigo, as well as other films, such as Anatomy of a Murder.) This font is an homage to his style; the designer, Matt Terich, has generously made it available as a free download, which you can get over at Typographica.com.

Says that blog:

The font is not a faithful digitization of any particular title sequence or poster — in fact, type designer Nick Shinn notes that Bass didn’t do the actual lettering and veteran Robert Trogman adds that Dave Nagata did most of the drawings — but it does give a general sense of Bass’ rough, hand-cut style.

For the record, Bass used such designers as Art Goodman and Dave Nagata to execute the lettering on many of his posters.

As regards the logo, I found a free (knock on wood) version of the famous Hitchcock profile sketch and added the glasses using Gimp, an open-source knock-off of Photoshop.

I work with many ridiculously talented designers, and I am careful not to refer to myself as one of them. Still, I'm rather proud of how this little project came out. FTW!

From Hitchcock, with Love

2009-10-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

In From Russia with Love, the filmmakers ripped entire scenes from the Hitchcock catalog.

Alfred Hitchcock brought to the screen iconic spy characters that inspired the creation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Robert Ludlum’s James Bourne and the novels of John Le Carre. But by the 1960s, Hitchcock had tired of that character, feeling that the Bond films had become a “comic book” version of his original idea.

It has been rumored that Hitchcock was the first person to be approached to direct the first movie in the Bond series, Casino Royale (1967). However, according to Gary Giblin's book Hitchcock's London, he wrote a letter to Ian Fleming's biographer stating that he'd never been offered, nor had he declined, the opportunity to film Bond.

As the movies rolled out, it irked Hitch to see the 007 franchise plundering his films for ideas. For example, the helicopter duel in From Russia with Love blatantly apes the crop duster scene in NxNW. In the final analysis, From Russia is more a pastiche of Hitchcock's films than it is an original work.

Regardless of all that, though, Hitch felt that the original character, Richard Hannay of The 39 Steps, needed updating. According to Hitchcock biographer Patrick McGilligan, the only way to compete with these films was to “make a more ‘realistic Bond.’ After all, he had been making spy thrillers [for years]... he had this branch of his reputation to uphold.” (Alfred Hitchcock — A Life in Lightness and Dark, page 657.)

Typically, the women Bond sleeps with offer little more than a hint of the possibility of a real relationship, thwarted as the pair are by Cold War exigencies. Hitch wanted to delve deeper into the implications of such stressed-out relationships.

The result? Torn Curtain (1966), which emphasizes, in Hitch’s words, “the problem of the woman who is associated, either by marriage or engagement, to a defector.” Hitch originally wanted Cary Grant for the role, which would have brought it much more in line with a typical Bond character. Instead, He was forced to accept Paul Newman, who, though capable as an actor, didn’t resonate for Hitch, to put it mildly.

As this scene from Torn Curtain shows, murder isn't as easy as James Bond and others would make it look. For a treat, catch the scene here on YouTube, which features Bernard Herrman's original score.

Topaz (1969) follows a similar train of thought. It follows spies and double agents in Cuba, France and the United States, chronicling how their political intrigues become tangled in their personal and romantic lives. Hitch hired Leon Uris, author of the original novel, to write the screenplay. As part of the story development, he screened Notorious for the author, in order to convey his intention that Topaz should also be a story of “espionage with an emotional relationship.”

In this poignant scene, Cuban revolutionary leader Rico Parra (John Vernon) must kill his lover (Karen Dor) when it is revealed that she has been giving state secrets to the West.

In these years, he actually gave thought to resurrecting Richard Hannay of The 39 Steps, adapting his short story, “The Three Hostages.” Though the project didn’t go far beyond some research and discussions, Hitch was thinking deeply about the past and future of the spy movie — and how he could shape it.

Whereas Agent 007 coolly executed scores of faceless enemy agents, Hitchcock, in these later films, foregrounded the personal devastation that results from such killings. What's more, he moved far beyond the good guys vs. bad guys scenario of his earlier spy films to a more nuanced depiction of all players -- regardless of their political loyalties.

Though Torn Curtain and Topaz aren’t Hitch’s best work, they definitely point up the possibilities that the director had in mind. Sadly, it seems, most movie spies still follow the old Hannay/Bond pattern. To be sure, these characters endure. Still, I wonder what spy movies would be like now, if time, age and Lew Wasserman's tentacles hadn’t been closing in on Hitch's powers.

Alfred Hitchcock Geek Takes the Stage (Finally)

2009-09-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry, my bloggy friends, about the lateness of this final post. Last week, I promised to share how my Talkback Tuesday presentation after the performance of The 39 Steps on Broadway went, but demands and deadlines from my professional commitments had other ideas. If you've been following my blog the last month or two, you'll have a good idea of what I talked about. Here it is in a nutshell:

(Intro:) Just two days ago I was up on Oregon’s Mt. Hood, camping by the shore of Timothy Lake. My friends and I were all staring into the fire swapping ghost stories. I was reminded of a comment David Selznick once made about Alfred Hitchcock. “Not a bad guy,” the movie mogul said, adding “though not a man to go camping with.” Which is understandable. I can’t imagine that Hitch was much of a camper anyway. But if he was, I’ll bet he told a mean campfire story.

Alfred Hitchcock liked to say that he enjoyed stories with “multiple chases and a lot of psychology.” When he read John Buchan’s novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps as a teenager, he liked it so much that 20 years later he decided to make a movie out of it.

When the film came out in 1935, Hitch didn’t merely have a hit. He’d turned a page in history. A new cinematic genre was born: the psychological spy thriller—a double chase in which a lone everyman pursues his enemies while fleeing the authorities and more enemies.

I'm going to skip what I said over the next few minutes, because you can basically read all of that in my previous posts. So, let's skip to the conclusion.

(Conclusion:) I wonder what [The 39 Steps author] John Buchan would think if he were at tonight’s performance. I like to imagine him attending the play with Alfred and Alma Hitchcock, elbowing each other at the gags and in-jokes they invented all those years ago. They might turn around to scan an audience that, even in this media-jaded era, still perches on the edge of its seats, rooting for the triumph and release of Richard Hannay.

Following my piece, two of the show's four performers, Sean Mahon and Jill Paice, came out and I moderated a Q & A session with them.

Afterward, they hung around and we chit-chatted about life, acting and our respective journeys. Turns out Jill is a bit of a Hitchcock aficionado herself, so we geeked out together for a while until it was time to head out into the sleepless New York City night.

Review: The 39 Steps on Broadway

2009-09-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

On September 1, I delivered the Talkback Tuesday presentation that followed the performance of The 39 Steps on Broadway. Here’s Part Two of the report.

When Max and I arrived in New York, we had a few hours to kill before showtime. We dropped by the theater just to make sure we could find it when we needed to.

Step into the auditorium of the century-old Helen Hayes Theater, and you can sense the ghostly presence of actors past adding their mojo to the performances of today. The 597-seat theater itself is a signal that you’re in for a great show, even before the house lights come down.

This was the theater I had flown out from Portland, Oregon to see The 39 Steps in and then deliver my presentation.

Factoid: The 39 Steps is the only non-musical currently on Broadway. That unique aspect alone makes it well worth a visit. More than simply a stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1935 film, it was an homage to the director, with allusions to dozens of his other films sprinkled in throughout the play. Catching them all would make a great beer-drinking game.

With four actors taking on 150 characters in roughly two hours, it would seem that the show could spin out of control at any moment. Often those character changes occurred on stage with a simple change of hats — accompanied by a change of character, complete with accent and body language — as the actor oscillated rapid-fire between two personas. With a play this fast-paced, there wasn’t time for elaborate set changes. (It moves through a couple dozen separate scenes.) Instead, a row of steamer trunks in a train station magically become the interior of a rail car when the actors sit upon them and then morph into the boxcars themselves for a rooftop chase. Ingenious.

But if you're wondering why this non-musical play has thrived while others have closed, you can't look at at just the costume changes and and other vaudevillian touches. Like Hitchcock's MacGuffin, those tricks are just eye candy, something to give playgoers to talk about after the show. Ultimately, The 39 Steps relies on crisp dialogue (90% of which comes from the earlier film with another 10% tossed in just for fun) and first-rate performances from actors with chops to burn. And then there's the direction: this show isn't blocked so much as it is choreographed. Yet it never loses its spontaneity. A night out at The 39 Steps, is like getting an insurance policy from Allstate: you're in good hands.

After the play was done, it was my turn to take the stage. Check back tomorrow. I’ll give you the deets.

Alfred Hitchcock Geek on Broadway: The Report -- Part 1

2009-09-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Times Square: a Disney-fied version of its former self. Not that that's a bad thing, I guess.
All photos by Max Gunz.

Little known New York fact: Except for the Winter Garden Theater (now showing: Mamma Mia!), not a single Broadway theater actually has an address on Broadway. What of the other 39 playhouses? Those 500+ seat venues actually occupy adjacent side streets.

I don’t know why it worked out that way. But after two days there, I can attest that Broadway’s sidewalks are crowded enough. The last thing they need is more lines like the (well-behaved) mob of hundreds of vacationing dental assistants from Omaha waiting in line to hear the live version of “Voulez Vous.”

Last week, as promised, I dropped in on the City and paid a visit to the Broadway production of The 39 Steps, leading its September 1 after-show discussion Talkback Tuesday.

Before the show, my son Max and I wandered about the theater district gawking at the tourists in Times Square and then hoofed it down to the Flatiron District for a brief stop-'n'-chat with Web guru and Director of eROI’s New York office, Chris Masagatani. Afterward, Max and I nearly crashed face-first into the street, having succumbed to jet lag and the reality that our redeye flight had kept us up for 40 hours straight.

Stumbling back to our hotel, we encountered a sandwich-board marketeer in Times Square promoting that night’s play and Talkback Tuesday. When I asked her who was leading the discussion that night, she said, I kid you not, “This amazing Alfred Hitchcock geek named Joel Gunz!”

Dawn, who moved to the New York to become an actress, had been prepped on that night's Talkback Tuesday lineup.

Hello Big Apple! They’re talking about me in Times Square! In a good way!

And so, with the first sweet taste of fame lingering in our otherwise exhausted mouths, we trudged back to the hotel for a quick nap before showtime.

Next up: How did the show turn out? (Plus, a little known fact about The 39 Steps on Broadway.)

The 39 Steps: Hannay's Finest Moment

2009-08-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Broadway's The 39 Steps sends up just about every movie in the Hitchcock catalog. I'll be speaking Tuesday, September 1 after the show. If you're in NYC, drop on by!

Alfred Hitchcoc k’s plots don’t always make much sense, following, as they often do, the lucidly contorted logic of a fever dream. Yesterday, I described The 39 Steps as the "sum of all Buchan's and Hitchcock's worst fears." Watch it again, and you’ll agree that it's an end-to-end nightmare, complete with a scene in which the hero must participate in that most common of nightmare scenarios: unprepped public speaking.

The impromptu speech delivered by Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) at a political rally for a local candidate wasn’t as random as you might think. Sure, Hitchcock and screen writer Charles Bennett devised some deft stagecraft to get him on stage, but it was for a good cause. (Pun intended. See the script extract below for more of the same.)

This scene provided some good comic relief at a point in the movie when tensions were running high. It also made a timely political statement. In 1935, Europe was in a tense mood, and his speech called for peace when so many were speaking of war.

For me, it’s also one of the most touching scenes in the movie. Richard Hannay had spent four days running for his life, begging for help from anyone who would listen. At this point, his resources seemed dried up, with a noose winding inexorably around him. He had nowhere else to run or hide. In fact, the police were waiting in the wings to handcuff him the moment he left the stage. Under these conditions, he offered up an eloquent cry for peace and understanding—for himself and for all other people who were caught up at that time in the international conspiracies that eventually brought about World War II.

Every line of this scene is a hilarious in-joke between the filmmaker, his beleaguered hero and the audience. Take a look:

In Hannay's brief turn as an impromptu orator, life is but a (celluloid) dream.

EMCEE: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm now going to call upon the speaker of the evening.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Speak up!

EMCEE: There's no need to say who he is or to speak of his brilliant record as a soldier and a statesman. He's a son of Scotland who has crossed the border and conquered England. He is now one of the foremost figures in the diplomatic political world in the great city of London. I'm, therefore, going to ask him to tell you something.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's about time, too.

EMCEE: How important it is to this constituency that at this crucial by-election our candidate should be returned by an adequate majority. I now ask for Captain Fraser.

HANNAY (Rises to take podium): Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for my hesitation in rising just now, but I'd entirely failed while listening to the chairman's flattering description of the next speaker to realize he was talking about me. As for you, may I say from the bottom of my heart and with the utmost sincerity how delighted and relieved I am to find myself in your presence at this moment. Delighted because of your friendly reception and relieved because so long as I stand on this platform I am delivered from the cares and anxieties which must always be the lot of a man in my position. When I journeyed up to Scotland a few days ago , traveling on the Highland Express over that magnificent Forth Bridge — that monument to Scottish engineering
and Scottish muscle — that is to say, on that journey I had no idea that in a few days time I should find myself addressing an important political meeting. I had planned a very different program for myself. A very different program. You'd be for the moors to shoot something. Or somebody. I'm a rotten shot. Anyhow, I little thought I should be speaking tonight in support of that brilliant, young statesman. The gentleman on my right, already known among you as one destined to make no uncertain mark in politics. In other words, your future member of Parliament, your candidate, (failing to properly read the candidate’s name on a nearby sign) Mr. McCrocodile.

(Audience laughter.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He doesn't know the candidate's name.

HANNAY: I know your candidate will forgive my referring to him by the friendly nickname
by which he's already known in anticipation, mark you, at Westminster. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we'll discuss some topic. What shall it be?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: The herring fisheries!

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Unemployment!

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What about the idle rich?

All eyes are on Hannay as he nervously makes the best of his nightmare.

HANNAY: That's an old-fashioned topic, especially for me because I'm not rich and I've never been idle. I've been pretty busy all my life, and I expect to be much busier soon. Have you ever worked with your hands? Indeed I have. I've known what it is to feel lonely and helpless and have the whole world against me. Those are things that no man or woman ought to feel. I ask your candidate and all those who love their fellowmen to set themselves resolutely to make
this world a happier place to live in. A world where no nation plots against nation, where no neighbor plots against neighbor where there is no persecution or hunting down, where everybody gets a square deal and a sporting chance, and where people try to help and not to hinder. A world from which suspicion and cruelty, and fear have been forever banished. That is the sort of world I want! Is that the sort of world you want? Fine! That's all I have to say. Good night!

(A pandemonium of cheering ensues as he "brings the house down.")

Hannay reaches the climax of his impromptu speech.

HANNAY (To the next speaker): I kept them going as long as I could.

POLICE OFFICER: You're a difficult man to follow.

(Exeunt HANNAY in police custody as the throng continues to cheer his rousing speech. [See also Roger Thornhill's "performance" at an art auction in North by Northwest)

This scene has it all: Pitch-perfect comedy. An impassioned call for peace and common sense in a world that offered little of either. And a last-ditch cry for help from a hunted man who was lonely, scared and tired of running—and for whom time was running out. In other words, it is Richard Hannay’s finest moment.

Though to a much lesser degree, I’ve been in tough spots like that myself. So, probably, have you. A tip of the hat to Hitchcock for his powerful, nuanced depiction of these ideas.

Alfred Hitchcock and the 'Thin Crust of Civilization'

2009-08-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hitchcock gives Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat direction on the set of The 39 Steps.

Alfred Hitchcock was a longtime fan of novelist John Buchan. Like I mentioned yesterday, he spoke admiringly of him in his famous interview with Francois Truffaut. On another occasion, in a 1972 interview in the French magazine Éclan, he revealed that he'd been a fan since around age 14. In other words, Buchan's writing (along with G. K. Chesterton and others) had wormed its way into Hitch's artistic DNA, profoundly helping to shape the way Hitchcock told stories throughout his 50-year career. Here are a few example that illustrate the point:

In The Thirty-Nine Steps (book version), Richard Hannay encounters an aspiring novelist (probably based on Buchan himself). Though the character never made it into the film, his ideas did. The young man proclaims, “I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.” That could be Hitchcock’s own dictum, who found evil simmering below the surface of even the most commonplace situations. A Midwest cornfield. A motel shower. A gently cooing flock of pigeons.

In another Buchan novel, Huntingtower, one of the characters declares that "civilization anywhere is a very thin crust." Again, that belief is one of the mainstays of Hitchcock’s films. Think of Shadow of a Doubt’s Uncle Charlie, played by Joseph Cotten, who lamented bitterly to his niece, “Do you know the world’s a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine?”

Civilization’s thin crust is cracked as well in Saboteur. Think of the wealthy, cynical Charles Tobin, played by Otto Kruger. Behind his apparent U.S. patriotism, he’s actually part of a fascist conspiracy. Dripping with contempt, he says to the hero of the movie: “You're one of the ardent believers—a good American. Oh, there are millions like you. People who play along, without asking questions. I hate to use the word stupid, but it seems to be the only one that applies. The great masses, the moron millions.” Wealthy, mannered, elegant, doting grandfather -- the epitome of civilzation -- yet rotten to the core and cut from the same cloth as Professor Jordan of The 39 Steps.

At the climax of Saboteur, Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) must save the enemy (Frank Frye, played by Norman Lloyd) in order to bring him to justice and clear his name. The symbolism of this location -- the top of the Statue of Liberty, of course -- ties directly into one of the film's themes that the human stain penetrates even the most sacred reaches of civilization. Want to know what happens next? Put Saboteur in your Netflix queue. And thank me later.

John Buchan’s other writing got under Hitchcock’s skin. Years later, in the mid-60s, the director tried without success to resurrect Richard Hannay with a film version of another Buchan story, “The Three Hostages.” But no matter. There’s a bit of Richard Hannay in many of his heroes, from Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill in North By Northwest to Joel McRae’s war reporter Johnny Jones in Foreign Correspondent to James Stewart’s Dr. Ben McKenna in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Professor Jordan, on the other hand, was reincarnated in the villains of Vertigo, Notorious, Foreign Correspondent and more.

But Hitchcock did more than appropriate various character or plot ideas from Buchan. The two seem to have been kindred spirits when it came to thinking about how the world works.

(They had their differences, too. Buchan, for instance, was a staunch British imperialist. His official title in the British realm was 1st Baron Tweedsmuir and he served as Governor general of Canada, a post that might explain why Hannay -- and Mr. Memory -- held such intimate knowledge of Canada and why Mr. Memory calls him a "gentleman from Canada." Hitchcock, on the other hand was very much a citizen of the world: ex-patriot Brit, U.S. citizen, lover of German art and philosophy.)

John Buchan, aka His Excellency, The Right Honourable Lord Tweedsmuir.

Still, Buchan and Hitchcock shared an aesthetic sensibility. They both felt empathy for the lone modern man who tries to fight evil in a world in which 'civilization is a thin crust', and yet beautiful and well worth fighting for. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." If that's true, I'd say that both Buchan and Hitchcock were first-rate minds.

In this subjective P.O.V. shot, Richard Hannay, aboard a Scotland-bound train and on the lam for a murder he didn't commit, reads about himself in the paper. Then he glances up to see a fellow passenger scrutinizing him. Since the man is looking directly into the camera, it's as if we feel ourselves in Hannay's skin. Throughout the film, Hitchcock keeps us closely identified with Hannay, forcing us to feel the sad, existential loneliness of a wrongly accused man on the run, foregrounding the ever present reality that, as a race of sinners, we are all doomed for the mere crime of having been born human.

Alone, exposed, hunted on all sides, Richard Hannay narrowly evades a gauntlet of faceless pursuers in wide open hills of Scotland. The dark forces at work in The 39 Steps seem to be the sum of all Buchan's and Hitchcock's worst fears.

Tomorrow I'm going to wrap things up with a closer look at one of my favorite scenes in The 39 Steps in which the film accomplishes more in three minutes than I did all day yesterday.

"The Thirty-Nine Steps": Birth of the Modern Spy Thriller

2009-08-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

At first, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is skeptical about his guest's spy story. In The 39 Steps, mistrust is transmitted from one character to the next like a December flu bug.

Richard Hannay, hero of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps was the first of a long line of screen characters whose personal lives got tangled up with a sophisticated demimonde of spies, duplicitous cops and cutthroats.

All the elements of a Bond film are right there in the 1935 movie: the international intrigue, the individual hero living by his wits, the sex, the relentless suspense. The only difference is that James Bond was a professional spy, whereas Hannay was an amateur. Then again, in the novel, Hannay’s travels in Africa did prepare him to take on the task of pursuing and exposing these enemies of the state. Tellingly, Ian Fleming's original rough-and-tumble vision for Bond (more Daniel Craig, less Sean Connery) syncs most closely to novelist John Buchan's vision for Hannay.

Hitchcock's contribution to this new type of hero was to take Buchan’s idea and push it harder, front loading his film with sex and romance where there was none in the novel. But his admiration for Buchan went beyond that one movie.

Handcuffed together, Hannay and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) check into a hotel under the guise of lovestruck honeymooners. Pamela doesn't even exist in the novel.

Later films, such as his 1942 Saboteur and 1959 North by Northwest are practically remakes of The 39 Steps, including details that didn't make the final cut of the first movie. For instance, in the novel, Hannay is dogged by a menacing airplane—an idea that was, of course, finally realized in North by Northwest.

But the author’s touch went even deeper than that. Hitchcock once told Francois Truffaut that “Buchan was a strong influence a long time before I undertook “The 39 Steps”.... What I find appealing in Buchan’s work is his understatement of highly dramatic ideas.” Hitchcock was a huge Buchan fan, and many of his recurring themes were first worked out by the novelist.

Check back tomorrow and I'll tell you about a few of them.

A scene in a train station early in the film. Look closely above the heads of the two women and you'll see a poster advertising Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, released the previous year.

Why Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" Matters

2009-08-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Alfred Hitchcock liked to say that he enjoyed reading novels with “multiple chases and a lot of psychology.” When he read John Buchan’s novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, he liked it so much he decided to make a movie out of it, reducing the title to a space-saving numeric figure: The 39 Steps.

When the film came out in 1935, Hitchcock did not merely have a hit. He’d turned a page in history. A new cinematic genre was born: the psychological spy thriller—a double chase in which a lone everyman pursues his enemies while fleeing his enemies and the authorities.

When seeking help, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) first tells the milkman that he's mixed up in a spy plot. The milkman laughs in disbelief and only agrees to assist Hannay when he changes his story, "confessing" that he's actually having an affair with a woman in the building and needs to make a discreet exit.

At that, Hannay dons the first of several disguises in the movie.

Thanks to Buchan and Hitchcock, we can look at literature and film history this way: in the beginning there was Richard Hannay, hero of The 39 Steps. Later, out of that mold, there came such iconic characters as James Bond and James Bourne of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity franchise.

The foreword to the Dover edition of the book tells us that John Buchan “found the exact recipe for an emerging genre and created a perfect [example] of the type,” adding that such novelists as “Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré all owe a debt to this book.”

By selecting this novel for his next project Hitchcock demonstrated what always seemed to be true with him: that part of his genius lay in keeping a step or two ahead of the curve.

For his cameo, Hitchcock takes a turn as a common theater-goer, tossing his ticket into the gutter just moments after, perhaps, participating in a raucous scene at the Music Hall vaudeville theater.

What makes Richard Hannay such a great prototype for the “modern spy novel”? Tune in tomorrow.

Broadway's "The 39 Steps" Holds Alfred Hitchcock Look-a-like Contest

2009-08-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Richard Hannay and Pamela (Sean Mahon and Jill Paice) get a foretaste of the "bonds" of matrimony.

Here's your chance to get your own Hitchcock geek on. If you're fat and bald (or, if you know how to slick your hair back and stuff a pillow inside your Brooks Brothers suit), you might be eligible to win tickets to see The 39 Steps on Broadway.

Send in a photo of your personal interpretation of the Master of Suspense to the play's promoters by September 7th. They're giving away tickets and other show prizes. Check out the details.

They've come up with lots of other ways to celebrate September as their own Hitchcock month. I'll be kicking off the month with an after-show Talkback Tuesday on September 1st. I hope to see you there!

Alfred Hitchcock Geek Goes to Broadway

2009-08-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

The Master of Suspense -- now on Broadway!

If you've been following me on Twitter, you might have heard the exciting news. On September 1, I'll be delivering a brief lecture and discussion following a performance of the hit play The 39 Steps. I'm going to Broadway, baby!

Here's how the producers describe the show:

Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have THE 39 STEPS, a fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves the magic of theatre! This 2-time Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning treat is packed with nonstop laughs, over 150 zany characters (played by a ridiculously talented cast of 4), an on-stage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers and some good old-fashioned romance!

Did you catch that? Four actors playing 150 characters. I'm guessing the backstage action would have to be crazier than anything happening under the spotlight. That's where I come in, believe it or not.

Following each Tuesday's performance, they host a post-show presentation called Talkback Tuesday. Audience members can stick around to hear Hitchcock experts, actors, comedians and others talk about the play. Other hosts have included include Saturday Night Live comedian Rachel Dratch, Hitchcock scholars Murray Pomerance and Sid Gottlieb and, now, yours truly.

I will speak for a few minutes on some kind of scholarly subject. Perhaps I'll discuss the novelist John Buchan, whose book The Thirty-Nine Steps provided the basis for Hitchcock's movie and whose others works exerted a big influence on the director. Check back here for a sneak preview.

Following that, the actors will come out on stage and I'll moderate a discussion between them and the audience as they talk about the play, the multiple costume changes, etc. Sounds like a really fun night. And who knows where it will lead? After all, if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere!

Preview: "High Society: Grace Kelly and Hollywood" by Donald Spoto

2009-06-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

—Or, "The Trouble with Donald"

Ex-monk-cum-celebrity historian Donald Spoto just doesn’t seem to get it. True, he’s a bona fide expert on Hitchcock’s movies. But when it comes to writing about Alfred Hitchcock the man, this serial biographer ought to have his laptop slammed shut on his fingers. As I mentioned in an Oregonian review of his recent smear-ography of the director, "Spellbound by Beauty," Spoto’s "scornful language, inflated with innuendo... reveals more about the biographer’s biases and character tics than it does those of the Master of the Suspense."

Well, he’s at it again. The man once described in the London Guardian as a "quasi-academic gossipmonger" has singled out another movie icon. With "High Society: Grace Kelly and Hollywood" he again apparently misses the mark, this time swinging his moral gavel the other way. As Antonia Quirke put it in her book review in yesterday’s London Sunday Times, "This supremely reverential biography reads like something written by one of her courtiers. The author bows low before his subject while telling his tale." Despite Kelly’s well-known reputation as a Hollywood vixen (her many affairs are well-reported on), Spoto "appears entirely preoccupied with defending his subject’s honour."

Though I’ve yet to receive my trade edition of the book, I’m SO not surprised. That bias is alive and well in "Spellbound by Beauty." For instance he devotes six pages to glorifying the volunteerism of actress Madeleine Carroll (The 39 Steps, Secret Agent), revealing that she "invariably refused requests for interviews and worked tirelessly for the poverty-stricken children of the world until her death... [finding her] fulfillment neither in fame nor wealth but in her dedication to the needs of the wounded, the sick and the orphans of war." All true, no doubt. But why is my gag reflex kicking in? Maybe because, pages earlier, he reveals the agenda of his book, promising to tell in the life story of Hitch a "cautionary tale of what can wrong in any life." Spare me the parables, Donald. I think you’re just jealous.

Advance materials for "High Society" promise to set the story straight regarding "wild allegations about the number of... sexual partners" that Grace Kelly is said to have enjoyed. What a disappointment. I would hope that even more exploits would be revealed. Instead, we are treated to Spoto’s special brand of historical purification. As the Sunday Times review says, "Grace liked being kissed by men very much indeed. Which is a slight problem for Spoto," who would rather tell a story leading to—what, for this former cleric? Canonization?

You can’t fault Spoto’s research. It’s usually deep and thorough. If only the conclusions he draws from it were as well considered. As a judge of human character, he blows either hot or cold, righteously "defending the honor" of one person, while self-righteously flogging the memory of another, leaving one to suspect that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

This pattern of idealization/devaluation reveals more about Spoto’s psychology than that of his biographical subjects. Come to think of it, such a bifurcated attitude is common among individuals with disowned or repressed rage and is associated with borderline pathology. Of course, I’m not saying that Donald Spoto has a personality disorder. How could I pathologize someone I’ve never met? I’ll leave that to his biographers.

John Calvin and "The Trouble with Harry"

2009-06-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

John Calvin contemplating predestination, the absolute authority of God and the merits of beheading vs. burning his enemies alive.

Calvin Wiggs contemplating a mountain of clues that add up to, for him, nothing.

The Trouble with Harry is a suspense film without a villain. Hard trick to pull off! The closest the film comes to having an antagonist is with the defanged Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano). Hitchcock author Ken Mogg recently noted on his blog (May 16) that there was no character like him in the original Jack Trevor Story novel. Evidently, Wiggs was either a creation of Hitchcock or of screenwriter John Michael Hayes. Ken speculates that since "Vermont's most famous son was the drawling Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933], [that U.S. president was] no doubt an inspiration for the name of Calvin Wiggs."

I beg to differ.

The town church in a film laced with religious imagery.

Royal Dano may have been inspired by Coolidge in delivering his performance, but I'd say the name -- and the character behind it -- more rightly refers to Protestant reformer John Calvin (1509 - 1564). After all, Wiggs stands for the rule of law in the town, even as John Calvin promoted a theology that is distinctly authoritarian (starting with his own: he had a practice of burning his detractors at the stake).

The dialogue itself makes explicit reference to Calvinism and its doctrine of predestination. When Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) suggests to Capt. Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) that by causing Harry's death, he "should be grateful" that he did his "share in accomplishing the death of a fellow human being," his reasoning comes right out of the Calvinist playbook:

Suppose, for instance, it was written in the book of heaven that this man was to die at this particular time at this particular place. Suppose for a moment the actual accomplishing of his departure had been bungled, something had gone wrong, perhaps it was meant to be a thunderbolt and there was no thunder available, say, then you come along and shoot him and heaven’s will is done and destiny fulfilled. Your conscience is quite clear. You’ve got nothing to worry about. (Italics mine.)

A sharply Calvinistic take on this random-seeming occurrence! Marlowe’s detached, tongue-in-cheek defense of Wiles’ decision to hide the body reminds me of Rope and Rupert Cadell's cool argument (performed by James Stewart) on behalf of the Nietzschean few who, by virtue of their intellectual superiority, have the right to commit murder. With both Cadell and Marlowe, we don't know if they're joking or not. Which was Hitch's way of playing both sides of the fence.

Recall that the Catholic Hitchcock once turned down an opportunity for a private audience with the Pope, fearing that the pontiff would order him to stop making his brand of films. In that story, you can sense the particular blend of skepticism and wary devotion that informs so many of Hitchcock's films, including The Trouble with Harry.

Alfred Hitchcock's Paradise Cracked

2009-06-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

By visiting San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, Scottie Fergusen (James Stewart) tries to restore the past in Vertigo.

Take a 100-second tour of Alfred Hitchcock’s 53 films and certain favored settings will emerge: elegant mansions, quaint villages and towns, pristine gardens and forests. Yet, always an Imp of the Perverse, he injects these picturesque locales with evil, like squid ink spewed into a coral reef.

In all of those films, there is only one whose characters are immune to his toxins: The Trouble with Harry. The inconvenient corpse that shows up on that Vermont town's front lawn is accepted into their community as casually as if he had been more, shall we say, ambulatory. As mentioned in my May 26 post, this movie gives us a "Candide"-esque view of "the best of all possible worlds," whose inhabitants follow Voltaire’s dictum that "we ought to tend our garden." What would a society that follows that pragmatic advice look like? I think it might resemble the community that inhabits Harry.

Harry is as close to Utopia as anything Hitchcock could have dreamed up. Lovingly filmed in wide-screen VistaVision, its opening scenes depict an idyllic New England setting resplendent in brilliant Autumn foliage. That's the first clue that we have settled into yet another of Hitch’s Edens.

Small town idyll in The Trouble with Harry.

What goes on in this pleasure garden? Whatever you please.

Take, for instance, the handsome bachelor-artist Sam Marlowe (played by Adonis-in-Brylcreem John Forsythe) who has no need for cash, thanks to the unlimited credit line offered by local storekeeper Mrs. Wiggs (Mildred Dunnock), who in turn seems impervious to the negative cash flow his patronage must surely entail. There’s also the local red-headed Aphrodite, Jennifer Rogers (21-year-old Shirley MacLaine in her first screen role) who supports her rambling farmhouse by apparently independent means. The only individuals with a seemingly steady source of income are the elderly pensioners Capt. Albert Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) and Miss Ivy Gravely (Mildred Natwick).

The only flaw in this Greco-Roman canvas comes from the presence of Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano)—but no matter. Aside from the occasional annoyance of an impromptu visit, he’s harmless and easily mocked right out of the scene. In this town, the rule of law is effectively irrelevant; nevertheless, everyone gets along fine and peaceably, tending the garden under their purview.

It is just as Hitchcock scholar Lesley Brill described. They enjoy "a life in which human beings are complete and fulfilled, justice prevails without the rigidity and inaccuracy of law, and the world and its inhabitants live in harmony retrieved from the corruptions of experience."

Brill even sees this as “the essential dream that nourishes Hitchcock's work as a whole."

Where did he get such an idea?

Remember, he was a product of his time, and such "lost paradise" symbolism was part of the language of 19th and early 20th century art and literature. Further, he was a committed Surrealist and Symbolist: "lost paradise" tropes were all over those movements. I think "Candide" figures in as well.

Senator Pococurante's Library, "Candide," chapter 25.

Written in 1759, this classic novella is a model Paradise Lost story. Recall that the story begins in "the finest, most agreeable castle possible." Candide is soon evicted from it, however, in a scene evoking The Fall. Joined by several other characters that he has picked up along the way, they end the novel in a garden of their own making, after first passing through several others, some of which may be false. In short, Candide is a story about seeking and returning to Eden.

And return to Eden they do, though the garden that they tend at the end is a far cry from the palace from which Candide had fallen. Though that randomly assembled group ends up making rueful, provisional peace with its fate, their optimism is as questionable as the "open-ended pessimism" that has been attributed to Hitchcock’s films. Voltaire and Hitchcock, had, it seems very similar jaded, yet cautiously hopeful (or ambivalently pessimistic), views.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) is another of Hitch’s Paradise Lost films, though it might more accurately be described as "Paradise Scratched." In this case, evil arrives in a cloud of black smoke as the suave Mephistopheles, Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) disembarks from a coal-burning train to land in Santa Rosa. On the run from the law, he has one real purpose: to scratch and pick at the veneer of small town respectability and reveal its uglier truths.

With this film, identifying the clues to the locale’s garden-like character could be a drinking game. Take a swig from your beverage of choice each time garden imagery pops up. Starting with that small town’s name (gulp), flower and garden imagery is everywhere:

on the walls...

The floors...

the furniture...

their clothes...

...even their hair.

Into this world Uncle Charlie slithers, like a serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Hitchcock, Voltaire and Shadow of a Doubt

2009-05-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

The secret sharers enjoy a special bond. If "enjoy" is the right word.

Uncle Charlie spoiled his niece's "peaceful, stupid dreams" with nightmares.

Young Charlie prevailed, not because she was "good," but because she became willing to be evil.

Though he never attended college, Alfred Hitchcock received a very good Jesuit education. Voltaire’s “Candide” was probably required reading. I think the book informed his work, especially with regard to both Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and The Trouble with Harry (1955)—two of the director’s favorite and personal films.

The novella begins with a young man, Candide, who is sheltered in “the finest, most agreeable castle possible.” Among pristine, Edenic gardens, he is indoctrinated with an overly optimistic world view by his tutor, Pangloss. Soon enough, however, this idyllic existence abruptly ends, which is followed by his disillusionment as he sees how the world really works in all its hardships and suffering.

Certain plot elements are echoed in Shadow of a Doubt. But it’s the shared themes that keep me pondering the connection the two works.

In Shadow of a Doubt, evil (in the form of the dashing Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie) visits the small town of Santa Rosa, California. Like Candide’s castle in Westphalia, nothing ever seems to go wrong in this “typical small American town.” All of the inhabitants continue on their merry course, oblivious to the danger that surrounds them.

Santa Rosa seems like a perfectly average, law-abiding small town...

...until Uncle Charlie hustles his niece into its seedier parts to articulate his less idealistic view of the world.

Yet, something inside that insular world is stirring. Uncle Charlie’s niece, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright), lays on her bed, bored and daydreaming. “I give up,” she tells her father. “This family’s gone to pieces. We just go along. Nothing ever happens. We’re in a rut.” Her solution is to invite Uncle Charlie to town.

In Hitchcock’s world, boredom is often a precursor to chaos, and so it happens in Shadow. Uncle Charlie—taking a break from his murdering spree, for now— is a menacing presence, hunted by federal agents. His niece gradually deduces that he is the Merry Widow Killer. In a climactic scene in which she confronts his true identity, he forces her into a seamy bar. “I don’t go to places like this, Uncle Charlie,” she says nervously. And that’s the point. Even her idyllic small town has cracks—if she would stop to notice. Says Uncle Charlie:

“You're just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every day and know there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day. At night, you sleep your ordinary sleep filled with peaceful, stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares.”

Earlier, he had bitterly dismissed the world as a “foul sty”, saying: “Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?”

In its opening moments, a montage reveals that the world (at least part of it) is, indeed, a foul sty.

Finally, at the insistence of his niece, he leaves town by train. There, in a struggle with her, he falls to his death (or she pushes him). Ironically, he receives a native son’s funeral. Young Charlie repeats what her uncle said about the world being a “foul sty” to her new romantic interest, Jack Graham (Macdonald Carey). He replies: “Well, it's not quite as bad as that, but sometimes [the world] needs a lot of watching. It seems to go crazy every now and then.”

That sort of hedging response reminds me of this interchange in “Candide,” between the title character and a dervish:

“But, Reverend Father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible deal of evil on the earth.”

“What signifies it,” said the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble his head whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?”

In a world of both Voltaire’s and Hitchcock’s making, questions of good and evil or whether God is dead or alive are almost beside the point. Regardless of the answers to such questions, we must make our way the best we can, always being watchful for the chaos that erupts from time to time. Early in the story, unaware of both Uncle Charlie’s crimes and of the young man’s profession, Young Charlie falls for one of the agents pursuing her uncle, Jack Graham. But when she finds out that he suspects him, she wants to break their romance off.

Jack: Charlie, when we were eating tonight and talking about our folks and what we'd done and how we felt, we were like two ordinary people. We'd been brought up about the same. You liked me and I liked you.

Young Charlie: Oh, it doesn't matter now.

Jack: What do you mean, “It doesn't matter”? It's the only thing that does matter.

It is just as Hitchcock author Donals Spoto observed, “If young Charlie aspires to a happy life, she realizes at the end that it can only be striven for in this tangled, fallen garden that is no longer a paradise.” The conclusion of this film, as well of Voltaire’s novella is that we cannot change the world, but we can make our tiny part of it beautiful—and do that we must. Jack's insistence that ordinary family-making is the only that matters almost repudiates Uncle Charlie's insistence that, the world being filled with swine, nothing matters. Almost, but not quite. In 1943, the world was going to hell in a world war. For millions, nothing seemed to matter any more. It isn't clear at all that Charlie shares his optimistic view. The ending of this film suggests that Young Charlie will marry Jack. I wonder if Jack, noble as he may be, is Charlie’s equal, philosophically and intellectually. But he will suffice.

At Uncle Charlie's funeral: “The world goes crazy every now and then.” As love-struck as Jack and Charlie may be, their romance is off to a sadly inauspicious start.

After their travels and tribulations, Candide and his friends end up working at a small farm to sustain themselves and keep free from what the Turkish owner of a neighboring farm called the “three great evils: boredom, vice and necessity.” Candide started his life in a paradisaic garden, the Castle in Westphalia, finally cultivating a much smaller, prosaic garden. Not Paradise, exactly, but it will suffice.

And that circularity brings me to another curious similarity between “Candide” and Hitchcock's films. Check back in soon.

"The Trouble with Harry": That's Life!

2009-05-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Title sequence artwork was drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg. In fact, the whole film reminds me of that magazine.

Alfred Hitchcock’s films point up the darker side of humanity. And I’m talking about what's left after you take out the horror elements. It’s a world in which any resolution is provisional and tenuous at best. Think of Rear Window. L.B. Jeffries and Lisa Fremont (James Stewart and Grace Kelly) have deep character flaws that prevent them from achieving true union. Yet, for all of the trials that they endure, by the film’s end, they’ve only bridged that chasm by inches. So the question arises: what, in Hitchcock’s view, is an ideal world?

The answer can be found in The Trouble with Harry. This film represents Hitchcock’s vision of an ideal society. In his 1988 book “The Hitchcock Romance,” Lesley Brill observed that Harry stands in for “the essential dream that nourishes Hitchcock's work as a whole ... [of] a life in which human beings are complete and fulfilled, justice prevails without the rigidity and inaccuracy of law, and the world and its inhabitants live in harmony retrieved from the corruptions of experience.”

Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (standing) is no match for even these hapless would-be non-murderers.

Notice that this ideal society is not perfect. In my view, it’s better than perfect. It’s a society whose imperfections are part of the ideal. Think of it as the brighter side of Machiavelli’s maxim that “the end justifies the means.” Brill’s quote was brought back to mind for me by fellow Hitchcock geek Ken Mogg, who, on his MacGuffin blog adds, “That's just about perfect, once we see that Hitchcock is also reminding us of our frailty and pretensions, which are constantly represented in Harry (e.g., by the characters' frequent resort to lies, mainly quite small ones).”

Forget everything you know about Shirley MacLaine. Back in the day, she was a hottie.

In a way, Harry is about grace in the face of horror. As the characters in the film encounter the corpse, Harry Warp, each imagines him- or herself to be responsible for his death. Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn), for instance, thinks he may have shot him in a hunting accident, while Jennifer Rogers (the lucsiously kissable Shirley Maclaine) believes she killed him when she struck him over the head with a milk bottle. Yet, in all of this, the townspeople accept each other for what they are, seeing themselves in the others’ humanity and empathizing with their various predicaments. After all, they seem to agree, there are more important things in life than death. That’s why no one gets bent out of shape over Harry’s demise as they gladly and repeatedly disinter his body.

The face of death.

Mogg also notes Schopenhauer’s description of “the good character [who] lives in an eternal world that is homogeneous with his own true being. [Other people] are not non-I for him, but an ‘I once more’”. In other words, the Protestant saying “there but for the grace of God go I” is supplanted by the (I think) nobler and simpler “there go I”—regardless of the person being considered. The lesson of Harry is that we are all the other person—regardless of how “good” or “evil” that person may be perceived to be.

This pastoral film sits naturally alongside Hitch’s 1943 Shadow of a Doubt. The common bond of mankind—for better or worse—is one of that film's themes, as well. Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is the secret sharer, the metaphysical double to his niece Young Charlie (Teresa Wright). At first, she warms to this connection, but as the truth comes out and it is revealed that he is the Merry Widow Murderer, she recoils in horror. Nevertheless, their bond remains, just as Uncle Charlie said, “Were like twins.... You said yourself we're no ordinary uncle and niece, no matter what I've done.” Later, one of the townspeople says, “We feel you're one of us.” It's true—though we may be loathe to admit it.

Both of these movies consider what happens when evil is injected into an idyllic community. The inhabitants of Shadow weren’t, it seems, up to the task of dealing with evil. When Uncle Charlie comes to visit the sleepy town of Santa Rosa, they embrace him — but only on his pretext that he is an innocent man. Their acceptance of him is predicated on their naivete.

For the Vermonter inhabitants of Harry, however, the opposite is true. Their acceptance of the evil in their midst was based on knowingness. They easily, even gleefully, each confess to having murdered Harry in his or her own way. Perhaps it is that confessional attitude that redeems them. They see the evil that is in the world and accept it right along with the good.

The movie seems to say that, whether by murder, accident or natural causes, we're all going to die, so why get wrapped up the particulars? As Jennifer Rogers says, “That’s just life, I guess!”

Alfred Hitchcock Geek Wins Two More Awards

2009-05-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

I hardly feel qualified to accept them. Due to a series of events, some wonderful, others unfortunate, I have had to take a break from blogging, tweeting and otherwise participating in the online jam session that is Web 2.0. Nevertheless, Alexis, on her cool, intelligent and oh-so-geeky Ingrid Bergman Life and Films blog saw fit to award me, not one, but two sweet trophies.

The Splash Award is offered from one blogger to another, for “alluring, amusing, bewitching, impressive, and inspiring blogs.” Adds Alexis, “Thanks for all of your support and your amazing work! I am glad to have found a fellow geek on Blogger and Twitter!”

Rules for the Friendly Blogger Award are so simple, they are contained in the very name itself. It’s simply a great way to share the love. As Ms. Bergman once said, “Be yourself. The world worships the original.”

Alexis, thank you so much for your thoughts, for your kindness and for stopping in from time to time to say hi.

By the way, it feels great to be back. Watch this space for a few random thoughts on Stage Fright and some choice phrases from fellow Hitchcock Geek Camille Paglia.

New Alfred Hitchcock / Ed Wood Collaboration Discovered!

2009-04-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Hitch and Wood: A fruitful collaboration.

A demolition crew working near the vaults at Universal Studios has recently discovered a cache of incomplete film credited to Alfred Hitchcock and D-movie genius Ed Wood as co-directors. Although their work went unfinished, these celluloid fragments -- and a helpful script treatment -- tantalize film buffs about what could have been.

Blight, a story about a cross-dressing vampire falsely accused of selling U.S. state secrets to a shadowy network of clergymen, schoolteachers and gentleman farmers covers themes familiar to fans of both Hitchcock and Wood. Its plot devices such as the accused man-on-the-run, moral relativism and Cold War sexual politics are vintage Hitchcock. But the vampires and transvestitism are all Wood—though preview audiences definitely track a straight line from reel #3's Prince Necrono and Norman Bates.

The 17 minutes of footage consists primarily of screen tests and second unit research. There is, however, one 2:48 reel in which Hitchcock rehearses his cameo, repeatedly stepping off of a street corner and being splashed by a taxi as it hits a nearby puddle. This scene fascinates me as it demonstrates Hitchcock’s attention to detail with regard these seemingly off-the-cuff, brief walk-on appearances. In this, I see a Chaplinesque perfectionist streak.

They say Hitch never made a monster movie in the tradition of Dracula, Frankenstein or The Werewolf. Ordinary human behavior was monstrous enough for him -- or so we've been led to believe. Further, auteurists hold that he would never share directorial credit in this way. Such doctrinaire historical views may soon be drastically reconsidered as these newly-discovered film clips speak for themselves.

I have a friend-of-a-friend who promises to get me copies of this footage soon. Check back in tomorrow.

Alfred Hitchcock Geek Wins Second Dardos!

2009-03-20T16:12:00.001-07:00

Dardos Awards are given to bloggers for demonstrating exemplary "cultural, literary, and personal values in the form of creative and original writing." The Dardos' citation adds that "these stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraernization between bloggers, a way of showing appreciation and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

On February 2, I received my first Dardos. I am very thrilled to let you know that I've now been chosen for a second Dardos, this time from Cinema Splendor. Thank you so much!

Okay, then. Guess I'm going to keep writing this thing -- and do my small part to help keep the Web interesting for you. Stay tuned as I nominate five sites of my choosing for a Dardos Award!

Found: Ingrid Bergman Geek

2009-03-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Rare color photo on the set of Notorious.

Blogger Alexis Morrell says that she'd like to get into filmmaking and that she's a feminist. It stands to reason, then, that she's a fan of Ingrid Bergman, a woman who thought for herself and fought for her place in the world before "feminism" was a word. It also makes sense that her blog is titled Ingrid Bergman Life and Films.

Alexis' blog rewards the reader with lots of inside detail that illuminates Bergman's films. Take one passage from her March 15 post on the actress' time in Italy:

Stromboli was Ingrid's first film with Roberto Rossellini. The film was paid for by RKO's Howard Hughes, who (I've read) had a crush on Ingrid Bergman for a long while and actually bought RKO Studios for Ingrid to which she said "I don't want it." (She's so freaking awesome!)

Bergman suffered, not from a lack of opportunity, but from a surfeit. In that climate -- and the material temptations that accompanied it -- she fought for her own identity. As Alexis says in her first post, "she was talented, beautiful, smart, articulate and not afraid to just be who she was, regardless of circumstances."

As an Ingrid Bergman geek, Alexis is a girl after my own heart. Check out her blog. Bookmark it. Subscribe. Digg it. Or whatever. You'll be glad you did.

Hitchcock Production Designer Dorothea Holt Redmond Passes Away

2009-03-16T21:47:00.001-07:00

Dorothea Holt was one of the first women to break into motion picture design, working at Selznick Studios in 1938.

In the making of a big budget Hollywood film, hundreds of unacknowledged heroes contribute to the artistry of the final product. Alfred Hitchcock's inspiration was to intelligently select that talent, train it to express his unique cinematic vision and keep it around for subsequent projects. Of the many people he worked with, production designer Dorothea Holt stands out. Sadly, she died on February 27. She was 98.

Here is a complete list of the Hitchcock films she worked on:

Rebecca (1940)
Saboteur (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Rope (1948)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

As production designer and illustrator, her job entailed grasping the director's visual style -- including framing, lighting, camera angles and other elements that contribute to a scene's emotional impact -- and conveying that by drawing the storyboard. For Hitchcock, she was more than a technical functionary; she was an oracle on his behalf.

According to Holt's daughter, Lynne Jackson, Hitchcock was "one of her very favorite people to work with. She just loved his personality and his taste." Evidently, he respected her abilities as well. For a full review of her career, especially the time she spent with Hitchcock, take a look at the LA Times obituary, which was pointed out to me by friend and Twitter correspondent Esther.

For now, though, I leave you with this: a few sketches that Holt prepared to accompany Shadow of a Doubt, taken from Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film, by Will Schmenner and Corinne Granof. These beautifully capture Hitch's vision of Shadow of a Doubt as an American gothic film.

Hitchcock documentary -- Now (briefly) online

2009-03-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Paul Merton interviews Hitch. Well, sort of.

Social media app Twitter is very, very cool. I've met over 2,000 friends, film geeks and, more to the point, Alfred Hitchcock fans. One recent new BFF is Teri Coster, a.k.a. I_am_Otaku. Here's why.

As many of you know, the BBC recently aired a fantastic documentary hosted by the perennially cheeky Paul Merton. It covers a too-often overlooked part of Hitchcock's career: his early, British years. Five minutes into the show Merton reminds viewers that 23 of Hitchcock's films -- nearly half -- were made in England, and that it is here that he came up with the themes and visual style that would continue throughout his career.

Well, that sounds like a cool show. Just one problem. I'm in the United States, not England, and the BBC's online tool iPlayer doesn't work on this side of the pond. When it came to seeing Merton's documentary, I was S.O.L.

Nevertheless, I let my pain be known on the Twittersphere, and several of my tweeps went into action to see about getting me access to the show. Finally, Teri sent me a note yesterday, proclaiming, "I've cracked the code!" She broke the show into small segments and has posted it on YouTube. Go here for the playlist.

But hurry, she's only going to have it up for a few days. Thanks to Teri and all my friends who have tried to bring this great show to a larger audience!

Welcome to Alfred Hitchcock Geek

2009-02-22T23:46:00.000-08:00

Under the St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon. Rumor has it, this structure was built as a sort of dry run prior to the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo by Jennifer Schang.)

Alfred Hitchcock is, in my opinion (and others!), one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. I've seen all of his movies, except one. At some point I started taking notes. Renting his videos and watching them in slow motion soon followed. And then I fell among among film philosophers. After that, it was a slippery slope. Somehow, this led to the blog you now hold at your fingertips. It's also gotten the attention of the producers of the Broadway hit The 39 Steps, who've offered me some very cool opportunities to speak to their audience after the show.

I believe Hitchcock will go down in history as the Shakespeare of the 20th Century. You geek your way. I'll geek mine.

This blog now has thousands of visitors stopping by each month from all over the world. I'd be thrilled to add you to my community of friends, so please drop me line here, or on Twitter or Facebook.

Note: Some of my posts assume that you're already familiar with the movie I'm discussing. If you aren't, you may want to visit its IMDb plot synopsis to get up to speed. Just hurry back to my site, okay?

Another note: This is a blog, not a peer reviewed journal, all right? As such, these are my thoughts in progress. I welcome your comments and discussion.