moonlight91
New Member
Salutations
@moonlight91
Posts: 24
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Post by moonlight91 on Feb 26, 2017 4:41:08 GMT
General thread of the man and his films...
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Post by naterdawg on Feb 26, 2017 4:48:56 GMT
I love Alfred Hitchcock--was raised not only on his films, but his great television show, especially The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Favorite Hitchcock movie: Shadow of a Doubt. I can watch that over and over again and never be bored. Joseph Cotten was just incredible as the wicked Uncle Charlie. I liked Theresa Wright, too, as "young Charlie," his niece. Interestingly enough, Hitchcock wanted Joan Fontaine for the part!
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Post by snsurone on Feb 26, 2017 19:51:35 GMT
My two favorite Hitchcock movies are REBECCA and THE LADY VANISHES. I also liked the original British version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, although the print I saw was of poor quality.
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Post by fangirl1975 on Feb 27, 2017 22:04:37 GMT
The Birds and Psycho are my favorite Hitchcock films.
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Post by geode on Feb 27, 2017 22:58:18 GMT
The Birds and Psycho are my favorite Hitchcock films. I think you are pretty much of the same opinion as most people, in that when they think Hitchcock they think about these two films first. I guess I am in the minority in thinking these two to be among his weakest films. There are elements of both that I admire, but taken as a whole I find them inferior to several other films he directed. Some years ago I realized that Hitchcock has so many home runs in his filmography that he should be considered the best director of all time. My favorites include: Vertigo North by Northwest Strangers on a Train Foreign Correspondent Shadow of a Doubt I Confess (typically considered one of his weakest by others) Dial M for Murder Rear Window
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Post by london777 on Feb 27, 2017 23:20:31 GMT
I may be the only one here to like Marnie (1964).
His next film was pretty routine, Torn Curtain (1966), but it has one scene that should be obligatory viewing for every aspiring director of thrillers. The one which demonstrates how hard it can be to kill anyone without the right skills and implements.
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Post by geode on Feb 28, 2017 0:02:33 GMT
I may be the only one here to like Marnie (1964). His next film was pretty routine, Torn Curtain (1966), but it has one scene that should be obligatory viewing for every aspiring director of thrillers. The one which demonstrates how hard it can be to kill anyone without the right skills and implements. No, I like Marnie. I didn't when I saw it in first release, but played it over in my mind and actually re-evaluated it without watching it again and turned my opinion to the positive before many others started liking it. Like too many other later Hitch films the special effects are rather obvious. The shipyard mattes at the end are not very realistic. Some have even gone as far to say this is intentional....but I disagree.
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Post by naterdawg on Feb 28, 2017 0:04:27 GMT
I may be the only one here to like Marnie (1964). His next film was pretty routine, Torn Curtain (1966), but it has one scene that should be obligatory viewing for every aspiring director of thrillers. The one which demonstrates how hard it can be to kill anyone without the right skills and implements. No, I like Marnie. I didn't when I saw it in first release, but played it over in my mind and actually re-evaluated it without watching it again and turned my opinion to the positive before many others started liking it. Like too many other later Hitch films the special effects are rather obvious. The shipyard mattes at the end are not very realistic. Some have even gone as far to say this is intentional....but I disagree. The one line from Marie that I always remember: "You're hurtin' mah leg, Marnie."
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Post by Wesley Crusher on Feb 28, 2017 0:24:41 GMT
Alfred Hitchcock (40 films seen) Top 20 (7+ Rating ranked in order)
Rope (1948) Rear Window (1954) North by Northwest (1959) Vertigo (1958) Lifeboat (1944) Dial M for Murder (1954) The Birds (1963) Psycho (1960) Notorious (1946) To Catch a Thief (1955)
Rebecca (1940) Strangers on a Train (1951) Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) The Lady Vanishes (1938) Suspicion (1941) Shadow of a Doubt (1943) The 39 Steps (1935) I Confess (1953) The Lodger (1927) The Pleasure Garden (1925)
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Post by Doghouse6 on Feb 28, 2017 1:00:57 GMT
No, I like Marnie. I didn't when I saw it in first release, but played it over in my mind and actually re-evaluated it without watching it again and turned my opinion to the positive before many others started liking it. Like too many other later Hitch films the special effects are rather obvious. The shipyard mattes at the end are not very realistic. Some have even gone as far to say this is intentional....but I disagree. The one line from Marie that I always remember: "You're hurtin' mah leg, Marnie." I hope you'll forgive this small correction, which I bring up only because the word actually used in the film is so evocative of the less-than-sophisticated background of Mrs. Edgar, telling us as much about her as more explicit biographical specifics: "You're achin' mah leg." It's small, nearly unnoticeable details like this that contribute to richness of characterization. Like you, I'm fond of Marnie, for its fullness of stylistic Hitchcock "touches" in editing, cinematography, pacing, scoring, sound design, story construction and so forth. If it didn't work for most audiences, my guess would be that it has to do with dilution of emotional focus. Marnie is our protagonist, but she remains an inaccessible enigma until the climactic revelation. Mark, the character through whom the unraveling of this enigma is our only entry point, is ultimately somewhat unsympathetic and forbidding; for all his polish and elegance, obsessive control and underlying brutality take the place of genuinely concerned affection. Thematically, Marnie perhaps most resembles Notorious, unified as they are by the aspect of sexual enslavement central to both. Notorious succeeds where Marnie doesn't by clearly establishing both Devlin's and Alex's deep feelings for Alicia - Dev's in terms of dutiful sacrifice; Alex's in the form of pathos - as well as her desire to redeem herself (and Devlin's love) through her own sacrifice. Marnie simply doesn't exploit such elements of emotional resonance, remaining empty at its core in spite of its many satisfying qualities of cinematic execution.
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Post by naterdawg on Feb 28, 2017 1:39:49 GMT
It had ugly back projection, which is something Hitchcock did in a lot of his sixties films and was even doing in Family Plot. And let's face it, the fake-looking shot of that ship near Marnie's mother's house is inexcusable.
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Post by geode on Feb 28, 2017 2:02:48 GMT
It had ugly back projection, which is something Hitchcock did in a lot of his sixties films and was even doing in Family Plot. And let's face it, the fake-looking shot of that ship near Marnie's mother's house is inexcusable. Although I have not seen it in decades there is a really bad process shot in Family Plot behind a car. I've seen far better process shots in films from the 40s. For that matter the effects work in Foreign Correspondent is better than what we are discussing here. Hitch didn't seem to care if the effects were all that good. There is a process shot with two actors playing in front of it in Dial M For Murder that is OK in normal projection. But in 3D we have three dimensional actors standing in front of a two dimensional plate.
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Post by naterdawg on Feb 28, 2017 2:06:56 GMT
The process shot in Family Plot, if memory serves me, is seen through the windshield of a car that's had its brakes cut. Never once did I think that was real, and I haven't seen it since 1976.
There are several process shots in The Birds that are poor. Most specifically, when Melanie stops to have a smoke outside the schoolhouse. She notices a bird flying by her, gets up and sees them all in the playground. When she stands, it automatically takes you out of the scene, due to the ugly rear projection. The same thing happens when she rides the little boat to Mitch's house. Something even more jarring is the sequence at Kathy's birthday party when Mitch (Rod Taylor) and Melanie (Tippi Hedren) climb a sand dune to talk. It goes from actual outside photography to an overlit scene filmed on a sound stage and back again. Just awful. I expected so much more from Hitch.
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Post by louise on Feb 28, 2017 13:11:48 GMT
My favourite Hitchcock films are The Lady Vanishes, To catch A Thief, and North by Northwest.
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Post by goodfella2459 on Feb 28, 2017 14:22:28 GMT
I was introduced to classic cinema with Hitchcock, starting with Psycho. Its always been my favourite, but the last few years, its been tied with The Trouble With Harry as my favourite. This doesn't get much love, but I love the dry humour in this film, the quirks of the characters, the small town setting & beautiful cinematography. I love it.
I also love:
Rear Window. Shadow of a Doubt. Dial M For Murder. Frenzy. North By Northwest. Rope. The Lady Vanishes. The Birds. Notorious. Saboteur. Foreign Correspondent.
I like a lot of his films.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 28, 2017 17:07:22 GMT
Hitchcock was a genius as a filmmaker. He storyboarded all his films carefully frame by frame and by the time he actually filmed found that it was boring, because he felt like he'd already done it. And he always knew how long his films would be - they rarely were more than a couple of minutes off of what he planned. Then, of course, there's the Hitchcock theory of suspense, which revolutionized filmmaking - the great example being that of having two characters talking at a table and then blowing them up with a bomb as opposed to having a bomb nearby about to go off that the audience is aware of but the characters aren't. Now that creates real suspense! And, of course, there's his popularization of the "MacGuffin" - the plot device that seems to be the main story but is really just a mechanism for telling the real story that's very different. Like trapping the Nazi in Notorious, which in reality provides the platform for the love story. He was never considered an actor's director, but there's no question that actors in Hitchcock films always gave outstanding performances. So though he was once was quoted as saying that actor were like cattle, he must have done something right. Shadow of a Doubt was Hitchcock's personal favorite. It's my second. Notorious is my first. My other favorites: Vertigo Foreign Correspondent Spellbound Rear Window The Trouble with Harry North by Northwest The Birds The 39 Steps The Lady Vanishes SaboteurI admire Psycho greatly, but it's never been a favorite. Strongly recommend that anyone who's interested in Hitchcock read "Hitchcock," a book length interview by Francois Truffaut. What a superb analysis of Hitchcock. Thank you, Spiderwont. Shadow of a Doubt is my favorite Hitchcock; I would give Vertigo that terribly subjective title "the best." We have a number of favorites in common (though I am not as big a fan of Foreign Correspondent, Spellbound, or The Trouble with Harry as you), so that's also something nice as well! And a sincere thanks for describing (without knowing it) my opinion on Psycho, which many people to whom I've talked have never understood: great admiration, but it's never been a favorite.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 28, 2017 17:09:42 GMT
The one line from Marie that I always remember: "You're hurtin' mah leg, Marnie." I hope you'll forgive this small correction, which I bring up only because the word actually used in the film is so evocative of the less-than-sophisticated background of Mrs. Edgar, telling us as much about her as more explicit biographical specifics: "You're achin' mah leg." It's small, nearly unnoticeable details like this that contribute to richness of characterization. Like you, I'm fond of Marnie, for its fullness of stylistic Hitchcock "touches" in editing, cinematography, pacing, scoring, sound design, story construction and so forth. If it didn't work for most audiences, my guess would be that it has to do with dilution of emotional focus. Marnie is our protagonist, but she remains an inaccessible enigma until the climactic revelation. Mark, the character through whom the unraveling of this enigma is our only entry point, is ultimately somewhat unsympathetic and forbidding; for all his polish and elegance, obsessive control and underlying brutality take the place of genuinely concerned affection. Thematically, Marnie perhaps most resembles Notorious, unified as they are by the aspect of sexual enslavement central to both. Notorious succeeds where Marnie doesn't by clearly establishing both Devlin's and Alex's deep feelings for Alicia - Dev's in terms of dutiful sacrifice; Alex's in the form of pathos - as well as her desire to redeem herself (and Devlin's love) through her own sacrifice. Marnie simply doesn't exploit such elements of emotional resonance, remaining empty at its core in spite of its many satisfying qualities of cinematic execution. Grand analysis of Marnie, one of my favorite Hitchcocks--though, like Geode, I didn't "get" it when I first saw it and needed to a few more viewings to understand in all its complexity. I agree that Notorious is superior to Marnie, but I may (at a purely instinctual level) prefer the latter.
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Post by london777 on Feb 28, 2017 17:29:24 GMT
So I am not the only one to like "Marnie"? Who'd a thunk that?
Perhaps someone more cyber-competent than myself could add a poll (as for the Scorsese thread) so we can each vote for three Hitchcock favorites? I would try but I would probably end up crashing the whole site.
I love polls. Gives me an opening to whip myself into a rage against posters who do not agree with my choices. The Scorsese one was interesting, and a Hitchcock one might be more so. I already detect widely divergent opinions.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Feb 28, 2017 18:00:21 GMT
I hope you'll forgive this small correction, which I bring up only because the word actually used in the film is so evocative of the less-than-sophisticated background of Mrs. Edgar, telling us as much about her as more explicit biographical specifics: "You're achin' mah leg." It's small, nearly unnoticeable details like this that contribute to richness of characterization. Like you, I'm fond of Marnie, for its fullness of stylistic Hitchcock "touches" in editing, cinematography, pacing, scoring, sound design, story construction and so forth. If it didn't work for most audiences, my guess would be that it has to do with dilution of emotional focus. Marnie is our protagonist, but she remains an inaccessible enigma until the climactic revelation. Mark, the character through whom the unraveling of this enigma is our only entry point, is ultimately somewhat unsympathetic and forbidding; for all his polish and elegance, obsessive control and underlying brutality take the place of genuinely concerned affection. Thematically, Marnie perhaps most resembles Notorious, unified as they are by the aspect of sexual enslavement central to both. Notorious succeeds where Marnie doesn't by clearly establishing both Devlin's and Alex's deep feelings for Alicia - Dev's in terms of dutiful sacrifice; Alex's in the form of pathos - as well as her desire to redeem herself (and Devlin's love) through her own sacrifice. Marnie simply doesn't exploit such elements of emotional resonance, remaining empty at its core in spite of its many satisfying qualities of cinematic execution. Grand analysis of Marnie, one of my favorite Hitchcocks--though, like Geode, I didn't "get" it when I first saw it and needed to a few more viewings to understand in all its complexity. I agree that Notorious is superior to Marnie, but I may (at a purely instinctual level) prefer the latter. Thanks, salzmank. I find something to appreciate and value in every Hitchcock film and, although not among my collection (which Notorious is), Marnie's one I'll rarely miss when I have the opportunity to see it. In its best moments - Marnie's sneaking past the cleaning woman in stocking feet; the dinner party confrontation with Strutt; Forio's excruciating demise, for example - it represents Hitch at the top of his game.
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Post by marshamae on Feb 28, 2017 18:23:24 GMT
It took me a while to warm up to Hitchcock. When I was a kid tge TV show used to scare me, even just the music.
By college I was a fan and my years in Paris gave me a great chance to see his early films on tge big screen.
Love The Lady Vanishes The thirty nine steps The Man who knew too much Notorious, Rear Window Suspicion Shadow of a Doubt To Catch A Thief Psycho The Burds North by Northwest Foreign Correspondant
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