One Fan's List of the Best Hitchcock Films

On September 5, 2009 at 4:56 p.m., I published my first post for the Classic Film & TV Cafe. Suffice to say, there was a lot I didn't know about blogging. But here I am, 968 posts and ten years later, and I must say that I've had a wonderful time writing and managing the Classic Film & TV Cafe. To commemorate  the last decade, I thought it'd be fun to update my first post about my picks for Alfred Hitchcock's ten best films. To my surprise, other than re-ranking two films, I made few changes. Please note that there are spoilers in my write-ups!

1. Vertigo - This richly-layered masterpiece reveals its big twist when least expected--turning the film on its proverbial head. It causes love to blur with obsession and greed to give way to guilt and perhaps love. What we see at the bell tower is initially false, but ultimately true. I could go on and on…but, hey, whole books have been devoted to this film. I think it’s Hitch’s best job of writing (as usual uncredited) and directing…plus we get superb performances (especially from James Stewart), a marvelous San Francisco setting, an unforgettably disturbing score from Bernard Hermann, and a nifty Saul Bass title sequence.

2. Rear Window – My wife would rate this as No. 1, but she’s not writing this post! As with Vertigo, there are multiple layers to Rear Window. Taken alone, there’s nothing interesting about the mystery of the missing salesman’s wife. The movie is really about the relationship between Jeff and Lisa. Though she is rich, beautiful, and loves him (Stella describes her as “perfect”), Jeff refuses to commit to Lisa. He fears that doing so will cause him to sacrifice his exciting, globetrotting life as a magazine photographer. It is only when Lisa becomes his “legs” and joins in the investigation of the missing wife that Jeff realizes how bright and exciting she truly is. It’s part of the film’s offbeat humor, because, to the viewer, Grace Kelly's Lisa looks stunning and exciting from the moment she walks into Jeff’s apartment. To provide contrast to Jeff and Lisa’s evolving relationship, Hitchcock lets us spy—with Jeff—on his neighbors in the apartment complex. Their stories are effective mini-dramas that are funny, sad, and murderous: Miss Lonelyhearts (that’s what Jeff calls her) dresses up and sets a table nightly for an imaginary date; Miss Torso practices dancing routines in her underwear, but rejects all suitors when she throws a party (later we learn why); the composer struggles to finish his compositions at the piano in his studio apartment; and an older couple, with their little dog, sleep on the balcony because the nights are so warm. Technically, the film is one of Hitch’s finest achievements. Almost every shot is from the viewpoint of Jeff’s apartment, an amazing feat but also one that’s not distracting (unlike the ten-minute takes in Hitchcock’s Rope). Even the stagy sets work to the film’s advantage, for the apartment complex seems like its own artificial world.

3. Marnie – When I first saw Marnie as a teenager, it made no impression at all. I thought Tippi Hedren was miscast and Sean Connery dull. The plot--what there was of one--seemed thin and the characters lacked interest. Decades later, I watched it again and, to my complete surprise, I loved it! Tippi Hedren's subtle detached performance made Marnie a vulnerable, intriguing character. The progressively complex relationship between Marnie and Sean Connery’s character generated suspense--in its own quiet way--worthy of Hitch’s best man-on-the-run films. I was captivated by Hitch's finest use of color (especially during the opening scenes). And finally, there was Bernard Herrmann's incredible score (which, for me, ranks second only to Vertigo among his Hitchcock soundtracks). I've often wondered how I missed all of this the first time around?

4. The Birds – This one functions on two levels for me. It is, of course, a masterfully directed thriller about unexplained bird attacks in a small California seaside community (I love the playground and gas station sequences). But it’s also a well-acted 1960s relationship drama about three women and their interactions with the bland, but likable, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). Mitch’s mother (wonderfully played by Jessica Tandy) fears losing her son to another woman—not because of jealousy, but because she can’t stand the thought of being abandoned. Young socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) views Mitch as a stable love interest, something she needs as she strives to live a more meaningful life. And Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) is the spinster schoolteacher, willing to waste her life to be near Mitch after failing to pry him from his mother. These relationships are what the film is about—the birds are merely catalysts. That’s why the ending works for me; when the relationships are resolved, the bird attacks end.

5. Strangers on a Train – One of the cleverest (and most disturbing) premises of all Hitchcock films. The carousel climax is justly famous, but I favor the cigarette lighter in the drain. It’s a perfect example of how Hitch could generate suspense from a simple situation—with potentially disastrous consequences. I think Farley Granger and Robert Walker are pretty good in the leads, but not as strong as other Hitchcock stars.

6. Shadow of a Doubt – It took this one awhile to grow on me, but that makes sense in hindsight. Shadow of a Doubt is all about gradual realization. Charlie (Teresa Wright) slowly evolves from disbeliever (those accusations toward her beloved uncle could not be true!) to one who suspects the truth to believer to would-be victim. It’s a chilling tale, all the more so because it’s set against the backdrop of a friendly Thorton Wilder town.

7. North by Northwest – I think of this as something of a lark for all involved, but that’s partially why it’s so much fun. It’s my favorite of Hitch’s man-on-the-run films and James Mason, who plays the villain straight, is the perfect foil for Cary Grant. I only wish the Mount Rushmore scenes looked a little more realistic and Roger’s mother had more scenes.

8. Psycho – It’s hard to gauge the impact of Psycho now, but I can remember how shocked I was when I first saw it. I knew Janet Leigh was a major actress and so I was more than a little shocked to see what happened to her character of Marion Crane. (By the way, I was equally shocked when Arbogast was killed…filmed from that disorienting overhead camera angle). It’s really a fine film--more than a shocker--and also offers good performances, great Hermann music, and (once again) memorable Saul Bass titles. And I guess that shower scene turned out to be a little influential.

9. Rebecca - It’s too bad that David Selznick and Hitchcock didn’t get along better, because this collaboration is an excellent, atmospheric adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s novel. I love how the cheeriness of the opening scenes between the future Mrs. De Winter and Maxim contrast with the later scenes at Manderley. The cast is pitch perfect with Judith Anderson and George Sanders standing out in supporting roles. Like many people, my favorite scene is when Mrs. Danvers suggests that maybe the second Mrs. De Winters should just end it all.

10. Young and Innocent and Stage Fright (tie) – I am now officially in trouble with fans of Notorious, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Frenzy. Those are all fine films and I would list them in my top 20. But I must confess that I enjoy the two listed in my #10 spot more than those movies. The seldom-shown Young and Innocent is a fine early man-on-the-run film with sweet performances and its share of great scenes (e.g., carving meat at the dinner table, the great tracking shot leading to the killer’s twitching eye). As for Stage Fright, I’ll say upfront that the controversial flashback doesn’t bother me at all; I don’t understand the big fuss. Stage Fright makes this list on the basis of sheer fun and a delightful cast (Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, and Michael Wilding at his most charming). I saw it late among Hitch’s films and I never fail to be entertained when I watch it again.

Honorable Mentions: Those mentioned in No. 10 that will get me in trouble for omitting…plus To Catch a Thief, Secret Agent, Blackmail, the underappreciated I Confess, and Sabotage (with the controversial bomb scene).

Mary Rose--the Hitchcock Movie That Never Was

Alfred Hitchcock saw the original London stage production of Mary Rose in 1920--and would be infatuated with it for years.

Written by J.M. Barrie (best known for penning Peter Pan), Mary Rose opens with a soldier arriving at a desolate, decaying house where he encounters an elderly housekeeper. The housekeeper is alarmed initially, but the soldier explains that his family once lived in the house. As a flashback unfolds, he tells the story of a young girl, Mary Rose, who disappeared for four days during an island vacation with her family. When she reappears, she has no memory of those four days. Years later, she, her husband, and her young son visit the same island and, again, she vanishes. When she reappears--decades later--she has not aged a day and her grown son is now older than her. The shock is more than she can bear and Mary Rose dies from a heart attack. At the conclusion of the flashback, Mary Rose, still a young woman, returns to the house yet again...only to disappear into a white light.

Alfred Hitchcock discussed the possibility of adapting Barrie's play on numerous occasions. The closest he came to realizing the project was in the mid-1960s after Marnie. In an interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock explained: "A few years back it might have seemed like the subject was too irrational for the public. But since then the public has been exposed to these twilight-zone stories, especially on television." Rod Serling influencing Hitchcock's decision to make a movie--who would have thought?

Playwright-screenwriter Jay Presson Allen.

While developing Marnie, Hitchcock had worked closely with playwright Jay Presson Allen (Hitch and Evan Hunter, the original screenwriter, parted over creative differences). Hitch turned to Allen again and the two completed a screenplay for Mary Rose. Steven DeRosa, who wrote the book Writing With Hitchcock, includes a link to the complete Mary Rose screenplay at his web site; click here to peruse it. (DeRosa's book contains in-depth descriptions of several of Hitchcock unproduced films, to include Mary Rose and Kaleidoscope.)

Keir Dullea was in a 2007 Off-
Broadway production of Mary Rose.

There are several theories as to why Hitchcock never made Mary Rose, to include the failure of Marnie at the boxoffice and the falling out between Tippi Hedren and Hitch. The famed director often told people that Universal would let him make any movie under $3 million--except for Mary Rose (that was apparently a joke). Hitchcock probably provided the real reason when he confided to Truffaut: "You should make the picture. You would do it better. It's not really Hitchcock material."

Hitchcock's follow-up to Marnie would turn out to be Torn Curtain, a modest effort that makes this blogger yearn for the Hitch flick that might have been.

Feel Free to Spoil the Ending

I’m sure it’s happened to anyone who’s an avid fan of movies. You’re watching something, and then suddenly you’re not. An hour or so into the movie, and it ends, but much earlier than intended. Maybe you’re at the theatre, and the film falls off the reel. Or you’re at home, and a thunderstorm knocks out the dish. Or you’ve rented a DVD, and the previous renter got his grubby hands all over the playing side and thought the best thing to do would be to clean it with his raggedy shirt, and the movie’s final thirty minutes are pixelated garbage because the disc looks as if it’s been scrubbed with sandpaper.

These days, it’s easier to find another copy of a movie, and if you’re desperate, you can peruse the full synopsis on Wikipedia. But way back whenever, it took a little more effort. You’d have to find someone who’d seen the entire film and beg them for a breakdown of the parts you’d missed. But chances are that person would be another movie buff and would refuse to reveal anything, not wanting to “ruin” it for you, regardless of how many times you screamed, “Ruin it! Ruin it!” in their face. The only remaining option would be to wait for a return trip to the theatre, wait for your local video store to replace its dreadful copy, wait for the movie to crop up on TV someday. A whole bunch of waiting. And then maybe some dinner, followed by more waiting.

The first time I can remember missing a rather significant chunk of a movie was when my siblings and I stayed with our aunt and uncle. My uncle pushed a VHS copy of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) into a VCR. I was only 10 years old and had never seen it. The movie opens with a spooky drive to the cemetery as Johnny and Barbra visit their father’s grave. My sister wondered aloud why Johnny was putting on black leather gloves, and the potential reasons seemed feverishly endless. Johnny deliberately scares his sister: “They’re coming to get you, Barbra!” And suddenly a man appears, but he’s really a ghoul, and he attacks Johnny, and Johnny hits his head on a tombstone, and is he dead? No time to check, as Barbra runs to the car, locks herself inside, but oh, no! She doesn’t have the keys, Johnny does, and seriously, is he dead? The ghoul smashes the car window, and Barbra shifts into neutral, and the car starts rolling to prospective safety, and it looks as if she’s made her escape, but the car hits a tree, and she has to jump out, and --

Snow. My uncle had stopped the movie. For the longest time, I thought he’d cut it off because it was terrifying my sister, but I learned much later that he feared my mother’s reaction if he’d shown us a zombie movie. But I’m not sure he realized what he’d actually done. I didn’t see Night of the Living Dead until I was in my teens, so for years, my curiosity was relentless: What happened to Barbra? Did she get away? Was she turned into a ghoul? And seriously! Is Johnny dead?!

I was most affected by a premature ending with Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964). I’d recently discovered the British auteur and was on a massive run of Hitch films. I saw that Marnie was going to be on TV, and for whatever reason, I had to ask my sister to set the VCR for me. There I sat, following along with Marnie’s thievery and the wavering relationship between Marnie and James Bond… or, well, Sean Connery’s character. Then Marnie’s riding horseback, and her horse is wild, and it hurdles a stone wall, collapsing from an injury. Marnie is horrified, and she retrieves a pistol and returns to her fallen steed. Hitch’s camera is aimed at her hand as she lifts the revolver, hammer cocked and --

Static, image clearing, two ladies on a talk show. My sister, unaware of the film’s running time (about 130 minutes, probably two and a half hours on TV), set the VCR for only two hours. I shuffled through a few choice words but had no way of learning how the movie ended. Years later, my uncle, perhaps to redeem himself for the Night of the Living Dead incident, showed me the last 30 minutes or so. And here’s the clincher: the image of Marnie holding the gun is the image that’s been seared onto my brain, and, worst of all, I’ve forgotten the ending.

Instances like that have happened since and will likely happen again. But every shoddy DVD can be replaced by another. Every disappearing dish signal can be vetoed by a few YouTube clips. Every busy schedule can be ridiculed by a DVR full of things to watch at your own convenience. So now if you miss a movie’s ending, you need not worry. You’ll find the ending somewhere. You may have to wait, but only for a few hours or days, not years. It’s a persistent speculation, running the possibilities through your head: What was the ending like? I mean, just imagine. You’re totally invested, you don’t know how everything will wind up, and then suddenly --

What is Your Favorite "180-Degree Movie"?

In case you're wondering, a "180 degree movie" is one that you didn't particularly care for (or maybe even disliked) that became a favorite after watching it again later in life. Perhaps, this phenomenon has never happened to you...but I've experienced it on multiple occasions. My favorite 180-degree movie is Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie.

When I saw Marnie as a teenager, it made no impression at all. I thought Tippi Hedren was miscast and Sean Connery dull. The plot--what there was of one--was thin and the characters lacked interest. The cheap production values shocked me, especially the horrible use of rear screen projection during the fox hunt and the hokey set used for the closing "exterior" shot.

Flash forward three deacdes later. During a routine video store visit, I spotted Marine on the shelves. I had recently watched a slew of Hitchcock films during an AMC marathon and thus decided: "Oh, what the heck, I'll give Marine another try."

To my complete surprise, I loved it. Tippi Hedren's subtle detached performance made Marnie a vulnerable, intriguing character. The progressively complex relationship between Marnie and Mark (Connery) generated suspense--in its own quiet way--worthy of Hitch’s best man-on-the-run films. I was captivated by Hitch's finest use of color (especially during the opening scenes). And finally, there was Bernard Herrmann's incredible score (which, for me, ranks second only to Vertigo among his Hitchcock soundtracks). I've often wondered how I missed all of this the first time around?

The answer is a complex one, of course. It's easy to forget that "we" are a part of the movie-watching experience. Each time we watch a movie, we overlay it with our own emotions, our likes and dislikes, and even our remembrances of every movie we've seen. Our tastes in the arts naturally evolve over time. Had I not been exposed to  foreign-language films in college, would I be one of those people who never watch a foreign film because of those darn subtitles? I'd like to think not, but who knows!

I also think one can't underestimate the environment and state of mind when viewing a movie. If you're in the midst of a heavy romance, then Somewhere in Time may be an enchanting, tear-inducing experience. But watch it for the first time after a bitter breakup and one's assessment may be altogether different.

There are many reasons why a film may go from zero to favorite. But the question is: What is your favorite 180-degree movie?

Marnie--The Second Time Around

Has a subsequent viewing—at a later point in life--ever drastically altered the way you felt about a movie? Once Upon a Time in the West made little impression on me when I first saw it. But, as I watched it again at various points in my life, it gradually became one of my favorite films. However, no movie has made as long a journey for me as Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie.

I recently found a film journal I’d kept back in 1986 and my assessment of Marnie was a “disappointment that oddly lacked suspense.” I went on to blame Tippi Hedren’s “detached performance” and complain about Hitch’s use of a “shoddy rear screen.”

Today…and for many years now…Marnie has ranked as one of my favorite movies. There is much to admire in this underrated, multi-layered picture, from Hitch’s rich use of color to the progressively complex relationship between Marnie (Hedren) and Mark (Sean Connery). I’m always intrigued by the way Mark watches Marnie, hoping to catch her in a lie that will lead to a better understanding of this unusual woman he has blackmailed into marriage. Mark becomes the predator, observing his quarry intently and sometimes playing with it cruelly. Surprisingly, Marnie—in its own quiet way—generates suspense worthy of Hitch’s best man-on-the-run films.

As for Hedren’s performance, it’s her very detachment that makes Marnie such a vulnerable, intriguing character. I’ve read where Hitch originally acquired Winston Graham’s novel as a comeback vehicle for Grace Kelly. But I can’t imagine Princess Grace, with her warmth and classic beauty, in the role. It’s really Hedren’s film and easily surpasses anything else she’s done.

But my younger self was right about one thing: the rear screen shots are awful. Hitch hated to film outdoors, where he couldn’t control the lighting, but the scenes of Tippi on her horse and the closing shot are embarrassing.

Forget this minor complaint, though. If you haven’t seen Marnie in a few years, please give it another chance. You may be surprised. And if you’ve come to admire another movie the second time around—as I did Marnie—I’d love to hear about it.