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The Girl, The Birds, and a plethora of meaning.

Posted on by under biopics, the horror!

HBO’s recent television film The Girl, which purports to portray the “true” story behind the relationship between Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock, is instead an abysmally twisted recreation of the dynamic between the actress and the legendary director. The movie is based largely on biographer Donald Spoto’s Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (2008), a book for which Hedren contributed–for the first time–tales of her troubles with Hitchcock during the production of her two films with him: 1963′s The Birds, and 1964′s Marnie. 

Not having read Spoto’s book, I cannot comment on how faithfully screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes adapted the original material into her teleplay, but if it’s at all close to the source material, I can firmly say I have no interest in reading Spoto’s treatise. The resulting film is shallow, biased, and wholly lacking in veracity and depth (the term “hatchet-job” might be an appropriate one here). From the very start, it is evident that the film has an agenda; the “dirty old man” vibe thrown off by The Girl is unmistakable, with Hitchcock coming off as the wily and dangerous predator to Hedren’s innocent and ultimately helpless victim.

But all of that might be excusable (and provide the same kind of campy fun as other ridiculously superficial biopics, such as 1989′s Great Balls of Fire!) were it the slightest bit entertaining as well. Sadly, an excellent cast is grossly misused here. Toby Jones’ Hitchcock is a doddering and somewhat pathetic shadow of the man himself (even the voice, despite its undeniable similarity to the director’s own, comes off as mere parody here). Sienna Miller, a woman whose limited acting abilities are actually on par with Hedren’s, if truth be told, is slightly more lively than the mechanical birds shown in a couple of scenes–whether she’s trying to ape Hedren’s legendary woodenness or just can’t quite pull off the character as written is anybody’s guess. And when Alma Hitchcock–played by the otherwise excellent Imelda Staunton–is not being shunted aside as a mere secondary character, she is depicted as a jealous, bitter, snide caricature–poor treatment of a woman who was Hitchcock’s most trusted adviser and helpmate throughout the course of his career and life, a woman whom Hedren herself acknowledged as being considerate and thoughtful in advising the upstart actress (at least Staunton gets the most biting comment of the film, telling her husband, “The day she drops her knickers, you’ll run a mile”).

Truly, it boggles the mind how such a film was ever produced. Not only that, it’s absolutely infuriating that viewers who have no background at all about either Hedren or Hitchcock will no doubt base their opinions of these two figures on their portrayal in this film. Neither of them comes off very well at all, and neither of them honestly deserves to be painted this way.

[For more regarding Hitch and Hedren, check out playwright Elisabeth Karlin's recent article "The Art of Accusing Hitchcock," posted on the Alfred Hitchcock Geek blog.]

The single positive thing to come out of watching The Girl this past weekend is that it led me back to The Birds, a movie I had not seen in a couple of years. I doubt many will ever mistake The Birds for being one of Hitchcock’s better works. But it is, perhaps, the most allegorical tale the director ever put to film, and that in itself makes it quite appealing.

One of the universal questions that most viewers of The Birds leave the film asking is: what do the bird attacks mean? Are they a symbol of something? A means of retribution of some kind? Do they have any meaning at all? Hitchcock never answers the question–the attacks are the grand “MacGuffin” of the film, the device that furthers the plot and allows the director to string together his intended narrative. Indeed, Hitchcock really never intended us to question the “why” of The Birds, just as we are not meant to inquire about the “government secrets” driving the plot of North by Northwest (1959), or the aircraft plans in The 39 Steps (1935), or the uranium in Notorious (1948), because those things ultimately have little to do with the story Hitchcock has crafted on the screen. But in regards to The Birds, speculation about the MacGuffin is rather unavoidable, in part because, unlike the previously-mentioned MacGuffin-driven plots, the story of The Birds does not hold together successfully as a tale on its own merits. The bird attacks range from benign to merely serviceable, never fully treading into “horror” territory the way Hitchcock’s previous film, Psycho, did so chillingly. Further, the central romance between Melanie (Hedren) and Mitch (Rod Taylor) is not an overly interesting one; aside from small bouts of could-be-wittier banter, the pair lacks a great deal of chemistry, and Mitch’s interest in Melanie is never fully clear (other than, you know, the fact that she looks like Tippi Hedren). And because we lack a better focus in the film, it’s easy to fixate on the birds themselves, to try to understand their behavior.

There’s no dearth of speculation out there about the “meaning” of The Birds. Here are a few of my favorite theories.

A Freudian/Feminist Spin on the Attacks

This viewpoint, which borrows heavily from feminist criticism of the film posited by Camille Paglia, recasts the “birds” of the title as the women in Mitch’s life (“bird” being slang for a female–usually intended to refer to a sexually-attractive girl, but given a generalized feminine definition here). There are three women whose relationships with Mitch are disrupted somewhat by Melanie’s arrival in Bodega Bay: his mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy); his former lover, Annie (Suzanne Pleshette); and, to a much lesser degree, his sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright). All three of these women essentially spend their lives “flocking” around Mitch; he is, in a sense, their whole world, the singular male authority figure in all of their lives. When Melanie arrives, boasting a leashed, potent sexuality that threatens to displace their shared “roost” (so to speak), the physical bird attacks can be seen as emanating from the three displaced women’s collective anger and frustration.

Note that the first attack comes after Melanie has entered Lydia and Cathy’s “roost” to leave the lovebirds for Cathy; the seagull’s dive-bombing attack is a warning shot that Melanie ignores. She moves on to Annie’s territory by choosing to board with her for the night; another warning shot arrives as another gull slams itself into Annie’s front door. The first full-fledged attack comes at Cathy’s birthday party, which Melanie attends (note, however, that the link to Cathy is tenuous, at best. Cathy welcomes Melanie and is genuinely pleased with her gift, though a Freudian analysis would speculate that she nonetheless harbors a deep-seated, subconscious fear that Melanie will “replace” her in her brother’s affections). It is after the party that all hell breaks loose and the attacks begin to spread across town, culminating in Annie’s death and accusations from a hysterical woman who superstitiously points at Melanie as the “evil” source of the attacks. The attacks only end when Melanie essentially “sacrifices” herself to an onslaught of birds in the end of the film–her subsequent catatonia and helplessness lead Lydia to take on the role of “mother,” and it can be assumed that it is her implicit acceptance of Melanie (and the regaining of her position as the “head” female character) which precipitates the end of the chaos and the uneasy detente at the conclusion of the film.

Through the Lens of the Cold War

Released in the midst of years-long tensions with the USSR, and a mere five months after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Birds seems at times to reverberate with a bone-deep fear of hostile, outside forces attacking the helpless populace. By extension, the film can be seen as a symbolic representation of the potentially deadly outcome of the Cold War, with the United States (as represented by Bodega Bay) demonstrating a decided inability to respond in kind to an outside threat.

The nuclear arms race during the Cold War was a game of uncertainty. Neither side was ever fully aware of what the other side was cooking up in its labs and military installations. Either side could, for all the other knew, be harboring a weapon of such destructive capabilities that its opponents would have no means of recourse. Looking at The Birds in light of 1960s geopolitics, it stands to reason that the attacks, for which the human victims have no true method of like response, can be viewed allegorically as such a weapon, promising to rain terror on the heads of innocents and promising annihilation.

Religious Connotations

Are the bird attacks the harbingers of an apocalyptic scenario that will see the end of the world–or, at least, the end of humanity as we know it? In the world of the film, there is no scientific explanation as to why the birds are attacking the human occupants of the town–even the ornithologist (Ethel Griffies) is stymied by what’s going on, even though she initially denies that it’s intentional of the animals’ part (“Birds are not aggressive creatures”). So is there a spiritual or metaphysical cause behind the attacks? An old drunk in the diner thinks so: “It’s the end of the world. Thus sayeth the Lord God unto the mountains and the hills, and the rivers and the valleys. Behold I, even I shall bring a sword upon ya. And I will devastate your high places. Ezekiel, chapter six.”

It certainly feels cataclysmic, watching the destruction of a town from something as relatively benign as a flock of birds. It brings to mind the plagues of Egypt, with feathered fiends standing in for mounds of frogs and sheets of locusts. Hitchcock’s direction even feeds into the apocalyptic notion, with the intermittent camera shots of the burning town from a birds-eye view (in the wake of the gas station explosion): are the birds (representative of the forces of God?) looking down upon the misery they have wrought/the retribution they have meted out, and judging humanity? Or are they just flying above the fray? In any case, those of us watching it on the screen are, at the very least, reminded of our own mortality, of the fragility of human life and the forces of nature that can easily douse it.

Chaos Theory

Hitchcock was a fan of the chaotic. Just a glance at his filmography shows a distinct fondness for putting characters into barely-controllable situations and watching them navigate their way through utter bedlam. In The Birds, Hitchcock crafts his most anarchic set-up yet: nature itself has turned against humanity, and there is no escape. It’s a role reversal of the most deliciously diabolical kind, per Christopher D. Morris: at the start of the film, it is birds who are caged by humans; by the film’s conclusion, it is the birds who are, in essence, caging mankind (and as if to make absolutely certain that we don’t miss the metaphor, Hitchcock puts Hedren in a telephone booth).

To be sure, Hitchcock’s films seem to take an immense amount of pleasure in ripping away the veneers of civilization and exposing the frailties underneath. There is both a literal and a figurative breakdown of society in this film: the birds physically destroy the things (possessions) that separate animal from human, while at the same time decimating the established way of life and snapping the bonds of various relationships between people and, at large, the world around them. And this film succeeds more than perhaps any other Hitchcock production in demonstrating the ineffectiveness of “civilization” (as a concept) in the face of pandemonium. Homes, schools, businesses are invaded. There is no place any of these people can go to be completely safe from the attacking birds. Repeatedly, we see them infiltrating the inner sanctums of the characters, rendering them helpless. The characters may try to hide or ignore the chaos around them but, as Hitchcock gleefully reminds us time after time, they cannot. Thus the film becomes an allegory of humanity’s tenuous relationship with nature, postulating the theory that, should nature someday turn against us, mankind is (to put it bluntly) utterly fucked. Any illusion that we have any measure of control over nature is just that–an illusion.

Regardless of how you view the film, or how you personally analyze the MacGuffin at its heart, one thing is clear: The Birds is, in many ways, a much deeper film than it is sometimes given credit for. There are sophisticated themes buried beneath the horror and the spectacle; the film is a veritable goldmine of allegorical interpretation. Indeed, the very act of analyzing this film’s MacGuffin is an allegorical construct–we, the film’s audience, attempt to ascribe meaning to an element of the film that, as it is presented to us, has no meaning. We are “reading” the film in a particular way, based on whatever preconceived notions we bring to it, just as the characters in the film try to “read” the birds’ attacks and ascribe meaning to them.

Quite the vicious cycle, is it not?

 

Sources and further reading regarding allegory and The Birds:
Morris, Christopher D. “Reading the birds and The Birds.” Literature Film Quarterly 28.4 (2000): 253-4.
Dirks, Tim. “The Birds (1963).” Filmsite. American Movie Classics, n.d. 23 Oct. 2012.
Paglia, Camille. The Birds (BFI Film Classics). London: British Film Institute, 1998.

High Anxiety

Posted on by under blogathon, carrie's faves, ripe for parody

I have to begin by saying how excited I was to hear about the “Best Hitchcock Films Hitchcock Never Made” blogathon. Several months ago, I decided to run a series on Mel Brooks, and this is the best kickoff I could have chosen. My many thanks to Dorian and Becky for hosting the “Not-Hitch” celebration!

High Anxiety (1977) was designed to parody suspense film as a genre, but primarily to parody Hitchcock suspense films. Many may recognize the references to Vertigo (1958), which are certainly prevalent, but Brooks wouldn’t be the brilliant filmmaker we know if he had stopped there.

The standard asylum fear: staff trapping patients by convincing others they are crazy. Here, Dr. Montague pretends to become a werewolf.

The setting screams Spellbound (1945), as does the opening premise: Dr. Thorndyke takes over the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, a position that the villainous Dr. Montague had expected to receive. The film that ensues is a mishmash of numerous Hitchcock images including imperatives from Psycho (1960), North by Northwest (1959), The Birds (1963), Spellbound, Suspicion‘s (1941) spider web shadow, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1954), and Vertigo (please note: NOT an exhaustive list).  In proper Mel Brooks fashion, the more you know about Hitchcock’s work, the more humor you can find in the film.

Possibly the most obligatory parody in the film: Dr. Thorndyke about to be “stabbed” by a newspaper.

Most of Mel Brooks’ parodies mimic images. What makes this film extra-special, however, is the way he plays with what made Hitchcock such a famous filmmaker: camera angles. Hitchcock is widely considered a filming genius and credited with revolutionizing the use of the camera to create visual effects. Mel Brooks pays close attention to this, and mimics Hitch’s habit. The introduction runs through the airport, following a baggage claim. This preferred pattern would eventually become a favorite of modern film artist Tim Burton.  Later, the film showcases using camera angles by literally placing the camera in random places or, as in my favorite scene, actually creates a mood using the camera angle.

The gate to the institute: Please note the sign “keep in.”

One of my favorite scenes in the film involves Dr. Montague and Nurse Diesel, portrayed by two frequent Mel Brooks compatriots: Harvey Korman and the incredible Cloris Leachman. Nurse Diesel (yes, that’s Nurse Ratched from 1975′s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and not even subtle), the true evil mastermind, explains the plot to Dr. Montague during an afternoon tea. The camera, however, sits below the glass-topped coffee table. The camera allows the audience to “spy” on the plotters, who unwittingly block the camera repeatedly as they go about having their tea. The comedy of the moment is brilliant, drawing the audience into the role of spy, albeit a spy constantly frustrated by carafes and saucers (and eventually completely blocked by a tray). Brooks creates one of his best parodies here by comedically accomplishing the very thing that makes Hitchcock so masterful: using perspective to create or change the role of his audience.

“Vertigo” and the blonde bombshell …

What also makes this film special is that Mel Brooks stars in the movie himself. Like Hitchcock, he typically has a character role or cameo in his films. Oddly, in his film pertaining to Hitchcock, he steps out and stars in his own picture. It is not the first or certainly the only movie where he does so, but it is his first with a speaking role (he stars also in 1976′s Silent Movie). However, in proper Hitchcock fashion, Mel Brooks hired a “blonde” to play the lead hysterical female role–Madeline Kahn. The in-the-film-blonde Kahn takes her role quite seriously, basically encompassing every suspense/Hitchcock bombshell all in one character (and let’s face it, no one in Mel Brooks’ arsenal, or possibly in the world, can do pitchy hysteria quite the way she can.).

Cloris Leachman is masterful as Nurse Diesel

The acting in this film is excellent overall, and no suspense is worth anything unless the villain in compelling. Harvey Korman is excellent as the rather disturbed puppet front man. Cloris Leachman’s performance as the horrifying Nurse Diesel is nothing short of a statement. Her verbal cues and posture communicate everything about her commanding strictness, and she creates a delightfully bizarre, blocked speech by clenching her teeth and only talking out of one side of her mouth. Just as Hitchcock worked hard to give the audience important signals of impending danger, she’s a caricature of held-back, hidden villainy.

This post could probably continue forever with parody mentions, pointing our references, or discussing the brilliance of the performances, but there has to be at least a little suspense left for the film …

Operator! Operator! Operator!

Posted on by under blogathon, noir

 

Many of director Alfred Hitchcock’s films take place in a single setting, restricting the movement of the characters to a central locale. Movies such as Lifeboat (1944), Rope (1948), and Rear Window and Dial M for Murder (both 1954) are claustrophobic and unnerving, filled to the brim with tension and unbearable suspense. The characters cannot get away from one another, and so the action is reduced to a psychological cat-and-mouse game with potentially deadly consequences. It is, to say the least, a highly effective means of establishing the scene from the very start.

In staging his 1948 suspenseful noir Sorry, Wrong Number, director Anatole Litvak borrows heavily from this particular element of Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Though the film features several flashbacks that take the action outside of its given setting, Number largely takes place inside the bedroom of spoiled heiress Leona Stevenson (Barbara Stanwyck), a bedridden invalid whose only outlet to the outside world–a telephone–becomes a source of fear and growing hysteria.

Having suffered a series of debilitating heart attacks, Leona remains trapped inside the third-floor bedroom of her mansion in New York City. One day, Leona tries to reach her unhappy, henpecked husband, Henry (Burt Lancaster), on the telephone, but receives no answer. When she asks the operator to connect the call, Leona ends up overhearing another call instead, in which two men are plotting the upcoming murder of an unnamed woman. Though Leona tries to report what she’s heard, her claims are dismissed. But piecing together bits of the conversation she’s just heard leads Leona to think that the target of the planned assassination may just be her.

Sorry, Wrong Number began life as a radio play by Lucille Fletcher, who (to continue the thread of Hitchcock connections in this film) was in the process of divorcing Hitch’s go-to film composer, Bernard Herrmann, the year this film was produced. The thirty-minute play was beefed up to ninety minutes for the film version by adding a series of flashbacks to establish the links between the characters and the history of Leona and Henry’s marriage. On the air, the role of Leona was originated by the great character actress Agnes Moorehead, who had found movie stardom as a supporting player in Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre (alongside other stars such as Joseph Cotten and Vincent Price). But when it came time to transfer the action to the big screen, Moorehead was deemed not a big enough star to carry the film, and so the part was given to Stanwyck. Cast as her weak-willed husband was Lancaster, who fought for the role to prove that he could play other parts besides the “pretty-boy” roles that had populated his career up until that point.

Leona is a shallow, unlikable woman who slowly slips into paranoia, fear, and regret, and Stanwyck (in her own inimitable way) is adept at making us feel for the character despite her less-than-sympathetic qualities (in fact, her skill in the part landed her a fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress). Stanwyck likely wouldn’t qualify by anyone’s definition of the stereotypical “cool Hitchcock blonde”–she’s much too vital and dynamic a personality for that in the majority of her roles. Leona is more akin to a figure such as Miriam in Strangers on a Train (1951), in that both women are essentially done in by their own selfishness.

The Hitchcockian elements abound in this production: the claustrophobic setting; the dark and shadowy appearance of the film, filled with tight framing shots that highlight Leona’s paranoia and terror; the elements of voyeurism inherent in the audience’s witnessing of Leona’s terrified final moments. Even the soundtrack contributes to the Hitchcockian feel of the movie–the score, by Franz Waxman, relies on sudden, startling. ominous notes that accompany impending danger, reminiscent at times of Herrmann’s brilliantly-crafted score for 1960′s Psycho, with the screeching violins that accompany the murders (though Sorry predates this film by more than a decade).

By the final scenes of the movie, the tension has built to almost insufferable levels. It is, in many ways, similar to the feeling aroused by the ending of several Hitchcock films–some of which came before Sorry (1941′s Suspicion, 1945′s Spellbound) and some of which came after (1959′s North by Northwest)–in that the central character’s fate is left in the hands of a would-be attacker, with rescue or redemption never completely certain. This trope is particularly evident in Rear Window, as L.B. Jeffries’ (James Stewart) life hangs in the balance–the attack on Leona is, in many ways similar to Thorwald’s (Raymond Burr) attack on Jeff, as both characters are forced to wait helplessly while their attacker approaches, unable to physically defend themselves. The ending is quite different for Stewart’s hero, who manages to survive thanks to the timely arrival of the police. Leona isn’t quite so lucky. The audience, the voyeur that has witnessed every minute of Leona’s final moments, is just as helpless as she is–as helpless as Henry, holding the other end of the telephone line, is–and all we are left to feel is fear and regret. And if the hand of Hitchcock wasn’t guiding the camera in person in these final moments, its suspenseful spirit most certainly was.

 

This post is a contribution to the “Best Hitchcock Films Hitchcock Never Made” blogathon hosted by Dorian from Tales of the Easily Distracted and Becky of ClassicBecky’s Brain Food. Make sure to check out the other compelling entries throughout the week.

Gaslight(s).

Posted on by under blogathon, sarah's faves

 

In the early 1940s, two different film versions of Patrick Hamilton’s play Angel Street were produced. The first version was released in 1940 and titled Gaslight. The second version of this film, which kept the same title, was released just four years later. Although both films were based on the same play and follow the same basic plot line, the 1944 version of Gaslight is superior, in part due to the strong cast and Hitchcockian elements.

Directed by Thorold Dickinson, the first version of Gaslight (1940) begins with a gloomy night. The darkness and fog create the perfect setting for a gruesome murder.

It’s a lovely night for a murder…

While an elderly woman peacefully sews, a faceless man comes up behind her and strangles her.  We do not see the face of the killer; we see only his hands and his shadow as he searches the house; we watch his feet as he runs up and down the staircase. Eventually, a maid finds the body and screams for the police. In the next scene, the camera zooms in on a headline in a newspaper (a very Hitchcockian element) that reads: “DREADFUL MURDER IN PIMLICO SQUARE: BARLOW RUBIES MISSING.” Thus, the story begins.

After what seems to be a long amount of time, a young couple moves into the house where the murder took place. From the very beginning, Paul Mallen (Anton Walbrook), the husband, is a rude, unpleasant person. We never witness a great deal of love shown toward his wife, Bella (Diana Wynyard). In fact, while enraged with his wife at one point in the film, he tells her he hates her. He flirts with the maid, Nancy (Cathleen Cordell), in front of his wife. At one point in the film, Paul even goes so far as to take Nancy to a show and kiss her.

Paul Mallen and Naughty Nancy

Paul disappears at night to “work.” Mysteriously, each night, the gaslight dims as if someone were turning it on from another part of the house. Bella hears footsteps each night in the attic, which is supposedly not in use. Whenever Bella complains of these mysterious happenings to her husband, he dismisses them and leads her to believe that she is dreaming or believing things that aren’t real. He attempts to convince her that she is going mad.

Hitchcock seemed to love the idea of the charming and refined sociopath: a character idealized at the beginning of a film who later turns out to be a villain. Unfortunately, one of this film version’s lacking points is that there is never any mystery that the husband is a very bad person. His treatment of his wife is appalling from the very beginning. Throughout the film, he manipulates his wife into thinking that she is losing her mind and that she is absentmindedly losing things, stealing things, and moving things around the house. He also alienates her from her family and community; he tells their neighbors that she is not well enough for social events.

The Not So Mysterious Killer

Also, there are no trains in the first version.

The remake of Gaslight in 1944 has proven to be much more popular. Granted, the all-star cast probably had a great deal to do with the film’s success.

Although the main characters’ names and some plot details change, the story is basically the same. The husband, Gregory Anton, is played by the debonair Charles Boyer. His wife, Paula Anton, is played by the innocent and charming Ingrid Bergman. A handsome neighbor who saves the day, Brian Cameron, is played by Joseph Cotten. Last but not least, making her very first big-screen appearance is Angela Lansbury, who plays the naughty parlor maid Nancy. Director George Cukor had a promising opportunity with this dynamic cast.

Like its predecessor, this version of the film also begins with a gloomy, dark night. The camera zooms in on a newspaper headline reading: “THORNTON SQUARE MURDER UNSOLVED; STRANGLER STILL AT LARGE.” A major difference in this film is that we witness a young Paula being taken from the home where her aunt was murdered. The next scene shows Paula all grown up, a decade after her aunt was brutally murdered. She is explaining to her singing instructor that she has fallen in love. Who is the lucky fellow? The young man who plays the piano while she sings. When the piano player, Gregory Anton, expresses his love to her, she tells him that she must take some time to think things over on her own. She takes a train to a vacation location. On the train, he meets an elderly lady (Dame May Whitty) who lives on the square where her aunt was murdered. Paula is surprised to find that Gregory is waiting for her when the train stops. (Stalker.) She marries him, and they honeymoon.

In this version, the husband is very charming and romantic at the beginning. On their honeymoon, he manipulates her into agreeing to move to her aunt’s home in London:

“Paula, if you won’t laugh at me, I should like to tell you something … it’s an idea, a silly idea that’s been with me for years. I was in London once in the winter. It seemed to me there was no city in the world that was colder for the homeless, but it could be warmer to the ones who had a home. How I used to long for a home of my own. One of those white houses in little London squares with a woman I would come to love.”

Paula tells him of her aunt’s murder, and she tells him that her aunt left the house to her. This, of course, he already knows.

Paula: “I’ve found peace in loving you. I could even face that house with you.”

Gregory: “Oh, no, no, Paula, beloved, I would not ask that of you.”

Paula: “Yes, yes, you shall have your dream. You shall have your house in the square.”

In the next scene, they arrive at the house. Gregory is still nice and comforting. He listens attentively as Paula shows him the house. When she gets upset, he tries to comfort her: “How would it be if we took away all these things that remind you so of her. The painting, all this furniture, shut it away so you can’t even see it. Suppose we make it a new house with new things, beautiful things for a new, beautiful life for us?”

Gregory asks, “Now where should we put all these things?” It is Paula who suggests that they keep it in the attic. Clever, Gregory, clever.

He snaps on her when she finds a letter sent to her aunt two days before her murder. This is the first time we see his dark side, and this is what makes the film so brilliant and delightfully Hitchy, for he seemed so wonderful at the beginning of the film. He seemed so charming, so accomplished, so handsome. Slowly and subtly, however, he begins to become colder and crueler. He tells everyone he meets that his wife is ill:

Nancy: “What’s the matter with the mistress? She don’t look ill to me. Is she?”

Elizabeth: “I don’t know. Not as I can see, but the master keeps tellin’ her she is.”

On a rare outing, Paula and Gregory go to the Tower of London to view romantic sights such as the guillotine. Gregory tricks Paula into thinking that she’s lost the broach that he gave her as a gift. He also interrogates her for bowing to a man who was smiling at her:

Paula: “I have no idea who he is, Gregory. He seemed to know me.”

Gregory: “Do you usually bow to people you don’t know?”

Paula: “No, I supposed I’d met him somewhere.”

Gregory: “Are you telling me the truth?”

Paula: “Of course, why should I lie? I don’t know who he is.”

Gregory: “Yet you smile at him. Why?”

Paula: “I tell you, I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know why I did it.”

Gregory: “Like the other things.”

Paula: “What other things?”

Gregory: “Oh. Nothing. Only I’ve been noticing, Paula, that you’ve been forgetful lately.”

Paula: “Forgetful?”

Gregory: “Well, losing things … and oh, don’t look so worried, Paula. It’s nothing. You get tired …”

Paula: “Yes, that’s probably what it is. I get tired. I’m tired now, can’t we go home?”

Gregory: “Oh, no! We still have the crown jewels to see. They’re in that building over there.”

Paula: “How do you know? You’ve never been here before.”

Gregory: “The guide told us inside. Are you becoming suspicious as well as absent-minded, Paula?”

The more perceptive Paula grows, the stronger his deceptive manipulation grows against her. Unlike in the 1940 version, where we are told from the beginning that the character is going mad, we can witness her descent into self-doubt in this version. Another classic Hitchcockian element, the transference of guilt, is extremely evident in the relationship between these two characters. When the nosy but friendly Mrs. Thwaites comes to visit, Gregory tells Nancy to tell her that her mistress isn’t well enough to see her. Paula is upset, explaining that she would have liked to have seen Mrs. Thwaites. Gregory pretends that he is confused, and acts as though he was attempting to spare Paula the trouble of receiving their obnoxious neighbor: “And you thought I was being cruel to you, keeping people away from you, making you a prisoner … haha.”

Haha … ha … oh.

While both films were Hitchcockian in tone and setting, the 1944 version, complete with a murder mystery, plenty of staircase scenes, a lovable sociopath, and plenty of dark gloomy nights (as well as a train scene!), truly could be mistaken as a genuine Hitchcock product. Frankly, I’m shocked that Mr. Hitchcock wasn’t involved!

This post is one of three contributions True Classics will be making to the “Best Hitchcock Films Hitchcock Never Made” blogathon, hosted by Dorian of Tales of the Easily Distracted and Becky of ClassicBecky’s Brain Food. Check out all of the wonderful contributions throughout the week!

For the Love of Film: Young and Innocent (aka The Girl Was Young)

Posted on by under blogathon, for the love of film

Christine Clay (Pamela Carme) is a film star on the rise. Her husband, who has apparently been away for several years, accuses her of cheating on him with other men. A fiery confrontation during a heavy storm ends with Christine slapping her husband several times, after which he goes out onto the balcony, overlooking the raging sea, to brood. The camera closes in on his twitching eyes before fading to black.

The following day, a smattering of seagulls circle and caw as a body washes up on the shore. A young actor, Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), walks along the cliffs, sees the body lying below, and rushes down to the beach. Upon realizing it is Christine (with whom he’d had a romantic relationship), he races away to find help. But two young women who see his flight misinterpret his motives, and when it is discovered that the actress was strangled with a belt that is found nearby, Robert is accused of murdering Christine.

As they are questioning the young man, the police reveal that they believe the belt used to kill Christine belonged to a raincoat owned by Robert—which he claims was stolen from him before the murder. While being escorted to his first court appearance, Robert manages to slip away from the police and escapes, hiding in the car of Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam), the unwitting daughter of the chief constable. Erica (who had briefly tended to Robert after he fainted during interrogation) finds herself drawn to the young man, and soon agrees to help him clear his name. The two set out to discover who has framed Robert for the murder, and why.

Considering that the murderer is more or less revealed to the audience in the first two minutes of the film, 1937′s Young and Innocent (released in the United States under the title The Girl Was Young) is not what you might call one of the more “suspenseful” films ever produced under the auspices of director Alfred Hitchcock. Nor is it the pinnacle of his output in Britain—that title would (in my opinion) go to the film that immediately followed this one, 1938’s The Lady Vanishes, which is a masterpiece on par with the director’s most superior American offerings. But Young and Innocent is an enjoyable, mild romantic thriller in its own right, and not nearly as well-regarded as it probably should be in comparison to other entries in Hitchcock’s wide-ranging filmography.

Though he had been making films for more than a decade by that point, it is only toward the end of the 1930s when we begin to see the Hitchcock “touch” (to borrow a phrase more commonly associated with Ernst Lubitsch) take definitive shape. And in this film, we see some of the earliest hallmarks that would soon become synonymous with the director: the “wrong man” trope, in which a hapless bystander becomes embroiled in a conspiracy about which he knows little to nothing; the helpful girl accomplice, who becomes equally embroiled in the plot by reason of her association with the accused man; the subsequent imperilment of the helpful girl (as I’ve discussed before, Hitchcock loves his endangered heroines); and that unique mixture of sometimes-dry humor and mystery/suspense that makes Hitchcock’s movies so damned entertaining.

Hitchcock has a decided fascination with examining characters that, through no fault of their own, are thrown into life-and-death situations in which their freedom and their lives are threatened. As such, Robert Tisdall is a sort of cinematic kin to figures such as Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps (1935), Barry Kane in Saboteur (1942), Manny Balestrero in The Wrong Man (1956), and Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest (1958).  And while among the pantheon of Hitchcock leading ladies, Erica Burgoyne does not generally rank with the most memorable, there are shades of Erica in some of those later, more notable heroines: she’s young and resourceful, like young Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and also willing to do what she can to help prove a man’s innocence, much like Saboteur’s Pat Martin and Spellbound’s (1945) Constance Petersen.

The film is aided by an able cast, including several frequent Hitchcock actors such as Mary Clare, Basil Radford, and John Longden. Young and Innocent marks leading man De Marney’s first and only collaboration with the director; De Marney’s resume is relatively short, and his career peaked in the early 1940s, with infrequent film roles in subsequent years. It’s a shame his career didn’t really take off, because he’s quite appealing, at least in this role (and if we’re being honest, he’s not bad to look at, either). As for his equally delightful leading lady, seventeen-year-old Pilbeam, the film is her second and last appearance for the director, having previously played the kidnapped daughter in Hitchcock’s first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Like De Marney, Pilbeam’s career was relatively short; after starring in a little over a dozen feature films in England, Pilbeam retired from the screen before the age of thirty (incidentally, Pilbeam is still alive and kicking at the age of ninety-two).

Young and Innocent may not be the best Hitchcock has to offer in comparison to some of his more popular and critically-acclaimed films, but it is nonetheless a pretty fun romp (that is, aside from the unfortunate–though admittedly effective–use of blackface in the film’s climactic sequence). De Marney and Pilbeam make a charming pair, the story is fast-paced and interesting, and the movie features some great cinematography at the hands of Hitchcock’s regular British collaborator Bernard Knowles. And it’s fun to watch this movie and see connections to the director’s later work–whether those connections were intentional or not is anyone’s guess, but it’s interesting to speculate. Did the close-up shots of the seagulls circling over Christine’s corpse later inspire similar shots in The Birds (1963)? Was the spectacular crane-enabled single-take sequence at the film’s climax, which so effectively zeroes in on the killer’s twitching eyes, one of the inspirations for the famed “key” tracking shot in 1946′s Notorious? Did the scene in which Erica dangles over the edge of a mine shaft, holding onto Robert’s arm for dear life, inspire the fight on the Statue of Liberty’s torch in the final scenes of Saboteur?

Besides, when is an offering from Alfred Hitchcock ever a waste of anyone’s time? [Except when we’re talking about 1949’s Under Capricorn, of course. Yeesh. Then again, every filmmaker has his off day … even the Master of Suspense. Please don’t hurt me, UC fans.]

As I mentioned above, for some reason, the film was renamed The Girl Was Young when it was released in the United States in 1938, so if you are looking for the movie in this neck of the woods, you may find it under that title. It is readily available on a number of cheap DVD collections of Hitchcock’s early British films (including the one I own, which was a mere five bucks at the local Wal-Mart), and is also available for viewing on YouTube and for download through the Internet Archive. The copy I have is not the best quality (neither is the YouTube version, from what I can tell), but it’s at least watchable. Still, here’s hoping that Hitch’s British output is given the super-duper special DVD treatment and bright, shiny polish it deserves sometime in the near future.

 

This week marks the third annual For the Love of Film blogathon, hosted by Self-Styled Siren, Ferdy on Films, and This Island Rod. In years past, the focus has been on film restoration; this year, the event will raise money to pay for temporary online streaming of the recently rediscovered 1923 Graham Cutts/Alfred Hitchcock collaboration The White Shadow on the National Film Preservation Foundation website, as well as the costs of recording a new film score by Michael Mortilla. If you have not already given to this most worthwhile cause, please click the link above and donate today. Every donation gets the NFPF one step closer to their goal of allowing all film fans the chance to see this long-lost classic.

A kiss is just a kiss?

Posted on by under ahh romance, best of ... lists, brandie's faves

It’s Valentine’s Day! Yay for corporately-created holidays designed to entice people into spending copious amounts of money on flowers, candy, and various stuffed creatures of all types!

I mean … yay for love!

In honor of the day, I’m posting five of my favorite classic movie kisses, from the utterly romantic to the sentimental to the poignant to the giggle-inducing.

1. Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Yes, they’re dogs. But their inadvertent kiss over a plate of spaghetti, accompanied by the gorgeous tune “Bella Notte,” is still romantic as hell. Hey, even a tramp and a rich bitch can find love in this crazy world! Kind of gives you a case of the warm-and-fuzzies, doesn’t it?

2. Notorious (1946)

You knew I’d have a Cary Grant smooch on here. And nothing beats this two-and-a-half minute string of kisses, beautifully shot to highlight the intense emotion and passion behind the embrace. Devlin (Grant) may be an unmitigated bastard to Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) throughout much of the film, but this kiss indicates there’s more depth to his feelings for the woman than he himself is willing to admit or accept.

3. Rear Window (1954)

For a director best known for elements of suspense in his films, Hitchcock certainly knew how to stage a love scene. Even something as simple as being awoken with a kiss is heightened to erotic levels in Hitch’s capable hands. Grace Kelly never looked better on film, and discussions of an empty stomach have never been sexier.

4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

It sets the bar for practically every cinematic kiss in the pouring rain. That particular motif has devolved into the realm of cliche over the years, but the rain-soaked embrace between Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) and Paul Varjak (George Peppard), complete with an overly patient cat and the lovely strains of “Moon River,” remains a memorable, beautiful moment (seriously, though–poor cat).

5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

The least romantic kiss on the list, and yet one of the best. Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) loathes his silent-film leading lady, the screechy-voiced Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who has gotten his new lady love, Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), fired from her job. While filming a love scene for their newest picture, Don lets Lina know just how deep that loathing really is. It’s a truly hilarious scene, and (in my mind) Kelly and Hagen demonstrate more chemistry in this moment than Kelly and Reynolds display throughout the entire film. Odd, sometimes, how the flow of combat heightens sensuality.

Now that I’ve had my say, what are some of your favorite classic movie smooches?

If I let you change me, will that do it?

Posted on by under blogathon, contributed post

Today, my contribution to The Lady Eve’s Month of Vertigo celebration is up at TLE’s Reel Life–all about Kim Novak’s sometimes underestimated contributions to the film. Thanks again, Eve, for inviting me to participate and allowing me the chance to revisit this film!

And for more things Vertigo, here are some thoughts about the film that I posted back in 2010.

Make sure to catch all of the entertaining and insightful posts that have been posted thus far–and will continue to be posted throughout the month–by the incomparable Lady Eve.

You thought I loved Rebecca? … I hated her!

Posted on by under blogathon, lit adaptations

For years, I was quite certain that when it came time to cast the role of the tortured, mysterious Maxim de Winter for the 1940 film version of Rebecca, the first—and only—name on everyone’s lips in Hollywood had to have been Laurence Olivier.

How could it NOT be? The dashing, dark, and oh-so-handsome Brit had “tormented hero” practically written on his chiseled face. Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 gothic-lite novel, on which the film was based, was wildly popular, eliciting comparisons to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and her sister Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, and all three books featured the kind of dark, aristocratic, and beautiful protagonists that populated much of Olivier’s early film career. The actor had already played Heights’ brooding “hero” (using the term loosely), Heathcliff, to great acclaim in the 1939 film adaptation of the book. His playing Maxim was all but a foregone conclusion.

Except it wasn’t.

David O. Selznick, the producer who would go on to make life hell for director Alfred Hitchcock on the set of the film, initially wanted Ronald Colman for the part, to play opposite Carole Lombard. After Colman turned down the part, the role was up for grabs between Olivier, William Powell, and Leslie Howard. In the end, Olivier was the one who starred opposite the still-green Joan Fontaine—not owing to any perception of the actor’s superior talent, but because he was the cheapest of all three.

Well, all I can say is, thank God the man was willing to work for less. I simply cannot imagine Colman, Powell, or especially the somewhat drab Howard as this movie’s protagonist. Considering the film’s characterization of Maxim (which, per Code strictures, changed the male lead from a wife murderer to the unlucky witness to his wife’s accidental death), Olivier was the perfect choice for the part. Take, for example, the scene in which Maxim confesses the truth about Rebecca’s death to his young, naive second wife after Rebecca’s body has been discovered (you can see part of it in this clip from the film):

Here, in perhaps the most pivotal moment of the entire movie, Olivier delivers an extended monologue revealing the truth about Rebecca’s devious, cruel behavior. He explains that a mere four days after their wedding, Rebecca had taunted him with the truth about her sordid past. He tells his new wife that he had made a bargain with “the devil,” agreeing to put on the facade of a happy marriage in order to save face in society:

“I should never have accepted her dirty bargain, but I did. I was younger then and tremendously conscious of the family honor. (scoffs) Family honor. She knew that I’d sacrifice everything rather than stand up in a divorce court and give her away—admit that our marriage was a rotten fraud. You despise me, don’t you, as I despise myself. You can’t understand what my feelings were, can you?”

Olivier delivers the entire speech with an effective mixture of self-loathing and suppressed rage (directed at both himself and his nefarious ex) that is utterly thrilling to watch. He bites off the words, hurling them between his lips like poisonous barbs. His movements around the room mirror those of a caged man, demonstrating how trapped Maxim has felt by the relationship with Rebecca and its aftermath: he paces the room, eyes darting around nervously, hands moving in agitated patterns. And that last question excerpted above—a plea for understanding and compassion—is delivered with the slightest intonation of plaintive longing, revealing the insecurity and loneliness that has plagued Maxim for so many years. Is there anyone who watches this and doesn’t marvel at the sheer power of the performance? This entire confessional sequence is practically a master class in how to construct a believable character.

This is what I have long loved about Olivier. He’s not merely performing his characters. He embodies them–as if he ingests each character, breathes in every aspect of it, and builds a living embodiment of fiction that feels completely real. That he does this in so many of his roles (his take on Hamlet is, I feel, one of the most sensitive and honest portrayals of the Dane that I have ever come across) is a testament to his unparalleled skill as an actor and as a student of human nature. Olivier demonstrates an innate understanding of the way the mind works, and I have yet to see one of his films that doesn’t showcase this (okay, maybe 1981′s camp-tastic Clash of the Titans).

Because Hitchcock reportedly barred Selznick from coming onto the set of Rebecca, the notoriously nitpicky producer relied on a stream of memos to relay his displeasure with the pace of filming and other sundry issues. According to TCM, one of Selznick’s major complaints about Olivier was that the actor’s performance was marked by an overly measured delivery, complete with extended pauses, that drove Selznick up the wall. Thankfully, Hitchcock ignored Selznick’s missives to “quicken the pace.” In my estimation, Olivier’s chosen delivery, which Selznick erroneously viewed as “too slow,” is actually a brilliant insight into the deliberate, careful nature adopted by Maxim de Winter in the wake of Rebecca’s death. After having been driven by jealousy and hatred to strike the woman, and then watching her stumble and fall to her death, it stands to reason that Maxim would be unwilling to submit to the baser side of his emotions again. He becomes overly cautious, taking great pains to restrict his feelings: it explains why he spends the first half of the film acting aloof and keeping his distance from his new wife, because he never fully trusts himself (or her, for that matter). And Olivier’s method of performing further demonstrates the actor’s skill at defining and depicting the most complicated aspects of human nature on screen.

Judith Anderson’s brilliant embodiment of the Rebecca-obsessed housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, has long gathered the lion’s share of attention in any examination of this film—and deservedly so, as it is the very definition of a tour de force performance. But Olivier’s own performance, so much more vital to the success of the film, deserves much of the credit for Rebecca’s success. To put it quite simply, the movie ultimately works only because Olivier definitively nails the role of Maxim, imbibing a seemingly indifferent man with flesh, blood, and genuine heart.

This post is my contribution to the Vivien Leigh—Laurence Olivier Appreciation Blogathon, hosted by Kendra of Viv and Larry. To see the other wonderful, thought-provoking entries, check out vivandlarry.com.