I just got the episodes on netflix and have been watching them. Let me start out by saying that I think that this is a g
-
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 17, 2012 01:34 PM)
I'm still time strapped but caught a couple of good
PG
episdes last night: one was a revenge take with Marc Lawrence as the bad guy and a climax on a merry go round clearly inspired by
Strangers On a Train
except that there were only two people on it. A
It's a fun show to watch, especially when it featured characters that seem out of the Victorian era,a reality back thenoften spinsters or eccentric families that dress up "old-fashioned", drive, if at all, in old Packards and Pierce Arrows, speak formally in usually quasi-British accents. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 06:16 AM)
I'm still time strapped but caught a couple of good PG episdes last night: one was a revenge take with Marc Lawrence as the bad guy and a climax on a merry go round clearly inspired by Strangers On a Train except that there were only two people on it. A
Marc Lawrence was one of the great "uglies" in bad-guydom. I know he had a bigger career as a younger ugly in the forties/fifties, but I recall him in his later years as a kind of anachronism in 1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" as the mobster who throws James Bond's newest ladyfriend out a Vegas hotel window into a swimming pool ("Good aim," says Connery to Lawrence; "I didn't know there was a pool down there," answers Lawrence) and as one of old Nazi Laurence Olivier's two henchmen in "Marathon Man"(a tough killer who nonetheless turns away in disgust when Olivier goes to work on Dustin Hoffman's teeth with the dental tools.)
It's a fun show to watch, especially when it featured characters that seem out of the Victorian era,a reality back thenoften spinsters or eccentric families that dress up "old-fashioned", drive, if at all, in old Packards and Pierce Arrows, speak formally in usually quasi-British accents.
The relativity of time is its own weird thing, isn't it? Movies and TV shows of the 50's have a real "quaint" element that reflects the fact that some of the old folks watching them may well have been born inthe 1880's. Hitchcock was a spring chicken with an 1899 birthdate.
And, conversely indeed, Victorian characters(old ones or perhaps their arrested-development adult offspring) could appear on these shows.
This Victoriana sounded most in Hitchcock's "Psycho," in which (following some descriptive passages in Robert Bloch's source novel), much of the house in general and Mother's Bedroom in particular are "of another era entirely, but preserved today." -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 03:20 PM)
Marc Lawrence lost his menace when he got older. He was a sinister looking guy when young, then he got blacklisted, worked mostly abroad, and by the time he returned he was just an ugly older looking guy.
As to the Victorian business, well, when
Peter Gunn
and the Hitchcock half-hour were in first run the Edwardian era, like the age of Victoria but a little different, was closer in time than we are today to those shows. In other words, shave fifty-three years off a 1959
PG
or Hitch show and it's 1906, six years before the
Titanic
sank!
I remember those Victorian homes and their old ladies on the porch, just starting wear their shawls this time of years. Indeed, the interior of those homes was very like the Bates house, which I've always found strangely,how to put this?inviting
. To my eye, that big house on the hill has a cozy familiarity to it, and, were I able to go back in time to visit the motel, if I didn't know better, I'd half-expect Mrs Bates to be just another old lady, crankier than usual, not dangerous at all. Even with all the horror movie trappings,the rainstorm, the clouds moving ominously behind the housethe setting of
Psycho
is really no scarier than your friendly neighborhood cemetery on Halloween, or a Halloween party staged for kids at the nearby elementary school.
Ah, but this is the
Peter Gunn
board! The show was cool and stylish and yet it did, like
psycho
, channel horror or at least old dark house stories, every few episodes. Indeed, Mother's place is strange and mysterious, a waterfront "dive" (but not really) for hipsters, jazz fans, the odd and the eccentric. It might look scary to what they used to call "squares", especially the street outside, but to hip people it was a neat place to go to, enjoy a few drinks, listen to some jazz, "people watch". I remember a few like that from when I was young, including some diners that didn't serve alcohol, in some
very
rundown city neighborhoods, that were great places to eat late at night, and also a nice way to watch some very offbeat people in their element, so to speak. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 09:27 PM)
To my eye, that big house on the hill has a cozy familiarity to it, and, were I able to go back in time to visit the motel, if I didn't know better, I'd half-expect Mrs Bates to be just another old lady, crankier than usual, not dangerous at all.
Indeed. This is partially the reason why Arbogast could mount the hill to that house and likely not realize that he was in a horror movie. It is a very "comfortable and accessible" kind of Victoriana. Hitchcock told Truffaut that this kind of house was actually quite common in rural California(and San Francisco) in 1960.
Even with all the horror movie trappings,the rainstorm, the clouds moving ominously behind the housethe setting of Psycho is really no scarier than your friendly neighborhood cemetery on Halloween, or a Halloween party staged for kids at the nearby elementary school.
It feels that way TODAY. I think in 1960, the accumulation of perverse horror actually built up to real terror shower scene, clean-up scene, staircase murder, fruit cellar.
BUTtodayit is a rather cozy film indeed. Not THAT scary. And it creates one one critic called "a lurking nostalgia for evil."
Ah, but this is the Peter Gunn board!
Sure, but we bring our "Psycho" magic whereever we go and "Psycho" WAS contemporary to "Peter Gunn."
Indeed, in the many Gunn episodes I watched, a suspect being interrogated by Gunn would often say:
Suspect: That's all I have to say to you. You're not the police. I don't HAVE to talk to you. Scram.
Whereas in Psycho we get:
Norman: I didn't think the police went looking for people who AREN'T in trouble.
Private Eye Arbogast: But I'm not the police.
And later:
Norman: Mr. Arbogast, I think I've talked to you all I want to. And I think it would be much better if you would leave.
Which is another way of saying: "That's all I have to say to you. You're not the police. I don't HAVE to talk to you. Scram."
(Which is why Arbogast tries a bluff about coming back with a warrant.)
Not to mention: I've always felt that stocky,short and plainish Martin Balsam may have been Hitchcock's "realistic spoof" ON Peter Gunn, and the 77 Sunset Strip cool guys. Wanna see what a REAL private eye looks like? Hitchcock was saying: behold Arbogast.
The show was cool and stylish and yet it did, like psycho, channel horror or at least old dark house stories, every few episodes. Indeed, Mother's place is strange and mysterious, a waterfront "dive" (but not really) for hipsters, jazz fans, the odd and the eccentric. It might look scary to what they used to call "squares", especially the street outside, but to hip people it was a neat place to go to, enjoy a few drinks, listen to some jazz, "people watch".
I would here like to raise a "childhood memory" of that time in TV. Unlike today when you've got 500 cable channels on HD with stereophonic sound, back then, there were really only three networks and, depending on the town, maybe a few independent channels.
So TV was a much more "lonely medium," and a prime-time-late-night show like "Peter Gunn" would kind of play out in the quietude of 50's/60's b/w TV. Maybe in a darkened living room, the light gray light of the broadcast image the only light.
Its a "feeling" that is hard to replicate in words.
I remember a few like that from when I was young, including some diners that didn't serve alcohol, in some very rundown city neighborhoods, that were great places to eat late at night, and also a nice way to watch some very offbeat people in their element, so to speak.
Yeah, I think I found a few like that. They are very interesting if you stay wary and watchful for "problem patrons" before they explode. -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 19, 2012 10:46 AM)
Thanks, EC. I didn't mean to imply that
Psycho
was as a movie comfy and safe feeling but rather that its ambiance was, until Marion gets killed in the shower. After that there's nothing cozy about it. In this respect the first half-hour or forty-five minutes, while they have their dark moments, such as Marion's dealings with the highway cop and Charlie, I suppose Cassidy and his money, is prosaic and easy to take till the shower scene.
Peter Gunn
did play out in its own zone, and that zone has been lost due to all TV shows being made in color and the tendency to films TV series in real place, thus Mother's would probably be, today, a real bar somewhere in L.A., "borrowed" for a TV show rather than a standing set on a studio back lot. I could have sworn that a scene in one of the
PG
's I saw last weekend was set in Mrs Bates; bedroom. It had a similar shape and size, and the bed was or appeared to be the same, but not enough happened in it for me to be sure. The time was right (1959) and that master bedroom may well have already been a Universal standing set made over for
Psycho
shortly thereafter.
There was also a drive down a Uni suburban street in which a very Bates-like house was plainly visible, cupolas and all, but it was just a shot lasting less than ten seconds. They seemed to have moved sets around back then, including exertior sets. Some
Psycho
players have turned up in various episodes of
PG
, including John Anderson, who was a semi-regular for a while, sort of a fill-in Jacobi. Jeanette Nolan was in an episode a week or so ago, playing an aging spinster in a murder tale that had
Psycho
aspects to it and a very
Psycho
-like setting.
I'm trying to think of other TV series that might have been an influence on
Psycho
stylistically and/or thematically. The one that comes to mind first, naturally, is Hitchcock's half-hour show. More genteel than
Psycho
, it channeled a retro mood quite often, though it seldom turned to straight horror. That would come with the hour long Hitchcock show, definitely an offshoot of
Psycho
. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 21, 2012 07:56 AM)
Thanks, EC. I didn't mean to imply that Psycho was as a movie comfy and safe feeling but rather that its ambiance was, until Marion gets killed in the shower. After that there's nothing cozy about it.
A hard call, for me. In its day, nothing cozy about it. But now, through the nostalgia towards 1960 and because "Psycho" DOES pull its horror punchesthat house DOES seem kinda cozy to me.
One of my "stray thoughts" about Psycho is that if one were a lone MALE traveller say a travelling salesman who checked in at the Bates Motel and found Norman reading on the motel porch, you might be able to have a great, amiable, friendly conversation with Norman. Notice how pleasant he is in his initial chit-chat with Arbogast before it becomes a quasi-interrogation.
Lonely Norman might ENJOY a male visitor sitting on the porch and shooting the breeze.
Cozy.
In this respect the first half-hour or forty-five minutes, while they have their dark moments, such as Marion's dealings with the highway cop and Charlie, I suppose Cassidy and his money, is prosaic and easy to take till the shower scene.
A bit, but I find those first 30 minutes or so oddly unnerving, "off-kilter." Especially Cassidy he's creepy.
There is something "nightmarish" about the first 30 of "Psycho" to me in the very REAL way that a nightmare feels, NOT abstract and wild, but as if the real world is just "off" in some way(and the cop AND "California Charlie" ARE "off.")
I just saw "The Birds" this week on the big screen and I was taken by how lackadaisical ITS first 30 minutes or so areeverything was much more odd and creepy in the "normal" beginning of "Psycho." Maybe the b/w photography helped. Probably the casting of menacing Mort Mills and Lincolnsque John Anderson.
Peter Gunn did play out in its own zone, and that zone has been lost due to all TV shows being made in color and the tendency to films TV series in real place, thus Mother's would probably be, today, a real bar somewhere in L.A., "borrowed" for a TV show rather than a standing set on a studio back lot.
Yep. "Peter Gunn" harkens to a time in television when "everything was shot on the backlot" and viewers were invited to suspend their disbelief when the same "downtown street" and same houses showed up in different locales every week.
There is this "street alley with an arch over it" on the Universal backlot that I SWEAR was used for scenes in EVERY 60's Universal contemporary show Ironside, Name of the Game, McCloud. You'd see the arch and chuckle..oh they are THERE. BUT: the arch also appears in movies: "Torn Curtain" and (decades later) in the 1984 Eastwood/Reynolds vehicle "City Heat."
I could have sworn that a scene in one of the PG's I saw last weekend was set in Mrs Bates; bedroom. It had a similar shape and size, and the bed was or appeared to be the same, but not enough happened in it for me to be sure. The time was right (1959) and that master bedroom may well have already been a Universal standing set made over for Psycho shortly thereafter.
Entirely possible. These are the "mysteries of filmmaking." Some of the Psycho sets may well have already been built for Universal-Revue TV series("Psycho" WAS cheaply filmed why NOT use existing interiors?). Some of the "Psycho" sets were used AFTER "Psycho" in TV shows.
But eventually the sets were struck, destroyed, decayed. Hollywood sets weren't really built to last.
And many PROPS were reused,too. I have visited prop rooms at Universal and Warner Brothershuge warehouses with tagged lamps and statues and paintings. "Psycho" stuff probably reappeared elsewhere, and they found some of those props years later for "Psycho II" in 1982.
There was also a drive down a Uni suburban street in which a very Bates-like house was plainly visible, cupolas and all, but it was just a shot lasting less than ten seconds. They seemed to have moved sets around back then, including exertior sets.
Yes, they did put 'em on wheels and drove 'em whereever needed on the lot.
Some Psycho players have turned up in various episodes of PG, including John Anderson, who was a semi-regular for a while, sort of a fill-in Jacobi. Jeanette Nolan was in an episode a week or so ago, playing an aging spinster in a murder tale that had Psycho aspects to it and a very Psycho-like setting.
Hitchcock's movies from 1958 to 1964(Marnie) pretty much use a lot of the actors available at the time, actors you'd see on TV a lot and in movies a little.
Interestingly, from "Torn Curtain" on, Hitchcock rather eschewed "the usual suspects" in American studio casting. Only a handful of familiar American studio faces made it into Torn Curtain, Topaz, and Family Plot, and Frenzy was an all-British cast.
I'm trying to think of other TV series that might have been an influence on Psycho stylistically and/or thematically. The one that comes to mind first, naturally, is Hitchcock's half-hour show. More genteel than Psycho, it channeled a retro mood quite often, though it seldom turned t -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 21, 2012 01:29 PM)
Dramatically,
Psycho
is off key during those first thirty minutes (give or take). It was probably my familiarity with the film that caused me to describe it as feeling somewhat cozy in those scenes. Not really, as you point out. There are those surreal, near Kafkaesque moments, beautifully timed by Hitch, written by Stefano, that make the newbie to the movie fear for Marion on a number of occasions. Cassidy is weird, the highway cop a little too solicitous, Charlie too knowing (he acts like he knows exactlty what Marion is up to, even though he doesn't, and we "fee Marion's pain" in those scenes).
Hitchcock did use those TV regulars starting more or less unofficially with
Rear Window
, what with Raymond Burr, occasional TV players like Wendell Corey and Thelma Ritter, Frabk Cady, later Mr. Drucker on
Green Acres
. There are a number of soon to be familiar TV faces in
The Wrong Man
, some one has to not blink in order to recognize.
Vertigo
and
North By Northeast
have their share of "TV faces", especially the latter. One can only wonder if Hitchcock did this deliberately.
Checkmate
is a show I remember well, had Hitchcock vibes, as if an offshoot of Hitchcock's own series; and it was filmed on the same lot.
The same could be said for many of the more offbeat
Peter Gunn
episodes as well. In this one could argue that
Psycho
's aesthetic, such as it can be described, was basically a TV one, ramped up to the level of art
.
The movie does, more than probably any other in the Hitchcock canon, seem to derive much of its power from its small screen-like intimacy on the big screen,
not
a Hitchcock trademark before or after. Its supporting cast only seems to back this up. No Leo G. Carroll or John Williams or Jessie Royce Landis or Cedric Hardwicke. No, we get Vaughn Taylor, John Anderson, Mort Mills and Simon Oakland. With all due respect to these talented players, there's not a "prestige" name in the bunch. I believe you mentioned previously that Hitchcock had become quite the TV fan by the time he came to watch
Psycho
, had become as familiar with the conventions of the small screen as the average American viewer. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 21, 2012 10:14 PM)
Dramatically, Psycho is off key during those first thirty minutes (give or take).
I would like to note that Marion reaches the Bates Motel at almost exactly the 30 minute markher opening "journey" is not as arbitrary in its timing as it might have seemed(indeed, Hitchcock cut a scene at a gas station, possibly to keep things within 30.)
It was probably my familiarity with the film that caused me to describe it as feeling somewhat cozy in those scenes. Not really, as you point out. There are those surreal, near Kafkaesque moments, beautifully timed by Hitch, written by Stefano, that make the newbie to the movie fear for Marion on a number of occasions.
Yes, I think so. Part of it is that we KNOW "Psycho" is heading towards what a 60's critic called "a nightmare of horror" at the Bates Motel and thus if we KNOW thatthe early scenes are a "gateway TO horror." But part of it is how Hitchcock films the scenes, the actors he chooses and HOW they act, and oh, most certainly the timing.
Cassidy is weird, the highway cop a little too solicitous, Charlie too knowing (he acts like he knows exactlty what Marion is up to, even though he doesn't, and we "fee Marion's pain" in those scenes).
Andwe feel Marion's paranoia"they are all onto her"but they AREN'T.
Hitchcock did use those TV regulars starting more or less unofficially with Rear Window, what with Raymond Burr, occasional TV players like Wendell Corey and Thelma Ritter, Frabk Cady, later Mr. Drucker on Green Acres. There are a number of soon to be familiar TV faces in The Wrong Man, some one has to not blink in order to recognize. Vertigo and North By Northeast have their share of "TV faces", especially the latter. One can only wonder if Hitchcock did this deliberately.
The epic NBNW practically has a TV guy or gal once per minute Ed Binns(12 Angry Men) and Stanley Adams(Star Trek The Trouble With Tribbles) and Ed Platt(Get Smart) and Ned Glass(Charade, Peter Gunn!), the guys at the auction
Even in Hitchcock's late sixties "international" period, some TV guys slip in: David Opatashu in "Torn Curtain," John Van Dreelen and Ben Wright in Topaz.
But he did seem to jump ship on hiring from TV after "Marnie." We just didn't see some of those familar faces like Jack Weston and Roger C. Carmel, etc.
Checkmate is a show I remember well, had Hitchcock vibes, as if an offshoot of Hitchcock's own series; and it was filmed on the same lot.
A "team" of detectives: Owlish Sebastian Cabot, swarthy Anthony George, young Doug McClure. I believe the credit sequence (with swirling b/w paint and scary music by "Johnny Williams" who would score "Jaws" and "Family Plot") can be watched on YouTube.
The show was produced byJACK BENNY(on his agent's recommendation) and Benny actually appeared as a famous comedian(not named Jack Benny) on one episode: "They are trying to kill Jack!"
I saw one episode as a kid with Lee Marvin sinking in quicksand. I saw it at a motel exactly like the Bates. Word.
In this one could argue that Psycho's aesthetic, such as it can be described, was basically a TV one, ramped up to the level of art .
Yes, for all the talk of Clozout and Castle, Hitchocck was ultimately using his TV facilities to make a movie. THAT was the experiment.
Seeing those "TV images" blown up on a big movie screen was disorienting to 1960 audiences, let alone now. And yet: Dwight MacDonald's pan "its just one of those TV shows, but padded" doesn't hold at all. NO Hitchocck show has a scene as intricate as the Shower and Staircase murders.
The movie does, more than probably any other in the Hitchcock canon, seem to derive much of its power from its small screen-like intimacy on the big screen, not a Hitchcock trademark before or after.
That's true. Compare it to the scenes in "North by Northwest" one year before, often with teeming crowds or small groups of people(like the detectives and folks at Glen Cove with Roger.) In "Psycho," it is usually just two or three people, and often in big, big close-ups. Just like on TV.
Its supporting cast only seems to back this up. No Leo G. Carroll or John Williams or Jessie Royce Landis or Cedric Hardwicke. No, we get Vaughn Taylor, John Anderson, Mort Mills and Simon Oakland. With all due respect to these talented players, there's not a "prestige" name in the bunch.
Afraid notnot verus the others you named. Its really a "weird" supporting cast when you think about it.
I believe you mentioned previously that Hitchcock had become quite the TV fan by the time he came to watch Psycho, had become as familiar with the conventions of the small screen as the average American viewer.
Yes. Hitch went home at night and watched TV, like the rest of America. Except he was CASTING all the time.
A casting anecdote from the book I have finished on "Frenzy." When Hitchocck went to cast the film in London, his office was besieged with offers from unknown actors; they got a form letter signed by Hitch's assistant, Peggy Robertson.
But Hume Cronyn(Shado -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 22, 2012 01:03 PM)
The paranoia is quite strong in those first thirty minutes of
Psycho
. It's almost as if Hitchcock was filming it as an intense entry in his half-hour anthology TV series.
Could it be that Hitchcock deliberately chose a "TV friendly" cast for
NxNW
to make the film more accessible, more familiar feeling than his other films? Just a thought. Even Eva Marie Saint and James Mason had appeared on the small screen; while Leo G. Carroll was by then probably better known as TV's Topper than for his work in films.
Interestingly, the only other Hitchcock film to really channel a TV mood is
The Wrong Man
, which plays, like
Marty
and
12 Angry Men
, as a big screen adaptation of a television play (which it wasn't).
In his later films for Wasserman Hitchcock went more Hollywood than ever, it seems. One may not like the look and feel of many of those Universals but they're movies all the way, don't have a TV "vibe". -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 22, 2012 06:20 PM)
In his later films for Wasserman Hitchcock went more Hollywood than ever, it seems. One may not like the look and feel of many of those Universals but they're movies all the way, don't have a TV "vibe".
Agreed. And three of those Wassermans made over a ten-year period had a strong "international/foreign" bent. With "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz," Hitchcock shipped foreign actors TO Hollywood(practically everybody other than Paul Newman in "Torn Curtain", including Julie Andrews; and Noiret, Piccoli and the others in "Topaz.") For "Frenzy," Hitchcock went to England and essentially made a "pure British" movie. (In the 1972 edition of "Films in Review," a comprehensive Encylopedia of all films released that year, "Frenzy" was in the "foreign films" section.)
The return to America for "Family Plot" found Hitchcock eschewing a lot of the usual American TV talent in suppporting roles. Many of the actors(like the guys playing the FBI guys and the chopper pilot) were practically unknown Yanks.
I believe that somewhere in this later period Hitchcock himself said he was tired of "all the familar faces" in the supporting casts of American films. -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 24, 2012 02:42 PM)
That's makes sense that Hitchcock didn't want to repeat himself. He had a few players he was particularly fond of, such as Leo G. Carroll and, later on, John Williams, never had a stock company of the John Ford kind. My sense is that he didn't want to repeat himself, had a "thing" about moving on, as some of us do (not wanting to live in the same town or neighborhood again, as in "been there, done that"; or work for the same employer, even in a new position).
Hitchcock did move on in his career, as each of his "decades" has a discrete, unique feel to it. That said, he remade
The Man Who Knew Too Much
and he certainly recycled the same themes, but one expects the latter. The former strikes me as an odd career move for a director on a roll as Hitch was in the 50s.
Still, Hitchcock's filmography shows us "pairs" or "double" films; movies in which one seems a complement to another even if several years apart, as seems the case with the two mother obsessed young men killer films
Strangers On a Train
and
Psycho
. In the case of
Rebacca
it had a "follow up" the next year with the same star and a similar plot,
Suspicion
, but that was early in Hitchcock's American career when he was under Selznick's thumb.
The "experiment" of
Libeboat
was repeated in the even more "experimental"
Rope
; and the latter was in a manner of speaking complemented by another relatively small scale film also adapted from a successful play,
Dial M For Murder
. Yet these are very different films, with different moods: one set wholly oudoors (albeit filmed in a studio "tank"); the other made wholly indoors; with the last mostly indoors, featuring some brief outdoors scenes. Once in control of his destiny and prior to signing with Wasserman, Hitchcock seemed particularly sensitive to moving on to different themes in his various films. When he made a classic, a winner (and deep down I think he knew it even at the time) he knew better than to make another film like it, thus there's only one
The Lady Vanishes
, one
Rear Window
, one
Psycho
. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 24, 2012 09:30 PM)
That's makes sense that Hitchcock didn't want to repeat himself. He had a few players he was particularly fond of, such as Leo G. Carroll and, later on, John Williams, never had a stock company of the John Ford kind. My sense is that he didn't want to repeat himself, had a "thing" about moving on, as some of us do (not wanting to live in the same town or neighborhood again, as in "been there, done that"; or work for the same employer, even in a new position).
Yes, it seems evident that Hitchcock felt a need to reinvent himself so as to "stay current." One finds Billy Wilder in the late years of his career depending almost solely upon old pals Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and(once) William Holden for his casts. Hawks and Ford used John Wayne a lot. Hitchcock reached out and got Connery, Newman and Andrews and TRIED to get other new young stars.
There was ruthless side to Hitchcock's moving on, too. As great as his "team of the fifties" was(Herrmann, DP Burks, film editor Tomasini and assistants Herbert Coleman and Doc Erickson), he fired Herrmann off "Torn Curtain" and refused to hire Burks for it, and pretty much drove Coleman and Erickson away(Tomasini made his own exit in '65: a heart attack.) We find Hitchcock in his last few movies restlessly hiring different composers, different DPS, different EVERYTHING.
Hitchcock did move on in his career, as each of his "decades" has a discrete, unique feel to it. That said, he remade The Man Who Knew Too Much and he certainly recycled the same themes, but one expects the latter. The former strikes me as an odd career move for a director on a roll as Hitch was in the 50s.
My guess on two pictures "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "North by Northwest" is that Hitchcock somehow wanted to "reboot" his great 30's British black-and-whites for "Technicolor, VistaVision and Big Hollywood Stars." "Man" was an overt remake(for awhile, it was going to be called "Into Thin Air") but with many changes to the scenes, set-pieces and locales(Morocco in for Switzerland). "NBNW" which Hitchcock called "The American 39 Steps" had that movie as a base, but also aspects of The Lady Vanishes(the train).
Seems to me in capturing The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, and The Lady Vanishes for the Technicolor eraHitchcock really had grabbed the BIG 30's Hitchcock movies. "Sabotage" (a bomber movie) was too grim; "Secret Agent" too of its time, etc. No, Hitchcocok knew what his entertainments were from the 30's, and The Man Who Knew Too Much was a "two-fer": A Child-Kidnapping Story mixed with a Stop-the-Assassination! yarn.
Still, Hitchcock's filmography shows us "pairs" or "double" films; movies in which one seems a complement to another even if several years apart, as seems the case with the two mother obsessed young men killer films Strangers On a Train and Psycho. In the case of Rebacca it had a "follow up" the next year with the same star and a similar plot, Suspicion, but that was early in Hitchcock's American career when he was under Selznick's thumb.
I take your point on the "pairings, but what is funny to me is that OTHER pairs can be made of these movies. As a "commercial"(not thematic) matter, "Strangers on a Train" and "North by Northwest" are linked as "big action entertainments to break a career slump."
The "experiment" of Libeboat was repeated in the even more "experimental" Rope; and the latter was in a manner of speaking complemented by another relatively small scale film also adapted from a successful play, Dial M For Murder. Yet these are very different films, with different moods: one set wholly oudoors (albeit filmed in a studio "tank"); the other made wholly indoors; with the last mostly indoors, featuring some brief outdoors scenes.
Once in control of his destiny and prior to signing with Wasserman, Hitchcock seemed particularly sensitive to moving on to different themes in his various films. When he made a classic, a winner (and deep down I think he knew it even at the time) he knew better than to make another film like it, thus there's only one The Lady Vanishes, one Rear Window, one Psycho.
Thanks to Wasserman that "never do anything twice" formula failed with the back-to-back Cold War failures of "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz", similar in titles and often confused..even though the first one has "big, big stars" and the second one doesn't.
All in all, Hitchcock was pretty damn adroit in matching his work to the Hollywood trends: noirish and Ladies Filmish in the 40's; Techniclor Travelogues(a lot) in the fifties; teenage horror movies (of sorts) with Psycho and The Birds; Cold War espionage in the late sixties, "R" rated sexual horror with "Frenzy" etc.
But he always snuck in "the unexpected": Rear Window ain't a travelogue; Rope is in color and setbound; The Trouble With Harry is its own very twee thing, etc. -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 25, 2012 04:32 PM)
Thanks for all that
Not a lot of time but yup, you can pair 'em any which way you can (to paraphrase the title of an old Clint Eastwood flick).
The Lodger
arguably connects with
Psycho
, and they're decades apart.
Saboteur
resembles
The Wrong Man
in its falsely accused theme, is otherwise a totally different film.
How's about the two "pastorals", one weeps, the other laughs:
Shadow Of a Doubt
and
The Trouble With Harry
, both very Anglo-Saxon, borderline British, especially the latter.
Rebecca
and
Suspicionm
, famously alike, are in some respects updated in their themes, this time with a real killer, with the new Hitchcock blonde, Grace Kelly, in
Dial M For Murder
.
Vertigo
and
Marnie
? I'm not a big fan of either but there are similarities, especially all the "obsessive psychologizing". -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 27, 2012 05:53 PM)
Not a lot of time but yup, you can pair 'em any which way you can (to paraphrase the title of an old Clint Eastwood flick). The Lodger arguably connects with Psycho, and they're decades apart
Pair 'em any which way you can and turn 'em any which way but loose
Yes, you can.
Even though we noted that Hitchcock tried to avoid the same film twice in a row(with the Wasserman-forced exception of Torn Curtain and Topaz), we have these "near matches" side by side like Spellbound and Notorious(b/w, Selznick, Bergman, a male star even if the plots are NOT similar at all), Rebecca and Suspicion, etc.
Hitchcock worked long enough where I figure he himself knew that he had several "thriller templates" from which to work:
"Spy thriller": Many of the British films, most of the 40's WWII Nazi films, The Man Who Knew Too Much, NBNW, Torn Curtain, Topaz. Drop only a few of those out, you get "spy CHASE thrillers."
"Movies about psychopaths": The Lodger, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Psycho, Frenzy
"Twisted obsessional love": Rebecca, Suspicion, Spellbound, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn, Vertigo, Marnie
Now with 53 films, that left PLENTY of tales that don't quite fit those templates The Birds, The Trouble With Harry, the utterly unique Rear Window and yet even THOSE can be paired up:
Psycho and The Birds: irrational killers and horror
Psycho and The Trouble With Harry: Body disposal
Rope and The Trouble With Harry: A body in plain sight.
Rear Window and Psycho: Murder most foul with knives and bathtubs involved
Etc, etc, etc. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 29, 2012 10:44 AM)
Rear Window also fits the body disposal category.
Indeed it does. In fact, you might say that "Rear Window" and "The Trouble With Harry" are almost entirely ABOUT(plot-wise, at least) the disposal of a body.
Meanwhile, two other Hitchcock films "Psycho" and "Frenzy" instead rely on lenghty SEQUENCES about body disposal: Norman of Marion's body in Cabin One, Bob Rusk in the potato truck with Babs' body.Billy Wilder said of Hitchcock's movies: "Always a corpse." That's a good parlor game to play: IS there always a corpse? somebody gets killed in almost ALL of Hitchcock's thrillers(only The Wrong Man comes to mind as a film where someone does not.)
But when the emphasis is on DISPOSING of the body, wellI think that is profound and macabre at the same time.
Consider the body of Marion Crane in "Psycho." We knew Marion for 45 minutes, give or take, as a pretty, hard-working, romantically desperate, courageous and borderline crazy HUMAN BEING, and we became enwrapped in her story.
And soonshe is a corpse. Marion Crane as a human being is no more. Whatever one's spiritual groundingthe body is not the person. And in that reality comes a profoundly disturbing vibe: when a human becomes a corpsewe must bury that corpse and remove it from our lives as quickly as possible.
Bob Rusk is a serial killer in "Frenzy" and we come to view body disposal as "part of his job." He throws one in the Thames River, leaves one in her office chair, throws one in a potato sack on a truck, and is about to dispose of his final victim in a steamer trunk. It is almost as if Good Old Bob wants to "be creative" and never dispose of a body the same way twice! -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 28, 2012 01:30 PM)
True enough, EC, and one can also pair (as in a "dry run") Joseph Cotten's uncle Charley with Norman Bates in
Shadow Of a Doubt
, which with its murderer in small town California does rather anticipate the (admittedly in most other respects very different)
Psycho
. Both films feature lively supporting characters, more so than usual for Hitchcock.
Vertigo
works with
Marnie
but it's a hard sell, for me anyway, as to trying to pair it with any other Hitchcock.
Lifeboat
is a real one off, and I love it.
There are vague similarities between
Rebecca
and
Marnie
, if one can switch the pathology around from male to female.
The Wrong Man
is also a one off, with its neo-realistic style and "commited" non-glamorous setting and characters. I believe you've linked it to
Psycho
, and indeed it's Hitchcock's second to last black and white film. There are also ironies when one compares the two, as Manny is the
wrong man
, wrongly identified, Norman the
right man
, who comes off as so harmless. Manny's as in touch with others (co-workers, family) as Norman is out of touch. Even so, Manny's relative gregariousness doesn't help him, while Norman's isolation
does
help
him
The "three star"
Dial M For Murder
(Milland, Kelly, Cummings) compares in that if in no other respect to the "three star"
North By Norhtwest
(Grant, Saint, Mason). The later film has hotter, better established stars, while the earlier one has the past their respective primes Milland and Cummings, the up and coming,and just about "arrived"Grace Kelly. Totally different films, with the later one as budget as the earlier one is small budget. Interestingly, Milland was a kind of second string Grant, while Eva marie Saint was presented as a sort of midwest Grace Kelly. Needless to say, James Mason and Bob Cummings have little in common
. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 29, 2012 10:28 AM)
True enough, EC, and one can also pair (as in a "dry run") Joseph Cotten's uncle Charley with Norman Bates in Shadow Of a Doubt, which with its murderer in small town California does rather anticipate the (admittedly in most other respects very different) Psycho. Both films feature lively supporting characters, more so than usual for Hitchcock.
I've noted before that Hitchocck seemed to do "one psycho picture per decade(Doubt in the 40's Strangers in the 50's Psycho in the 60's Frenzy in the 70's) each one more brutal than from the decade before, and thus they ALL pair up.
But "Shadow of a Doubt" certainly feels most "comfortable" alongside "Psycho" what with their small-town Northern California locales (the real Santa Rosa, the fictional Fairvale) and the idea of Psychotic Evil parked right there in the American back country.
Vertigo works with Marnie but it's a hard sell, for me anyway, as to trying to pair it with any other Hitchcock.
I very much see "Marnie" as Hitchcock's attempt to bring that "Vertigo" feeling back, and it failed because it was a flawed version of a perfect version ofa problematic story in EITHER version.
Once Hitchcock made this climactic "Big Three"(Vertigo, NBNW, Psycho) those three perfect works "harmed" all the final Hitchcock's that followed them:
The Birds, Frenzy: "Not as scary as Psycho"
Torn Curtain, Topaz: "Not as exciting as spy movies as NBNW"
Family Plot: "Not as big a comedy-thriller as NBNW, and both were written by Ernest Lehman."
Marnie: Not as good as Vertigo.
I think "Vertigo" and "Marnie" link up primarly in that they are NOT spy movies, chase movies, comedy thrillers, or psycho movies(even though Scottie, Marnie and possibly Mark DO have serious mental problems.)
They are "obessional love" movies in which the male(James Stewart, Sean Connery) fixates on and dominates a criminal blonde female(Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren.) But one of the two movies(and only one) has a "happy ending."
Lifeboat is a real one off, and I love it.
Yep, and me too. It can perhaps be grouped with Hitchcock's "stunt movies"(Rope, Rear Window) but its grit and grime and hard look at human truthsits quite different in the Hitchocck canon(and his only movie for Twentieth Century Fox, which might be why it looks and sounds different.)
There are vague similarities between Rebecca and Marnie, if one can switch the pathology around from male to female.
Sure. These "Hitchcock romances" are really their own special deal, even if "Rebecca" started as a Selznick project.
However, "switch male/female pathology" makes "Marnie" a virtual remake of"Spellbound":
Spellbound: Professional psychologist Ingrid Bergman works with Gregory Peck to uncover the childhood trauma that damaged him(he accidentally killed his brother.)
Marnie: Amateur psychologist Sean Connery works with Tippi Hedren to uncover the childhood trauma that damaged HER(she intentionally killed her hooker mother's Sailor John.)
The Wrong Man is also a one off, with its neo-realistic style and "commited" non-glamorous setting and characters. I believe you've linked it to Psycho, and indeed it's Hitchcock's second to last black and white film. There are also ironies when one compares the two, as Manny is the wrong man, wrongly identified, Norman the right man, who comes off as so harmless. Manny's as in touch with others (co-workers, family) as Norman is out of touch. Even so, Manny's relative gregariousness doesn't help him, while Norman's isolation does help him
The Wrong Man and Psycho were movies that Hitchocck CHOSE to make in black-and-white when the times were demanding color as a "first choice." We know the reasons Italian neo-realism and "Marty" Kitchen Sink with "Man" and William Castle/Diabolique horror with "Psycho." But I think what "The Wrong Man" REALLY anticipates in "Psycho" is "Hitchocck looking at the dangers of economic desperation." The rich or well-off characters of Rear Window, To Catch a Thief(especially), The Man Who Knew Too Much '56 have been replaced by people who work hard and practically paycheck to paycheck. These are "workaday" characters middle-class on the edge. They are rather "trapped" to begin withand then chaos enters their lives.
The "three star" Dial M For Murder (Milland, Kelly, Cummings) compares in that if in no other respect to the "three star" North By Norhtwest (Grant, Saint, Mason). The later film has hotter, better established stars, while the earlier one has the past their respective primes Milland and Cummings, the up and coming,and just about "arrived"Grace Kelly. Totally different films, with the later one as budget as the earlier one is small budget. Interestingly, Milland was a kind of second string Grant, while Eva marie Saint was presented as a sort of midwest Grace Kelly. Needless to say, James Mason and Bob Cummings have little in common.
I am reminded that Hitchcock's first choice for the elegant, witty and oh-so-cruel villain in "Dial M" was Cary Grant. It is said that -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 29, 2012 01:25 PM)
All too briefly
How's about Farley Granger for Bob Cummings in
Dial M
. He'd have been a better fit for that particular role, which could have used a "darker" seeming actor than the song and dance Cummings, whom I like but who wasn't quite right for his part IMO.
James Mason was definitely higher in the pecking order than Milland for 1959 and
NxNW
works better with him as the suave villain than the more old hat Ray who by then belonged to another era. What a difference five years make!
I hadn't thought of a
Spellbound-Marnie
connection but that's a good call; and what's more, Bergman and Hedren made two back to back pictures for Hitch, unusual for any actress other than Grace Kelly (to the best of my recollection).
Black and white was in decline when
The Wrong Man
and
Psycho
were made, down but far from out, and many top directors, from Sidney Lumet to John Ford, continued to use, occasionally, for many more years.