Re-reading Bloch, Sam's recounting to Lila of Dr Steiner's diagnosis of Norman includes the following:
-
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 08, 2017 08:15 PM)
"It was promoted as an unsinkable ship and it sank on its first voyage."
Even as a kid, I got the irony of THAT statement.
The Onion had the final word on this a while back.
http://www.theonion.com/graphic/april-16-1912-10645
Hilarious! Count on The Onion to get it right, and best, every time.
You know the statement "It was promoted as an unsinkable shipand it sank on its first voyage" is probably a textbook definition of "ironic." Wanna teach a kid what "ironic" is.use this example.
Some years ago, the now forgetten(?) singer Alanis Morisette had a song called 'Ironic," with a bunch of examples that some expert said were mostly NOT ironic. Titanic, is.
And the metaphors go beyond the unsinkable sinking. You have the various classes of passengers and how they were treated. You have the simile of life itself..we are ALL on the Titanicbut only in terms of our individual lives. Some folks will disappear beneath the waves before others.
A stray thought on the 1953 Titanic: young Robert Wagner survives. To avoid his looking like a coward not going down with the men, they have him try to help someone, he is knocked unconscious, falls off the ship, and is dragged into a lifeboat with his beloved to as "not to let him drown." The instinct of others saves him. An interesting plot twist.
Avatar rather seemed too much to me, too CGI, too animated but it is clearly where Cameron is going to spend much of the rest of his life.
Yep, he's got a $1 Billion (US$) production budget for 4 Avatar sequels, shooting on which began down here in NZ a few months ago (after endless delays). Apparently a lot of work has gone into the scripts causing the delays, but I'd bet that Cameron's commitment to always being technically cutting edge has also caused problems. There are always better cameras and more data-intensive formats to be explored and every change at that front end will necessitate more building out of the computational back-end to support the enhanced digital work-flow. Every time you dilly-dally for another 6 months you'll be gripped anew by the terror that you're not using the absolutely latest/greatest tech.
Well, Cameron seems to know not only what he's doing but what he WANTS to do. He'll always have The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2, True Lies(a fun one) and above all, Titanic, as calling cards. Let Avatar be the rest of his life. Its the way HE wants it. The technology aging fears strike me as a bit OCD, he's in Kubrick/Warren Beatty territory. But he can be if he wants to.
I always used to note this however: Hitchcock had the hit of Psycho which Hitchcock himself later called "a once in a lifetime thing, I'll never have that success again with one movie " but delayed only about 2 years to start filming The Birds. Cameron hit the jackpot with Titanicand took 12 years to do Avatar! To get back up to bat(3-D documentaries aside.) Hitchocck was a braver man. Also older with less time to waste.
I liked Avatar a lot
How it looked yesthe story, not so much. It IS like Dances with Wolves.
but Zoe Saldana and (especially) Sam Worthington are/were no Kate and Leo, and Avatar's sweeping song over the end credits called I think 'I see you' is/was no 'The Heart Will Go On'.
Avatar had a theme song?
Avatar made tons and tons of money but these misses on the stars and song fronts suggested at the time that Avatar wasn't going to become a Titanic or Star Wars-level cultural reference point.
I think studies were done that showed if you considered inflation, supercostly 3-D tickets and the impact of uncaring worldwide audiences "who showed up just to show up" thus pushing the grosses higher, Avatar simply didn't connect with folks like Titanic did. And it got fewer re-viewings. Didn't stay in theaters so long. Isn't shown on TV as much. Etc.
And it really hasn't. And that they're bringing Sigourney Weaver back from the dead for the sequels suggests that Cameron knows he's got a star-shortage on his hands.
Yeah. She just may well have been the best thing in it, and the most remininscent of triumphs past(Aliens.) The villain who got killed was cool too(Stephen Lang.) But nobody HAS to die in movies anymore. -
Doghouse-6 — 9 years ago(February 08, 2017 03:33 PM)
Is this a good place to note that Alfred Hitchcock's first assigned production for David Selznick was to bea film about the Titanic?
I'll never know how that happened to slip my mindand on this board, of all places!
Titanic would have made a bigger, ahem, splash for Hitchcock's set-piece techniques. Perhaps that's why Foreign Correspondent of 1940(the year of Rebecca) has that plane crash into the sea.
The flooding and escape sequence remains harrowing and impressive, and the little goof therein - a jostled camera revealing a fleeting glimpse of the top of the set and lights - actually adds to the sense of jeopardy, hinting that the actors and crew themselves were undergoing their own ordeal.
And one can't help but remember that Hitch went on to his own sea epic in microcosm a few years later and, 15 years thereafter, abandoned a project incorporating more such elements.
Hitchcock gave some interviews with his ideas for Titanic. Like starting with glasses filled with wine shifting on a tilting table and crashing to the floor.
The possibilities are tempting to consider, not only in terms of his macro/micro approach - making big points with small details - but in the larger context of the Titanic legend itself. Once a story becomes "a Hitchcock property," the association is difficult to escape. Although neither
T-97
nor
ANTR
are "remakes" of
T-53
, it's easy to imagine that there might have been no
T-53
had there been a '40 Hitchcock rendition. We both know there's been only one director who's successfully disregarded the informal rule, Thou Shalt Not Remake Hitchcock. To do that, thou must
be
Hitchcock.
Poe! You areavenged! -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 08, 2017 08:33 PM)
Is this a good place to note that Alfred Hitchcock's first assigned production for David Selznick was to bea film about the Titanic?
I'll never know how that happened to slip my mindand on this board, of all places!
Ehhappens to me all the time.
Titanic would have made a bigger, ahem, splash for Hitchcock's set-piece techniques. Perhaps that's why Foreign Correspondent of 1940(the year of Rebecca) has that plane crash into the sea.
The flooding and escape sequence remains harrowing and impressive, and the little goof therein - a jostled camera revealing a fleeting glimpse of the top of the set and lights - actually adds to the sense of jeopardy, hinting that the actors and crew themselves were undergoing their own ordeal.
Sheesh..I'm no Hitchcock buff I guessI never SAW thatsoon I shall! But yes, I think a few Hitchcock movies show the risks to the actors as you watch the scenes: that plane crash(with the water coming in through the cockpit window); Lifeboat's storm scenes(Hume Cronyn was almost drowned on a set in front of people nearby!), the little man who crawls under the carousel in Strangers on a Train and almost gets his backbone clipped(that guy is in lots of 50's movies by the way, like Harvey he was an ACTOR, not a stunt man); Tippi Hedren under attic attack in The Birds, and yes Janet Leigh and especially Martin Balsam going through their murders; Balsam reportedly hurt his back, likely when he fell onto the foyer floor.
And one can't help but remember that Hitch went on to his own sea epic in microcosm a few years later
Lifeboatlikely ALSO where a few Titanic ideas ended up
like that great opening shot on a ship's smokestackwe expect to see the ship, but its just the stacksinking beneath the waves(I remember the SHOCK to my expectations when I first saw that movie and that shot.)
and, 15 years thereafter, abandoned a project incorporating more such elements.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare. We got NXNW instead. I've seen Mary Deare(with macho men Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston, hardly a Hitchcock cast no wait, Hitch always wanted to work with the YOUNG Cooper.) Its pretty dull expect for some ship at stormy sea stuff. Hitch was right to drop it.
Funny: Hitchcock abandoned The Wreck of the Mary Deareso we got NXNW instead.
One year later Hitch abandoned No Bail for the Judge(with Audrey Hepburn and Laurence Harvey starred) and we got Psycho instead.
Thank God for Unmade Movies.
Hitchcock gave some interviews with his ideas for Titanic. Like starting with glasses filled with wine shifting on a tilting table and crashing to the floor.
The possibilities are tempting to consider, not only in terms of his macro/micro approach - making big points with small details - but in the larger context of the Titanic legend itself.
I expect with the special effects/budgets tightnesses of 1940, Hitchcock would have had to do a LOT of that macro/micro. But I'm sure he would have come up with a good model ship and a good sinking Foreign Correspondent shows us what could have been.
Once a story becomes "a Hitchcock property," the association is difficult to escape. Although neither T-97 nor ANTR are "remakes" of T-53, it's easy to imagine that there might have been no T-53 had there been a '40 Hitchcock rendition.
A great point. I suppose the inverse is that Hitchcock rarely (ever?) tackled a big historical subject that might lend itself to a remake.
Which reminds me: after Psycho, Hitchcock was actually offered the Liz Taylor Cleopatra! They were between directors and desperate. I expect he would have given us a pretty gory stabbing of Caesar.
We both know there's been only one director who's successfully disregarded the informal rule, Thou Shalt Not Remake Hitchcock. To do that, thou must be Hitchcock.
Truly, he was The Man Who Knew Too Much. -
Doghouse-6 — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 03:14 PM)
Sheesh..I'm no Hitchcock buff I guessI never SAW thatsoon I shall!
If you can stream video on whatever device you use, you'll see it at 3:02 in this clip:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/79462960-157.html
Otherwise, look for it about two seconds after the cut from the water-crashing-through-the-cockpit shot when you next watch the film.
like that great opening shot on a ship's smokestackwe expect to see the ship, but its just the stacksinking beneath the waves(I remember the SHOCK to my expectations when I first saw that movie and that shot.)
Speaking of Stacks and ships, there's a really quite well done disaster-at-sea film called
The Last Voyage
, in which an explosion pins passenger Dorothy Malone under wreckage in her cabin, and husband Robert Stack races against time, rising water and all manner of obstacles in his attempts to free her as the ship's being abandoned, enlisting along the way assistance from crewmen Edmond O'Brien and Woody Strode (George Sanders is aboard as well, as the captain). IMDB trivia states that Stuart Whitman, the coulda-been-Sam Loomis, was orignally intended for the Stack role.
It's from 1960 (there we are again), color and widescreen, and the producers went to the trouble of partially sinking the le de France, aboard which a great deal of it was shot (you'll recall it was that ship that rescued
Strangers On A Train
player Ruth Roman and others from the Andrea Doria). Some of the most effective footage is in the final moments, as waters submerging the slanting decks are literally at the heels of our stars as they stumble toward a rescue boat.
And after all that, the last shot purporting to be the doomed ship is that very smokestack shot from
Lifeboat
, cropped and tinted blue to lend it whatever continuity was possible.
The Last Voyage
wasn't even a 20th-Fox picture, and I'd wager that the MGM film editors got it from one of the many stock libraries around town, with no awareness of its original source.
And if you've seen it, you know all that, so skip it.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare. We got NXNW instead. I've seen Mary Deare(with macho men Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston, hardly a Hitchcock cast no wait, Hitch always wanted to work with the YOUNG Cooper.) Its pretty dull expect for some ship at stormy sea stuff. Hitch was right to drop it.
As grateful as I am for
NXNW
, I've always been rather fond of
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
, especially considering I've never been a great fan of either Cooper or Heston. I think I can see what might have initially appealed to Hitchcock: teasing the audience at the start with "clues" to Cooper's guilt, then milking the suspense of his efforts to clear himself while the real baddies work against him ( la
Frenzy
). But as part courtroom drama/investigative thriller, it incorporates elements for which I'm a sucker.
And it's got Michael Redgrave and Cecil Parker (
The Lady Vanishes
), actor/writer Emlyn Williams (
Jamaica Inn
and script contributions to
TLV
), along with Alexander Knox, whom I've always liked, but who was largely wasted here and generally underused in films.
Poe! You areavenged! -
ecarle — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 06:37 PM)
eesh..I'm no Hitchcock buff I guessI never SAW thatsoon I shall!
If you can stream video on whatever device you use, you'll see it at 3:02 in this clip:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/79462960-157.html
Otherwise, look for it about two seconds after the cut from the water-crashing-through-the-cockpit shot when you next watch the film.
The link worked clear as a bell for me. Thanks
AndWHAT A SEQUENCE
I oftimes will bunch the Foreign Correspondent plane crash into the sea along with the berserk carousel, Mount Rushmore, and the bird attacks among great Hitchcock set-pieces. But it is REALLY great, perhaps lacking the exhilarating romantic perfection of Rushmore(my favorite Hitchcock set-piece) but about as VISCERAL a sequence as Hitchcock ever created.
In 1940 yet.
The sense of:
Being way high up in the sky, looking down on the ship firing upwards.
The plane shifting to and fro, up and down, in mid-air. This is no "smooth plane ride." This is a roller coaster and YOU ARE THERE.
The panic and organization of all the passengers, suiting up with life jackets.
The one snooty woman who refuses a life jacket, opines she will complain to the authorities, and is shot dead by a stray something(bullet? shrapnel?) just like that. So much for ignoring reality.
The diagonal tilt downwards as people move upwards
And the CRASHwater right through the cockpit window and then knocking people over the seats as THE CAMERA MOVES.
In 2000, the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away had a helluva visceral plane crash into the sea that was quite exciting with all the CGI money could buybut
I can't say the Cast Away crash was much BETTER than what Hitchcock had done 60 YEARS EARLIER.
Truly amazing. Probably single-handedly got FC its Best Picture nomination(it was beaten by Rebecca!)
And oh, about those soundstage lights I saw 'em, butblink and you miss 'em. Maybe they make more of an impact on the big screen.
like that great opening shot on a ship's smokestackwe expect to see the ship, but its just the stacksinking beneath the waves(I remember the SHOCK to my expectations when I first saw that movie and that shot.)
Speaking of Stacks and ships, there's a really quite well done disaster-at-sea film called The Last Voyage, in which an explosion pins passenger Dorothy Malone under wreckage in her cabin, and husband Robert Stack races against time, rising water and all manner of obstacles in his attempts to free her as the ship's being abandoned, enlisting along the way assistance from crewmen Edmond O'Brien and Woody Strode (George Sanders is aboard as well, as the captain). IMDB trivia states that Stuart Whitman, the coulda-been-Sam Loomis, was orignally intended for the Stack role.
Poor Stuart Whitman. Kept losing those roles. But he GOT roles so I guess it turned out even. His role in "The Commancheros" was originally set forAnthony Perkins!
It's from 1960 (there we are again),
Yep. Interesting year for movies, and they all have that "Eisenhower's going out, JFK's coming in" sense of time and place.color and widescreen, and the producers went to the trouble of partially sinking the le de France, aboard which a great deal of it was shot (you'll recall it was that ship that rescued Strangers On A Train player Ruth Roman and others from the Andrea Doria). Some of the most effective footage is in the final moments, as waters submerging the slanting decks are literally at the heels of our stars as they stumble toward a rescue boat.
I've seen the film, some time ago, and it WAS thrilling how an actual ship was put in some jeopardy to make things real. Good cast, too.
I did not know that Ruth Roman informationso you have educated me a second time in two posts
And after all that, the last shot purporting to be the doomed ship is that very smokestack shot from Lifeboat, cropped and tinted blue to lend it whatever continuity was possible. The Last Voyage wasn't even a 20th-Fox picture, and I'd wager that the MGM film editors got it from one of the many stock libraries around town, with no awareness of its original source.
Ha! I did not know THAT! Either.
Which reminds me: Robert Walker only completed one film after Strangers on a Train except he didn't. It was "My Son John" (1952) and he died (young at 33 from a Dr. Feelgood injecting him with a tranquilizer when he was drunk) before they could film his death scene in the film. So"My Son John" director Leo McCarey working with ALFRED HITCHCOCK, cobbled together Walker's death scene from his death scene in Strangers on a Train!
I've only read this, I've never seen "My Son John," I don't know how they did it..I think they optically printed an ultra close-up of Walker's dying face from Strangers and then "dubbed a double from behind."
I must go see that sometime.
And if you've seen it, you know all that, so skip it.
Saw it, didn't know all thathey, I'm not THAT much of a buff. I hope you get to the new boards where we can keep learning from you.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare. We got N -
Doghouse-6 — 9 years ago(February 11, 2017 10:44 AM)
The diagonal tilt downwards as people move upwards
I remember thinking of this the first time I saw Cameron's
Titanic
, in which he does the same thing on a larger scale.
One great detail during that "nosedive" sequence: the quick insert of the window suddenly splattered with oil, conveying both the mechanical damage and velocity; another of those "macro/micro approach" examples that so effectively put viewers in the moment, and are among the little things people notice and remember amid larger-scale calamity (like those glasses of wine on a tilting table).
My mother's Chevy Caprice had a built-in, swing-out kleenex dispenser mounted under the glove box, and when I was 17, a truck running a red light sent me spinning across Ventura Blvd in that car into a utility pole. When I came to rest after about 3 seconds of sound and fury, the very last bit of motion as all became quiet was that dispenser swinging out from the impact, and it's always the first thing I remember when that event pops into my head.
It's the little things.
And the CRASHwater right through the cockpit window
Hitchcock seemed proud of that, and of describing how it was accomplished. Now, however, I'm gonna get really nit-picky about one aspect of it: physics. The pilot and co-pilot are scrambling aft as the plane hits, and seem to be propelled even further in that direction by the water crashing through, when they would actually have been catapulted forward toward the nose as the plane hit the water. Like I said: really nit-picky.
The one snooty woman who refuses a life jacket, opines she will complain to the authorities, and is shot dead by a stray something(bullet? shrapnel?) just like that. So much for ignoring reality.
That's a great device, albeit one that became cliche in later films (there are such characters in
The High and the Mighty
and
Airport
, for instance), but Hitchcock's the only one I can think of who used it to its fullest advantage: in one second, she's a comic annoyance for whom we feel no sympathy; in the next, her sudden demise hammers home the gravity of the situation as equally sudden shock and a bit of guilt set in with the viewer for having been annoyed by her a moment before. The two examples I cited fail to exploit it, merely having the cranky and self-centered passengers getting told off or slapped.
And oh, about those soundstage lights I saw 'em, butblink and you miss 'em.
Yes, it's a literal split second. I'd seen the film probably a dozen times before I ever noticed it.
I've only read this, I've never seen "My Son John," I don't know how they did it..I think they optically printed an ultra close-up of Walker's dying face from Strangers and then "dubbed a double from behind."
Me too. Interesting you should bring it up, as there's a still-active thread about McCarey films on the Classic Film board, and
My Son John
stirred up some strong feelings, most of them negative, among some commenters. I'll have to catch up with it one of these days.
Uh oh. WellI can back pedal with the best of them. I think Hitchcock's remarks to Truffaut biased me against it.
You never need concern yourself with my feelings about a given film vis a vis any opposing ones you might have, and I never try to talk anyone into liking one they don't. All I can do is state why I do, and if it moves you to reconsider, that's both generous and flattering.
Here's something I don't know if I can properly articulate, but I'll try. There's something inexplicably appealing to me about U.S. actors in British films. I don't know if it's down to cross-cultural aspects, or if the atmosphere somehow seems to elevate the American players or what. It does seem to me that British productions were some years ahead of U.S. ones in terms of putting a more gritty realism onscreen, and I feel that
TWOTMD
benefits from it.
However different we can imagine it being in other ways, I'm assuming that, had Hitchcock gone ahead with it, it would have been a Culver City-based production, and I have no idea how it came to be transferred to MGM's U.K. facilities.
Poe! You areavenged! -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 03, 2017 07:01 AM)
125 The Court Jester Norman Panama, Melvin Frank, 1955
Convoluted, occasionally quite funny musical-comedy-burlesque-of-Robin-Hood-ish movies (e.g., The Flame and the Arrow (1951) as much as Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) - so broad Hollywood Medieval types really). Danny Kaye stars as the titular Jester and at least occasionally you get some glimpses from him of a proto-Woody Allen and a proto-Mel Brooks and also of Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride. Still, for the most part, the whole thing feels like a bit of an exercise. There are large patches of verbal schtick that aren't funny exacty and so feel like padding, all of the songs are bad, none of Kaye's romantic involvements are at all credible, and most of the supporting actors not named Basil Rathbone (who could do this sort of thing in his sleep) make little impression. The use of a squad of 'little people' at both the beginning and the end of the film is so loopy that it's actually rather fun, and does provoke the 'I can't believe what I'm seeing' response once or twice.
The Court Jester (1955) was expensive to make for some reason and it bombed on first release. It appears to have acquired a following since on TV. Maybe it's the sort of film that gets funnier with repeat viewings, and maybe too it has a special appeal for kids or to people who encountered it first as a kid (I suspect that Wright is one of those). Meeting it cold as an adult, TCJ just isn't good enough to be seriously recommendable except to Hollywood completists.
P.s., TCJ is shot in VistaVision, but completely wastes it. Hitch shoots To Catch A Thief in Vista the same year (not on Wright's list!) and with Robert Burks as DP gets amazing image-quality. The two films come from completely different universes of cinematic skill and achievement. -
Mr_K_Pratt — 9 years ago(July 31, 2016 07:25 PM)
Thanks for posting this, it's the most impressive list I've ever seen with literally hundreds of my favourite films mentioned, including "Nuts in May".
I'll definitely be referring to this in the future for the ones I haven't seen.
YOU SHOULDN'T BE EATING SAUSAGES!! -
swanstep — 9 years ago(July 31, 2016 08:44 PM)
Thanks for posting this, it's the most impressive list I've ever seen with literally hundreds of my favourite films mentioned, including "Nuts in May".
You're welcome. While I've now voiced many criticisms of Wright's list it does 'ring true' in a lot of ways by surefootedly identifying numerous films (even those made for TV like
Nuts In May
and
Threads
) that have absolutely stuck with anyone who ever saw them yet that in many cases get overlooked in standard critics lists. From The Incredible Shrinking Man to Ferris Beuller to Dark Of The Sun to Wake in Fright to Little Big Man to The Stunt Man to Throw Mamma From the Train to Starship Troopers to Run Lola Run to Ms 45 to Master And Commander:Far Side of the World to The LEGO Moviethat whole alternative 'why we go to the movies in the first place' (to have a good time!) history of peak pleasure is all here. -
CharlesTheBold — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 06:41 AM)
On closer inspection Wright's list has way too much genre trash for me
"Genre" is just a synonym for "category". Why do people like swanstep use it to mean a PARTICULAR category, presumably sci/fi and fantasy?
-
swanstep — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 05:00 PM)
On closer inspection Wright's list has way too much genre trash for me
"Genre" is just a synonym for "category". Why do people like swanstep use it to mean a PARTICULAR category, presumably sci/fi and fantasy?
I agree that I, like many other people, tend to use 'genre' in a fairly slippery way. I guess in context I could have said 'grindhouse', and I seem to recall that various types of horror and martial arts movies were the particular sources for my exasperation at the time.
Pick any year from Wright's list and you'll see that it's full of films that are plot-driven and lurid-premise-driven and are the 20th+ iteration of some particular formula (often aimed at teenagers) that nonetheless became notorious or exemplary for some reason. And this is to say that, like Tarantino, he's got at least as much time for trash/the grindhouse/fleapit and also for the multiplex as the arthouse.
I like the anti-snobbery of Wright's list but year after year (both those I was around for and remember exactly how the flow of importance and buzz went at the time, and those for which I wasn't) films with a highly-iterated character get on Wright's list seemingly at the expense of anything less plot- or premise- or action-driven or less categorizable, or less formulaic. It's been an interesting experience to gap-fill with Wright as a guide, to expose myself to a bunch of, as we'd ordinarily say 'genre films' and find some gems but also a bunch of films barely-worth-the-time-taken-to-watch-'em. -
Doghouse-6 — 9 years ago(February 08, 2017 04:49 PM)
Just want to take this opportunity to express thanks and admiration, swanstep, for your adventurous spirit and ever-inquisitive outlook on all things film. As a lurker on this board for some time before jumping in, you and ecarle seemed to me The Two Musketeers of the
Psycho
board, and your observations alone have provided more rewarding reading than I can possibly quantify.
Poe! You areavenged! -
swanstep — 9 years ago(February 08, 2017 08:10 PM)
@Doghouse-6. Thanks very much! When I started posting here (around 2007 I think) there were 5 or 6 mega-posters who were founts of knowledge and experience. Ecarle was one of those of course, whereas the others, telegenous, eric_barker, arthicus, a woman in Brisbane whose screen-name I've forgotten, and a few others have mostly moved on (telegenous still posts occasionally and very welcomely).
Both ecarle and I do worry sometimes that we post too much and too tangentially, but I know at least in my own case that I'm really just trying to continue the learned but congenial and undogmatic, focused but not too focused spirit that the board had when I originally joined it. I'd been using IMDb and posting on the odd message-board for at least 4 years before I stumbled across the Psycho board. It was instantly clear to me that Psycho and Hitchcock's special centrality to film history and to the history of the film business had inspired a very special kind of community to form, which I wanted to be part of. Happily that community made me feel very welcome.
Anyhow, I've appreciated all of your comments Doghouse-6. I've got hold of a copy of Titanic 1953 finally and will get around to watching it sometime in the next few weeks, and that's certainly mostly because of you (and ecarle). Thanks!