![]() ![]() I consider myself a fairly well-attuned movie-goer, and even I couldn't see the ending coming quite the way it did. Despite being slightly tarnished with the "remake that wasn't really a remake but it kinda totally was" Flightplan, Lady Vanishes is an exceptional thriller both then and now. Its hard to make rotoscoped or mechanical birds scary to a modern audience, but Hitch pulled it off.įor me, this is the masterpiece of Hitchcock's work in the 30's and earlier. But once Hitch's true intentions arrive (and it's hard to say how much this was his decision to "mislead" the audience, or screenwriter Evan Hunter's lack of direction), The Birds is a shocking horror film, with several scenes that will be forever etched in my memory. The Birds takes an excruciatingly long time to arrive at its second half, which is a shame, because despite the occasional flourish or small scene of suspense, there is no denying the dullness of Birds' first hour. The scene where Anderson tries to persuade Fontaine to kill herself is as tense as anything Hitch ever made before or after.įor me, The Birds is two films put into one - the first, an hour long love story that is notable for its naivety and its inability to be anything more than boring and mundane, and the second, which is terrifying, claustrophobic, and nearly perfect. But what saves the film from being a completely lesser Hitchcock are the great cinematography and set design, which often feels like a suffocating nightmare by Edgar Allen Poe, and the performances of Joan Fontaine (her first appearance for Hitch) and Judith Anderson as the wonderfully devilish Mrs. For me, Rebecca is not in the upper tier of Hitchcock films, and even the acting from the normally great Laurence Olivier is sometimes so melodramatic it can be a distraction. The only Hitchcock film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar (yeah, it pisses me off too), Rebecca is a delightful Gothic drama, infused with enough tense moments to still be labelled a thriller. It may run a little slowly in the first half, but by the end (with the brightly lit glass of poison milk) you'll still find yourself on the edge of your seat. Fontaine is wonderful as the slowly suspicious wife of Cary Grant, who may or may not be planning on killing her. Despite the ending being destroyed in the editing room (on insistence from the censorship board at the time - a shame, because the original written by Joan Harrison and Samuel Ralpheson is deceptively wicked), Suspicion is still an intriguing romance gone horribly wrong. So with no further ado, I bid you "Good evening", and here we go….Ī collaboration between Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, Hitchcock's Suspicion is a lesser known dramatic thriller but an enjoyable one regardless. ![]() For me, these 15 selections are the finest works he ever accomplished and also, from a screenwriting perspective, many of these films are great not just because of Hitch's direction, but also the eloquent and wonderful scripts posted by men like Samuel Taylor, Ben Hecht, John Michael Hayes, and Joseph Stefano. Couple this with the recent release of 15 of his films on Blu-Ray, and the fact that it's nearing Halloween, makes this a seemingly perfect time to revisit the Master of Suspense, and take a look at the best films he offered. This year is seeing the release of two bio-pics about the rotund director The Girl, featuring on HBO, and Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitch. Alfred Hitchcock is one of only a small handful of film director's who can claim to be as famous, if not more so, than the actual films he made himself. ![]()
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