His late period films, of course, but even some during his hey day, are vigorously defended by some and strongly disliked by others:
The Trouble With Harry (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, remake)
Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1967)
Topaz (1969)
Family Plot (1976)
Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1967)
Topaz (1969)
Family Plot (1976)
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You will notice that that group of Hitchcock films were...his final ones, beginning after the incredible peak of Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho and The Birds in a row.
They have "bad reputations" because the belief was that Hitchcock had "lost it" -- old age, health problems...he just couldn't deliver the goods anymore.
And yet you left out one of the "post-Birds" movies: Frenzy(1972), which at the time of its release, seemed to be a small miracle: Hitchcock at age 72 COULD make a good movie, with a lot of cinematic technique and dazzle, and an "up to date" emphasis on R-rated sexual content.
Frenzy almost single handedly says "Hitchcock was not senile in his later years." But other things made those final films "bad." Cheapjack Universal production values. Lack of location filming. Lack of major stars(aside from Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain, and Hitchcock could never get big stars again after that movie.)
I personally like each and every one of the Hitchcock films after The Birds because I think they are all made by the man who had ALREADY MADE Vertigo and NXNW and Psycho.....those great classics "resonate" through the later work even as the later work isn't as good. And, personally, I rather like the 60's films better than a lot of Hitchcock's 40's films. He needed the fifties and early 60's to truly "blossom."
CONT
Torn Curtain isn't a "great chase" like North by Northwest, but I think it is the unsung near-classic of the post-Birds films(less Frenzy.) Paul Newman IS interesting in a Hitchcock film. Julie Andrews , a little less so, but still a star. The film posits Newman's "fake defection to the Communists" as rather an "undercover cop adventure." And the lingering, realistic "killing of Gromek" is one of the great Hitchcock scenes, and entirely new for him in terms of its realism. There is a lot of great cinematic innovation in the film -- the "gauzy gray natural lighting," the "freeze-frame ballerina" and even some of the visual staging throughout the film. Still, the movie is rather claustrophobic and plodding, nothing close to the sweep and exhilaration of NXNW.
shareTorn Curtain is North by Northwest 2.0, the same Marnie is Vertigo 2.0. Hitchcock enjoyed going back to his old stories and remaking them with new elements.
Contrary to the popular opinion, I don't have Vertigo in much regard, and I love Marnie. I think he managed to improve that story.
Torn Curtain, on the other side, pales when being compared with NBNW. Probably it's what you say, he included new narrative elements, and that's what drove him to remake the story. But NBNW was a perfect movie, it was a lighting in a bottle, even for a genius like Hitck.
Torn Curtain is North by Northwest 2.0, the same Marnie is Vertigo 2.0. Hitchcock enjoyed going back to his old stories and remaking them with new elements.
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Yes. As he said "self-plagiarism is style."
Indeed, after the run from Vertigo through Psycho, each of the final films after Psycho had some link to an earlier Hitchcock film, and generally failed against them:
The Birds(Psycho -- birds, blood, similar attack scenes.)
Marnie(Vertigo -- a twisted love story.)
Torn Curtain(NXNW..spies, a chase.)
Topaz(NXNW, spies.)
Frenzy(Psycho, a psycho.)
Family Plot was something different, no spies or psychos, though with the same screenwriter as North by Northwest(Ernest Lehman) it harkened back to the light comedy thriller elements of that film. (The plot is closest to Psycho: investigators following a trail in one story collide with the dangerous characters in a second story.)
CONT
Contrary to the popular opinion, I don't have Vertigo in much regard, and I love Marnie. I think he managed to improve that story.
Torn Curtain, on the other side, pales when being compared with NBNW. Probably it's what you say, he included new narrative elements, and that's what drove him to remake the story. But NBNW was a perfect movie, it was a lighting in a bottle, even for a genius like Hitck.
Contrary to the popular opinion, I don't have Vertigo in much regard,
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I'm OK with it -- both the Herrmann score and the Burks cinematography "create a world" but I've always resented that this not-very-popular Hitchcock film has been held i higher critical esteem than Rear Window and NXNW and in some quarters, Psycho. It wasn't very popular because the story wasn't all that involving and James Stewart was not very sexy in it.
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and I love Marnie. I think he managed to improve that story.
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I think Vertigo is better made -- Universal cheapjackness first really shows up here in Marnie -- but I like Marnie. I am realizing right this moment that in Sean Connery, Marnie had a much more sexy and compelling male protagonist than James Stewart in Vertigo. Vertigo and Marnie are most clearly linked in being without the action of the spy movies or the shocks of Psycho and Frenzy, but they belong to a long Hitchcock tradition of "twisted love stories" that includes Rebecca, Suspicion, Spellbound, Notorious and Under Capricorn.
Torn Curtain, on the other side, pales when being compared with NBNW.
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That's what killed it on release. Its hard to beat Mount Rushmore for a climax. And Newman and Andrews start the film as lovers -- Grant has to MEET and woo Eva Marie Saint.
Which reminds me: Hitchcock sought both Grant and Saint FOR Torn Curtain. Grant said no. Universal wanted Julie Andrews. Its just as well. Better for Grant and Saint to be in the BIG one(NXNW.)
More mind-blowing still: when Grant said NO to Torn Curtain, Hitchcock next asked...Anthony Perkins! Evidently in an effort to help Perkins recover from his Psycho persona. Perkins said YES...but Universal said no. They wanted somebody bigger...like Paul Newman.
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Probably it's what you say, he included new narrative elements, and that's what drove him to remake the story.
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Yes...well, there are only so many spy stories, I guess. Somewhat different here: Newman VOLUNTARILY enters the world of spy danger; Grant was ACCIDENTALLY pulled into it.
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But NBNW was a perfect movie, it was a lighting in a bottle, even for a genius like Hitch.
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Yep. I think Hitchcock made two utterly perfect movies in a row -- NBNW and then Psycho. In some ways, they reflected his clout at the time -- he got the big budget and big stars he needed for NBNW; he was able to plow past the censors with Psycho. The results were huge hits(Psycho moreso that NbNW) that were also great films and that, together, influenced pretty much every thriller made after them.
[Vertigo] It wasn't very popular because the story wasn't all that involving and James Stewart was not very sexy in it.
Vertigo and Marnie are most clearly linked in being without the action of the spy movies or the shocks of Psycho and Frenzy, but they belong to a long Hitchcock tradition of "twisted love stories"
Grant said no. Universal wanted Julie Andrews. Its just as well. Better for Grant and Saint to be in the BIG one
when Grant said NO to Torn Curtain, Hitchcock next asked...Anthony Perkins! Evidently in an effort to help Perkins recover from his Psycho persona. Perkins said YES...but Universal said no. They wanted somebody bigger...like Paul Newman.
I think Hitchcock made two utterly perfect movies in a row -- NBNW and then Psycho.
[Vertigo] It wasn't very popular because the story wasn't all that involving and James Stewart was not very sexy in it.
It's not that. At least, not in my case. James Stewart is one of my favorite all-time actors.
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Well, I always seem to run into trouble when I assume that Stewart "lacks sex appeal" or "is too old for the role" in Vertigo. Generations who are younger than me seem to see Stewart as too old for Kim Novak(or Grace Kelly), but clearly he was a big star and a respected actor, and its not like he was UGLY.
So...never mind. I'll note that even though Hitchcock himself later blamed Stewart's "aging appearance" as reason for Vertigo's box office failure, Hitchcock never wanted anybody OTHER than Stewart playing Scottie; that's the actor he pictured. I can't see Cary Grant in the role. Maybe William Holden. And I can see Sinatra(then a major movie star with a "lovelorn" act in real life) in the role.
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It's more about threads. Hitchcock is always a master puppeteer playing with his puppets. He always manages to stay in the edge, far enough to play with them, but not that far beyond the edge that we suddenly become aware that the characters are puppets. In Vertigo, for some reason, I think he went too far, and I feel like you're watching the threads during the play.
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Interesting analysis. Vertigo is an "arty" film -- Stewart demanded -- and got - -the character of Midge(his platonic Girl Friday with a crush) added to the script to give the film an "anchor in reality." But the film still rather plays "less than real."
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Vertigo and Marnie are most clearly linked in being without the action of the spy movies or the shocks of Psycho and Frenzy, but they belong to a long Hitchcock tradition of "twisted love stories"
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I think it's more than that. Vertigo and Marnie are exactly the same story. The secondary elements in the story change, but the core is exactly the same.
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Well, clearly Hitchcock PERSONALLY liked the narratives of Vertigo and Marnie. They ARE the same story -- man obsesses over a woman, takes her over, dominates her, tries to change her -- except one has an unhappy ending, and the other has a happy ending(sorta.)
I always felt that Hitchcock probably told Universal -- "look, I've just delivered three crowd-pleasing commercial entertainments in a row(NBNW, Psycho, The Birds)....I would like to go back to my Vertigo mode." Hitch probably KNEW Marnie wouldn't be as big a hit as the previous three -- but he was "owed his vision."
Actually, I read somewhere that Marnie did better than Vertigo. Maybe because by Marnie, Hitchcock had all those hits and an enlarged fan base.
Grant said no. Universal wanted Julie Andrews. Its just as well. Better for Grant and Saint to be in the BIG one
Much better. And Grant would have been in his 60s. Unless the script was adapted to his age (and that wasn't the case back in the 60s), not even him could have pulled that trick.
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No. Torn Curtain had as a set-piece that realistic fight set-piece that leads to the killing of Gromek the spy. Its hard to picture Grant getting "down and dirty" like that, at any age. Better that he run from a crop duster or cliff-hang off of Mount Rushmore.
Torn Curtain was in 1966 -- and so was Grant's actual final film, the romantic comedy "Walk Don't Run." I think Grant told Hitchcock he was retiring and done.
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when Grant said NO to Torn Curtain, Hitchcock next asked...Anthony Perkins! Evidently in an effort to help Perkins recover from his Psycho persona. Perkins said YES...but Universal said no. They wanted somebody bigger...like Paul Newman.
I think Perkins could have been a much more interesting option. He was a wonderful actor, and the movie could have had a more Polansky-like vibe. Darker.
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Perkins is actually on film(1986) saying that Hitchcock offered him Torn Curtain, but the studio went with Newman(Perkins self-protectively says "because they had Newman on contract for movies" -- but I think Perkins knew he wasn't as big a star as Newman.)
It is nice to think that Hitchcock tried to save Perkins from his "psycho killer persona" by offering him a romantic role with love scenes. But it would have been a little weird, too. And ithat Gromek murder scene, a woman tries to stab Gromek with a big knife -- and the blade breaks off in his chest! It was almost a joke ON Psycho.
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During the 50s and 60s, Hitch was usually quite campy (with the only exception of Psycho). A darker (but experienced) Hitch would have been very interesting to see.
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Well, Hitchcock did move into a darker period right after the "fun" North by Northwest. Psycho and The Birds were bloody thrillers. Marnie had a marital rape scene(implied.) Frenzy had an ACTUAL rape scene(followed by a graphic strangulation.) The killing of Gromek in Torn Curtain is as grim as the Frenzy rape murder(and both scenes are played without music.) And while Topaz lacked a graphic murder sequence, many of the characters met tragic violent deaths, and two were tortured.
Only at the very end, with Family Plot, did Hitchcock "lighten up" with a "fun thriller." He even used the same screenwriter as on North by Northwest, but they were old men now, without the budget, stars or energy that went into NXNW.
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I think Hitchcock made two utterly perfect movies in a row -- NBNW and then Psycho.
Fully agreed.
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Good to know -- its how I feel. Two absolutely enthralling thrillers -- one about a chase, the other about shock horror murders -- back-to-back and released less than a year apart!