MovieChat Forums > Frenzy (1972) Discussion > Hitch always fools me (spoilers)

Hitch always fools me (spoilers)

posted 3 years ago by Drooch (5333)
22 replies | jump to latest

So many movies now are predictable but even though Hitch’s films are old and legendary I always fall for his twists. He knows exactly how to ‘program’ you to look over here and then spring surprises on you when you least expect.

No way did I have Rusk down as the rapist/murderer. The trick was showing you him hanging out with his mother in his flat, and previously setting up other characters that seemed more likely or ‘unlikely’ (like maybe one of the women?)

Suddenly Rusk appears in the dating place and he’s acting… weird. I didn’t expect to find out the killer so soon, and before you know it you’re watching the friendly fruit seller force-fuck the hero’s seemingly lovely ex wife while she distracts herself with a prayer. It’s a traumatic sequence that comes out of nowhere! You’re waiting for the hero to appear but no - Rusk strangles her in a prolonged sequence then casually eats an apple while her corpse lies on the couch, tongue hanging out in a morbidly twisted image I won’t be forgetting for a while.

I also didn’t expect Babs to suffer the same fate, usually the ‘other girl’ survives, especially ones as sweet and intelligent as Babs. Her murder was so sad and tragic, and wow - the genius move of having the camera float out of the building and into the street, letting your imagination scar itself as you imagine the horrors taking place up in that room. In Covent Garden no one can hear you scream.

And THEN there’s a farcical comedy scene of the rapist/killer, let’s say ‘raper’ for short, fumbling around with her corpse in a speeding potato truck trying to retrieve his lost pin from her rigor mortis-frozen fingers. WTF! I was not expecting an extended comedy bit where you’re kinda siding with the raper, hoping he won’t get caught even though he’s a psychotic cunt!

Total genius, no one fucks with you like Hitchcock 🥂

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I also didn’t expect Babs to suffer the same fate, usually the ‘other girl’ survives, especially ones as sweet and intelligent as Babs.

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Yes...I think that's the really big shockeroo in Frenzy (plot wise; the first rape-murder is the most disturbing scene.)

Indeed, in Psycho, Janet Leigh gets killed early -- but Vera Miles survives to the end and escapes Mother's attempt to kill her in the fruit cellar.

In Strangers on a Train, Guy's ex-wife Miriam (the slut) gets killed and we expected it and Ruth Roman(second billed) , the hero's girlfriend, survives to the end and gets Guy, and we expected THAT.

But in Frenzy, deep into the film at the end of the second act, we realize to our true shock and horror -- OH, NO! --Rusk's picking BABS as his next victim? Babs dying late in Frenzy is just as shocking as Janet Leigh dying early in Psycho. The "other girl" is supposed to survive. The hero's girlfriend is supposed to be with him at the fade out(well, in Strangers on a Train at least.)

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Her murder was so sad and tragic,

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Very mean, too. You've got Rusk lulling Babs into a false sense of security and saying "After all, you've got your whole life ahead of you!" -- all ten minutes of it.

All of this was in the book that Hitchcock adapted, but one wonders why he saw it through to the end, why he frustrated his audience by killing off the most decent character in the movie. It made Frenzy a real "gut punch" of a movie, a thriller that really HURT to watch.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

and wow - the genius move of having the camera float out of the building and into the street, letting your imagination scar itself as you imagine the horrors taking place up in that room.

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Its the most famous shot in Frenzy -- called "Farewell to Babs" in some corners -- and a famous shot in Hitchcock.

There is also a symmetry with the earlier killing of Brenda.

With Brenda, we were UP THERE in the room as Brenda was killed; we found ourselves thinking about all the people down below as she died so horribly IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, in her office, during the lunch hour. And she sure did scream loudly when Rusk revealed the necktie.

In this second murder scene, after the very graphic first one -- WE are DOWN HERE with the people and we realize: they can't hear any screams. They can't hear anything. And indeed, we are forced to imagine Babs' horrible death (though later, as a "surprise flashback" we see just a little of it in Rusk's mind.)

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In Covent Garden, no one can hear you scream.

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LOL!

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

It’s the most overt ‘horror film’ I’ve seen from Hitchcock. As well as being graphic with nudity, rape and murder, it’s extremely cruel. It’s his only 18 rated movie (in the UK) and has a fair amount of cursing. The protagonist is also incredibly cold too, Jimmy Stewart he ain’t. He barely registers any emotion when he learns Babs is dead, after all she’s done for him.

It was fascinating seeing Hitch move into the cynical anything-goes 70’s, it seemed to give his nastier side an outlet, but I’m kinda glad we only got a peek. I prefer his more restrained, wholesome movies with likeable characters. Frenzy almost felt like a Polanski film - afterwards you feel like you need a shower.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It’s the most overt ‘horror film’ I’ve seen from Hitchcock. As well as being graphic with nudity, rape and murder, it’s extremely cruel.

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A 1960 critic wrote a review of Psycho(and a rave of sorts) that nonetheless said "Psycho is surely the sickest movie ever made."

But that was a Hays Code era movie, censored (while pushing the envelope HARD on violence and back story horror.)

Frenzy could have been called "the sickest movie ever made" but by 1972, its competitors were legion, including Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange a few months before it, and Deliverance about a month after it. The 70's, baby, in all their freedom and sexual cruelty.

But the thing of it is: Frenzy's cruelty is confined to a sole graphic murder that we see and then "transfers" to psychological torture. Babs gets killed -- offscreen -- but it surely hurts us to know. And in the potato truck scene Babs is basically now a prop(this movie reminds us from the river body to Brenda in her chair, to Babs in the sack, to the final victim in bed -- bodies are PEOPLE. Or WERE. Living beings becoming...nothing.)

And this: all these years later, so many OTHER horror films have been so much worse, so much gorier(the strangling in Frenzy has no blood, but the intimacy is sickening) so many more victims. Still, within Hitchcock's "studio world," this is as bad as it gets. And those of us who saw it first run have never forgotten that first murder.

But for all of that, the decades since Frenzy have seen many worse, gorier, sicker murder movies, with higher body counts. It barely touches their levels of depravity. But for what it is -- a Hollywood studio movie(made in London) by a Golden Era filmmaker -- its pretty rough.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It’s his only 18 rated movie (in the UK) and has a fair amount of cursing.

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The cursing (which comes early on) was perhaps as shocking as the sex and violence to follow. In a HITCHCOCK movie? We had decades of his films with NO cursing, and even later, just a "hell" or "damn." There is no cursing in Psycho at all.

In the US , it was his only R rated movie. Under 17 not admitted without parent or guardian. Great -- watch rape murder with your father, or your child.

Psycho had no ratring in 1960. There was no ratings code. In 1969, Psycho got a re-release as an "M." (Todays PG.)

But in 1984, they slapped an R on Psycho. I've never determined why -- it wasn't shown in theaters. And it had been rated M. Perhaps to give it more "cachet" as a horror film? Or perhaps its "violence against women" was now R.

The only REAL Hitchcock R film is Frenzy.

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The protagonist is also incredibly cold too, Jimmy Stewart he ain’t.

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Ha. No. Here, too, Hitchcock followed the book when he didn't really have to, and then (with screenwriter Shaffer's help), made the guy WORSE. More tempermental. More whiny.

Oddly, enough -- perhaps because of his looks -- Jon Finch's Richard Blaney DID get a wife (Brenda) and DOES have a girlfriend (Babs) and can be gentle enough with them. There's a good man in there somewhere. But not enough to escape the wrong man finger.

As someone noted, Blaney is posited as mean and unsympathetic -- but RUSK is cheery, helpful, well liked by all. (Except when raping and killing -- which only WE see. Suspense.) "It throws the audiences' moral compass clean off."

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

He barely registers any emotion when he learns Babs is dead, after all she’s done for him.

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Yes...that might have been Hitchocck's doing. He didn't let Vera Miles and John Gavin react much to news of Janet Leighs murder in Psycho, either. But here...Blaney just seems too self-interested. And he's VIOLENT. I personally wanted to see him smash Rusk with that tire iron but...it is the work of a violent man.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It was fascinating seeing Hitch move into the cynical anything-goes 70’s, it seemed to give his nastier side an outlet, but I’m kinda glad we only got a peek. I prefer his more restrained, wholesome movies with likeable characters. Frenzy almost felt like a Polanski film - afterwards you feel like you need a shower.

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Frenzy ended up in a weird place. After the misfires (and supposed decline) of Marnie, Torn Curtain and Topaz -- Frenzy was perhaps OVERLY praised as a "return to form" (one of Hitchcock's very best, said Newsweek.) And as people rushed out to see it, it became clear that it wasn't making blockbuster dollars. People must not have been coming back for seconds -- or word of mouth was bad.

I think the Frenzy raves were from a new generation of critics out to apologize to Hitchocck for the older critics who didn't get, or didn't like , Vertigo and Psycho. THESE young critics wanted to make amends.

Also, as I got older, I realized that film critics could be a rather sick group, themselves. In the 70s, a lot of them dug on these sexually violent movies with bleak views of life.

That said, I think that Frenzy is Hitchcock's best film after The Birds(after Psycho in terms of overall quality, but The Birds had those historic effects.) And sometimes I think it is one of his best, period -- because there is nothing else like it in the Hitchcock canon. Not even Psycho. And it is couched in great atmosphere -- Covent Garden with all those worker ant workers. It stylized the whole "necktie murder" angle -- in the book, Rusk uses his bare hands or a stocking to strangle victims. There is plenty of cinematic prowess on display from an "old man." And a damn good script and damn good acting -- albeit from unknowns. Hitchocck wanted Michael Caine for Rusk, Richard Burton for Blaney, Glenda Jackson for Brenda, and Lynn Redgrave for Babs. All said no.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I've decided this, over the years: Frenzy is one of the best movies I've ever seen....that I can never recommend to anybody. Its like a private triumph of horror.

By the way. Hitchcock got tragic(Vertigo) or ultra-violent(Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Frenzy) a few times, but in the vast majority of his films, the good guys won and the bad guys lost, and romantic couples came together and lived happily ever after.

Its just that sometimes, he just liked tp pull the rug out and how us how horrible and unfair life can REALLY be..

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

I’m working through the canon but so far Vertigo and Psycho are tops for me. I enjoyed The Birds but can’t get past those ropey effects toward the end. Such a shame because the climbing frame and walking through the ‘carpet’ of birds, both filmed for real somehow, looked incredible and disturbing.

The big surprise for me was Marnie, I thought that was great, and one of the more psychological/tragic affairs like Vertigo. I guess most people couldn’t get past Connery being a hero/rapist which is fair enough. Hitch’s sicko side making an early appearance there.

Rear Window wasn’t quite the sensation I was hoping for. Stewart was great as ever and Grace Kelly was ridiculously charming and attractive (that woman is a goddess) but I felt a bit disappointed that the crime turned out to be… exactly what it looked like. It lacked surprise. Also the effects shot of Stewart falling at the end was… ambitious.

Speaking of Kelly, I wish she’d been cast in Vertigo. Kim Novak was rather robotic and fractionally butch. It’s testament to the genius of the film that it still totally works for me without making me as obsessed as Scottie. But then again, could I handle a somewhat devious Grace Kelly? I kinda like remembering her as angelic and at worst a ‘naughty’ thief…

Hitchocck wanted Michael Caine for Rusk, Richard Burton for Blaney, Glenda Jackson for Brenda, and Lynn Redgrave for Babs. All said no.

I wonder if he thought the fact that Richard Attenborough played a necrophile the year before in 10 Rillington Place (literally his bare ass bouncing up and down as he screws a corpse) made Hitch think other big name actors would be up for similar..?

The 70’s really did show a nasty side to life, and seemed actively hostile toward the American Dream and wholesome, happy families. Whether one approves of McCarthy’s methods, his diagnosis seemed to have some validity.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I’m working through the canon but so far Vertigo and Psycho are tops for me.

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Its a great canon. I worked through it all a couple of decades ago, but it is great to read of someone giving it a go now. Those movies are getting older all the time, but there is a power to Hitchocck's visual sense that never goes away , and his "take" on humanity is an interesting one: pessimistic but believing in good over evil, most of the time. (Hey, at least Rusk is CAUGHT.)

Also, the music of Bernard Herrmann over 8 major Hitchocck films is powerful stuff, too. Vertigo and Psycho have Herrmann scores, and they wouldn't be nearly so great without them. They ARE part of those movies.

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I enjoyed The Birds but can’t get past those ropey effects toward the end.

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The "line" on Hitchcock is that his career rather "perfectly ended" with Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho all in a row. Done in 1960. But he kept on working and so whether or not The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy are REALLY great...is a debateable topic. Torn Curtain and Topaz get dissed. His final film , Family Plot, is much nicer than Frenzy, very interesting, but also the slow work of an old man.

I rank The Birds over later works almost entirely because of those effects. For 1963 -- with no CGI computer technology - they were historic for their time, and that final shot holds up for me.

I don't think the SCRIPT for The Birds is very good(Frenzy's is better), but you feel Hitchcock "pulling out all the stops" with The Birds (he was trying to top the success of Psycho) and it gets an A for effort.

-- Such a shame because the climbing frame and walking through the ‘carpet’ of birds, both filmed for real somehow, looked incredible and disturbing.

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Well, there you go. SOME of The Birds has lived on in quality. That script, though...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I’m working through the canon but so far Vertigo and Psycho are tops for me.

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Its a great canon. I worked through it all a couple of decades ago, but it is great to read of someone giving it a go now. Those movies are getting older all the time, but there is a power to Hitchocck's visual sense that never goes away , and his "take" on humanity is an interesting one: pessimistic but believing in good over evil, most of the time. (Hey, at least Rusk is CAUGHT.)

Also, the music of Bernard Herrmann over 8 major Hitchocck films is powerful stuff, too. Vertigo and Psycho have Herrmann scores, and they wouldn't be nearly so great without them. They ARE part of those movies.

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I enjoyed The Birds but can’t get past those ropey effects toward the end.

---

The "line" on Hitchcock is that his career rather "perfectly ended" with Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho all in a row. Done in 1960. But he kept on working and so whether or not The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy are REALLY great...is a debateable topic. Torn Curtain and Topaz get dissed. His final film , Family Plot, is much nicer than Frenzy, very interesting, but also the slow work of an old man.

I rank The Birds over Hitchcock's works after it almost entirely because of those effects. For 1963 -- with no CGI computer technology - they were historic for their time, and that final shot holds up for me.

I don't think the SCRIPT for The Birds is very good(Frenzy's is better), but you feel Hitchcock "pulling out all the stops" with The Birds (he was trying to top the success of Psycho) and it gets an A for effort.

-- Such a shame because the climbing frame and walking through the ‘carpet’ of birds, both filmed for real somehow, looked incredible and disturbing.

---

Well, there you go. SOME of The Birds has lived on in quality. That script, though...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The big surprise for me was Marnie, I thought that was great, and one of the more psychological/tragic affairs like Vertigo.

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Marnie gets hate OR love. It was panned on release in 1964(mainly for ITS effects) but has been very much rehabilitated over the years. It has great psychological depth.

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I guess most people couldn’t get past Connery being a hero/rapist which is fair enough. Hitch’s sicko side making an early appearance there.

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Oh, yes...he had a sicko side, to be sure. But he expressed it in a way that suggested we should THINK about what makes humans do what they do. The key to Marnie(I think) is that Marnie is messed up psychologically for her reasons, but MARK is messed up too. These are two damaged people coming together to make a whole.

The marital rape is not only sick, it is darkly ironic: Mark wants Marnie sexually (as well as wanting to "cure" her.) Marnie wants nothing to do with Mark. Mark blackmails her into marrying him (over her crimes.) On their honeymoon night, Marnie refuses to have sex. Mark takes it. His "husband's rights" -- and Marnie never wanted to be his wife in the first place!

I don't think that Hitchcock was in favor of what Mark (Connery) did. He was commenting on it, remarking on Mark's sickness as well as Marnies. And he gives the two of them a happy ending(unlike the ending to Vertigo, which, indeed Marnie resembles a lot. No chases or psycho murders in this one.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Rear Window wasn’t quite the sensation I was hoping for. Stewart was great as ever and Grace Kelly was ridiculously charming and attractive (that woman is a goddess) but I felt a bit disappointed that the crime turned out to be… exactly what it looked like. It lacked surprise.

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Ha. Yeah the plot really boils down to "Did Thorwald do it, or didn't he?" And he did. I think the audience knows that by the time Grace Kelly sneaks into his apartment and is brutalized by him (a great suspense sequence as Thorwald appears in one window as Kelly walks towards him in the other.)

The "big deal" about Rear Window, I think -- was its technical spectacle(all those windows, all those cuts to Stewart LOOKING at those people) and the symbolism of the tale -- those windows are "movies that Stewart watches" or "TV channels he keeps switching among" and eventually -- one of THEM sees HIM.

Its a very "cinematic" film -- but with great dialogue, including that written for the wise-cracking nurse, Thelma Ritter.

CONT

Also the effects shot of Stewart falling at the end was… ambitious.

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Ha. Well, he did that better in black and white in Saboteur(1942) and he would do it better in color in North by Northwest(1942). Hitchcock liked the viewer to "feel" the fall. He rarely used dummies or stunt men falling out of the shot.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Speaking of Kelly, I wish she’d been cast in Vertigo.

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Grace Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco in 1956 and it is said that Hitchcock was heartbroken because he had used her in three films in a row and probably would have used her forever (when she fit.)

Hitchcock tried to get Princess Grace to work with Cary Grant in North by Northwest. No go. Then Princess Grace AGREED to be in Marnie(it was in the papers) but she quit that one. She never came back to movies.

For Vertigo, Hitchcock had cast his "new discovery" -- Vera Miles from The Wrong Man -- and shot tests with her and had wardrobe made for her. The story is she got pregnant and quit, so Novak came in. But the OTHER story is that Miles had her child in time to make Vertigo after all...but the studio wanted a bigger star: Novak.

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Kim Novak was rather robotic and fractionally butch. It’s testament to the genius of the film that it still totally works for me without making me as obsessed as Scottie.

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Novak looked better in other movies. The actress felt "strapped down" in her outfits for the formalistic Hitchcock. The story works without much romantic chemistry between Stewart and her. The obession's the thing, I guess.

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But then again, could I handle a somewhat devious Grace Kelly? I kinda like remembering her as angelic and at worst a ‘naughty’ thief…

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Well, in real life, Kelly was rumored to be quite naughty(liked the men.) It might have been fun to dirty her up a bit in some different types of Hitchcock movies.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Hitchocck wanted Michael Caine for Rusk, Richard Burton for Blaney, Glenda Jackson for Brenda, and Lynn Redgrave for Babs. All said no.

I wonder if he thought the fact that Richard Attenborough played a necrophile the year before in 10 Rillington Place (literally his bare ass bouncing up and down as he screws a corpse) made Hitch think other big name actors would be up for similar..?

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Well, 10 Rillington Place was based on the true story that drove the novel from which Frenzy was adapted.

Attenborough 's John Christie was the REAL Rusk, and that other guy was REALLY the wrong man and REALLY got hanged for the crimes.

Michael Caine wrote in his autobiography that he turned down Rusk because Rusk was "a sadistic killer of young women" and "I didn't want to be associated with the part." Funny: Caine had been a pretty sadistic killer in Get Carter around that time(but "the good guy gangster") and years later he would play a psycho killer in Dressed to Kill(but his career was on the downswing and he needed a hit.)

I expect that Caine and the others felt that Htichcock was "over" when he brought them Frenzy. He had not had a hit since The Birds and was old. Nobody knew what a "sick hit" the movie would turn out to be.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The 70’s really did show a nasty side to life,

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Well, the "R rated stuff" (sex, nudity, cussing and ultra-violence ) was somewhat of a commercial consideration.

The coming of black and white televsion in the 50's drove the studios to make "big Technicolor wide screen movies' to fight it, but by the 60's, color televsions were in most homes and combat censored TV -- the studios went with "frank" movies -- a lot of nudity, sex, cussing and ultra violence.

Still, these movies seemed to bring out the sick sides of their makers. Straw Dogs, Deliverance , Dirty Harry, Frenzy, Chinatown -- all had sick angles.

Eventually, a "new generation" of movie bosses came to Hollywood (from TV productions) and curbed the excesses. in the 80's.

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and seemed actively hostile toward the American Dream and wholesome, happy families. Whether one approves of McCarthy’s methods, his diagnosis seemed to have some validity.

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Well, its true that the makers of the 70's films in particular were a pretty nihilistic bunch. So MANY 70's movies (in the first half of the decade) had "unhappy endings where the heroes lost or died."

The new moguls cut a lot of the contracts of the 70's nihilists.

There was backlash and happy endings came back: Rocky. Star Wars. Indiana Jones, ET, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Top gun. Nice, fun, upbeat movies..

And now all these comic book movies.

Cash and entertinament still tend to trump "downbeat political messages" at the movies.

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

It has great psychological depth.

This is my favourite type of Hitchcock movie, probing the dark recesses of the mind never dates. I like Rope for the same reason.

Hitchcock is always good but his action scenes and the semi-supernatural attacks of the Birds almost pluck me out of the movie. It’s not his fault, just that effects technology wasn't able to convincingly render ambitious sequences back then.

NXNW always felt like an OK Bond movie to me, nothing special.

Weirdly, I really like the ‘movie set’ feel of his pre-70’s films. They’re like tautly constructed plays, everything is precisely controlled to draw you in and maximise suspense. At the same time, he got great performances from his actors and really drew you into their psychology.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It has great psychological depth.

This is my favourite type of Hitchcock movie, probing the dark recesses of the mind never dates. I like Rope for the same reason.

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Yes. By my count, Hitchcock gave his audiences "one psycho per decade," each more graphic and violent in his murder mania:

The forties. Uncle Charlie(Joseph Cotton) in Shadow of a Doubt. He's "The Merry Widow Strangler," but never see him strangle anyone.

The fifties. Bruno Anthony(Robert Walker.) The best Hitchcock villain performance this side of Mrs. Bates, We see him start to brutally strangle a female victim, but it becomes a "trick shot" through her fallen glasses before it gets too rough.

The sixties. Norman Bates/Mrs. Bates(Anthony Perkins.) Nobody knew then, we all know now. Hitchcock's greatest madman/woman -- and a stabber, not a strangler.

The seventies. Bob Rusk -- The Necktie Strangler. The first Hitchcock psycho in color -- with his red-blond hair. And his strangling is the most brutal and lingering in Hitchcock, with a rape attached -- Hitchcock's R rated film.

But...those guys in Rope. ALSO psychos, maybe. Very twisted minds to thrill kill for the pleasure of it. And they are in color, too(Hitchcock's first color film.)

I like my "one psycho a decade" formula but there are a few other madmen or near madmen in Hitchcock.

Or even "mad heroes" -- Stewart in Vertigo; Connery in Marnie.

And then nutty Marnie herself for "psychological depth."

Or the tortured lovers played by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Hitchcock is always good but his action scenes and the semi-supernatural attacks of the Birds almost pluck me out of the movie. It’s not his fault, just that effects technology wasn't able to convincingly render ambitious sequences back then.

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Well, you've grown up(perhaps) with CGI. Those effects were something then plus -- he used a lot of LIVE birds (like attacking Tippi Hedren in the room at the end.) It was a "mission impossible" pretty much completed. And as Hitchcock said, "making this movie was so hard that I shall never make another movie called The Birds again."

I think it has two great shots: (1) the final shot and (2) the shot of the seagulls hovering over Bodega Bay and diving down on the town.
REAL birds, matted into shadows on the screen(filmed flying off of cliffs down to the ocean in reality, chasing thrown bread.)

CONT

NXNW always felt like an OK Bond movie to me, nothing special.

Weirdly, I really like the ‘movie set’ feel of his pre-70’s films. They’re like tautly constructed plays, everything is precisely controlled to draw you in and maximise suspense. At the same time, he got great performances from his actors and really drew you into their psychology.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

NXNW always felt like an OK Bond movie to me, nothing special.

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Oh, I think it is VERY special. Almost a tie with Psycho(which came out the next year) as my favorite Hitchcock. The films share great Bernard Herrmann scores great Saul Bass credit sequences.

NXNW is known in some quarters as "the blueprint for the James Bond movies." Suave handsome hero(GRant was OFFERED James Bond, said he'd only do one); over-sexed heroine, sauve spymaster villain and his team of henchmen(the knifer in NXNW is roughly Oddjob.)

Add in the casino sequences from Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief(Cary Grant in dinner jacket at baccarat) and..you've got the Bond movie.

But NXNW had more action sequences (er, three) than movies before it, and it climaxed at the great place of all time FOR action: on the giant heads of Mount Rushmore.

Its like The Wizard of Oz for adults -- Rushmore is like the Witch's castle at night; the crop duster chase happens in the Scarecrow's corn fields.

And Cary Grant finds that there's no place like home.

It looks old and slow today, and summer movies are NXNW every week BUT...in its time, it was all alone: the top of the peak for chase action.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Weirdly, I really like the ‘movie set’ feel of his pre-70’s films. They’re like tautly constructed plays, everything is precisely controlled to draw you in and maximise suspense.

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His interior sets were plush and lush and perfect.

He had the Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel(NYC) and Ernies Restaurant(SF) recreated at thee studio for NXNW and Vertigo respectively.

And check out the fine wood polish of shipbuilder Gavin Elster's office in Vertigo.

Yes, Hitchcock's' sets and shots and camera moves and visual compositions could be counted on to be perfect and precise..all the better to study his many characters under pressure. LIke Grace Kelly in the 3-D flat in Dial M for Murder.

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At the same time, he got great performances from his actors and really drew you into their psychology..

Very few Hitchcock performances were given Oscar nominations, and fewer still won (er, one -- Joan Fontaine for Suspicion.)

Yet: all those GREAT , unforgettable performances from men and women alike.

[–] jason88cubs (2450) 3 years ago

Hitchcock is simply fantastic