A Bloody Good Time 09.02.10: Alfred Hitchcock, Master of Suspense (Part 1)
Posted by Joseph Lee on 09.02.2010
The beginning of a look at the greatest director of all time, horror or any other genre.
Opening Logo courtesy of Benjamin J. Colón (Soul Exodus)
Welcome to A Bloody Good Time.
Last week I went over the ten dumbest moments in George A. Romero's Dead series. Let's look at the feedback.
Mike Schneider: Well, I have to argue the horse issue in survival. First, let's not forget the bug-eater in Night of the Living Dead. Romero never said they were out for human flesh... we just happen to be the easiest and most abundant pray. Why don't they seem to chase dogs? Because it's a lot more chase for a lot less meat. Hell with a lot of predatory creatures, instinct decides if they will expel more energy then gain... if it's not worth it then they just go slow or lay still waiting for prey to come to them for as long as they can. As far as the horse itself... I think that it's the best strait line ever. Just imagine how the critics will respond when he comes to the point where he is literally beating a dead horse?
Well sure it's never said they only eat humans, but since they've never went after anything else until the horse there was a precedent.
dennett316: Sorry Joseph, I cannot agree with Bub's inclusion on this list. Showing that a zombie could be domesticated to a certain extent does add the hope element, but he's only domesticated insofar as he's still technically us - he'll get pissed off if you push him too far, just like us. Plus, he's not like the piece of shit smart zombie in Land....that guy was terrible in terms of his performance. Romero's message from the start has always been that the zombies aren't necessarily the biggest monsters in the world while humans are still running around, and I think that Bub was the next logical step in showing that.
Like I said, I get why Bub was there, I just don't like him. Personal tastes, I guess.
AG Awesome: Paranormal activity is the only "free cam" horror movie I have ever enjoyed the camcorder gimmick with. It wasnt very shaky, it made sense in the context of the story, and I wasnt left with cross eyes.
That was a big reason for me liking it as well, in addition to the fact I found it incredibly effective.
So let's start out this edition of A Bloody Good Time with a warning: The following is not about horror. While the director I'll be discussing has made two horror films, he mostly worked in suspense and crime thrillers. I just want to get that out of the way. I'm sure you won't mind as anyone who loves film can appreciate the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Due to his long history and the fact I'm getting more in detail with his best work next week, I'm going to mostly skim over it with a few trivia tidbits here and there. The purpose here is to give you an idea as to who Hitchcock was, what he did and why he's so important to film.
As for myself I first was introduced to Hitch in high school through a "Film Appreciation" class where I watched Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. From there I went on to watch every movie of his I could get my hands on and to this day I don't think I've seen them all. He's made a lot of movies and some of them are hard to get ahold of (mostly the silent era stuff). But how could you not love the man's work? Hitchcock was an innovater and introduced my concepts of suspense that were previously unheard of but have since been replicated over and over. He is one of the most influential directors of any genre and my personal favorite of all time. His films are all in his trademark style but all feel different. He's made some of the greatest films of all time in any genre and he just happened to help create the slasher genre when he brought forth Psycho. The man is a legend.
Alfred Hitchcock was born in 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England. His work in film began after he found an interest in photography while he was working as a draftsman and advertising designer. He soon started working in film production as a title card designer, a position he would hold until 1922 when he directed his first film. Influenced by both F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, he would incorporate their styles into own through his art direction and set creation. Hitchcock's first batch of films have been lost to time. No.13(1922) was unfinished due to budgetary reasons, he was uncredited for his work on Always Tell Your Wife(1923) and The Mountain Eagle is also believed lost.
This was during the silent film era in his time in England so as you can guess all of these films were silent. A notable one includes the first version of Blackmail(1929). Blackmail is about a woman who murders a man in self defense and is blackmailed as a result by a petty thief. It began life as a silent film until producer John Maxwell saw the potential in making it one of the first "talkie" films out there. In fact it was the first British film with sound. Hitchcock was told he could film a portion of it in sound but instead filmed two versions: sound and silent. The silent being for the moviegoers who couldn't yet see anything but silent films.
In 1935 he would direct the British version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. While not as well known as it's American counterpart, it is notable for being Peter Lorre's first film after leaving Germany during the rise of the third reich. Lorre was a Jew and knowing only German, had to learn his lines phonetically. Hitchcock used him after seeing his performance in Fritz Lang's M. This was also notable for being Hitchcock's first film with the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation.
His next, The 39 Steps(1935) would be considered his finest of the early years and for good reason. It's a fantastic little suspense thriller. While many film versions have been made over the years, Hitchcock's is considered the best. It includes several of his trademark elements including his obligatory cameo, the idea of an innocent man being pursued for a crime he didn't commit and the introduction of the "MacGuffin". What's a MacGuffin, you ask? It's a term popularized and possibly invented by Hitchcock that describes a plot device that the entire story is centered around. While the story tends to revolve around it, it can end up being completely irrelevant towards the end of the film. It all depends on who is using it.
He released several more films including Sabotage(1936) and the film that eventually brought Hitch to the United States, The Lady Vanishes(1938). This film was about a woman who befriends another older woman on a train, only to discover later that she's vanished. The woman and her friend team up to find the older woman before the train arrives at it's destination, fearing the worst. It sounds simpler than it is. The film was a huge hit in the UK, becoming, until that point, the most successful British film. It was such a hit that it allowed Hitchcock to have some sway in his bargaining to come and work in the United States...which began the second era of his filmmaking that (arguably) produced his most accomplished work.
In 1940 Hitchcock released his first American made film Rebecca. It concerns a young woman who marries into wealth. When she arrives in her new home, she finds that her husband's first wife has a bizzare grip on the people in the house post-death, especially the housekeeper. The housekeeper then tries to drive her insane. If awards were all that mattered in regards to filmmaking, Rebecca could be called Hitchcock's best work. It won awards for Best Cinematography and Best Picture while being nominated for nine others.
While working with producer David Selznick, who had Hitchcock under a seven year contract, he would get loaned out to other studios. They had a somewhat tumultuous business relationship, although Hitchcock enjoyed being in the States to make use of the studios bigger budgets and better resources compared to the UK at the time.
Hitchcock would direct several films in this period including Foriegn Correspondant(1940, nominated for six Academy Awards) and Mr. and Mrs Smith (1941, a comedy), Suspicion(1941), Saboteur(1942), Shadow of a Doubt(1943), Lifeboat(1944, nominated for three Academy Awards) and Spellbound(1945, won one Academy Award and was nominated for six more). It was after this that he would direct one of my personal favorites, Notorious(1946).
Notorious starred Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude "The Invisible Man" Rains. It concerns a woman who is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, being convinced by a government agent to infiltrate a group of Germans who are residing in Brazil. I like this because of the gradual build of suspense and how not everything is how it appears to be. It's a suspense film, but it's also a romance in that many motivations are because of love or loyalty. Claude Rains is the villain (of course he's the villain) who is at possibly his worst. He's so afraid of Nazi punishment that when he has to kill Ingrid Bergman's character, he simply decides to slowly poison her since killing her outright would draw unwanted attention from the remnants of the Nazi party.
I'd go on about this film and why I love it, but I'm saving that for next week when I talk about which of Hitchcock's films I like the best. This will be on it, and be fairly high, so consider that a spoiler.
Hitchcock would finish off the 1940's with another classic, Rope. This would also be his first time working with Jimmy Stewart (one of the greatest actors of all time) and it was the first of four different and tremendous outings with the pair. The first has Stewart playing Rupert, a man who suspects his former students of doing a criminal act. We know what it was of course, it was murder. They killed a mutual friend and hide him in an old chest before throwing a party. Rope is notable for taking place in real time and being edited in such a way that it appears to all be happening in one single take. It was certainly one of Hitchcock's more accomplished efforts as he tried techiniques he had not used before and they were incredibly effective at drawing out the tension.
I could go on about Hitchcock's history and I plan to. Next week I go into the last three decades of his career and count down my ten personal favorite films. Until then, enjoy this video which presents most of his cameos.
Leave some comments here or on my Twitter. See you next week.
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