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Post by 1godzillafan on Aug 27, 2018 0:28:54 GMT -5
The studio heads walk up to Hitchcock on the set of his latest silent film with a simple message: Silents are out and it's time to change...  BlackmailIf one were to ask me what period of film history fascinates me the most I'd likely say the early talkies, from the post-Jazz Singer very late 20's where studios were scrambling to capitalize to before the point where film decided they could incorporate a musical score without "confusing the audience." Granted these films can get static as they experiment with the evolving sound format, but the refining taking place during this period always intrigues me. Not to mention this era is pre-production code, which makes them some of the most raw, personal, and without restriction films of their time, a reflection closer to how society really was as opposed to what the censors dictated that society should have been. In a lot of ways Blackmail is a prime example of why I love this period in film. It's a tale of rape, murder, deceit, and, of course, blackmail and it pulls no punches with it. It's a very ugly look at the worst of people. Of course it's tame today in a world that has seen Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but it's a hell of a gritty yarn for 1929. The film sees a woman named Alice who is furious with her detective boyfriend and seeking the company of another man. As the night escalates she finds herself in his apartment and he throws himself on her without taking "No" for an answer. The assault turns violent and she stabs him in self defense. The boyfriend is assigned to the case and soon deduces she was the culprit and he hides the evidence, but he's not the only person who has figured out her connection to the victim, as an ex-con tries to blackmail the couple. Blackmail feels like the Hitchcock we saw in The Lodger finally peering out to say "Hello" and give us a thrilling little tale. While it's hindered by being stuck between the two worlds of sound and silent, the film uses some of that hastily reassembled production to its advantage. There are silent sequences kept in the film, notably the opening sequence where we first meet the film's antagonist. The most inventive filmmaking is seen in these opening eight minutes, which utilized less cumbersome cameras allowing for more movement. As the film transitions into a talkie camerawork becomes stiffer, but Hitch still manages to spellbind in different ways. The rape/murder scene is a knockout, featuring some stellar silent acting by star Anny Ondra, who also starred in The Manxman. Hitch uses the camera to capture a dead, traumatized look in the actress's eyes which is about as unsettling as anything graphic that they could have showed onscreen and he does so by pointing the camera straight toward her, almost as if she's looking at the viewer yet looking past them. The film is something of a light noir tale in that there are no real heroes in it. There are protagonists and antagonists, but everyone has done something terrible or has committed a crime of some sort. We sympathize with Alice because while she committed a violent, unspeakable act it was done to stop a violent, unspeakable act. But still her guilt weighs upon her and eats her away. She knows that she is not innocent, despite the reason behind the moment. Faults of the film include a fairly weak ending, which does kind of work as an anti-resolution that doesn't conclude Alice's guilt, though the climax doesn't always feel like this is the end of the story. And as good as lead Anny Ondra is in the silent scenes there is always something off-putting about her vocal acting in the film. For a little while I had thought my copy of the film was faulty and the dialogue was out of sync with the actors, but after some research I realized it was just her. Apparently she had a thick accent and was forced to merely mouth her dialogue while another actress spoke for her off-screen, in a crude, early dubbing attempt. As the film went on her performance maintained an awkwardness where she is clearly waiting to hit a cue before she says a line instead of flowing naturally with the scene. And I swear I can look into her eyes and tell just how uncomfortable and humiliated she is doing this. Hell, at one point a character says about her "Why don't you let her speak?" prompting my off-the-cuff remark of "Because clearly she can't speak on her own." Despite certain elements I feel are lacking, I do feel this is definitely one of the best films yet in this marathon and likely a must-see for those who wish to study the director. It's also a great example of how wonderful pre-code cinema could be. Next Time: Juno and the Paycock |
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Post by PG Cooper on Aug 27, 2018 8:35:26 GMT -5
Nice review. Blackmail is a frustrating one, largely for the reasons you mention. Aspects of the story and certain thriller elements work pretty well, but the transition to sound does a lot to hinder the whole.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Aug 27, 2018 14:23:33 GMT -5
I don't disagree, though in things like sound transition and dubbing I tend to be more intrigued by flaws than frustrated. It's part of the reason why I love "bad" cinema, because I often am more interested in what's wrong with a movie than what is right and just following the thread of "Why is this movie like this?" Blackmail probably could have been an early masterpiece but I can see these flaws holding it back for some, though I tend to find myself embracing it even more so because of them.
When it comes to film I tend to be more frustrated with overindulgence than filmmaking flaws, Peter Jackson's King Kong for example. Movies like that just make me sink into my chair and go "OMG just STOP."
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Post by 1godzillafan on Aug 28, 2018 0:28:00 GMT -5
  Juno and the PaycockIt was twenty minutes into Juno and the Paycock in which I realized that so far I had barely watched anything. I've watched people bicker ever since the credits ended, and that was pretty much it. I'm sure a lot of this was character establishment, though the dialogue flies by so fast that I'll be damned if I learned anything from it. I was reminded of something Buster Keaton once said about why his career declined in talkies, explaining that he was a physical comedian but when sound was introduced all the studio wanted in comedy was funny dialogue because that's why people bought their ticket to a sound film. If you watch those talkies Keaton made at MGM you can definitely tell, where Keaton is subdued and given dialogue he doesn't really know how to deliver and they eventually paired him with fast-talking Jimmy Durante, who thrived on humorous dialogue. Juno and the Paycock seems like it was adapted for a similar reason, because its dialogue was fast and loud. The film is based on a play. Nooooooooooooooooooo shit, Sherlock. You can easily deduce this by watching it. It's very static, as the characters pace back and forth on the same set for long periods of time while the camera just points and shoots from pretty much one direction. It's shot like a play and is presented as a play, so for all intents and purposes it is just a filmed play. I don't know how faithful it is to it, though it wouldn't be hard to believe it was just a straight adaptation. But then you should ask me what the movie is about. Well there's the million dollar question. Well...I'd say it's more about a theme than it is about a story, and it's more of a portrayal of family tensions with a mother and father who are barely any different than Ralph and Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners. I was half expecting a "One of these days, Juno! BANG! ZOOM!" The actual story doesn't have much event but does see this working class Irish husband and wife inherit a fortune, spend money they don't have, and then lose it because of course they did. Then in the third act the film almost has too many things happening at once, providing the drama to hit the viewer over the head with a hammer nonstop. This is found to be a great excuse for melodramatic act-TING! from everyone onscreen, as all the major players are given the chance to give a monologue in an over-the-top fashion. All that's missing from any of these scenes are the words "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" flashing at the bottom of the screen. The theatrical nature of these performances may work on the stage, and it might even work if the film were a silent (but there's too much dialogue to get across for that to be possible), but talkies are in a tricky position where they need to evolve past this projecting style performance. You may notice that I've barely mentioned Hitchcock at all so far, and that's because this is a very plain looking movie. That's okay, honestly. I don't require anybody to go above and beyond when I watch a movie, and the movie looks about as I would expect a movie like this to look. It's true that if I had discovered Hitchcock had directed this movie after I had already seen it I would have been surprised. You could have replaced his name with, say, Jules White and I wouldn't have batted an eye. To an extent I almost believe the film looks this way on purpose. Hitch is presented with a character play and he presents it as a play that lets the characters carry it. A little personality in the cinematography likely wouldn't have hurt though. While preparing this entry I read some reviews of the film on IMDB, which isn't really something I'm in the habit of doing, but given how much of an anomaly this is in Hitch's career I was a bit curious what other people had to say about it. I read a few defensive blurbs on the film claiming people dislike it because it isn't a Hitchcock thriller, which I think is an unfair statement to make. At this point in his career Hitch had only really made two thrillers, The Lodger and Blackmail, and while I think they were his best films so far it's a bit underhanded to ignore how diverse he was back then in comparison to the career he would eventually have. Why would Juno and the Paycock be targeted when it wasn't his only non-thriller of the era? The only real answer is that it is because it's easily the worst of it. Next Time: Murder! |
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Post by 1godzillafan on Aug 31, 2018 0:45:27 GMT -5
Murder!Oooooooh, you gotta love the simplicity of a film title back in 1930. Straight and to the point titles like Blackmail and MURDER! "We're going to see a picture tonight!" "Oh! Which one?" "Murder!" "Oh my! What's that about?" "A murder, I think." To go more in depth, Murder! is about a woman who is charged for the murder of a woman she had been arguing with the night the crime was committed, claiming to have been blacked out when the deed had been done. She is found guilty by jury, however one juror expresses doubts in the verdict (despite being swayed into voting guilty himself) and makes his own investigation into the crime. I do love a courtroom drama and letting the majority of the first act play out at the trial pleased me. Though it annoyed me how easily swayed some of the "debates" of the jury were, as it seems you could have changed an opinion just by waving a feather in the right direction and hitting a juror with a light breeze. I realized early on that 12 Angry Men this was not. When we begin the mystery portion, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce this is not either. It's fairly standard stuff, as our lead sits down and discusses the crime with the various witnesses, every once in a while coming to a conclusion he hadn't before. Truth be told while I was constantly interested in where the mystery was going I was never fully invested. There feels as if there should be a sense of urgency to this since a woman's life is on the line but the pace of the entire film is pretty damn casual. The movie blows it's whodunit wad surprisingly early, with a half hour left to go. The rest of the film is devoted to trying to rise a confession out of this individual, which has its moments but is just as casual and sluggish as the first two acts. The actual culprit is actually a bit off-putting, because (spoiler alert) they default to the evils of non-conformism. The man is introduced to us as a female impersonator and cross-dresser. Initially they're very casual with this man, though when it's revealed he's the killer it begins to be the stereotypical devilish portrayal of something we don't understand, though admittedly his cross-dressing has very little to do with the murder itself. What does however, and this was probably scandalous in 1930 but a bit "so what?" today, is that a huge plot point lies on the fact that this man is also mixed-race and committed murder to prevent the word from spreading. So not only is our antagonist a borderline transvestite, he is also not "pure." He found himself committing this sin because he isn't the almighty dapper straight-and-narrow Caucasian male. Bravo, movie. I doubt any insult was intended, just 30's xenophobia peeking through. But even ignoring this in retrospect it makes the culprit a tad obvious because he's the only character in the movie that doesn't quite play to traditional social norms, as opposed to everyone else. Hitch does a few techniques that are worth noting, including one often mentioned in which he works his way around the non-invention of dubbing by having a record of the lead's voice play through a radio on set imitating inner monologue. The film is full of interesting touches like this, including a few neat editing shots that are a bit rough around the edges but charming. Murder! is by no means a must see. It's an okay movie that seems fine with just being okay. If I had seen it back in 1930 I probably would have felt I had gotten my dime's worth at any rate. It's probably best left as a lesson in pacing and being more attentive in getting the audience more involved. Next Time: Elstree Calling
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Post by 1godzillafan on Aug 31, 2018 22:39:55 GMT -5
Elstree CallingI wanted to include Elstree Calling in this marathon if only to just say I did, but it was surprisingly difficult to find this public domain movie. I had actually found this movie on, of all places, Deep Discount from one of those DVD-R manufacturers who specialize in public domain cinema (I also have a disc of Waltzes from Vienna like his). It seemed like overkill for a movie I was only going to watch once. I had wished it was on YouTube in its entirety like Pleasure Garden, but there was only clips but not the whole movie. And now I watch this movie via physical media, and wonder to myself why nobody would upload the entire film on YouTuOH MY GOD THERE'S BLACKFACE NOT EVEN TEN MINUTES IN!  Okay, I'm not too shocked. Anybody who has seen The Jazz Singer, gone through the filmographies of Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy, or hell even seen the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons has seen this stuff. Still, it comes out of nowhere every once in a while when you watch a film from the 20's or 30's and punches me in the face as if I've forgotten about it. Kind of like how I love Breakfast at Tiffany's but whenever I watch it I'm like "Oh goddammit, I forgot that Mickey Rooney was in this movie." As someone who prefers comedy from that era over today...yeah, this is something I have to put up with whenever I delve a little deeper into the decades past. Though technically this is not really purely a Hitchcock film (he only directed certain sketches) and I should have felt no obligation to view it, however let's just call it curiosity more than anything. I had no real reason NOT to watch it, so here it is. Elstree Calling is a "revue" film, presented as a stage show being broadcast on television. The film is just an excuse for a little song, a little dance, and a few laughs. All of which are really up to one's taste. To not beat around the bush, I've seen worse revues than this, but it's still not great. Entertainment value is mixed, as I found some comedy bits fair to good, while others poor to puzzling. Musical numbers are equally inconsistent, as there are some entertaining numbers and others that just don't offer much. Four of these musical numbers are presented in color, but not the Technicolor process we're all so familiar with. Instead it's a Pathecolor process, which stencils in color over a black and white picture and the result is very red and yellow. So what did Hitchcock contribute to this thing? From the (admittedly light) research I did on the net (okay, I briefly looked at Wikipedia and IMDB) Hitchcock primarily directed the segments of an old man trying to fix his television to watch the revue. He also apparently directed the Taming of the Shrew sketch and a "thriller" sketch. If the "thriller" sketch is what I think it is, then it was probably my favorite point in the film. A woman is cheating on her spouse with another man, an someone who is presumably her husband sneaks in and shoots them both in the back of the head. He then looks down at his victims then looks surprised and exclaims "Good god! I'm in the wrong flat!" Other than that, the old man with the TV sketches are fair while the Taming of the Shrew sketch only has its moments. Outside of Hitchcock I'd say there is not a lot that won me over, though I enjoyed the host as well as the musical contributions of Teddy Brown. Do I regret adding Elstree Calling to my little marathon? Eh, whatever. I think I enjoyed it more than Juno and the Paycock, which isn't really high praise. I don't think it's necessary viewing for Hitch fans, though those who do watch it might enjoy what he contributed to it. Next Time: The Skin Game
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Post by 1godzillafan on Sept 1, 2018 22:16:21 GMT -5
The Skin GameFeuding rich guys quarrel over a land at auction. When Mr. Hornblower wins, the Hillcrist family discovers a scandalous secret about Hornblower's daughter-in-law. They use the secret as blackmail, but their efforts to one-up each other spirals uncontrollably. I'm not sure I have much to say about this one, but I'll give it my best shot. However I feel like noting that it feels like the public domain copy I watched was edited and certain dialogue was faulty. I got the gist of it well enough, though I do feel like I need to seek out a better copy of the film at some point. If anything I felt reminded of Hitch's silent film Easy Virtue. Not just because it also used a scandal providing familial tensions as a plot point, but rather because it was an equally underwhelming experience. Much like Easy Virtue, I liked parts of The Skin Game and the story itself is fair, but there feels like there is a better movie in it somewhere. It might be stronger in it's original play format. Some of the dramatic tension in the finale is decent, though it feels a tad wild and overdone at times to the point where tragedy strikes because of course it did. I thought it ended on a cool note, when after Hillcrist's efforts to win over Hornblower bore such chaos our "hero" finds himself thanked the people who lived on the land that he saved. He stares at them in silence until they leave then admits to his wife that he forgot they even existed. With that there's an interesting theme of what an obsession an adversarial relationship can bring about and even if the movie is ho-hum it ends with a great signature. Next Time: Mary
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Post by 1godzillafan on Sept 2, 2018 22:45:02 GMT -5
I was initially going to do Mary, Hitchcock’s German remake of Murder!, next. But due to some idiocy on my part my way of viewing the film turned out to be a total wash. I could order a boot and wait a few weeks…or I could just forget the whole thing. I’ll lead toward the latter, because Murder! was an “eh” film at best and sitting through it again in German didn’t sound appetizing. That said I do have a basic idea of what I was in for. I have seen several of these early talkie alternate language films, one of which is of course the famous Spanish version of 1931’s Dracula. I’ve also seen a few of Laurel and Hardy’s foreign market remakes as well, in which the duo had to learn their lines phonetically and pray to god the audience would laugh at the joke and not the stilted delivery. This foreign practice was interesting, though it was for the best that it died out. I think the thing that I’m going to regret most in not doing Mary is the fact that I can’t use my silly limerick now. Oh the hell with it, I’ll type it anyway: Mary had a little MURDER! With carpet stains as red as BLOOD! And everywhere that Mary went the victim was sure to DIE! Anyway, the show must go on. Next Time...er, Right Now: Rich and StrangeRich and StrangeA working class couple get an "advance" on their inheritance from a wealthy uncle and decide to splurge and take a cruise. The duo lives it up in a wealthy life style, but they find themselves drifting apart as they meet new people on the cruise that they become infatuated with. Money was supposed to make them happier, but will it end up destroying them? I am admittedly not the most competent when it comes to critiquing film technique. I'm better at describing how I "feel" during a movie than dissecting its structure or techniques. I'm a very in-the-moment film watcher. It was looking up Rich and Strange online that I read something that I probably would have never considered in a million years: the film is structured and presented almost as a silent picture with dialogue only where it's necessary. Upon this I squeed a little bit and reflected a bit more upon the content of the movie in a fairly different way. I'm sure Hitchcock had his reasons for doing this, though I might have my own reasons for enjoying it that are separate. If nothing else it's ballsy to go against the grain of talkies where dialogue became the rage and work in more visual storytelling. After all, film is a visual medium for a reason. One observation I did make on my own is that the film was mostly a comedy. Hitch usually worked in humor to break the tension, but he rarely crafted a film out of comedy. So far in this marathon I've seen him try to do so with Sham-Pag-Nee, which achieved middling to lesser results. Juno and the Paycock had a lot of bickering which might have been humorous, but things went haywire pretty fast in that film. Rich and Strange is a more successful use of the genre, utilizing some solid physical gags that brought some great belly laughs. One memorable example being leading man Henry Kendell's struggle with a princess's veil which brought to mind one Peter Sellers, who did a similar struggle with his own robe in the original Pink Panther film. As the film goes on there is a bit of a twist, the characters start to distance themselves from each other and have affairs with other people. The film actually treats this as very serious business. You see them begin to resent each other, then lose themselves in their new romantic partners, before finally climaxing as they realize that they may be making a mistake. The film ends with a sequence in which the ship is sinking and as they believe it to be the end they profess that they still love each other. And then they follow that up with a gag about them eating a cat. Apparently this was one of Hitch's favorite scenes. It's not really smooth sailing for the film though. I would say it tends to spin its wheels quite a bit and the premise wears pretty thin at times. Also I'd say maybe there are one too many gag sequences featuring a nearsighted old lady that nobody seems to like being around. If Rich and Strange were refined I think it would be remembered a bit more in Hitchcock's filmography, maybe as an alternative classic. As is it's just an alternative, and a fairly good one. Next Time: Number Seventeen |
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Post by 1godzillafan on Sept 7, 2018 0:51:06 GMT -5
Number SeventeenEither I finally snapped or this movie was just that insane. So a corpse is found in a spooky house and a detective wanders inside. More people wander inside looking for a necklace. Corpse comes back to life. More people wander into the house. Necklace found and bad guys board a train, good guys chase them. I'm kind of at a loss for words for this one. The movie starts out like an Old Dark House mystery and then it just introduces more and more characters, forgets the mystery, and just becomes chaos. By the end I had felt like I was watching It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Maybe it's hyperbole, but I felt very swept up by madness by that point. Hitchcock's editing style in this movie adds to the chaos, as it's very Michael Bay like. Short snippets of characters and sometimes random things would be inserted in various scenes making the film come off very confusing. The only place in the film it kind of works is in the finale where an train goes out of control, derails, and flies right into a ferry, where the chaos is understandable. Though to praise Hitch a bit after questioning this, I do admire some of the spooky scenery in the house at the beginning. But at times I'd watch this film and think to myself "Is this a parody?" It seems like it should be one. It keeps introducing new characters, then providing twists on the characters, then introducing even more, and then just running off at random. It seems like it's trying to spoof a mystery thriller by making itself bizarrely over the top. But at the same time there is something genuine about the movie that makes it feel serious. To it's credit, Number Seventeen is never boring. It's momentum is constant for a mercifully short sixty minute runtime. It just has no logic anchoring it down. Reworked a bit, I have no doubt Number Seventeen could have been one of the greatest Three Stooges productions ever made. Next Time: Waltzes from Vienna
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Post by 1godzillafan on Nov 6, 2018 0:50:40 GMT -5
So what was I doing before I got attacked by the Addams and Munsters in October? Oh yeah...this was a thing... Waltzes from ViennaIt's probably fitting I watch Waltzes from Vienna the night before I'm due to see Bohemian Rhapsody in theaters. I know very little about Johann Strauss II, just as I know very little about Freddie Mercury. Music in general doesn't interest me that much. For some people it's a passion, for some a hobby, for some it's a tool to help them think, for some people it's an excuse to put over compensating speakers into their vehicle so EVERYONE knows what you're listening to while you're slowly going deaf...for me if I listen to too much I get a headache. Car rides with me are very boring. I hear Bohemian Rhapsody is mostly bullshit. Maybe Waltzes from Vienna is too. I don't know. I don't know anything about these people's life story. There needs to be a hook in order to get me interesting in knowing more about someone like that, and if you just put a page of words in front of me then this is what happens...  I do love to read, but I struggle when something doesn't hook my interest. Just a biography that says "IT'S THIS PERSON!" I'm like "Great. And I should care why?" But movies are something different, as they let a story unfold in front of your eyes they may be able to lay out that hook that you need to make you interested in that subject, and in turn you'll branch off into learning more, even if the film take wasn't 100% accurate. I myself could name several things about Andy Kaufman's life that Man on the Moon got wrong, though the film itself is still quite good and boosted my interest in the performer (I was already a fan of Taxi prior, however). Neveryoumind that particular biopic brushed off it's inaccuracies in a hilarious opening skit. Waltzes from Vienna (or Strauss' Great Waltz, as it's also known) is the story of Johann Strauss II writing his famous Blue Danube waltz, set to the backdrop of a love triangle between himself and a baker's daughter he's in love with and a Countess who inspires him and pushes him to become the great composer he's destined to be. He also faces an obstacle in the form of his disapproving father, also famous composer Johann Strauss senior, and his love wishing him to give up music and become a baker. Things are classic for a reason, and from what I've heard the best thing about both Waltzes from Vienna and Bohemian Rhapsody is the music featured. In Waltzes from Vienna my attention was mostly kept but interest was lackluster until a climactic scene in which Strauss performs The Blue Danube in front of an audience for the first time. This sequence is astonishingly well done, with every shot serving a purpose and the music adding to the feeling of the moment, bringing up a emotional climax that I wasn't even aware was building. This scene is pure cinematic magic. When we epilogue past that sequence back to the love story those feelings mostly disappeared. The story is fine, it gets the story from point A to point B, Jessie Matthews and Fay Compton are excellent leading ladies, I'm just not that interested in it. There are some great moments that are sprinkled throughout, such as Strauss taking inspiration of the sounds in a bakery for his waltz, and the very last shot in which the cold-hearted father shows he's warming a bit by writing "Senior" when a young girl asks his autograph. Hitchcock has some swell directorial moments as well, though for the most part he allows it to mostly be an actors movie and never overwhelms it with style. Much has been said about Hitchcock calling the film a low point in his career, having done it only to keep his career flowing when he had no other projects. I'd say it's probably better than a few other films I could name in this marathon so far, and I genuinely enjoyed maybe 60% of it. It's okay, though I'm not sure I'd say go out of your way to see it. Next Time: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) |
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Post by PG Cooper on Nov 6, 2018 8:09:59 GMT -5
You're about to get into the goods now.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Nov 11, 2018 2:24:09 GMT -5
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) The thrilling prequel to The Man Who Knew Too Little, starring Bill Murray. Hitchcock starts to settle in with the espionage and thriller genres he would soon become best known for, as The Man Who Knew Too Little tells of a British family vacationing in France and witness a man being shot. With his dying breath he tells the husband and wife to find a note in his room which flings them in the middle of an assassination plot. Now with valuable information, Peter Lorre and the other bad guys kidnap the couple's daughter and threaten to kill her should they go to the police. They are left with little choice but to find the fiends themselves and rescue their daughter. I'm trying to watch this movie in as much of a vacuum as possible, since it's a movie that Hitch remade himself in 1956. I have not seen that version (it is currently the only Hitchcock collaboration with James Stewart I haven't seen), having wanted to watch the original before watching the version the more seasoned director came up with. I had intended to watch the duo as a double feature for my first time, but I didn't get around to it before I decided to launch this project. This might work out for the best since I'll have this film well digested by the time I get around to seeing this story played out again. That said while viewing The Man Who Knew Too Much today there is that certain nagging feeling knowing that there was something about the movie that Hitch thought could have been improved, and I find myself picking apart things I feel might not pan out as well as they could. I hate doing this, because then I stop feeling like an easily amused filmgoer and more like a snotty critic. I am much happier being the former, thank you. But it does feel as if there are points in this film that feel a bit too mechanical for my liking. Certain scenes feel as if they play out more to move the plot forward rather play out in a natural manner. Probably the point the entire film hinges on, where the spy blurts out the location of his secret spy note paper that sets the entire story into motion feels a bit cumbersome. Anyway. This movie. What a piece of shit. I'm glad it was remade, now we can burn all the copies of it and forget it even existed because it's old and nobody likes old things. I enter that moment of obviously phony harsh levity to note criticizing a movie and enjoying it and how just because one exists doesn't negate the other. In reality I found it quite good. Even that scene I criticize above has a wonderful little moment in which the gunned down man doesn't quite realized what happened until he sees a blood stain on his chest. The acting in general is quite excellent, though I'd have to say the hero of the film is Edna Best, who shows off some swell points of anxiety in the film. Best's performance combined with Hitchcock's flair for suspense gives the third act concert scene a genuine feel of discomfort. Though the movie does get a little long-winded again in the final moments as the climactic shootout goes on forever, suspense does rise again as it turns into an escape from the house scene as the father rescues the kidnapped girl. There does seem to be a lot of room for improvement, though the original Man Who Knew Too Much is worth watching for what does work about it. I'm hoping the remake is a bit more elaborate, intricate, and intriguing though. Next Time: The 39 Steps
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Post by Dracula on Nov 11, 2018 7:53:08 GMT -5
You probably would have been better off not letting the remake get in you're head so much because it's not that great. The original film has oddly aged better than the remake and there's generally something more exciting about seeing a young filmmaker finding his voice than seeing an old master who's kind of on autopilot, which is what the remake feels like.
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Post by PG Cooper on Nov 11, 2018 9:24:26 GMT -5
Yeah, the OG is much better. Tighter pace, better protagonists, thicker atmosphere, better location, shit even the kid is better. Plus the original has Peter Lorre and that goes a long way. The remake is decent, but within the Hitchcock canon it's rather middle of the road.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Nov 11, 2018 13:38:32 GMT -5
Right now I'm thinking I'll revisit it at some point down the road, likely after I view the remake, just to see which virtues I think pop more.
I will agree that whoever plays the villain in the remake is unlikely to top Peter Lorre. Though I do love me some Jimmy Stewart, so I have at least that to look forward to.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Nov 11, 2018 22:47:15 GMT -5
The 39 StepsWell, there were a lot more than 39 steps made in this film, I'll tell you that much. Quite a lot more in this thrilling little chase movie from the mid-30's. This tale has a man taking a woman in after a public rally gone ugly only to find that she is a spy who is on the run from assassins. That night she is murdered, and he sneaks out to avoid being killed himself. He is then blamed for her murder and is on the run from both good guys and bad. While I don't know how well the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much adapted the previous film's story at this point, I can already feel Hitchcock refining a few ideas that were present in the previous film into a more satisfying package. 39 Steps has a fair bit in common with Hitch's previous film, as it's also an espionage tale of normal people sucked up in a whirlwind of abnormal circumstances where they can't go to the authorities nor reason with those who wish them out of the picture. The 39 Steps also recycles the idea of a spy passing along information to said innocent shortly before death, which feels more natural here than it did in Man Who Knew Too Much. I admired a lot of The 39 Steps, which obviously from the get-go one hell of an influential film. Innocent on the run films owe a lot of their DNA to this film, which is not only seen in Hitchcock's further career (including the mastering of it with North By Northwest) but stems to television shows such as The Fugitive. Even the feature film adaptation of that series by Andrew Davis feels like it's aping 39 Steps in the back of its mind even lifting a sequence in which Hitchcock's leading man (or Harrison Ford in The Fugitive) gets away by hiding in a parade. The film is unbelievably kinetic and always moving. Just about every sequence serves a purpose and pushes the main character forward. Not all elements work, as a climax of good guys overcoming the bad would have been more satisfying, as opposed to clearing one's name and leaving the rest to the authorities. Also there are some logic problems as well (why his companion thought he had a gun is beyond me, when logic dictates that if he had a gun in the first place he would have used it on the men chasing him). But it's easy to forgive the film of these decisions when it keeps a tight grip on one's attention span. Based on a novel by John Buchan, The 39 Steps was re-adapted several times: Twice for theaters and once for television. I doubt any of these followups could manage the same craft of energy Hitchcock was able to display but I'm interested in seeing how they followed up this tough act. Next Time: Secret Agent
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Post by 1godzillafan on Dec 22, 2018 1:05:58 GMT -5
I have no new entry, those will resume when I'm done watching MST all month. Just thought I'd bump this thread to point out that word on the street say in addition to Criterion's Notorious in January, even more Hitchcock will be released on blu-ray. Apparently Kino is releasing single discs of Blackmail, Murder, and Number Seventeen. Meanwhile they're also developing a box set featuring The Ring, The Farmer's Wife, Sham-Pag-Nee, The Manxman, The Skin Game, and Rich and Strange.
Hitchcock in hi-def just inches ever so closer to completion.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Jan 17, 2019 18:05:54 GMT -5
Notorious just came out on Criterion blu-ray. Before Criterion distracts me with more releases including The Kid Brother and Police Story in the upcoming months, I might as well celebrate that Hitchcock spy film with another Hitchcock spy film... Secret Agent
Nothing says pre-Bond spy flicks like Peter Lorre in brownface! This 1936 film is so sure it's the definitive secret agent movie that it just titles itself "Secret Agent." Accept no substitutes. It sees a British spy who finds that his agency has faked his death so they can send him undercover to find a mysterious German agent. He teams up with an enthusiastic woman who is assigned to play his wife and a morally questionable non-Mexican played by Peter Lorre. Secret Agent feels like it has everything it needs to showcase a passionate production. There is a lot of fun and quirky dialogue interplay and it offers up a mystery to try and hook the viewers. There is a character arc here as we witness characters that start out as bright-eyed adventurers only to become increasingly uncomfortable with the direction their adventure is taking them. It's all the more surprising that the film feels stiff and lacking in momentum. There's a good spy story being told here and there is quite a bit of thought and care put into it, but it feels like there's another draft that could have pushed this thing over the top. Overall I'd say I enjoyed the film, but compared to other espionage works in Hitchcock's resume it falls a bit behind in the pack. There's some good directorial work, and the way the film grows darker and more tense as it goes on is exceptional, but it does feel like we're settling for a good movie when it could have been a great one. But I'm not one to judge a movie by what it's not but rather what it is, so if it's a good movie then I'll take it. I also feel, like other public domain films I've watched so far, that a cleaned up print might have done wonders in making this movie more enjoyable. Maybe some day I'll track down a better copy and give it a go. Next Time: Sabotage |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jan 17, 2019 19:55:31 GMT -5
Pretty much with you on Secret Agent. It has potential, but it doesn't have any energy and Hitch's better spy thrillers put it to shame.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Mar 11, 2020 10:11:43 GMT -5
While I fully realize I abandoned this thread (I think what happened was that I felt like I was spending too much time away from my blog, crazy work schedule, and all my Hitchcock discs wound up in storage over the course of the last year), I might get back to it eventually. Mostly I'm just bumping this to say that there is a new edition of To Catch a Their coming out soon. www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=26537 |
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Post by PG Cooper on Mar 13, 2020 0:06:53 GMT -5
Good news.
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Post by 1godzillafan on Mar 28, 2021 8:53:06 GMT -5
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