Amph The Films of Alfred Hitchcock: Disc: ]Alfred Hitchcock's Secret of Happiness

I finally watched Foreign Correspondant just a couple of weeks ago. Truly brilliant, though, you're right about Shadow of a Doubt being the best one here. I agree with you all across the board, actually.

 

I'm going to write that up to commemorate it!

 

Zaz, found this in the wikipedia article on Hitchcock. Thought you'd find it to be of interest:

Hitchcock's last collaboration with Graham Cutts led him to Germany in 1924. The film Die Prinzessin und der Geiger (UK title The Blackguard, 1925), directed by Cutts and co-written by Hitchcock, was produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. Hitchcock also worked as an art-director on the set of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann (1924)[14] He was very impressed with Murnau's work and later used many techniques for the set design in his own productions. In his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock also said he was influenced by Fritz Lang's film Destiny (1921).

 

Have seen the Murnau film, which is fantastic--but not the Lang one, unfortunately.

If you have seen Murnau's "Sunrise", you will see a sequence that I thought Hitchcockian when I saw it--the attempted murder, where the dog tries to get in the boat. I figured Hitchcock had definitely seen that movie...

Of the four movies to be shown on TCM, one was produced by Selznick, namely, "Rebecca" which for my money is the worst of the bunch. Hitchcock hated the close supervision he got from Selznick. Though under contact to Selznick, the three other movies were made during the early 40's for UA ("Foreign Correspondent", with Walter Wanger producing) and Universal ("Saboteur" and "Shadow of a Doubt") with Jack Skirball producing. Universal specialized in horror and cheap comedy, but they made some effort with Hitchcock..."Saboteur" had Peter Viertel and Dorothy Parker among the writers, and "Shadow" had Thornton Wilder (whom Hitchcock very much liked) and Sally Benson. Selznick was paid a generous fee for Hitchcock's services. Well worth the price. Selznick produced only two more of Hitchcock's films before the end of the contract: "Spellbound" and "The Paradine Case". "Spellbound" is not too bad, but "Paradine" is a real misfire; it looks overproduced.

 

Yes, I remember that...very Hitchcockian indeed. It's a memorable sequence.

For some reason, I find it hard to imagine Hitchcock working on someone else's film set as a subordinate, an art director or anything else. I guess that's because since childhood I've only thought of him as a director, the guy in charge.

 

See my edit above.

He did, though. But he was both talented and ambitious, and got his chance pretty quickly.

 

Yes, I read your update. He worked under Selznick's thumb and none too happy about it. I read somewhere Paradine was not a pleasant experience.

It's funny to read about Hitchcock being "loaned" out, with Selznick reaping the big reward.

It's almost as though Hitch was being treated like, dare I say it, someone's property - or "cattle"! Like an, gasp!, actor!

Hitch got the last laugh in the long run. His TV appearances gave him great fame. He became immensely wealthy as part of Wasserman's Universal empire from a stock deal...his movies were highly profitable, he made money from the TV show, and his private life remained both private and stable. Selznick on the other hand was a notorious gambler and lost a fortune, and had women problems. And while Hitch's output dwindled and deteriorated in his last years, Selznick's fall was even worse.

 

Hitchcock liked to have a collaborative producer; Selznick was too powerful and obsessed with minutiae.

 

These four movies start very shortly.

 

Thank God for Turner Classic Movies.

 

Oh, yes. I've seen more good stuff there...great silent films, foreign movies, obscure American ones...

 

Stayed up really late to watch SPELLBOUND. I love Ingrid Bergman and I really enjoyed her performance in this, the Dali nightmare and the final shot of the gun.

 

She was good, but Gregory Peck was wooden.

 

Gregory Peck was in that?

I never noticed him because I couldn't take my eyes off the luminous Miss
Bergman.

 

Have you seen "Notorious"?

 

yes, several times

 

Also "Gaslight"...

 

I enjoyed Spellbound. I thought Peck was not bad; he was even vaguely menacing in that razor scene.

 

But he is terribly miscast in "The Paradine Case", as a British barrister, and I'm not sure I buy him in "Spellbound". Certainly Hitchcock did not want to work with him a second time. Selznick insisted.

 

He certainly doesn't have the ability of Hitch's favorite leading men to sort of go underneath to find the perverseness under the surface. He's all American, like Stewart, but he couldn't really play, I don't think, a character like the one Stewart plays in Vertigo. A villain, he could do, occasionally, but a truly corrupted hero? I don't know.

 

The only convincing villain I've seen from him was Lewt McCord in "Duel in the Sun". He's awful as Mengele in "The Boys From Brazil". Great voice, and he can do comedy, and not badly, either, but he's the heroic type.

 

Loved her in Gaslight too, I've seen it many times. Saw that one growing up because it's one of my Mom's favorite films.

Always kind of strange to see Angela Lansbury at age 18!

 

Lansbury plays Sybil Vane in "The Picture of Dorian Grey" around the same time, and is the only good thing in the entire movie. IMO.

 

On Saturday, May 9:

9:45pm [Comedy] Rich and Strange (1932)
An unexpected inheritance proves less than a boon to a young married couple.
Cast: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann Dir: Alfred Hitchcock BW-83 mins, TV-PG [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]
11:30pm [Horror/Science-Fiction] Tunnel, The (1935)

 

Never seen Rich and Strange, but I'll definitely try to catch it on Saturday night.