Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Aug 11, 2018 0:33:47 GMT -5
I had never seen many of Alfred Hitchcock's films over the span of my life. I had watched Psycho and The Birds. That was pretty much it. I liked both, but there wasn't really anything in them that made me want to delve deeper into Hitchcock. Then last year I saw North By Northwest as a part of TCM Big Screen Classics and it was a revelation of the filmmaker for me. Hooked from beginning to end I walked out of that movie wanting to know more about Hitchcock and to see all of his films for better or for worse.
Usually I do filmography retrospectives around winter, which seemed to have been an unofficial tradition for me for quite some time. It seemed like once every December I'd start watching stuff from certain filmmakers and keep watching. I had done the likes of Ishiro Honda, Sam Raimi, Steven Spielberg, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd over the last few years, and I have plans for Frank Capra and Akira Kurosawa in the future (though nothing set in stone). This year I did some Hitchcock films, but I didn't watch everything. My little blog got in the way and I only watched about ten random films or so (including another TCM Big Screen Classic screening, this time of Vertigo). But I quite loved what I saw. Now I want to go back and finish the job.
I don't have a set schedule for this, nor do I anticipate it being very in depth or perceptive. I'm just posting little thoughts I feel like posting after watching these movies. But let's head back to 1925 and check out Hitch's humble beginnings.
The Pleasure Garden
Not Hitchcock's first attempt at a feature, which was a scrapped comedy called "Number 13" (which I guess may not have been its actual title) and there was a short film that predated this, though Pleasure Garden is the earliest completed surviving work in his filmography. It would be unfair to instantly expect brilliance, though I did notice some moments in the film that felt like the master peeking through the curtain.
This little melodrama is about a dancer named Patsy who takes a struggling girl named Jill in and helps her get a job as a dancer only to have the noob become a sensation. Wow, just typing that out it starts to sound like an early version of Girl in Gold Boots, though that's about where the similarities end. Once Jill becomes popular, she shuns her fiance and forgets her humble beginnings, leaving Patsy a little bit in the wind. Patsy later marries a man who is by all accounts Douchy McJerkface and lives a miserable life, though the film eventually leads up to her falling in love with Jill's ex-fiance.
If there was one thing I kept thinking about by watching this is that it's a bit half-baked. The simplistic elements come off a bit trite by today's standards, though it's possible they hadn't yet been driven into the ground in the 1920's. But ignoring that, there's a decent story and heart at this movie's core, but it feels like it needs to be fleshed out a bit or rewritten. A lot of happenings in the film seem to happen entirely at random, making this feel less like a story and more like "things are happening." The third act especially is a bit kooky, where Patsy's jerkass husband just snaps and starts killing people or threatening to kill people left and right.
But I sometimes feel to enjoy it more when there's a bit of a Hitchcock twinkle to it. There's a bit of a wit that feels familiar that underlines certain scenes. There's a scene toward the end where Pasty is tending to Jill's ill-ex, who is hallucinating that she's Jill and asks her for a kiss. In response to this, Patsy gives the camera a hesitant look and then just kinda shrugs "Eh, why not?" then leans in. I laughed. Also during that insane climax there is a rather effective moment where Patsy's murderous husband is haunted by a girl he drowned, who stares at him through a transparency effect and walks toward him. It's actually a fairly effective little sequence that reminded me a little bit of something like Sadako crawling out of the television at the end of Ring.
But it does feel like this is just a script in a pile given to an amateur in order to make a product. A product was made and it has its moments, but it just falls a bit flat.
Up Next: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Aug 12, 2018 10:57:00 GMT -5
The Lodger: A Story of the London FogBlonde women are found dead every Tuesday, murdered by a mysterious serial killer known as...THE AVENGER! And they say Captain America was the First Avenger, The Avenger of The Lodger predates the super soldier! During this spree of murders a man rents out a room and romances the landlord's blonde daughter. His behavior is strongly suspicious and odd, leading the woman's jealous lover to suspect he might be the Avenger. Throughout The Lodger I was feeling certain echos of another Hitchcock movie about a murderer, a later film in his career you might have heard of called Psycho. There is a bit of a role reversal in The Lodger where instead of the tenant being the victim here he is the suspected murderer. In both films both antagonists also find themselves aroused by blonde women. Both films are also told through a lens in which humanizes the antagonist in question. The only hitch in this parallel is that ( spoiler alert for this movie from the 1920's) the title character in The Lodger isn't the killer. The Lodger isn't as complex or innovative as Psycho (though there are some stylistic innovations I adored), though I must say I enjoyed it almost as much. The Lodger cheats somewhat in the exaggerated way it portrays the title character, though it's a silent movie, and exaggeration through pantomime is the name of the game. I was compelled and intrigued by it from start to finish, and in his first thriller Hitchcock showed those chops that he built his entire career on. It gets overlooked based on what Alfred was able to do later on, but I daresay this film just might be a masterpiece. The Lodger was remade several times down the road. One was merely a few years later in 1932 with Ivor Novello reprising his title role. There were also films in 1944 (with Cedric Hardwicke), 1953 (with Jack Palance), and 2009 (with Alfred Molina). I have not seen any of these, though I am a tad curious if they are any good, though I doubt they have the flair that Hitchcock managed with this little silent film. Minor Note: Criterion's blu-ray of this film offers one of the more unique tinting I've ever seen for a silent film, which mostly tints darker shades blue and lighter shades yellow. Normally I'm a bit of a purist for how things are originally intended to be seen in theaters, and this effect was obviously done on a computer and borders on colorization, but it's one of the more unique visual experiences I've ever had in watching a film from this era. I kinda dug it. Next Time: The Ring
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Post by Torgo on Aug 13, 2018 23:28:10 GMT -5
Initially I had scheduled myself to watch the next film for my blog this afternoon and I had pushed the next film in this series to another day. But then some jerk pointed out today was Hitchcock's birthday and it didn't seem right to ignore it. I wish I had something more iconic than a forgotten silent film from early in his career, but I did watch a Hitchcock movie. Happy Birthday, Hitch! The RingIn this early adaptation of the 1991 Japanese novel by Koji Suzuki, The Ring tells the story of a VHS tape that kills any viewer who watches it, despite the fact that VCRs haven't been invented yet. Grace Kelly goes on a quest to find out the mystery behind the video before Kim Novak crawls out of a TV screen and kills Cary Grant. No, wait...this is a dramedy about boxing. Which means it's entire musical score should be replaced by this... The film is about a boxer who advertises himself as "One-Round Jack," claiming he can knock any man out in one round. He sells tickets as he gets in the ring with civilians and challenges them to make it to round two. Unbeknownst to him his next challenger is actually a professional boxer, who not only takes him to round two but wins the match. Jack is disgraces and his little side-business is ruined, somewhat putting a hitch in a plan to marry his girl. Bob, the boxer who defeated him then gives him a job as his sparring partner, and romances his fiance behind his back. Once Jack catches wind of the flirtation he finds a second wind in his stomach to get back into the ring and take down his competition. Love triangles are as old as storytelling, and in some ways The Ring is an unremarkable account of one. If I were to make an observation of what I don't feel works about the triangle in this movie I'd say Jack and Bob are almost interchangeable. Neither has much of a personality and the only difference between the two lies with the fact that one is more successful than the other. Now that that is out of the way, let me faun a bit on what does work about the love triangle in this movie. One thing that I love about the way Hitchcock handles this storyline in this movie is that much like Sylvester Stallone used boxing as a metaphor for man's insecurities in doing what he dreams of in Rocky, The Ring uses boxing as a play on a man's insecurities in being "good enough" for the woman he loves. Jack's failure at boxing is a metaphor for him not being able to provide for her, and Bob is a man who comes along who can and tries to whisk her away. This isn't the simplistic Bella/Edward/Jacob or Katshit/PetaBread/OneOfTheHemsworths bullcrap about "OMG, two hot guys, how will I ever choose?" There is a genuine, true-to-life emotional confusion at this film's core and I find it fascinating to dissect it. Is it a coincidence that Hitchcock just recently married his wife before filming? I wonder... All of this in mind, I'm a little concerned about the portrayal of the female lead in all of this, because she's a little flakey. She bounces back and forth between her affections for Jack and Bob based on which one proves themselves to be a better boxer, which overall makes her a bit of shallow. I'm pretty sure this is done to help the metaphor of "losing her" but certain elements later on in the film make the lead trio pretty unlikable because of how horribly they're treating each other. In the end she embraces the winner as if she's his prize, and I'm not really pleased with the idea of what this almost symbolizes. I say almost because the film does stress that she makes the choice before the final blows are made in the ring. I found several comedic moments, editing touches, and camerawork pieces in the film that are genuine Hitchcock, which show me just how much he was experimenting and playing around with techniques even this early in his career. It was just enough to make me a bit irritated that I watched this movie in a crappy public domain source. I'd love to see a remastered version of the movie to see these little moments in clarity and a better, more emotional score. Overall I thought The Ring was a delight and I'd definitely watch it again one day. This film is a featherweight champ. Vintage "Not Cool Bro" Moment: One of the title cards refers to a boxer of African descent as the N-word at one point in the film. If one watches the film it's best to watch it in a vacuum. Next Time: Downhill
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Post by Torgo on Aug 15, 2018 12:11:46 GMT -5
And now I discover that Hitch's beloved wife was born the day after he was. Can't let that go by, so I used it as an excuse to close out my day with another Hitchcock silent. DownhillPremarital sexual intercourse?! Why I've never heard of such an absurd thing! Downhill is about two privileged boys who romance the same girl, who later claims she had prostituted herself with one of the boys. She then accuses the one she didn't have sex with of being the fiend in an attempt to save the scholarship and reputation of the other. The accused boy becomes disgraced, kicked out of school and after having a row with his father he goes off on his own. There he begins a downward spiral, including a gold-digging wife, self-prostitution, and homelessness, until he hits rock bottom. It's a movie that rides highly on how much of an emotional reaction you have to the main character's state. Mostly it's hard to feel too bad for him because he comes from a rich family and instead of going out and getting a decent job it seems he went straight to being a deadbeat, which makes it difficult to really invest in his plight. I understand struggling, but there isn't much of a straight line here. Perhaps a little fish-out-of-water comedy about a boy who needs to be working class but doesn't know how might have been fine here, at least early on. But the movie is already long enough as is. In fact it could have been a good twenty minutes shorter (maybe even thirty). Downhill isn't bad, but it's very drawn out. It occurs to me that in drama, especially pantomime drama, timing is just as important as it is in comedy. Sometimes Hitch lets a shot linger for great effect of emotional tension, there are a pair of comparable scenes that I adore in which our male lead sits in a chair waiting to confront his parents, while in most scenes it lingers on forever, hammering the idea of the shot into our skull. More than once in this film I felt like screaming "Okay! I get it!" Hitchcock chooses to tell the story as visually as possible, for better or for worse. He trusts the audience to put the puzzle pieces together for themselves by certain visuals he puts forth. Sometimes it works, sometimes it can be a bit vague, though I appreciate the thought of overestimating my intelligence. But showing and not telling is a good habit to get into in filmmaking, and Hitchcock would later master this art. The good news is that a lot of Downhill rides on its lead. Ivor Novello, who played the title character in Hitchcock's The Lodger, is the main character in this film. He's a bit more subdued than he was in The Lodger and puts in a pretty solid performance, but he deserves a more stable script. If somebody polished this idea up and reinvented it somewhat, Downhill has the foundations of a pretty compelling drama. As is it's okay, but not something I'm enthused about. Next Time: The Farmer's Wife
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Post by Torgo on Aug 17, 2018 1:03:44 GMT -5
The Farmer's WifeAt long last, the spin-off of Three Blind Mice that we've all been asking for. In the aftermath of his wife's death and the wedding of his daughter, a farmer decides it's time to remarry. Together with his charming maid they put together a list of candidates and one by one he asks each to marry him...and one by one he's rejected. He eventually discovers that true love might have been under his nose the entire time. Throughout The Farmer's Wife I was mostly reminded of the popular Buster Keaton film Seven Chances. It's kind of the same story, except there is no money. But still it's a man seeking a wife rather insistently, though I don't think there is much urgency to his plight to push himself on the women the way he does. This movie feels a bit meaner in spirit though, and it's a bit old fashioned in courtship. The farmer and his maid judge women like pieces of meat for a bit, and even insult a few, then he just shows up to women's houses and bluntly asks them to marry him, to hell with foreplay. But in that bluntness are some decent laughs, and the comedy is okay for the most part. It's no Seven Chances, but it's simple and cute. It's also a nice little story of elderly man looking for companionship, though it's a tad too silly to relate to lonely hearts, if I do say so. However despite that the final act does have a few great moments of broken heart portrayal and romantic tension between the two lead players. If I were to spoil the ending needlessly, the farmer's eventual love interest turns out to me his maid, played by Lillian Hall-Davis, who was also Hitch's leading lady in The Ring. Hall-Davis was apparently an early favorite actress of his that he delighted working with, and seeing her subtle charm in both films I understand why, though I debate a bit over whether or not the role is right for her. There's a bit of an age gap between the maid and the farmer that's hard to ignore, though it might have been that way in the play the film is based upon as well. There's a minor bit of a subliminal idea at play that the farmer would never have been happy with old cronies his own age and is instead rewarded with a sexy youth to make sure his penis is happy for the rest of his days. Dunno. It seems a tad questionable to me and I think if it were an older actress in her late-30's to 40's at the very least I think it would have resonated a bit more. Though to be fair there is only a ten year age-gap between Hall-Davis and lead man Jameson Thomas, who is made up to look older than he was. Unfortunately it's Hall-Davis's final Hitchcock film. Her career declined in the transition to sound and she committed suicide in 1933 at the tender age of 35. I very much enjoyed her in both this film and The Ring. Despite her sad end she can still delight an audience member nearly a century after she exited this world. Next Time: Easy Virtue
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Post by Torgo on Aug 19, 2018 1:05:41 GMT -5
Easy VirtueDIVORCE! LIES! VIOLENCE! DISTRUST! Back in a time when divorce was much more scandalous than it is today, Easy Virtue tells a story of a woman, Lorita Filton, who was falsely accused by her husband of having an affair and divorced. In the aftermath she meets John, and they soon marry after a brief courtship. John takes Lorita home to meet his family where she is met by the watchful eye of a distrusting mother, who turns her family against Lorita and seeks out the secret she is hiding. I'm an advocate of silent cinema, though I do admit at times that the format can be a hindrance to itself. Silent cinema works best with visual storytelling, or if it works hard to adapt something into a pantomime format. Early on in Easy Virtue I found myself noting that it wasn't playing to it's format by portraying a courtroom scene. The idea of a courtroom is verbal argument, and when you have a portrayal of verbal argument that cannot be portrayed verbally then you have an uphill battle. The film tries to adapt by having Lorita tell her story in a flashback, but the court scenes are lengthy periods of people screaming at each other with little hint as to what the arguments made are. It's times like this that I really wish I could read lips. The film plays out a little better once the main narrative comes into play, but at the same time it feels like it also would benefit from verbal argument. There are really only so many curt glances at each other I can take. Unfortunate format notwithstanding, the story is told decently though it somehow feels longer than the last two films I've watched, even though it's much shorter. It's probably since so much of the film feels like the same familial tension repeated that it just gets drawn out a bit. But Hitchcock gives it the ol' college try and succeeds at times of giving the drama spice. There's a cute scene halfway through in which John phones home and tells them of his nuptuals and instead of listening to the conversation we see the reactions of a romantic-hearted operator delighting at the conversation taking place. Like Downhill, I'm intrigued by the idea of the story but I don't think it's done particularly well. Easy Virtue is based on a stage play, which probably plays to its strengths better. The play was re-adapted in 2008 starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristen Scott Thomas, and Ben Barnes, and I'll admit being curious about how well that film portrays it. This 1928 film is bland but fine, though I'd argue it might have been better off made a few years later. Next Time: Champagne
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Post by Torgo on Aug 25, 2018 1:11:06 GMT -5
ChampagneBefore I get started I feel that I must note that my many years of comedy watching has successfully ruined the pronunciation of the word "champagne" for me, which is traditionally pronounced "sham-pain" but my days of pronouncing it as such are sadly over. While most like me prefer the pronunciation Zap Brannigan gave the beverage in Futurama, "sham-pag-gin," I always find myself leaning toward Curly Howard's pronunciation in the Three Stooges film Half-Wits Holiday, in which he dubs it "sham-pag-nee." So in other words, it's very important that every read of the title in this post be pronounced "sham-pag-nee" by the reader. VERY important. In Sham-Pag-Nee, the young Hitchcock teams up with one of Britain's most popular leading ladies of the 1920's, Betty Balfour. Balfour plays a carefree rich girl who tries to elope with her boyfriend, but her disapproving father follows her and tricks her into thinking they've lost all their money in a stock market crash in order to prove her boy toy only cares about money. Thinking she has hit rock bottom, she hits the streets looking for work. I found Champagne a bit like a less dour Downhill, taking the basic concept of a rich kid breaking away from family to support themselves only to turn it into a comedy instead of a drama. I think there's probably a halfway point between the two films that could have worked quite well, but instead we have these two films that are just black and white takes on the concept: it's either really serious or really silly. I think I liked Champagne more, though that's not to say it's necessarily a "better" film. Champagne is lightweight fluff, with some plot turns that are borderline nonsensical but possibly intentionally so. It's a madcap misadventure farce. It doesn't want to make sense, it just wants to be a funny ride. I do feel it should have been better than it is though. Its hard not to look at a comedy like this and wonder what a silent comedy artist might have done with it. Perhaps in the hands of Harold Lloyd the gag plot turns might have packed more punch. That said one thing I do have to say is that watching public domain copies of a lot of these early Hitchcock films feels like they're being done a disservice. I'm feeling it more for Champagne than I have been for others, since the copy I watched was low resolution with an appalling score that sounds as if it was pieced together from public domain music tracks. I actually muted the film at a point and watched it in silence for a bit and found myself enjoying it more. Maybe it's possible if I watched a cleaned up version of the movie with a proper music track that it might come off better. Next Time: The Manxman
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Post by Torgo on Aug 25, 2018 23:05:05 GMT -5
The ManxmanProbably the last movie I expected to be reminded of while watching an old Hitchcock silent film was...well, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. But probably in the top forty or so was Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor. The set up of the storyline in The Manxman reminded me a great deal of Bay's 2001 epic (fail). We had a duo of friends enchanted with the same woman. The one officially courting her goes off to war and is reported killed in action, only for his girl and best friend to fall in love with each other. Still alive, the veteran returns home in the middle of a love triangle he didn't intend. The film takes a differing road in how it continues beyond this point. There is no historical event shoehorned in for starters, and the love triangle is played up more one-sided. The woman, Kate, has chosen the man she wants to be with, but it's the man nobody knew she loved. Her heroic beau returns and instead of following her heart she does what is expected of her. The lie leads to misery. The double life led to a child. The child leads to questions and more misery. The drama, while overwrought, is punchier than anything in Pearl Harbor, historical battle sequence notwithstanding. Sometimes the over-the-top delivery can be a hindrance to The Manxman, but I would counterpoint that the film is more or less pushing its pantomime into expressive territory with an artistry for over-exaggeration to get its point across. Probably the best silent films don't need to be this extreme in this, but I found The Manxman enjoyable all the same. I was fairly invested in the film's romance, and the dilemma is intriguing. It's probably the film I liked the most in this marathon since The Ring, though I anticipate much better films to come. My favorite moment: Groom Pete yells out with gusto "This isn't a funeral, this is a wedding!" Bride Kate starts laughing hysterically and it slowly turns into weeping. My least favorite moment: Kate leaves her husband to be with Philip...but leaves her baby in the house all by her lonesome until fake papa Pete gets home. I felt sorry for Kate until this moment, but that's just horrible. flapjacks you, bitch. Unintentional laugh moment: There are a couple, though I need to give a shout out to one of the final shots in the movie, which has the final moments take place in Kate and Pete's home, while townsfolk peer through the window with frozen exaggerated facial expressions. It reminded me of old Ren & Stimpy cartoons when Ren would be concerned about being seen displaying emotion and Stimpy assures him nobody saw, panning over to peering faces in the window with a dramatic DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! And with this I've ended my run with Hitchcock's silent pictures, unless Mountain Eagle is ever found (There is hope. I never thought the lost Three Stooges film Hello Pop would be found, but now it's on my DVD shelf). My next entry will begin the Hitchcock talkies and I do find myself anxious to get closer to Hitch's heyday, yet bittersweet at leaving the silents behind. Charlie Chaplin had a point in being uneasy of moving away from the art of pantomime, though the future of sound has so much to offer. Sound brings us the words of Shakespeare on the big screen, the songs of The Wizard of Oz, and the roar of a T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Just think of the so many innovative ways the future of film can utilize a tool such as sound... Next Time: Blackmail
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Post by Torgo on Aug 27, 2018 0:29:51 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 Torgo on Aug 28, 2018 0:31:24 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 sh*t, 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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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Aug 31, 2018 0:48:35 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 Torgo on Aug 31, 2018 22:44:24 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 Torgo on Sept 1, 2018 22:18:06 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 Torgo on Sept 2, 2018 22:53:49 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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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 7, 2018 0:58:58 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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