What Is Hitchcock's "Best"?...

"Best presidents," "best" of John Ford -- on another blog the query (not mine but of course I have an opinion!) was "handsomest prezes?" of which I picked Franklin Pierce, a Democrat (1853-57) who had a miserable time as president, and Warren G. Harding, a Republican (see how "fair & balanced" I am eh eh) from 1921 to '23, who really looked like the older Gary Cooper and THAT's "handsome" pod'ners!

Well now I'm curious (and not YELLOW!) enough to ask opinions re "the master of suspense" and I'd say ONE of the greatest director-filmmakers of the 20th, Alfred Hitchcock.

"Hitch"'s own fave according to his actress daughter Patricia (who appeared I believe in THREE of his pics, "Stage Fright," most notably in "Strangers on a Train" and in the inimitable "Psycho" -- anyone recall another?) was "Shadow of a Doubt," filmed partly on location in Santa Rosa California in 1940 and a "disturbing" movie or aren't they all?

Some (Peter Bogdanovich, "best younger pal" of the "greats" Ford, Welles and Hitch) say that "Rear Window" is his most "Hitchcockian" film and others say that "Vertigo" (both two from the early-mid 1950s, in my opinion actually a GREAT decade for the movies despite tv and the demise of the studios, and AH's colloboration with James Stewart, one of the greatest --

Hey Welch!: "great," "greats," "greatest" -- come on! Another adjective or what IS this "obsession"?! Hard to talk about Ford, Welles and Hitchcock without using that word (Stewart too AND the "fabulous fifties") but yeah okay.

So: YOUR turn please? Harsch (a good kid who responds to the Welchian, no matter how uh "mundane"?) and whoever else may be interested?...

I am with the younger crowd. I loved Psycho, but I have to give my vote to either Vertigo or Rear Window.

Can't go wrong with any of those three, but Welch is going to choose Marnie. So I go with Notorious.

No arguments at all but I also wait for others -- anyone for "Strangers on a Train" or "Stage Fright"? "I Confess"? "The Wrong Man"? Even "The Birds"? How 'bout "Secret Agent" or its '50s remake "The Man Who Knew Too Much"? And "The 39 Steps"?! Uh "great" um...

It will be hard coming up with a "non-great" Hitchcock film.

I have The Birds second, but then I think Rod Taylor? Maybe top 15...

Commit, Welch!

I REALLY like "Shadow of a Doubt," "Rear Window" and I'm going to look at "Vertigo" again because I suspect it MAY be the most uh "disturbing" and "creative" Hitchcock but then there's "Strangers on a Train" hmm -- A-S is right doggone it! It's hard NOT to make a case for MOST of this guy's stuff.

AND I LIKE "The Birds" and I even LIKE Rod Taylor and 'Tippi' (Hitch added the Brit quote marks) Hedren! And hey Suzanne Pleshette at her "cutest" stage in it and pretty damn good too...

I would label The Birds and Psycho as horror movies. Most of the others I would label "suspense."

I would label The Birds and Psycho as horror movies. Most of the others I would label "suspense."

I don't like the "labels" as I think Hitch is up to something more than "just" but as per how the pics were sold via advertising etc., sure...

Granted, Psycho is not JUST a horror movie. Same thing with the Birds.

I've got to go at the moment unfortunately but "next time" I'll elaborate re above and hope there are more responses. Meantime thanks guys for your interest!...

Rear Window.

I like so many of them but the three that I'd put at the top are - "Rope", "Frenzy" and "Strangers on a Train" (which coincidentally I am reading right now).

His most edge-of-the-seat, suspenseful movie, I'd say, is 'Rope', followed by 'Rear Window' (my overall favourite). 'Vertigo' and 'The Birds' are also great. I'm not a huge fan of 'Psycho', though.

Another of my favourites is 'North by Northwest'. Someday I want to own a house like that! (If you've seen the movie, you know the one I'm referring to.) I love the cheesy dialogue, and the actress who plays the mother is priceless.

No love for his comedies, like Champagne and The Farmer's Wife, huh?

>16 madpoet: the actress who plays the mother

Jessie Royce Landis, also Grace Kelly's mother in To Catch a Thief.

> 17 No love for his comedies

I'll stand up for The Trouble with Harry.

Marnie, but also Rope.

North by North West, for Cary Grant's suit.

Another Hitchcock movie worth mentioning is 'Spellbound', with the dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali.

Hitchcock was a master of detail. In one scene (I think it's from the movie 'Notorious') the villain is carrying a glass of poisoned milk up a long staircase. The camera focuses on the glass of milk, which seems to be almost glowing. Hitchcock put a tiny light inside the glass to give it that effect.

> 22 I think it's from the movie 'Notorious'

Suspicion

It's in Spellbound.

> 22, 23, 24

There're glasses of poisoned milk in both Suspicion and Notorious, but IIRC the long shot on the staircase with the milk seeming to glow is Notorious

The milk was carried by Cary Grant. Was he in both films? If so was the milk meant for Bergman or Fontaine?

Now I'm confused.

Bergman was in Notorious. I'm sure of that.

A three-way tie: North by Northwest is perfectly put together, acted, shot and cut. There isn't a wrong note in it. But Rear Window and Vertigo are more ambitious and interesting, if not as perfect. Rope is also very fine, within (or because) of its limitations.

I never much cared for either Psycho or The Birds. I should see them again.

I agree with #28, I always thought Psyco & The Birds were over the top.

Rear window I remember seeing as a 'kid' when my parents took me to the "Adults" night movies, and I still have mixed feelings about (but who doesn't love 'Grace Kelly' or for that matter 'Jimmy'?)

My vote: "Vertigo", "North by...", and ...

Strange, I once bought a compilation of 10 of Hitches' very early works (mainly from England - guess they were all out of copyright - cheap) Some were watchable, some not.

But thanks group, I will have to rewatch H again with a fresh eye.

Guido.

I will have to rewatch H again with a fresh eye.

Look for the view from below of the chin in Psyco.

Pyscho was inspired by the story of Ed Gein of Wisconsin. That was back when such things were really frightening. Perhaps that's got something to do with any limits to Psycho's long term effectiveness.

Hi @vy0123,

I don't own 'Psycho". Are you saying there is a "dripping eye-ball" or some such other such 'gory' detail
I missed in the cinema release (oh, some 40(?) or so) years ago? We didn't have a pause button in those days :-)

guido47, the moment in the scene is mundane, my memory is unreliable, though.

My love of Rope is that it's riveting without any of the quick changes of camera angles or scenes that can make a sub-par movie watchable. It's all on the script and the actors.

Bugger you 'vy0123' (#33), I will now Have to find a copy of "Psycho' (on Blu-ray I hope) to find out what you "think you saw"! I could of course be rational and just ignore you, but Hah.

PS. I would like to add "Strangers on a train" as a favorite. Is that the one where 2 strangers 'swap' murders? I keep thinking 'Fred McMurray". If that's the one, it is definitely in my Pantheon of H's films.

If not, it should have been made by him...

> 22-27

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/274156/Suspicion-Movie-Clip-A-Most-Pleasant-D...

Proof is not fair.

North by Northwest.

Best Hitchcock film not made by Hitchcock is Charade

Psycho has not aged well. When it first came out, it was groundbreaking in a variety of ways. Not so much, now, although the shower scene is still a classic.

re. my #35, Right film (Strangers...) wrong Actor (Not McMuray) but an actor I hardly even think of Farley Granger (spl?)

Speaking on English television show Monitor, Hitchcock recalled: 'I once made a movie, rather tongue-in-cheek, called Psycho.
'The content was, I felt, rather amusing and it was a big joke. I was horrified to find some people took it seriously.
'It was intended to make people scream and yell and so forth – but no more than screaming and yelling on a switchback railway (rollercoaster),' he continued.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2275394/Alfred-Hitchcock-reveals-Ps...

I just rewatched "Vertigo" which I hadn't seen for some time and I find it almost well "contemporary" in its themes and especially the striking opening credit sequence.

I understand from the DVD "extras" that the actress Vera Miles was supposed to play the Madeleine-Judy part but she was pregnant (by her husband "Tarzan," i. e., Gordon Scott who was actually a very good Tarzan at that).

Miles had been the wife of Henry Fonda's character in "The Wrong Man" who has a breakdown re his false incarceration and later she's Janet Leigh's sister in "Psycho." She also played a major part in Ford's "The Searchers" and in his "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" so I don't dismiss her as an actress but Novak is rivetting in the role and I can't think of anyone who'd have been a better choice.

The often underrated James Stewart of course demonstrates once again in case you weren't paying attention his admirable and rather astonishing diversity considering the sound and tenor of that oh so familiar voice. (We could almost have a "favorite Jimmy Stewart movie" list I think but as per Hitch there are so many to choose from.)

Harsch thought I'd pick "Marnie" and while I've seen it, it's been so long that I'm curious again as to what I think now; at the time I wasn't as impressed but time passes eh and sometimes perceptions change.

By the way I recently saw "Sunset Boulevard" again and William Holden is well "great" (and Harsch once "borrowed" a concept re Holden's character in one of his novels -- and it still "works") so I rewatched "Picnic" in which Holden appears too ("SB" is Billy Wilder 1950 and "P" is Joshua Logan 1955) and found it even better than I had recalled and was struck by Kim Novak's somewhat "odd" almost "detached" beauty which is very effective for her roles in "P" and in "V" in particular and also in Richard Quine's "Bell, Book and Candle," a little comedy about witchery in Manhatten that could have been better but has an excellent cast (Stewart again, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs who I believe is um "great" as well as a fave of mine Elsa Lancaster, once "the bride of Frankenstein" as well as the "bride" of Charles Laughton).

Movies! "The goddam' movies" as Holden Caulfield said.

"Vertigo" by the way has I think the theme that AH's biographer Donald Spoto in his "The Dark Side of Genius" made much of as a recurring one in Hitchcock's films -- obsession with a poised, somewhat "detached" beautiful blonde carried in this case to murder-suicide, acute melancholic breakdown, sexual oddity and finally the second loss of the loved "object" in one of the most devastating endings in any movie, with a particularly Hitchcockian aspect; anybody know to what I refer?...

Mikey, this communique is very Hitchey so why hide it--Timmy is going to spank me in the oh so hidden HitchCOCKian perverse way he has so run on over to that past and...

"Spank" you? Are you supposed to enjoy it?...

By the way I've come to think of Hitchcock as quite as much a "master" as Ford though I wonder what they thought of each other. Ford often praised other directors like William Wellman and Raoul Walsh who weren't exactly as "high" up in retrospect though he got along well with Welles and you wouldn't think so but then Welles was always flattering him.

Ford disliked John Huston -- as per Holden Caulfield eh he called him a "phony" but I've always liked Huston's movies myself; "Treasure of Sierra Madre" is um er "great" as I say huh and I even like "The Unforgiven" (NOT Eastwood!) but I DO actively dislike "The Kremlin Letter" and I don't usually feel that way about a film.

I suspect Ford admired Hitch and vice versa in particular because their "ouevres" were so different that rivalry in some way wasn't possible. Then Peter Bogdanovich was somewhat "close" to all three -- Ford, Welles and Hitch -- albeit FRIENDS with the latter two and more a young devotee to Ford. Three difficult and "great" men...

MW, you know I both despise your opinions and agree with them, because you are, Hitchcokianly, the master. I made my case for Woody Allen, you persisted--and you know, Michael, I quoted you about ten times tonight in my living room...

Thanks, vy0123, I think I have been talked out of buying 'Psycho'.
I guess I was just curious about ...that scene... you mentioned.

Although I have now been tempted by many other H's films I now do need want.

Or is it want rather than need?

Did anyone here ever watch 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents...' ? I'm not sure if he directed all those shows, but some of them were quite good. I love his intros to the shows-- they were sometimes the best part.

#48, some of his shows were almost SF. Yes I loved them, and am thinking of buying a set. Just $.

I've been reading Donald Spoto's "Spellbound By Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and his Leading Ladies," published in 2008 and Spoto's THIRD study of Hitch since the mid 1970s so talk about "obsessed"?

But I think Spoto makes a very good argument re AH's own psychological obsessions re "women" in general and re his own "leading ladies," especially as per Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Hitchcock was often "not a nice man" and in particular it seems to women due obviously to his morbid obesity, his impotence and perhaps his upbringing as a Catholic.

However he was "a genius" in the making of motion pictures that were, in many respects, "ahead of his time" as they say. So "ahead" that Hollywood never "caught up" at least during his lifetime as he was never awarded with an Oscar and rarely nominated and his actors and actresses never got Oscars either but for Joan Fontaine(!) in "Suspicion."

By the way Spoto makes a great case for "Notorious" with Bergman, Cary Grant and a fave of mine Claude Rains as one of H's "greats" but there were indeed so many! But just as with Ford and Huston, Hitchcock was not as I say "nice" but then there are so many "geniuses" who are not -- Picasso, Hemingway, Stalin, Mao, Richard Nixon?

I now want to see more of Hitch and I may revise my "Ford" as "top man" to make room (and a lotta "room" you need!) for this egotistical misshapen "giant" who could never credit his collaborators (actors as well as cameramen, editors and writers) sufficiently and posed himself as the "master" of all. But he is a "master" and his films retain fascination yet...

>51 Michael_Welch: I can't believe you class Hitchcock with Stalin and Mao. There's 'not nice' and then there's... Stalin and Mao.

Well it's all a matter of "degree" I admit but I thought the "question" would be about "genius," not "niceness." Well sure Hitch didn't KILL anyone (except in his movies!) but he nearly maimed -- and it may have been quite worse; one was just uh "lucky" -- Tippi Hedren in the climactic scene wherein she is attacked (and she was, literally) by "The Birds" in the attic.

Then Stalin and Mao THEMSELVES probably never killed anyone either but were they "geniuses" -- well I think they were in that they both transformed very "backward" countries isolated in large part from the wider world into important dynamos challenging the status powers of "the west," namely and chiefly Britain, Germany and of course at last and still the USA.

The "transitions" they effected were horrific for many of their citizens but Stalin and Mao did achieve their objectives of ascendency and oddly enough both may not be so "put off" by what they had "wrought" today even though it's a quite a bit different from what they thought would happen?

I deviated from the topic but you sort of "invited" me to. And Hitch for that matter kind of "transformed" movies too; he made them more "psychological," more "adult" although ironically Hitchcock himself was often very much like a naughty, "repressed" but clever "public school" boy especially in his behavior with women.

(And then I thought someone would object maybe more to my mentioning Nixon!...)

I meant to add this from the Spoto book "Spellbound By Beauty" because I think it's very a insightful assessment of Hitchcock's character from a memoir by the actress Ann Todd who appears in "The Paradine Case," a 1940s Hitchcock film, as the "suffering wife" of Gregory Peck "spellbound" by Alida Valli in the film.

Todd wrote that AH was --

"a very complex man -- an overgrown schoolboy really who never grew up and lived in his own special fantasy world. He had a schoolboy's obsession with sex that went on and on in a very peculiar way.

"He had an endless supply of very nasty, vulgar and naughty stories and jokes. These amused him more than they amused anyone else but I think he was really a very sad person. I feel that he wanted to be what he was not -- a good looking man like Cary Grant -- and he never came to terms with what he himself was."

(This reminds me that John Ford wanted to be John Wayne?)

And what "was he"? As per ol' Doc Freud, Hitchcock (and Ford) took his own fears and suffering and neuroses and made "art" with it, even great art. Hmmmm...

Of course, like all geniuses, Hitchcock was a complex person. No doubt he rubbed some people the wrong way. Still, he never had difficulty getting actors to sign up for his movies, including all the biggest stars of his day. Many of them returned to work with him in other movies, which they wouldn't have done if he was such a monster.

In any case, nobody goes to see a Hitchcock film because he was a 'nice man'. They go to see his films because he was a genius, who created great films.

>53 Michael_Welch:

Well, Michael, you brought up the issue of H's "niceness", not I.

This is not the thread to discuss it, MW, but I find your admiration of Mao and Stalin... creepy. The ends justify the means? Really? That's your defense for mass-murder and totalitarian oppression? How can I say this without being patronizing: you really need to study a bit more history.

It's "The Birds" for me followed closely by North by Northwest--Hitch and Cary Grant!

Finally someone chose the Birds first. Glad to see it.

I don't so much "admire" Stalin and Mao as to acknowledge their achievements -- "modern" Russia and China. Of course modernity is not necessarily making us all "happy" is it, in every way? ("Creepy"? Well I like Hitchcock don't I?)

I like "The Birds" and would place it "high" in the Hitchcockian lexicon sure -- Patricia Hitchcock likes it a lot -- but it's an apocalyptic movie that starts out as a screwball comedy and the "central scene" in the Tides restaurant (with Hedren, Lonny Chapman, Edith Griffies as the "old lady," Elizabeth Wilson, Doreen Lang, Charles McGraw and my "fave" Karl Swenson -- "It's the end of th' worl'!") is not only great ensemble but the amalgam of screwball meets apocalypse now.

But I waver as to "best"; I just saw "I Confess," Hitch's "Catholic movie" and I like it too and I'm about to look at the 1955 remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" with Stewart and Doris Day -- gee all I can say is that this guy made a helluva lotta "good" movies, "creepy" or otherwise...

Mao lover! Stalin worshipper!

HitchCOCKian!...

That's a first for a man who has been called many, many things.

You or me?...

Me.

I think we have BOTH been called "many things" eh -- but not necessarily by each other?...

Actually...

I did watch "The Man Who Knew Too Much," the 1955 remake by Hitchcock of his '30s film with the incomparable Peter Lorre, and liked it very much. One is struck I think with just how good an actress is Doris Day -- she shoulda been nominated as they say.

And I started the harrowing 1956 "The Wrong Man" which again is so good (but SO hard to watch!) that one is puzzled why Hitchcock wasn't nominated himself or why weren't Henry Fonda and Vera Miles for that matter.

Considering Stewart's and Fonda's long time friendship -- between staunch Repub Jimmy and staunch Demo Hank -- it's interesting to note that Hitch worked with Stewart several times -- "Rope"; "Rear Window"; "TMWKTM"; "Vertigo" -- but Fonda only once yet Fonda is as compelling as "the average man" as JS and in this film, "The Wrong Man," even more so.

Hitchcock in both movies -- both "Man"s -- does what is notable and commendable I think: he makes the "villain" (or at least one) human and sympathetic and in "TWM" he pictures the innocent as victim of the grinding processes of "law & order," reminding the public that not all things are as first thought to be...

Yep, @Michael_Welch , "My Dorrie, sorry, I am still totally in love with her :-)" besides being a great singer, was a decent underated actress and should have...

I thought "The Wrong Man" was harrowing indeed, perhaps moreso than "Psycho" because it's a "true story" presented "truly," that is, without the verve and snap of say "The Man Who Knew Too Much"; after all the last scene is a "joke" when James Stewart and Doris Day arrive at the hotel with their son following the terrors of the Albert Hall and the embassy and Stewart saying (in his patented wry way) to their bemused and tired guests "I'm sorry we were so long; we had to pick up Hank!"

I watched "Marnie" too at last and liked it better than I had (I'd last watched it about twenty years ago) -- and I came to think Tippi Hedren underrated as an actress; and Louise Latham as the mother was excellent. By the way Bruce Dern appears briefly as a sailor/child molester and Mariette Hartley, so good in Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" is a kindly secretary. Sean Connery is also very good but the picture belongs "to the women" I'd say.

I'm watching the 1939 20th Century Fox-Darryl F. Zanuck "big" production of "Jesse James" with the handsome, winning yet always a bit onery Tyrone Power as the famed outlaw-Robin Hood of legend; with Henry Fonda naturally stoic as the brother-compatriot Frank; Randolph Scott as the wary but determined marshall; and a nice touch, the not so "beautiful" (but still attractive of course) Nancy Kelly as "Zee," "Jesse had a wife/who mourned for his life" etc.

It's a break from Hitch and directed by a "workmanlike" guy Henry King who had a talent for presenting material that was somewhat "standard" in a unique way, at least in some scenes, most effectively I'd say in "The Song of Bernadette" (1940?) which has some "haunting" sequences played well and even "achingly" by the young Jennifer Jones who won her Oscar for it.

"JJ" is in technicolor as per "Gone With the Wind" and filmed (as "GWTW" was not) partly on location in the Ozarks and I'm liking it so much that I'm getting a copy of Nicholas Ray's 1957 version "The True Story of Jesse James." ("True" meaning that King's "JJ" was mostly bullshit? "Ummmm could be!" as Bugs Bunny would say?)

The uh "True Story" has Robert Wagner as "JJ" (hmm?) and Jeffrey Hunter as "Frank" (hmmm!) and Hope Lange as "Zee" and I must admit I have always had a "crush" on Miss Lange and think she was very good in "Peyton Place." But I am a "product" of the 1950s and therefore --. (I saw the Brad Pitt "Assassination etc." JJ movie but it lacked uh "heart" -- it was an awfully COLD pic for me. I jus' ain't "modren" enough eh...)

I've probably see them all, but currently only remember the last and the Long Riders. The Pitt suffered from something else I find hard to nail down. The best I can say is that it went awry from the start and just wasn't ever really there.

Did you like "The Long Riders"? I saw it when it came out in the '80s and recall that I sorta liked it but wasn't all that enthused. Maybe I'm just "old"? Or maybe I should see it again as per "Marnie"?...

I did not like it the first time. Then someone over at LT's Salon urged me to watch it again and I did, and I appreciated much of it more, but still think the best Jesse James movie is ahead of us. For now I think Long Riders is probably the best of them.

I also liked "The Great Minnesota Northfield Raid" (1972) which was written and directed by Philip Kaufman and focused on "Cole Younger" as played (winningly) by Cliff Robertson (who also produced) with Robert Duvall as the meanest nastiest "Jesse" I can recall.

It's a quirky look at the outlaws as somewhat "passed by" by "history," with Robertson's Cole the one who is actually interested in "modernity," i. e., machinery of all sorts especially. There's also a funny raucous baseball game played between the Northfield local team and the team from St Paul in which Cole Younger ends up blowing the ball to bits with his six shooter. (Game over!)

It actually MIGHT BE the "best" JJ movie thus far; Duvall (as usual) is great as that nasty "evangelical" murderer and the movie opens with the brothers plotting their next job while sitting in the shithouse. AND there's a local witch AND a (too) beautiful naked prostitute. And Cole wears leather armor under his vest...

I'll see it.

You'll like it. It's funny and sad with "old timey" actors like R. G. Armstrong and Royal Dano...

Bostonians take note that the Harvard Film Archive is screening The Complete Hitchcock this summer (last night through the end of September), including the newly restored 9 silent films.

Look out, Welch may be a-comin!

Please see my topic "'Jesse James,' J. Edward Bromberg and the Hollywood Blacklist" for a "sidelight" re my uh latest "tangent"?...

This topic has been moribund but I just rewatched Hitchcock's 1950 "I Confess" with Montgomery Clift of all people playing an Anglo priest in French Quebec who is "framed" for murder but the Hitchcockian "McGuffin" is that the murderer is a German refugee who lives at the priest's parish house as a "handyman" and has in fact confessed to the priest so the priest cannot tell the cops (head cop is a rather unsympathetic and "businesslike" Karl Malden) or violate the confessional which is a VERY big deal if one is a Catholic.

I watched it I admit because I had just seen "Yellow Sky" and before that Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" all with --? Anne Baxter, a usually quite capable actress who however if "let go" as Cecil B DeMille does in "The Ten Commandments" can somewhat overdo it? "Moses, Moses, you adorable fool!" she pines to a younger looking Chuck Heston. But then the overwriting invites it eh.

She does sometimes "overdo" in "IC" but then it's sort of Hitchcock's most "romantic" film oddly in some ways as Baxter's character was once in love with the Clift character who goes away to WWII and returns "changed" although the movie doesn't go much into that.

Hitch of course was raised Catholic and remained so all his life and was educated in Jesuit run schools (the present pope Francis who just said some rather remarkable things lately is a Jesuit of course) and his treatment of priests in the film is very realistic I'd say (as a Catholic albeit "lapsed" myself) and Clift is very good at presenting his dilemma and yet retaining his (dare I say?!) "humanity" toward even his false accuser. Still he doesn't come across as overtly "saintly" at all but as "dedicated."

One of the great things about DVD is the "special features" that can include a "commentary" or what I like best a "feature" itself reviewing the origins, making of and critical reception of as well as present day attitudes toward which in this case always means Peter Bogdanovich, a most amiable and perhaps a bit too friendly "critic" but insightful and intelligent.

I ever enjoy seeing "Peter" but what I liked about this "review" of "IC" is the presence of Jack Larson, once a Broadway actor and then in some films but best known as "Jimmy Olson" in the 1950s "Superman" tv series with George Reeves, MY generation's "Superman."

It isn't exactly s-p-e-l-l-e-d out but most know today that Clift was gay and Larson is and Larson is in the DVD because he was Monty's friend and "friend" as they say and he describes how they met on the studio lot as he was a "sailor" (HI sailor!) in a film titled "Three Guys and a Girl" (hey that's HOL-LY-WOOD!) and Monty was the priest hmm and they'd go out for a burger dressed in their parts.

Larson notes how "dedicated" too that Clift, a "method" actor as they said, was in learning how priests walked in cassocks and in preparing himself for a short scene in which he's painting a wall and how upset he was when a British critic faulted him in the film for performing his "usual bottled up style."

Clift suffered a devastating car accident at the end of the '50s and his face was noticeably "altered" by it and this in part led to his alcoholism and his even greater anxiety over his homosexuality and perhaps his "attractiveness"?

Bogdanovich says that he was managing a "revival" theater in New York in the '60s and was showing "I Confess" when at the back of the theater he noticed Clift himself, standing and smoking (one could smoke then in this theater PB says), so P went over to him and asked how he felt seeing himself in this film made in 1950. Clift in his I dunno "bottled up" style said simply "It's hard. It's hard."

Clift died of a heart attack in the late '60s. I remember him especially in the one of his movies that I saw on screen at the "Bethany" in west Phoenix in 1961, as the German Jew who was retarded (as we said then, without especial malice) and had been "sterilized" by the nazi regime in "Judgment at Nuremberg."

His face was not as handsome of course but his "style" was inimitable and extremely effective at showing the pathos and the attempt at retaining "dignity" while being forced by the defense attorney (Maximilian Schell) to admit to his "deficiencies." It was an incredibly moving and memorable performance for a role that lasted maybe ten minutes on the screen...

Thanks, Michael

I'd second Secret Agent for it's unusual plot and add Frenzy for the long tracking shot out of the apartment.

John Gielgud looks very uneasy working for Hitch but Peter Lorre is having a helluva good time and Robert Young actually makes a fine villain in "Secret Agent."

I haven't seen "Frenzy" for decades; I suppose I should look at it again...