Alfred Hitchcock

Saboteur (1942)

Saboteur (1942)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, October 2019) I’m nearing the end of my essential Hitchcock viewing regimen (I’ve seen all his top tier, almost everything in his middle tier and am now focused on his 1930s production), and with that knowledge of his body of work it’s easy to recognize in 1942’s Saboteur a rough blueprint of plot elements he used during his entire career. Let’s see: a romantically antagonistic couple-on-the-run from The 39 Steps to North by Northwest. Musical Leitmotifs from The Lady Vanishes to The Man Who Knew Too Much. Climactic use of a national landmark, repeated in North by Northwest as well. The usual blend of small humorous touches and taut suspense sequences. The fuzzy nature of the antagonist’s overall allegiances à la not-to-be-confused-with Sabotage. Described as such, Saboteur does run the risk of being perceived as a collage of elements from other Hitchcock movies, but that’s ignoring the fact that it still works remarkably well: It may be a middle-tier work for him, but it’s still as enjoyable as it was in 1942—perhaps more so given the period feel and wartime paranoia so clearly described here. (Substitute “terrorist” for “saboteur” and you’d have a solid basis for a contemporary update.)  Hitchcock even at his most mediocre is still well worth watching, and Saboteur is a further proof of that.

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, September 2019) After watching Hitchcock/Truffaut and seeing a few of François Truffaut’s best-known movies, I think I’ve got a new name for the old “what celebrities, dead or alive, would you like to have over for a dinner party?”: I really would have liked to talk filmmaking with Truffaut. One fascinating footnote in his biography is the way he idolized Hitchcock as a young man, all the way to interviewing the English director at length in order to write a book about him. The book was published in 1966, but Hitchcock/Truffaut describes the five days Truffaut spent with Hitchcock in order to tell us how those interviews came to be, and how they influenced both filmmakers. The meeting between the two (indeed, their friendship that would last until Hitchcock’s death) is the stuff that is almost too true for cinephiles, and this documentary really illustrates it well. Using photos, movie clips, interview footage, highlighted documents and audio recordings of the interviews, the film explains how the two filmmakers met, the insights that Truffaut got from Hitchcock about his films and the growing rapport between the two. I don’t expect most audiences to make much of the film, especially if they’re not already fans of either one of the directors. There’s some awkward sound editing in the final product—silences and cuts probably reflecting the original, but feeling disruptive to the flow of the film. It naturally spends more time on some of Hitchcock’s best-known films, specifically Vertigo (which I should re-watch at some point) and Psycho. Still, the appeal here is seeing two titans of cinema (even though Truffaut was still a rookie director at the time) have the kind of high-level chat only possible between two people fluent in cinematic language. It’s quite inspiring, oddly likable and makes Truffaut looking incredibly likable as a star-struck fanboy until the interview begins and he’s back in his film-critic persona with unlimited access to a major director.

Sabotage (1936)

Sabotage (1936)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) You can make a good case that Sabotage was the film in which Hitchcock’s talent as a filmmaker came into focus. While he had, at the time, more than a decade’s experience in directing, this is the film that encapsulates a lot of what his later movies would be about. Yes, The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much both precede it, but Sabotage has one of the first of Hitchcock’s classic illustrations of how to create suspense, with a boy unwittingly carrying a bomb onto a bus and the audience knowing that it’s about to explode. The overall story is a sordid tale of a deep-cover foreign agent creating deadly chaos in London, reinforced by the drama of his English wife suddenly discovering who he truly is. Several touches show Hitchcock perfecting the various aspects of his direction that would soon see him recruited by Hollywood—the oddball details, the touches of dark humour, the domestic concerns crashing into criminal ones. Hitchcock may not have been all that good at titles (Sabotage was accompanied by Saboteur a few years later), but he already knew how to put together a well-crafted movie back then. While it’s going to be of most interest to Hitchcock completists, Sabotage holds up better than many of its contemporaries.

Stage Fright (1950)

Stage Fright (1950)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, August 2019) If there was one wholly mediocre Hitchcock film, then Stage Fright would be it. It’s not necessarily notable for being so ordinary, but for being ordinary in 1950, before and after some far more successful efforts from the legendary director. The film is notorious among Hitchcock fans for being among the first to outright present footage later revealed to be a lie, something that didn’t go over well then but doesn’t necessarily do any better today. But there are a number of other issues with the film, ranging from severe tonal shifts (“lucky duckies”) to not quite knowing what to do with Marlene Dietrich as she overpowers the rest of the cast but doesn’t have much on her plate. The Hitchcock wit is still present, but seem diluted compared to movies made before and after. It does wrap up in a perfunctory manner, good enough to offer closure, but not well enough to satisfy. No surprise if Stage Fright is consistently ranked in the middle-to-lower tier of Hitchcock movies, considerably lower than you’d expect from his chronology.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, April 2019) There are plenty of good reasons to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but one of the best has to be able to drop “You know, Alfred Hitchcock once did a screwball comedy” in conversation knowing fully well what you’re talking about. Bonus points given for the incredulousness of convincing people that the 1941 Mr. & Mrs. Smith has nothing to do with the 2005 spy-versus-spy action comedy even though you would think that Hitchcock would have been a good fit for that kind of material. No, this version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is about a happily arguing couple that goes through a crisis of un-marriage, romantically bickering in fine screwball comedy fashion until they make up at the end. It feels very similar to other “comedies of remarriage” of the time (allowing the thrill of quasi-adultery without actually having adultery in the eyes of the Production Code) although that comes with a caveat for twenty-first century viewers: Even if the banter is equally distributed between female and male protagonists, the film clearly plays on very 1940s assumptions about gender roles and contrivances. Today’s viewers almost have to be trained to get over some of the material in order to enjoy the rest of it. If you can get past that hurdle, it’s quite a bit of fun: Carole Lombard is quite good here in one of her last films before her untimely death, while Robert Montgomery is a good foil throughout it all. The likable look at upper-class New Yorkers in their apartment, offices and privileged romantic squabbles is very much in-line with the rest of the screwball comedy genre. It’s not always convincing, though (even if you accept its contrivances), and the conclusion is a bit abrupt, but it’s not as if the reconciliation wasn’t already a forgone thing. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is goofy fun, though, and that’s more than you’d expect from Hitchcock.

Lifeboat (1944)

Lifeboat (1944)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) It’s interesting to note that as Alfred Hitchcock grew older and more comfortable with his mastery of the suspense genre, he started placing more emphasis on gimmicky premises, including one-location films—whether we’re talking Rope, Rear Window or the first one of them all… Lifeboat. After a perfunctory prologue, the situation is made clear: An American ship has been sunk by a German U-Boat, and a diverse crew of passengers is now stuck together on a lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As with most lifeboat stories, Lifeboat quickly becomes a study in the ugliness of desperate humans with a side order of sadistic ethics. It’s also quite morally gray, especially toward the ironic end. Still, it does wring quite a bit out of its premise, keeping things interesting for its zippy 80-minute duration all the way to a surprising action-packed climax (“In a word, wow!”)  The obvious temptation in discussing Lifeboat is to focus on the technical challenges of presenting a story entirely set on water—the rear projection, for instance, is obvious but not necessarily intrusive. But there are some fine acting performances to discuss as well. This was the first film in which I can recall being impressed by Tallulah Bankhead, for instance and I can see what the fuss was about—although my sympathies go with the other female character. You can also see Brit Hume in an early role, showing the span of his career after seeing …batteries not included (1987) a few days ago. Also worth noting is Canada Lee’s performance, in a much better-than-average representation for a black character in 1944 Hollywood. Finally, let’s appreciate what’s possibly Hitchcock’s funniest cameo … in a one-location film in the middle of the ocean.

I Confess (1953)

I Confess (1953)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2019) In some ways, it makes sense that I wouldn’t readily know about Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess: After all, it’s definitely in the second tier of his filmography (perhaps even third tier once you exclude his early British films), and it only seldom plays on TV considering the much better choices available in his filmography. On the other hand, come on: A 1950s film (Hitchcock’s best decade) entirely taking place in Québec City? I’d be a poor French-Canadian if I didn’t see the film as soon as it popped up on my radar. So it is that I ended up catching a broadcast on (where else?) a French-Canadian classic movie channel. Truth be told, there’s a reason why this isn’t considered top-tier Hitchcock: It’s a return to the straightforward thrillers that he did in the 1930s rather than the more sophisticated fare that he was accomplishing in the 1950s: Black-and-white cinematography, little discernible humour, somewhat contrived situations without even a layer of plausibility. As far as I can tell, I Confess is set in Québec City because pre-révolution tranquille Québec City was the strongest North American bastion of Catholicism and he wanted a thriller built around the Catholic seal of confession. While the film does have some very nice black-and-white cinematography of 1950s Québec City, it really does not capture anything specific about the Québec City that I know, nor any of the city’s distinctive aspects. While I can’t be sure due to the French-language dub, there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement of language issues—Québec City has a solid history of an English presence, but that’s not a factor here. The plot isn’t particularly believable either (I would expect a dutiful priest to discuss matters of ethics and theology with superiors, for instance) and there’s a big chunk of on-the-nose exposition in the middle of the movie. None of this adds up to anything more than a curio. I Confess is still worth a look if you want to know what Québec City looked like in the early 1950s, but I suspect that it won’t be anyone favourite Hitchcock film—even among French-Canadians.

Topaz (1969)

Topaz (1969)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) In the Alfred Hitchcock filmography, Topaz stands out as one of the least liked later-era Hitchcock films. The reason quickly becomes obvious as the film unspools: Despite a few typical Hitchcockian touches—the long shots, the unconventional presentation, a few striking images—, the entire film feels like a perfunctory slog. Adapted from a Leon Uris novel that presented a complex but ultimately boring spying triangle between France, Cuba and the United States, Topaz fails to take off, fly or land. The emphasis on this being a pseudo-realistic take on events that may have happened seems to be an excuse to try nothing interesting and to mute down anything that could have been exciting from a more fictional story. Hitchcock, clearly, was far more at ease in twisted thrillers than the minutia of romantic espionage thrillers. Even the mere two-hour running time feels punishing considering the slow pacing and striking lack of humour in the results. This is mediocre Hitchcock—polished, but long and scattered to the point where it would be more difficult to guess that this is coming from Hitchcock. I did like some of the early-1960s atmosphere, but otherwise I’m joining the popular opinion: Topaz goes straight to the director’s bottom tier.

Frenzy (1972)

Frenzy (1972)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, November 2018) The early 1970s were a grim and depressing time for American cinema as filmmakers over-embraced the new freedoms of the post-Hays Code era and tried to reach younger audiences with what would have been unthinkable even a few years earlier. The Old Hollywood was gone and the New Hollywood featured grime, gore and nudity. Even old veteran Alfred Hitchcock got in the game in Frenzy, which remains the bloodiest and grimmest of his films. The story takes place in London, where a serial killer is stalking victims through a matchmaking service and framing our protagonist for the murders. As a premise, it’s standard Hitchcock fare. In execution, however, Frenzy plays harder and darker: There are two murders in the movie and while the first one is graphic and grisly and upsetting, the second one is far more muted and far more disturbing as the camera moves away from the crime and into a busy street with passersby unaware that something terrible is taking place right next to them. There is also nudity (rare in the Hitchcock oeuvre) and an overall grittiness that clearly marks this film as being from the 1970s. Frenzy is often described as Hitchcock’s last great movie and while I’ll be able to confirm this only once I see his last film (1976’s Family Plot), it does strike me as an above-average entry for him, and an intriguing glimpse at what kinds of movies he would have kept making had he had lived longer. But make no mistake: Frenzy is grim, and even its humour is more macabre than a relief.

Spellbound (1945)

Spellbound (1945)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Youtube Streaming, November 2018) Lost among the moniker “master of suspense” is the stone-cold fact that Alfred Hitchcock could be downright weird when it suited his purpose. In his quest for unpredictable thrills, Hitchcock’s career is crammed with ludicrous plot devices, unbelievable psychological quirks, formal experimentation and frequent return to basics. Some of his best and worst films are far away from reality, meaning that there’s little relationship between their eccentricity and their success. Sandwiched between the far more prosaic Lifeboat (1944) and Notorious (1946), Spellbound shows Hitchcock diving deep into psychoanalytical plot devices (something that would come up again later in his career) and coming up with surreal results. Literal surrealism, in fact, since there’s a dream sequence midway through the film that was designed by none other than Salvador Dali. The man-on-the-run plot feels familiar to Hitchcock fans (echoed in, say, North by Northwest), but it allows stars Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman to develop some pressurized chemistry. The details of the plot are less important than the meticulous details of its execution, and the way the film becomes just a bit more straightforward in time for its conclusion. There’s a memorable moment near the end that still jolts viewers through a combination of an obvious practical effect and a flash of colour. This isn’t one of Hitchcock’s finest films, but it’s nowhere near the bottom either—although it’s perhaps more fascinating as a prototype of later Hitchcock movies and a reunion of some very different artists than a wholly pleasing thriller in its own right.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2018) Before Alfred Hitchcock immigrated to the United States, before he cast James Steward and Doris Day in the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, there was a black-and-white version of the same story, also directed by Hitchcock in 1934. Now, don’t expect a faithful remake: while both versions share a common premise and significant similarities in their plotting and characters, both films have significant differences as well, which makes it interesting to watch the earlier version even knowing what happened with the later one. Hitchcock famously described the difference between the two versions as “Let’s say the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional” and that describes it rather well—the remake is the one to watch if you only have time for one, but there’s a lot to like in the first one too: Having Peter Lorre as a villain is always fun, and the film doesn’t hold back in featuring a big police shootout as part of its conclusion. There’s some sun-worshipping weirdness in the plot, but much of the film is solid thriller filmmaking, as competent now as it was back then—along with The 39 Steps, it clearly shows Hitchcock working at a high level even at that time in his career.

Rebecca (1940)

Rebecca (1940)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, September 2018) For all of his famed ability at creating and sustaining suspense, Alfred Hitchcock could have a surprisingly romantic streak at times, and few of his movies manage to combine both traits as intriguingly as in Rebecca, perhaps one of the best depiction of the Gothic romance sub-sub-genre ever put on-screen, adapted from Daphne Du Maurier’s still well-known novel. The mystery here is intensely personal, as the new wife of a rich man has trouble measuring up to the example set by her predecessor, the mistress of a vast estate who clearly still has her fans in the household help. Against the lonely and oppressive backdrop of a house far too big for its inhabitants, the heroine starts wondering who’s not out to murder her. It escalates into a fiery climax, but the point of the film, after a sunny romantic first act, is the heroine looking over her shoulder, discovering deeper secrets about her new husband and his house, and sparring with a standoffish housekeeper. Rebecca is noteworthy in Hitchcock’s oeuvre in a few respect: it was his first Hollywood project after emigrating from Great Britain; it was produced/dictated by the legendary producer David O. Selznick and it’s the only Hitchcock film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Both Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier are quite good as the leads, but it’s Judith Anderson who has the best role as the ever-faithful Mrs. Danvers. Otherwise, Rebecca is still good fun to watch, not quite noir but definitely Gothic enough to be visually interesting on top of Hitchcock’s usually skillful direction.

Notorious (1947)

Notorious (1947)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, September 2018) Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. I could just stop here and that’s all you’d need to know about Notorious. If you really want to know more, consider that it’s a romantic suspense thriller in which an American agent asks the daughter of a disgraced man to offer herself as bait to enemy agents, with the complication that he himself is falling for the woman. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been re-used in many, many other movies such as Mission: Impossible II) But, of course, the plot is the least of the film’s strengths, what with Hitchcock gleefully messing with the conventions of the romantic thriller and the limitations of the Hays code to deliver a two-minutes on-screen kiss. It’s good fun, especially when you measure today’s expectations against what’s shown in the film. (Ten minutes in, and there’s a drunk-driving sequence that would be flat-out unacceptable today.) The ending is a bit abrupt but no less satisfying. Grant and Bergman are at their respective best here, even though they’re both playing darker version of their usual persona. Still, Notorious remains a worthy Hitchcock thriller from his black-and-white Hollywood phase.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2018) Alfred Hitchcock made a number of rather good movies in 1930s Great Britain before moving to Hollywood, and The Lady Vanishes does have the hallmarks of many of his later movies: An intriguing premise, a train, some romance, a substantial psychological dimension, comedy, thrilling elements, an action-packed conclusion and a musical leitmotif. The film opens at a leisurely pace (with an opening sequence that features a zoom-in on a building that appears impossible in a pre-helicopter, pre-CGI age … until we realize it’s a scale model), introducing the passengers on a train trip in European countries. The plot gets kicking once our protagonist realizes that a sweet old lady has gone missing from the train and that everyone she meets swears that the lady was never there. They’re lying, of course, and the cover-up soon leads her to a far more dangerous situation. The ending gets out of the train but not in any kind of safety as bullets fly in the middle of the woods. The abrupt ending nonetheless managers to wrap everything up with a laugh. It still works rather well today because Hitchcock’s style defined modern thrillers and his willingness to use genre elements means that the suspense has travelled well throughout the decades. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave make for a cute couple, especially as they pair up to uncover the mystery. This being said, I suspect that Hitchcock students will get the most out of The Lady Vanishes by pointing out how it contains themes and tropes that the director would re-use over his career.

To Catch a Thief (1955)

To Catch a Thief (1955)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, July 2018) Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly and the French Riviera—what more could you ask from To Catch a Thief? Hitchcock here lets go of relentless suspense in order to favour a breezy romantic comedy involving jewels thefts and a former master burglar trying to clear his name. Grant is effortlessly charming as the retired cat-burglar and he sets the mood for the rest of the film. Kelly is blander than expected, although it’s amusing to see her strut around the Riviera given her later position as the Princess of Monaco. John Williams (who always looks like John Cleese to me) also gets a good supporting role as an insurance man helping out the protagonist. Set against the sunny seaside scenery, this is a bit of a departure of Hitchcock, who doesn’t really try for suspense (even when the film could have called for it, such as the final sequence) as much as romantic banter and gentle crime. The atmosphere is well executed and the result is good sunny fun. To modern audiences, To Catch a Thief does have a bit of awkward fifties-style staging—most notably in the nighttime villa burglary sequence, not to mention the quasi-omnipresent rear-screen projection. But, as with the unnatural colours and high-class characters, this is part of the package: watch the film, travel back in time.