Saturday, March 23, 2013

ALFRED HITCHCOCK: AMERICAN FILMOGRAPHY



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Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman, Robert Benchley, Edmund Gwenn, Eduardo Ciannelli, Martin Kosleck, Harry Davenport

Admittedly, partly due to the presence of Joel McCrea, this is one of my favorite Hitchcock films. As with "Saboteur," Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper (and in this case, Joan Fontaine - he wanted Barbara Stanwyck for "Saboteur) but couldn't get them.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson, Philip Merivale, Lucile Watson, William Tracy, Charles Halton, Esther Dale, Emma Dunn

Because it is somewhat unique in Hitchcock's works, there has been a continuous attempt in recent years to upgrade public opinion about MR. AND MRS. SMITH. Hitchcock explained to Francois Truffault in HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAULT that he always wanted to work with Carole Lombard, and she prevailed on him to do this film with her.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, Auriol Lee, Reginald Sheffield, Leo G.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane, Otto Kruger, Alan Baxter, Alma Kruger, Ian Wolfe, Vaughan Glazer, Dorothy Peterson

Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur is not one of his best-regarded films; made between two vastly more popular and critically praised pictures, Suspicion and Shadow Of a Doubt, it's generally regarded as a lesser effort.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, MacDonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Janet Shaw, Estelle Jewell, Eily Malyon

Shadow of a Doubt is perhaps Hitchcock's first real masterpiece - a more mature film than The 39 Steps or Rebecca. It is also incidentally his favorite of his own films.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, William Bendix, Hume Cronyn, Mary Anderson, Walter Slezak, Henry Hull, Canada Lee, Heather Angel

John Steinbeck's story was cleverly adapted by Jo Swerling, although it appears Ben Hecht was also a collaborator in the screen play. Without a doubt, Alfred Hitchcock scored another hit with "Lifeboat". For being done in one set, the boat, the movie never feels claustrophobic.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, John Emery, Norman Lloyd, Bill Goodwin, Steven Geray, Donald Curtis

In Green Manors mental institution, Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is initiating her career of psychoanalyst and is considered a cold woman that has no time for love by her colleagues. When the head of the hospital Dr. Murchison (Leo G.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Leopoldine Konstantin, Reinhold Schünzel, Moroni Olsen, Ivan Triesault, Alex Minotis, Wally Brown

One of Hitchcock's most thrilling examinations of psychosexual ambiguity, with the Grant-Bergman relationship veering from an initial meet-cute to genuine (beautifully conveyed) mutual delight to sadistic manipulation - he makes a whore of her and forces the fact again and again into her face, seldom giving an inch
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore, Louis Jourdan, Alida Valli, Leo G. Carroll, Joan Tetzel, Isobel Elsom

Why does this movie seem so dull? The acting isn't bad once you get past Gregory Peck's British accent. None of the performances are outstanding, they're just not bad. The roles restrict the performers' range. I think Alida Valli smiles once. Louis Jourdan seems to have only one expression, a bitter, barely controlled anger.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Joan Chandler, Douglas Dick, Constance Collier

"Rope" is one of Hitchcock's most unfortunately overlooked films. It doesn't have the depth of some of his other works (such as "Vertigo" or "Psycho"), but its just as engrossing and entertaining. Hitchcock could take such a seemingly simple premise and effectively stretch it out to a feature length and have none of it seem like filler.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker, Denis O'Dea, Jack Watling, Harcourt Williams, John Ruddock, Bill Shine

Transatlantic Pictures (Hitchcock's own production company) must've rubbed their hands with glee when they decided to co-produce this film with Warner Bros.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh, Miles Malleson, André Morell, Patricia Hitchcock

With such an unusual set of components, it was probably inevitable that "Stage Fright" would be a little uneven, but most of it works well enough. By Hitchcock's standards, it's average at best, but it is still an entertaining movie with an interesting story and a number of good sequences.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Howard St. John, Laura Elliott, Marion Lorne

One would have expected Hitchcock's return to major studio filmmaking to err on the side of chastened caution. Surely few expected his most riotous, unrestrained film, a gleeful melange of vicious black comedy, exciting suspense, mocking manipulation, and astonishing flights of fancy. But that is precisely what they got: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne, O.E. Hasse, Dolly Haas, Roger Dann, Charles André, Judson Pratt

This may not be one of Hitchcock's greatest movies, but it's still a great film, since it was made by the master, who somehow managed to survive beautifully in Hollywood for many years.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Leo Britt, Patrick Allen, George Leigh

After earning an Academy award nomination for her performance in John Ford's 1953 tale of romance and adventure, "Mogambo", the beautiful actress Grace Kelly proved that she was way more than just a pretty face and that there was real talent behind her image.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Wendell Corey

Alfred Hitchcock is considered by most to be the master of suspense. I believe he was also a master of understanding human nature. He intuitively understood that human beings are voyeurs by nature, not in the perverted sense, but in the curious sense.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Jerry Mathers, Mildred Dunnock, Royal Dano

The Trouble With Harry is a comedy film about a dead body. Alfred Hitchcock makes the macabre concept deliciously funny and entertaining in his unique style.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Brigitte Auber, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vanel

This is probably Hitchcock's most beautiful movie. Grace Kelly is well (but of course decorously) displayed in delicate and perfectly fitted summer dresses and evening gowns (designed by Edith Head) that show off her exquisite arms and shoulders while accentuating her elegant neck and jaw line--and, as she turns for the camera, the graceful line of her back.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles, Ralph Truman, Daniel Gélin, Alan Mowbray

In 1956, Alfred Hitchcock owed a film to Paramount Studios and was given the task of remaking not just any film, but one of his own. That film was his 1934 movie "The Man Who Knew Too Much" which starred Leslie Banks and Edna Best as vacationing parents who unwillingly become involved in an international espionage involving an assassination plot.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, Nehemiah Persoff, Charles Cooper, Richard Robbins

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After sitting through The Wrong Man, it puzzles me greatly why this film isn't seen by more, or rated as highly as some of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

James Stewart, Kim Novak, Henry Jones, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Raymond Bailey, Henry Jones, Ellen Corby, Lee Patrick

I get a bit tongue-tied talking about Hitchcock's greatest movies because they are just so remarkable, so astonishing, so entertaining, so multi-levelled, that it's very difficult to put into words what makes them great.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll, Josephine Hutchinson, Philip Ober, Edward Platt, Adam Williams, Jessie Royce Landis

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Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" is one of the best films in his long and distinguished career.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles, John McIntire, Martin Balsam, Simon Oakland, Patricia Hitchcock

Yes, everything you've heard is true. The score is a part of pop culture. The domestic conflict is well-known. But nothing shocks like the experience itself. If you have not seen this movie, do yourself a favor. Stop reading thse comments, get up, take a shower, then GO GET THIS MOVIE. Buy it, don't rent. You will not regret it.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Doreen Lang, Ruth McDevitt, Joe Mantell

One of Hitchcock's most enigmatic and fascinating films, a true puzzle without an answer. Hitchcock chucks away all but the barest conceit of DuMaurier's story, and instead constructs an elegant little comedy of manners so dry it'll sting your lips.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham, Alan Napier, Bruce Dern, Mariette Hartley

Much more so than VERTIGO, which,even though it deals with one man's neurosis, is a classic "whodunit". Jimmy Stewart's coming to grips with his fear of heights at the end of VERTIGO is merely an icing of suspense on an otherwise well baked murder mystery.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjoerg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova, David Opatoshu, Ludwig Donath, Wolfgang Kieling

Paul Newman nuclear physicist has volunteered for an unusual espionage mission. He's to fake a defection in order to get close to East German scientist Ludwig Donath and find out what advances he personally has given the Soviet bloc. As he says to agent Mort Mills, he's one of the few people in the world who would know exactly what to look for.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, John Vernon, Karin Dor, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Claude Jade, Michel Subor, Per-Axel Arosenius, Roscoe Lee Browne

Like so many Hollywood talents, Hitchcock was stereotyped. Also like so many Hollywood talents, whenever he tried to escape stereotyping, he would get criticized. That certainly was the case with TOPAZ.
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Alec McCowen, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Billie Whitelaw, Vivien Merchant

Those who blame Hitchcock for the intensity of the rape/strangulation scene should realize that he wrote neither the screenplay (which was written by playwright Anthony Shaffer, best known for his marvelous comic/mystery "Sleuth") nor the novel upon which it was based ("Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square" by Arthur La Bern)...and that the scene in the f
 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane, Ed Lauter, Cathleen Nesbitt, Katherine Helmond

This film gets a bad rap because it was not a suspenseful blockbuster in the vein of "Psycho" and "The Birds". The fact is, is that after Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedrin did battle with seagulls in 1963, Hitchcock never again approached the heights of a major director and he dramatically slowed down his film output.


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