The Lodger 1926
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Films of the 1920's
At Age 27 after three films (two of which are lost, the other, which was ”The Pleasure Garden”) Hitchcock Culminated his first seminal quintessential film ,it was raised in the schools or Berlin and Was hailed as the Greatest British Picture Ever Made at the time, Its A theme He would Return to many years later in Frenzy made outside the golden age of his successes in Hollywood.
It was Hitchcock first major Success and one of two films in the 20’s (the other was ”Blackmail”) that gave him an enormous reputation , It offers a possible explanation for”Jack the Ripper” and shows the beginning of many Hitchcock trademarks such as the Wrong Man on the run, fetishistic sexuality and murder, Death and Pleasure,
In the Dark Thick Fog, London is awash with fear and loathing over a serial sex murder known as “The Avenger” who targets Blond Woman in particular and leaves their warm corpse lying in the street ,He always strikes on a Tuesday, his Face is covered, and Leaves his calling card always tucked away in the victims pocket,
On a Tuesday night Daisy Bunting(June Tipp) a Model comes home to her little flat she shares with her family, her boyfriend(Malcolm Keen) the local chief of police is there boasting how he’s going to catch the”avenger killer while flipping a coin in the air, Suddenly the Gas meter switches off and while Daisys Father (Arthur Chesney) goes to insert another coin in , The house goes dark All of A sudden their is a knock on the Door and Mrs Bunting (Played beautifully by Marie Ault) Opens the Door to a pall faced Tall man with his face Covered (Ivor Novello) inquiring about the room for let upstairs,The Pale Antisocial Asexual Unnamed man begins his association with the family and starts More trouble than they can possibility imagine, especially when we seems to take Interest in Daisy who Just Happens to be Fair Haired.Suspicion Falls upon the odd Introvert and coincidence seems to follow fact as Tuesday Night Comes Around Again and another scream is heard in the Depths of the London Fog.
Fritz Langs film work work particularly “M” (a film about a child molester and Serial Murderer) made a profound impression on the Work of Hitchcock .It would be a strange coincidence that in his Last American Film Frtiz Lang Would Pay Homage to him in ”Beyond Reasonable Doubt”
This film has all the trademarks of the latter Hitchcock s films and is greatly enhanced by the great use of film montage of German Expressionist Films to which Hitchcock learned his trade and made a point of his style This Film has been Remade four times as recently as 2009 and the second even starred Novello himself however there’s is no comparison There are some who say Hitchcock was always a bit of a silent film director with his use of great lengthy scenes without dialogue, and if you watch this u can see why everything in the stories plot comes across clear as a bell its not a dodgy DW Griffith with too much montage to millions of Credit cards to Tell you whats happening, you can see exactly whats going on, you can tell when something horrible is going to happen to the sweet blond victim , and you are given that same ’suspend belief’ that’s in all the Great Hitchcock Films of his Golden Period .
Its a Silent film but as the voyer you can still see everything that goes on you are looking through a crack in the floor of a second story apartment at a ”Killer” Passing above your head waiting to strike,
Tags: Accusation, Hitchcock, Love Triangle, Murder, Mystery, Noir, Psychological Thriller, Serial Murderer
Notorious 1946
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1940's
The Keys to the Kingdom….
Notorious 1946 is a film Directed By Alfred Hitchcock
Following the conviction of her German father for treason against the U.S., socialite Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman “Casablanca”)becomes a party girl. After a boozie night out she is approached by a undercover government agent T.R. Devlin(Cary Grant”North by Northwest”) who asks her to spy on a group of her father’s Nazi friends operating out of Rio de Janeiro. A romance develops between Alicia and Devlin, but after finding out the lengths Alicia will need to go through and the previous relationship between herself and the man they are trying to track (Claude Rains’ Casablanca) , Devlin cools off , this drives Alicia to the Very heart of Evil being prepared by the breakaway Nazi group and Her life hangs in the balance without anyone to help her.. Its got the humor and the man woman society incapability , with a great heightened suspence especially when Ingrids Veil Starts to slip, watch out also for Leopoldine Konstantin who plays Claude Rains Vindictive dominating mother, perhaps even a vision of what ‘Mrs Bates’ Could have been like when Alive.
This Film is always famous for “That Crain shot” which is one of the most remarkable zooms without editing or special effects in Cinema History.
check it out dont get caught!
Tags: Cary Grant, Espionage, Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, Love Triangle, Mystery, South America, Spy
Rebecca 1940
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1940's
Hitchcocks first American Film flooded with Lesbian Subtext and Gothic Noir Still Based of a Daphne du Maurier ,Novel, the troubled by the death of his first wife Rebecca,(Laurence Olivier r) falls in love with a shy introvert (Joan Fontaine “Suspicion” ). They get married, but the second Mrs. de Winter discovers that Rebecca still has a strong hold on everyone in the house, particularly on Mrs. Denvers, the housekeeper, who begins driving the young wife to madness.
rebecca Is Never seen in this film not even in a but she takes up a great chunk of it , who is this Bisexual human soul cannibal who still casts shadows on all who have lived around her and do you need to kill the living to destroy the dead?
Tags: Based off Novel, Bi, Daphne du Maurier, Franz Waxman, Gothic, Hitchcock, Mansion, Mysterious Death, Mystery, Of Lesbian Interest
The Woman in White 1947
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1940's
Credited as the First Real Mystery Novel and the inspiration for the writing style of Bram Stoker’s ”Dracula” The Woman in White is an Elaborate adaptation of Wilkie Collins’ 1800s novel Directed by peter Godfrey (”The Two Mrs Carrolls”, Hotel Berlin”)
Down and out drawing instructor Walter Hartwright ( Gig Young who won an oscar for ”they shoot horses dont they” 1969)
Walking up the driveway to his new house of residence , runs into a Pale panic stricken woman with dark circles under her eyes dressed entirely in White(Eleanor Parker) she Begs for his protection upon hearing someone coming she dissapers, Hartwright soon encounters a Count Fosco (Sydney Greenstreet’ Casablanca/ Maltese Falcon), a guest at the house looking for a woman whom he says has escaped a mental institution and seeks to bring her care,Hartwright denies seeing her and enters the house , The next morning he meets one of the two girls he is in charge of teaching only to see she is the very vision of the trouble woman he had meet on the drive the night before , a woman named Laura Fairlie , he soon falls for her but unknown to him she is already engaged to be married to a morally bankrupt character named Sir Percival Glyde (John Emery). Marion Holcombe the other girl Hartwright teaches (a gorgeous Alexis Smith who is in the closet in real life and seems to be visually offended by Gigs Advances) comes together with Hartwright to help Laura escape from a destructive marriage,all this time while the mysterious woman in white who roams the gardens at night also seems to have a strong interest in the future of Laura Fairlie.
Hartwright must find what the dark connection is that ties Laura and Fosco and ‘The Woman In White” together.
Its got some weird Gothic appeal and some great suspense , as well as sporting a pre Nancy drew character in Marion.
Although its been adapted before and since to film and tv notably in 1982 with Costumes by Edith Head in her last work on screen and in 1997 as well as a musical version by Andrew Lloyd Webber
this is the definitive version..
filmed in 1946, but Shelved strangely until 1948 ,It sports a score by Max Steiner (Gone With the Wind) and remains an benchmark of Gothic Horror.Eleanor Parker plays a Duel role that seems to for-run her Multiple personality character in Lizzy 1957 ten years later,Sydney Greenstreet , Usually ‘partnered’ with Peter Lorre holds his own here playing his usual sinister ”beadie eyed” self and has one of the most humorous unintentional punchlines in cinema history ”I can’t possibly be Evil,,, Im.. too fat!” and a Mostly Silent but Important role played by Anges Moorehead (Samantha’s mum in Bewitched)
As a story its well put together with twists filmed in lucious black and white , it still holds your attention
Tags: Based off Novel, Gothic, Madness, Max Steiner, Mysterious Death, Mystery, Victorian Era
The Lost Moment 1947
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1940's
Directed by Martin Gabel
based off a Henry James Short Story
which is in turn based The actual incident involved a cache of love and private letters of by Lord Byron.
Robert Cummings (Dial M for Murder)is a publisher who is trying to find a trove of love letters that were supposedly written by one of early 19th Century great romantic poets, Jeffrey Aspern. - a sudo Lord Byron
He ends up in Venice, where he enters the house of Aspern’s still living lover over 100 years old (Agnes Moorehead) and her niece (Susan Hayward),where these famous letters are kept hidden away , as a lodger He succeeds better than he expects, because the letters do exist - but to get to them he has to be nicer and nicer to the niece who is a hard cold woman.During the Night there are noises of haunting piano scales echoing over the flowing streets of venice, there are things seen that should never been seen or heard of long buried in this Gothic drama
that brings the dead and the living together,
its really worth a look
Tags: Based off Novel, Henry James, Lost Love, Mysterious Death, Mystery, Poetry, Venice, Victorian Era
