AN EXCELLENT FORMULA!

THE HITCHCOCK VILLAINS

This is my contribution to Maddy's 4th Annual Alfred Hitchcock blogathon, click here to learn more...

In 1962, French film director/critic Francois Truffaut spent a week sequestered at Universal Studios with Alfred Hitchcock, a filmmaker he admired extravagantly. There, the two explored each of Hitchcock’s films to date in detail. Discussing Stage Fright (1950), one of his lesser films, Hitchcock remarked, “The greatest weakness of the picture is that it breaks an unwritten law: The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture. That’s a cardinal rule, and in this picture the villain was a flop!” Truffaut was delighted, “The better the villain, the better the picture,” he exclaimed, “that’s an excellent formula!”

Is it? Let’s take a closer look at the villains in some of Hitchcock’s best films.

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ROBERT WALKER: NOT QUITE THE BOY NEXT DOOR

 

Summer Under the Stars, August 9: Robert Walker

From the New York Times, August 30, 1951: "Los Angeles, Aug. 29 - Robert Walker, 32-year-old film star whose own desperate and protracted struggle with dark emotional forces topped any of his conflicts on the screen, died last night while undergoing medical treatment for the latest of many tragic crises in his life."

Though his film career was cut short by his untimely end, Robert Walker had managed to be credited in 20 films during his nine years in Hollywood. Most of these movies are long-forgotten, but two of his best endure: Vincente Minnelli's classic war-time romance, The Clock (1945), with Judy Garland, and the Alfred Hitchcock mid-century masterpiece Strangers on a Train (1951). Both films were featured on Sunday, August 9, as part of Turner Classic Movies' Summer Under the Stars day-long tribute to Robert Walker.

Three (Mesmerizing) Hitchcock Villains Revisited on Halloween

Today (and today only) our friend Lara of Backlots is hosting a one day Hitchcock Halloween blogathon and for the occasion I'm resurrecting an old favorite from the Reel Life archives.

In January 2011 the Classic Movie Blog Association hosted a Hitchcock blogathon and I decided rather than blog about a particular film, I'd take another approach. The result was an exploration of three legendary Hitchcock killers and the actors who portrayed them: Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Robert Walker's Bruno Antony in Strangers on a Train (1951) and Anthony Perkins's Norman Bates in Psycho (1960). I was and still am fascinated by the complex characters of Uncle Charlie, Bruno and Norman - and with the masterful performances of the three daring actors who took their turns as what film critic/historian David Thomson calls Hitchcock's "smiling psychopaths."

Click here to read Three Classic Hitchcock Killers.

For links to Lara's blog and and more on Hitchcock Halloween, click here.

Woody Allen, Master of Suspense?

This post is my contribution to The Best Hitchcock Films Hitchcock Never Made blogathon hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and Classic Becky's Brain Food. Click here for more information and links to participating blogs.

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On the face of it, the only thing Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen seem to have in common is the distinction of being aknowledged as preeminent auteurs. As Michael Newton put it in The Guardian earlier this year, "Along with Alfred Hitchcock, Allen must be the most recognizable director in the history of cinema."

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN...his best-remembered film

 Actor Farley Granger died in New York on Sunday at age 85. He'd begun his career in Hollywood under contract to Samuel Goldwyn and made his first film, The North Star, in 1943. Five years later he worked for the first time with Alfred Hitchcock on one of the director's most interesting exercises, Rope (1948), co-starring James Stewart and John Dall. In 1951 he again worked with Hitchcock and it is for this film, Strangers on a Train, that Granger is best remembered. The actor later left Hollywood to work on the New York stage; in 1986 he won an Obie Award for his performance in "Talley & Son." Though Farley Granger is not the specific focus, I'm posting this previously published reflection on Strangers on a Train in tribute to his life and career.

THREE CLASSIC HITCHCOCK KILLERS

Alfred Hitchcock once remarked that, “in the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog.”  He resisted such clichés, preferring a different kind of heavy, the sort he called “an ordinary human being with failings.”  The director also said, referring to his own work, “the more successful the villain, the more successful the picture,” and though this was not always the case, it held true for some of his best films.

 Three villains who reflect his preferences and support his contention come quickly to mind:

• Charles Oakley, the “Merry Widow” killer in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• Bruno Antony, the “Criss Cross” strangler of Strangers on a Train (1951)
• Norman Bates, the identity-challenged slayer in Psycho (1960)

Shadow of a Doubt: Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten