Editor's note: This is part two of Joe Riddle's film-by-film synopsis of Alfred Hitchcock's work in Hollywood. Part one ran Jan. 3.
Moving to Paramount in 1954 gave Alfred Hitchcock more control in his productions. He also made some of his best films there.
Starting with Rear Window, considered by many as his best film, Hitchcock gives us a photographer, and eventual voyeur, played by James Stewart with a broken leg, stuck in a wheelchair. As he can't leave his apartment, he starts watching (spying on) his neighbors to keep from being bored. And during that watching, he thinks a neighbor has killed his wife and cut her up for easy disposal. Also in the cast are gorgeous Grace Kelly, witty Thelma Ritter and dour Wendell Corey. Raymond Burr, pre-Perry Mason, is the neighbor under suspicion. A classic in every sense of the word.
The year 1955 was the year Hitchcock started his long-running TV anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It ran for 268 episodes in a 30-minute format. In 1962 it expanded to an hour (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour) and ran for 93 episodes through May 1965. And Hitch himself introduced every episode with deadpan humor. The villains may not have been punished for their misdeeds during the show, but Hitchcock would reveal their eventual capture and incarceration at the end -- to please the censors.
Grace Kelly again graced a Hitchcock film, this time in To Catch a Thief, which was -- in Technicolor and VistaVision -- a romantic thriller set in Monaco with Cary Grant as the thief in question. Not many chills but lots of suggestive (for 1955) dialogue to satisfy the masses. Kelly would meet and eventually marry the man who ran the country, Prince Rainier, while filming this.
The Trouble With Harry, a black comedy with deadly undertones, began Hitchcock's relationship with music composer Bernard Herrmann. And also the film career of Shirley MacLaine, who was under contract to Hal Wallis/Paramount. This was one of Hitchcock's few comedies and one of his favorites. The plot concerns a few people in a small town who each thinks he or she has killed Harry. The odd musical score, strange plot and the beautiful Technicolor/VistaVision New England scenery help make this film so memorable.
Moving from New Hampshire to Marrakesh, Hitchcock remade one of his early British productions, The Man Who Knew Too Much, which has divided critics for years. Some prefer the original, some the remake. James Stewart and Doris Day play a couple in French Morocco with their son. They meet a mysterious Frenchman and the adventure begins. When that same man is stabbed in a marketplace and before he dies, he whispers to Stewart a plot to assassinate a high-ranking politician back in England. The intrigue intensifies as their son is kidnapped so Stewart and Day won't reveal the secret. Day gets to sing what would become her signature song, the Oscar-winning "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)." Another great Bernard Herrmann score.
Owing Warner Bros. one more film under his old contract, Hitchcock made the docudrama The Wrong Man. Henry Fonda, Vera Miles and Anthony Quayle starred in a true account of an innocent man accused of armed robbery. Maxwell Anderson wrote the screenplay with Angus MacPhail about the emotional toll the trial takes on the family. Often overlooked, The Wrong Man is well worth seeing. Love that Herrmann jazz music.
One of his finest -- and most misunderstood -- films is Paramount's Vertigo. I saw this film (or part of it) on Saturday Night at the Movies in 1965. I say "part" because I was at a boarding school at the time and the dorm counselor insisted we got to bed at 9 p.m. sharp. So, I missed a goodly part of that film and never saw the complete version until many years later. It is in my Top 10 of best Hitchcock films. What amazes me is this was not a critical or commercial success when released in 1958. Herrmann's lovely and haunting score (with thanks to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde) helps make it the classic it has become. Even though Vera Miles was unavailable, Kim Novak is surprisingly good as the mystery woman James Stewart falls for. (She was never a major talent, but Hitchcock brought out her otherworldly allure.) And Barbara Bel Geddes supplies able support. If you've never seen it, do so now.
Also one of his best films is North by Northwest, made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1959. Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason star in a thriller that takes Grant from New York to Rapid City and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The story is basically a mistaken identity plot wherein the bad guys assume Grant is a spy (which he is not). There's a murder at the United Nations, and he is the alleged culprit. Grant chases the "real" secret agent across the country to clear his name. The tense atmosphere is relieved every so often by sophisticated dialogue, humor and lots of double entendres between Grant and Saint. Once again, Herrmann's score is one of the highlights. And ask yourself, "Why is that crop duster dusting where there ain't no crops?"
To say Hitchcock's Psycho (in 1960) was controversial is an understatement. The landmark film scared the bejesus out of everyone who saw it. It set the bar for all terror films that followed. And for years, according to some sources, many people refused to take showers after seeing embezzler Janet Leigh's character knifed to death in the bathroom of room No. 1 of the Bates Motel. (Leigh herself has said she only took baths after seeing the film.) Basically, Leigh's character steals $80,000 from her real estate firm in order to run off with her boyfriend, played by John Gavin. When she never makes it to Gavin's house, her sister (Vera Miles) sets out to find her before the police do. She even hires a private detective (Martin Balsam) to find her. He ends up at the Bates Motel where owner Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, eventually gets him out of the way. According to IMDb, "Paramount Pictures gave Hitchcock a very small budget [about $800,000] with which to work, because of their distaste with the source material. They also deferred most of the box-office take to Hitchcock, thinking the movie would fail. When the [black-and-white] film became a sleeper hit, Hitchcock made a fortune. ... His personal earnings from this movie exceeded $15 million." Another superb Herrmann score, which has been copied many times since. And remember, a boy's best friend is his mother.
As he got older, Hitchcock slowed down. After Psycho, he took three years to produce another classic in terror, The Birds. And he had signed a new contract with Universal, where he would make all six of his next films. In The Birds, people are not the perpetrators of terror. (On second thought, maybe they are.) A young, rich and carefree woman plays a prank on a stranger and is severely punished for it. She and the townspeople where she is visiting are all threatened with extinction. And that threat comes from our fine feathered friends. Without CGI, Hitchcock and a lot of trained birds have managed to infiltrate our safe space. And make us think twice about our environment. Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy and especially Suzanne Pleshette take the viewer on a trip through hell. And this time, without Herrmann's music. "Did you hear something in the attic?"
In 1964, he made Marnie, which paired Hedren and Sean Connery, who was having a banner year with this film Woman of Straw and perhaps his biggest hit, Goldfinger. The part Hedren plays was written for Grace Kelly, who had worked for Hitchcock in three films before quitting to marry a prince. Princess Grace had to decline, citing her country's displeasure with their princess acting in films again and playing such an unsympathetic part. Hedren was perfect as the con woman who keeps stealing, with one goal: to make her mother love her. Connery catches on to her nefarious schemes and blackmails her into marrying him. Kind of makes you wonder just who the villain is here. Diane Baker plays the one person who could spoil everyone's plans. Herrmann's final score for Hitchcock is a good one. Especially the fox hunt scene. "There. There now."
Universal wanted star power to ensure success and Hitchcock got Paul Newman and Julie Andrews for his next thriller, Torn Curtain. He didn't want either. And the two were just mediocre in a story of a scientist (Newman) who "defects" to East Germany to obtain secrets from them for the United States. His oblivious girl Friday (Andrews) tags along and thereby puts a kink in his plans. What should have been a great film is only passable as the two have little chemistry together. The director and Newman did not get along. And the original music score by Herrmann was scratched and replaced by a more pedestrian one by John Addison. (Universal wanted a hit single from the score and Herrmann was not inclined to write one.) The only real thrills occur in a scene at a farmhouse wherein a farmer's wife and Newman have to kill a KGB agent (Wolfgang Kieling) who has been following him. And they can't make any sound lest the cab driver waiting outside will hear it and call the authorities. The use of gas to kill the agent is truly frightening.
Hitchcock said he was not satisfied with this film and that he wanted Cary Grant or Anthony Perkins to play the lead. And he wanted Eva Marie Saint, Samantha Eggar or Tippi Hedren as the female accomplice. A real disappointment all around, but it did make Universal a tidy profit.
A Leon Uris novel about Cold War spies was the next Hitchcock film, Topaz, released in 1969 and not a critical success. Considered his biggest failure in that it cost $4 million and only brought in about $1 million. No big stars this time, and only John Forsythe recognizable to American audiences. Uris was hired to write the screenplay but was fired as Hitchcock didn't like what he had written. Another big disappointment for Hitchcock and his fans. This was his longest film at 143 minutes. It was edited to 127 minutes but still to no avail. Boring.
Fortunately for Hitchcock fans, he returned to England in 1972 to make his last good film, Frenzy. This R-rated thriller about a serial killer has no big-name stars, but it has a good script and actors who could pull it off. The plot involves an innocent man the police are trying to apprehend (sound familiar?) who is determined to prove his innocence. The film wowed the critics and audiences, who contributed to its $16 million box office gross. But this is the only Hitchcock film to show nudity and extreme violence. The language was a bit salty as well.
Hitchcock's last film was the thriller/black comedy Family Plot. Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern were good as the leads, but Karen Black and William Devane as the bad guys were boring. As with his last three (not counting Frenzy) films, this should have been so much better. But a trifle is better than a bore, I suppose.
The director more or less retired after Family Plot. He maintained an office at Universal but never made another film. He died in 1980.
MovieStyle on 01/17/2020