I blogged about Alfred Hitchcock in honor of his 108th birthday at Poe's Deadly Daughters today.Anyone out there have a favorite Hitchcock movie? I love Rear Window, but I think Rebecca is my favorite. And that way I'm paying tribute to Daphne Du Maurier, too, whose book is even better than the film with Fontaine and Olivier.
Check them out!
7 comments:
Everyone out here must have a favorite Hitchcock movie! For years, mine was Strangers on a Train. The last few years, it's been Rear Window.
And here's a Hitchcock birthday surprise: A recent London stage production turned Hitchcock's movie version of The Thirty-Nine Steps into a knockabout farce. Comments here, it you'd care for a look: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/2007/05/39-steps-on-stage.html
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
One of the most wonderful things about Rear Window, aside from the suspense, is the almost ethereal beauty of Grace Kelly, one of my childhood icons.
She and Jimmy Stewart share a great kiss in Rear Window. And surely you remember this scene:
Lisa: Reading from top to bottom: (She turns on one lamp light.) Lisa
(She turns on a second lamp.) Carol
(She turns on a third lamp.) Fremont
One of the great things about Hitchcock is what he could bring to works he adapted. The Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter characters were his (or at least the screenplay's) additions. They are not in "It Has to Be Murder," the story on which Rear Window is based.
Hitchcock was one of the great comedy directors, not just because he could be so funny, but because many of his best movies were comedies in the Shakespearean sense -- all the right lovers get paired up at the end.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot
That's an interesting parallel!
And speaking of Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock worked with him when he was older, and out of his young boy, "Aw, Shucks," sort of films, but I thought Hitch made both Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart seem very attractive as older men in lead roles--men with secrets and regrets, and yet the same desire as anyone to be happy.
I've never read Rebecca, but I recall a comment by Hitchcock that he preferred adapting "popular" books to adapting great ones because a great author made a story his or her own. Of course, he did adapt Joseph Conrad.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I forgot to add that I thought Hitchcock drew a great performance from Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. It takes talent to spend an entire movie in a wheelchair (except when he gets a rubdown) and still hold the screen, and Stewart does that.
Jimmy Stewart had very expressive eyes--as every good actor should.
I can't recommend Rebecca highly enough--although you have to enjoy the first person and appreciate a gothic style.
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