Miracle on 34th Street would probably come second to It’s a Wonderful Life as the most popular Christmas rerun and, although maybe not as legendary as Capra’s fairytale, the film is not the slighest bit less enjoyable and delicious.

The film has Edmund Gwenn, in an Oscar-winning performance, going to trial to prove the existence of Santa Claus to little Natalie Wood, already a rebel without a cause at the tender age of 9.

Wood is not the rookie of the game here, though. The great Thelma Ritter, who was later to become one of America’s finest character actresses of all time, did her film debut in this film. Don’t look for her name. Her bit part as a no nonsense shop assistant didn’t earn her a place in the credits, but set the ball rolling for a magnificent career.

Brussels CINEMATEK offers two possibilities to revisit or discover this great American classic on Dec 16 and Dec 20, both at 3 pm.

Here’s the extremely original and star-packed trailer of the movie. Don’t stop it. Anne Baxter, Peggy Ann Garner and the other celebrities don’t go so far as to spoil anything. Enjoy.

A.



The Misfits is an interesting motion picture for a number of reasons, the least of which being what occurs on screen. It is a fascinating piece of movie history in that its stars and its director were caught in almost a constant state of turmoil, drunkenness and drug abuse during its filming. That it was made at all should probably be considered a Hollywood miracle.

The Misfits was directed by John Huston, who spent most of filming either gambling or drinking. Word was that he even fell asleep on the set on occasion and that the production company had to cover some of his gambling losses. Such is the trouble with filming in Reno, I suppose. Star Marilyn Monroe was well on her way down, what with her relationship to writer Arthur Miller unravelling and her descent into drugs and alcohol becoming more drastic by the day.

Monroe stars as Roslyn Taber and she’s a divorcee. She’s bunked in with Isabelle Steers (Thelma Ritter), who’s giving her some life advice and acting like a mothering figure. Isabelle and Roslyn come into contact with Guido (Eli Wallach), a tow-truck driver and pilot who wants to show Roslyn the country and a good time. This leads to introductions with Guido’s friend and business partner, the cowboy Gay Langland (Clark Gable).

The film meanders around various misadventures and misunderstandings before it acquires another member to this misfit party in rodeo rider and drifter Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift). This forms somewhat or a romantic square, I suppose, and Roslyn finds herself in the middle of various quandaries before the movie settles on the issue of mustang hunting as the big issue of the day.

The Misfits isn’t a particularly good movie, but as I mentioned before it is a very interesting one. It gains ground in its last third thanks in large part to the mustang hunting sequences. Gable insisted upon doing all of his own stunts, which included being dragged 400 feet across a lakebed. As many know, he suffered a heart attack two days after filming ended on The Misfits and died 10 days later.

Monroe is the real story here, however. Shooting was troublesome for her and for those who had to rely on her, as she often didn’t show up to the set. Huston shut production down in 1960 to send Monroe to a hospital for detox and used soft focus on her close-ups. Amazingly enough, her performance is rather solid and tinged with pieces of sadness that were no doubt in relation to her struggles off-screen.

The Misfits is worth seeing for no other reason than it marks a bit of Hollywood history. It is the last film for both Gable and Monroe, two bona-fide Hollywood legends. Structurally, however, the picture is a bit of a mess. It meanders a lot and can be difficult to get a read on, especially given how Huston covers the romantic angles. Some scenes feel rushed, as though relationships blossom suddenly and without reason.

In the end, The Misfits is a motion picture that certainly lives up to its title. It is a strange movie, filled with heartbreakingly real performances. Watching it can, at times, feel like watching people drowning in their own existences. Knowing Gable and Monroe’s fates, some of the scenes take on an unintentionally bittersweet quality that gives the movie weight that it otherwise may not have had.

6.1/10

Trailer:

posted by: chemalopez

Cuarto paso, incluir un carácter burlesco

En la mayor parte de las películas de Hitchcock, uno (como mínimo) de sus personajes nunca se toma en serio el asesinato, llegando incluso a burlarse.
El ejemplo más memorable lo encontramos, probablemente,  en la película Sombra de una duda (Shadow of a Doubt, 1943), cuando Henry Travers y Hume Cronyn intercambian, durante todo el relato, diferentes formas de asesinar sin ser descubiertos. Sus conversaciones sobre el “asesinato perfecto” mutuo, suponen un gran contrapeso de todas sus conversaciones al clima de tensión que va en aumento en la historia. El resultado es una película híbrida entre la comedia y suspense.

En Extraños en un tren (Strangers on a train, 1951) el desequilibrado personaje interpretado por Robert Walker enseña a una mujer entrada en años cómo se debe estrangular. La escena es demoledora: Bruno Anthony – que así se llama el psicópata – entabla conversación en una fiesta con dos ostentosas ancianas, que ríen intentado averiguar cuál es la forma más eficiente para cometer un asesinato. Desconocen, como casi todos los invitados, que tienen enfrente a un verdadero asesino, el cual se ofrece a enseñarles un método. Ellas acceden, aún entre risas. Pero, y aquí es donde Hitchcock es mucho Hitchcock, surge algo inesperado que devuelve a la anciana a la “verdadera realidad” del asesinato: un juego ya no tan divertido.

Aunque recomiendo verla entera, dejo la escena descrita de Strangers on a train.

Veámos otros ejemplos. En La soga (Rope, 1948), Constance Collier se ríe histéricamente de Rupert’s (James Stewart) ante la idea de asesinar a personas por deporte. De nuevo, una mujer de edad avanzada toma la idea del asesinato como algo absurdo e improbable.

Y un ejemplo más conocido, en La ventana indiscreta (Rear window, 1954) tenemos a Thelma Ritter reaccionando ante la posibilidad de un asesinato al otro lado del patio.

Incredibly dated and oddly creepy, Pillow Talk is a vehicle for Rock Hudson’s good looks and Doris Day’s charm. Directed by Michael Gordon, the picture floats a truly weird story along with some outdated concepts about sex, women and relationships. It also features one of the most invasive and obnoxious soundtracks I’ve come across in quite some time.

This is 1950s gloss working its magic, attempting to convince us that there’s a reason for the attraction between the characters and that the good looks and charm of even the most obnoxious, creepy, sexist individuals should be enough for love. We’re supposed to fall in love with the coupling of Day and Hudson because the music says so, not because it actually makes any sense. In reality, what happens in Pillow Talk is quite sickening.

Day stars as Jan Morrow, a successful interior decorator. There’s a problem with her, though, as she lives alone and goes out and has fun. See, she’s much too old to be an independent woman with a good job and a nice apartment, so something’s gotta give. Her alcoholic maid (Thelma Ritter) makes sure that Jan knows her life is incomplete, too, which is always helpful advice when coming from someone whose drinking problem is played up for shiny chuckles.

Hudson is Brad Allen, a Broadway composer and “playboy.” He and Jan share a party line (Google it) and they don’t like each other much because Jan keeps wanting to make calls while Hudson is courting various women via telephone. One day, Brad sees Jan dancing and falls in love with her. He does what any normal person would do and invents a personality to court her so that she won’t know he’s the guy on the party line. Oh, and he also dupes a friend (Tony Randall) in the process while taking advantage of pretty much everyone who crosses his path. What a charming man!

That Brad completely fakes his way into Jan’s life is treated with the utmost respect. His square jaw and broad shoulders and good looks tell us that he’s doing the right thing, after all, and the annoying music reinforces the point. To make matters worse, Brad’s interest in Jan seems slightly predicated on the fact that his friend is in love with her. That piques his interest to discover who this delicate little flower might be and, before you can say “split screen,” we’re off on a road to romantic entanglement.

All of this might actually be hilarious were it not so creepy to think about. Jan has a streak of rebellion and independence that must be dealt with, which is, at least in part, why Rock Hudson’s character has to enter into the fray of fakery. When he essentially kicks her door down and abducts her towards the end of the picture, he’s doing the poor clueless dame a favour, after all, and she’s more than happy to oblige even if he has a creepy switch in his pad that locks the door. Try not to put too much thought into the fact that a policeman simply chuckles as Rock passes carrying a screaming Day, too. It’s the 50s.

The conception that draws this film to a close is downright disgusting. Day’s character is being “dealt with” because she had the audacity to right the wrongs against her in the way she knew how. Hudson’s Brad essentially gets everything in the end, while Day’s Jan is barefoot, pregnant and loving it. It is the ultimate reflection of vile, puritanical 1950s values and reeks of sexism and cruelty.

On top of all that, it’s actually a pretty horrible picture for other reasons. The Frank De Vol score is absolutely terrible, for one thing, and dominates each scene with its invasive need to pile instruments on top of other instruments. It’s one of the most obnoxious displays of music in a picture I’ve heard in quite some time. And the use of split screen and fade shots is just cheesy and tacky, too.

Overall, there’s really no good reason to see Pillow Talk. It only reinforces why progress is so important in today’s world and remains an example of a time and an attitude that keeps women in their places. It calls on a time when men were men, even if they were gay men pretending to be straight men mocking gay men, and has little to no redeeming value either as a film or as a piece of art.

0.7/10

Trailer:

Hmm.  Those are some good ideas you’ve thrown out there, Russ, but I’m not sure that they would pass muster under the Academic Integrity Guidelines at Overlord Academy — which state, uh, something about how you can’t submit the same work for two classes, blah blah blah.  I wasn’t really paying much attention at that meeting, to be honest.  But seeing as how you already have to read Stendahl for your job, isn’t that, like, totally no fair?  Why don’t we both set out to do some long, quasi-conceptual sweatshirt project so that I can be the one who gets to coast on my already-established interests?

Actually, since I was thinking that a movie deal would have to involve some kind of personal conflict and redemption arc, there may be cinema gold to be found here in this little disagreement over what kind of wizards we should be.  So how about this:  a movie based on a book based on a blog about what we should be blogging about!  I know, right?  Kind of like Adaptation, or some other movie that probably came out after I stopped watching movies.

So that’s a little too risky, you say?  Well, then, I’ve got other ideas, and plenty of them.  The more conventional story arcs  involve either a buddy theme (I’d say a road trip, but hasn’t that been done to death?) or a quirky Facebook/Twitter/whatever-era rom com thingie.  I realize I’d have to be a secondary character in the rom com, since, dedicated as I am to this undertaking, I’m not quite ready to abandon my spouse and kid in pursuit of even an inevitable and ultra-lucrative book/movie deal.  In fact, I might even prefer being a snappy sidekick or wingman character.  The only question is, am I more this type or this type?

That was a trick question, of course, since everybody knows I am both those people rolled into one.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that if our blogging experience helps you find True Love with your own MPDG, our path to fame and fortune will be a smooth one.  Also, you know how obsessed I am with internet dating, so maybe that could figure into the mix somehow.  Oooh, oooh, I know, I know!  We set up some situation where, like, you have an internet dating profile and I somehow, like, pick the girls?  Or something?  And it somehow has to do with our blog?  I’m a little fuzzy on the details, and maybe it’s just the old-fashioneds talking, but I have this gut feeling that this could work.  Maybe as a reality show?

God, we’re amazing when we put our heads together.  That expensive education of ours really paid off, Russ.

Am I right or am I right?

Il y a certains réalisateurs comme Anthony Mann, Jules Dassin ou Jacques Tourneur qui restent inexplicablement confidentiels alors qu’ils méritent d’être reconnus par un public beaucoup plus large. Fuller fait partie de ceux-là et cela m’attriste énormément. Il me fallait donc ici, à ma modeste échelle, réparer ce qui est à mon sens une véritable injustice. Le port de la drogue (titre français stupide tant il n’a rien à voir avec le film) est un film les plus célèbres de son réalisateur autant que du film noir.

Au départ il y a le vol d’un portefeuille dans le métro de New York. Le pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) dérobe la jeune Candy (Jean Peters). Ce qu’il ignore c’est que le portefeuille contient un microfilm contenant des informations secrètes que les communistes pourraient exploiter (c’est là qu’on mesure les différences entre la version française et l’originale – pour éviter des problèmes d’exploitations dûs à un caractère anti-rouges trop marqué, les exploitants en France décidèrent de remplacer les communistes pour des trafiquants de drogue). Se croyant en position de force, il décide de marchander sa découverte mais ne mesure pas le déchaînement de violence que cela va engendrer. L’agent communiste auquel Candy est lié est prêt à tout pour récupérer le microfilm. Il tue Moe, la sympathique moucharde vendeuse de cravate (interprétée par Thelma Ritter) et se lance à la poursuite de Skip McCoy après avoir tenté de tuer de Candy. Tout cela donnant lieu à des scènes assez remarquables (on pense en particulier à celle où sur un bateau, le personnage de Widmark vient récupérer le corps de sa vieille amie, Moe, afin de lui éviter le terrible anonymat de la fosse commune).

Généralement considéré comme un classique du film noir, Pickup on South Street ne manque pas de qualités. Fuller, à la manière d’un Dassin, filme l’intrigue aussi bien que l’environnement. A sa caméra n’échappent pas les bas-fonds auxquels le réalisateur à le bon goût d’opposer la ville, froide et impersonnelle. Pas de drogue donc, nous sommes à l’époque en plein maccarthysme et les films anti-cocos sont monnaie courante, mais bien un brulôt. Prestation une nouvelle fois remarquable de Richard Widmark malgré, semble-t-il, ses difficiles relations avec Fuller. Faisons fi de son aspect politique tendancieux, ce film, d’une violence rare pour l’époque, ne doit en aucun cas être ignoré.

With GM dropping the other shoe today, I can’t help remembering a snippet of dialogue from Hitchock’s “Rear Window.” Here’s Thelma Ritter as a private nurse talking about a former patient:

“Kidney ailment, they said. Nerves, I said. And I asked myself, ‘What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?’ Overproduction, I says. Collapse. When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go.”

Especially the workers at the roughly 15 plants and 2,600 dealerships that are scheduled to be put out to pasture by the end of next year.

It’s been said by at least one film historian that by the end of the Thirties the technique of making talking motion pictures had been mastered and made into a new art form, with virtually all of its salient aspects having been explored and employed to utmost effect within that short period. The achievement encompassed in those first ten years after the demise of Silents absolutely dwarfs the so-called ‘progress’ in film in the further twenty years up to the collapse of the Studio Era, and throws into abject shame the backwards direction taken by the industry in the half-century since then — ever accelerating since George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and their many mini-clones in James Cameron, Peter Jackson and so on.

With special effects alone becoming ever more ’sophisticated’ but looking all the more unrealistic on screen, we must be just a few short steps from Alfred Hitchcock’s prediction: We enter a private chamber, the logical conclusion moving on from largely deserted, sterile multiplexes. We get wired up, and feel whatever shocks we prefer for the moment to whatever centers of the brain that turn us on, in vain attempts to get what passes for a satisfying entertainment experience today. The bar has risen so high technically, and dropped so low emotionally and artistically — so far below everyday human relations — that staying home for a good wank must surely be the higher human aspiration. All the better if you can get another to participate, never mind a lot cheaper.

Every now and again a true lover of human drama gets to revive his spirit through seeing a film made with some thought and imagination. It’s usually several generations old, and shown on pay television in the dead of night when few are watching. As far as I’m concerned, all the better for this exclusive experience — let the sheep go where they may, with the flow.

Originally a hit London and Broadway play written by and starring Welsh actor Emlyn Williams, this screenplay was adapted by London-born John Van Druten; a year after it was released on screen he was drafted in by David Selznick to improve the script of Gone With the Wind. A movie set and filmed in England under the UK branch of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Night Must Fall was produced by Hollywood staffer Hunt Stromberg and directed by Richard Thorpe. By all accounts Thorpe was no more than an efficient workman, so credit for the fine ‘look’ of this picture must go to veteran cinematographer Ray June and its sound to prolific MGM composer Edward Ward.

Also from the studio’s Hollywood staff came stars Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. Homegrown stars remaining in Britain provided only a weak draw at the box-office, even at home theaters. It was believed that all the screen talent Britain had to offer was already in Hollywood: the likes of matinee idol Ronald Colman, admired thespian Charles Laughton, elder statesman George Arliss, child star Freddie Bartholomew, highest-paid Brit femme Madeleine Carroll, and Charlie Chaplin persevering with new silents at the rate of one every five years.

Publicity shot of the star taken for Night Must Fall (1937)

Yet in America, Robert Montgomery was no longer at the peak of popularity as he had been as a youth in 1929-30, and Rosalind Russell was still on the way up. So, with an English setting and including a sterling but very English cast in Dame May Whitty, Kathleen Harrison, Merle Tottenham, Alan Marshal, E. E. Clive and Beryl Mercer, the film was panned by your typical know-nothing film critic of the time (and they still rule the media). Variety had it that the movie was slow and dull. Studio head Louis B. Mayer disowned it. What better compliments can a film hope for? Naturally, over the decades since it has been greatly appreciated as a ’sleeper’ — a film with a relatively small budget, that was never supposed to be a hit, was largely condemned at release, and has proven all the better quality for that.

The striking aspect of the movie for me, which makes it so much worthier than virtually any modern film in general release, is its basis in ‘pure film’. Techniques in film language commonly used then are used with flair: sustained close-ups, long-distance panning shots, deep-focus group shots to contrast motives. The constant play of light and shadow over all indicates mood, heightens suspense and literally illuminates good and evil subconsciously to the audience. Nowhere is the gratuitous crushed skulls with flying gore and blood-spattering so necessary to get the message across to today’s clueless audiences. And gone, over generations, is the magic of film.

The action opens with a man walking his dog at night on the edge of a forest, and almost stumbling on to another man who whistles a merry tune but seems to be on the ground rustling in the fallen leaves — It later turns out he is covering up a body. In the next scene, morning, all is drenched in sunshine (a motif repeated throughout), suggesting that everyday life goes on regardless of dark undertones in this sleepy village — its inhabitants blissfully unaware, maybe not wanting to know.

A woman is missing in the village, and first to show real insight into her likely fate is the lowly paid, spinster companion (bachelorette is hardly appropriate — she wears hornrim glasses, a dead giveaway in film shorthand) of domineering dowager May Whitty, played by Ros Russell. She is incidentally the old lady’s niece and we learn how resentful she is of her aunt’s manipulative hypochondria, as she pretends wheelchair-bound helplessness. But Ros is seriously emotionally repressed, repeatedly rebuffing the affectionate advances of supportive solicitor (lawyer) Alan Marshal.

He is far too polite, nice to the core. Ros yearns for excitement and danger in her life. This must be why, though she very early suspects a new employee on the scene (Robert Montgomery), an obvious go-getting self-advancer, of being homicidal, that she colludes with him to win the old lady’s favor. She is strongly attracted to him. The mood gradually becomes more sombre as Ros neglects her self-indulgent, spoilt aunt, inviting danger into the home in the person of the suspicious stranger who ingratiates his way to be the lady’s trusted ’support’.

Ros sums up ‘Danny’: “You have no feelings. You live in a world of your own — of your own imagination.” Thus defining a sociopath, no matter to her. She collaborates with him in winning over her aunt: He spend’s a week’s wages on a shawl and presents it to the old lady as his dear departed mother’s. Just in time, Ros removes the price tag and Danny knows he has her in the palm of his hand too.

Curiosity about her loved one getting the better of her, Ros, the cook (Kathleen Harrison, playing wryly humorous in the kind of role that Thelma Ritter later made her own in Hollywood), and maid, Merle Tottenham, playing dithering and emptyheaded, supposed to be Danny’s intended, search his room thoroughly. They find evidence of a double life but he walks in on them before they can open his suspicious hatbox — just big enough for a severed head, they think.

Despite this, when the police detective calls round and is about to call Danny on the hatbox, Ros claims it as hers — thereby providing his escape route to continue murdering. He has already spied the old lady putting money in her secret hideaway. For the second time Ros goes to seek reassurance from her frustrated suitor and turns back — conveniently away long enough for Danny to strangle Mrs Bransom. She returns, she tells him, to find him out — but has no regrets that her aunt is dead. Suitor and police walk in in time to save the ever-ambivalent Ros.

While this film treatment could be called Hitchcockian in its view of the charming but murderous sociopath and annoying old ladies, it departs from the pattern of blameless beautiful woman as intended victim. Rosalind Russell plays here a woman who cooperates fully in the danger she is enmeshed in, and herself is seemingly oblivious or careless of others’ feelings as she focuses wholly on fulfilling her own fantasies.

You, insecurity, you, ego, you, sexuality…you will not succeed. I have stories to tell, not syndromes to whine about. You will not succeed.

You may stand between me and my art and pick your nose and make candles out of your ear wax and blow spit bubbles – but I will not be embarrassed by your orifice exploration.

I will knock you over and my art and I will crash into one another “like a couple of taxis on Broadway,” a line which Thelma Ritter so simply delivers in Rear Window. You’re not even what you seem. You’re Satan wearing a sandwich sign, shaking your ass on the sidewalk, trying to get me to buy your bullshit. Not happening, hot stuff.

And I won’t be conned into becoming a critic instead of an artist. One requires observation, the other vulnerability. I know which one is worth it. Fuck off, flamer. It’s going to take more than a lack of money, lack of talent and lack of direction – start locating some more lack ofs.

Now I’m going to clean the apartment. If you think you’ve distracted me, devil’s cake, than you’re dumber than I thought. I just want to clean the apartment.

I didn’t, in fact, say that the book was “blisteringly satirical”…I said I hoped it would be blisteringly satirical.  Now some may say this is just splitting hairs, to them I say, “I hope its splitting hairs.”

Its funny to me that it was The Music Man that jumped into your head as you read of the crazy shenanigans of Chichikov, because if this book reminds me of any Meredith Wilson (Iowa’s own!) musical it would definitely have to The Unsinkable Molly Brown. (Well, either that or the musical version of Miracle on 34th Street.  (Oh yes he did!)).

No, definitely Molly Brown.  Probably because in the “movie” that goes through my mind of this novel, the lead, Chichikov, is played by that peppy powerhouse Debbie Reynolds (Can’t sink her!–p.s. I do gender-blind casting in my head, Selifan is played by Thelma Ritter and oddly enough Petrushka is played by John Ritter–how about that!).

I’m now imagining our imaginary worlds colliding (it’s very meta) and Debbie Reynolds is being driven around in a cart (and singing!) driven by Thelma Ritter trying to purchase the souls of dead serfs and look! there goes Buddy Hackett sha-poop-pa-ing right through the Russian countryside.  

In all seriousness I’m quite enjoying this book…it might be my favorite that we’ve read so far…I keep thinking Gogol will bust out with some exposition explaining just why Chichikov wants these souls, but I can be patient…delayed gratification, etc. etc.

Adios mi hermano,

Jon

Rear Window offers perhaps the best example of what defines a ‘Hitchcock film.’ The Master of Suspense engaged audiences by aligning the viewer’s gaze with that of the central characters. Rear Window takes this motif to its extreme, as we watch a man watching others.

In an allegory of the process of filmmaking, the far side of the courtyard constitutes a screen on which the hero projects his fantasies. The individual events – like the individual shots in a film – only gain meaning through being assembled in a montage that is constructed solely through his point of view.

The experiences and perceptions of L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) mirror our own, as we watch the drama unfold. As Jeffries tries to unravel the mystery, we too are piecing together the plot from the clues we are given. Suspense emanates from not knowing if we can believe our eyes; a moral conundrum stems from whether we should be looking in the first place.

By the close, the wheelchair-bound Jeffries is left shouting that old movie cliché “Don’t go in there!” as he helplessly watches the events his curiosity has set in motion. He is advised not too look if he’s too “squeamish,” and we too can look away if the suspense becomes too much. But we don’t; by this point we cannot help ourselves, any more than he can.

DID YOU KNOW?
•    All of the sound in the film is diegetic, meaning that the music, speech and sounds originate from within the world of the film.
•    The entire film was shot on one set, which was at that time the largest ever built by Paramount studios. All the apartments in Thorwald’s building had electricity and running water.
•    During the month-long shoot “Miss Torso”, lived in her apartment all day, relaxing between takes as if really at home.
•    The film was based on the short story “It Had to be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich, a recluse who spent most of his life sharing a Harlem apartment with his mother.
•    It is possible that Woolrich never saw the film; he was not invited to the film’s premiere and it did not air on television during his lifetime.
•    Hitchcock makes a cameo appearance in each of his films. Keep an eye out for him.
•    The film was nominated for four Oscars, but did not win any. Hitchcock himself was nominated a total of six times in his career, including Best Director for Rear Window.  He never won the award.
•    Four Hitchcock films were listed in the American Film Institute’s ‘Ten Best Mystery Films of All Time”: Vertigo (#1), Rear Window (#3), North by Northwest (#7), Dial M for Murder (#9).

Discussion Questions and Topics
Questions:
•    Did you spot Hitchcock?

•    Do you approve of Jeffries’ voyeurism? Does the fact that Thorwald was a murderer excuse his actions?

•    Why is it that Jeffries becomes so fascinated with his neighbors?

•    Is Jeffries an active or a passive protagonist?

•    Why is it that Jeffries doesn’t ever take a picture of what he sees?

•    Why do you think James Stewart was cast in this role?

•    What do you think of the film’s view of relationships? Is the film romantic or skeptical in its view of the way people interact?

•    How does the relationship between Jeffries and Lisa compare to the other characters we see?

•    What do you think of Stella’s (the nurse) assessment that “we’re a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change.”

Topics
•    Voyeurism
•    Suspense vs. surprise
•    The film’s portrayal of male/female relationships
•    Vigilantism
•    Neighborly etiquette

Library Resources
1) Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen, 35 Great Stories that have Inspired Great Films, edited by Stephanie Harrison. Contains Cornell Woolrich’s original short story “It Had To Be Murder” and information on its adaptation into Rear Window.
Copy                  Material          Location
791.436 ADA             1 Book         Nonfiction
2) The Women Who Knew Too Much, Tania Modleski. Contains a feminist interpretation of the film.
Copy                  Material          Location
791.430233 MOD         1 Book         Nonfiction
3)  Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, Patrick McGilligan.
Copy                  Material          Location
B HITCHCOCK, A. MCG     1 Book         Biography
4)  The A-Z of Hitchcock, Howard Maxford.
Copy                  Material          Location
791.430233 HITCHCOCK     1 Book         Nonfiction
5)  Hitchcock’s Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock, Dan Auiler.
Copy                  Material          Location
791.430233 HITCHCOCK     1 Book         Nonfiction
6)  Find the Director and other Hitchcock Games, Thomas M. Leitch.
Copy                  Material          Location
791.430233 HITCHCOCK     1 Book         Nonfiction
7)  Rear Window [videorecording (DVD)]. Just in case you want to see it again!
Copy                  Material          Location
DVD REA             1 DVD, Fiction     Audio-Visual – Movies

Online Resources

www.dailyscript.com/scripts/rearwindow.pdf
A PDF copy of John Michael Hayes’ classic screenplay.

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/rear_window_c.html
An excellent academic essay on the film by Hitchcock biographer Ken Mogg

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/29/rear_window.html
Interesting analysis of the film from the viewpoint of Jeffries’ recuperation

http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9712/11/rearwindow.restoration.lat/
An article about the film’s restoration.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/8255/filmog/film5.html
Contains audio excerpts from the film.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,557218,00.html
A Time magazine feature on short story writer Cornell Woolrich

http://hitchcock.tv/
A site devoted to Hitchcock, including essays, quotes and upcoming TV screenings of his films.

Last night, I saw the number 75 of the top 250 IMDB films of all time, All About Eve. I heard Michael Vox from Cinebanter discussing this movie in his last five. He expressed his disappointment that the movie is too dated. I didn’t feel that way when I saw it. I enjoyed it.

This movie was nominated for fourteen Oscars back in 1950. That was a huge achievement until Titanic tied it in 1997.

The movie is about the rise of a young vindictive ingenue, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) that tries to usurp the theater career of Margo Channing (Bette Davis).

It begins at an award ceremony with a humorous voice over from Addington DeWitt (George Sanders), the conniving theater critic. He is sitting in the table with Margo, her best friend, Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), Karen’s playwright husband, Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe) and producer Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff).

The action flashes back to a plain jane Eve being an assistant to theater diva Margo. Everybody around Margo thinks that Eve has ulterior motives, Addington and also the maid, Birdie (Thelma Ritter).

All of the main cast were nominated for Oscars; Bette, Anne, Celeste, Thelma Ritter, and George Sanders, who won.

Lastly, Marilyn Monroe appears in a small part as Miss Casswell, a naive young actress that was the date of Addington.

I don’t think that the movie is dated. The way that people’s acting careers are a polar opposite today with screen actors going to the stage to get some theater cred. I took this movie for what it is, a taut “how-catch-her” with witty dialogue and moments of cold shoulders and relative catty-ness.

My judgment: If you want to see a solid film about how actors were behaving in the late forties, seek out this movie.

My rating: *****

The Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection contains the DVD debut of 8 Hitchcock classics including “Strangers on a Train Two-Disc Special Edition,” and the following 7 new single-disc DVDs: “Dial M For Murder,” “Foreign Correspondent” “Suspicion,” “The Wrong Man,” “Stage Fright,” “I Confess” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” The previously released “North by Northwest” is also included in the 10-disc Signature Collection. Each of the 9 films in the collection shows why Hitchcock is regarded as one of Hollywood’s most esteemed and important directors, and also brings legendary stars to the digital front including Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Montgomery Clift and many others.

Strangers on a Train – En route from Washington, D.C., champion tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets pushy playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). What begins as a chance encounter turns into a series of morbid confrontations, as Bruno manipulates his way into Guy’s life. Bruno is eager to kill his father and knows Guy wants to marry a senator’s daughter (Ruth Roman) but can’t get a divorce from his wife. So Bruno suggests the men swap murders, which would leave no traceable clues or possible motives. Though Guy refuses, it won’t be easy to rid himself of the psychopathic Bruno. Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia appears in this film. The extra features included on the DVD are: Alternate ‘preview’ version of the film; Commentary by director Peter Bogdanovich, Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stephano, Strangers on a Train author Patricia Highsmith and biographer Andrew Wilson; New making-of documentary Strangers on a Train: A Hitchcock Classic, with Farley Granger, film historian Richard Schickel, Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell and other Hitchcock family members and colleagues recalling the making of this suspense landmark; Three intriguing featurettes: The Hitchcocks on Hitch, Strangers on a Train: The Victim’s P.O.V., Strangers on a Train by M. Night Shyamalan; Alfred Hitchcock’s Historical Meeting, a vintage newsreel.

Each DVD will be presented in a format preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition and will include the original theatrical trailer, and subtitles in English, French and Spanish.

The Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection (Strangers on a Train Two-Disc Edition / North by Northwest / Dial M for Murder / Foreign Correspondent / Suspicion / The Wrong Man / Stage Fright / I Confess / Mr. and Mrs. Smith) is available at Amazon for $46.49. To Order click here
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Other Products of Interest

• Alfred Hitchcock – The Masterpiece Collection (Psycho / Vertigo / Rear Window / The Birds / Shadow of a Doubt / Family Plot / Frenzy / The Man Who Knew Too Much / Marnie / Rope / Saboteur / Topaz / Torn Curtain / The Trouble with Harry)
• To Catch a Thief (Special Collector’s Edition)
• Lifeboat (Special Edition)
• Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection (Lifeboat / Spellbound / Notorious / The Paradine Case / Sabotage / Young and Innocent / Rebecca / The Lodger)
• Bogie and Bacall – The Signature Collection (The Big Sleep / Dark Passage / Key Largo / To Have and Have Not)