Week 6: The 39 Steps (1935)

Good evening,

In The 39 Steps, a man named Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) meets a mysterious woman at a show in London. She convinces him to take her to his house, where she reveals to him that she is a secret agent and that some British military secrets are in the process of being stolen. She soon realizes that she has been followed to his house and reveals to him that he is now in danger as well. He offers her a place to stay for the night before she continues on her quest to stop the secrets from leaving the country. However, she is killed in the middle of the night. Not knowing what to do, he follows what clues she left behind to try to stop the thief, only to discover that the police believe he killed her. He has to race to stop the secrets from being stolen, hide from the police and the foreign agents, and prove his innocence.

I had never seen this film all the way through before, though I had caught bits and pieces on television. I was very impressed. The movie, though short, is very fast-paced from the outset.Unfortunately that can lead to some confusion towards the very beginning. The shots change quickly between people talking and at first, the viewer is unsure exactly what is happening or who to be watching. But it hits its stride quickly and more than makes up for any temporary confusion.

The audience is never bored for a moment, and the characters never seem safe for even an entire scene. Hitchcock creates several moments where the audience might believe Hannay has eluded danger for a moment, only to quickly realize how wrong they are.

This is the type of film where you have to be sharp and paying attention at all times, because most of what you see, no matter how insignificant it may seem at first, will be revisited later in the film and pay into the plot twists. 

Something that I really enjoyed as a Hitchcock fan was watching his masterful suspense so relatively early in his career. At this time he had not made the majority of the films we now remember him for, but I cannot say that he had not hit his stride. The way he manipulated little plot points that come together later in the film, the way he sets up the film work to show the audience what the characters need to be afraid of, the way he never lets you rest for a moment...all of those very Hitchcock elements were ever present in this film.

The acting is stunning. In particular, the interactions between Donat and a woman who turns him into the police during the film, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) are pleasant, amusing, and very believable. They end up handcuffed to each other at one point in the film and spend several scenes on the run, literally stuck together. The frustration between the two of them is very entertaining to watch.

Of course, Hitchcock had a hand in that as well. While filming this movie, he had them handcuffed before filming the scene and pretended to have lost the key so that they had to spend several hours handcuffed to one another. His unorthodox methods to achieve realism definitely paid off. To which I would say, who needs method acting when you have a director like Hitchcock?

This film is a beloved one to many fans, and I am glad that I finally found the time to watch it. I give it an A, and I think everyone should give it a watch. 

Week 5: To Catch a Thief (1955)

Good evening,

In To Catch a Thief, a cat burglar begins to strike in France, taking prized jewelry from high profile socialites. The thief imitates the robberies of reformed cat burglar John Robie, "The Cat" (Cary Grant). Intent on proving his innocence, Robie poses as a tourist and befriends socialite Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) and her daughter Francie (Grace Kelly) in hopes of catching the cat burglar in the act of stealing their jewels. Francie figures out his true identity and becomes enthralled with the idea of his life of crime. To complicate matters, Robie's ex-cohorts are intent on killing him, believing him guilty and blaming him for chancing the police coming after all of them.

This film, while not in my mind an iconic example of Hitchcock, has always been very enjoyable to me. I watch it about every 3-4 years and find myself forgetting the twists and turns in the way the plot unfolds by the time I watch it again.

It is an interesting film primarily because it is a rare work for Hitchcock. It is first and foremost a love story, and is remarkably not suspenseful. The burglar plot is more of a setup for Francie's fascination with Robie, and plays as a backdrop to the romance. Seldom do we see that with Hitchcock, who, while always trying to maintain the balance between romance and mystery, almost always leaned toward the mystery side of a story.

At no point in this film will the audience find themselves on the edge of their seat, heart pounding as they await the final resolution. And even though I did look forward to the final reveal of the true cat burglar, in all honesty it only could have been one of two people and the one it turned out to be was the less shocking option. Were it not for his very blatant cameo, one could almost forget that this was Hitchcock.

Strangely though, I didn't find myself missing that suspense. It works for this film. Hitchcock is, if nothing else, a masterful storyteller, and therefore he can produce a fascinating story in any genre. This is no exception. The ongoing witty banter between Grant and Kelly is magnetic. They have a magnificent chemistry and the dialogue is well ahead of its time as far as sexual innuendo goes. Hitchcock, not one to shy away from such things, always managed to slip in moments that I am amazed he could get away with at the time.

And the lack of suspense relating to the mystery was replaced by a suspense for their relationship. I found myself wondering who was using who and if either was even truly interested in the other several times throughout the film. It's a fun, enjoyable journey.

The cinematography in the film won the Oscar that year, and it was well earned by Robert Burns. It is a stunningly beautiful work of art in both cinematography and editing, and film buffs can't help but be entranced by the way the film was shot. It's one of his most visually appealing works, aided by beautiful shots of the Riviera.

The best part of the film is undoubtedly Landis' character, Kelly's overbearing mother who found herself overwhelmingly wealthy after the death of her husband, when oil was discovered on their land. Like her daughter, she has a strong need for excitement and thrills, and she is extremely amusing. At one point in the film, she helps Grant escape from the police, who burst into her room expecting to catch him red-handed, and instead find her reading. She plays it off so easily, but Kelly then points out that the book she is reading is upside down. It's a wonderful moment in the film; the kind that you remember later and chuckle to yourself about.

One very interesting tidbit about this film is Cary Grant's casting. Hollywood at the time was shifting from the classic style of actors like Grant and Bogart in favor of the rise of method acting. In addition to Grant feeling that his acting style was going out of style, the rise of McCarthyism and HUAC activities angered Grant, particularly the blacklisting of his personal friend, Charlie Chaplin. Grant was disconcerted with Hollywood. For these reasons he had actually announced his retirement from acting. But Hitchcock convinced him to do this film, and he continued acting for 11 years afterward. Were it not for this film and that role, we might not have some of Grant's iconic performances, such as North by Northwest, Father Goose, and Charade.

That's about all I've got on this one. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out! It may not be the most memorable, but it is very fun to watch.

Week 4: Suspicion (1941)

Suspicion opens with wild playboy Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) encountering timid bookworm, Lina  (Joan Fontaine) in a train. He soon sets out to woo her, and the two secretly marry, against her father’s wishes. . But she soon begins to discover that he is not the man he seems to be. He gambles, lies, manipulates, and even steals. Eventually, she starts to believe he may be involved in even worse crimes and begins to suspect that he is planning to kill her. It is based on the novel Before the Fact by Anthony Berkeley. 

 

For the first half of the film, the suspense is fairly lacking. But Hitchcock manages to make up for it by packing as much suspense as possible into the last 40 minutes or so of the film. The genius in this is that we as the viewers take an emotional journey with Lina. We have a sense of calm when she is unaware of the dark side of Johnnie. As she discovers more information and realizes she is in danger, we feel the full effect of the suspense. This is one of the rare film noirs in which the potential victim finds out every detail well before the climax of the film. It is both intriguing and successful. 

 Fontaine won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Lina, and her characterization was very convincing. She pulls at the heartstrings of the viewer as her panic builds up, and quite successfully works herself into a frenzy of confusion. This was the second year in a row she worked with Hitchcock, following Rebecca from the previous year. The two characters were very similar, and she enjoyed working with him very much. 

This was Grant’s first chance to work with Hitchcock, and he of course became a long term favorite of Hitchcock’s, collaborating three more times. His jovial performance is excellent. As always with Grant, you can’t help but siding with him even when he is in the wrong. 

I have always struggled with my feelings for this film. Although I do enjoy it, and would not turn down any chance to watch it, like most Hitchcock films, it will in my mind never be one of the elite. This is for two reasons. 

The first is the ending. This is another one of Hitchcock’s films where the original ending was very different than the one he ended up with, but the studio shot down what he filmed. In some cases, like in I Confess, the new ending doesn’t harm the film. In the case of Suspicion, it does. It changes the entire message of the film. The problem here is that the rest of the movie had already been filmed. So all the subtle symbology, all our Hitchcock film noir clues, are now essentially useless and contradictory. In this case, we are left with a less than satisfactory message that only comes through when you force yourself to try to see the rest of the film through the eyes of the final scene. 

The second and more prominent reason I don’t adore this film is Lina’s character. With very few exceptions Hitchcock women are notoriously awful creatures. They are weak, silly, frivolous, gullible, or just plain stupid. But Lina really takes the cake—she is all of the above. She stays with Johnnie after she finds out that he married her with every intention of living off her father’s money, after he sells the fine, antique chairs her father gave her as a wedding gift to bet on the horses, after he lies to her about having a job, after she suspects him of murder, even after she believes he plans to murder her. At some point, I just want to pause the movie, reach into the screen, and shake or slap some sense into her. This is not a fault with Fontaine’s acting by any means, it’s just the way the character is written. 

Ultimately, this film is worth a watch, if for no other reason, than for the famous scene of Johnnie carrying a glass of milk which Lina knows is poisoned up the stairs to her room. Hitchcock put a light in the glass to give it an ethereal glow, solidifying that film’s place in film history. It is an epic scene.

Good evening!