Hitchcock

[jetpack_monkey]

Just finished up Julia's Alfred Hitchcock class (I've been tagging along every week, lack-of-actual-student-status be damned). Good stuff. I love Alfred Hitchcock.

The films we saw (in order of omglove):

Psycho*
Rebecca
Vertigo
Notorious*
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest*
Rear Window*
Suspicion (discarding ending)
Shadow of a Doubt*
Foreign Correspondent
The 39 Steps
Suspicion (including ending)
Spellbound*

Film I had already seen prior to this class are marked with an asterik.


1. Jimmy Stewart can do creepy. He can do creepy very very well.
2. I am surprised that Vertigo isn't considered a horror film in more circles. It's not overt, but terror has never needed murder or monsters to work.
3. Dude. There are movies worth 60 dollars. Seriously. *needs Rebecca like woah*
4. A movie can be utterly obliterated by its ending.
5. The right director can make anything suspenseful... except tedious psychobabble.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jealousy_/]

Would you believe the only Hitchcock movie I've ever seen is The Paradine Case? Oh well, something else I can do now that I have no more school. :)

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

There's terrible misfortune for you -- it's generally considered his worst film.

The above is incidentally a list of all Hitchcock films that I've seen, except The Birds, which I'd put above Rear Window and below North by Northwest.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jealousy_/]

Actually, I loved The Paradine Case. It kept me guessing and Gregory Peck is, well, Gregory Peck. ;)

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

1. Jimmy Stewart can do creepy. He can do creepy very very well.

I assume you're taling about Vertigo here? Yeah, he was definitely creepy in that one. When I first saw the movie, I was shocked at how dark his character became.

I don't know that I'd call the movie horror, though. Suspense, definitely. But I don't think the main purpose was to scare the audience, rather, it was to keep them guessing about what was going to happen (which it definitely succeeded at, for me anyway).

On the subject of endings, did you see the alternate ending that Hitchcock had to shoot for the European version?

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. I'll be getting the film on DVD here soon, though, so maybe I'll see it then.

[invisionary.livejournal.com]

Ah. I won't spoil it for you, then, although it's just an extra scene and feels very very tacked on.

[kittycat22.livejournal.com]

I saw Rebecca in high school and I LOVED it. It was brilliant. The only other Hitchcock films I've seen (to my knowledge) are Psycho and The Birds. I couldn't stand The Birds (had too much trouble leaving my 21st Century mindset to enjoy it), but I enjoyed Psycho. And I used to watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Nick @ Nite before it started showing nothing but tv from the 80's/90's. (i.e., when it was better).

Good stuff.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

I've been so tempted to pick up the Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1 boxset for so long now...