Well, I'm finally settled here in Los Angeles, working on my Master's Degree! I realize that the consistency of my posts is shaky at best, but I thought I would just keep plugging away, and try to keep up. At least you know that the movies that I do talk about are the ones that truly inspire me to write about them. That being said, let's get down to it!
I am working for the University of Southern California at the moment, in the capacity of a 'reader' for a class taught by Dr. Drew Casper on the subject of Alfred Hitchcock. Basically, I sit in on the class, do the readings, and then I grade the papers of the undergraduates assigned to me. The class has met 3 times now, I believe. We have worked our way through Hitchcock's silet films and British sound films, and next week, we'll move on to his Hollywood career.
I wanted to take a moment though, and recognize two films that I was particularly impressed with, seeing that not many people give as much thought to his British films as his Hollywood ones. While his Hollywood classics such as Vertigo, Spellbound, The Birds, and of course Psycho remain his most popular and widely viewed work, it is the films that he made during his time in Britain that helped raise him to the level of master.
In particular, the two films that speak to me are "The 39 Steps"(1935) and "The Lady Vanishes" (1938). Hitchcock has darker films, and films that mix light and dark, and the element of slapstick that goes into these two films is perhaps what draws me, personally, to them more than his other films (which have, arguably, greater technical merit). Hitchcock was a master at blending genres, and these two films, while very different, are similar in that they are a combination of suspense, action, adventure, mystery, thriller, and romantic comedy.
We'll start chronologically, with "The 39 Steps". Starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, this film centers around a man who gets dragged into a game of espionage and intrigue involving national secrets that are about to be smuggled out of the country. After assisting an agent, who then gets murdered in his apartment, he is on the flee from the bad guys, the government-everyone basically, until he can clear his name. One of the points that is continually brought up in class is how Hitchcock's stories rely on character-it is how he successfully builds suspense, and why his stories are so gripping. He often takes flat, morally ambiguous characters at the beginning and takes them on a journey towards greater humanism and personality. This film is no different, which the character of Richard Hannay (Donat) taking on multiple character roles as masks as he makes his journey through the film. Madeleine Carroll takes the role of the 'cool blond', who starts out hindering Hannay as much as the rest, but also goes through a transformation of character and greater depth as the film goes on. The best scene, in my opinion, occurs after these two have been handcuffed together, and find themselves looking for a way out of their predicament while trapped in an inn in the Highlands of Scotland. This scene is also quite risque, and extraordinary for its blatant sexuality that was quite uncommon at that time (they even appear in a bed together!).
This film is particularly remarkable in my opinion because the acting is spot on. The secondary characters are particularly well rounded and interesting, despite having very little time on screen. Donat himself is probably one of the mroe charismatic British actors of that time period. Hitchcock perhaps would disagree with the importance placed on the actors, and perhaps it is just their ability to effortlessly carry off his (and screenwriter Charles Bennett's) masterpiece. The pacing of the story carries the audience along so quickly, you barely have time to catch your breath before the next sequence occurs. I would give this movie 5 stars, and heartily recommend it, especially if you are not familiar with Hitchcock's British, or black and white work.
The next film I want to overview is "The Lady Vanishes", which actually reminded me a lot of Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express' when I first heard about it (even though they have very little to do with one another, except for taking place on a train). This film centers on a young woman who befriends an elderly woman aboard a train while she is heading back home to be married (for $!). When the lady vanishes suddenly, everyone else on the train claims not to have seen her, even though the protagonist swears she was there. Helped by a slightly roguish man (who records folk songs to write about), she searches the train and tries to unearth the conspiracy surrounding the old lady. My personal favorite scene is a rather farcical fight in the baggage compartment.
Once again, this film is chock full of wonderful secondary characters, most interesting among them is a homosexual couple whose only interest throughout the film is cricket, and getting back to England in time for a penultimate match. Claustrophobic (the whole set was something like 70 feet), this film defines how to tell a story in an extremely limited space-indeed, one of the main pleasures of the film is where the devil could they be hiding a little old lady on this train? Once again, the characters begin as morally ambiguous, but slowly grow in our estimation through their actions and worries. It is his first politically allegorical film (taking issues with Britain's lack of a stance against an increasingly fascist rising power in Europe at the time). Also chock full of engaging and charismatic performances by Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, this has perhaps bumped out The Birds as my favorite Hitchcock. (Also, the first of Hitchcock;s films with a recapitulation scene) Obviously, this film also gets 5 stars.
So, if you are looking for a more light-hearted side to Hitchcock, these two films are both wonderful. Perhaps they lack some of the mastery of later classics (Notorious just popped into my head...that's a wonderful movie). But these movies are full of incredible characters, amazing writing, and wonderfully paces plots with the right amount of suspense, humor and adventure mixed in to make one heck of a good time.
(At this moment, they are both available on at IMDB.com, as well as Netflix Instant Play).
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