Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from: 

Rope (1948)

Brandon: The good Americans usually die young on the battlefield, don't they? Well, the Davids of this world merely occupy space, which is why he was the perfect victim for the perfect murder. Course he, uh, he was a Harvard undergraduate. That might make it justifiable homicide.

I have been staring at the spot on my calendar where I'd typed "Alfred Hitchcock's 125th" for weeks and weeks now trying to decide what a proper way to celebrate would be, but now here it is and I haven't come up with anything. Oh, me! The problem with ol' Hitch at this point is I've already written so much about him -- here check our archives and see -- that my words have begun to feel redundant. Over 400 posts, for goodness' sake! I'm sure if I'd actually, you know, bothered to rewatch one of his films recently I could've bulshitted something here, but I kept forgetting and now it's too late. But I'm sure all of this rambling is just as interesting, right? That said they are screening Vertigo in 70mm at the Paris Theater here in NYC at the end of this month, so maybe when I go see that it'll inspire me to be less insipid and actually share a thought or two. Wouldn't that be a feat? Happy 125 Hitch, you masterful menace. Here's to 125 more.

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Besides one big gross special effect at its end (which you'll see below) there's not a lot to this death scene from 1981's gruesome slasher film The Prowler save one deliciously unsavory and ignominious thing -- it happens to Farley Granger, bisexual Hitchcock-starring legend, in one the last movies roles he'd ever have in his distinguished career. We love he cashed this paycheck! Go get 'em, Farley! Hit the jump for the Farley-soaked gruesomeness....

6 Off My Head: Visconti's Stunning Menfolk

It's the 115th anniversary of the birth of Luchino Visconti, our problematic king -- the Italian aristocrat turned film director made some of my favorite movies of all-time, from his early Neo-realist masterpieces like La terra treme up through his baroquely crumbling critiques of the aristocratic bullshit he knew so intimately like The Leopard and The Damned. He made less than twenty movies but I have yet to see a single one I haven't found absolutely riveting. But even more importantly -- obviously! -- is the fact that he had one of the greatest eyes for male beauty we've ever been blessed the opportunity to share sight with, and his movies are feasts for those of us who appreciate such things. And so now that I have seen a majority of his movies -- not yet everything, but a majority! -- I feel safe in finally making this list...

The 6 Sexiest Men in Visconti Movies

Massimo Girotti in Ossessione (1943)

(see more here)

Helmut Berger in The Damned (1969)

Farley Granger in Senso (1954)

(see more here)

Antonio Arcidiacono in La terra trema (1948)

(see more here)

Renato Salvatori in Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

Alain Delon in The Leopard (1963)

(And Alain also counts in Rocco too, obviously -- Alain in any movie he ever starred in, ever! -- but Alain with that black bandage over his eye is a personal kink!)

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What are your faves?

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1948

I'm just gonna say this right off the bat -- I have a terrible batting average with the year that Siri gave me for this week's edition of our "Siri Says" game. Just terrible. I've seen so little! It would make sense if we were talking about the early 1920s here, but today when I asked Siri for a number between 1 and 100 she gave me the number "48" and so we're talking about The Movies of 1948. I have no excuse for seeing so few movies from 1948. I suppose my indifference to Noir, which has come up before, is part of it, as we're in the thick of that genre in 1948. But some of my favorite movie stars are working -- Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck... 

... well okay I've seen both of Stanwyck's films from this year; I'm not a total sociopath. (They both made the "runner-up" list below.) But otherwise it's just a poor, poor showing on my part., so you'll all have to work overtime in the comments to tell me what I should prioritize. (Not that that's unique, exactly.) But first...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1948

The Red Shoes

(dir. Powell & Pressburger)

-- released on September 6th 1948 --

Rope

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

-- released on September 25th 1948 --

Red River

(dir. Howard Hawks)

-- released on September 17th 1948 --

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

(dir. John Huston)

-- released on January 24th 1948 --

Bicycle Thieves

(dir. Vittorio De Sica)

-- released on November 21st 1948 --

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Runners-up: The Big Clock (dir. John Farrow), The Search (dir. Fred Zinnemann), Key Largo (dir. Huston), They Live By Night (dir. Nicholas Ray), BF's Daughter (dir. Robert Z. Leonard), Sorry Wrong Number (dir. Anatole Litvak)

Never seen: The Snake Pit (dir. Litvak), Johnny Belinda (dir. Jean Negulesco), Joan of Arc (dir. Victor Fleming), I Remember Mama (dir. George Stevens), Drunken Angel (dir. Kurosawa), Moonrise (dir. Borzage), Hamlet (dir. Laurence Olivier)...

... La Terra Trema (dir. Visconti), The Naked City (dir. Jules Dassin), The Pirate (dir. Vincente Minnelli), A Foreign Affair (dir. Billy Wilder), Macbeth (dir. Welles), Letter From an Unknown Woman (dir. Max Ophüls), Oliver Twist (dir. David Lean)

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What are your favorites from 1948?

Good Morning, World

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I didn't think I was going to find any new Farley Granger content this morning to mark the 95th anniversary of the actor's birth -- everything I first came upon I'd already posted, especially in this post right here. But then -- goldmine! On eBay I found a few pages of a cheesecake spread on Farley from a celebrity magazine of the times that tickled my fancy, et ceteras. I don't know which magazine and I'm not sure of the exact year but the copy mentions the 1950 film Our Very Own so I'm guessing it's around 1950. And what!

Farley hates to wear a shirt, you guys. Just hates it. Also I love the phrase "keeps his hand in" -- it never fails to sound absolutely filthy. As for Farley's ping pong "partner" Lance Noley I wonder if it might actually be Lance Nolley, who was an animator at Disney at the time. I still haven't read Farley's autobiography, I really need to; perhaps this Lance person is mentioned. Anyway...

... what's it matter because Farley was really very very busy talking on the telephone to all of those "female acquaintances" of his. I mean who else was going to tell Shelley Winters what pearls went with which dress? Hit the jump for the whole spread, it's a gas...

5 Off My Head: Kill 'Em With The What Now

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Even though he's my favorite director it's gotten to the point where I kind of dread mentioning Alfred Hitchcock's birthday each year, because I've written so damn much about him already I'm never sure what there is left for me to muse upon that I haven't mused upon at length before. Just scan through our archives and see! But since it's a round year this year -- 120 to be exact -- I'll make the effort. And since murder isn't just the name of one of his movies but a life-long cinematic obsession he and I share, let's direct our efforts there. 

If you focus in on Hitch's ways to die they're mostly what you'd expect from films set in the relative approximation of the real world he filmed -- lots of shootings, lots of stabbings, lots of stranglings, oh my. Occasionally, like in Torn Curtain, it takes all of those things and a few more, but he never knocked anybody's head off with a basketball unfortunately. Hitch did like to mix it up some though, and did manage to give us some of the most memorable images of movie murder weapons. Here are five off the top of my head!

5 of My Favorite Hitch Weapons

The crop duster in North By Northwest -- Of course Cary Grant doesn't actually get killed by the plane that gets sent to dust him to death in this 1959 classic. But somebody thought he would! Somebody thought to send Cary Grant into the middle of the desert to then try and hit him with a fucking airplane! That's some outside the box thinking.

The glowing milk from Suspicion -- Cary Grant again, this time maybe attempting to poison his annoying wife Joan Fontaine with a glass of milk that Hitchcock lit from inside the glass, all the better to heighten the woman's righteous paranoia.

The Leg of Lamb from the "Lamb to the Slaughter" episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- Sweet innocent Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) from Vertigo beats her shit-heel hubby in the head with a block of frozen meat, and then serves it to the detectives who can't figure out the murder weapon. Written by Roald Dahl to boot!

The Necktie from Frenzy -- There's a lot of strangulations in Hitch movies, but none so gratuitously gross as the ones seen here in Hitch's last good - if emotionally brutal and mean-spirited - film. (Don't come in here defending Family Plot to me, I won't have it.) 

The Scissors from Dial M For Murder 

-- It's Grace Kelly in 3D, y'all!

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So what are some of your favorites?
Share in the comments!

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5 Off My Head: The Other Side of Pride

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I've never been much of a rainbow warrior but I have talked about "Gay Pride" this year more than I probably ever have in my entire life, and it's due to two factors -- the 50th anniversary of Stonewall certainly feels like a great big deal, especially here in New York; for one there have been museum exhibits at every museum in town on the subject of gay history and it's infected my brain. Everywhere I look it's gay gay gay, and that's been kinda awesome. Being old enough to remember a time when corporations and the mainstream pretended I didn't exist I find it tough to work up outrage at them trying to make money off of recognizing my existence now -- I know all about the problems with capitalism, believe me, but I have things to be angry about besides a rainbow getting slapped on a can of Budweiser for one month a year. 

Which brings me to the other reason I've been more into Pride this year than most -- our goddamned piece of shit President and Vice President, their families and friends, and every single member of the Republican Party. This is the time to rally with my people -- you can feel it, this call home to do the hand in hand united front thing, as long as you're even halfway decent... or even just short of halfway, which is probably my range. And it's not that I've ever been anything short of aggressively gay, as this site attests to -- I've gotten my fair share of homophobic bullshit for the going on fifteen years I've been writing MNPP, and it's only made me ornerier (and hornier, prolly) and more determined to be here, queer, and an obnoxious asshole about it. I've just never felt like I fit in exactly with most of gay culture -- I like rock music and horror movies and rain. You've never met a person more horrified by Fire Island Living in your life, believe me.

That said, I'm here and I'm queer and in the words of Quiz Kid Donnie Smith "I've got love to give," and today I am giving it. I'm gonna do Pride my way dammit, so I've made a list for a weekend's binge worth of Anti-Pride movies -- movies where LGBT characters wrestle violently the world they inhabit and find fresh red ways to make their marks. Cuz getting angry and throwing bricks, or hives of hornets, is Pride too y'all...

5 of my Favorite Anti-Pride Movies

Cruising (1980)

"Hips or lips?"

Knife+Heart (2019)

"When you lose control it's a form of love."

Rope (1948)

"I never strangled a chicken in my life!"

Dressed to Kill (1980)

"Don't make me be a bad girl again!"

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

"Eat shit and live, Bill."

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Good Morning, World

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Yesterday's "Five Frames" post got Luchino Visconti's hot little 1954 flick Senso in my hands and I'd be remiss not seizing the opportunity to sneak some Farley Granger out of it for our visual appreciation. I still, despite gargantuan intentions, have yet to see Senso - I was hoping to get my eyes on it with FSLC's ongoing Visconti retrospective, but the times didn't end up working out. One of these days, Farley. One of these days. Maybe I should just snap up the Criterion disc while I'm thinking about it... 

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #110

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Since we're talking about Alfred Hitchcock & Farley Granger today (see also) I figure this is as good a time as any to give some love to the shelves that line one wall of the single apartment set of their 1948 collaboration, the diabolical homosexual classic Rope. So much of the film takes place with those shelves hovering in the background. And it's not just random set dressing either...

... since books play such an important role in the story. Phillip (Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) spend the entire night toying with their former teacher Rupert (Jimmy Stewart), who is also a book publisher - it's these dastardly gays' intellectualism that's poisoned their minds and convinced them they're too smart and superior for regular ol' human law, driving them to murder, and Hitch continually visualizes this by having them actually use books to literally cover the murder...

... as they pile books on top of the box the dead body is hiding inside of during their dinner party. And of course there's the bundle of books that they tie up with the titular murder weapon itself.

Books are deadly, people!

We never get a better look at the right side of their apartment than this, as far as I recall, but even here Hitch keeps the piles of books in the frame. Heck you even get the sense of the written word looming large, sealing their doom, via those gigantic neon letters outside the windows! It's suffocating, all this learning.
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