boris-26

I have been a longtime fan and imitator of Alfred Hitchcock from day one. I opened up the file for "Key To Reserva" and I had to watch many times. As explained in the prologue, Martin Scorsese found some notes depicting a three minute scene from an unrealized Hithcock film called "The Key To Reserva". Scorsese decided to film the three minutes in the style of Hitchcock, basically the style of late 1950's Hitch ("The Man Who Knew Too Much", "North By Northwest", even "Torn Curtain") Not Marty style, Hitchcock style. Well, it was like Hitchcock came back from the grave (actually his ashes) and lensed this great piece. We have a hero in a blue business suit, ala Roger Thornhill, seek out a hidden key in an elegant theater box. It's pure Hitchcock, even down to the crazy Hitchcock logic (The key is hidden in a place that would be scientifically impossible. But we're watching Alfred entertainment us, not teach us.) Our villain hardly looks like a villain. He looks like anybody can mop the street with him, but watch it, still waters run deadly and deep. Throw in references to "Rear Window" "Notorious" "Saboteur" a Bernard Herrmann score, and you got one tasty cinematic snack!

I'm a big fan of George Pal's 1953 original film version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, which is an exciting, suspenseful treat, drenched in rich Technicolor. I remember, as a pre-teenager, reading that it was going to be on TV one afternoon. At that point I hadn't seen the movie, I only knew about it from incredible photographs in monster magazines. I tuned in a little late, missing the opening credits. The TV station, at the last minute, replaced the film with a western musical. Here I am, ten years old, watching some cowboy get into a bar fight and I'm thinking "Okay, where are those flying saucers?" The cowboy then rescues a stray cat and takes it along on his travels. It's now almost twenty minutes into the film. The cowboy is canoeing down river with the cat, and he's singing about the countryside. I'm confused, thinking: "Wow, this is the most bulloxed up sci-fi movie of all time. Maybe the Martians are behind that mountain?"

Twenty years from now, the same thing will happen to some confused young film fanatic when the TV station replaces WAR OF THE WORLDS with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.