News

From the brisk strains of Bernard Herrmann’s Antonin Dvorak-inspired opening theme to its concluding gag of a honeymoon train speeding into a tunnel, North by Northwest is the apotheosis of Alfred Hitchcock’s exploration of the wronged man on the run and functioned in 1959 as a summary of the Master of Suspense’s career to date.

Cary Grant, wearing his gray suit like natural skin, embodies smug New York ad executive Roger O. Thornhill, an aging, gin-swilling playboy whose swiftly established m.o. in romance and work is “expedient exaggeration.” Poetic justice strikes as he’s incredibly abducted from the Plaza Hotel bar by the henchmen of an urbane master spy, Phillip Vandamm, who’ve mistaken him for an undercover agent. Framed for a killing at the United Nations, Thornhill runs a cross-country gauntlet of lawmen and baddies, with time for a sleeping-car tryst with an ambiguously remote blonde,...

Cecil B. DeMille delivers a satisfying western epic starring Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy & Akim Tamiroff; the story of the building of a railroad is historically bogus but highly entertaining and action-filled. Joel McCrea is our favorite ethical frontier lawman; here he’s a troubleshooter keeping crooks, Indians and proto-Bolsheviks from delaying construction. The huge cast includes scores of favorite supporting actors — although the screen is so busy some of them will be hard to spot.

Union Pacific

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1939 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 135 min. / Street Date August 3, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Henry Kolker, Anthony Quinn, Lynne Overman.

Cinematography: Victor Milner

Art Directors: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson

Film Editor: Anne Bauchens

Special Effects: Gordon Jennings, George Tomasini, Loren L. Ryder, Barney Wolff, Jan Domela, Paul K. Lerpae

Original Music: Sigmund Krumgold, John Leipold

Written by Jack Cunningham,...

Hollywood’s last big all-star war epic in Black & White? Otto Preminger took a happy film company to Hawaii for this enormous saga about the Naval push in the Pacific Theater of WW2, with none other than John Wayne as the competent commander leading the charge. Soap-opera scenes aside, it’s a thrilling epic directed with Preminger’s well-known reserve. The star-gazing isn’t bad either — Kirk Douglas! Patricia Neal! Henry Fonda! Paula Prentiss! The finish is a huge naval battle with impressive live-action special effects, and given a moody music score by Jerry Goldsmith.

In Harm’s Way

Blu-ray

Paramount Viacom CBS

1965 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 167 min. / Street Date June 29, 2021 / Available from Paramount Movies / 13.99

Starring: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Brandon De Wilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews, Stanley Holloway, Burgess Meredith, Franchot Tone, Patrick O’Neal, Carroll O’Connor, Slim Pickens, George Kennedy, Barbara Bouchet.

Cinematography:...

Universal’s top-of-the-line Alfred Hitchcock classics make the jump to Ultra HD in a worthy update. We’ve seen these before but they’re always different in a theatrical setting… and the quality is so amazing here, a big home theater setup can duplicate a theatrical experience. It might as well be a Robert Burks / John L. Russell cinematographer’s film festival too, or an ‘Editor George Tomasini Festival’ — that unheralded ace cut all four of these masterpieces. And fans of Psycho have an extra treat: a slightly longer original cut.

The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection Ultra HD

Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds

Blu-ray

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

1954-1963 / 1:85 widescreen / Street Date September 8, 2020 /

Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Kim Novack, Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren.

Cinematography: Robert Burks (3), John L. Russell (1)

Film Editor: George Tomasini (4)

Original Music: Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann

Screenwriters: John Michael Hayes,...

Born: Aug. 13, 1899 in England

Died: April 29, 1980 (age 80)

Best known for: Directing “Rebecca,” “Rear Window,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “Psycho,” “The Birds” and nearly 50 others.

Nickname: “The Master of Suspense”

Awards: Five Oscar nominations, one Thalberg Award (1967); Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award (1972); AFI Life Achievement (1979); eight-time nominee of Directors Guild of America Award; four Emmy nominations, including “best male personality” as host of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (1956).

Known for: cameos in each movie, his distinct profile, and his drawling deadpan “Good evening” as he introduced each episode of his TV series

Impact: He created a genre known as the “Hitchcockian thriller,” which mixes suspense, humor, romance and striking visuals, often in a story about an innocent person thrust into a dangerous situation. It’s a style that’s been often imitated, rarely duplicated.

Recognition factor: He became a “brand” director when it was rare: He was a selling point as early as the 1940s,...

Picture it: any movie theater in the fall of 1960. It was the shower seen around the world, followed quickly and without warning by the screams of millions that reached the darkest recesses of space. Over a short period of time, it was a story that turned legendary, even without seeing the actual film: amateur thief Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), overwhelmed with guilt to return the $40,000 she’s stolen, goes to take a shower and is brutally slashed to death by motel proprietor Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)… ’s mother. To the studio heads at Paramount, it was the tackiest of numerous tasteless scenes schemed up by a great showman of a director trying his hand at a sleazy B-movie. To history, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho‘ is a landmark that broke the rules with aplomb and changed the game, all while inspiring a rise in baths among movie patrons (and a joking...

Documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe has tackled a variety of topics over his career, including zombies (Doc of the Dead) and the fickleness of Star Wars fans (The People vs. George Lucas), but it’s his latest project, 78/52, which thoughtfully examines the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, that might be his most ambitious project to date. The documentary took Philippe three years to complete, and features a cavalcade of fantastic interviews with numerous notable folks, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdanovich, Bret Easton Ellis, Danny Elfman, Mick Garris, Karyn Kusama, Oz Perkins, Richard Stanley, Elijah Wood, and many more.

Daily Dead caught up with Philippe on the eve of 78/52’s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival to discuss the long road to getting the project made, his approach to making sure 78/52 would be accessible to everyone (even those who may not be Psycho fans), some of...

In this day and age, when we’ve seen a lot of brilliant horror movie-related documentaries released over the last few years, it’s sometimes hard for me to get too excited about new ones, just because I wonder what on earth is still out there to explore at this point. Then comes along Alexandre O. Philippe’s 78/52, which presents us with a thoughtful and entertaining re-examination of the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, peeling back some unexpected and wholly new layers about this often discussed moment in cinema.

Filmed in stunning black and white, and featuring several Psycho-related re-enactments to help set the tone throughout its 91-minute runtime, 78/52 takes a comprehensive look back at the moment cinema changed forever in 1960, when Hitchcock dared to take audiences into a roadside motel bathroom to bear cinematic witness to the murder of a young woman by the name...

Alfred Hitchcock's true-life saga of a man wrongly accused may be Hitchcock's most troublesome movie -- all the parts work, but does it even begin to come together? Henry Fonda is the 'ordinary victim of fate' and an excellent Vera Miles is haunting as the wife who responds to the guilt and stress by withdrawing from reality. The Wrong Man Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date January 26, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone, John Heldabrand, Doreen Lang, Norma Connolly, Lola D'Annunzio, Robert Essen, Dayton Lummis, Charles Cooper, Esther Minciotti, Laurinda Barrett, Nehemiah Persoff. Cinematography Robert Burks Art Direction Paul Sylbert Film Editor George Tomasini Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Wrong Man sees Alfred Hitchcock at the end of...

Now this is a list that could result in a lot of fascinating dissection and thanks to HitFix it comes to our attention almost three years after it was originally released back in 2012, celebrating the Motion Picture Editors Guild's 75th anniversary. Over at HitFix, Kris Tapley asks, "Is this news to anyone elsec" Um, yes, I find it immensely interesting and a perfect starting point for anyone looking to further explore the art of film editing. In an accompanying article we get the particulars concerning what films were eligible and how films were to be considered: In our Jan-feb 12 issue, we asked Guild members to vote on what they consider to be the Best Edited Films of all time. Any feature-length film from any country in the world was eligible. And by "Best Edited," we explained, we didn't just mean picture; sound, music and mixing were to be considered as well.

A random bit of researching on a Tuesday night led me to something I didn't know existed: The Motion Picture Editors Guild's list of the 75 best-edited films of all time. It was a feature in part celebrating the Guild's 75th anniversary in 2012. Is this news to anyone else? I confess to having missed it entirely. Naturally, I had to dig in. What was immediately striking to me about the list — which was decided upon by the Guild membership and, per instruction, was considered in terms of picture and sound editorial as opposed to just the former — was the most popular decade ranking. Naturally, the 1970s led with 17 mentions, but right on its heels was the 1990s. I wouldn't have expected that but I happen to agree with the assessment. Thelma Schoonmaker's work on "Raging Bull" came out on top, an objectively difficult choice to dispute, really. It was so transformative,...

Vimeo user Brian Carroll uploaded this piece he edited together using interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Leigh discussing the shower scene in Psycho and it's a fantastic look at an iconic "slice" of cinematic history I believe you are sure to enjoy. Here's Brian's description of the video: "It became what we thought we saw, not what we saw." Janet Leigh. I have always been fascinated with Hitchcock's shower scene in Psycho. I remember the first time I digitized it years ago and went through frame by frame to deconstruct how exactly it was put together. Psycho was edited by the great George Tomasini, a longtime collaborator of Alfred Hitchcock's. Out of all of Hitchcock's films, this scene is the most scrutinized due to it's nature of a young woman being viciously stabbed to death while in a very vulnerable position. In the year 1960, this was truly a groundbreaking moment in film.

Everyone celebrates President's Day, Valentine's Day, and the sort, but it's the cool kids who know that tomorrow, March 12th, is National Alfred Hitchcock Day!

Need a reminder why Alfred Hitchcock is still the legendary master of suspense? Read on!

Hitchcock, the recent film starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, was based on Stephen Rebello’s bestselling book, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. We asked Stephen to write something special for Hitchcock Day, and he came up with “6 Great Reasons Why Hitchcock Is Still the Master of Suspense.”

6 Great Reasons Why Hitchcock Is Still the Master of Suspense

Psycho. Vertigo. North by Northwest. The Birds. If Alfred Hitchcock had directed nothing more than that astonishing quartet, he’d still be considered the maestro of creating nail-biting suspense, romantic intrigue, and unforgettable thrills. But that incredible run of movies, released in theaters from 1958 to 1963, represents only a drop in the bloody bucket of Hitchcock’s masterworks,...

I've only written about Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Vertigo (1958) once for an episode of the old series "May Flowers" so I thought I'd dig up that old piece now that Vertigo is in the news having been named "The Greatest Film" by Sight & Sound. I always think of Vertigo as an early summer movie. What other movie besides its closest descendants Robert Altman's Three Women and  David Lynch's Mulholland Drive feel more ruled by twin sign Gemini? Hitchcock films generally deserve complete dissertations but we don't have Scottie Ferguson's (Jimmy Stewart) stamina when it comes to fetishizing doppelgangers. So today let's merely glance back at his introductions to Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak).

Ferguson has been hired to follow Madeleine and as he first spots her in a deep rose red restaurant. [Click here to open a panoramic shot in a new window]. Hitchock slow zooms out from Scottie (far right) at the bar and pans left, following his gaze,...

Alfred Hitchcock’s name is synonymous with the words thriller, suspense, and intrigue. Films like Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, and The Birds, are a few of the many famous titles that the director became world renowned for; even though he never won a single Academy Award during his lifetime for his direction. Yet, just as there are so many films that are talked about by the British director, there are just as many films that are almost considered hidden treasures by him. Rebecca is by no means a little known film by Hitch. In fact, it went on to win the an Academy Award for Best Picture. However, compared to the endless nods, jokes, and homages made over the years referencing Psycho, Strangers on a Train, and Rear Window, this 1940 film seems to be almost lost in comparison. It’s a film that I had always read about – since...

Alfred Hitchcock needs no introduction. Yet for the uninitiated, Hitchcock is known as the master of thriller and suspense in cinema and North by Northwest (1959) is arguably one of his best and most commercially successful works.

It is the story of an innocent New York advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies and his life takes an unexpected turn. Like all Hitchcock films, the thrill and suspense will keep you glued to your seats till the end.

Watch out for the opening credits of the film. North by Northwest is known to be the first feature film to make extended use of ‘kinetic typography’, a special type of animation technique in its opening credits. The credits fly in from off-screen and finally fade out into the film itself.

Hitchcock’s signature in his films was his cameo appearance. At the end of the opening credits,...

Ryan Lambie Jul 28, 2016

What do Bambi, The Dark Knight and Seven all have in common? Some powerful moments of off-screen violence...

Nb: The following contains spoilers for Seven (1995) and The Witch (2015)

The seminal moment in the history of cinema came at the turn of the 20th century, when the medium began to move away from the storytelling language of the theatre. Filmmakers like Edwin S Porter began to realise that the camera could do so much more than simply record what was in front of it; such techniques as close-ups and edits to different angles or locations could be used to create drama.

It’s these filmmaking techniques that the masters of cinema use to create suspense and feelings of dread. And while there’s nothing wrong with jabs of violence of gore in movies, it remains the case that anticipation or suggestion of a violent act is more effective than seeing the moment itself.

For the finale of May Flowers I thought we should gaze at Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Vertigo(1958). Aside from Vertigo descendants like Robert Altman's Three Women or David Lynch's Mulholland Drive what film is more appropriate for this time of year when we're ruled by twin sign Gemini? Hitchcock films generally deserve complete dissertations but we don't have Scottie Ferguson's (Jimmy Stewart) stamina when it comes to fetishizing doppelgangers. So in the space of this blogpost we merely glance at his introductions to Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak).

Ferguson has been hired to follow Madeleine and as he first spots her in the deep rose red restaurant, Hitchock slow zooms out from Scottie (far right) at the bar and pans left, following his gaze, into the dining area filled with flowers and well heeled customers and even a painting of a floral arrangement framed by floral arrangements before it finally stops at Madeleine (tiny,...