Flick of The Day: Vertigo

The most recent issue of Sight and Sound detailed the results of the venerated magazines once a decade poll of directors and critics to produce a list of the best films of all time. Orson Welles brilliant Citizen Kane has long enjoyed a position atop the pile so it was a surprise then to see it drop to 2nd in the latest poll and perhaps equally surprising was the film which toppled it. Hitchcock's Vertigo was for many years seen as one of the great directors lesser pictures, being as it was box office flop on its original release in 1958. This was if it was seen at all, Hitchcock had purchased the rights for the film so that they be passed on to his daughter in his will and the film was thus largely unavailable for distribution until a new print was issued in 1996. This served to garner the film a reappraisal as a classic.

Vertigo

Opening with a bravura foot chase sequence across the rooftops of San Francisco, this is a film that oozes modernity and it quickly becomes obvious why it was misunderstood on release. Jimmy Stewart plays a police detective, John "Scottie" Ferguson, who due to his sudden bouts of vertigo can no longer do his job and is forced into retirement. He spends his days verbally jousting with his old friend Midge, played by Barbara Bel Geddes who would go on to fame in the 1980's with TV's Dallas. He is approached by an old friend Gavin Elster who is worried that his wife Madeline has become possessed by the spirit of a deceased relative. Scottie reluctantly agrees to investigate Madeline, played the icy blonde Kim Novak. He follows her around the city in a near wordless montage, captured in gorgeous Technicolour. After saving her from a suicide attempt, he falls in love and gradually becomes obsessed with Madeline's beauty before tragedy strikes. The second half the film then challenges our perceptions about what we thought we saw and of the true nature of the characters involved.

After the failure of the film to shift tickets at the box office, Hitchcock blamed Stewart for being too old to play the interest and they never worked together again despite what had been a rich vein of success up to that point. Whether this was the cause of the film's failure is an arguable point but what can't be argued is that Jimmy is showing his age. Looking all of his 50 years, the age gap with 25 year old Novak is noticeable given the direction of the plot. That said, there is no doubting the quality of Stewart's performance. It is unlike almost anything else in his career and is by the standards of the day, out there. He gradually becomes gripped by the memory of Novak's Madeline and becomes a dangerous wild eyed obsessive. This is not the laconic and verbose Stewart of Rear Window, this is a man on the edge.

In terms of technical prowess, this is equally impressive. Hitchcock pioneered the use of a dolly zoom to create the effect of a perspective shift to the viewers eye. This combined with the hypnotic score of Bernard Herrmann create a film that is at times unsettling, forcing the viewer to be on edge throughout. As regards its depiction of obsession and the dangers therein, there are few films to match it. Stewart's Scottie is a man with a tortured psyche who it becomes clear can not be relied upon.

So then is it the best film of all time? That is a difficult question, it is more compelling then it is enjoyable. It really depends on what you are looking for in determining greatness. I have long believed that it is the technical superiority and ground breaking narrative which have given Citizen Kane such a burnished reputation. For me, it is still the better film. Though neither would rank so high in my rank of favourites.

Flick of The Day: Rear Window

Following on from last week's debut Hitchcock flick of the day, today's is another classic from the master of suspense. Perhaps his best work, Rear Window, is one of those rare films that is as good and as thrilling today as it was upon release. 

Rear Window (Collector's Edition)

A story so breathtakingly simple that it has been redone and ripped off innumerable times since the original, Rear Window is a classic of suspenseful film-making. Starring the ever reliable James Stewart as LB Jeffries, a dashing photojournalist who is layed up with a broken leg in his tiny courtyard apartment. Between visits from his nurse, a wonderful Thelma Ritter and his girlfriend Lisa played by a gorgeous Grace Kelly, he watches his neighbours idly. There is the young couple, the struggling musician, the siren, the depressed spinster and perhaps a murderer. Late one night, Jeffries witnesses what he thinks is the murder of a neighbour by her long suffering husband Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr. Of course he can't be sure, and as an audience we are sceptical but as Jeffries gets drawn into the chase and shares his obsession with the initially sceptical Lisa, the tension begins to mount. A thrilling finale ensues but not before some nail-biting drama.

Stewart and Kelly are perfectly cast as a couple with his world weary cynic Jeffries dove tailing with her young idealism. There is great chemistry between the pair and Grace Kelly never looked more radiant as in this film. The history of cinema is littered with famous beauties, but for my money she is the last word. There is wonderful interplay between the two.

Lisa: I wish I were creative. 

Jeff: You are. You're great at creating difficult situations.

The various characters which populate the courtyard are perfectly drawn and avoid being mere ciphers to advance the plot. Indeed as the film trundles along, they each have their own small story which is tied up neatly at the end. All solid film-making so far then but what sets this apart? As usual it is Hitchcock's ability to gradually raise the tension over the course of the film, sucking the audience in so that when Lisa is in danger and a helpless Jeff looks on from his apartment, we are equally worried. 

It is a very simple camera setup, with the vast majority of the film being seen from the window of Jeff's apartment or indeed in Jeff's apartment. Indeed it is only at the conclusion that we see a shot looking toward his apartment and it is momentarily jarring.In this way, Hitchcock limits what the audience can see to what Jeff sees. The audience becomes the voyeur. Like Jeff, we are immobilised and cannot intervene. It is an interesting study into why people look and perhaps indicates a normal universality to it.

Jeff: She wants me to marry her. 

Stella: That's normal. 

Jeff: I don't want to. 

Stella: That's abnormal.

All in all, a wonderful film that perfectly blends thrilling tension with comic moments. Hitchock displays a lightness of touch not normally seen in modern Hollywood thrillers and this is satisfying even today. Technicolour gives the film that wonderful glow of 1950's modernity and Grace Kelly and James Stewart sparkle in their roles. Ultimately when the ending comes, we want to dive back in and spend more time with Jeff and his girlfriend and the happenings of the small apartment building. A classic.

Flick of The Day: Shadow of a Doubt

As I was reading through the list of 111 movies that have graced the pages of The Daily Flick since I began, I was shocked to see that I had yet to review a single film by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. Indeed, I have reviewed two works of Henri-Georges Clouzot, the so called "French Hitchcock", The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques and none from the man himself, Hitch. In that spirit then, today's flick of the day is one of Hitchcock's lesser known classics, Shadow of a Doubt.

Shadow of a Doubt

Starring the brilliant Joseph Cotten, truely one of the most underrated actors of the century as Charles Oakley, a man with a secret. As the film opens, he hides in a boarding house in New York pursued by shady unknown men. As they pursue, Charles decides to head for California to pay a visit to his sister and her family in the kind of idyllic and peaceful pre-war American  town that existed only in the movies. Of course, it is apparent early on that all is not as it seems with Charles. He has the kind of eerie charm that at once disarms and raises alarm bells. As my mother might have put it, there is just something not quite right about him.

On arriving in California, Charles endears himself to all including his impressionable young niece Charlie, played by Teresa Wright. Charlie adores her Uncle however when a pair of detectives turn up, posing as magazine writers and asking questions about Uncle Charles, her suspicions begin to be aroused. Why has he torn a headline from the evening newspaper about the Merry Widow murderer? Why does he refuse to have his photo taken? As the tension mounts and her Uncle's behaviour begins to become more erratic, Charlie is left with only one conclusion.

This is Hitchcock's first great masterpiece and perhaps his most American film, expertly dissecting the vicissitudes of small town life between the wars, as small towns across America were becoming encroached on by the inexorable rise of urbanisation and the automobile. It also plays on that universal fear of the relative who you just don't trust. Every family in the world has a black sheep but what if he was more then that? Hitchcock plays on these fears expertly and Joseph Cotten is excellent as the decidedly odd Charles. Quick to anger and yet endlessly trying to endear himself, it is in short creepy.

Uncle Charlie: The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands, dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women... Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?

A fascinating psychological study and a film that is as thrilling today as it was upon its release. It is perhaps his darkest work, the worst possible outcome is the ending you get. It is your classic good vs evil tale in small town America. A classic to be sure with well drawn characters and a charming setting that is beautifully shot by Joseph Valentine on location in California. Teresa Wright excels as Charlie, in only her fourth picture. She would go on to have a long career, making her final performance in an adaptation of John Grisham's The Rainmaker opposite a young Matt Damon some 60 years after this film. Quite a career.

The scene above is perhaps my favourite shot of Hitchcock's long and varied career. It is as Uncle Charles train arrives in town, and while the family await his arrival, the youngest boy hangs back transfixed by the great locomotive. His eyes follow it down the platform. It is at once perfectly realistic and yet represents the best of cinema. Well, what more can be said then? It is a classic to be sure and a film that still shines through all these years later. A must see.