Am I the only one who thinks that “Rear Window” is not a great movie?

Nope.

You are not alone.

I was waiting for the plot twist, like the newlyweds were killers, but it never came.

I get it that Grace Kelly looks great.

And that gay Raymond Burr delivers a great performance.

Op = David O. Selznick

I was distracted by Kelly's luxurious and glamorous wardrobe., especially the black and white gown.

I’ve always wanted to love this movie, but it’s such a bore every time I try.

I think it's a fun movie.

She was never buried in the courtyard. If you can't get basic plot points right, OP, what's the point in listening to anything you have to say?

^^ Alma Reville

I enjoyed the set design.

In my opinion, all of the major Hitchcock films that I know -- PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO -- have tremendous, ridiculous, insane plot holes that outweigh whatever virtues these movies may have.

It's not very suspenseful but if you stop looking for the thriller aspect, it's an extraordinary film in the way it looks at love and marriage in all their forms through that window.

I enjoyed Thelma Ritter. She was a hidden treasure.

It’s fun to watch. I love Graces black on white gown.

I taught the film to high school seniors at an all-boys private school. They were so taken in with the plot that the entire class stayed through the final school bell to finish the last ten minutes.

It's a great movie for its form, performances and lurid perversity. Not for the plot. Sheesh.

[Quote] all of the major Hitchcock films that I know -- PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO -- have tremendous, ridiculous, insane plot holes

Movies are stories and all stories have conceits you need to accept in order to enjoy them.

He buried the head, not the whole body.

This is one of those deal breaker movies for me....liking things is, of course, subjective but if you don't like this movie then you definitely move to a different level of friendship circle.

Probably "Super Casual Aquaintance With Terrible Taste...Mostly Avoid"

If you play golf as well, then you're just dead to me.

I agree that it's unfairly named (along with Vertigo) as Hitchcock's masterpiece, when that title belongs to Shadow of a Doubt. But I guess it's popular enough that several tv shows have stolen the premise when they ran out of ideas.

[quote]R15 I love Graces black on white gown. Iconic

Almost the same dress (but designed by Jean Louis) appeared on Kim Novak that same year. WHO invented the look…. Mr. Louis, or Edith Head ? ?

Very mysterious!

This is not an insignificant movie.

I watched it again on Netflix recently, and while I appreciate that the film is built around the Kuleshov Effect, it's still a bore. I agree with Orson Welles, who said that once Hitchcock moved to color, he got lazy, and all of his color films were lit like television shows.

I'm not the biggest fan of James Stewart and Grace Kelly either, so that's another reason why I don't find it appealing.

I think teenagers who've never seen a Hitchcock movie would really enjoy “Rear Window” as almost a primer to the director's work. Like the earlier poster I also think "Shadow of a Doubt" is Hitchcock at the very top of his movie storytelling.

"DID YOU KILL HIM BECAUSE HE LIKED YA?! JUST BECAUSE HE LIKED YA?!"

It's such a good movie that it works in spite of the plot holes

my only problem with it was Grace involved with that ugly old man.

[bold]iStandWithMissLonelyhearts

I love this film, not least because it is the inspiration for one of my favorite album covers, Led Zep's [italic]Physical Graffiti.[/italic]

It's a perfect movie.

Like any movie if you think back on it a lot of it doesn't make sense though in Rear Window the final scene a wheelchair bound Jimmy Stewart is left alone by Thelma Ritter as she leaves to bail out Grace Kelly even though both she and Stuart know that Raymond Burr's character is onto them.

Like another 1954 Hitchcock film starring Grace Kelly, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window seems a bit talkie and over long but it makes better use of its one-set setting than Dial M

That's DL fave Thema Ritter R14!

Yeah and those flash bulbs. As if Thorwald could not have covered his eyes too….

And WHY bury her head in the first place?

I don't want any part of it.

* Surprised look.

can't finish this 1. I dislike the leads

R29 those are front windows, not rear windows.

What’s your source?

R32 Dial M was a stage play adaptation.

I think “Dial M” is extremely boring and was the wrong movie to use for 3D. The only good sequence is the attempted murder and then we just get a lot if 3D effects of lamps sitting on end tables.

R36 can't finish many things. Can't even write the word "one".

[quote]But I guess it's popular enough that several tv shows have stolen the premise when they ran out of ideas.

And a movie, starring DL favorite Shia LaBeouf

I am not saying it’s a bad movie. I liked watching it.

But I don’t understand why it’s considered Hitchcock’s best.

You can buy a picture for $600.

No Words.

R37, iirc an interview with Robert Plant in [italic]Creem[/italic] magazine or [italic]Rolling Stone[/italic] from 1982 when his first solo album came out. But it's been 40+ years since I read the article; I'll go through my old mags and see if I can find it.

I think it's in the same article where he discusses the pronunciation and meaning of "D’yer Mak’er" and/or "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp."l

If I'm wrong about it, I apologize in advance.

Again, iicrc; it's been a loooooonnngg time since I even thought about that article.

My favorite film of all time. I always accepted it as very stagey and visual, and not based on any sort of gritty reality. With its use of elaborate sets and dissonant sounds it seems to always choose atmosphere.

I find it interesting how an otherwise flawless Grace slightly flubs a line in one scene and it was left in, “Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see?” She trips pretty loudly over the word “see” and seems to want to have said “seen,” and corrects herself.

There’s also a subtle “blooper” (of sorts) just before the famous line, “Start from the beginning again Jeff. Tell me everything…” In the long zoom up to Grace’s face just before she says the line, you can literally hear the camera people and techs walking, creaking and stepping along the floorboards (as they move the heavy camera along a track?) in an otherwise quiet room.

R31 must be postmenopausal because they seem to have run out of periods.

“Awe shucks” I get tired of Jimmy Stewart. But I enjoyed him in The Thin Man.

[quote]Am I the only one who thinks that “Rear Window” is not a great movie?

No, because there are always dim bulbs who for some reason cannot recognize that verisimilitude is not often a feature that Hitchcock cares about. He does not stoop when it comes to satisfying bean-counting Philistines. He is a magician manipulating his audience with plainly theatrical maneuvers, and he knows that intelligent members of the audience will see his ploys as part of the glorious package.

You people are a really tough crowd. I'd be interested in what you do think is a great movie. This one is ranked #38 on the Sight & Sound poll of the 200 Greatest Films of All Time. 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.5 on IMDB. It's always been a huge audience and critics' favorite.

By the way, great films are about more than the dresses worn by the leading lady and the supposed plot holes. What are some of those so-called plot holes, by the way? Are they major? Would they affect most people's enjoyment of a film? Or just picky eaters?

Anyone ever notice great toches such as Hitchcock using Bing Crosby's "To See You is to Love You" on the soundtrack as Miss Lonelyhearts entertains an imaginary, unseen visitor? No? There are hundreds of things like that.

James Stewart wasn't in The Thin Man, he was in one of the subsequent films in the series.

[quote]Movies are stories and all stories have conceits you need to accept in order to enjoy them.

Yes, but I don't have to accept them if I don't like them and if I think they make hash of the movie. Like the opening of the movie, where we see a cop fall off a high roof to his death, screaming on the way down, and then we see Jimmy Stewart hanging from the same height by his fingers, with no help in sight -- and then there's a fade to another scene, months later, where Stewart seems to have only sustained a minor injury. What a weird way to start your flick, Hitch! Are you trying to tell your audiences, "In my movies, ANYTHING can happen on a whim, so nothing really means anything.?"

As a critic said on a "making of" feature I watched recently (of a Hitchcock film), audiences today need everything spelled out and explained to them, which is why a lot of movies run 2.5 to 3 hours.

r14, Thelma Ritter may be "hidden" to some degree nowadays, but she received six Academy Award nominations in her long career. No wins, though,

Thelma did win a Tony in 1958 for New Girl in Town (musical version of Anna Christie, with Gwen Verdon). She made her film debut at age 45 and died at 66.

Imagine, Macy’s sending me to Gimbel’s!

Separately OP I appreciate your phrasing “only one who” instead of “only one that”. I notice that writers now often use “that” when describing humans, and it sounds less refined.

R46 You're hearing things. I just replayed that scene "Tell me everything you saw and what you think it means") and there's no crew on the soundtrack. The crackle is just ambient sound and it's all over the movie.

I thought it was generally accepted by critics that Vertigo is not only Hitchcock’s best, but routinely voted as one of the best movies of all time.

I think Psycho is his absolute masterpiece. Flawless, not a false move.

The Lady Vanishes and Frenzy are probably my Hitchcock favorites, followed by The Birds and Rear Window.

I think Vertigo is a bore.

OP, what list do you refer to proclaiming that Rear Window is a great movie? I'd like to see it (or them if multiple).

Do I think it's "great"? No, but it definitely hits lists of great films for the way it is shot... everything is seen through Stewart's window, but we never enter the neighbor's homes/spaces; we are only voyeurs (like Stewart, Kelly, and Ritter). And even though we olny view other lives, in the course of the movie we come to know the different characters and care for them (or some)... Miss Lonleyhearts, the musician, the newleyweds, the young dancer, the couple with the dog, the Thorndikes... keeping us at arm's length but letting us into their lives is why it received considerable press and evaluation.

PLUS, Grace is beautiful throughout and Hitchcock does everything he can with camera and lighting to proclaim that he thinks she's a goddess worthy of adoration... even at the end with her in jeans!

[quote]I think Psycho is his absolute masterpiece. Flawless, not a false move.

And filmed in 14 days.

I never took it as an actual murder taking place. I gave Raymond Burr credit for being shady, but I always thought it was some guy trapped in his house with that cast on, a photographer by trade, so he was watching people all day, and trying to make it interesting by concocting various scenarios. We were seeing all those people through his lens.

Yes, R64, there should be “Rear Window - The Other Side.”

We live in an era of Villain Redemption anyways.

[quote] I watched it again on Netflix recently, and while I appreciate that the film is built around the Kuleshov Effect, it's still a bore. I agree with Orson Welles, who said that once Hitchcock moved to color, he got lazy, and all of his color films were lit like television shows.

His comment is odd. He is certainly free to find the movies bad. The idea that they are lazy is silly. Many of them are quite ambitious. Whatever you think of Vertigo it isn’t lazy and doesn’t resemble any television program I have seen.

I find the modern obsession with "plot holes" maddening (especially when people use "plot hole" to mean "coincidence" or "not spelled out plot point"). You can do the same thing with other wonderful pieces, all the way back to OEDIPUS THE KING. To me such things matter in inverse proportion to the overall quality of the film otherwise -- look, feel, performances and above all fascinating and well-explored themes.

In my experience, there's often a "gotcha" quality to such things. If you weren't engaged by REAR WINDOW, fine. If the other elements I mentioned didn't draw you in, then yeah, you're more likely to detach and pick it apart. That's your right. But one could also argue that you're missing the forest for the trees -- again, when other elements are so strong.

Last thought -- I always liked REAR WINDOW just fine but didn't love it . . . until I saw it on a big screen. Then it clicked for me.

[quote] In my opinion, all of the major Hitchcock films that I know -- PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO -- have tremendous, ridiculous, insane plot holes that outweigh whatever virtues these movies may have.

They are not documentaries.

I think the husband in the newlywed couple can do better. Though the wife seems to have a high sex drive.

Like a dagger in my heart, OP. Love Rear Window.

R61, same here. Vertigo is a bore. The pairing of Kim Novak with Jimmy Stewart is bothersome (and to see it as well in Bell, Book, and Candle is really annoying). As much as I detest that hypocrite whore Grace Kelly, I enjoy Rear Window much more than Vertigo.

I think Notorious is better than both of them.

I also love Young and Innocent, aka A Shilling for Candles. Extremely goofy early Hitchcock and an entirely different sort of story. But silly and fun.

And the basic premise is far-fetched because wouldn't Thorwald (Raymond Burr) keep his blinds or shades drawn.

If I was trying to entice a 50-ish retired detective with a beautiful woman, as Elster does in Rear Vertigo, of course I would select a gorgeous young woman like Novak. And yes, people who aren't in the same age group do fall in love. They didn't plan to fall in love but it happened. Age-obsessed movie watchers make me crazy. If you look at contemporary reviews, it's never mentioned.

Stewart is the same age as Bradley Cooper is now. If they remade Vertigo with Cooper, would they put him with a 50 year old woman? I doubt it.

R70 and All:

OP here. I am currently on a Hitchcock bing before Netflix is pulling the movies.

I came off watching Psycho, which is AWESOME , and was a little disappointed by "Rear Window", which I saw for the first time. I realize that the movie has many qualities that become more apparent upon repeated watching. I wish I could see it on a big screen (Castro Theatre).

^Hitchcock binge

The best mix of skill and entertainment is The Birds. The ultimate MacGuffin.

OP my favorite is Shadow of a Doubt, followed by The Birds. I enjoy Hitchcock, never liked Vertigo.

I don’t like Jimmy Stewart as a general rule but this provided one of his greatest performances. If you disagree, consider for a moment how busily acting people like Clooney, or Pitt, or Damon would in the same role. Him silently reacting to life viewed out his window was beautiful.

One of the Hollywood issues of Vanity Fair had a shoot of Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson in the roles. Maybe. I think, maybe in the late 90s, Denzel Washington and Catherine Zeta-Jones would have been a good fit.

I saw Vertigo when CBS had a rare showing, back in the early 70s. I was a young teen, thought it was amazing, still do. Recently I watched a few Hitchcock movies when I was out of work for a week or so. I Confess, The Paradine Case, Torn Curtain, Shadow of a Doubt, Psycho, and North by Northwest. I really like I Confess (in spite of it being more or less suspenseless), I enjoy Paradine for some of the performances and the Hitchcock touches. Hated Torn Curtain even more than the last time I saw it. Shadow of a Doubt is disturbing, more than entertaining. One of the few Hitchcock movies where the main male character is evil, and the villain. Psycho is always absorbing, but I hate that backward fall down the stairs of Martin Balsam, as staged by Hitch. North by Northwest, I hadn't seen in years and thoroughly enjoyed.

There were two actors named Jimmy Stewart. There was the pre-war version and the post-war version. Ultimately, the post-war version is more interesting from a psychological perspective. His tour of duty had a deep effect on him, and it shows in his movies. His work in westerns is as interesting as his Hitchcock work—whether or not you enjoy the actual movies.

I love his westerns and his work in them.

Interesting how he and Cagney were usually referred to by the press and public as Jimmy while they were always billed as James.

Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson in Rear Window.

[quote]In my opinion, all of the major Hitchcock films that I know -- PSYCHO, REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO -- have tremendous, ridiculous, insane plot holes that outweigh whatever virtues these movies may have.

[quote]They are not documentaries.

What the hell kind of argument is that? If a plot point in a script is so ridiculous that it takes you out of the movie, because all you can do is fixate on that plot point and try to make sense of it, then that's a tremendous flaw of the overall film. And Hitchock's movies are full of them.

[quote]I find the modern obsession with "plot holes" maddening (especially when people use "plot hole" to mean "coincidence" or "not spelled out plot point"). You can do the same thing with other wonderful pieces, all the way back to OEDIPUS THE KING. To me such things matter in inverse proportion to the overall quality of the film otherwise -- look, feel, performances and above all fascinating and well-explored themes.

No, a coincidence that strains credibility is NOT the same as a plot hole, because a striking coincidence CAN happen, whereas many of the huge plot holes in Hitchcock movies are ruinous. And P.S., the last places where plot holes should be forgivable are in thickly plotted movies like Hitchcock's, whereas similar plot holes would make much less difference in a light romantic comedy.

R83 Have you been diagnosed with OCD?

R85, it's not a sign of OCD when someone insists that mystery and suspense movies have plot points that make sense, rather than including scenes and incidents that would never and could never in a million years happen in real life.

Rear Window is my favorite Hitchcock and at some periods my favorite movie of all time. It completely engulfs me when I watch it - pure cinema. I saw it on TV as a little kid and decided then and there that I wanted to move to New York and that I wanted to work in something having to do with the movies and I did both things eventually. The glamour of Grace, the seediness of all the voyeurism and the stories in every apartment across the way. It encapsulates this city perfectly, and the act of watching movies perfectly too. And yeah like a poster said above - seeing it on a big screen is revelatory. That wall of windows needs to be enormous, life-size, to be really appreciated.

R87 Agree with you 100%!

On the flip side, I think Vertigo is incredibly overrated. I found it slow, dull, and ridiculous in its plot twists.

I did appreciate the cinematography, but that's about it.

Rear Window really needs to be seen on the big screen. I saw it at a screening at the Castro Theater in SF years ago, and I was blown away, from the incredible view of all the apartments and goings on outside of Jimmy Stewart's window to the breathtaking look of Grace Kelly when she first appears on screen and kisses a sleeping Jimmy.

After it had been withheld for years, Rear Window was re-relased in theaters (by Universal--they originally took off the Paramount logo and substituted theirs). Follwed by Vertigo, The Trouble With Harry, and a couple more. So that's when I saw RW--in a theater.

I think of parts of Vertigo as dreamlike and hypnotic, with a quality of timelessnes. The somtimes languid pace combined with the music and cinematography draws me in. If you think it's "slow", I guess this is not the movie for you. I don't see how else it could have been done to create the intended mood.

The only thing I don’t like about “Rear Window” is how there is still, by the end, very little evidence of anything. They don’t find anything in the garden, they only find the wedding ring. They’re pretty much stymied at every turn until Burr comes into the apartment.

R92 But remember? They got a confession from Burr.

Yeah she is in the East River….

It's not up to Jeff, LIsa and Stella to find the evidence.

And Thorwald confesses to the police.

Hitchcock preferred a slow, deliberate pacing that many in today's audiences cannot tolerate. They are used to fast-paced action. With Hitch the suspense comes from the audience thinking and figuring things out. The code of the day prevented him from showing much in the way of gore, violence, or sex, so Hitch became a master of subtle suggestion, and that means also giving the audience time to contemplate things before moving on too quickly.

Another Hitchcock quality that many seem to miss today is his incredible sense of humor. It tended to be dark, and sometimes macabre. No matter how serious the film, Hitch always injected touches humor throughout. Both The Trouble With Harry and Family Plot could be considered out-and-out comedies.

Looking at how his films are rated on Rotten Tomatoes, Hitchcock's place as a master of cinema is pretty damn solid.

True R97, I loved the bald soldier boyfriend of Miss Torso.

R78 Jimmy Stewart's best performance may very well be in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder 1959. He was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle and received his final Oscar nomination for the film and the film itself is one of the finest courtroom dramas ever and still relevant today.

Stewart was so consistently good it's hard to name a best performance. Though I think there were a handful of bad performances.)

[quote]I taught the film to high school seniors at an all-boys private school

Are they hiring?

R92, back then they didn’t have all of the forensic tools we have now. Since there were no surveillance cameras then, for example, it really would have been possible for Burr to cut up his wife’s body, package it up, and take it out of the apartment. A lot of murder mysteries of that era (Agatha Christie’s, for example) end with a suspect being compelled in some way to confess. It was the only way to be sure.

Thoughts on the Christopher Reeve remake from the 90s? Does Daryl Hannah make you say Grace Kelly who?

The remake suffered from Christopher Reeve's suffering. It was amazing that he was able to make a new film, but you couldn't ever get over the fact that it was him, and think about all he'd been through.

r73

[quote]as Elster does in Rear Vertigo

Myself, I've always preferred [italic]The Psycho Vanishes[/italic] and [italic]To Catch a Wrong Man[/italic].

[quote]And WHY bury her head in the first place?

So the body couldn't be identified. This was the days before DNA. Bodies in the river almost always wash ashore. Without a head, they wouldn't know who it was.

[quote]R50 What are some of those so-called plot holes, by the way?

Lisa Fremont being desperate to marry a man who’s apparently her grandfather?

Stewart was 21 years older than Kelly.

If you don't want to and can't really see a Hitchcock movie, don't blame the movie because you saw it anyway.

Personal taste differs from artistic accomplishment. But even though I don't like westerns or Clint Eastwood, I'm still amazed at what he accomplished with "Unforgiven."

As for the "plot" comment, the OP shows her cards that she's trolling.

[quote]If a plot point in a script is so ridiculous that it takes you out of the movie, because all you can do is fixate on that plot point and try to make sense of it, then that's a tremendous flaw of the overall film. And Hitchock's movies are full of them.

I think you may want to stay away from literature and cinema more broadly. It's going to be traumatic for you.

I’m a Hitchcock fan, but I always thought this one and the man who knew too much from the 50s were too talky

[quote]R88 On the flip side, I think Vertigo is incredibly overrated. I found it slow, dull, and ridiculous in its plot twists.

VERTIGO is a mood. The story is kind of jumbled, but the emotional center of the story, the romantic yearning for what cannot be had, is deeper and more compelling than what’s in most of Hitchcock’s films. Maybe because it struck so close to his (fat, disappointed) heart.

I don't get your point, R110. Of course, there are lots of novels, movies, etc. with plot points that strain credulity beyond the breaking point, but there are also a great many that do not, and I will be happy to stick with the latter.

Family Plot remains under-rated.

A sly comedic film full if actors not known for comedy yet who all seem to be on the same page as far as the tone of the film. This is all Hitchcock. It's always worth watching, imo.

I like Family Plot

Nope love it. Decided to watch it right now. Thanks!

Kinda risque at the time for Miss Torso to take her top off even if she had her back to the camera.

Stating the obvious but we the audience are watching Jimmy Stewart, who's watching these dramas unfold within the window frames, played out like silent movies, so it's as if he's watching several movie screens as pantomines play out on them.

Also Hitchcock was all about subjective cutting--showing someone looking at something, then cutting back to the reaction. This movie is one of the best examples of that. Most directors didn't direct in that style, but a lot of people don't even notice it.

I think of parts of Vertigo as dreamlike and hypnotic... I don't see how else it could have been done to create the intended mood.

For me the movie dies as soon as Kim Novak speaks.

Spot on AF, R17.

My favorite thing about the movie is that you have this guy who's a journalistic photographer who likes to get in harm's way. And he's laid up because he was photographing an auto race and got onto the track and got his leg broken. These days a guy with that kind of job would probably make a fortune, but he just lives in a regular courtyard apartment, apparently in Greenwich Village. He has a girlfriend who's in the fashion world, and she wants him to settle down and become a regular, safe photographer. In the course of the proceedings, this chick who he thinks is a beautiful girl but to into shallow stuff, and who could never have the fortitude to stand his lifestyle, proves to him she has amazing guts. And does he think, "Now she's not feminine." Nope, he loves her even more.

To R108-and Jimmy Stewart looked 21 years older than Grace Kelly

Thelma Ritter looked younger than Jimmy. Nevertheless, I loved the movie Rear Window. Grace& Thelma stole the movie.

The top 10 box office stars of 1954, according to Quigley's Top Ten Box-Office Champions, were:

1. John Wayne

2. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis

3. Gary Cooper

4. James Stewart

5. Marilyn Monroe

6. Alan Ladd

7. William Holden

8. Bing Crosby

9. Jane Wyman

10. Marlon Brando

"Rope" was an offbeat type of Hitchcock film with the murder taking place in the first minute or so, unseen by viewer, outside a shuttered window. Very clinical and matter-of-fact.

Then it's hide-the-body time when the murderous (gay) college buddies give a cocktail party---even inviting the victim's parents! The film has a slow, meandering tone to it, and stays in the same room where the murder happened. So Hitchcock in tone--droll but macabre.

I liked it as much as I liked "Rear Window" but for different reasons. Anyone else ever see it?

And yes, Jimmy Stewart was much too old for Kelly in RW---and such a cranky bore to boot.

I don't want to call people stupid, but Stewart's character was in a full leg cast stuck in his apartment in a heat wave, when he was a very active, adventurous man. If he wasn't cranky, it would make no sense.

Rope has no cuts. It plays out mostly in real time, in 9-minute takes.

If you like that approach, it’s used in BIRDMAN (2014), too.

R124 - the Rope murder is shown.

That sped up scene where James is attacked is like the Keystone Cops.

Hitchcock also used it (partly) in Under Capricorn. There was a very elaborate set up at a dinner party, where they had to pull a long table apart, and have people move out of the way, so that the camera could pull in on Ingrid Bergman without a cut. If any mistakes were made they had to do it over from the very beginning. It unnerved Bergman a lot and--uncharacteristically--she flipped out and had a meltdown, which I think Hitch dealt with by leaving.

Watching the movie, it goes along pretty well until that scene, then it slows down and loses steam as Hitchcock takes the camera upstairs and does all these things without a cut that are impressive, but take you out of the story.

All the episodes of Adolescence are in one take. Four one-hour episodes. Great show.

R127 --okay, thanks for the correction. I was remembering only hearing a scream outside the window.

Don’t you on,y see the absolute last moment of the murder in Rope, as the strangled guy slumps in their arms? It’s so over the top homoerotic, basically an orgasm — Hitch being such a perv is what’s made his movies last

I love it but I love Rebecca more. and North by Nothwest is possibly my my favorite movie.

Seen ROPE a few times. Wasn't there the novelty of making it seem continuous?

I can find enjoyment in any Hitchcock film except for Torn Curtain.

Topaz is pretty dire too except for that one shot of the killed lady's spreading dress.

1-No mentioned so far about Kelly's fabulous green suit, which kind of resembles the one Tippi Hedren wore in The Birds.

2-Any film where Thelma Ritter disappears three-quarters of the way through loses something. Same with All About Eve.

3-How do these beautiful, intelligent women end up with old guys? Must be some wish fulfillment on the part of the someone involved with the film. In Sabrina, twenty-something Audrey Hepburn ends up with old, ugly, cranky Humphrey Bogart. At least with Cary Grant he was still attractive, even though his costars were young enough to be his daughters.

The original short story “It Had To Be Murder”, written by Cornell Woolrich and published by Detective magazine in 1942, is (unsurprisingly) different in significant ways to Hitchcock’s film. Hitchcock was a fan of Woolrich’s writing.

Jeff is confined to his apartment with a broken leg, looking out the back windows. But he isn’t a photojournalist.

The amount of side characters seen in other rear windows in the courtyard is smaller in the original story. There are only a few and they are hardly mentioned.

There is no girlfriend character. At all.

There is no female nurse character either. Jeff has a “caretaker” who is male and black, named Sal.

Sal gets wrapped up in Jeff’s theories about Thorwall murdering his wife, and helps Jeff. At one point Jeff convinces Sal to go into Thorwall’s apartment, but only with the intention of making it look like someone has gone through his things.

He interacts with Detective Boyle quite a bit, who is different than Jeff’s army buddy in the film

There was an interesting interview with Woolrich I read once but can’t find now where he says his inspiration for writing the story came from a similar situation. He had a writing room in his apartment that looked out into a back courtyard. There were two little girls he would see in the same window from time to time who would sometimes catch his attention and act silly, and other times he saw glimpses of the girls interacting with their family where they would be more serious. Somehow the story was born from this.

I always thought it was on the boring side.

R122. But he couldn't have been her grandfather by any stretch.

Cornell Woolrich was gay, in a different era. He was kind of a mess but had his successes in life.

[quote]I always thought it was on the boring side.

If you're easily bored, this is the kind of movie that will probably bore you.

I know this is a discussion of Rear Window (which I also love and have seen on the big screen more than once) my personal favorite is Lifeboat. So much happening in that little skiff, a real microcosm of the time, and an incisive look at human nature under pressure. With a few well-placed laughs, of course.

The rear projection in Lifeboat is some of the best I've ever seen. If it wasn't good the illusion would have been ruined. Really another Hitchcock "experiment" hardly ever mentioned, because almost all of it was filmed in the studio.

I liked “Frenzy” but, as a friend of mine said, it feel like there’s a whole middle part missing. Not that there are plot holes but it just seems like there should be more.

The trailer is quite good.

I'm sure there are things about Rear Window that have been copied many times by now (it has been remade, but I mean, not so much the exact premise, but there have been many things stolen or "inspired by" many Hitchcock films.) At the time, there was nothing like this movie, other than maybe The Window (1949). Hitchcock also pushed the bounds of Hollywood self-censorship quite a bit. There weren't a lot of "A" movies as disturbing as Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds, etc.

And, sadly, R144 there are very few if any of this disturbing quality today. The last one I can name was “Parasite”

“Everything, Everywhere…. “ was just crap.

North by Northwest was the Oppenheimer of Hitchcock movies. It had all the ingredients to impress but it left me cold.

My favourite pure Hitchcock entertainment is The Birds.

I've always loved North by Northwest.

Since this is turning into a general Hitchcock thread: I'm a great admirer of Hitchcock and have seen all of his films multiple times . . . but I am flummoxed as to why people frequently mention [italic]Shadow of a Doubt[/italic] as one of his very best, as I find it OK but a bit of a bore. Am I the only who who thinks [italic]Shadow of a Doubt[/italic] is not a great movie? Could those who really like it please specify why they find it outstanding [italic]relative to other Hitchcock films[/italic] (in other words, with statements like, "It's better than [italic]Strangers on a Train[/italic] because . . . ", "It has better [italic]xyz[/italic] than [italic]Stage Fright[/italic]," and so on)?

Well, it was Hitchcock's favorite among his films...

I have to laugh when Thelma says I'm not an educated woman.

r149 Then we're taking its merit on trust rather than observation and experience?

R148 and others, some of the movies Hitch directed that are considered "great" receive that stamp because at the time they were shot and released, they were somehow "subversive" or "pushed boundaries" or were an attempt at something no one else had tried or achieved. Yes, there were other directors who pushed boundaries (Orson Welles for example), but no one else had the output of Hitchcock.

Shadow of a Doubt makes safe and sound suburbia dangerous (the favorite and beloved uncle tries to murder his niece! More than once!). Teresa Wright was genius casting and she's terrific. Strangers on a Train with its undercurrent of homosexuality (for Bruno) and then that crazy sequence with the carousel. Lifeboat... one set piece. Rope - again, gay, gay, gay and the 9-minute sequences with fade outs and fade-ins. And on and on.

Personally, I love, love, love Foreign Correspondent. A terrific story line that is tight (the assassination and then chase!). Some good suspence, The ever-swoony Joel McCrea (playing thee upstanding American who has to learn that the U.S. should be part of WWII). And man, what a great sequence with the plane being fired upon, landing in the ocean, survivors and more! BTW - this movie was nominated for an Oscar for BEst Picture.

r152 Thanks. I agree on all points. I was just wondering if people were seeing in it something which I had overlooked. For the record, I'm a big fan of [italic]Stage Fright[/italic], largely for the very reason some people fault it: It pulls the rug out from under the (unwary) audience member.

No love for “Witness of the Prosecution” here? One of my favorites.

Isn't that a Billy Wilder movie based on an Agatha Christie play?

Oops

^^^I always thought Hitchcock directed "Witness for the Prosecution"^^^

Until I was corrected by my film-mad neighbors who corrupted me with their knowledge of films.

[quote]R152 Shadow of a Doubt makes safe and sound suburbia dangerous (the favorite and beloved uncle tries to murder his niece! More than once!)

Yes - underneath the picturesque, Whitman’s Sampler setting, it’s also a very straightforward thriller. Joseph Cotton is a serial killer… not just some schlubby neighbor who may have killed his wife during a heat wave.

He’s scary.

[italic]”You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know. So much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled, ordinary little sleep filled with peaceful, stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares! Or did I? Or was it a silly inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?”

R148, Shadow of a Doubt is not what people think of as typical Hitchcock. It doesn't have the cold glossy look, it's not full of dramatic stand-alone sequences. But like his other movies is about guilt and repressed sexual desire. Theresa Wright, the innocent girl, and her wicked uncle Charlie are somehow two halves of the same coin. They are bound together. She has always known that there is something wrong with him (she immediately notices that there is something off about the ring he gives her, for example). She struggles not to face the truth about him. After he is dead she vows never to reveal what she knows. Why? To me it's a subtle, haunting movie.

[quote]Am I the only one who thinks that “Rear Window” is not a great movie?

You may not be the only one, but it's not something to brag about,

I love Rear Window but North by Northwest is my favorite Hitchcock film.

Most movies have plot holes. But if you enjoy them you go along for the ride.

Hitchcock’s British films are quite good. “The Lady Vanishes”, “The 39 Steps”, and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” are all fantastic. The wife in the original “Too Much” is a much more interesting character than Doris Day’s 50s woman who gave up her career to be a wife in the remake.

Netflix is taking the film and many of the Hitchcock collection off its offerings on Aug 1.

[quote]I’m pretty disheartened to see that Netflix is removing the majority of its collection of Hitchcock movies on August 1. This includes “Psycho,” “The Birds, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” and my personal favorite, “Rear Window.” This classic thriller has been a must-watch for more than 70 years, and its influence on the mystery genre is still felt to this very day.

[quote]The movie marked the second collaboration between James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock, and sees Stewart play a photojournalist confined to his humid apartment after breaking his leg during an assignment. With little to do other than watch the world go by from his front window, he soon becomes convinced his neighbor has committed a terrible murder. The flick is a masterclass in slowly ratcheting tension, and it plays with perspective in some clever ways. After all, we only see what’s happening from Jeff’s limited vantage point.

[quote]Watch "Rear Window" on Netflix until August 1

[quote]R163 Most movies have plot holes.

It’s not a plot hole, really, but my pet peeve is scenes where someone has a big emotional confession or outburst or something… which is later revealed to just be a manipulation tactic. The other characters and the audience are fooled - but most real life people aren’t even good liars, let alone capable of giving Oscar caliber performances.

The scene below (SPOILER!) has Sean Penn flipping out on a sibling, and that pushes Michael Douglas down a certain avenue of the plot. When we later realize this was all a hoax perpetuated by Penn, it makes me think, “This probably wouldn’t work, as most people didn’t study acting with Sean Penn.”

[quote]I love Rear Window but North by Northwest is my favorite Hitchcock film.

"North by Northwest" has a lighter tone that makes it fun, and I certainly enjoy watching it, but it doesn't grab me the way other Hitchcock classics do.

R166, most people aren’t very good at detecting lies.

R166, The Game is a fun movie but you have to suspend a LOT of disbelief

I love it, too. And I think Deborah Kara Unger is great, very intriguing. I wish she got cast more.

You also get brief appearances by Carroll Baker and Linda Manz.

Hitchcock usually directed one movie a year, sometimes two. That's pretty amazing, considering the quality.

When I was young I enjoyed Jimmy or James Stewart. Now i find him irritating.

R135 Totally agree. Hollywood loves pushing this fantasy where some crusty old man lands a luminous young woman like it's a foregone conclusion. In 'Vertigo', James Stewart is a sweaty, haunted mess and somehow reels in radiant Kim Novak? Please. There’s no chemistry, just wish fulfillment for some sad studio exec. In 'To Catch a Thief', at least Cary Grant aged like marble and held his own with Grace Kelly. But again Stewart in 'Rear Window' looks like he should be yelling at kids to get off his lawn, and they expect us to believe Grace is panting after that?

To continue my point above, Hitchcock supposedly lost his virginity to Alma on their honeymoon, dutifully knocked her up, and then—so the legend goes—never touched her (or anyone) again. Fifty years of marriage and not a single documented fuck after 1928. In real life, he seemed way more into staging fantasies than actually living them. So of course he was tone-deaf when it came to pairing his drab, aging male leads with icy blondes who looked like they stepped off a dream.

The podcast The Secret History of Hollywood by Adam Roche is a long form, deep dive into the golden age of Hollywood, told like a juicy novel you can’t put down. His epic series on Cary Grant is especially great, rich, detailed, and full of behind-the-scenes drama. And naturally, there’s a lot of Hitchcock in the mix. You really get a sense of how their careers tangled and shaped each other. It's not just film history, it's gossip with footnotes.

Audrey Hepburn (27)

Gary Cooper (56)

What about Saboteur? Classic American propaganda. Bob Cummings is the apple faced boy next door who’s up against the evil elites whose charity balls are actually a cover for terrorist activity. The only sympathetic people he meets on the lam is a caravan of circus freaks who some think represent the warring nations at the time, with Hitler being a dwarf who wants to give our hero up to the police.

To Catch a Thief is worth watching just to see the beauty of Grace and Cary if for nothing else.

[quote] She has always known that there is something wrong with him (she immediately notices that there is something off about the ring he gives her, for example). She struggles not to face the truth about him. After he is dead she vows never to reveal what she knows. Why? To me it's a subtle, haunting movie.

She also accidentally puts in on her wedding finger, and Uncle Charlie tells her to move it to her right hand, in both the film and the radio play.

when Jimmy Stewart calls Thorwald and tells him to meet him at a bar to discuss some business Thorwald says I only have $300 which is incredibly incriminating and stupid.

And later when Thorwald returns to the apartment and finds Grace Kelly inside He begins to get rough with her as Stewart and Ritter watch from across the courtyard. Thorwald's lights are on, the blinds are up and the windows open. Why don't they just yell across the courtyard telling him they are calling the police?

At the end of the scene as Lisa is being taken into custody with her hands behind her back she points to the ring on her finger. Thorwald sees what she's doing and looks across the courtyard to see who she's signaling to as Stewart and Ritter quickly turn the lights off making them even more obvious.

James Stewart is the weak link in this film. Anyone other than him should have been cast as Jeff.

I have lived in a rear window set up but small scale.

I consider “North by Northwest” to be the quintessential Hitchcock film. It’s not my favorite but it has the espionage and “man on the run” themes that Hitchcock had been doing for so much of his career.

“Psycho” is fantastic but it’s an outlier as it was quite different from what he was known for.

R78 - Washington was in a sort of remake of/homage to RW called The Bone Collector. What can I say - Angelina is no Grace.

Btw, Washington's nurse in this one, played by Queen Latifah, is names Thelma.

R172

[quote] But again Stewart in 'Rear Window' looks like he should be yelling at kids to get off his lawn

At age 46? Really?

Hitchcock also made movies where the male lead and the female lead were virtually the same age: Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound. Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter in I Confess. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps. Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren in The Birds. Sean Connery and Hedren in Marnie. Jane Wyman and Richard Todd in Stage Fright (the other woman Todd was involved with in the film, Dietrich, was 17 1/2 years older than Todd).

Not Hitch but James looks ancient in Spirit of St. Louis. John Kerr was a very good choice but he despised Charles and refused the role and little did he know at the time how much more there was to come out about Lindbergh. Part of the craziness of the reaction to Lindbergh when he made the crossing successfully was his youthful handsomeness. The perfect hero. But with all the young actors of the time and Wilder comes up with Stewart? And Cooper with Hepburn looks like he's in his 70s. It looks like she must have met him in an assisted living facility where she was a caretaker. Wilder like Hitchcock was going through a desperate late middle age supercrisis. Only Grant miraculously managed not to look bizarre with young woman. His charm, enormous good looks, tan and very subtle work helped him.

[quote]R187 Cooper with Hepburn looks like he's in his 70s. It looks like she must have met him in an assisted living facility where she was a caretaker.

Or an intern!

Grant tended to look too old for his young costars in the 1960s, like Leslie Caron in Father Goose and Audrey Hepburn in Charade.

From what I remember is a book either about Stewart or Wilder is that Stewart (a pilot himself) was crazy to play Lindbergh and drove Wilder crazy on the subject, until Wilder finally gave in, not being able to get anyone else satisfactory (and Stewart was a major, major star, unlike John Kerr.)

But while he is of course too old, in the film, it's 90% Lindbergh in the movie, it's a one-man show despite all the other small parts. And I can watch Jimmy Stewart for a whole movie, as he goes through the various emotions and events of the solo flight, with all the off-screen narration representing his thoughts, because he's a very talented actor who knows how to make it interesting, even vocally. I can't picture John Kerr with his very monotonous, droning voice, and basically inexpressive face, in the part. (I like Kerr, but not for this.) Lindbergh himself wanted Tony Perkins to play it.

It does seem a wasted opportunity not to have a young guy in the one time the story gets a big, widescreen, feature film treatment. But it also needs an actor who's going to hold your interest completely for the running time.

It's like...why did they get Matt Damon to play Liberace's boy toy boyfriend, Scott Thorson, who was with Liberace from age18 to age 29, when Damon was 42 years old at the time of filming.

Probably because they wanted a big box office name, and an experienced actor who they could rely on to be talented and interesting. But in movies of their time, the audience seems to be more accepting of this kind of casting. Maybe in 40 years people will be saying, "Matt Damon?? He was an old man!! Why did they cast him??"

When I lived in SF I had a guy on the other side jerking off in full view of our side of the courtyard. Never sure if he was targeting me. He was a hot well built daddy.

St Louis and Father Goose were flops. People loved seeing Grant and Hepburn(two beautiful people) in Paris in Charade. Great chemistry. And talk about plot holes galore in that one!

Father Goose had one very uninteresting script and Stewart turned St Louis into a bore.

Grant and Hepburn didn't have any sexual chemistry in Charade, though they had some kind of chemistry (more like the chemistry of two movie stars, rather than characters).

Film audiences don't mind seeing middle aged men in love stories but they aren't wild about seeing middle aged women unless those women hold onto their looks. Father Goose could have co-starred Katharine Hepburn for all the difference it would have made to the story, but the men in the audience want to see a young, sexy beauty, while women generally prefer mature male movie stars to boys.

I would say Grant and Hepburn had comedic chemistry in CHARADE and also romantic chemistry if not specifically "sexual" chemistry.

R195 Okay, but I think you need some tension to have good sexual-romantic chemistry, like Grant and Grace Kelly had, or Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Grant and Hepburn have an almost platonic feeling.

(Maybe just me. I don't really like Charade.)

R192 Father Goose won the Oscar for Original Screenplay. As we film fans know, the screenplay Oscars are the closest thing to actual merit…you don’t win a screenplay Oscar for sentiment or for a “career.”

R187 r189 and others are all mistaken..the proof is in the pudding. IRL those younger women all fucked their leading men…many fell in love…

Is that how Jennifer Lawrence got her career, TALENT?

OP here, I am thrilled how far this thread has gone and how much I have learned about Hitchcock.

I absolutely need to watch "Rear Window" again.

There’s not enough crowing about The Birds

The screenplay of Father Goose wasn't so original (though it was pretty good). It's was reminiscent of parts of The Pied Piper, The Beachcomber, and The African Queen.

Are you THAT literal?!

[quote]Hitchcock also made movies where the male lead and the female lead were virtually the same age…Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren in The Birds

Were they really the same age? He looked at least 10 years older than Tippi. It’s even more bizarre he and Veronica Cartwright are playing brother and sister when he looks a good 30 years older than her

R204 I don't think I'm the only one who ever mentioned it.

R205 They were both born in January, 1930.

Rod, Jan. 11. Tippi, Jan. 19.

I don't think he looked any older than her.

I did think he looked younger than Doris Day, which he was.

Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).

206 you are

DL. And the Academy.

R210 I think film critics pointed out Father Goose was a premise that owed a lot to other movies, like The African Queen and The Beachcomber.

The writer Frank Tarloff first turned the project down, calling it "a poor man's African Queen."

R211 the point is it won an Oscar, for original story and screenplay. Not an adaptation..

As a life-long Cary Grant groupie, I still must say that it was Walter Matthau who made "Charade" for me.

A few of my friends' parents were a case of older man, younger woman. It had to do with WWII, because these guys came out of the war, if they joined up in their 20s, they came out and they might be late 20s, or 30. A little old.

Women used to marry when younger, then. It was the custom, and that was partly because they wanted to be virgins when they married (and a lot of men wanted to marry virgins--or at least "nice" girls without a lot of sexual experience). Also women tended to try to have children when they were young, because it was safer.

A lot of women today don't get married but then it was pretty unusual. Anyway, these guys coming out if the Army were meeting younger girls, and a lot of the older girls were already taken. Nobody remembers any of this now.

Then you have Stewart who's an accomplished professional photographer, working for Life magazine and all that. That isn't going to happen when you're 25. At least not then. And he was also in the war, as stated in the movie.

Also Stewart aloowed himself to go gray, which you don't see a lot of actors in their 40s doing today.

To R202-I see what you posted there...crowing about The Birds!!

R216 Well, his toupee at least did.

R217 is a genius!

^^^I agree with you 1000%^^^

I like watching those making of documentaries, but the Hitchcock ones sometimes have that granddaughter who is a total bore and acts like SHE made the film.

I didn’t find Stewart to be attractive at all. He was lanky and awkward. And he had pinched old man features.

HItchcock's daughter Pat is in a lot of making of docs but the granddaughters don't appear too often, except one of them is in the doc about the Psycho shower scene quite a bit.

R221 It's not the granddaughter, it's Pat Hitchcock, daughter of Alfred Hitchcock and guardian of the Hitchcock domain, who knew more about her father's behind-the-scenes history than anyone. She played memorable parts in two of his movies and some of his TV shows. Please be respectful.

He was FLIRTING with you! He must have seen my wedding ring.

R224 I don't know if all three were memorable but she was in Strangers on a Train, Stage Fright, and Psycho.

Cary Grant was married to Betsy Drake; he was 45 she was 26, Dyan Cannon when he was 61 and she was 28 and his final marriage was to Barbara Harris when she was 30 and he was 77!!!!

Henry Fonda's last marriage was with Shirlee Adams 27 year age difference and lasted many years, until his death.

Emmanuel Macron is 47 and married to a 72-year-old.

Humphrey Bogart was 25 years older than Lauren Mccall

Bacall ^^^

[quote]Emmanuel Macron is 47 and married to a 72-year-old.

A 72-year-old MAN!

I liked this movie. Vertigo, however, was a Hitchcock film I hated. The plot made no sense although it was a beautiful film.

[quote]Humphrey Bogart was 25 years older than Lauren Mccall

Her close friends always called her Betsy McCall.

Shut the fuck up! R224

R227 a Barbara Harris. Not THE Barbara Harris.

Kim Novak’s eyebrows in Vertigo ARE shocking, r233! Thank you for facing the matter head on! They’re just thickly painted on with greasepaint…. dare I say like Faye Dunaway’s in Mommie Dearest.

I have no idea who would say those big, flat, shiny eyebrows looked good. Or even okay.

The wretched, fakey Mommie Dearest brows:

Vertigo is the Hitchcock movie with the most artifice. It's like a dream or a nightmare where things are improbable and only there to comment on the nature of obsession and how it can render you blind to reality. I don't know if it's his best film but it's absolutely hypnotic.

I read that Robert Downey Jr. is planning to remake it which makes my eyes roll back all the way to my ass.

That mission didn’t have a bell tower! Fake, fake, fake.

R239 nearsighted AND flat!

Mary Stone is the dreary Hitchcock granddaughter. Pat Hitchcock was a delight.

I find Father Goose so dull, so boring I find it unwatchable. And I've tried a couple of times. They say it flopped because nobody wanted to see Cary Grant as a beachcomber. I think nobody wanted to be bored. I don't think Stone is a very good screen writer. I mean look at what a mess Arabesque is. You watch it for Peck, Loren and Dior but it makes no sense whatsoever. And that final chase! It's fun but completely idiotic. Well I did find it watchable but kept thinking I have no idea what's going on.

Didn't Vertigo win greatest movie ever made?

You’re thinking of [italic]Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Judy’s painted on tramp brows and LACK OF BRA are there on purpose - to make her cheap and wrong and in need of Scotty fixing her up and making her into a ghost again, an ideal that never existed. The movie knows those brows are ghastly

There was a big trend of bored women hooking movies in the 60s.

The painted-on eyebrows were a big fashion trend of the 50s.

[quote]R246 Judy’s painted on tramp brows and LACK OF BRA are there on purpose - to make her cheap and wrong and in need of Scotty fixing her up

Honestly, the Madeleine eyebrows aren’t a whole lot better.

The problem isn’t really the shade or even the shape (though they’re a bit thick)… it’s that for half the brow [italic]there’s no hair there![/italic] It’s just flat, shiny makeup.

It’s as if you spray painted a bald head and said, “There! That’s what hair looks like!”

These movies are so over-restored you see everything including one stray hair on the head. Never saw this stuff the way they were originally projected.

You cab also see there that Kim is wearing a wig.

*can

Jack Lemmon is always shouting and having a nervous breakdown. Hard pass.

R253 In what?

Gregory Peck would have been better in the lead role. I can totally see Grace Kelly being in love with him.

where in Manhattan would this sort of neighbourhood and mixed architecture be that could create such a back window display. I lived on a brown stone block in Brooklyn so of course there were back gardens but the windows were relatively distant, as the inner green space was not cramped, finally. I guess somewhere in west Village Would make sense. Or maybe the far east on the upper east side? tenement blocks - no. blocks made of large apartment buildings - no.

R256 When Jimmy Stewart calls the police, he gives the address as West 9th Street so it is the West Village and there are many places in Manhattan which have mixed architecture within one street or block

I had an older friend who lived in the West Village on West 9th and this was very similar to his view. And his rent was ridiculously low as he had lived there since the early 70s.

The landlord died and her son took over and kept trying to get rid of him.

Well yes, as I guessed, West Village. Especially odd shaped blocks with small common spaces in the back and not many huge buildings.

My sister, Eileen, lived right around the corner.

As for what buildings are located where, remember the film was made 71 or 72 years ago. Things do change.

...almost 3/4 of a century ago.

R262 not in that part of the WV. Duh—that’s why it’s so fucking expensive to live there.

Jimmy Stewart was in the 50's what Tom Hanks is today. Hollywood was offering him every major role because of his track record as a bankable movie star. But then he got older and started to look silly in those leading man parts. Grace Kelly lusting for aging, skinny, broken legged Jimmy Stewart? OK, so Rear Window was a hit but when Vertigo flopped at the box office, Hitchcock blamed Stewart for being too old for the part.

The courtyard that served as the inspiration for the set of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" is the courtyard at 125 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. While the movie depicts the address as 125 West 9th Street, a fictional address, the actual location used for reference was 125 Christopher Street. The film's iconic set, a meticulous recreation of the courtyard and surrounding buildings, was built on a soundstage at Paramount Studios.

Video contains footage of the actual courtyard that served as inspiration for the set design…

125 Christopher Street back courtyard:

Rear Window, the abbreviated version.

Hundreds of us folksin Chelsea and the Village have quite similar views.

[quote]R246 Judy’s painted on tramp brows and LACK OF BRA are there on purpose - to make her cheap and wrong

I doubt that Hitchcock intended this, but I think a more poetic symbolism is that this is the shape Judy naturally has, this is her in a truer form. The disguise of Madeleine involves physically changing her with corsetry, hair dye, etc.

I wonder if the braless business for Judy was Novak’s idea. She found them uncomfortable and unnatural, and never wore them unless she had to.

[quote]R262 …almost 3/4 of a century

In other words, Jimmy Stewart’s age at the time of filming.

The clouds roll left to right, or west to east in real terms. The view is facing north

Judy's a salesgirl. That's how Novak dresses, and plays it. Madeleine dresses like a wealthy matron. And she often wears gray, black, or white (not always).

R270, Judy is meant to be common. She’s a sales girl from Kansas; she doesn’t have great taste and exquisite manners. She’s a real woman, she’s exactly what Scotty doesn’t want.

Anyone ever notice that Judy says she's from Salina, Kansas, one of the locations for the movie, Picnic?

Salina was two hundred miles away from the Picnic story.

So has anybody seen that french movie Jeanne whatever her name is? Was it the greatest movie you ever saw?

R276 According to Wikipedia, scenes filmed in Salina:

Salina - the opening scene where Hal jumps off a train, then meets Alan (Cliff Robertson) at Alan's father's large house. This location is also used for the Saline River (where Madge kisses Hal) and the scene where Hal escapes from the police by running under a waterfall. The train and river scene is located northeast of the intersection of Iron Avenue and 4th Street. The Benson home is located at 417 East Country Club Road.

It’s set in Independence KS

Judy is the trashy one! *sob*

Jeanne Dielman is three hours of peeling potatoes in real time. It’s not genius, it’s martyrdom and fetishized monotony that dare you to confuse patience with insight. Film school Stockholm syndrome in a beige cardigan. Good news? You can follow it with junior high school French proficiency.

R279 I never heard anything about where it's supposed to be set, but if you look at my post, I said "locations for the movie".

[quote]a Barbara Harris. Not THE Barbara Harris.

Thank you!

I think it’s neat that when we meet Madeleine the only color she’s wearing is an emerald green wrap, and that when we meet Judy she’s dressed in a similar, bright green.

You left out Burbank. Much of Picnic was shot in Burbank.

[quote]R273 Judy's a salesgirl. That's how Novak dresses, and plays it.

I’m not disagreeing with you.

[quote]R215 These guys coming out of the Army were meeting younger girls, and a lot of the older girls were already taken. Nobody remembers any of this now.

None of which explains why a beautiful young woman would want to bury her face in a bush of gray pubes for life.

Because she loved him?

Is Hitchcock's cameo in the composer's apartment?

R289 Yes, that's him.

For some reason I thought we saw him walking in the street but I must have confused that with his cameo in I Confess.

He lay in the Thames, for Frenzy.

Jimmy Stewart is annoying as fuck. His voice should come with a suicide prevention warning.

^^^easily triggered

Original theater teaser for The Birds

[Quote] Judy is meant to be common. She’s a sales girl from Kansas; she doesn’t have great taste and exquisite manners. She’s a real woman, she’s exactly what Scotty doesn’t want.

She's a lot more than that as she willingly gets involved in an elaborate and preposterous plot by Galvin Elster to murder his wife.

R296, the Galvin Elster murder plot gets more outrageous every time I see the film. It’s not enough that he has to kill his wife; that’s too easy. No, he has to drive her body out into the middle of nowhere and then haul it up the steps of the bell tower. Then, after throwing it over the edge, he and Judy/Madeleine have to immediately get out of the tower and drive away with no one noticing them. And, to top it off, he gives Judy an incriminating piece of evidence and sends her back to her crummy little job as if nothing happened because there’s no way that could possibly backfire.

JEANNE DIELMAN certainly upsets a lot of people (cf. R281), but personally I found it mesmerizing, and it's been extremely influential on a lot of interesting people, like Gus van Sant and Todd Haynes.

[quote]R281 Jeanne Dielman is three hours of peeling potatoes in real time. It’s not genius, it’s martyrdom and fetishized monotony that dare you to confuse patience with insight. Film school Stockholm syndrome in a beige cardigan. Good news? You can follow it with junior high school French proficiency.

[quote]R298 JEANNE DIELMAN certainly upsets a lot of people, but personally I found it mesmerizing, and it's been extremely influential on a lot of interesting people, like Gus van Sant and Todd Haynes.

It’s hilarious how all the film bros [italic]lost their collective shit [/italic]when JEANNE DIELMAN was voted into the #1 slot at Sight and Sound magazine.

The podcast I SAW WHAT YOU DID has an interesting episode on it. One of the hosts says the title character reminds her of her own mother and grandmother, and by extension, the generations of women who took on boring domestic lives to improve their kids’ futures. To say that Jean’s day to day life isn’t worthy of being watched is to say all those women’s lives don’t matter. That a car chase is more important.

It’s certainly a provocative film.

^^ PS: The theme of that episode, linking the two movies they discuss, is “Husk: Kids Drain the Life Out of You.”

(So of course that week’s other film is THE BAD SEED.)

That Jeanne Quai bullshit. You have to understand it for what it was in its time. It is important for its verisimilitude and subject matter. It's well shot and the shock ending ensures it endures in cinemaphile psyche. But I find it a big yawn now. Same as that Catherune Deneuve day hooker one. But I am watching now, not then. That's the difference.

My criticism at R281 is cosplay, dears. You can't hear the sarcasm and hissing? It's a fine movie. The greatest ever? Far far from that. I happen to think the GREATEST movie ever (and I dont have a pick) needs to have some SHOW in it, for the show business of cinema. Some visual delight, some gravitas and some wit. Hitchcock will always give you all three in his great movies. Vertigo has the sublime music of Bernard Herrmann. It adds SO MUCH. The translike cinematography wound San Francisco. Vertigo is a cinematic equivalent of an opera, but better. Sure it can be far fetched, but it's really great cinema.

heheh translike. trance like.

R292 No, he didn't. That was only a gimmick for the ads for the movie.

Yes—which is what I said.

There was a similar gimmick for every film—duh.

[Quote] the Galvin Elster murder plot gets more outrageous every time I see the film. It’s not enough that he has to kill his wife; that’s too easy. No, he has to drive her body out into the middle of nowhere and then haul it up the steps of the bell tower. Then, after throwing it over the edge, he and Judy/Madeleine have to immediately get out of the tower and drive away with no one noticing them. And, to top it off, he gives Judy an incriminating piece of evidence and sends her back to her crummy little job as if nothing happened because there’s no way that could possibly backfire.

R297 Is it even possible that no one would notice them especially as Judy is coiffed and dressed exactly like the body that fell to the ground. And wouldn't the police go up to the top of the bell tower? And did Gavin Elster kill his wife while they were at the top of the bell tower rather than drag her body all the way up? And how long did he wait for Judy and Scottie to arrive? They had to drive a considerable distance.

From the City to Mission SJB

Hitchcock had concerns about the verisimilitude of the Vertigo story as well. He thought it was ridiculous that Elster would be certain that Scottie wouldn't climb the stairs to the belfry but he went ahead with it anyway and, whether you like it or not, crafted one of the best regarded films in cinema history.

R307 Thanks. When Judy goes to Scottie's home that morning she describes a place and fortunately (for Gavin and Judy) he is able to determine what place she's talking about based on her description and then drives her there.

R308 And did Hitchcock think that it was rather preposterous that Judy would wear the necklace from the portrait of Carlotta in front of Scottie?

Rear Delivery is a disappointing movie, as well.

R309 I don't know. I'll ask him.

Hitchcock loved manipulating audiences. At his peak he could get away with anything. North By Northwest is a movie with no plot, just one virtuoso set piece after another. Vertigo is even more extreme, it has the logic of a hallucination.

[quote]Hitchcock had concerns about the verisimilitude of the Vertigo story as well. He thought it was ridiculous that Elster would be certain that Scottie wouldn't climb the stairs to the belfry but he went ahead with it anyway and, whether you like it or not, crafted one of the best regarded films in cinema history.

But it's outrageous that anyone considers it "one of the best regarded films in cinema history" when the plot makes NO. FUCKING. SENSE. I mean, of what possible worth is a mystery/suspense film with a plot that makes zero sense? If it were a silly, fluffy musical, that would be one thing, but this is definitely another.

R313 I think it's acclaimed more for its cinematography and direction and unconventional pacing and plot for the time.

Fair enough, R314, but for me, the script is so idiotic that it far outweighs whatever virtues the film has in other areas.

R315 I agree with you. I didn't like it at all story-wise, but I did admire the overall look of the film.

[quote] But it's outrageous that anyone considers it "one of the best regarded films in cinema history" when the plot makes NO. FUCKING. SENSE.

Does Last Year in Marienbad make sense? Or 8 1/2? Or Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs?

R317, SNOW WHITE is a marvel of coherence compared to VERTIGO.

The very annoying James Stewart had no sex appeal. None. Seeing him with Kim Novak, or Grace Kelly was laughable. And speaking of Kim Novak, why? I mean, she was nothing. Not one jot of talent. She couldn't even fake it. Yes. Very pretty. But there was no there, there. I saw her in Pal Joey, Picnic, and I tried to watch the Hitchcock thing and I actually felt embarrassed for her. And then there was Strangers When We Meet, where she has an affair with famous architect, Kirk Douglas, and his wife is Barbara Rush. There were a lot of movies in the 50's like that one.

[Quote] Does Last Year in Marienbad make sense? Or 8 1/2? Or Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs?

R317 I'm assuming the first two movies are ambiguous and could be interpreted in different ways but in Vertigo it's all explained, and a lot of it doesn't make sense for reasons that have already been stated. There is one scene that I think is deliberately ambiguous in Vertigo and that takes place at the Mckittrick? Hotel

I could never buy Bob Cummings as a romantic lead, much less with Grace Kelly. I did like Saboteur but not really because of him.

R319 You're not too smart are you? I like that in a man.

I could never buy Bob Cummings as a romantic lead

Yes he is a dud and too boyish to be sexy.

[quote]I could never buy Bob Cummings as a romantic lead

He never did anything for me.

I always thought Cummings was one of the blandest leading men from that era

[quote]A flashback reveals that Judy was the person Scottie knew as "Madeleine Elster"; she had been impersonating Gavin's wife in an elaborate murder scheme. Gavin took advantage of Scottie's fear of heights to substitute his wife's freshly killed body in the apparent "suicide jump".

[quote]He forces her up the bell tower and makes her admit her deceit. Judy confesses that Gavin paid her to impersonate a "possessed" Madeleine and begs Scottie to forgive her. He embraces Judy at the top of the tower, but a shadowy figure—a nun investigating the noise—rises from the tower's staircase, startling her. Judy lunges backward off the tower to her death; Scottie, bereaved once again but cured of his fear of heights, stands on the ledge in shock while the nun rings the mission bell.

I would think the above two sections of VERTIGO plot description from Wikipedia would be enough on their own to clearly indicate the total absurdity of the movie's "plot." So, some guy decides to off his wife, and he figures the best cover for the murder will be to hire some bimbo off the street to impersonate his wife in order that his friend will fall in love with her, become obsessed with her, and then hopefully fail to follow her up a flight of stairs when she's obviously on her way to kill herself, at which point the guy has the corpse of his wife right there on hand at the top of the bell tower (umm....how the fuck did he get it there?) to throw it off the tower and make her death look like a suicide.

Makes PERFECT sense.

I swore up and down that Cummings was gay. But five marriages and all of those children - he had to have been straight.

R322, I watched that last night! I love Body Heat! I have been in a Noir mood the past couple of weeks and watching old movies like Double Indemnity, and then the remake, Body Heat. I have to say.. Ned Racine will always be the signature role I think of for William Hurt who, IMO was among our most brilliant actors.

I'm not really a fan of Jimmy Stewart. When I was a little kid he was treated with such awe and respect on talk shows and award shows but in actuality his entire persona is annoying.

What about the searing chemistry between paul Newman and Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain ?!!!'

^^^ and Streep and Redford in Out of Africa

Do you think that Judy would really have taken back on that trashy/common look after impersonating Madeleine? You’d think she’d have upped her game a little bit.

I understand why people like it or were inspired by it but I watched it not too long ago and also felt that it was pretty boring, and I love film noir. The concept is there, it’s good, but the execution is poor.

[Quote] Do you think that Judy would really have taken back on that trashy/common look after impersonating Madeleine? You’d think she’d have upped her game a little bit.

and what did she actually get from Gavin besides the necklace for all she did for him? I would think enough for her to be able to have a better life but she's still working.

This whole thread’s got me rethinking my take on Hitchcock and his films. You bitches are always stirring the pot and making me question everything - in the best way.

R334 She got "some money" from Elster if I remember correctly.

Cary Grant had great chemistry with Eva Marie Saint in NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

[quote]R336 She got "some money" from Elster if I remember correctly.

Probably used for a back alley abortion!

I’m increasingly sold on the idea that Judy’s death isn’t really an accident. Scotty is done with her; he “assists” her fall. After all, the movie is about how illusions are more important than reality, and in the book that it’s based on the main character kills the Judy equivalent because she cannot be what he wants.

Cary and Eva Marie had chemistry because Hitchcock told her to lower her voice and sound sexy. Anyone playing against that would have had good chemistry with her.

Eva Marie Saint is the most boring leading lady in Hitchcock history.

I took a few film courses at UCLA as Art electives, including one (summer session 1989) about the films of Albert Hitchcock, where I saw REAR WINDOW for the first time.

I had to write a big term-paper about REAR WINDOW (or rather, that was the film I chose), which I liked at the time. After researching & writing that term-paper (which included multiple viewings), I've never wanted to watch it again.

Not enough love here for Raymond Burr in "Rear Window". As much as I appreciate him as "Perry Mason", I do think he may have been at his best as a villain. Although, I also love him in the first American version of "Godzilla". Maybe I'm just an all around Raymond Burr fan.

“Vertigo” originally had a final scene - I am not sure if it was only scripted or filmed as well- where Scotty and Midge are listening to a radio broadcast with news of Elster’s arrest.

But as it stands, it gives the twist away midway through, the bad guy gets away with it, the hero is obsessive, and the movie ends on a dark note. And I love every frame.

I think “Rear Window” is a much more crowd pleasing movie.

I always wondered why when Judy opens the door and sees Jimmy Stewart there isn't the slightest look of recognition on her face. I haven't seen the film in a long time. Was she expecting him? Also after what she did for that guy you would have thought she would have walked away with an entirely new upwardly mobile economic life. Not just being forced back into being a lower middle class sale's clerk.

Has Kim Novak ever given a good performance? I like her and she does have star appeal but not a drop of talent. No beautiful film star hasn't given at least one good performance. Except for Novak.

I wish there had been a gay subtext with Burr/Thoreald killing his nagging sick wife because she prevented him from seeing his toy boy.

The dream sequence took me out of the movie

[quote]No beautiful film star hasn't given at least one good performance. Except for Novak.

I like her in "Picnic."

I also like Novak in Pushover, a noir she did very early in her career

Novak was also a lot of fun in The Mirror Crack'd

r344 I've seen the scene alluded to--it's an extra on my DVD--and actually I like the movie better with that scene added: It shows that Scotty has not achieved anything--he's still a broken man, maybe even worse than before; but Midge will stick with him, which gives a bit of hope.

Midge is a real simpy sad sack.

[Quote] Eva Marie Saint is the most boring leading lady in Hitchcock history.

R341 I actually think Eva Marie Saint is good and she and Cary Grant have chemistry and her character has an air of mystery about her which is more than can be said of Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain, Barbara Leigh-Hunt in Frenzy, Tippi Hedren in The Birds , Grace Kelly in Dial M In for Murder, Doris Day in the Man Who Knew Too Much and Karen Black in Family Plot

The true star of the movie is San Francisco in full color, full 50s glory.

I love Rear Window, but as others have said, Shadow of a Doubt is my favorite.

I like her in Picnic too. But as I said it's her star power that puts her across not her acting.

Eva Marie Saint is wonderful in On the Waterfront. I also like her all lacq

I also like her very soigne' in North by Northwest in Bergdorf Goodman. That auction house dress is one of the great movie costumes and nobody has any idea who designed it.

The first time we see Vertigo, it seems to be about one thing then turns around and it's another thing. You think it's this former detective who is tracking the wife of an old classmate, a woman who the husband says seems to be into a reincarnation narrative and is suffering from some kind of major neurosis, who he falls in love with, then she dies and he blames himself. Not only does Scotty believe all this was real, so do we, the audience.

He's now mentally ill, himself. Then as he begins to recover he meets this woman who looks a lot like the dead woman. We aren't sure what's going on, but she seems to be a different woman. Then we find out she's the same woman. Except, the protagonist doesn't know it. He then starts to try to turn this woman who he *thinks* is a different woman, into the first woman. We see she is in love with him, has always been in love with him--even though she was putting on a complete act with him. Now we watch her suffer because she thinks he doesn't love her for herself> But then he says something like, "Judy, it's you, too."

And it goes on from there, with more twists and turns, and emotional turmoil for both of them, and then there's another death from a fall from the same bell tower.

And people say this story line is boring??

Meandering might be a better word r358. I respect the effort but certain segments are either unnecessary or too long.

I have issues with some critics who called it one of the best films ever made but I will always enjoy watching it.

And I hate superlatives when it comes to movies.

Bosley Crowther in his NYT review said that Kim Novak was "really quite amazing" in Vertigo.

It’s interesting that Kim Novak - who had about as much snap onscreen as a marshmallow - got along very well with Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock, two directors that others could find intimidating.

Is snap a desired quality to have on the silver screen?

Novak was pretty bad in her season long arc on “Falcon Crest” with all her breathy intonations and lack of facial expressions.

Several stars did better work in their careers than Falcon Crest.

I like this one and Grace Kelly makes a spoiled society girl sympathetic. How far from say Katherine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story. I would think that particularly difficult to do, especially if you were one, as Grace was. Rear Window holds up way better than Vertigo, although Jimmy Stewart is annoying in everything he's in, including Philadelphia Story. Imagine Rear Window today with an all male cast.... It would still work. Rebecca was his best though.

Some people don’t understand Vertigo. R365 is the only person here who didn’t understand The Philadelphia Story

I understand it all right. I just think Kate is unnecessarily repellent.I realize that this is supposed to make Cary Grant look like a good guy drunk but he can't pull that off either.

Yes—that’s why the picture flopped so badly, and hurt the careers of all three once -great stars.

Who killed the woman's dog? Did Raymond Massey do it?

Yes, he walked over from the set of East of Eden and killed the dog.

[quote]R362 Is snap a desired quality to have on the silver screen?

Considering conflict is essential to drama, yes.

I have no idea what snap is, never mind what it has to do with conflict. Do actors also need crackle? What about pop?

[quote]R365 Imagine Rear Window today with an all male cast.... It would still work.

REAR ENTRY

Rear Window with an all male cast...Jeff is gay, his model boyfriend is gay, the insurance company nurse is a gay man, Thorwald is gay, he kills his husband...Miss Torso becomes Mr. Torso...the newlyweds are gay men. Miss Lonelyhearts becomes Mr. Lonelyhearts. The sculptress becomes a gay sculptor, The dog is gay. The detective is gay. The waiter from 21 is gay (he already was, anyway). EVERYONE in the city of New York is gay!! Yes, that'll work, Very believable.

My mother always hated Kim Novak. Whenever she'd pop up on TV, my mom would say, "Oh, good. Let's watch Kim try and act."

Was your mom a frustrated actress? Honestly, Kim Novak never hurt anyone.

R376 Just the acting profession.

R375 she wasn't wrong. I felt bad for Kim, because her lack of talent was embarrassing. She was the epitome of the Dumb Blonde stereotype promoted by Hollywood.

R377 And the cosmetic surgery industry.

Poor Kim, the plastic surgery made her look like Eric Stoltz in Mask

Rare are the cases when good performances are being somehow pulled out of bad actors. Rarer are those of bad acting being used effectively in the context of the film they're in. Nicole Kidman in To Die For or Tom Cruse in Magnolia are good examples of smart directors sowing off their actors' disadvantages as integral to the characters they're playing. And maybe never was this trick more gloriously displayed than in the way Hitchcock used Novak's discomfort, her deer-caught-in-the-headlights quality she projected onscreen, to manifest Judy's being misplaced - first when she pretend to be Madeleine and later when she is forced to become her. She is pathetically inadequate, but it's in character.

So nobody likes Jimmy Stewart or Kim Novak. Got it.

R381, solid take. Well done. Bravo.

"Jimmy Stewart is always the same in everything."

"So is Thelma Ritter."

"But that's different."

"Why is it different? It's not different."

"Because I say so."

Can we give Eartha Kitt a lifetime achievement award? She deserves it more than all these people.

R381, I'm dying to hear how Gus van Sant "sowed off" [???] Nicole Kidman's "disadvantages" in TO DIE FOR. She's brilliant in it, and not remotely comparably to Hitchcock's assembling Kim Novak's performance (which, among other things, was far less dialogue-dependent than Kidman's).

[quote] That auction house dress is one of the great movie costumes and nobody has any idea who designed it.

Hitchcock took Eva Marie shopping at Bergdorf Goodman in New York for that dress. It was off the rack and it remains one of the most iconic costumes in movie history.

[quote]376 Honestly, Kim Novak never hurt anyone.

[quote]377 Just the acting profession.

Hahahahaha!

Moar!

She looked great even maternity wear, on her Oscar night.

R386 Thank you! I know Nicole gets a beating on DL over her extensive cosmetic procedures and unfortunate association with La Belle Cruise, but she is a brilliant actress, and "To Die For" is arguably her best performance.

EMS

They don’t make them like her, anymore.

[quote]R390 Thank you! I know Nicole gets a beating on DL over her extensive cosmetic procedures and unfortunate association with La Belle Cruise, but she is a brilliant actress, and "To Die For" is arguably her best performance.

I admire her a lot, too. She’s an intelligent, focused woman and that’s displayed in her acting.

I haven’t seen everything she’s done (and I’ll certainly never watch BEWITCHED), but I’ve never seen her be bad in anything. I remember one review for EYES WIDE SHUT pointed out “she acts circles around her husband in every scene they share.”

R393 She's been in some real stinkers (Bewitched and The Stepford Wives come immediately to mind), but that doesn't diminish her talent. The girl can act.

My favorite Nicole Kidman performance is in the first movie I ever saw her in, Dead Calm. She did a great job of playing a fierce, non-damsel in distress who would do anything to stay alive, including the killer Billy Zane. I've loved her ever since.

Now I need to re-watch "North by Northwest" for Eva Marie Saint's clothes.

I always love James Mason-Cary Grant (the man could wear a grey suit). I do love Eva in the movie though.

R393 she’s no Eva. A class act at 100+

[quote]Several stars did better work in their careers than Falcon Crest.

Well ,surely not helmet haired block of wood Jane Wyman in Hitchcocks "Stage Fright".

Have to agree with Marlene Dietrichs assessment of her costar.

"I did one film for Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman was in it. I heard she'd only wanted to do it if she were billed above me, and she got her wish. Hitchcock didn't think much of her. She looks too much like a victim to play a heroine, and God knows she couldn't play a woman of mystery, that was my part. Miss Wyman looks like a mystery nobody has bothered to solve."

She wasn’t wrong, and Jane was still a fine actress. Both are true.

Jane Wyman lacked sex appeal. Just like Olivia de Havilland. Pretty to look at but no sexual allure.

[quote]She wasn’t wrong, and Jane was still a fine actress.

So then she was right?

[quote]r Jane Wyman… Pretty to look at

Was she?

WAS she?

You're right, R402. She lacked the glamour that was required for playing a deaf mute/rape victim.

Well there was some not major fashion house doing the high end clothes for Bergdoff and some man or woman had to have designed that dress and was pretty pissed they got no credit. Though Edith Head probably said 'I designed it!' Ha! You wish Edie.

R384 I’d argue that Ritter was much more versatile than many other character/supporting actress. Yes, she had a distinctive voice and a consistent New York accent, but her characterizations were very different, from tart-tongued Birdie to the mother in “The Mating Season” to the small-time grifter in Pickup on South Street to the comic drunk maid in “Pillow Talk” to the chilling mama in Birdman of Alcatraz.” She could have won Oscars for at least three of those and there would have been no argument. And she could play moneyed and middle class (not simply working class) convincingly as in “A Hole in the Head. She classed up every film she was in—like Gladys Cooper and Agnes Moorehead, two others who should have won Oscars (Cooper for “Now, Voyager” and “The Song of Bernadette,” Moorehead in “The Magnificent Ambersons” and, arguably, “Mrs. Parkington” or Johnny Belinda.”

I loved Thelma as the Molly Brown type character in the 1953 version of TITANIC. They gave her the best lines in the movie. And she delivered.

I liked her as the boozy old broad in The Misfits.

[quote]I loved Thelma as the Molly Brown type character in the 1953 version of TITANIC. They gave her the best lines in the movie. And she delivered.

I always wondered why Molly Brown was thinly fictionalized in this movie. She introduces herself as "Maude Young, Montana lead mines." Maybe members of the Brown family didn't give consent, but wasn't she a public figure? Her actual name is used in "A Night to Remember," but that was a British film made five years later.

I think it was for legal reasons too r408.

R389, I was going to post that classiq link, you beat me to it. It certainly settles the question of Saint's wardrobe for North by Northwest. Eva really is lovely to look at in the film.

When you see the wardrobe designed for EMS in NxNW it's no wonder Hitchcock threw it out and took her to Bergdorf Goodman. #3 would have been the dress she wore at the auction. Horrible.

At Paramount Hitch liked Edith Head's designs, but at MGM he had to contend with other designers.

[quote] ...should have won Oscars (Cooper for “Now, Voyager” ....,” Moorehead in “The Magnificent Ambersons”

Well, R405, unless you go for a tie, we're in a pickle, I'm afraid. Do make you're choice for the best supporting actress of 1942 please.

For one last time EDITH didn’t steal all of her nominations and Oscars. For decades, the Oscar was designated as going. To the head of the studio dept head, not to the actual designer. The same applied to other craft categories.

studio dept head*

To R412-Dame May Whitty-Mrs. Miniver

I could give it to Gladys Cooper or Agnes Moorehead too.

R411 Still not bad for the auction sequence, but the red dress is better.

[quote]R416 …the red dress is better.

It is two colors (red and black), symbolizing her duplicity.

ie, there’s more than one thing going on.

Eva Marie always struck me as very fragile. I guess it's because the first movie I saw her in was On the Waterfront. I've always liked her, but I won't watch a movie solely on the basis of her being in it.

Eva Marie Saint is a boring, all purpose leading lady. She has virtually no personality.

I love this film and its technicolor. As a black kid growing up in NW DC, this film just spoke to me. James Stewart had a natural charisma and just seemed like a real person. The acting was so good even if the dramatic storyteller had soap operatic elements. Back then actors, of all backgrounds, were able to portray sophistication, being well read, elegance while simultaneously being wholly masculine.

R418 She is 100 years old

A perfect acting choice …so subtle

Eva Marie Saint, born July 4, 1924, just turned 101.

[quote]R422 A perfect acting choice …so subtle

Grace Kelly was originally offered that role, which always seemed strange to me. She isn’t exactly part of the blue collar crowd.

Who cares? I’m still here

Anyone and everyone was offered or cast for every role.

One of the tiresome tropes on DL—it was supposed to be so and so. Yawn.

It was Eva Marie Saint. The end.

The other original WATERFRONT choices were Frank Sinatra (before Marlon Brando) and Lawrence Tierney, who asked for too much money (before Rod Steiger)

Elizabeth Montgomery was neck and neck with Saint for the role of Edie, according to Elia Kazan’s autobiography.

Lucy was going to play that role until Gary Morton talked her out of it

Everyone seems to have forgotten how good Eva Marie Saint was in A Hatful Of Rain. It's a great movie about a Korean War vet who returns as a heroin addict. The screenplay was written by Michael V. Gazzo from his play of the same name. Gazzo played Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II. Who knew he was also a playwright?

It's a great movie if you haven't seen it.

R35 The line is, "I don't want any part of her."

Get it?

[quote]R429 Everyone seems to have forgotten how good Eva Marie Saint was in A Hatful Of Rain. It's a great movie about a Korean War vet who returns as a heroin addict. The screenplay was written by Michael V. Gazzo from his play of the same name.

This play was workshopped at the Actors Studio for a long time. First, Saint played the wife in rehearsals (which included a lot of improvisations.) Then when she left the project to shoot something, Carroll Baker took over. Baker eventually got some film roles and Shelley Winters played the part when the play debuted on Broadway. Then when the film version was made the part went back to the original choice, Eva Marie Saint.

Jimmy Stewart ruins it for me. I just don't like him. That hussy Grace Kelly, though, had that divine Mark Cross overnight case that she pulled her frilly negligee from.

She was great in All Fall Down, playing a character named Echo, who falls in love with the womanizing, sadistic Berry-Berry (Warren Beatty), who's inexplicably adored by his mother (Angela Lansbury) and little brother (Brandon de Wilde). Written by William Inge from the novel by James Leo Herlihy. Directed by John Frankenheimer. MUsic by Alex North. It's a really interesting movie.

This will curl your toes—

WHAT was dramatic enough about that man’s life that would warrant a biopic??

I'm surprised it's going to air on Prime and not the Hallmark Channel.

[Quote] For one last time

Is that a promise

R434, maybe his service in WWII?

Definitely the Campbell’s Soup ads he did the voices for as the grandfather in the 80s.

R433 Lansbury was a year younger than Saint and 13 years older than Beatty who played her son, and Beatty's love interest Saint was 14 years older than Beatty.

Eva Marie Saint b.1924

Angela Lansbury b. 1925

Warren Beatty b.1937

[quote]WHAT was dramatic enough about that man’s life that would warrant a biopic??

As a senior citizen, he flew solo across the Atlantic.

How does one end up with a hatful of rain, anyway?

Hateful of rain

I will watch the fuck out of that biopic. I love them. Biopics, I mean.

IN All Fall Down, I don't know how much older Echo was supposed to be than Berry-Berry, but I felt she was supposed to be older. She was supposed to be a spinsterish character. Eva was something like 36, 37. maybe Echo wasn't supposed to be quite that old, but I'd say early 30s. EMS from the start of her career played characters younger than her age. Similarly, Angela Lansbury often played characters older than her age.

But the name of the character, Berry-Berry, was awful. Maybe it was okay in a novel but the other characters constantly saying that name was annoying.

R445 often? Except for National Velvet, always!

R447 Well, she did play the princess in The Court Jester.

Angela played her own age in The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Red Danube and a few other early pictures.

R445 R447 Lansbury played Lawrence Harvey's mother in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. Lansbury was three years older than Harvey

Yes—that’s the fact most repeated on DL, besides Follies trivia.

A spy on your neighbors movie is all in good fun.

Just watched a doc on youtube on Harvey. It makes it seem like he was a really horrible person.

Semen-like FIFY

R453 At first I thought you meant the movie about the imaginary Rabbit, starring Jimmy Stewart.

He was a dypso rabbit. Close enough…

Johnny Carson once showed a picture of a streaker in I believe England and a policeman had his hat covering the guy's genitals. Johnny called it A hatful of Ralph.

Eldergays this is a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

The film is about to leave Netflix in like a week from now. Prepare as necessary.

I love you.

Is it true Lucy was originally slated to portray LB Jeffries but Gary talk her out of it?