Thursday, March 7, 2013

More Hitchcock: Rebecca, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder.




If you follow my musings here at the Williams Film Review, you may know that I recently crushed an insane Hitchcock marathon. 14 titles, the most of any film marathon I've done on here and you know I love a marathon. At the end of that review I said something about Hitchcock being one of the greatest of all time and that I was going to pick up more titles to review.... so here you go.

(1940) [Trailer]
Director: Alfred Hitchcock [IMDB]

Synopsis: A wealthy Englishman remarries a young bride who's having a hard time filling the shoes of his deceased wife.

This films does a fantastic job of taking you in one direction then throwing you for a loop. You know how people say M Night Salami always has a twist in his movies, well Hitch did it first and did it better (not that I hate M Night.) I love how the film opens with the dark, yet hypnotic, recalling of a dream.

I really liked watching this and it holds up exceptionally well for it's age.




(1946) [Trailer]
Director: Alfred Hitchcock [IMDB]

Synopsis: A young "party girl" whose father is charged with being a traitor, breaks rank and helps the government spy on some german's down in Rio.

I really enjoyed Ingrid Bergman in this film. She's someone whose situation is a bit sticky and I started to feel myself empathize with her. Nowadays girls are loose and easy, no one gives a shit. Back in the 40's, if you drank and had a few different relationships, you're a slut... jeez.

Anyways the film, it's good. Nothing monumental, but still a really interesting watch. Claude Rains is up in there too... love Claude Rains... love em'.


   

(1951) [Trailer]
Director: Alfred Hitchcock [IMDB]

Synopsis: Robert Walker plays a crazed rich kid who tries to lure Farley Granger into a plan to kill both his father and Farley's wife.

If this film were made today you could cast Kevin Spacey as Robert Walker's character and Keanu Reeves could play Farley Granger's character and you'd have about the same outcome in terms of performance. There's a lot of really cool scenes in this film... some note worthy moments are: the view of the murder from the reflection on the glasses, this scene, and the merry go round scene at the end. Farley Granger is pretty bad at times and brought the film down a little for me, but other than that it's a pretty entertaining ride.


(1954) [Trailer]
Director: Alfred Hitchcock [IMDB]

Synopsis: A wealthy women still has feelings for her old flame, when her husband finds out he concocts a plan to murder her.

This film is so precise and thorough. There's a lot of work that goes into planning the perfect murder and for those of you who think you've got yours mapped out, you should probably watch this film first. It's a great deductive piece and Hitchcock presents it in a highly entertaining way. All the players were great and pretty believable in their roles.

It's not a perfect film, but pretty close and definitely worth a poke if you're into CSI and shit like that.



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