40 years ago we lost the ‘Master of Suspense’ Alfred Hitchcock, so to celebrate the work of one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time we asked some of the members of the BanterFlix team to pick out their favourite Hitchcock movies.
No easy task with a career that spanned six decades and consisted of over 50 feature films.
Here’s some of our favourite Hitchcock films, but what are yours?
Strangers on a Train (Darren Vincent)
Strangers on a Train is adapted from the 1950 novel by Patricia Highsmith and is a tale of how evil can taint even the purest of heart. It is a study of guilt and the human conscience and asks us all a question we may be afraid to answer: Just how far would you go to solve your own problems?
The film is brilliantly paced and features some great establishing shots right from the opening scenes as we see two completely different sides to the story. We are shown only the shoes of the two men as they make their way to the train station before their chance encounter, we know everything we need to know.
Hitchcock masterful as always spins a suspenseful tale of pride and paranoia, particularly in the fateful “Tunnel of love” scene and also the heart-racing final act with the best use of a tennis match ever shown on screen. It is said that Hitchcock was so thrilled to be working on the film that he took to it like he had electrical charges in his brain, shown in the aforementioned tunnel scene which features a shot which Hitchcock had been perfecting for years.
From the fateful first encounter right through to the action packed carousel finale, it is expertly paced and is without a doubt my favourite Hitchcock film. His message is that no matter your background, reasoning or status – we all have skeletons in our closet and how far could you be pushed to solve them?
Rear Window (Victoria Brown)
I would be lying if I said that Psycho (1960) isn’t my favourite Hitchcock film, but Rear Window (1954) is a close second, if not tied for first. A mystery-thriller starring James Stuart and Grace Kelly, Rear Window follows Jeffries (Stuart), a magazine photographer confined to his home with a broken leg as he innocently spies on his neighbours. As much as I love Psycho, Rear Window, for me, is where Hitchcock earns his title as cinema’s Master of Suspense.
The main crux of the story is Jeffries discovering through his spying that his travelling salesman neighbour Thorwald has murdered his invalid wife and disposed of her body by chopping it up and removing it from the apartment via his suitcase. The audience is in a unique position in that we are confined exclusively to Jeffries’ point-of-view through Hitchcock’s limited but effective use of camerawork.
As we are stuck in Jeffries’ apartment with him, we experience what he sees and learns alongside him. It’s an incredibly intimate relationship to have with a protagonist, and it makes us empathise with him in a way that couldn’t be achieved through an omniscient narrative. And it creates suspense because we are completely helpless observers who know things we can’t share with other characters.
The best example is when Lisa (Kelly) sneaks into Thorwald’s apartment to find evidence. Jeffries sees Thorwald approaching the apartment and he is helpless to warn Lisa of his approach; Jeffries takes on the role of cinematic spectator alongside us. The suspense is maddening! It’s the old bomb analogy: a bomb going off is a surprising, knowing a bomb will go off when others do not is suspense.
Rear Window is a gleefully dark self-aware film about the nature of cinema and spectatorship. It is a film about film, and for me that makes it so much more powerful than if it were a straightforward thriller. It is one of Hitchcock’s best.
Psycho (Joe Mc Elroy)
For me, Psycho is my favourite Alfred Hitchcock film. It is amazing to think that it came right after Vertigo and North By Northwest given its low budget and being shot (beautifully) in black and white with a television crew. It allowed Hitchcock to exhibit his immense talents as a filmmaker as the film feels as cinematic anything that he has done.
The way in which Hitchcock initially takes so much time setting up the film’s story and protagonist Marion (played by Janet Leigh) as a woman on the run with stolen money, only to completely change direction with a few strokes of a knife from “mother” is absolutely genius as you are left in a state of shock and confusion not knowing where the story is going to go.
Herein lies the main reason that I love the film (and one of the reasons why it has a well-renowned legacy in cinema) so much. It is Hitchcock’s focus on shock over gratuity. Whenever Marion meets her demise in the shower you question what you saw over what was actually shown to you as a knife is plunged into her.
After racking up so much of his trademark tension prior to this moment, Hitchcock leaves the audience in a state of shock before starting the process all over again.
Of course, you can’t talk about Psycho without bringing up Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score. At times it has a beautiful dreamlike romantic quality that lulls you into a false sense of security but this is shattered as the harsh screeching of the violins jolts the system with one of the most uncomfortable and recognisable pieces of music ever committed to film.
When it was released the film was known for pushing the boundaries of cinema with its depictions of violence and sexuality but for me, the film’s legacy lies in how it is the perfect blend of elements of cinema under the stewardship of the maestro, Hitchcock.
The Birds (Therese Rea)
The Birds was released in 1963, which was loosely based on a short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, is the film that introduced me to Alfred Hitchcock and his work. The film centres around Melanie Daniels played by Tippi Hedren in her screen debut, who meets Mitch Brenner played by Rod Taylor in a San Fran pet store and follows him home. She gifts him two lovebirds and they strike up a budding romance until a strange swarm of birds start savagely attacking their town.
Hitchcock is often described as the King of Suspense, The Master of Horror and an Auteur of Cinema and his techniques have been used many times throughout film history. Scenes from his films are so famous that they are often parodied, rehashed and used in other films and television shows. Some scenes are so famous that people can recognize a Hitchcock film without even having seen it.
One of the scenes that is often recognized can be found in The Birds and is the horrific attack on Hedren’s character Melanie. At one point in the film her character is led out to the street, as she believes that the birds have disappeared but much to her horror, she is cornered into a phone booth by hundreds of birds and is ferociously attacked.
The pane of glass that surrounded the phone booth was supposed to be safety-glass however Hitchcock used actual glass during filming and the cuts she received were real. This resulted in the crew having to remove severed pieces of glass from her nose and cheeks. Real birds were also used throughout the film, 3,200 in total and they were also used to actually attack the actors in the film. Hitchcock was always so sure about the authenticity of his scares and it can be said that he did take these scares a little too far.
Whilst I respect his work as a director, his treatment of his cast and female actresses, in particular, was questionable and it led to so many actresses not wanting to work with him but having to; for the fear that they would never act in Hollywood again. Hedren went on to star in her second and final film with Hitchcock after the abuse she suffered in The Birds and would later go on to say that working with Hitchcock was extremely traumatic.
If you haven’t seen The Birds before I would highly recommend it for lovers of film and horror, to appreciate the work of someone who didn’t depend on jump scares for suspense.
Vertigo (Jim McClean)
In Hitchcock’s Vertigo Jimmy Stewart Acrophobia suffering character Scottie is haunted by the ghost of a woman who never really existed! Widely considered not only to be one of Hitchcock best, but also one of the best films ever made, his 1958 feature deals with all the classic themes we’ve come to expect from the director. Themes like obsession and voyeurism as Stewart’s private detective character (Scottie) becomes increasingly obsessed with Kim Novak’s Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton.
Scottie has been asked by an old college buddy (Gavin Elster) to follow ‘Madeleine’ around San Francisco because he’s become increasingly concerned about his wife’s mental state.
As Scottie tails ‘Madeleine’ across the city, he becomes struck by her incredible beauty and becomes increasingly obsessed with her. When he steps in and saves ‘Madeleine’ after she jumps into the San Francisco Bay his obsession grows and Scottie finds himself falling madly in love with her. He’s unable to cope when only a few days later he’s unable to save ‘Madeleine’ again when she plunges to her death from the top of a bell tower.
It turns out (sorry if this spoils the film) that the whole thing was a scam devised by Gavin to create the perfect cover for the murder of his real wife. Novak’s character was merely a decoy hired by Gavin to create the perfect alibi for the murder, as he knew Scottie would never be able to follow ‘Madeleine’ to the top of the bell tower.
Madeleine’s death sends Scottie into a deep depression, but a seemingly chance encounter with Judy (also played by Novak) leads Scottie down a deeply disturbing path. Struck by Judy’s resemblance to ‘Madeleine’ he becomes obsessed with transforming her into the woman he once knew (or thought he did).
We as viewers know that Judy was in on the scam, but Stewart’s character does not and this leads to some genuinely unsettling scenes within the film’s latter stages as Scottie takes Judy clothes shopping and convinces her to dye her hair blonde like ‘Madeleine’.
By the end of the film Scottie is left a broken man as history repeats itself, he may have overcome his fear of heights; but he’s lost the woman he loved for a second time, a woman I must add never truly existed. Even more tragically he’s lost a woman, who truly loved him, but Judy was never enough for Scottie.
Beyond the fantastic central performances, Bernard Herrmann’s score and Robert Burks’ accomplished cinematography what I’ve always loved about this film is how well it stands up to repeated viewings and how well it all clicks together, time and time again. Watch it once you’ll find yourself, like Scottie falling for Madeline’s charms, watch it again and you’ll find yourself watching a completely different film, something altogether more tragic.
Yes, this film primarily deals with Scottie’s obsession, but the film could also be viewed as a study of Hitchcock’s own obsession with women. There’s no denying the director had a type, the beautiful blonde bombshell. You only need to look through his impressive back catalogue to see how he recast the same type of woman time and time again and it’s just something that adds a wonderful layer of subtext to an already brilliant film that explores the perils of the male gaze.