The Lady Eve's Reel Life

Noir City X...and a look at upcoming classics festivals

2012-02-20T20:15:00.004-08:00

Noir City X, San Francisco

January was a busy, busy month in my reel and real lives this year, but I still managed to squeeze in one night of lust and murder thanks to Noir City X, San Francisco's 10th annual film noir festival, a ten day event that ran from the 20th through 29th.

Noir City, presented by the locally headquartered Film Noir Foundation and masterminded by the organization's founder, Eddie Muller, is the one festival I'll never miss...even in the midst of a serious case of Vertigo. The line up for Noir City X featured many well-known classics: Dark Passage (1947) with Bogart and Bacall, Otto Preminger's genre defining Laura (1944), Gilda (1946) wherein Rita Hayworth sizzled her way to film immortality, Preston Sturges' dark and hilarious Unfaithfully Yours (1948), The Glass Key (1942) based on a Hammett novel, starring the other iconic noir couple of the '40s, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Two adaptations of The Maltese Falcon screened, the original Roy Del Ruth 1931 version with Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels, and John Huston's 1941 Bogart-Astor-Greenstreet-Lorre masterpiece. In addition, on January 21, festival guest of honor Angie Dickinson was interviewed by Muller on stage between screenings two of her crime thrillers, The Killers (1964) directed by Don Siegal and John Boorman's Point Blank (1967).

As always, the festival also presented many not-so-well-known, even obscure films noir. And it was to see one of these rough-cut little gems that a friend and I met at San Francisco's enduring movie palace, The Castro Theatre, on Thursday night, January 26.

Naked Alibi (1954) was a film unknown to me until I saw it listed on the festival program and the names of those top-billed got my attention. Sterling Hayden plays a cop out for vengeance, Gloria Grahame is the "border town bad girl" who gets under his skin and Gene (Bat Masterson, Burke's Law) Barry is a murder suspect released from custody for lack of evidence. Billed as an "ultra-rare potboiler," we chose Naked Alibi based on curiosity (the stars, that title) and its spot on the festival schedule (a good movie night for both of us).

It may be ultra-rare, but Naked Alibi is also pretty slight stuff, even for a '50s B-movie. Hayden and Grahame deserve most of the credit for keeping things interesting - though Barry is an entertaining eyeful as an upstanding citizen/psycho with a hair-trigger temper. These three and the border town setting - plus an enthusiastic full-house audience - made Naked Alibi worth the price of admission.

Being in a festival frame of mind, I thought it timely to survey a few upcoming classics fests...

A Trip to the Moon (1902) in color

The Kansas Silent Film Festival, Topeka, KS

The 16th annual Kansas Silent Film Festival begins this Friday, Feb. 24, and runs through Saturday, the 25th, at Washburn University in Topeka - and it's free to the public!

This year the festival will screen the newly restored hand-colored version of George Méliès' classic short, A Trip to the Moon (1902) on Saturday night. It is believed this color version, featured during the opening of the 2011 Cannes film festival as well as in Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011), was not seen by the public for more than 80 years.

Also on the schedule:

Maurice Tourneur's The Wishing Ring (1914) accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

The Clinging Vine (1926) starring Leatrice Joy, with organ music by Marvin Faulwell

The Cure (1917) starring Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance, with music by Greg Foreman

Alice in the Jungle (1925), a Walt Disney cartoon - with music by Phil Figgs

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926) starring Harry Langdon, with music by Jeff Rapsis

Way Down East (1920) starring Lillian Gish, accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Sugar Daddies (1927) starring Laurel & Hardy, with piano music by Marvin Faulwell

Fritz Lang's Spies (1928) - with music by Greg Foreman

He Did and He Didn't (1916) starring Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Monte Cristo (1922) starring John Gilbert, with organ music by Marvin Faulwell and percussion by Bob Keckeisen

Cinefest 32, Syracuse, NY

Coming up March 15 - 18 is Cinefest 32 in Syracuse, New York. The schedule promises a variety of screenings and much more for the dedicated classics buff.

A small sampling of the vintage motion pictures to be shown: Douglas Fairbanks in a film thought to be long-lost, Mr. Fix-it (1918), Clara Bow in Get Your Man (1927), Carole Lombard in Matchmaking Mama (1928), Sylvia Sydney in Confessions of a Co-ed (1931), Barbara Stanwyck in Red Salute (1936), Jack Benny and Fred Allen in Love Thy Neighbor (1940).

Also on the bill: Eileen Bowser, former curator of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art, archivist/preservationists David Shepard and Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project and film historian Leonard Maltin, who will host a 'Sunday Morning Auction.'

TCM Classic Film Festival, Hollywood, CA

The third annual TCM festival will run from April 12 - 15 this year - the setting is Hollywood and the mood glamorous...some schedule highlights:

Audrey Hepburn will be saluted as a style icon with screenings of Funny Face (1957), Sabrina (1954) and Two for the Road (1967). Film noir will get a nod with Cry Danger (1951), Gun Crazy (1950) and Raw Deal (1948). The legendary costumes of iconic Paramount designer Travis Banton will be spotlighted with Nothing Sacred (1937) on the star he loved to dress most, Carole Lombard. Deco design will be highlighted with screenings of Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Swing Time (1936) and The Women (1939). The breathtaking list goes on: Cabaret (1972), Casablanca (1942), the two great American films of 1974 - Chinatown and The Godfather Pt. II, Grand Illusion (1937), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Wings (1927). Guests will include Liza Minnelli, Rhonda Fleming, Debbie Reynolds, Marsha Hunt, Peggy Cummins, Joel Grey, producer Robert Evans, the Film Noir Foundation's Eddie Muller and others yet to be announced, plus TCM hosts Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz.

Meanwhile, beginning March 1, The Road to Hollywood will get under way and bring the TCM Festival to 10 cities around the U.S. and north of the border - New York, Minneapolis, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, Denver and Portland. I hope you live near one of them!

Crashout (1955) - Kennedy, Bendix and Talman

The Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, Palm Springs, CA

The 12th annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival is set for May 10 - 13 in sunny Palm Springs. The schedule and guest roster aren't up yet, but in past years, the Lyons festival has featured such films as the ultimate Joan Crawford noir vehicle, The Damned Don't Cry (1950) with genre heavy and hunk-o'-man Steve Cochran, Loophole (1954) with Dorothy Malone, Barry Sullivan and the sublime Charles McGraw, Crashout (1955) with Arthur Kennedy, William Bendix and another noir favorite, William Talman, and The Underworld Story (1950) with Dan Duryea and Herbert Marshall.

The festival is a Palm Springs Cultural Center presentation and was founded by Arthur Lyons, mystery writer, film historian and author of Death on the Cheap: The Lost B-Movies of Film Noir. Lyons died suddenly in 2008 at age 62, but the festival that bears his name continues on.

More classics festivals loom in the future - in places like Columbus, OH, El Paso, TX, Chicago, San Francisco and, of course, Hollywood. I'll try to post updates from time to time and if there's a festival coming to your area that you'd like mentioned, just let me know: ladyevesidwich@gmail.com ...

A Month of "Vertigo," The Final Chapter

2012-02-13T23:51:00.000-08:00

by The Lady Eve

It was 1948 in post-war France when mystery writers Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac met for the first time at an awards ceremony for the Prix du Roman d'Aventures, a literary award for crime fiction. Narcejac received the prize that year and Boileau had taken the honor ten years earlier; in another two years they would become writing partners. Together the pair forged their own approach to the French mystery novel, placing new emphasis on character and suspense.

Today their work is considered a hybrid of two genres: the traditional whodunit and le roman noir (thriller). Le roman noir of that era was influenced by crime writers like Hammett and novelists of the naturalist school like Emile Zola, but Boileau and Narcejac were more inspired by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe. What most post-war French crime fiction did have in common was a dark vein of fatalism and, according to Michel Lebrun, another genre writer, Boileau-Narcejac’s work was marked by such persistent gloom that “...the hero, for them, should never wake up from his nightmare.”

Les Diaboliques (1955)

Their first novel was not immediately published, but their second, Celle qui n'était plus, was adapted to film by director Henri-Georges Clouzot. Re-titled Les Diaboliques and released in 1955, it became a suspense classic. The writing duo’s next book, D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead), appeared the same year. A moody psychological thriller, it tells the story of former police detective Roger Flavieres who agrees to help shipping magnate Paul Gevigne, a one-time college friend, by keeping an eye on the man's unstable wife Madeleine.

Flavieres is a disaffected loner living in Paris at the outset of World War II. He broods endlessly, roams empty streets at night and listens to war reports on the wireless. He loathes Gevigne, envies him, and soon covets his elegant, morose wife to the point of fixation. Flavieres first meets Madeleine when he rescues her from a leap into the Seine. They form an off-balance alliance; he is bewitched by her and she calls him “my poor friend.” When one day she takes him to a remote church with a high tower and disappears up into the belfry, Flavieres is unable to follow. His detested lifelong acrophobia has paralyzed him on the steps. And then, through a window, he sees Madeleine’s body plummet to the ground. Before he flees the scene he laments, “Poor little Eurydice! She would never come back from the nothingness into which she had plunged.” Flavieres will next vanish into the war and out of the country, telling no one, not even Gevigne, what he has witnessed.

This scenario would be re-envisioned and brought to life on film few years later:

Paramount Pictures bought the rights to D'entre les morts for Alfred Hitchcock not long after it was published. The film went into production in 1957, a significant point in the director's career.

Dial M for Murder (1953)

Though Hitchcock's last three films of the 1940s had failed to attract audiences, he began the 1950s with a series of box office successes for Warner Bros. that reestablished his reputation. Stage Fright (1950) was respectably popular, Strangers on a Train (1951) was a rousing hit and I Confess (1952) achieved modest success. In 1953, Hitchcock unearthed his muse Grace Kelly and cast her for the first time - in Dial M for Murder (and 3-D). It was very popular.

In 1954 Lew Wasserman brokered a deal between Hitchcock and Paramount that virtually opened the skies for the director. He would be able to work independently, be granted production budgets far more robust than he'd known at Warners, and would own those films he both produced and directed. The films Hitchcock made for Paramount during the '50s comprise an oeuvre within his oeuvre: Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and Vertigo (1958). North by Northwest (1959) is also part of this collection though it was made for MGM.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Granted free rein and big budgets, Hitchcock was able to operate both autonomously and lavishly. He was able to attract top stars as well as handpick his creative and technical team. Involved in most or all of these films were cinematographer Robert Burks, film editor George Tomasini, associate producer Herbert Coleman, composer Bernard Herrmann and costume designer Edith Head. On Vertigo, legendary title sequence designer Saul Bass began the first of three collaborations with Hitchcock. All of the Paramount films were shot in Technicolor and, beginning with To Catch a Thief, all were filmed in the VistaVision wide-screen format.

Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut

There was more. In 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuted on American television. Hitchcock became a popular TV personality as the series host who opened and closed each episode with dry wit and macabre humor. The series would run until 1962 and help to make him a wealthy man. At the same time, Hitchcock’s reputation as a serious filmmaker was gaining momentum. In the summer of 1956 a month-long Hitchcock retrospective was held at the esteemed Cinemathèque Française in Paris, and in September the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma devoted an entire issue to his work. In France during the 1950s, the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock became a subject of deep and lengthy discussion. Eventually, the French view would make its way around the world.

And so it was that Alfred Hitchcock embarked on the film adaptation of D'entre les morts just as he arrived at the pinnacle of his career.

In 1940 Hitchcock had battled producer David O. Selznick for creative control on the 'picturization' of Rebecca. When he adapted Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train to the screen in 1951 it was under a tight Warner Bros. budget. Regardless of power struggles and financial constraints both films became classics on the strength of Hitchcock's mastery of his medium. By the time he began the film he would christen Vertigo, Hitchcock had reached full maturity as an artist and possessed the resources and the control to conjure a wide-screen Technicolor dreamscape; a very personal expression of timeless themes.

Familiar motifs surface in Vertigo - voyeurism, the lure of an exquisite blonde, a man wrongly accused. And though its plot is set in motion by a mystery and laced with tension, Vertigo was never intended to be a thriller or tale of suspense. Instead, Hitchcock conceived a meditation on desire and illusion, obsession and loss. Rather than "putting the audience through" nerve-jangling terror, he sweeps the viewer into an emotional tailspin.

Boileau-Narcejac's well-honed "suspense narrative" would provide the springboard for Hitchcock's imagination...

Thomas Narcejac, Alfred Hitchcock and Pierre Boileau

When Roger Flavieres returned to Paris after the war, he found that Gevigne had been killed in an air raid as he fled the police scrutiny that followed his wife's death. Even Madeleine's grave was blitzkrieged into oblivion. Despondent, Flavieres is reminded that "She was dead. And he was dead with her." Then one day in a movie house he spies a woman in a newsreel who closely resembles her. He manages to locate this woman - Renee Solange, the mistress of a Marseille black marketeer. Flavieres, who has begun drinking steadily and is slowly losing his grip, pursues the woman and despite her denials, tries to bully her into admitting she is Madeleine. He manages to lure Renee away from her lover and then begins making her over in the image of Madeleine. Finally, distraught by Flavieres' incessant badgering, Renee breaks down. She insists she is not Madeleine but confesses she did impersonate her as part of a plot by her lover, Gevigne, to kill his wife for her money. Gevigne had relied on his old friend's well-known acrophobia when he chose Flavieres to be the dupe. But Flavieres had failed to play his part as witness to suicide and the scheme was ruined. Unhinged by her revelation and filled with rage as well as liquor, Flavieres strangles Renee to death. As the police are about to lead him away in handcuffs, he kisses Renee's forehead and whispers that he will wait for her.

Keeping the novel's essential elements, its basic structure and plot, themes of obsession and destruction, the vague outlines of its principal characters, Hitchcock would re-imagine D'entre les morts. He would shape from it an allegory of aesthetically and technically meticulous images and sounds and with allusions to ancient myth, Medieval legend, 19th century philosophy and modern psychology. And he would endow Boileau-Narcejac's desolate tale with a romantic heart and an eternal soul.

In transforming a genre piece into an enduring masterpiece, Hitchcock would also create a fascinating portrait of his own inner landscape; a work of art will always reveal the artist. At the same time, much of Vertigo's allure stems from its looking-glass effect upon the viewer. French New Wave icon Jean-Luc Godard, one of Hitchcock's great champions at Cahiers du Cinéma, could have been contemplating Vertigo when he observed, "Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self."

A Month of VERTIGO began on January 1 and, over the last month (plus), has featured a series of posts by 12 diverse and talented guest contributors - and me - on the subject of Vertigo. Individually, we have scrutinized Alfred Hitchcock's great masterwork from nearly every conceivable angle. For a complete list of posts, click here.

A Month of VERTIGO has been a success far beyond anything I imagined when the idea first took hold. My deepest gratitude goes out to all who have made it so - from guest bloggers and vloggers to commenters, tweeters, re-tweeters, Facebook friends and those who simply thought it was an interesting concept. A special nod to Dan Auiler whose very fine book, Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic, inspired me to read the English language edition of Boileau-Narcejac's novel (now simply called Vertigo) - which led to this blog event.

TLE

Happy 80th Birthday, Edna May!

2012-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Edna May Wonacott in Shadow of a Doubt (1943) with Henry Travers

Edna May Wonacott, who turns 80 today, was born in the town of Willits in Northern California in 1932. She spent most of her childhood to the south, in Santa Rosa, where her father was a grocer. When she was nine years old a twist of fate occurred that changed her life forever. Edna happened to be waiting at a bus stop in downtown Santa Rosa when she encountered filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and producer Jack Skirball. Hitchcock, who would be shooting much of his next film in town, thought there might be a part in it for the pig-tailed, bespectacled young girl whose curiosity captured his attention.

Two years ago, on Edna's 78th birthday, I posted the story she told me of her fateful "discovery." She and I had talked at length about what transpired on that day, what it was like working with Hitchcock on Shadow of a Doubt, as well as her memories of working on Leo McCarey's The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). Click here for the full interview.

We've stayed in touch since, and last January just before her 79th birthday, Edna brought me up to date on her life during the intervening year. It was a busy year - a year of letters and autograph requests from fans who'd seen our interview online or when it was published in her local paper or when it later appeared in Films of the Golden Age. She'd been active in other ways, too; in fact, she'd been a very busy lady. Click here to find out what interesting turns Edna's life took during 2010.

Then last summer, on the 112th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's birth, she was part of a celebratory event here at Reel Life; a drawing was held for a DVD copy of Shadow of a Doubt along with a copy of this photo signed by Edna:

Edna May Wonacott and Alfred Hitchcock on the set

Today, as Edna turns 80, I'd like to wish her an especially happy birthday and wish her many, many more. Thank you, Edna, for sharing your memories.

A ten minute segment from Shadow of a Doubt that features scenes with Edna

Hitchcock’s Most Beautiful Shot Ever; Or, A Single Frame So Good, 2000 Words Don’t Do It Justice

2012-02-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Joel Gunz

Practically every frame of every movie Alfred Hitchcock made could be blown up and hung on a museum wall. He had such a clear sense of composition that you can turn off the sound, forget the story and set your DVD player to slo-mo, letting the images parade by.*

Among the many iconic pictures that his camera has captured, the one pictured above is arguably the most sublime.

Practically everything that happens in the first half of Vertigo is carefully designed to lead the viewer to Madeleine’s (Kim Novak’s) trip to Fort Point, at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Let’s take a closer look at this single frame from the movie.

Self-consciously artful, the shot is as architecturally balanced as the bridge it depicts. The lighting, the colors, the framing, the composition and, of course, the subject matter leave nothing to chance. For instance, the graceful curve of the bridge draws the eye downward to the lone figure standing before us in the frame’s Golden Mean, while its vertical lines accentuate her statuesque femininity. Likewise, the balance between the man-made (the bridge and sidewalk) and the natural (the bay and mountains) seems to be deliberate as well, signifying Madeleine’s entrapment between these two worlds. Such a composition demanded precise camera placement, blocking and timing to capture the right light. That—among other things—seems to be the point. Vertigo is Hitchcock’s most sustained and deeply felt meditation on the art of film and this shot is its pièce de résistance.

The scene is observed from Scottie Ferguson’s (James Stewart’s) point of view. For two days now, he has been following Madeleine at a discreet distance, gradually moving closer as he becomes emboldened by her apparent obliviousness to his presence. Yet, he is still far enough away that he could plausibly deny having anything to do with her if she was to turn and question him. He is as close to her as any voyeur would dare get.

The difference between this framing and what Scottie would have actually seen, however, is worth noting. In real life, Scottie’s field of vision would have been much higher and wider. But here, that’s been cut off by the edge of the frame. (Conversely, because of our capacity to focus on small details at a distance, the framing could have been much tighter. And, if all Hitch wanted to do was further the story along, he would have used a lens that allowed Madeleine to fill the frame, but that’s not the case, either.) In other words, though we look through Scottie’s eyes, we are seeing what Hitchcock has decided to show us. The interchangeable relationship between Hitchcock’s protagonist and his camera—always a fluid proposition—has never been more apparent—or transparent. We may share Scottie’s eyesight, but we’re granted Hitchcock’s vision.

But the beauty of this picture! Before we go any further, let’s take a moment to let it simply be. Look again.

This is the moment that VistaVision was made for. Until this point, we have been driving around with Scottie as he follows his charge up and down the streets of San Francisco. Now, however, the camera comes to a full stop at the city’s lowest point: sea level. The camera goes still, along with the actor and even time itself. Now is the time to freeze the frame. It’s as if Hitch was saying to us, “let’s take a bit of time to relax and enjoy the scene I’ve selected for you.”

Filmed in the late afternoon, Madeleine’s visit to Fort Point occurs during what photographers call the Magic Hour, that special time when shadows deepen and the lowering sunlight results in softer contrast, bringing the subject into almost 3D relief, while the sunset’s golden hues bring out the colors to dramatic effect. (As Dan Auiler notes in Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic, shooting wrapped at this location at 5:25 PM.) Even if you’re a hack, it’s almost impossible to take a bad picture during the Magic Hour. If the artist is Hitchcock—and the cinematographer is Robert Burks—it can be a masterpiece.

Yet, for all its beauty, the Magic Hour is also a melancholy time of day. A lull in the final minutes of sunlight, it’s a prelude to dusk and nightfall, a perfect correlative to Madeleine’s doleful mien.

In fact, everything in this picture is a projection of Madeleine’s character.

Starting with the bridge. As I said earlier, almost everything in the movie up til now is part of a carefully laid plan leading to this moment. The first scene of the film—the rooftop chase—gives us a view of the Golden Gate Bridge at night, enticing us to want a better look. Later, at Midge’s apartment, Scottie muses over the new strapless brassiere that’s modeled on the cantilever bridge. (History nerds will note that the Golden Gate is a suspension bridge. While the original design called for two cantilevers, one at each end, it was rejected because they were as visually unappealing as the cantilevers in Midge’s prototype bra!) In Scottie’s mind (and in the mind of any San Franciscan), the Golden Gate Bridge is the greatest height someone could conquer—or fall from. So, as Scottie pulls out a footstool to stand on in hopes of devising a cure for his acrophobia, he quips to Midge, “Where do you want me to start, with the Golden Gate Bridge?” These moments hint at the scene we’re examining now. As does, of course, Gavin Elster’s yarn (performed by Tom Helmore) about Madeleine’s obsession with Carlotta Valdes and his need for Scottie’s help.

But look again at the framing. While, at the beginning of the film, Hitchcock’s nighttime camera objectively records the entire length of the bridge, this time the nearest end juts out of the top of the frame and the far end is hidden behind a distant suspension tower. As a result, our view of the Golden Gate takes in only its midway point. In effect, it is without beginning or end. And the viewpoint, from underneath, is emphatically subjective.

Such a formal composition emphasizes the artifice before us: sure, Vertigo is only a movie, but the events unfolding before us once actually occurred for the benefit of Hitchcock and his film crew. It connects the internal reality of the movie with the external fact of its very real location.

Further, the bridge hanging unanchored in midair echoes Madeleine’s suspended condition, caught halfway between the physical world and the spiritual one toward which she hastens. She is neither here nor there. If the Golden Gate Bridge is a masterpiece of suspension, it is a fitting symbol for Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense. I interpret it to be a symbolic cameo appearance by the director, looking down on his creation. At the very least, it is a signature touch, in the fullest sense of the term.

The scene is classical, formal, idealized. A tip of the hat to such 19th century Symbolist illustrators as Maxfield Parrish or R. Atkinson Fox, with all the goofball Blavatskyesque spiritualism fully intended:

R. Atkinson Fox, "Dawn"

In Sigmund Freud’s dream world, bridges are phallic symbols, standing for the male organ that unites man and woman. Deriving further meaning from that basic symbol, Freud added that a bridge “acquires the meaning of something that leads to death, and … at a further remove from its original sense, it stands for transitions or changes in condition generally.”

While those phallocentric interpretations might be outdated, I believe there is a great deal of truth in what he had to say. (And I don’t think it’s much of a leap to suggest that the bridge in this scene is, in fact, phallic.) Bridges carry similar import in the Tarot deck, taking on additional meaning as harbingers of spiritual transformation, linking the earthly world and the spiritual.

The Golden Gate’s looming presence also emphasizes the low point at which Scottie and Madeleine have arrived. Looked at in this way, the water carries less of an erotic charge than it does the hellish. This is the level on which the diabolical shipping tycoon Gavin Elster operates.

Classical Chinese shan shui art conceives of bridges as a route to the (inaccessible) divine. The landscape painter Shitao (1641–1720) strove "to express a universe inaccessible to man, without any route that led there,… where only the immortals can live, and which a man cannot imagine. That is the vertigo that exists in the natural universe. To express it in painting, you must show jagged peaks, precipices, hanging bridges, great chasms." (Italics mine.)

Hitchcock’s Vertigo is filled with all sorts of references to Chinese wisdom, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have been aware of, if not inspired by Shitao’s aesthetics, perhaps even this painting, which could be read as a schematic diagram for the film’s conceptual design: (look for the tiny bridge)

At the very least, Hitch participated in this tradition in a general sense.

Not long after it opened in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge gained notoriety as a favored spot for suicides. In 1956-57, while Vertigo was in development and production, no fewer than six people jumped from its heights into the bay, to their death. Thus its status as San Francisco’s most famous landmark is tarnished by this reputation, and Scottie’s earlier crack takes on a darker tone than we might at first have imagined. As such, the location itself points forward to Madeleine’s “suicide,” as well as back to the suicide of her grandmother, Carlotta Valdes.

For a journeyman Symbolist like Hitchcock, all of this was old hat. Here are a couple more symbols, lifted whole from the Romantic art that provides so much inspiration for the film:

the bay itself, representing Madeleine’s fathomless subconscious; her sexuality; her feminine mystique and
the distant mountains rising voluptuously above the bay, as inaccessible as Madeleine herself.

Adding to the somber mood is Madeleine’s navy blue dress, with its high collar and tea-length hem, fit for a funeral. And notice the lavender scarf tied around her neck that drifts and curls in the breeze like ectoplasm, riffing on the multicolored spirals, many of them lavender, that accompany the opening credits. On one level, it enhances Kim Novak’s beauty, who was promoted by Columbia Pictures as a “lavender blonde.” On another level, in Hitch’s color scheme, the color is often associated with death (recall the lavender “Rest in Peace” ribbon that florist Phillippe Dubois attached to a funeral wreath in Topaz, prefiguring the lavender dress Juanita de Cordoba wore at her death, which was staged to resemble a blooming flower). So much of Vertigo is rooted in 19th century history that it comes as no surprise that in Britain at that time, lavender was, along with black, the color of mourning.

Special attention seems to have been given to her shoes. With her feet placed one directly in front of the other, we can’t help but get a good look at them. It’s an odd pose, flattening her profile and drawing our attention downward. The camera angle emphasizes the length of the heels and their sharp edges. There’s a hint of danger or fetishism or both. Later, as she is dragged up the stairs of the bell tower, we’ll see those same feet upended by the man who idealized them in this shot.***

And what is there to say about the nosegay she holds? It’s the bouquet of a bride in mourning.

As beautiful as this shot is, then, upon closer examination, it acquires ominous overtones. You may or may not agree with everything I’ve written above. But on one point we can agree: this picture is at once achingly beautiful and profoundly sad.

Let’s take a closer look at Madeleine herself. We see her in profile, just as we first saw her at Ernie’s Restaurant and at the museum (and, later, bathed in green light, at the Empire Hotel). Shadows in the foreground nearly reduce her to a silhouette, yet in the distance the blue sky also places her out in the open for all to see. The truth about Madeleine hides in plain sight.

Significantly, her body language duplicates the pose she struck moments earlier while standing before the portrait of Carlotta—feet and all:

A classical stance, it shows off the beauty of her form while revealing nothing else. Madeleine displays her surface beauty to Scottie while concealing her true self, intentions and identity. As William Rothman writes in his chapter on The Lodger in The Murderous Gaze:

“It is characteristic of Hitchcock to frame a figure in profile at the moment of his or her most complete abstraction and absorption in an imagined scene to which we have no access. In such a profile shot, the camera frames its subject in a way that does not allow the figure's interiority to be penetrated. Indeed, such a shot declares that impenetrability; it announces that we have come to a limit of our access to the world of the film.”

As beautiful as the Fort Point image is and as rife as it is with meaning and symbol, it is ultimately unknowable. Scottie, for whom “there is an explanation for everything,” has met the limits of his knowledge of Madeleine Elster, of women and perhaps of human nature. Unless something new and dramatic takes place, he, along with us, can do nothing more for Madeleine but watch her. If the plot is to move forward, she needs to make a big splash.

Hitchcock’s lesson, delivered from the other side of the bridge, is that, despite the books, the articles and, yes, the blog posts, at the end of the day, we are no closer to the truth than Scottie Ferguson. Watching, always watching, but rarely seeing, until it’s too late.
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*If you think this is an exaggeration, drop by 1000 Frames of Hitchcock, where you’ll see Dave Pattern’s massive frame capture project, where he copied 1000 high-quality frames from all 52 of Hitchcock’s extant movies and posted them on the Alfred Hitchcock wiki for scholars, students and fans to peruse and use.

**Hitchcock framed bridges similarly in previous movies, notably The 39 Steps (1935), which depicted the Forth Rail Bridge, one of the world’s great bridges and one of the greatest achievements of Victorian British engineering. In a way, this was at the time the Golden Gate Bridge of Britain.

Just as Freud suggested, for Hitch, bridges often signify psychological, emotional or spiritual transition. It is at this bridge that Richard Hannay escapes from the train to evade the police and is fully transfigured into his role as a fugitive from the police. It’s generally assumed that Hannay jumped into the river. However, I don’t think that’s the case. For one thing, from his perch, as is clearly shown in the movie, such a leap would have landed him at the concrete base of the bridge and killed him. Even a jump into the water from that height would have been too risky. Instead, I believe that he remained hidden until the train left and that he simply walked off the bridge. The reason I bring this up now is that, up until this point, we’ve tracked Hannay’s movements very closely. So, from whose point of view is this shot taken? It probably isn’t Hannay’s. Instead, it seems to be Hitchcock’s own view, a case of author intrusion into the story. As such, it anticipates the similar framing of the Golden Gate Bridge being discussed here. As in the 1958 film, time stops for a moment. In this case, it gives us a chance to catch up with the action and Hannay’s radical transformation away from an ordinary bloke as he inhabits his extraordinary new role as fugitive, sleuth and espionage agent.

In the shot immediately following, Hannay crosses a small bridge whose ancient stones are a marked contrast to the ultra-modern Forth Rail Bridge previously shown. The previous montage hints at a spiritual journey comparable to that suggested by Madeleine and Scottie’s destined appointment under the Golden Gate Bridge, but with a very different outcome.

***While making Rear Window (1954), Hitchcock spent half an hour arranging a shot of Grace Kelly's shoes. When assistant Herbert Coleman asked why, Hitch remarked blandly, “Haven't you heard of the shoe fetish?” Unfortunately, it was never used in the film.

Noted for its fresh perspective and first-rate scholarship, Joel Gunz's www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com has been described as the "best Hitchcock blog on the Internet." Meanwhile, its social center, www.facebook.com/HitchcockGeek, enjoys an enormous and passionate international following. Joel is preparing to publish his next book, Notes from an Alfred Hitchcock Geek. Watch for it!

Vertigo for Life

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Dan Auiler

A month of Vertigo is light sentence. Most of us who encounter this film end up serving life sentences. Our lives, our thoughts become trapped in the vortex of the strong currents this film produces. Vertigo's meaning and importance in film have become so varied and vital that choosing one tendril spinning out from one of John Whitney's Lissajous diagrams is challenging - but keeping that line of thought from swirling back into the film's center and tossing you out on some other surprising shore is just about impossible.

The film has become something I can seldom approach head-on, in a straight line. For example, the original idea for this blog post was to look at Vertigo and the films of Chris Marker. But even on the way to introducing the idea, we encounter John Whitney. John Whitney was the groundbreaking computer animation filmmaker who not only invented computer controlled animation, but hand-machined the devices himself out of surplus Air Force engines. It was on one of these devices that Whitney created the opening spiral designs that Saul Bass used for the title sequence.

And now, aiming still at Chris Marker, detoured out of essence to a brief John Whitney nod, we encounter another 20th century giant, Saul Bass. The very look of the last hundred years, let alone the way movies open, have been impacted by the vision and design abilities of Saul Bass.

Selecting Saul Bass, John Whitney - these are obvious choices today. In 1957, these guys were not household names even to filmmakers. One of Hitchcock's remarkable abilities was his choice in collaborators. Other posts this month have outlined the other key components of the design team for Vertigo. Bernard Herrmann, Edith Head, Samuel Taylor - again, hindsight provokes us to ask how the film could fail.

La Jetee (1962)

Now I'm far from Chris Marker. But I thought you would appreciate the detour. Marker has also been a life-long devotee of Vertigo. His break-out short film La Jetee references the film's famous tree sequence; La Jetee is a further examination of the aspects of time, obsession and our movable points in time. (here is the complete text to La Jetee: La Jetee by Chris Marker)

Marker, in a later work of opposite dimensions, San Soleil, tours San Francisco and Vertigo's film locations, marking in film at least the first of the pilgrims to visit Lombard Street, Fort Point, the Legion of Honor art museum, San Juan Bautista. Vertigo aficionados feel compelled to make this pilgrimage. It was my first trip after college. I'm not sure why this was so vital - but I am not alone. (There are several paid tours of the film sites available)

Filmmaker Chris Marker

Vertigo and its production history led me to discover Marker. His reference to the film in his own was the starting point. Now I'm fascinated by his total mess-with-your-head understanding (or non-understanding) of time. The English version of San Soleil begins with these lines from TX Eliot's Ash Wednesday:

"Because I know that time is always time
and place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
and only for one place."

What then is the time and place for Vertigo? This is a profound question in the structure of the film. It is an even more profound question for us, the film's fans.

What is the time and place of this film in our lives? For me, it has been the gateway, the worm hole, the central vortex around which all of Hitchcock's films and subsequently my own psychic life turn.

Use Vertigo as a starting point and then lose yourself as a wanderer. My latest encounter on the Vertigo trail is the three-part video essay curated here at the Museum of Moving Image. This is accessible but heady stuff.

There are other "better" films even in the Hitchcock canon, but Vertigo is perhaps the most profound pop film. Everyone chooses which films lie closest to their own heart, their own story. Vertigo is that film for me.

Dan Auiler is the best-selling author of Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (St. Martin's Press 1998, Kindle 2011) and Hitchcock's Notebooks (HarperCollins 1999). In addition to his writing, he has taught for more than 20 years in the Los Angeles area.

Dan is considered one of the foremost authorities on Alfred Hitchcock and has made appearances on CNN and other major networks as an expert on Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and general film history.

It was after reading Dan's painstakingly researched and thoroughly insightful book on Vertigo that The Lady Eve was inspired to undertake A Month of VERTIGO. Dan's blog is Vertigo Falls.

Vertigo: Alfred Hitchcock's Edifice to Obsession

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

a video blog by guest contributor Brandon Kyle Goco

Brandon Goco, guest host of Turner Classic Movies’ monthly podcast series for October 2011, is both a film student and a movie fanatic. He has penned well over a hundred individual blogs for the TCM Classic Film Union, has his own blog, Brandon Kyle the Cinephile, and has only recently taken up video blogging. At the age of 20, Brandon is currently attending a California State University, majoring in film studies and working part-time as the production coordinator and general manager for the university’s local television station. He has dreams of becoming a film director or film preservationist some day.

Brandon on Vertigo (he recommends his video be viewed in 720p):

James Stewart: A Walk on the Dark Side

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Classicfilmboy

Alfred Hitchcock had a knack for bringing out the worst in the best of actors.

And I mean that as a compliment. He could take likable leading men, cast them as dark characters and draw great performances. Think of Cary Grant’s Johnnie in Suspicion (before the studio re-edited the ending), Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and Robert Walker’s Bruno in Strangers on a Train.

Perhaps the best example of this was how Hitchcock used James Stewart, whose image was the “aw shucks” guy next door. As Hitchcock biographer Patrick McGilligan suggests, his heroes began to deepen with Grant and then with Stewart, and those films deepened as a result.

But as much as I love Grant, he has a particular on-screen persona that became part of almost every performance he gave starting in the late 1940s. Meanwhile, as Stewart aged, he pushed away from his all-American persona and began playing dark and conflicted men, looking less and less like the characters audiences loved in the 1930s and early 1940s. Frank Capra tapped into Stewart’s dark side in 1946’s It's a Wonderful Life, with the actor playing a man who is contemplating suicide, forced to stay and work where he never wanted to and bitter that he never had the opportunities that others enjoyed. According to McGilligan, Stewart told Lionel Barrymore that his air force experience during World War II made him question acting, resulting in Stewart searching for stronger parts.

Rope (1948)

It makes sense that Hitchcock would pick up on Stewart’s newfound attitudes. Yet, oddly enough, Stewart’s first film with Hitchcock was 1948’s Rope, in which Stewart is very much playing off his good-guy persona. Stewart does his usual fine job, but both he and Hitchcock learned from this for their future collaborations.

But first came some fine roles that would eventually comprise a decade of marvelous work from Stewart, starting with 1950’s Harvey. As the gentle Elwood P. Dowd, Stewart plays someone who’s not in touch with the rest of society, which in itself can get you labeled as mentally disturbed even if that’s not the case. Stewart mines the dark comedy in playing a man who would rather be friends with a large imaginary rabbit that with any humans, and it takes a special actor to make this character resonate rather than becoming too cute or too disturbing.

Stewart’s early 1950s westerns also brought out a toughness in character. Just look at The Naked Spur, with Stewart as a bounty hunter in a tale that predates some of John Wayne’s more conflicted Western characters.

Rear Window (1954)

Stewart’s second pairing with Hitchcock is 1954’s Rear Window which is my favorite Hitchcock film of the 1950s. It’s rare to think of Stewart as having a sexuality on screen, yet here Hitchcock fully taps into it with Stewart’s character, Jeff, having an open affair with Grace Kelly. It’s rather shocking to see Mr. All-American, in a leg cast and wheelchair, clearly in lust with the lovely Ms. Kelly. Yet it works, bringing Stewart down to our level. Yes, he’s still the hero, but he also has desires and doubts like the rest of us. The fact that our hero likes to spy on all of his neighbors adds an unsettling dimension to that character, because the audience is right there with him, knowing it’s wrong but unable to do anything but indulge.

How better than to have your audience identify with a peeping Tom than have that man played by Stewart. He’s a flawed man, and one that Hitchcock and Stewart brilliantly explore together.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

It’s worth noting that Stewart was cast before screenwriter John Michael Hayes started his work, so the role was tailored to Stewart.

Stewart and Hitchcock were both friendly and business-like to each other. More importantly, they understood each other. Stewart re-teams with Hitchcock a third time in The Man Who Knew Too Much, although in the first half of the movie Stewart relies on his aw-shucks persona too much. It isn’t until the latter stages when Stewart’s Ben MacKenna is desperate to save his child.

But Hitchcock fully taps into the dark side of Stewart in Vertigo, their fourth film together. Stewart’s Scottie may be afraid of heights, but that’s the least of his problems in light of his sexual obsession over Kim Novak.

R.D. Finch does an outstanding job of discussing Stewart in his Vertigo post from earlier this month during The Lady Eve’s Vertigo event, and there’s no need to repeat what he wrote. What’s worth noting is the unsettling, frightening darkness to Stewart’s character.

Perhaps this is why the film wasn’t much of a success when it was released. In Rope, Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much, Stewart eventually overcomes his weaknesses, although with some struggle. In Vertigo, the weaknesses are debilitating, and maybe that’s what audiences simply don’t want to see in Stewart or accept from one of his characters.

But Scottie should be a disorienting figure in a film where dizziness is both literal and figurative. For me, Stewart’s casting is genius, because it adds another level of disorientation. I doubt another actor could have carried this off. Sure, others may have given strong performances, but Hitchcock and Stewart knew what they were doing. It’s that extra push, the expected screen persona that’s built into the audience mindset before the film begins that ultimately shocks them in the end.

As a result, Vertigo is an enduring, disturbing tale. Over four films, Hitchcock and Stewart worked well together, and the great director elicited from Stewart some of his best work, perhaps none as disturbing as Scottie.

Brian, aka Classicfilmboy, developed a love of classic films at a young age with the annual airing of The Wizard of Oz on CBS (which he partially blames for his tornado phobia). As a kid growing up in a small Midwestern town, access to classic films was limited, which made their mystique even more enticing. Brian later spent 10 years as a film reviewer and now writes Classicfilmboy.com, although he wishes he could devote more time to his blog. He specializes in pre-1970 film history, and for fun he teaches noncredit film appreciation classes at his local community college in suburban Chicago.

VERTIGO, the Bit Players

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Allen Hefner

Kim Novak with Tom Helmore in Vertigo

A movie as incredible as Vertigo (1958) is a collaboration of many parts. Even an actor as talented as James Stewart can’t carry a film of this complexity by himself. The locations, scenery, costumes, set decoration, lighting, music, bit parts and even the cars are important to make any film a success.

I enjoy looking at the Bit Parts in a movie…seeing where the Bit Actors came from and where they went after a successful movie. Most of them didn’t get paid much, but the good ones put their whole heart and soul into each role, whether it was a small part in a television western or an opportunity to supply an important plot element in a movie like Vertigo.

Let’s look at some of the larger Bit Parts in Vertigo. I have listed them in order of the number of roles they have played during their career.

Ellen Corby and James Stewart

Ellen Corby (1911 – 1999) 238 titles are listed on IMDb for Ellen. She worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo as the McKittrick Hotel manager, and also in several of his TV shows. Her first movie was Rafter Romance (1933) starring Ginger Rogers, released just before Rogers teamed up with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio the same year.

Corby’s next film was Sons of the Desert (1933) starring Laurel and Hardy. She would make two other L&H films, Babes in Toyland (1934) and Swiss Miss (1938). Her first pairing with James Stewart was in a little film called It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). She plays a Bailey Savings and Loan customer who withdraws just $17.50 during the run. Stewart didn’t expect her to say that small amount, so he kissed her! I guess Frank Capra could get as much out of his actors as Hitchcock.

Most of Corby’s roles through the 1940s were uncredited, but she continued to get better and better parts. Look for her in Mighty Joe Young (1949) the King Kong send-up, The Gunfighter (1950) with Gregory Peck, Angels in the Outfield (1951) with Janet Leigh, Sabrina (1954) with Humphrey Bogart, and Night Passage (1957) again with James Stewart…all before Vertigo, and all great films.

Corby’s television career is another long story, but it took her from being Mother Lurch in “The Addams Family” to Esther Walton on “The Waltons,” a role she played in the series and many of the Walton’s specials.

Henry Jones (1912 – 1999), shown at right, has 202 titles listed and is certainly one of the most recognizable Bit Actors in cinema. He was born in Philadelphia, so I like him even more. His first film was This is the Army (1943) starring George Murphy and featuring Ronald Reagan.

Jones moved straightaway into television in 1950, and his second appearance on TV was with George Burns and Gracie Allen. In the early days, television was considered a step down from acting on film, just as 50 years earlier acting on film was less desirable than being on Broadway. Television appearances in the early days were much more frequent than movies, so all those kids (myself included) who were glued to the TV set until the next Saturday matinee at the local theatre would have the faces of those actors and actresses burned into their subconscious, only to resurface 50 years later and be written about on the Internet.

Jones continued making movies during his television work. In 1957 look for him in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield, and then in 3:10 to Yuma starring Glenn Ford, and of course in 1958 as the blue-suited coroner in Vertigo.

In 1969 we see Henry in Support Your Local Sheriff! with James Garner, and as a bicycle salesman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with of course, Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Later in his career he continues mostly on TV, but look for him in these great films –Nine to Five (1980), Deathtrap (1982), Dick Tracy (1990), and his final film The Grifters (1990).

Barbara Bel Geddes and Raymond Bailey

Raymond Bailey (1904 – 1980) is best known as Milburn Drysdale on “The Beverly Hillbillies.” However, that came near the end of his career of 146 titles that started in 1939. His first dozen years on the big screen went largely uncredited.

Television again allowed Bailey to find good work as an actor, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that he had a regular role in “My Sister Eileen,” a show I have never seen.

In the movies he has quite a long list, but many are forgettable films with second tier stars like Jock Mahoney, Jeff Chandler, and Tab Hunter. He appeared in Band of Angels (1957) which came near the end of Clark Gable’s career.

1958 may have been his finest film year, with appearances in Darby’s Rangers, Lafayette Escadrille, Vertigo (a small role as Scottie’s doctor), No Time for Sergeants, The Lineup, King Creole and I Want to Live! Quite a year for him, and for us.

Then, more TV, more TV, and in 1960 The Gallant Hours starring James Cagney and From the Terrace with Paul Newman…and more TV. Finally, Jed Clampett makes him a famous Beverly Hills banker and the rest is history. His final films were Herbie Rides Again (1974) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975).

James Stewart and Lee Patrick

Lee Patrick (1901 – 1982) was the lady who is mistaken for Madeleine at her car. Her role in Vertigo was small, but it helped fill in some questions in Scottie’s mind. Of course to me, Lee Patrick will always be Henrietta Topper of the television series “Topper” starring Leo G. Carroll as Cosmo Topper.

Lee has 104 titles listed on IMDb starting in 1929. Her first major motion picture, though not a starring role, was as Effie in the Bogart classic The Maltese Falcon (1941). In a Hitchcockian (is that a word?) twist, her final film was The Black Bird (1975) and she played the same part. I am sure that was a forgettable movie, where George Segal plays Sam Spade’s son, still looking for the elusive Falcon.

In between those films you can catch her in Now, Voyager (1942), George Washington Slept Here (1942), A Night to Remember (1942), Jitterbugs (a not so great Laurel and Hardy film in 1943), Mildred Pierce (1945), Vertigo and Auntie Mame in 1958, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), and a bunch of television.

Tom Helmore with James Stewart

Tom Helmore (1904 – 1995) Even though Gavin Elster (the real Madeleine’s husband) was a focal point of the mystery in Vertigo, I must include Tom Helmore as a Bit Player in a supporting role. He really doesn’t have much screen time. But he has 72 titles on IMDb. And he appears in two earlier Hitchcock movies, The Ring (a silent film from 1927) and Secret Agent (1936) with John Gielgud.

There’s not much to write about in his other work. Of note is an appearance in The Tender Trap (1955) with Frank Sinatra, The Time Machine (1960) with Rod Taylor, plus some good television work. The last movie he worked in was Flipper’s New Adventure (1964).

Konstantin Shayne (1888 – 1974), shown at right, certainly sounds like a Russian cowboy. Shayne played Pop Leibel, the bookstore owner who fills in the missing story about Carlotta Valdes. Again, a very small part but integral to understanding the plot.

Shayne has 49 titles listed on IMDb, starting in 1938. His performances of note were in None But the Lonely Heart (1944), The Stranger (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). You can also see him in small parts in a Bulldog Drummond film and in The Falcon in Hollywood (1944). He appeared quite a few times on TV in the 1950s, and his final movie was Joy in the Morning (1965) starring Richard Chamberlain.

Margaret Brayton and Kim Novak

Margaret Brayton (1907 – 1992) played the saleswoman in the dress shop that Scottie and Judy went to. While it may not seem like it was important to have this scene in Vertigo, it does serve to highlight the extent of Scotty’s obsession with turning Judy into Madeleine.

She has 48 titles on IMDb from 1934 to 1959, mostly uncredited, with maybe five television appearances. Another of her other well-known films was Who Done It? (1942) with Abbott and Costello.

Molly Dodd (1921 – 1981) was the beautician who also worked over Judy to recreate Madeleine. I loved it when she told Scottie that she knew what HE wanted, as though everyone in San Francisco was tired of his fantasy. Her 40 titles on IMDb include only four movies and Vertigo was her first.

Molly Dodd and James Stewart

Look for Molly in many of the sitcoms in the 1960s. In 1976 she was also in a few episodes of “The Waltons” with Ellen Corby. Her last movie was Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978).

And finally, there are the cars…Scottie’s 1956 DeSoto Firedome, Madeleine’s 1957 Jaguar Mk VIII, and Midge’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) 1956 Karmann Ghia. I have written before about cars in cinema and I am sure there are volumes available on the topic.

'Madeleine' in her 1957 Jaguar Mk VIII

The two main cars in Vertigo are more than obvious as plot vehicles (Sorry! I couldn’t resist). They are as distinctive as the characters they belong to. It was important for the cars to be instantly recognizable to avoid confusion in the film. While Scotty is following Madeleine, you need to be able to pick out her car in the traffic. You see it later at his apartment, and again after Madeleine’s staged death in the scene with Lee Patrick.

It is also interesting that the three cars match their owner’s personalities perfectly. I can see each one of them picking out their car at the dealership. Of course, it wasn’t the Kim Novak Madeleine who bought the Jag, but it would fit the real Madeleine’s station in society. Scottie would be matter-of-fact in his purchase, buying a car big enough for his needs, with a powerful V8. And Midge would have chosen her Ghia because it was so cute!

'Midge' in her 1956 Karmann Ghia

Hitchcock thought of everything, right down to the cars. His penchant for perfection is showcased in Vertigo and its excellent cast of Bit Actors. And I’m sure you’ll agree that these parts helped make Vertigo the great classic film it is.

Many thanks to Eve for hosting this month long tribute, and to all the other writers who have put so much effort into the project. I hope you enjoy every entry. And please stop by my Bit Part Actors blog for more great profiles.

Allen Hefner of Bit Part Actors, the blog he launched in May 2010, is from Pennsylvania and has been interested in movies from an early age. He recalls attending Saturday matinees at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, every Saturday of his youth, “when 50 cents bought you a two reeler (usually The Three Stooges or Laurel & Hardy), a few cartoons and a feature film.” Allen is a member of the famed Laurel & Hardy fan organization, The Sons of the Desert, and has, over the years, met and enjoyed the company of many film buffs and performers of days gone by including Margaret Hamilton, William Windom, Penny Singleton and others - as well as Stan Laurel's daughter, Lois, and Sons of the Desert founder (and cartoonist) Al Kilgore.

Hitchcock Biographer Patrick McGilligan Discusses VERTIGO with John Greco

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor John Greco

John Greco of Twenty Four Frames recently interviewed award-winning biographer Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Harper Collins, 2004). The focus of their dialogue was the director's mysterious and magnificent Vertigo.

John Greco (JG): Where does Vertigo fall within your pantheon of Hitchcock films and films in general?

Patrick McGilligan (PM): Honestly, I admire Vertigo more than I adore it but perhaps the reason for that is I am more inclined towards Hitchcock’s dark comedies with their playful humor -with major exceptions, I should say. Also, I have had the unfortunate experience, in recent years, of showing this film to undergraduates while teaching university film courses and have heard audible snickering in the audience during certain scenes, which isn’t true when you screen most of Hitchcock’s other accepted masterpieces. I think that is because there are some things about the film that can only be accepted by auteurists (the fact, for example, that it takes Scottie so long to recognize that Judy is/was Madeleine); you could say the same thing about the special effects for The Birds – brilliant then, somewhat dated now. And yet we fear the remake!

JG: How important was shooting the film in San Francisco to the film and Hitchcock?

Judy and Scottie and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts

PM: San Francisco and the Bay area became increasingly important to Hitchcock after he bought a house up there during World War II and began commuting up on many weekends. It was part of his “Americanization,” though obviously, considering his accent and usual costume, never a completed process. The romance with the Bay Area really began with Shadow of a Doubt, which was a Hitchcock original tailored for that area, and it was a great pleasure for the director to imagine or (in the cases of Vertigo and The Birds) re-imagine European stories in his veritable backyard. Filming in the Bay Area, or even living there on weekends, was radically independent for Hollywood in the 1940s. Incidentally, I think this penchant is one of the things that makes Hitchcock a very intimate, personal director as well as a universal one. They now give Vertigo tours of San Francisco, I’m sure you know.

JG: Vertigo seems to have been a very personal film for Hitchcock. Scottie's obsession with the makeover of Judy into Madeline mirrors to an extent Hitchcock's own obsession with the making over of some of his leading ladies into his own vision of the icy blonde Hitchcockian ideal. Tippi Hedren, for example - true?

An iconic twist

PM: I don’t really buy this notion except very generally. Hitchcock’s career is full of different types of women, and not all the blondes are icy – Grace Kelly really isn’t, either in Rear Window or To Catch a Thief. I think it is a cliché about Hitchcock that is sometimes true and that he helped to promulgate as part of his self-publicity. At the same time, it is also true that, especially in the early days of the silent cinema, particularly in America, the blonde heroine was a fixture – the Mary Pickford type, whose looks photographed dramatically in black and white. Hitchcock was very aware of that tradition. Yet it is also true that Hitchcock liked to make over his leading ladies, picking out their costumes, consulting on their hair-dos, offering behavioral tips for scenes. So, I guess it is fair to say that Scottie’s make-over of Judy in Vertigo echoes (or prefigures) Hitchcock’s make- over of Tippi Hedren for The Birds, as long as it is understood that sometimes the make-overs had little to do with the icy blonde cliché, or that he did the same thing more subtly, often, with the male characters and actors.

JG: Vera Miles was originally set to play Madeleine/Judy but due to delays in pre-production and her eventual pregnancy she was replaced by Kim Novak. Any thoughts of how Ms. Miles would have been in the dual role?

PM: Originally I think the part was tailored for Miles. Hitchcock had a yen for Miles and really tried to elevate her to a ‘name’ stardom. But Miles couldn’t play the part because of her pregnancy, and gradually the role was reworked, the script rewritten, for another type of actress, Kim Novak. James Stewart was really in favor of Novak, importantly, and so was Lew Wasserman. She really gives a stellar performance, although you almost can sense her squirming under Hitchcock’s not entirely satisfied direction. I think that gives the film a piquancy that wouldn’t have been there with Vera Miles, but it’s almost not fair to speculate. Ultimately Vera Miles would have played it differently, Hitchcock would have directed her differently, and the script would have been written differently.

JG: Kim Novak has been criticized over the years as being too lightweight an actress for the role. I, for one, think her lack of depth, her innocence, if you will, added a dimension that would have been missing with a more seriously trained actress. Does she hurt the film as some have said?

Mysterious 'Madeleine Elster'

PM: I agree with you that Kim Novak adds rather than subtracts to the film. I’d say the first requisite for the character she plays is ‘mysteriousness.’ Neither Judy nor Madeleine is intended to have any depth, per se. For the ordinary moviegoer Novak is convincing and beguiling. For the serious moviegoer she is more: she overcomes all prejudices against her limitations while adding to the ‘subtext’ of the film. Hitchcock’s ability to mold the actress, to cast a spell over her, is part of the grand achievement of the film.

JG: Hitchcock's films were always filled with eroticism. The 39 Steps with the implications of the two handcuffed together, the kissing scene in Notorious, the afternoon tryst in Psycho, to name a few. In Vertigo it is implied, after Scottie saved Madeleine from drowning and took her back to his apartment, that she is naked (under the sheets), suggesting he most likely undressed her. Was Hitchcock playing out personal fantasies or fulfilling a need missing in his life?

Gavin Elster and 'Madeleine' at Ernies

PM: I certainly think that all the great directors play out their personal fantasies as well as fulfill needs missing in their personal lives. That is true of Hitchcock’s preoccupation with erotic symbolism, sexy actresses undressing before the camera, double entendre dialogue, and so on. At the same time it was part of his sophistication as well as his identification with his audience, that Hitchcock understood the ramifications of scenes that sometimes slipped by the censors, and that this quality in his films was enormously appealing and subversive to critics as well as ordinary moviegoers. One of the reasons the Hitchcockian sensibility can’t really be replicated by other filmmakers (despite many valiant efforts) is that it has so many components that are organic with him – his personality, his character, his life story - and yet work as part of his entertainment formula. The eroticization of scenes belongs to Hitchcock as much as the Macguffin or “the wrong man.”

JG: Scottie is fanatical in transforming Judy into the image of the dead Madeleine, he is a man possessed. I found this to be one of James Stewart's most intense acting performances, maybe with the exception of some of his roles in Anthony Mann's westerns, his most extreme. He actually becomes less likeable as the film progresses.

"...a resurrection parable."

PM: I think Scottie becomes pitiful as well as pitiable, which may be traced to Hitchcock’s Catholicism. (The whole story is a resurrection parable.) Stewart was a brave actor, willing to try anything and risk falling flat, and he had remarkable close collaborations with several of Hollywood’s top directors – Capra, Ford, Mann, besides Hitchcock. But he and Hitchcock had more of a true friendship and partnership; they were actual business partners on the four films they made together. When an actor lets himself go emotionally like Stewart does in Vertigo, or in the Anthony Mann films you mention – even It’s a Wonderful Life – apart from his considerable talent it shows his trust in the director.

JG: Vertigo was a critical and commercial failure at the time of its original release. Was the film too complex for audiences of the day to appreciate or was there another reason? It certainly has gained in stature in later years.

PM: Who knows? It could have been doomed by the advertising or release pattern. It may have done well overseas. It was certainly embraced by the French. It might be too strong to call it a failure – maybe a disappointment. I know that Hitchcock found fault with the film, even with James Stewart, not his performance, but with hindsight the director thought Stewart might not have had the necessary romantic appeal. But it’s a curious love story after all, and not the usual mystery or suspense, so American audiences in the 1950s may have been left scratching their heads. And much of what Hitchcock critics and scholars treasure about it – all the embedded auteurism – wouldn’t have been obvious to those moviegoers. I’m not sure it is obvious to audiences today. After all, while Vertigo wins over the critics and scholars, other Hitchcock films like Rear Window, North by Northwest or Psycho are more reliable as crowd pleasers.

Biographer Patrick McGilligan

Guest author John Greco has entertained a lifelong fascination with cinema and photography and has been blogging on classic film for about 3½ years at Twenty Four Frames. He recently launched another blog featuring his own photography (johngrecophotograpy.com). Pat McGilligan’s Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director, was published in July. Click here for John’s interview with the author regarding this most recent biography.

An Inconsequential Yarn

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Steven DeRosa

“They say every true San Franciscan has one foot on a hill and the other in the past.”—Kate in Samuel Taylor’s The Pleasure of His Company

Since Vertigo is a film that garners such personal reactions, I wanted to begin this piece on something of a personal note. It’s not a matter of whether one likes the film or doesn’t. For those who truly connect with Vertigo, it’s because it resonates with something inside of them. I was in high school when I saw Vertigo for the first time and the build up to seeing it was intense. It was only a few months before that I had begun to seriously study the master’s work, having been introduced to The Lodger, The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Notorious, Rear Window, and North by Northwest. Having become hooked on Hitchcock through that line up in school, I began my own exploration of every Hitchcock film I could get my hands on and by reading the corresponding chapter from Donald Spoto’s The Art of Alfred Hitchcock afterward. Then I’d re-watch the film over again, etc.

Given the laudatory opening paragraphs on Vertigo in Spoto’s chapter, as well as its massive size in relation to chapters on other films, I knew to expect something very special. When I finally did see Vertigo, I was swept away by its beauty, its movement, the emotional punch it delivered, and by its haunting images and score. Over the next five years or so, I would watch it once a month—yes, I was that obsessed (I would perform the same monthly ritual with Rear Window and North by Northwest as well). To this day, I still get goose bumps during certain sequences, and on occasion well up by the final moments of the film.

After a few years of immersing myself in my own Hitchcock education, I had become increasingly curious about his collaborators, particularly his screenwriters. I was of course familiar with the countless statements Hitchcock made about how for him the most creative part of the filmmaking process was the writing and preparation stage, and that the actual process of shooting the picture was boring. Statements like this fed my curiosity to know how much of an impact his writers had on the finished films. What did they bring to the table? What contributions did they make beyond the dialogue? I found myself becoming more and more fascinated by these writers who had sat beside Hitchcock, not merely observing him create and taking down dictation, but who’d earned a seat in the inner sanctum and engaged with him in creating these films.

Screenwriter Samuel Taylor

Of the Hitchcock screenwriters of the 1950s and 1960s, Samuel Taylor was not the most prolific. Although he directed a film after having written only two screenplays, Taylor did not adapt quite as well to the Hollywood lifestyle as say John Michael Hayes, Ernest Lehman, or even Joseph Stefano. Each of these writers found their niche—Hayes as adapter of “difficult” material, Lehman as adapter of road-show musicals, and Stefano brought his special touch to the small screen as principal writer for The Outer Limits. Sam Taylor however was more at home writing plays in Maine and then seeing them through to production on the New York stage. Yet, in spite of a short list of screenwriting credits in comparison to say Lehman or Hayes, Taylor played a significant role in shaping and refining Hitchcock’s most dreamlike film.

An Unconventional Screenplay

By conventional screenwriting standards, the screenplay for Vertigo could be regarded as a failure. It contains so many “no-nos,” cheats, and just plain writing crutches that most writers would never attempt to get away with all in the same script—flashbacks, a dream sequence, and a lengthy voiceover where a character composes a letter on screen in order to explain much of the plot. But these devices, to name just a few, are exactly what make Vertigo work. The illusory nature of the movie required an unconventional script.

By the end of 1956, Hitchcock had already been through three writers in adapting the Boileau and Narcejac novel D’Entre les Morts. Playwright Maxwell Anderson had a go at a first draft which Hitchcock found lacking in mood, direction and structure. Hitchcock then turned to his old friend Angus MacPhail who knocked out a very rough outline—what today might be called a step-sheet. Structurally, the MacPhail outline closely resembles the finished film and Hitchcock hoped he would be up to the task of roughing out a construction or treatment from which Anderson would write a second draft. However, MacPhail opted to bow out gracefully. Hitchcock then turned to Paramount contract writer Alec Coppel, who had provided the text for one of the threatening notes used in To Catch a Thief when a re-take was needed after principal photography. Coppel worked closely with Hitchcock in fashioning a screenplay that followed MacPhail’s structure and now included most of the visual set pieces that Hitchcock envisioned for the film.

With Coppel’s draft, Hitchcock now had a mysterious, moody love story with elements of the supernatural, and a big twist to be revealed in the final scene—the supernatural elements were merely a hoax conceived to cover up a murder. Hitchcock returned to Anderson to finesse the dialogue and clarify the characters’ motivations, but the writer turned him down. As was custom when he needed a new writer, Hitchcock reached out to his go-to agents, one of which was Kay Brown, who on learning the film was to be set in San Francisco immediately suggested her client Samuel Taylor.

Hitchcock’s New Writer

Although born in Chicago, Samuel Taylor grew up in San Francisco and attended the University of California, Berkeley, so he was already quite familiar with both the flavor and history of the City by the Bay. In fact, at the time Kay Brown suggested Taylor to Hitchcock, he was busy writing his play The Pleasure of His Company which was also set in San Francisco. No doubt, this appealed to Hitchcock who longed to film the city for the big screen (an early treatment for I Confess and an aborted adaptation of David Duncan’s The Bramble Bush had both been set in and around San Francisco).

Taylor was sent the Coppel script and Hitchcock’s notes and after some initial uncertainty, he accepted the assignment and met with the director. “When I read the screenplay that had been written, I was quite confused because I couldn’t follow it at all,” recalled Taylor. “When I saw Hitchcock after I read the script, I knew what the problem was. I said to him, ‘It’s a matter of finding the reality and humanity for these people. You haven’t got anybody in this story who is a human being—nobody at all. They’re all cut-out cardboard figures.’”

This was exactly what Hitchcock wanted and needed to hear. When writing for Hitchcock, you were hired because you brought something to the table that Hitchcock, as producer, felt the project needed. In the case of Vertigo, it was the emotional story and characters that needed work at this point. Taylor told Hitchcock he would need to invent a character to help make Scottie real. To Taylor’s surprise Hitchcock said, “Fine.” And with very little discussion about it, he went off and created Midge.

According to Taylor, once he invented Midge, the whole picture fell into place for him. “All the Midge scenes were mine,” recalled Taylor. “He didn’t know anything about Midge until he read the script and liked it.” Midge provided Taylor the opportunity to give Scottie more back story and allowed him to eliminate any scenes with Scottie’s police colleagues. Midge became the cynical voice of reason—much like Stella in Rear Window—not believing in any of the Carlotta Valdes nonsense. Taylor also added to the San Francisco flavor of the story by changing Madeleine’s dead ancestor from the novel’s Pauline Lagarlac to Carlotta Valdes, drawing on the local Spanish history. The Carlotta Valdes back story—that she was of Spanish-American ancestry, had been raised on a mission settlement, and that at a young age was a cabaret entertainer who became the kept woman of a wealthy, powerful man who abandoned her after having his child—added a social/sexual subtext that had been lacking in the previous scripts.

To speak even more about that history, Taylor added the character Pop Leibel. The Pop Leibel Taylor recalled from his childhood ran a candy store instead of a bookshop. Taylor knew the bookshop atmosphere well from having worked in a similar one while in college. With the invention of Pop Leibel, Taylor introduced a phrase that added to the script’s subtext. “Power and freedom” are used three times in the film significantly—first by Elster to Scottie, then when Pop Leibel refers to the man who left Carlotta but kept her child, and finally by Scottie to Judy. All the talk about “wandering” that pervades the movie also came from Taylor. And with these changes, Taylor helped Hitchcock layer the script into something very special.

And yet Taylor found that something was still missing. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He told Hitchcock that it was lacking a “Hitchcockian thing.” And then it hit him. Rather than saving the big reveal for the ending, they should let the audience in on the secret—that Judy was the woman who had pretended to be Madeleine. “The whole first act is deception,” said Taylor. “But once you get past the death and actually have destroyed the man, you’ve got to tell the audience that this was a plot. It can’t be a surprise. You can’t go all the way to the end of the picture.”

Hitchcock agreed. Thus the flashback showing Judy reaching the top of the mission tower where Elster was waiting with his dead wife and Judy’s letter writing scene were written. Taylor’s instinct was exactly correct and followed the Hitchcock suspense principle in providing the audience with information. Yet, in retrospect, Taylor felt that the letter writing scene was weak. “I think, Hitchcock and I goofed,” remembered Taylor. “After the Mozart scene, we should have said, ‘What about the girl? This is the time to tell the audience what is happening.’ And we should have gone back to Gavin Elster. We shouldn’t have forgotten about him and the girl that cavalierly.”

Taylor said years later that the letter writing scene was inept; pointing out that he also hated resorting to it in the film adaptation of his own play Sabrina Fair, which he adapted with Billy Wilder. Taylor suggested that the “argument scene” between Judy and Gavin Elster should not have been played offstage. “You would get a much stronger feeling about the girl if she had to face Gavin Elster and say, ‘You’re going away, and without me.’”

Taylor reasoned that primed with this knowledge before hand, the audience would have a much greater sense of apprehension, anxiety, and foreboding at watching Scottie wander around San Francisco looking for Madeleine. On this point, I couldn’t disagree more. The audience needed to meet Judy from Scottie’s point of view before Hitchcock could cut away to hers. Furthermore, Hitchcock’s concern was with Scottie and Judy. There was no dramatic reason to see Elster or Midge again. As the world of the film became smaller—i.e. fewer and fewer characters—the situation between Scottie and Judy intensified.

Perhaps Taylor’s Monday morning quarterbacking was due to the criticism Vertigo received on its initial release. Nevertheless, even with its disappointing performance at the box office, Hitchcock had enjoyed working with Taylor enough to invite him back to collaborate on the screenplay for No Bail for the Judge—after Ernest Lehman turned him down. Sadly, Taylor’s script was victim to the director’s move from Paramount to Universal in 1961 and it remained unproduced. Taylor and Hitchcock would remain friends socially, and the writer came back to help Hitchcock with a rewrite on the troubled Topaz.

Inconsequential Material

I’ve always felt that Samuel Taylor best articulated Hitchcock’s approach to film and to working with writers when he said that constructing a film was like putting together a mosaic. And for Hitchcock, that mosaic was comprised of his favorite scenes, but when he didn’t have a good writer, there were pieces missing in that mosaic.

Taylor also understood that to Hitchcock, plot was secondary to story, observing that while the plot of Vertigo may be farfetched, the story is honest and true. “Hitchcock was a very emotional man,” recalled Taylor. “And having a good actor in Stewart, and having a good situation of a man driven almost to madness by what has happened, he was able to infuse it with enormous emotion. He preferred telling an inconsequential yarn, but bringing to it all the artistry he had.”

Taylor was not denigrating his own work when he referred to Vertigo as “an inconsequential yarn.” To put it in other terms, one could say that the director and his writers were constructing their yarn out of—if not smoke and mirrors—mirrors and some carefully placed fog. The film was constructed and designed to be Hitchcock’s ultimate love story, and in that respect, it succeeded on every level.

Samuel Taylor is quoted from a talk he gave at Pace University (my alma mater) in June 1986, and from the BBC’s Omnibus (1986).
For more on the structure of the Vertigo screenplay see The Hitchcock Kiss.
For a complete account of the screenplay’s development, I recommend Dan Auiler’s Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic.

Steven DeRosa

Steven DeRosa is the author of Writing with Hitchcock. He has lectured on screenwriting and film at NYU's Hitchcock Centennial Conference, The American Museum of the Moving Image, Film Forum, and New School University, and has been a contributing writer to the Writers Guild of America Awards. Steven can be seen on-screen in the documentary, The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style, available on Warner Home Video's 50th Anniversary Blu-ray of North by Northwest, as well as in featurettes on Paramount's forthcoming Blu-ray of To Catch a Thief. Steven's website is Writing with Hitchcock. He has a facebook page of the same name and can be found on Twitter as @WriteHitchcock...

VERTIGO: More than just the streets of San Francisco...

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

By guest contributor Michael Nazarewycz

It’s easy to take for granted a film’s location.

Some settings, of course, are mandatory to support the historical accuracy of a film; consider the importance of location in a war picture or biopic. Other settings might not be important for historical accuracy per se, but are critical to the believability of a film. For example, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), title aside, never would have worked anywhere else but in New York City, given the high-finance, decade-of-decadence aspects of the story. Beyond instances like these, though, it’s easy for filmmakers to pigeonhole movie locations into high-level descriptions like big city, sprawling country, hot resort, or cozy hamlet.

But where do you set your film when you need more than geography? Where do you set your film when the location is less about sense of place and more about state of mind?

If the film is Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece about a man who might be crazy and a woman who might be possessed, then the setting can only be San Francisco.

Early in the film, the fact that the setting is San Francisco is of little, if any, consequence. The story opens with John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart), a San Francisco police detective, chasing a criminal on foot across the rooftops of the city; a uniformed officer assists him in the chase. Rooftop foot chases are nothing new in movies, so this action could have occurred in any major city.

The scene ends after Scottie slips on a slanted roof and finds himself dangling from a gutter. The uniformed officer ends his pursuit of the criminal to help Scottie, but slips on the roof tiles and plummets past Scottie to his death. The ordeal triggers within Scottie a case of acrophobia – the fear of heights – and he is forced into early retirement.

It’s at this point that it would be easy to look at the setting of San Francisco and say, “Of course! San Francisco has hills, and buildings on hills. A man suffering from acrophobia surely would be tortured by living in that city.”

Maybe, but that’s no more true than if he were living in New York with its towering skyscrapers, or in Denver with its mile-highness. Let me make this clear now – Scottie’s acrophobia is nothing more than a plot-point. The film is called Vertigo, not Acrophobia.

Not long after the tragic event, Scottie is contacted by an old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore). Gavin hires Scottie to follow his wife, Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak), spinning a tale of a woman whose recent behavior has been peculiar to the point that Gavin thinks his wife might be possessed by a ghost. Gavin wants Scottie to get to the bottom of what his wife does with her days – things that conflict with what she tells him she has done and where she has gone, things that rack up too many miles on the odometer.

And so it begins: not just Scottie’s pursuit of the truth, and not just his descent into madness, but the revelation of the core reason why San Francisco is vital to this film; so vital, in fact, that to have shot it anywhere else would have made it one of Hitchcock’s lesser works. The city, its places and its layout, are all physical representations of the inner-workings of Scottie’s mind.

Hitchcock’s shrewdness with setting is established immediately after the rooftop chase. Scottie is in the apartment of old friend and former love Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), who has three large windows that overlook San Francisco, and through these windows, we get a clear sense not just of how high Scottie and Midge are but, because of the city’s legendary hills, we get a sense of how far down other things are … how far down Scottie can fall.

I mentioned before that this film is not called Acrophobia, it’s called Vertigo. Acrophobia is a fear of heights. Vertigo is a dizzy, confused state of mind. The difference is an important one.

After meeting with Gavin, Scottie begins his surveillance of Madeleine by waiting for her to leave her apartment so he can tail her car. This is, of course, what any good detective would do, but by following her, he is, in effect, being led by her. He doesn’t know it, but as his curiosity becomes obsession, every move he makes is not proactive by him, but reactive to her. And where does she lead him on this first encounter? Down a labyrinthine path, with several turns and slow weaves through traffic, coming to a stop in an alley.

Of course, streets and turns and traffic and alleys aren’t unique to San Francisco, but its hills are. San Francisco, with heights ranging from sea level to 900+ feet (that’s 90+ stories) above sea level, has a unique combination of population density and radical height differences – a combination you won’t find in another city.

With that, the most important word in the description of Scottie’s first surveillance of Madeleine is “down.” Scottie’s first physical trip down the steep, hilled streets of San Francisco in pursuit of the truth about Madeleine is his first psychological step down the steep, perilous path of obsession with (and madness over) this beautiful and mysterious woman.

After purchasing flowers, Madeleine continues to lead Scottie, and her next stop is the cemetery at Mission Delores. This location is critical, too. It isn’t just a cemetery, nor is it just a cemetery adjacent to a church. It’s a cemetery that requires you to navigate through a church to get to it. And the grave she visits requires a walk along a winding path through the cemetery. And all of it – the grave at the cemetery next to the church – is a downhill drive away from the flower shop.

The further down the hills of San Francisco Scottie follows, the further down the path of obsession and madness Madeleine leads.

And continues to lead, this time to the Palace of the Legion of Honor – the art museum where she stares at the painting of the woman we later learn is Madeleine's great grandmother. This time, the drive is relatively flat, but the walk from the car to the museum is a long one.

When it comes to visiting these places, the drives and walks aren’t short and quick. They are twisting and turning and long and eventual, just as Scottie’s descent into madness isn’t a short and quick plummet; it, too, is twisting and turning and long and eventual. Whether on paths though alleys (the darker side of Scottie’s soul?) or churches (Scottie’s own shot at redemption?), every physical step brings him closer to Madeleine – a closeness that only feeds his obsession.

Madeleine’s last stop is the McKittrick Hotel. Again, the ride is flat, but something different happens. Scottie watches Madeleine enter the hotel and pass by a second-story window. But to enter the hotel, he must climb a steep flight of stairs (which he does), and to get to the second floor, he must climb another steep flight of stairs (which he does again). Yes, these climbs lend to the ongoing effort and Scottie’s willingness to surrender to Madeleine, but when he gets to the second story room, she’s not there. And that’s because she’s not up … she’s down. Climbing won’t get Scottie closer to Madeleine – only descending (into madness) will.

The next day, Madeleine leads Scottie from her apartment straight to the museum (which is still a downward drive, representing Scottie’s ever-growing psychological descent), and from the museum, she leads him to Fort Point, which sits at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco Bay. Down, down, down Scottie continues to go, both physically and mentally.

Fort Point is at sea-level, and there is no going lower than that in San Francisco … unless you go into the Bay itself, which Madeleine does, with a jump that appears to be a suicide attempt. Of course, Scottie follows to rescue her. Short of donning scuba gear, Scottie has reached the end his descent – he can go no lower physically, nor can he go any lower mentally. He appears to be Madeleine’s, lock, stock, and sea-level barrel, but Hitchcock makes sure to prove that to us the next day.

After saving Madeleine, Scottie brings her to his townhouse (the exterior of which is always shot by Hitchcock at a downward angle), but she soon slips out while he is on the phone. The next day, Scottie resumes his surveillance, and Madeleine leads him on the longest journey yet through the heart of the city, with more turns and steeper hills, only to end up back at his place. This is Hitchcock at his best in this film; this is Hitchcock telling us that Scottie, in order to find himself, must travel long and winding and down. And then Hitch gets even better.

When Scottie meets Madeleine at his place, neither have specific plans, so they decide to “wander” together, but before they go, when she is in her car and he is on the outside talking to her, she mentions to Scottie that he left his home door open. This seems so random and meaningless on the surface, but that door represents the last chance Scottie has of reclaiming himself. If he runs to the door and runs inside the house and closes the door behind him, never to see Madeleine again, he can begin his psychological ascent back to normal.

Instead, he rushes to close the door; and as the viewer you know, right there, that he has pushed all of his chips into the center of the high-stakes Madeleine table, closing the door to his past self and going all-in with her, no matter how far down all-in might be.

Their next destination is another long and winding drive, this time to see the Big Basin Redwoods. And while these mighty, centuries-old trees might suggest something to do with height, I’m more intrigued by the fact that she drove the car; Scottie is no longer in control of his own destiny at this point. By giving into his obsession to her, he is merely along for the ride … her ride. It’s also on this trip when they kiss for the first time. Deal sealed.

The rest of the film is cinematic history. If you have seen it, you know. If you haven’t, I hope I haven’t spoiled anything for you.

In three short days, Scottie not only fell in love with Madeleine, he became obsessed with her to the point of sacrificing his own sanity to be with her. And therein lies the key to the importance of San Francisco to Vertigo. Where other cities in other films might represent cookie-cutter locations or easily-recognizable landmarks in otherwise two-dimensional stories, San Francisco offers something no other city could for this story or this film: a sprawling and beautifully architectured representation of one man’s soul.

Michael Nazarewycz is a film buff and writer who spent his childhood watching old black-and-whites and cheesy horrors on UHF. He's been hooked ever since, and readily admits that he'll watch anything anyone would consider a motion picture, from a nickelodeon silent to a digital epic. Michael is an Editorial Contributor for US-based ManILoveFilms, a Writer for UK-based Filmoria, and he has just launched a new blog, ScribeHard on Film, where he will share more personal thoughts on movies, as well as perform in-depth analysis of the classics. Michael invites you to follow him on Twitter @ScribeHard, where he Tweets mostly about ... what else? ... movies.

Kim Novak in VERTIGO: A Hypnotic Presence

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Brandie Ashe

Scratch the surface of the prototypical “Hitchcock blonde”—a cool, reserved exterior masking a fiery and determinedly passionate woman—and the subtle differences in their characterizations become more evident. In her three films for the director, Grace Kelly’s characters are paragons of dignity, displaying a patrician façade that eventually gives way to a sizzling sexuality. Tippi Hedren’s two characters for Hitchcock have an overt veneer of sophistication that nonetheless belies an innate playfulness at the heart of each woman. And in her three films for Hitch, Ingrid Bergman is the foreign exotic who smolders with a hint of endearing uncertainty.

But when it comes to the star of Hitchcock’s 1958 ode to obsession, Vertigo, the director carefully crafts yet another embodiment of flawed femininity: the duplicitous double—caught in a web of her own making—whose love for an equally flawed man will ultimately be her undoing. And to embody this complex creature, he turns (for the first and only time in his career) to a twenty-five year old relative newcomer, Kim Novak.

By the time she starred in Vertigo, Novak had appeared in only a handful of films over the previous five years. Her breakthrough came in 1955’s Picnic, in which she played a small-town Kansas beauty who falls for William Holden. That same year, Novak played Frank Sinatra’s love interest in the controversial Otto Preminger film about heroin addiction, The Man with the Golden Arm. She played early Broadway and screen star Jeanne Eagels in the same-titled biopic in 1957, and reteamed with Sinatra in the film version of the successful musical Pal Joey.

In just a matter of three years, her small body of work, along with her stunning all-American blonde looks, garnered Novak a great deal of attention. But some film critics at the time were dismissive of Novak’s acting ability. A.H. Weiler’s New York Times review of Pal Joey called her performance merely “decorative,” and the same paper’s review of her performance in Jeanne Eagels wondered what “possessed Columbia to cast this comparative fledgling … as one of Broadway’s immortals” (though the reviewer did, in all fairness, go on to ultimately blame the film’s many problems on the lackluster script and direction).

Still, despite critics’ opinions of her talent, it is undeniable that in some of her roles, there is an almost hypnotic quality to Novak’s presence on the screen. Watch, for example, her sensual dance with William Holden in Picnic. As the strains of “Moonglow” play in the background, Novak begins to dance, her movements slow and deliberate, her eyes focused solely on her partner as they circle one another. She draws him—and us—in with a mere smoldering glance, a twitch of her hips, a slight swaying movement. The sexual tension is palpable, and it’s hard to take your eyes off Novak in the moment.

Of all of the directors with whom the actress worked during her career, only Hitchcock was fully able to exploit this stirring hypnotic quality and use it to full advantage on the screen. In the process, the prolific director ultimately drew out of Novak what is arguably the greatest performance of her career.

Vera Miles

Novak was not the original choice to play Madeleine/Judy. Hitchcock had initially cast Vera Miles, with whom he had a heavy-handed personal contract. Hitchcock had adopted a Svengali-like attitude with Miles, trying to craft her into “his” type of actress by dictating her appearance and building her into a kind of Grace Kelly clone (as Hitch had recently lost his favorite star to Monaco’s Prince Rainier). But Miles was forced to drop out of the project due to pregnancy, and as a result, Hitchcock lost interest in the actress (though he would still go on to cast her as Janet Leigh’s sister in 1960’s Psycho). Years later, he would tell Francois Truffaut, “She became pregnant just before the part that was going to turn her into a star.”

It’s interesting to consider how closely Scottie’s attempts to “make over” Judy into “lost” love Madeleine mirror Hitchcock’s own attempts to craft Miles into the “perfect” cinematic star. More than any other film in his oeuvre, Vertigo represents Hitchcock’s cinematic quest to “build” the perfect woman, one made over in precisely the image he desires. To put it bluntly, Novak’s Madeleine/Judy most clearly embodies the old idiom (fully embraced by Hitchcock) that men want a lady in the drawing room and a whore in the bedroom. To that end, the character is a subtly sexy blonde whose deceptively icy, composed, and chic appearance hides a shrewd mind and a leashed, but potentially voracious sexuality.

And yet, despite her flaws and her deceptive behavior, Madeleine/Judy is one of the more sympathetic Hitchcock blondes in that her struggle to reconcile her love for Scottie with her guilt over deceiving him about her role in the real Madeleine’s death forces the audience to feel some sense of compassion for her. We witness her dilemma; we understand intrinsically that her acquiescence to Scottie’s mad desire to recreate the “real” Madeleine comes from a place of desperate love. She agrees to let him clothe her in Madeleine’s sophisticated style, to have her makeup done and her nails shaped as Madeleine’s, and even gives in when Scottie insists she color her now-brown hair blonde. Her plaintive response to his pleas to dye her hair is heartbreaking in its eagerness to earn his love: “If I let you change it, will that do it? If I do what you tell me, will you love me?”

There are those who claim that Novak is too stiff in her performance in Vertigo, that there is something unnaturally wooden about her interpretation of Madeleine/Judy. But I tend to agree with film critic Roger Ebert, whose reflection on Vertigo praises Novak’s presentation of the character: “Ask yourself how you would move and speak if you were in unbearable pain, and then look again at Judy.” Every element of Novak’s performance, particularly in the wake of the real Madeleine’s death, is carefully constructed to convey the character’s inner turmoil. She has broken the rules—she has fallen in love with her mark. And her punishment is that he cannot love her as herself, as Judy: he needs “Madeleine.” She knows nothing she does short of donning the mantle of “Madeleine” once more will earn her what she needs from him. It’s the last thing she wants to do … and yet, because she loves Scottie, she cannot—will not—deny him his desire.

The entire film comes down to that single five-minute sequence in which Judy “becomes” Madeleine again. Scottie waits impatiently for Judy to return from her makeover, and is displeased that her newly blonde hair has not been pulled back from her face in Madeleine’s signature updo. He sends her into the bathroom to complete the transformation and waits anxiously for her to emerge. When she does, she is bathed in a hypnotic, strange green light (ostensibly reflected from the neon sign hanging outside the hotel room window), a dreamlike effect that makes it appear as though Madeleine is moving back from the murky past into the solid present. This sense is highlighted through Hitchcock’s brilliant composition of the scene, as Scottie kisses Madeleine and is swept back into a memory of their time together in San Juan Batista while the camera rotates around the embracing couple in a smooth 360 turn.

The uncertain, yearning expressions on her face, the stilted movements of her body as she walks in that gray suit once more—everything Novak does is masterfully composed in order to show us just how miserable Judy’s situation really is in that moment. “Judy” is now the one who is dead and Madeleine—the double, the false identity—is her new reality, and must remain so if she wishes to keep Scottie’s love and attention. And the utter hopelessness that comes from that realization is written all over Novak’s face in this scene, effectively foreshadowing Madeleine’s second (and permanent) demise.

It is fitting that Vertigo has, in retrospect, turned out to be the defining role of Kim Novak’s career, because the film features what is undoubtedly the best performance she ever gave on-screen. Her role as Madeleine/Judy remains one of the most intriguing Hitchcock blondes, a mesmerizingly intense woman brought to blazing, impressive life by a truly talented young performer in the capable hands of a truly talented director in his prime. I can’t help but imagine what more Hitchcock and Novak could have done, had they been paired in another film together at some point. What other depths could he have uncovered in her, and what other cinematic brilliance could they have created, had they just been given the opportunity?

Brandie Ashe is a freelance writer and editor from Alabama. An inveterate classic movie fan since discovering the films of Shirley Temple and the Marx Brothers as a child, she indulges her obsession at her blog, True Classics. In 2011 True Classics was honored with two CiMBA Awards from the Classic Movie Blog Assn., one for Best Classic Movie Blog Event and another for Best Profile of a Filmmaker. In addition, her blog was nominated for a 2011 Lammy Award from the Large Assn. of Movie Blogs in the Best Classic Movie Blog category.

The Costumes of VERTIGO

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Christian Esquevin

“I don’t wear suits, and I don’t wear gray. Another thing, I don’t wear black pumps,” said Kim Novak to Edith Head, the costume designer for Vertigo. “I don’t care what she wears as long as it’s a gray suit," Hitchcock retorted when Edith reported this conversation to him. Thus began the creative tension over the costuming of Vertigo. But in a clash of opinion over the visual aspects of a Hitchcock film, Hitch always prevailed. Indeed, he had the colors already in mind along with the costume types he wanted even before pre-production for Vertigo began. Kim Novak wore the gray suit with the black pumps - her iconic look in Vertigo. “I had never had a director who was particular about the costumes, the way they were designed, the specific colors,” said Novak about Hitchcock later.

The story theme within Vertigo is based on obsession, and the costume looks for the Madeleine/Judy character are a key symbol of that dysfunction. The “clash” that Kim Novak had with Hitch and Edith Head over her costumes was nothing new in Hollywood, but Alfred Hitchcock’s very specific clothing demands in type and color speaks volumes about Vertigo being for him a very personal film. The combination of the costumes and look of Kim’s Madeleine, the psychological tension caused by the character Scottie’s clash of opposite impulses towards Madeleine/Judy, and the ultimate futility of his possession of her, were all deeply embedded in Hitchcock’s psyche. As far as the costumes being good fashion, it didn’t matter that Kim’s pumps were black. They would have looked better in gray or brown, or as she wanted, in tan to match her nude-toned hose. Wearing flesh-toned pumps was an old trick she’d learned from Marlene Dietrich, a device to make your legs look longer. The gray suit was in a neutral and sedate color. Hitch believed it revealed how the Madeleine character felt about herself. Edith Head often designed gray suits for her film costumes, and wore them regularly believing that it gave her a non-competitive look when working with the stars. But Marlene Dietrich had worn a gray suit for Hitch in Stage Fright, as had Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, and as Tippi Hedren would wear in The Birds. So the gray suit and black pumps touched something within Hitchcock, and along with the blonde hair of his leading actresses, denoted for Hitchcock the “woman of mystery,” the cool and subtle beauty with a blazing inside.

The color of the costumes and the sets had a symbolic meaning for Hitch as well. The gray represented modesty. When Jimmy Stewart as Scottie first sees Kim playing Madeleine, she wears a black gown but is covered in a green opera coat at Ernie’s Restaurant. The wallpaper of the restaurant forms a red background that vibrates with the green in these color opposites. For some reason green represented death for Hitchcock. Madeleine’s car is also green. It’s in the following scene where Scottie begins tailing Madeleine that she first wears the gray suit. Scottie’s former love interest Midge is dressed in warm colors and soft fabrics – symbols of her nurturing proclivities towards Scottie. After Scottie saves Madeleine from drowning, she is dressed, albeit in his robe, in a vibrant red. Here the color evokes life and full-bloodedness. Then in a later scene when Scottie and Madeleine drive to the shore, she is dressed in black and white – a black dress with black gloves and a white coat. The black and white in this costume denotes not the un-ambiguous nature of her character, but rather the duality of her persona. As an added fillip, her black chiffon scarf blows freely with the ocean wind, perhaps a symbol of mystery, or one of doom.

As the character Judy, Kim Novak is costumed by Edith Head to appear dowdy. She wears green – a green sweater made bulky by being worn over a blouse. The blouse is green with white polka-dots and with a peter-pan collar turned over the sweater. The look is accentuated by an unflattering hair style. The total look is purposefully unappealing. This look has several purposes: to define the character of Judy in contrast to Madeleine’s; to appear that she is “hiding” her identity; and to provide a stark difference with Madeleine in order to dramatize her make-over. When they go on a date and later go shopping for her clothes, she is dressed better but still very simply. The make-over itself is a key dramatic moment in the film, Judy’s reluctance, Scottie’s obsession in turning her visually into Madeleine, complete with gray suit and blonde hair, provide dramatic tension and then release at the conclusion of the scene. This scene is accomplished through various film techniques that dramatize her unveiling as the re-incarnated Madeleine – making her entrance bathed in a pale and ethereal green light and leading to a climactic kiss. Her gray suit, here as before, tightly accentuates her curves. In its contradictory fashion, it is sedate but seductive.

The nature of the costumes, and the make-over, reverberated not only with the character’s roles, but with the actor’s and the director’s deep psychology. Hitch exercised his darker side in molding an actress into his own obsession, while directing Jimmy Stewart to do the same. Kim Novak as Judy wondered why Scottie couldn’t love her as she was, just as Kim Novak really felt about Hollywood in general. But the gray suit worn with the black pumps allowed Kim Novak to not only be in character, but by taking her out of her comfort zone in dress enabled her to more effectively be an actress that plays a part of a character that is pretending to be someone else.

Hitchcock must have recognized his own dilemma in creating Vertigo. At the climactic end, Scottie demonstrated his tragic disappointment with Judy, “He made you over just like I made you over,” he says accusingly to Judy. Only he (Elster) had made her over first, and thus Scottie was only re-creating another man’s fantasy. And perhaps worse, he accused her of being “an apt pupil,” which she hadn’t been for him. That demonstrated to Scottie, and served the film’s underlying theme, that the pursuit of an empty ideal is futile. For Hitchcock, it was a deeply ingrained motif, one that would keep repeating itself as he tried to mold one Hitchcock blonde after another into his fantasy, only to have her leave him. With the character Scottie, this creation fantasy was played out not as a means of domination, but rather one where once his fantasy woman was created, he could surrender and succumb to her. But we know that that too would have been another fantasy - another twirling and spiraling movement creating a feeling of vertigo.

Vertigo received several Oscar nominations, including Best Art Direction. Edith Head was not nominated for Best Costume Design, which was won by Cecil Beaton’s florid Gigi. And she had just been snubbed for her outstanding costumes for Grace Kelly in Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. It seems that a fabulous gray suit as character-delineating costume was too subtle to pick up awards. No matter, she had already won five of her eight Oscars by then. Worse, Hitch wasn’t nominated either for this iconic classic.

Christian Esquevin is the author of Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label, published by the Monacelli Press in 2008. The book is about the life and career of MGM’s famed Golden Age costume designer Gilbert Adrian and his subsequent fashion business. Christian also produces the Silver Screen Modiste blog covering classic film fashion.

Christian was born in Marseille, France, and moved with his French parents to Los Angeles when he was four. Los Angeles had a small but close-knit French community at the time that provided the social context for his youth in 1950s and 1960s L.A. One of his great-aunts was the vendeuse for lingerie at the art-deco palace Bullock’s Wilshire. Another one of Christian’s great-aunts had been the Head Cutter-Fitter for the old RKO Studio Wardrobe Department in the 1930s, where she worked under Walter Plunkett and supervised the fabrication of the costumes for Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Anne Miller, and the other RKO stars. Her knowledge and skill in making period costumes was an influence on Plunkett’s specialty in that area. While she had retired by the time Christian arrived in L.A., she used to dress him and his mother and other French-heritage participants in traditional French folk costumes for the Disneyland holiday parades and other ceremonial occasions. She bequeathed him her collection of costume sketches and photographs that started his interest in classic film costume design.

Christian has a Master’s degree in Library Science from USC and is the Director of the Coronado, California, Public Library. Christian’s book on Adrian was the result of several years of research and collecting. The lack of an “Adrian archive” and the disposal of much of the early film studios’ material heritage has fueled his efforts to preserve at least one aspect of film history. He is currently working on a combined biography of the costume and fashion designers Walter Plunkett, Irene (Lentz Gibbons) and Helen Rose. He is a collector of original costume design sketches and has organized several exhibits featuring film costume design based on his collection. Christian launched Silver Screen Modiste in 2009 in order to cover the history, heritage, and fashion influence of classic Hollywood costume design. He has written about Edith Head in several posts and considers her work with Alfred Hitchcock to be among her finest.

Bernard Herrmann - Composer Of Haunting Music and Treacherous Dreams

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

Just as my fingers on these keys

Make music, so the self-same sounds

On my spirit make a music, too.

~ excerpt from Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens

"I don’t think Mozart’s going to help at all."

~ Midge in Vertigo

British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, who greatly influenced young Bernard Herrmann and for whom he had a great admiration, took the subject of film score composition seriously and in encouraging his contemporaries to do the same said, “I believe that the film contains potentialities for the combination of all the arts such as Wagner never dreamed of, and I would therefore urge those distinguished musicians who have entered the world of the cinema to realize their responsibility in helping to take the film out of the realm of hack work and make it a subject of a real composer.” Music constitutes an essential part of the film experience, yet we often fail to acknowledge its importance to the way we perceive film. This is not to say that music is comprehensible only to those who have formal training; to the contrary the ability to appreciate music is a capacity we all share. The often overlooked genius of composing for film in general, and of Bernard Herrmann specifically, is an ability to work within the parameters of music theory while exploiting the viewer's instinctive knowledge of musical conventions, creating a lush musical landscape perfectly suited to the emotional content of the image captured on film.

Composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann was born on June 29, 1911 at New York City’s Lying In Hospital, the eldest of three children born to Abraham and Ida Herrmann. Benny, as he was known to his family, suffered a major health crisis at an early age in the form of St. Vitus’s Dance, which he barely survived. He spent much of his time as a boy and a young man reading biographies of artists and composers, learning musical works through his father’s collection of 78rpm recordings and attending live performances of the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. His literary discoveries through the New York Public Library included the Treatise on Orchestration by Hector Beriloz (he was familiar with the composer’s Symphonie Fantastique and later claimed the book convinced him to become a composer). Herrmann wrote many small-scale works as a teenager, most of which remain unpublished. He studied music at the Juilliard Graduate School, and at the age of twenty he formed the New Chamber Orchestra of New York.

He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1934 where David Ross, CBS’s top announcer, asked Herrmann to compose music for his poetry reading series. Herrmann’s setting for La Belle Dame Sans Merci (a favorite poem at the time) so impressed CBS executives that he was given a job conducting and six years later became Chief Conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra. Through his many and diverse projects for CBS, in 1938 Herrmann was selected composer-conductor for The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which brought him to the attention of Orson Welles. The young director left no room for negotiation in his meetings with RKO executives concerning his choice to score his film, and he insisted Herrmann should receive a competitive salary despite his inexperience, “If he’s good enough to do my score, he’s good enough to get the best price.”

Herrmann was no snob about cinema, he was familiar not only with American films and composers but also with their European counterparts, but he was well aware of the obstacles in composing for film. A film composer often completed scores in as little as two or three weeks, rarely had time to do his own orchestration, and once the music was written and conducted had little to say about the sound levels or dynamics of the score in the finished film. Herrmann was confident, however, that working with Welles would be different and it was with no small excitement that he announced his leave of absence to go to Hollywood. His career as a composer for film was demanding and rewarding, in addition to his outstanding scores for Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), he earned his reputation for glorious music on films such as Jane Eyre (1943), Hangover Square (1945) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), all of which were about to bring him to the attention of another Hollywood genius, Alfred Hitchcock.

The sometimes variable nature of film composition often left the composer without work and Herrmann wrote the score, the first of two "television operas," for a 1954 television adaption of Dickens's classic holiday story. His original compositions for television also included The Twilight Zone from 1959 through 1964, for which he composed the original theme as well as scores for seven episodes (at least three of which were included as part of the Syfy Channel's New Year's Day marathon). His work for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour from 1963 through 1965 included original compositions for seventeen episodes.

Bernard Herrmann's "Concerto Macabre," Hangover Square

Much has been written regarding the turbulent end to the collaboration between Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, both from the composer’s and the director’s perspective. Herrmann and Hitchcock were, for most of their eleven years of collaboration, friends as well as associates and Steven C. Smith, author of A Heart At Fire’s Center, observes, “The rapport between the two was strong from the start.” The Hitchcocks often played host to the Herrmanns; Benny and Lucy were invited to spend the weekend at Hitchcock’s secluded Bel Air home, where days were spent in leisurely conversation and evenings spent enjoying Alma’s superb cooking.

Jack Sullivan, author of Hitchcock’s Music, suggests the director’s relationships with his composers were often passionate, and as often troubled, in part because the director was "intoxicated by and knowledgeable about music.” Hitchcock's music and sound notes for Vertigo were more specific than on past projects, but what finally emerged as Herrmann’s film score is very different from what Hitchcock had planned. The film’s original title, From Among The Dead, was a reference to the French novel on which the story is based, and Herrmann’s composition was to be supplemented by passages from a lost score that had haunted the director for decades.

Hitchcock had seen Mary Rose, a dramatic tale of lost love regained written by J. M. Barrie, during the play’s London run in 1920 and became enthralled by the music of Norman O'Neill.

The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Volume 62 dated March 1, 1921, described the composer and his work for Mary Rose as follows: “A dreamer of dreams and a mystic, Norman O’Neill has the power of expressing in his music the ethereal world in which he dwells. His flights of fancy, intangible though they are, touch a responsive chord in the hearts of the imaginative. . . .The ‘Mary Rose’ call continued to haunt the ear with gentle insistence long after it had reached echo-land.” Hitchcock was especially struck by 'the Call' connected with the heroine's disappearance, he later remembered the sensation as "celestial voices, like Debussy's Sirenes nocturne." Hitchcock twice failed to uncover the music, which he had also intended to use as part of the Rebecca film score, and as usual he deferred to Herrmann with memos and notes reflecting his confidence in the composer, "Mr. Herrmann may have something to say here" and "All of this will naturally depend upon what music Mr. Herrmann puts over this sequence."

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Debussy's "Sirenes nocturne"

If there is truth in the notion that music is the language of the inexpressible; Bernard Herrmann’s film score for Vertigo has given a voice to an ordinary man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Herrmann’s main title sequence intentionally avoids an identifiable melody, exploits unpredictable rhythmic changes and flirts with tonal ambiguity. Kathryn Kalinak, author of Settling The Score observed, "The combination of violins and tubas played in alternately ascending and descending arpeggiated chords (played in succession rather than simultaneously)" and moving in contrary motion creates an asymmetry (if you will) of sound keeping the viewer continually off guard musically. Herrmann's main title music is heard first, but the musical effect in combination with Saul Bass's visual imagery in the opening credits reinforces the feeling of vertigo. The visual acts as counterpoint to the music; the spiraling images create a visual vortex in the same manner the music creates a spatial vortex and the viewer enters the world of the film suspended between two possibilities. Film criticism often invites the amateur “to see into” the life of a film, which results in as many interpretations of dramatic themes and visual cues as there are viewers. Film music makes a distinction between the life experienced by the characters and the life viewed by the audience.

The classical film score can often combine nondiegetic music, music heard by the audience but not experienced by the characters, and diegetic music, music heard as part of the world in which the characters move and live. The two instances in which diegetic or “live” music occur in Vertigo are scenes of emotional significance for Midge and Scottie. The first occurs after a bit of magical thinking on the part of Hitchcock, when Scottie is inexplicably delivered from hanging precariously between life and death. The scene opens on a cozy domestic setting, the man and woman could be husband and wife, could be brother and sister. We learn about both through their comfortable exchanges and through the use of music. John-O, as she calls him, and Midge share a past but appear uncomfortable in their present relationship. Her choice of music, an Overture by J. C. Bach, and her taste in contemporary furniture slyly hint that she is comfortable making brief visits to the past while living very much in the present. He is uncomfortable sitting in her Eames style chair and tells her the music is the cause of his vertigo (all important cues in the events that will soon engulf Scottie). The second, and perhaps more significant, occurs in the use of Mozart’s 34th Symphony as “a rope from heaven” to draw Scottie from his abyss of acute melancholia with guilt complex.

Musical therapy was first used after World War I in an attempt to reach veterans suffering from profound mental trauma, and Scottie's musical therapist has told Midge that Mozart is the boy for him (Author and physician Oliver Sacks relates in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain not only is music haunting, irresistible and unforgettable, but "music occupies more areas of our brain than language does and humans are essentially a musical species"). Scottie responds to Midge, following her with his eyes and turning his head in her direction, but we can't help but agree with Midge that Mozart isn't going to help at all.

James Stewart’s Scottie is half enthralled to possibility, but remains half captive to reality. A man no longer content with his passivity in the face of life’s acting on him; he is trapped in a sort of tenacious, immaterial fantasy rendering him incapable of action. In his ability to capture the ineffable quality of this character’s waking nightmare, Herrmann essentially created a film score that can be heard on two levels simultaneously. His use of leitmotifs reminiscent of both Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, share thematic similarities but are by no means derivative. Herrmann is here demonstrating his comprehension that some members of his audience will recognize the reference to these musical passages, while all will understand the emotional content of his music (an equivalent can be found in the screenwriter who includes lines of poetry by John Keats which reference the Romantic era against which the film is set. Those familiar with Keats’s life will understand the specific reference; those unfamiliar with Keats’s life will hear the beauty of the poet’s words).

Bernard Herrmann has been called "Hitchcock's Maestro," and while he might have been uniquely suited to capture the spirit of the dark and troubling tales the director brought to the screen, his work before the famed collaboration would establish his reputation. His affinity for the Romantic era, equally the composers as the poets, his "pastoral poetic gloom" and artful mourning of that which is irrevocably lost can all be heard in the hauntingly similar Portrait of Jennie (1948) for which he composed the theme song but was not credited. An observation regarding Vertigo highlights the intrinsic nature of Herrmann's score in the film's storytelling: close your eyes and listen to any passage and be immediately transported to locations and scenes in the film. The true power of Herrmann's score is in the music's ability to be heard independently from Hitchcock's images (the dream fades, the music lingers). Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, recognized the art of Bernard Herrmann's film music, performing and recording many of Herrmann's compositions. Scene D’Amour is the moving heart of a poignant film portrayal of a man suspended between action and despair, death and life, love and obsession, themes worthy of any Romantic era composer.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong.

~ excerpt from Piano by D. H. Lawrence.

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "Scene D'Amour" from Vertigo

Whistlingypsy/aka/Karin of Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows is a technical writer working on a contract/freelance basis who lives in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas. She was inspired by The Lady Eve (the blogger not the movie) to begin a blog and share her fascination for Jazz Age music and Silent Era films. She considers herself an enthusiastic amateur with an interest in films, music and writing.

Deadly Obsession: Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

by guest contributor R.D. Finch

"What's that old Oscar Wilde thing? 'Each man kills the thing he loves...' That I think is a very natural phenomenon, really."

Alfred Hitchcock, in a 1963 interview

In his fifty-five year long career in films, Alfred Hitchcock directed sixty-seven movies. At least a dozen of these are bona fide masterpieces, and about an equal number are excellent movies that fall just short of the masterpiece mark. By any measure that's an impressive record, one unequaled by any other filmmaker I can think of. Even more impressive is that Hitchcock's pictures are not rarefied works of art of interest mainly to aesthetes and film scholars, but full-blooded movies that appeal equally to ordinary filmgoers looking for accomplished entertainments and to cinephiles looking for an intellectually and artistically stimulating film-viewing experience. Of all Hitchcock's pictures, none managed to combine these two modes—entertainment and art—so skillfully, so intriguingly, and so pleasingly as his 1958 film Vertigo.

Most people are familiar with the plot of Vertigo. A retired San Francisco police detective, John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart), psychologically traumatized after a rooftop chase to apprehend a criminal ends badly, is targeted as a dupe by his old college friend Gavin Elster, who exploits Scottie's crippling fear of heights to bring off an intricate scheme to murder his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak). The film's plot is a clever one and since this is a mystery thriller with hints of the supernatural (can Madeleine really be the reincarnation of her ancestor, as she believes?), neither the audience nor Scottie realizes what is really happening until quite far into the film. This allows the viewer's understanding of the situation to be manipulated, just as Scottie's is, to create a mood of suspense and, after the truth is revealed to the viewer about three-quarters of the way through the film, for that suspense to be prolonged as the film proceeds in a completely unexpected direction right up to its shock ending.

Such a narrative strategy requires that the viewer's reactions be precisely guided at every turn, and nobody was more expert at this than Hitchcock. Well known for his need for absolute control over all aspects of his films from conception to release, Hitchcock was by temperament the epitome of the film auteur, the director who puts his stamp on every element of his work. The way he accomplished this was by meticulous attention to detail. Because each shot was storyboarded in advance, the final film essentially needed no editing and thus was immune to tampering with by producers and studio executives. Like most filmmakers who began by directing silents, Hitchcock viewed cinema storytelling as essentially a visual process, with dialogue, music, and sound used to augment the film's imagery. Because the way he chose to show the action—placement and movement of the camera, the use of visual effects that formed his famous set pieces, the exact way images succeeded one another to form a spatial and narrative continuum—was the product of his own imagination, his films always seem expressions of a personal and very distinctive vision. Many directors have made movies in the Hitchcock style, but I can't think of a single one of these films that on close viewing could actually be mistaken for the work of the master himself.

Because of the convoluted and deceptive nature of its plot, Vertigo is even more dependent on Hitchcock's almost obsessive attention to detail as a means of controlling audience response than any other film he made. But in Vertigo he uses his working methods as much more than merely a practical means of telling a story in his own way. He amplifies his control-freak approach to directing until it becomes an all-encompassing aesthetic used to suggest a great deal more than is apparent in what at first seems little more than a deftly contrived suspense melodrama. It is this effect of using every device in his vast panoply of cinematic tricks to evince the complex psychological and thematic undertones of the film that makes Vertigo Hitchcock's greatest achievement. It's a haunting film that can be watched again and again and still continue to entertain and thrill and deliver new revelations.

Perhaps the most powerful and resonant thing about the film is the way Hitchcock uses repetition to emphasize the idea of doubling. Elements in the first part of the film recur later in the film, and elements in the later part of the film mirror those in the first part, giving the film a strange pattern of symmetrical associations. Scottie seeks out places where he saw Madeleine in the beginning of the film and revisits them later in the film: the missions, the florist's shop, the museum, Ernie's restaurant. He watches Judy at her hotel window the same way he watched Madeleine at her hotel window earlier. His transformation of Judy into Madeleine exactly duplicates Elster's transformation of Judy to pass her off as his wife.

Near the end of the picture Hitchcock expresses the complete fusion of Madeleine and Judy, of past and present, of Scottie's memories and his dreams, in the most striking of several memorable set pieces in the film—a long, passionate kiss between Scottie and Judy after he sees her for the first time as the fully re-created Madeleine. The camera swirls, Scottie and Judy swirl, and the room appears to revolve around them. The background fades from Judy's room to the stable where Scottie and Madeleine kissed for the last time and finally back to Judy's room again, while Bernard Herrmann's glorious music—clearly inspired by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde—surges and pulses in unison with the intense emotions of the passage. It's the most rapturously erotic scene in a Hitchcock movie since the kiss in Notorious.

Hitchcock was famous for his lack of interest in the acting of his performers, and for saying that actors should be treated like cattle, that is, prodded into doing what he needed for the shot he was working on. This was perhaps a holdover from his silent days, when facial expressions, body language, and movement were more important than character development and line delivery because the director essentially created the performance visually, through the staging and editing of the film. This is one reason experienced theater actors often found working with Hitchcock such a frustrating experience. Yet for all this, in Vertigo he gets two remarkable performances from his stars.

It is well documented that Kim Novak was not Hitchcock's first choice to play Madeleine/Judy; Vera Miles was. But by the time he was ready to begin shooting, Miles was pregnant and so somebody else had to be cast. I have no idea how he hit on the idea of casting Kim Novak, but I did notice that just as Elster and Scottie transform Judy into the image of Madeleine, Hitchcock almost seems to transform Kim Novak into an uncanny image of Grace Kelly, right down to her hair and makeup, and her accent and diction. I can't help wondering if one of the reasons Vertigo seems to be Hitchcock's most personal film is his own understanding of the compulsion behind Scottie's Pygmalion-like behavior.

At any rate, Novak, who under the right conditions could be a much better actress than she is generally given credit for, does a tremendous job as the mysterious, spaced-out Madeleine. But her more demanding incarnation as Judy is even more impressive. If Madeleine is an enigma, Judy is a fully defined character. Hitchcock and his writer, Samuel Taylor, make a daring narrative decision that happens soon after Scottie meets Judy. The conventional thing to do would have been to conceal the truth about the murder plot from the audience until the end then reveal it to the viewer and Scottie at the same time, in the kind of twist ending typical of films of this kind. Instead Hitchcock and Taylor devise a situation in which Judy writes a letter to Scottie explaining everything to him then impetuously tears it up before he sees it.

The audience is now aware of the true nature of events even if Scottie isn't, and the entire tone of the movie has changed. Now that we know the truth, the point of view shifts much more in Judy's direction. The crux of suspense is no longer what really happened, but how long will it take Scottie to figure it out and what will be his reaction when he does. What all this means for Novak's performance is that she can no longer play her character as an enigma, but must externalize the conflict Judy feels about what she has done to Scottie and the ambivalence she feels about his controlling attitude. Novak's role immediately becomes much more demanding, and she handles the requirements of those demands admirably. If only she looked less like a caricature of a rather common shopgirl!

But the real center of the movie is James Stewart's Scottie, a character who inspires Stewart to give one of the most remarkable performances of his career. We tend to think of the screen persona of James Stewart as that of an optimistic, boyish everyman. But in truth Stewart's characters often had a dark side to them, a willfulness that threatened to cause the passion of their emotions to spill over into obsession. We tend to forget this because until Vertigo, even though that dark side might threaten to take over whatever character Stewart was playing—George Bailey or even Jefferson Smith for Frank Capra or one of the revenge-driven men in the Westerns he made with Anthony Mann, for instance—at the end of the film his character always managed to pull back from the brink before he went over the edge. Hitchcock himself perceived the latent darkness in Stewart's screen image and used it as a sort of dangerous recklessness in the characters Stewart played in Rope and Rear Window. But in Vertigo, for the first and only time I can think of, Stewart's character is completely overcome by the darkness in him and propels the film to a catastrophic conclusion.

During the course of the picture, Stewart must convincingly go through a series of changes that illustrate the stages of the disintegration of Scottie's personality. At the beginning of the movie, he seems like the familiar James Stewart. He has experienced a traumatizing event, his life has been drastically changed by it, and he must live with the handicap of disabling acrophobia. But his resilience and sense of proportion intact, he seems able to cope with the changes in his circumstances. As he reluctantly follows Madeleine, he finds his detective's curiosity about this mysterious woman aroused. Curiosity soon turns to fascination and then to passionate love. At this point he is already beginning to lose his objectivity as he desperately tries to rationalize Madeleine's delusional behavior.

After Madeleine's death, he is a broken man, a state he conveys in his scenes in the mental hospital through his dazed expression and total lack of affect. If he seems to have regained a precarious sense of balance after several months of treatment, he begins to lose it as soon as he first spots Judy. As he grows closer to her, he progressively loses control of himself until he has become an emotional juggernaut moving inexorably toward the annihilation of both himself and the object of his love. This idea that external and internal forces could collude in such a way to transform a person's ego into an unstoppable engine of destruction is a chilling one indeed.

By the film's conclusion, Hitchcock has carefully guided us to a place where he is at last able to make the point he has been aiming for all along: the fine distinction between passion and obsession, between real life and dreams, between creation and destruction. The death of Judy at the end makes real the fake suicide that was staged for Scotty's benefit earlier. What began as make-believe has taken on a terrible life of its own and become reality, a reality born of the destructive potential when love overpowers reason.

A nearly life-long cinephile, R. D. Finch lives in rural Northern California. His favorite films are the classics (roughly 1930-1980), both American and foreign. His blog,The Movie Projector, was honored with two CiMBA Awards in 2010 from the Classic Movie Blog Association: Best Film Review (Musical or Comedy) for his post Love Me Tonight (1932), and Best Classic Movie Article for his piece The Best Fred Astaire Musicals Without Ginger Rogers.

2012 arrives...

2011-12-31T21:00:00.000-08:00

...and A Month of VERTIGO is about to begin...

A Month of VERTIGO: the Bloggers...

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Arriving with 2012 will be this blog’s first major event, A Month of VERTIGO. The month will feature 10 11 bloggers and one ‘vlogger' reflecting on facets of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).

Unpopular with critics and audiences when it was released, Vertigo has endured. Today it is generally considered the great auteur's masterpiece of masterpieces and is one of the most highly regarded films in movie history. Vertigo is an ambitious work of grand scale and reputation - a staggering review subject for the lone blogger. And so, we ~~eleven~~ twelve have joined together to contemplate this masterwork from many angles.

Here's what to expect at The Lady Eve's Reel Life during January 2012:

January 1, R.D. Finch of The Movie Projector offers Deadly Obsession: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

January 4, Whistlingypsy of Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows muses on Bernard Herrmann ~ Composer of Haunting Music and Treacherous Dreams.

January 7, Christian Esquevin of Silver Screen Modiste and author of Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label takes a look at the costumes and the characters who wore them with The Costumes of Vertigo.

January 10, Brandie Ashe of True Classics considers Kim Novak in Vertigo: A Hypnotic Presence.

January 13, Michael Nazarewycz of Filmoria.com, ManILoveFilms.com and ScribeHard on Film contemplates the setting of Vertigo, that "jewel of American cities," with More Than Just the Streets of San Francisco.

January 16, Steven DeRosa, author of Writing With Hitchcock, looks at Vertigo from the perspective of screenwriter Samuel A. Taylor with An Inconsequential Yarn.

January 19, John Greco of Twenty Four Frames offers his recent interview with preeminent Hitchcock biographer Patrick McGilligan (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light) on the subject of Vertigo and the filmmaker who conceived it.

January 22, Allen Hefner of Bit Part Actors honors those with roles small and momentary in Vertigo’s supporting cast with Vertigo, the Bit Players.

January 25, Classic Film Boy of Classic Film Boy’s Movie Paradise assesses James Stewart's iconic and complex performance as ‘Scottie Ferguson’ in Vertigo.

January 28, Brandon Kyle Goco of TCM’s Classic Film Union, Brandon Kyle the Cinephile and guest host of TCM’s October podcast series will ‘vlog’ (video blog) about his passion for Vertigo.

January 31 - Dan Auiler, author of the most essential book on Vertigo out there, VERTIGO: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic. A late addition to the guest contributor group, Dan offers Marking Vertigo, which he describes as "understanding Vertigo as Madeleine with Chris Marker as guide.

February 3 - I'll ponder Vertigo in relation to the the French noir novel it was adapted from, D'Entre Les Morts by Boileau-Thomas Narcejac.

Each post will include a bit of background on its author plus links to the contributor’s blog or site. Please join us for what promises to be a month of wide-ranging commentary on the Hitchcock film that critic David Thomson called "a masterpiece and an endless mystery," and about which he wrote, "It's a test case: If you are moved by this film, you are a creature of cinema..."

A Blog Full of Gifts From Me to You...

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Lady Eve offers a blogful of holiday cheer this year. Here's what's under the tree...

~ Two Icons Singing: Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sing "White Christmas" on a December 1957 TV special...

~ A Festive Romp From the 1970s: Kenneth More and Albert Finney sing "I Like Life" in the 1970 film Scrooge...

~ From Disney's Fantasia (1940): "The Nutcracker Suite"...

~ Judy, Judy, Judy...No holiday would be complete without hearing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" at least once. Here's Judy singing to her children, Lorna and Joey, in 1963 on the 'Christmas Show' for her CBS TV program...

~ A Holiday Movie: The Mitchell Leisen directed, Preston Sturges penned, yuletide classic Remember the Night (1940), starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck - all one hour and 33 minutes of it...

Happy Holidays!

'TIS THE SEASON...

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful...which means it's a perfect time to snuggle down into a favorite chair, remote in hand, and decide: DVR or DVD?

With Christmas just a week away I've picked a few long-time holiday favorites to watch along with one or two that have come into my life more recently...

Remember the Night

Remember the Night (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen from a Preston Sturges' screenplay, debuted on Turner Classic Movies a few seasons ago, which is where I first encountered it. A jewel! Fred MacMurray stars as an Assistant D.A. who falls for thief Barbara Stanwyck during the holidays. With Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson and Sterling Holloway, music by Frederick Hollander (known for his work with Marlene Dietrich). Remember the Night is a compelling tale delivered by a very sharp script and a superb cast, qualities that should establish it as an enduring holiday classic. Click here for more on Remember the Night from Jim Lane's Cinedrome.

I've already watched Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) once this season. It is Vincente Minnelli's simply magical confection of 100% pure fine-spun Americana. Set in turn-of-the-century St. Louis, the film follows "a year in the life" of the Smith family. Margaret O'Brien famously portrays precocious (annoying?) tyke "Tootie" Smith to the hilt, but it is Judy Garland as Esther Smith who glows as the film's centerpiece. And there are the songs, now classics, she introduced in the film..."The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I'll probably watch Meet Me in St. Louis one time more before the holidays are over.

Christmas in Connecticut

Christmas in Connecticut (1945) has been on my "every year" list for a while now. I can't resist this home front romp about a career woman (Barbara Stanwyck) with zero homemaking skills who falls for a Navy vet (Dennis Morgan) who dreams of home cooked meals and every domestic delight. Last year I blogged about the movie and the year in which it was released, 1945. It was the year World War II ended, the year American troops were finally home for Christmas. Click here for my 2010 reflection on Christmas in Connecticut.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940), is my favorite film of director Ernst Lubitsch and contains one of James Stewart's finest performances along with the best of Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan and Felix Bressart. I posted on Shop, a must-see film, just a week or so ago...click here, if you missed it. And if you've missed the film so far this year, it airs in just about an hour (Dec. 18, 10am Eastern/7am Pacific) on Turner Classic Movies.

The Bishop's Wife

In The Bishop's Wife (1947) Cary Grant stars as an angel...typecasting at its finest, I'd say! I first saw The Bishop's Wife in the 1980s and, when I discovered it, was surprised I hadn't heard of it before. Now it surfaces every year, everywhere, a seasonal standard (and it will air once more on TCM this year - late on Christmas Eve). The fine cast includes David Niven, Loretta Young, Monty Woolley, Gladys Cooper, James Gleason, Sara Haden and Elsa Lanchester. The film's yuletide sentiment is reflected throughout and nicely encapsulated in the Bishop's final sermon, "Let us ask ourselves what we would wish for most, and then let each put in his share. Loving kindness, warm hearts and the stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth."

...Because she does it so well, here's Peggy Lee singing a holiday standard that expresses my wishes for each of you (click to listen)...

...More About "A Month of VERTIGO"

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

Not long ago I sat down with the 1956 British translation of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's D'Entre Les Morts (1954). The book is now published under the title Vertigo (it was originally called 'The Living and the Dead') owing to the legend that is the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film based on Boileau/Narcejac's novel. When I finished reading, I wanted to blog about Vertigo and decided to try to do it "with a little help from my friends." One of these friends (Brandon Goco) even created a 'teaser' for what turned into the project we're calling A Month of VERTIGO:

A Month of VERTIGO will begin January 1 and run through the month (and into early February) - with ten bloggers (including me) and one 'vlogger' (video blogger) contemplating Vertigo from a variety of perspectives. More details will appear soon about Reel Life's first major blog event.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940): A Lubitsch Christmas

2011-12-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

It is only occasionally that a film ages with extraordinary grace. Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 classic,The Shop Around the Corner, has mellowed in the manner of a rare and prized bottle of Hungarian Tokaji Aszú...

Balta Street, Budapest

Director Lubitsch, revered for sophisticated films spun with his light-as-air "touch" and at an artistic peak in 1940, took special care with The Shop Around the Corner. It was one of his favorites of own films, and he wrote, “Never did I make a picture in which the atmosphere and the characters were truer…” This atmosphere is unmistakable. With the first strains of “Ochi Tchornya” heard over Leo the Lion’s roar, in the dreamlike setting near Budapest’s historic Andrassy Street and in unique and distinctive characters, the spirit of old Europe is alive on screen.

Set during Christmastime in the snow-dusted capital, the story follows a series of mix-ups and missteps between employees of a picturesque gift shop in the heart of the city. Two clerks carry on a battle-of-the-sexes while romantically pursuing anonymous pen pals; the shop owner suspects betrayal at home and at work; a duplicitous clerk is up to ugly mischief and a wisecracking errand boy has an eye for the main chance…

Matuschek's gift shop

Samson Raphaelson (Suspicion, Green Dolphin Street) penned a screenplay based on Nikolaus (Miklós) László’s play; William H. Daniels (The Naked City, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) shot it and Werner Heymann (Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be) wrote the score.

A sparkling ensemble cast features several of MGM’s top supporting players. Among them is Frank Morgan in one of his most interesting roles as Mr. Matuschek, the colorful charmer who owns the gift shop. A somber turn in the subplot gives Morgan a chance to portray his character's darker emotions.

Peerless Felix Bressart plays the meek/endearing clerk, Pirovich. Versatile Joseph Schildkraut defines ‘loathsome’ as Vadas. Also in the featured cast are Sara Haden, William Tracy and Inez Courtney.

Felix Bressart and James Stewart

The legendary chemistry between stars James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan illuminates the screen. Stewart is at his most appealing as Mr. Kralik, head clerk and right hand man to Mr. Matuschek. In this role, Stewart's broad signature mannerisms are tempered by the sensitivity with which he portrays Kralik's romantic yearnings. But it is Sullavan's performance that mesmerizes. Her Klara Novak, a headstrong shop girl blinded by lofty ideals, is a high-strung romantic whose breathless eagerness is offset by her brittle fragility.

Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan was discovered on Broadway by director John M. Stahl (Leave Her to Heaven) who brought her to Hollywood to star in Only Yesterday (1933) with John Boles. By this time Sullavan had already married and divorced Henry Fonda and would soon marry director William Wyler. By 1936 the actress was married to agent/producer Leland Hayward and about to make her best films: Three Comrades (1938), for which Sullavan earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination, The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and The Mortal Storm (1940). In the last three she co-starred with Stewart. The pair had first worked together on Next Time We Love (1936), a result of Sullavan suggesting her friend Stewart for the part. In The Shop Around the Corner, the third of the their four collaborations, the co-stars seem to all but dance together, such is the rhythm between them.

With the closing scenes of The Shop Around the Corner, Lubitsch demonstrates his consummate finesse…

Frank Morgan and Charles Smith

Mr. Matuschek returns to his store on Christmas Eve to total the day’s receipts, thank his staff and hand out bonuses. It is closing time and as the wistful shopkeeper departs, he says goodnight to, and we have our last glimpse of, most of the other characters as they depart for the holidays.

When the shop's new errand boy, Rudy (Charles Smith), emerges, Matuschek takes him under his wing and out to a glorious Christmas dinner of roast goose, potatoes in butter…and “a double order of apple strudel in vanilla sauce.” The two, no longer facing a lonely Christmas Eve, strike up a jubilant rapport.

Inside the darkened shop, Stewart and Sullavan move in perfect harmony as Kralik and Klara finally discover each other. This last scene, one of the most deeply romantic and witty ever confected, reveals the distilled essence of Lubitsch’s “touch.”

A Holiday Gift From PBS: THESE AMAZING SHADOWS

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Independent Lens, the Emmy-winning PBS series, will air Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s These Amazing Shadows, a one-hour documentary, on Thursday, December 29, at 10:00pm (check local listings).

These Amazing Shadows is an often kaleidoscopic swirl of film clips iconic and obscure, from Casablanca, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz to 2001, The Godfather and E.T., plus culturally noteworthy home movies, the odd sound film demo and theater intermission bumper. The documentary also outlines the background of the Film Preservation Act and the creation of the National Film Registry.

The Night of the Hunter

When Ted Turner purchased MGM in 1986 for $1.6 billion he sold off parts of his acquisition, but kept the film and TV libraries, which included those of MGM/UA, RKO and Warner Bros. With the hope of expanding the appeal of classic black and white films on his ‘SuperStation’ WTBS and elsewhere, Turner devised a plan to “colorize” them. In September 1986, Turner Broadcasting System released a list of 100 films set for “colorizing” – the list included Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Out of the Past and other legends of black and white American cinema. Turner’s decision met with loud opposition from Hollywood filmmakers. The Director’s Guild was outspoken and an indignant Billy Wilder snarled: “Those fools! Do they really think that colorization will make The Informer any better? Or Citizen Kane or Casablanca? Or do they hope to palm off some of the old stinkers by dipping them in 31 flavors? Is there no end to their greed?”

The outcry against Turner’s penchant for colorizing the classics culminated in Congressional hearings. These Amazing Shadows navigates the colorization controversy, illustrating the hue and cry with news footage of directors Sydney Pollack and Woody Allen appearing before Congress and clips of James Stewart speaking out on network TV. In 1988, the Film Preservation Act was passed and, through the Library of Congress’ National Film Preservation Board, brought about the National Film Registry.

Gus Visser and his Singing Duck

Among the tumble of Registry “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films glimpsed in These Amazing Shadows are dramas, comedies, musicals and animated features. The documentary‘s tone is generally serious, but there is also a fair sprinkling of whimsy. The grim but seared-into-memory footage of Abraham Zapruder’s famous home movie of the Kennedy Assassination is on the list as is a thought-provoking home movie (Topaz) taken in a U.S. internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Yet there’s the bizarre sound film demo of Gus Visser and His Singing Duck, not to mention the jaunty theater intermission promo, “Let’s All Go to the Lobby (to get ourselves a treat)”…a mélange!

These Amazing Shadows covers a lot of ground in an hour. There are nearly as many interviews (Debbie Reynolds, Paul Schrader, Christopher Nolan, Rob Reiner, Peter Coyote, John Waters and many others) as there are film clips. The program features reflections on movies in general as well as specific films and genres but also explores attitudes and issues (race relations, women in film, cold war propaganda). Naturally, D.W. Griffith’s legendary Birth of a Nation has its moment in the spotlight. Though an innovative groundbreaker, this film affects me in the same way Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will does. Each is historically and cinematically relevant but promotes deeply offensive propaganda; Riefenstahl extolled the Nazis, Griffith the Ku Klux Klan.

The Godfather

A central point, hammered home as the documentary comes to its conclusion, is the importance of preservation and restoration. It was news to me that the original negative of The Godfather had been reduced to “tatters.” Overused because of the film’s immense popularity (“loved to death”) it was at one time in dire need of restoration. It’s no stretch to imagine that if The Godfather could nearly come to ruin, a terrible fate could easily befall less prominent, smaller films. And why would anyone care about saving movies? Well, that’s not a hard question for a film lover/blogger like me. Without film, my soul would shrivel and die. These Amazing Shadows takes the larger view - film is “our family album,” a part of American history and culture.

Currently there are 550 films listed in the National Film Registry. Each year the Librarian of Congress, with input from the public and the National Film Preservation Board, picks 25 films to add to the Registry. To learn more about These Amazing Shadows, an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, click here.

A footnote: I can’t ignore the irony that Ted Turner, who eventually abandoned colorization (a prohibitively expensive process), just a few years later launched Turner Classic Movies. The channel stands today as a beacon in the night for classic film fans - and airs predominantly black and white films...

Coming Soon to REEL LIFE...

2011-11-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

Some Came Running

A sampling of a few posts and one event (my first!) on the near horizon for The Lady Eve's Reel Life:

The Families of Vincent Minnelli

A look at some of the director's most memorable family-themed films, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Father of the Bride (1950), Some Came Running (1958) and Home From the Hill (1960). Plus a look at the award-winning artist's own life.

These Amazing Shadows

Late in December the PBS series "Independent Lens" will spotlight "culturally, historically... aesthetically significant" American films included in the National Film Registry with the one-hour documentary, These Amazing Shadows. The registry's beginnings with National Film Preservation Act of 1988 is also covered. I'll be previewing the documentary ahead of its air date.

The Shop Around the Corner

Just in time for the holidays...a reflection on Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 classic. The director's own favorite among his films, it is set at Christmastime in Budapest, features a sparkling ensemble cast led by James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan and Frank Morgan...and 'tis perfection.

A Month of Vertigo

A great group of guest contributors - and me - will blog on myriad facets of Alfred Hitchcock's masterwork. I'm hoping A Month of Vertigo makes for a very interesting beginning to 2012...

Family Thanksgivings: Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to spending some time with one of my favorite families over the coming Thanksgiving weekend, Hannah and Her Sisters (as well as her other relatives and friends).

Dianne Wiest, Oscar winner

Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen's, by turns, clever and outright hilarious 1986 classic, has been judged by many as his best film of the 1980s, but I think it might well be the best of his best work. Allen's own Oscar-winning script is a tour de force testament to his dazzling facility as a screenwriter - who has a record 14 screenplay Oscar nominations to his credit; he's won two (the first for Annie Hall in 1977). Two member's of the film's superb ensemble cast, Dianne Wiest and Michael Caine, were awarded supporting Oscars for their portrayals. Allen himself delivers one of his very best performances and Max von Sydow (who has some of the film's best lines, which is saying something) and Lloyd Nolan are especially memorable in slightly-more-than-cameo roles.

The film begins with one family Thanksgiving dinner and ends with another. Opening credits roll as the Harry James Orchestra croons "You Made Me Love You," and the story begins to the same band's snappy version of "I've Heard That Song Before." It is Thanksgiving in Manhattan and Hannah's family comes together in her spacious, character-soaked, softly-lit Upper West Side apartment. The parents of Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her sisters, a crusty and eccentric pair of old-school show biz troupers (Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O'Sullivan) take a moment to sit down at the piano and sing a duet on "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," a tune that recurs, usually by way of tinkling ivory keys, throughout the film. Meanwhile, Hannah's husband Elliott (Michael Caine) has been ruminating on his fascination with his sister-in-law Lee (Barbara Hershey).

O'Sullivan and Nolan

A tumble of interconnected episodes from the lives of family and friends flows between the two Thanksgivings. Mickey (Woody Allen), ex-husband of Hannah and future husband of her sister Holly (Dianne Wiest), endures a health crisis that leads to a spiritual crisis; Lee is unfaithful to her long-time lover (Max von Sydow) with Elliott. Bickering between the sisters' parents gets ugly and leads to bawdy, if amusing, accusations. Along the way, flashbacks reveal bizarre and comical past events (bad first dates are traditional fodder for hilarity, but who knew infertility could be entertaining?). By the second Thanksgiving, life seems to be on a more harmonious course for Hannah and Her Sisters. Elliott and Hannah are once again content with each other, Lee has married an entirely new man and Holly and Mickey, who once went through a date from hell, are now wed. A maid fusses with candles on the dining table, "I'm in Love Again" can be heard in the background, on piano, and one of the couples shares a private, irony-tinged moment...fade to black.

'Holly and Mickey' in Central Park

As so often with Woody Allen's films, Manhattan's captivating presence lingers in the background...Central Park, Greenwich Village, 5th Avenue, the Chrysler Building, Columbia University, The Carlyle Hotel, CBGB's - east side, west side, all around the town - accompanied by scintillating tunes that kick the impact of story and scenery up a notch. The soundtrack is saturated with some of the great American standards of 20th century song: "Where or When," "You Are Too Beautiful," "Isn't it Romantic," "If I Had You," a Dave Brubeck version of "I Remember You," Count Basie's "The Trot," "The Way You Look Tonight" sung by Carrie Fisher, "I'm Old-Fashioned" sung by Dianne Wiest - not to mention Bobby Short performing "I'm in Love Again" at the Carlyle...plus interludes of Bach and even a moment of "Madame Butterfly."

Hannah and Her Sisters brims with warmth as it casts its wry gaze on the misadventures of its confused but not-difficult-to-relate-to characters. A fully realized reflection on love, life and family, the film earned three Academy Awards (Weist, Caine, Allen) and was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, art direction and editing. It is a gem.

The gifted Mr. Allen, now 75, is the auteur director of more than 40 films over the past 45 years, a writer on nearly 60 films and actor in 40+. Along with his screenwriting Oscars, he's won a Best Director award for Annie Hall. Allen began as a comedy writer for Sid Caesar's popular Show of Shows during TV's golden age, became a successful stand-up comedian, had short stories published in The New Yorker and wrote two Broadway hits, Don't Drink the Water and Play it Again, Sam. Today he continues to make films and also performs as a classic New Orleans-style jazz clarinetist.

Woody Allen (center) on the set of Hannah and her Sisters

Woody Allen has had one of the most prolific, varied and celebrated careers of the 20th and 21st centuries. My own favorites of his films are Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway (1994). Also on my list are Match Point (2005), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Stardust Memories (1980) and Play it Again, Sam (1972). I haven't seen every one of his films (including this year's Midnight in Paris, but soon) and haven't loved everything he's done (Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Interiors come to mind), but I much admire his lifelong devotion to creatively exploring and expressing his own unique personal vision - and I deeply appreciate the decades of intelligent entertainment and long, loud laughs he has given me...

Many thanks to Chris of Movies Unlimited's MovieFanFare website and Ivan of LAMB's 'Classic Chops' for republishing this post during Thanksgiving week.

A Chill in the Air - Part II

2011-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

For a few years now, Turner Classic Movies has traditionally aired The Uninvited (1944) during Halloween season. A gothic mystery/romance with a lighter heart than Rebecca (1940), The Uninvited is another of my cold night favorites.

Though lacking any gun or knife, let alone even a drop of blood or a hint of gore, The Uninvited can subtly spook the unsuspecting viewer. The action begins jauntily enough as a pair of vacationing Londoners, brother and sister, hike the cliffs of Devon and Cornwall and find, fall in love with and purchase a long-empty mansion overlooking the sea. The two later come to the realization that their new home is haunted and that their new friend, the former owner's lovely granddaughter, is a target of the malevolent apparition who inhabits the house. This is a phantom whose arrival, sometimes partially materialized, brings with it a penetrating chill that terrorizes all who encounter it...including the family pets. And there is the sudden overpowering scent of mimosa that signals an unseen presence as it fills a room. Heightening these spine-tickling proceedings is a rapturous score by Victor Young with a haunting motif that later became the popular standard, "Stella by Starlight." The film was directed by Lewis Allen and photographed by cinematographer Charles Lang (Midnight, A Foreign Affair, The Magnificent Seven, Charade) who was Oscar-nominated for The Uninvited.

The Uninvited stars Ray Milland, one of Paramount's most charming and enduring players, and Ruth Hussey as the brother and sister duo. Donald Crisp is the former owner of 'Windward House,' and Gail Russell appears in her first film role as his granddaughter, Stella. Cornelia Otis Skinner portrays one Miss Holloway, a sinister creature reminiscent of Rebecca's Mrs. Danvers - and any number of characters played by Gale Sondergaard...

Cornelia Otis Skinner as Miss Holloway

This year in tandem with watching The Uninvited, I read the book on which it was based. Irish author Dorothy Macardle's novel was first published in 1942, four years after du Maurier's smashing success, Rebecca, appeared in print and two years after the enormously popular Hitchcock/Selznick 'picturization' was released. It, too, is of the modern gothic genre with roots reaching back to Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Macardle's book is engaging, lively and, though not equal to du Maurier's classic in any sense, it entertainingly transports today's reader to a time, place and world view now several decades gone. Macardle could weave a tale and hold one's attention, telling her spooky story of warring spirits from the first person perspective of the protagonist, Roderick Fitzgerald, a London journalist whose move to the seaside brings with it hair-raising adventure, a new turn in his writing career and new love.

Dorothy Macardle

Author Dorothy Macardle, I discovered, was involved in far more than writing novels during her 69 years (1889 - 1958). Born in Ireland into a well-heeled brewing family, she taught after graduating from college but was soon involved in political and social activism. She gained an international reputation as an Irish nationalist writer and was an intimate associate of Eamon de Valera, a leader in Ireland's fight for independence and president of country from 1959 to 1973. Macardle is best known today for her historical opus, the nearly 1,000 page The Irish Republic, an account of Ireland's struggle for freedom between 1916 and 1923. Quite amazing that the woman could also write a plausible ghost story in her spare time...

The adaptation from novel to screen is largely faithful. The book is peopled by a greater variety of characters and the back story of each principal is more detailed. On screen, the haunted mansion's name changed from 'Cliff's End' to 'Windward House,' Roderick Fitzgerald is referred to as 'Rick' rather than 'Rod' and Miss Holloway's role is expanded. Fitzgerald's profession was changed from writer to composer - perhaps in order to ease giving Victor Young's "Stella by Starlight" its center-stage moment in the film.

Young's theme for The Uninvited enhances the film's romantic and mysterious story. By comparison, Franz Waxman's score for Rebecca, though also dramatic and powerful, seems to me, at times, overwhelming. I knew Bernard Herrmann had, when he was with CBS Radio, scored an earlier radio presentation of Rebecca and I found this intriguing given his later association with Hitchcock.

In December 1938 Orson Welles' Campbell Playhouse (formerly the Mercury Theatre on the Air) premiered and featured the first radio adaptation of Rebecca; it starred Margaret Sullavan as the second Mrs. de Winter, Welles as Maxim de Winter and Mildred Natwick as Mrs Danvers. Bernard Herrmann provided the score:

In the end, the music Herrmann scored for Rebecca eventually made its way to the screen; much of it was used in Jane Eyre (1943) starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.

Gail Russell

19-year-old Gail Russell, in her screen debut as Stella Meredith, is another high point in The Uninvited. Fresh-faced, with dark, tousled hair and long, thick lashes, Russell projects a fetching mixture of fragility and intensity as a young girl faced with a deadly threat just as she experiences first love. Russell followed The Uninvited with a role in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay - coincidentally, she portrayed Cornelia Otis Skinner in the film (she played Skinner again in Our Hearts Were Growing Up). In 1945 Russell was cast in a quasi-sequel to The Uninvited called The Unseen (with Joel McCrea), and she made a number of films co-starring with John Wayne, who befriended her when they made Angel and the Badman in 1947. But Russell's life and career were blighted by serious personal demons. A beautiful teenager who'd been embarrassed by the nickname "The Hedy Lamarr of Santa Monica High," she had long suffered from crippling shyness. When Paramount Pictures came calling she agreed to pursue a movie career; her mother had insisted, the family needed money. Russell developed a habit early on of drinking before she faced the cameras - it helped steady her nerves. This habit developed into a deadly addiction that shortened her life; she died in 1961 at age 36.

The characters of Stella Meredith in The Uninvited and Rebecca's second Mrs. de Winter are fairly similar - both are young, inexperienced and in need of protection and guidance. But one character evolves more than the other. Throughout The Uninvited, Stella remains a maiden in need of rescue by older, wiser Roderick Fitzgerald. In Rebecca, the second Mrs. de Winter begins as an awkward, coltish young lady utterly intimidated by all that her new status as bride of an aristocrat brings. But when Maxim de Winter confesses his role in Rebecca's death and reveals his vulnerability, her transformation into a more confident, assured woman begins. Fontaine's portrayal of this maturing is seamless.

Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. de Winter

Joan Fontaine, who became a star with Rebecca, enjoyed continued success. Cast again by Hitchcock in 1941's Suspicion, with Cary Grant, she won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Other noteworthy films include Jane Eyre in 1943 with Orson Welles and Max Ophuls' stunning Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948). She continued to work in film and on TV until the mid-1990s and just recently celebrated her 94th birthday; she and her older sister Olivia de Havilland, however, remain estranged...

My meanderings through Rebecca and The Uninvited on page and screen began as I sought enjoyable ways to spend the crisp, dark evenings that come with the late months of the year. This quest brought several cozy nights charged with chills, thrills and romance and now I'm tempted to continue...perhaps with another foray into the realm of the gothic - once defined as the Cinderella story gone very wrong...

In the meantime, I've been trying out different hot drink confections to help fend off the chill. My latest experiments involve a healthier cocoa mix called 'WonderCocoa' and a new twist on the hot toddy called 'The Laureate.' Click here for ideas on what to sip to stay warm on a cold, dark night...

A Chill in the Air - Part I

2011-11-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

Halloween has come and gone, a time change looms (“fall back”) and winter is just around the corner. Early twilight and cool evenings are here and it seems to me that when the weather starts getting nippy and night falls early, nothing satisfies like a crackling fire, something either steaming or iced to drink and a well-chosen book or movie to settle into. What I'm reading and watching as autumn deepens this year are books and the films that were made of them.

The Uninvited, 1944

I’ve been reading Dorothy Macardle’s classic ghost story, The Uninvited, a novel that made its way to film by way of Paramount Pictures in 1944. I’d seen The Uninvited again recently and became curious about its original source material. I’ve also picked up Daphne du Maurier’s romantic thriller, Rebecca, once more and have happily revisited the 1940 Hitchcock-directed Selznick production.

Rebecca, 1940

I don’t know how old I was when I first read the words, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” but do know I was young because, when I came upon du Maurier’s description of 50-foot rhododendrons I didn’t know what they were or how to pronounce the word (...if only I could remember what I called them in my imagination back then...). As I re-read Rebecca, I realized how completely Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning film had supplanted the book, erasing nearly all but the opening line and “rhododendrons” from my memory.

The film is a generally literal adaptation, barring Production Code-dictated changes (most notably, Rebecca's death is accidental in the film rather than outright murder as in the book) and a few other alterations. This is largely thanks to producer David O. Selznick, who was wary when it came to tinkering with literature.

Selznick, Fontaine & Hitchcock at Academy Awards dinner

Hitchcock and Selznick weathered a famously rocky collaboration on Rebecca, Hitchcock’s first American film and his first under contract to Selznick International Pictures. The director counted himself lucky that Selznick was still involved with Gone with the Wind - which lessened his interference on Rebecca to some extent. For his part, Selznick was flabbergasted by the director’s stubborn habit of shooting very little ‘coverage’ – or extra footage, effectively “editing in camera” (filming only what he wanted for the final cut). Once Hitchcock completed the shoot, the producer did what he could to more explicitly stamp the production as his own. In particular he supervised the film’s score, having music added to almost every scene – which accounts for intermittent intrusions of musical bombast. Selznick biographer David Thomson writes that the producer learned that no matter how involved he was, “there were secrets of craft, nuance and meaning that only a director controlled.” According to Thomson, Rebecca had been a battle between director and producer that left Selznick feeling defeated.

He should not have been so glum. Rebecca is plainly a Selznick project, a glossy and rich first rate production. The film was an unqualified success and brought the producer his second Best Picture Oscar in a row, one of the two Oscars Rebecca won out of the eleven total nominations it received. But Selznick was accustomed to dominating his directors and Hitchcock had outfoxed him…

Despite the fact that Rebecca has been called the least ‘Hitchcockian’ of Hitchcock’s films and that he later virtually disowned it, it bears unmistakable signature touches. The character interpretations of Florence Bates (Mrs. Van Hopper) and George Sanders (Jack Favell) are darkly witty comic turns - entirely in the Hitchcock tradition. And from relatively inexperienced Joan Fontaine in the central role, the director determinedly mined the performance of her young life. Judith Anderson’s iconic Mrs. Danvers, a brilliantly shaded tour de force, evolved out of a collaboration between actress and director about which she remarked, “I knew I was in the presence of a master; I had utter trust and faith in him.”

Judith Anderson and Joan Fontain in Rebecca

Rebecca's visual style also bears the recognizable imprint of its director. Hitchcock and cinematographer George Barnes concocted a persistently foreboding atmosphere that permeates the film from its first frames. In fact, the film's opening images - of Manderley's ornate iron-gated entrance, its misty landscape and the mansion's ghostly silhouette - are often cited as an influence on Citizen Kane. Hitchcock and Barnes also notably and inventively contrived to create a character, or the presence of a character, who never once appears onscreen - the titular Rebecca. The scene above beautifully illustrates...

Daphne du Maurier and her children at Menabilly

Daphne du Maurier once described Rebecca, her most well-known and popular novel, as a study in jealousy. Many have offered opinions on what inspired the plot - was it du Maurier's relationship with her mother and father? Was it based on the writer's insecurities about her husband's beautiful, glamorous, dark-haired former fiancee? It is known that du Maurier spent time during childhood at two grand country mansions, Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire and Menabilly (which she later owned) in Cornwall, and that the two estates were both likely models for Manderley and its grounds. Regardless of conjecture about du Maurier's inspirations, few have questioned that Rebecca is a triumph of its genre - it has been continuously in print over the eight decades since its original publication.

Daphne du Maurier

Du Maurier's Rebecca is a shrewd seduction of a 20th century gothic mystery/romance. Its persistent lure is dream-like imagery and a vulnerable narrator's voice throbbing with melancholy and hinting at dark secrets and heartbreak. Soon enough the reader is trapped, like the second Mrs. de Winter, in the world of psychological torment that is Manderley.

For me, du Maurier's novel and the Hitchcock/Selznick film are, taken together, an unbeatable way to greet the season's chill...

The Haunting Melody of The Uninvited (1944)

2011-10-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Uninvited, from Paramount Pictures in 1944, is an elegantly spooky Rebecca-esque romance with more than one haunting quality. Yes, Windward House, the sea cliff-situated home central to the story, is haunted by a malevolent woman’s ghost, but the film’s music is equally haunting (though not at all spooky).

Victor Young (who composed the film’s Rachmaninoff influenced score) and his orchestra introduced “Stella by Starlight” in The Uninvited. The melody is a thematic refrain throughout, but takes center stage in a romantic scene between Ray Milland (Roderick Fitzgerald) and Gail Russell (Stella Meredith). The pair is spending an evening together at Windward House and Rick begins to play the music, which he has written, on his grand piano:

Victor Young wasn't Academy Award-nominated for his rhapsodic score for The Uninvited, but did garner 22 Oscar nominations over his prolific career. He was nominated for as many as four films in a single year, but his only win came posthumously, for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). His scores for Golden Boy (1939) and Written on the Wind (1956) were among many nominated for the gold statuette - and he also scored The Palm Beach Story (1942), Shane (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954) and The Country Girl (1954). Young died in 1956 with hundreds of film credits to his name.

As with Laura, another notable film of 1944 with an evocative musical theme, song lyrics were composed for "Stella by Starlight" after The Uninvited was released and became a popular movie. In 1946 Oscar-winning lyricist Ned Washington (“When You Wish Upon a Star”/Pinocchio and “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’”/High Noon) created lyrics to accompany the music.

In 1947, two versions of "Stella by Starlight," one recorded by Frank Sinatra the other by the Harry James Orchestra, climbed the pop charts. In 1952, iconic saxophonist Charlie Parker made the first jazz recording of the tune; the song remains both a popular standard and jazz standard today.

Thank You

2011-10-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

Bette Davis, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

When I received an email from Rick Armstrong the other day telling me that I'd been awarded the Classic Movie Blog Association's 2011 "Best Review/Drama" CiMBA for my post on The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, I was thrilled - and also surprised. The post had originally been my entry in CMBA's "Movies of 1939 Blogathon" last spring and I'd always thought of it as something of an outlier, being about a film that isn't generally counted among the truly great films of that much-vaunted movie year.

I took another look at the post and read it with, I'll admit, a certain amount of pride (deserved or misplaced...who knows), and what came through most for me as I re-read my own words was the depth of my admiration for Bette Davis. I remembered that The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, though a moneymaker for Warners and a nominee for five Academy Awards, was bereft of statuettes and plaques. And I thought with some satisfaction (and cheek), "At last, Bette, this film that you were so eager to make, that you insisted was your 'tankard of tea,' has won an award!"

Thanks to everyone who voted for my CiMBA entry - as well as those who simply liked it. I'm honored.

To Be or Not to Be - Carole Lombard's final film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch

2011-10-08T00:15:00.000-07:00

For Carole & Company's "Carole-tennial (+3)," marking the 103rd anniversary of Hollywood legend Carole Lombard's birth, I'm taking a look at my favorite Carole Lombard film, director Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942). This was Lombard's last film, released just a month after her death.

'The Lubitsch Touch' has been dissected and analyzed for decades. Billy Wilder, who had been protégé to director Ernst Lubitsch early on, put it succinctly: "The Lubitsch Touch is a light touch. But there are serious overtones in Lubitsch. He understood life..."

In 1941, Lubitsch signed a three year contract with Paramount Pictures. But first he had another commitment to fulfill with United Artists. To Be or Not to Be was part of Lubitsch's arrangement with UA.

Though the original story for the film was mostly Lubitsch's, the project that evolved was something of a departure for the director. As he later remarked, "I was tired of the two established recognized recipes, drama with comedy relief and comedy with dramatic relief. I had made up my mind to make a picture with no attempt to relieve anybody from anything at any time."

To Be or Not to Be is a comedy both black and broad; it is also a sophisticated and razor sharp satire on the Nazis.

Actors...and Nazis, To Be or Not to Be

Lubitsch chose radio superstar Jack Benny for the male lead. Benny, who later observed that it was "impossible for comedians like me and [Bob] Hope to get good directors - that's why we made lousy movies," considered Lubitsch "the greatest comedy director that ever lived" and was eager to work with him. Though Miriam Hopkins was up for the role of Benny's onscreen wife, she was only interested in taking the part if it was enlarged for her. Jack Benny was meanwhile pushing for Carole Lombard in the role. One night Benny and producer Alexander Korda went out on the town together; much drinking ensued and the upshot was that Korda wired UA and asked the studio to hire Lombard.

Lubitsch and Lombard knew each other from her early days on the Paramount lot. While the director had made pictures with the other great Paramount leading ladies, Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich, he and Lombard had never managed to work together. Lombard's husband, box office king Clark Gable, was not excited about To Be or Not to Be and referred to Lubitsch as "the horny Hun." But Lombard had always wanted to work with the director and signed on; her only special request was that Irene design her wardrobe.

The production had its share of problems. To begin with, Jack Benny was jittery. According to co-star Robert Stack, he was "scared to death." Benny's source of discomfort was that while he knew how to deliver his lines on stage and on radio, he didn't know what to do when it came to a movie set. This made him very nervous.

Another problem concerned musical director Miklos Rozsa. Rozsa was set to score the film but once he saw the script and realized it was a satire on Nazism, he refused; he just didn't see the humor.

Carole Lombard and Robert Stack on the set

Regardless of these and other difficulties, the atmosphere on the set was a happy one. Lombard developed a habit of driving in from Encino, even when she wasn't scheduled, just to watch Lubitsch at work. According to Jack Benny, "Everyone was in awe of him."

To Be or Not to Be opens in Warsaw, Poland, just before the Nazi invasion. A man who appears to be Adolf Hitler is walking the streets, creating a stir. The man, it turns out, is not Hitler but a local actor named Bronski (Tom Dugan) who is about to portray Adolf Hitler in an anti-Nazi play; he is testing his believability in public.

The plot centers on the acting troupe Bronski is part of, the Theatre Polsky, and its two stars, Josef and Maria Tura (Benny and Lombard). The troupe is rehearsing an anti-Nazi play, Gestapo, but is forced to revert to a less controversial drama, Shakespeare's Hamlet. A running gag concerns Maria, who is carrying on with a young pilot (Robert Stack). Whenever Josef begins Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy on stage, Maria's eager young man conspicuously shuffles out of his theater seat to meet her. The walk-out of an audience member in the midst of this speech completely flusters the actor (who has no idea why the man has left). Josef Tura's Hamlet is heavy on the ham and, as one Nazi character remarks, "What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland." The troupe eventually becomes involved with the Polish resistance.

Lombard is well-matched with Benny, who was never better and never had a better role. The two shared exquisite timing and much panache, and their scenes together could be shown in a master class on playing comedy. The fine ensemble cast includes venerable Felix Bressart (as an actor relegated to "spear carrier" roles but who has his moment to quote Shakespeare, eloquently) and Lionel Atwill along with Sig Ruman, Stack and Dugan.

Billy Wilder elaborated on another aspect of Lubitsch's genius, "The Lubitsch Touch is the superjoke. You have a joke, and then you don't expect the joke on top of the joke that tops the first one. The joke you didn't expect is funnier than the one you expected..."

The sequence below ends with one of Lubitsch's great "toppers." Sig Ruman's character (aka/'Concentration Camp Ehrhardt') is a Nazi colonel with a habit of blaming his own mishaps, mistakes and misunderstandings on his inept second-in-command, Captain Schulz. In this scene, the "topper" is Ehrhardt's final exclamation, a late addition to the script by Lubitsch...

Sig Ruman, Carole Lombard (and Tom Dugan) in To Be or Not to Be

The picture wrapped just before Christmas 1941, and Carole Lombard promised Jack Benny she would guest on his radio show once she returned from an upcoming war bond drive. But on the evening of January 16, 1942, the plane returning Lombard and her mother from the bond drive, along with 20 others, crashed into a mountain west of Las Vegas. All aboard were killed. Apparently the pilot had changed course, flying toward Las Vegas rather than his official destination, Boulder, Colorado. The plane had almost missed the mountain peak, crashing only 120 feet from the top.

To Be or Not to Be premiered on February 15, 1942. It was not a hit. Some critics claimed Lubitsch had suffered a lapse in taste. Churlish Bosley Crowther of the New York Times accused the director of going for cheap laughs. Robert Stack later said that the press of the time just didn't get it. He noted that Lubitsch was "a Jew from the Old Country himself" and declared that To Be or Not to Be was the best satire on Nazism ever made.

Lubitsch was appalled that his intent and his taste were both misinterpreted and maligned. He acknowledged that he hadn't depicted Nazi terror in the typical way with outright violence, "My Nazis are different; they passed that stage long ago. Brutality, flogging and torture have become their daily routine. They talk about it the same way as a salesman referring to the sale of a handbag."

Lombard and Lubitsch

It isn't surprising that critics and audiences of early 1942 may not have warmed to or understood Lubitsch's approach. The country had suffered Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and entered World War II just as the production of To Be or Not to Be was coming to an end. Those early days of the war were deeply patriotic times in the U.S. and the outcome of the conflict was still far from certain. Other wartime movies generally presented a more traditional portrait of our enemies and their victims - unequivocal, distinctly unfunny and in stark black and white terms. Lubitsch's witty satire had arrived in American theaters at the wrong moment. But the passage of time has been kind to To Be or Not to Be. It long ago entered the pantheon of Lubitsch's great masterworks - that very special place where Ninotchka (1939) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) also abide.

Carole Lombard, a natural as vain but appealing Maria Tura, was never more elegant or disarming. Though her character is clearly 'a woman of affairs,' Lombard endows her with so much warmth, humor and humanity that Maria is never less than entirely sympathetic. Such was Lombard's irreplaceable talent.

To learn more about Carole & Company's "Carole-tennial (+3)" blogathon and participating blogs, click here...

Carole Lombard, 1908 - 1942

References:

Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise by Scott Eyman

Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder, A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler