RIP, continued.

Anthony Harvey (1930-2917), aged 87. Harvey directed one of our perennial favourites THE LION IN WINTER in 1968, I remember seeing it at the old Odeon Haymarkt in London, where the sight of Queen Eleanor arriving at Chinon by boat was terrific on the large screen. Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole of course had huge success here, with another Oscar for Kate, and it also featured that rising talent Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, John Castle and Jane Merrow (whom I had met a few years previously). John Barry's faux-medieval score and the authentic settings were major pluses too. We will be seeing it again this christmas. It proved to be Harvey's biggest hit, though he worked with Hepburn twice more, and other director credits included THERE MY BE GIANTS and DUTCHMAN. He had also been editor on such films as Kubrick's LOLITA, and DR STRANGELOVE, THE WHISPERERS, THE MILLIONAIRESS, THE L-SHAPED ROOM and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD plus THE ANGRY SILENCE and I'M ALRIGHT JACK. 
Below: Harvey with Hepburn and Robert Helpmann. 

Shashi Kapoor (1938-2017) aged 79. One of Bollywood's most recognisable, photogenic stars throughout the 60s and 70s.  His breakthrough role was in the 1963 Merchant-Ivory film THE HOUSEHOLDER, and then in their SHAKESPEARE WALLAH, BOMBAY TALKIE and HEAT AND DUST. Other international films include PRETTY POLLY in 1969 and SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID in 1987, as well as his many Indian films in the booming Bollywood film industry. He was married to Jennifer Kendal, sister of Felicity, whose parents toured India with their Shakespeare productions.

Christine Keeler (1942-2017) aged 75. English model and showgirl, at the heart of the Profumo scandal in 1963 (I was 17 at the time and remember reading avidly about it.  The story is too well known to rehash here, but she was involved with the Minister for Defence John Profumo,  as well as  Soviet spy (at the  height of the Cold War) as well as society osteopath Stephen Ward. Profumo lied about his involvement with her in the House of Commons and discredited the Macmillan government. Her later life was dogged by the scandal. It was a high price to pay for being a symbol of the Swinging Sixties. 

Karin Dor (1938-2017) age 79. Another of the Eorobabes who departed this year, Karin had a substantial career in European films. I know her best from Hitchcock's TOPAZ in 1969, where she is stunning as the Cuban who is helping the Americans
. Hitch gives her a perfect death scene as she is shot with that purple dress billowing out around her as she falls.  She was also an early Bond girl in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE in '67. 

Suzanna Leigh (1945-2017), aged 72. Another of those decorative British blondes popular in the mis-60s: she was the posh one in THE PLEASURE GIRLS (1965) and co-starred with Elvis in PAADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE, and in BOEING, BOEING in '66 with Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis - we did not feel the need to see that. Soon it was stinkers like THE DEADLY BEES, THE LOST CONTINENT, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and various tv series. 

Keith Chegwin (1957-2017) aged 60. Another British TV stalwart 'Cheggers' worked mainly in childens' television and morning shows, and seemed unfailingly popular. 

People we like: Janet Leigh

When I was doing those "People We Like" profiles here a few years ago (see label), one I somehow omitted was Janet Leigh - one of our perennial favourites, and always a pleasure in any movie. Janet (1927-2004) was a blonde California girl who famously got discovered when Norma Shearer saw her photograph at the ski lodge where Leigh's parents worked and, as legend has it, she was soon signed to MGM being one of their ingenues in the late '40s, in a variety of films. She was one of the LITTLE WOMEN in 1949, when HOLIDAY AFFAIR with Mitchum is a delightful Christmas classic. WHEN WINTER COMES was interesting too. The '50s though was her main era.

She is gorgeous in some costumers: SCARAMOUCHE in 1952, and cardboard castle time in comic strips like PRINCE VALIANT and THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, with her then husband Tony Curtis. She is a '20s flapper in PETE KELLY'S BLUES, and good in a tough cop drama ROGUE COP with Robert Taylor, both 1954. I somehow missed her and Curtis in HOUDINI. 
She also excels out west in Mann's THE NAKED SPUR in 1953. She was MY SISTER EILEEN in the delightful 1955 musical and gets to dance with Bob Fosse.  We like it a lot, as per review. 1956 saw her in Africa in a routine jungle saga SAFARI with Victor Mature. 1958 was maybe her peak year: with Heston in TOUCH OF EVIL, directed by Orson at his most flamboyant, a modern noir classic where she gets terrorised in a motel, hiding her broken arm most of the time; then the Boys-Own classic THE VIKINGS, filmed in Norway and looking great as photographed by Jack Cardiff, where we love her Princess Morgana, its a perennial that boys of all ages still tune into. There was also a comedy I like, THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (or STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE) in Paris, with Curtis, for Blake Edwards. The marriage to Curtis made them one of the star couples of the era. Then Alfred Hitchcock came calling .... 

I have written about PSYCHO a lot here. Janet may only have been in the first forty minutes, but her Marion Crane dominates the rest of the film, and it is surely a leading performance, and she looks great here. She will always be the girl in the shower at the Bates Motel ... Hitchcock told her he knew she could act and left the role up to her as long as he got what he needed for his camera setups. That long scene with Perkins at the motel is particularly effective.

Frankenheimer's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE was another classic in 1962, though her part was not major in it and she continued throughout the early Sixties: another musical: BYE BYE BIRDIE in '63, a comedy WIVES AND LOVERS, Paul Newman's estranged wife in HARPER in 1966. There was a Jerry Lewis comedy I saw around that time too, purely because she was in it. 
Lesser roles followed but she had more or less retired after a long happy second marriage (she and Curtis divorced in '62). John Carpenter lured her back with a role in THE FOG in 1980, starring her daughter scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. She also did a good COLUMBO episode in 1975. Janet also wrote some novels and a charming autobiography and seems to have been well liked by everybody. 

Howard Hughes liked her a lot, with her perfect figure, she did his JET PILOT with John Wayne in 1951, directed by Von Sternberg, but it was 1957 by the time Hughes stopped tinkering with it and released it. She looks marvellous emerging from that flying suit in that white tee-shirt, but says in her book that she had to arrange to never be left alone with Hughes, till he eventually found more willing actresses .... 
She will always be one of the essential actresses of the 1950s, along with Kim, Doris, Debbie, Lee, Jean, Deborah, Susan, Ava, Natalie etc. and did sterling work with Hitchcock, Welles, Von Sternberg, Mann etc. (above: Janet in a 1969 "Sight & Sound" interview).

Hitchcock blondes driving to ......

Here's Janet and Tippi driving towards their respective fates ..... the sense of doom created by Herrmann's great score builds as Marion Crane approaches the Bates Motel; and poised socialite Melanie Daniels blithely driving towards Bodega Bay with those lovebirds ...

I am now away for a week in Ireland, but will return with those NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
and DR STRANGE, and a Seventies camp classic; Diana Ross in MAHOGANY, as well as More Bad Movies We Love, and a selection of lesser-known European Classics. and some more "Interesting Careers".

Stills of the day

Irene Dunne and Cary in THE AWFUL TRUTH, 1937 - I just love them, they also did MY FAVOURTE WIFE and PENNY SERENADE, as per Cary & Irene labels. 

Thanks to Colin for this shot of Antonioni and Vitti during THE RED DESERT in 1964. We love Monica as a blonde but she looks great here too ..... Richard Harris at his most monotonous disliked working with them and walked off the picture. No loss. Lots more at Antonioni, Vitti labels ....

We always like another look at THE BIRDS here, I like this particular scene, where socialite Melanie Daniels meets Mitch's mother for the first time in the cafe, after that gull swoops down to peck her ... See Hitch, Rod & Tippi labels for lots more.

The previous year, 1962, Jessica Tandy had played another controlling mother in HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN, driving son Richard Beymer away and her husband, Arthur Kennedy, to suicide - to get away from her. We will be re-viewing that again soon. 

Hitchcock/Truffaut

That recent documentary (by Kent Jones) on Francois Truffaut's 1962 interview with Alfred Hitchcock turns out to be a real treat. I had assumed it was a filmed record of their week-long conversation - I had the book when it first came out in 1966, and later as a paperback, but of course it was not filmed, just audio recorded, and lots of still photographs taken. 

So, we get a compendium of Hitch clips, from the earliest onwards, and some Truffaut moments too - I really have to see THE 400 BLOWS again now (somehow I never liked JULES ET JIM that much, but love LE PEAU DEUCE, HISTORY OF ADELE H, L'ENFANT SAUVAGE, the Antoine Doinel films, DAY FOR NIGHT, MISSISSIPPI MERMAID etc - as per reviews, Truffaut label), and regulars will know we have done a lot on Hitchcock here, including that "Sight & Sound" list with VERTIGO now at Number One - Hitch label. 

Also fascinating at the talking heads commenting here: only Scorsese, Paul Schrader, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Olivier Assayas, and Arnaud Desplechin.

All those clips of the Hitch classics and extended comments and scenes from VERTIGO and PSYCHO only makes one want to see them all again. 

Both directors were at their peak here, Hitch died in 1980, aged 80 after completing his last, FAMILY PLOT, in 1976, hard to believe Truffaut died four years later, aged 52 in 1984. Back to those movies, then.

Vertigo poster

Here' an oddity - a poster for VERTIGO which I had not seen before ... was this an original from 1958? Was it ever used?

Eva Marie Saint

Eva Marie Saint is perfect as the sleek, ice cool blonde Eve Kendall in Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST in 1959 - I like her poised glamour and those individual line readings, a Hitchcock blonde in fact to equal Grace Kelly. She was already a serious actress before and after her Hitch experience. One of those new girls of the 1950s- like Lee Remick, Shirley McLaine, Joanne Woodward, Carroll Baker and the grown-up Natalie Wood - she was already 30 by the time of her first film ON THE WATERFRONT  (right, on the cover of the first issue of "Films and Filming" in 1954). Like Lee Remick in A FACE IN THE CROWD in 1957, its quite an introduction to cinema. She got on with Hitchcock very well, as they created the perfect look for the poised Kendall - even when dangling off Mount Rushmore wearing white gloves! She hosts the "making of..." documentary on the NORTHWEST dvd/blu-ray and is very interesting on its making and working with Hitch - see other posts at Saint label. 

She was in Preminger's EXODUS next, and was again perfect as Echo O'Brien "the old maid from Toledo" in Frankenheimer's ALL FALL DOWN in 1962, from a book I liked by James Leo Herlihy (author of MIDNIGHT COWBOY). Minnelli's THE SANDPIPER rather wasted her in 1965 as the Burtons took centre stage, but she is marvellous too in LOVING in 1970 with George Segal. She even did a Bob Hope comedy - THAT CERTAIN FEELING in 1956. Its been an extensive career co-starring with the likes of Brando, Newman, Clift, Beatty as well as Cary Grant, with 78 credits listed at IMDB and she is still going now at over 90! A real veteran. 

Still Notorious after all these years ...

NOTORIOUS, Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 classic, does not look or feel like it is 70 years old.

This is surely the high-point of Hitch's 1940s output. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are both are their zenith, and Claude Rains is again superalative too, and lets not forget Madam Konstantin as his creepy mother, and Louis Calhern splendid as usual. 

This is a twisted romance with a vengance as Ingrid's Alicia Hubermann joins spies in Rio to spy on those Nazis - what is in those bottles in the wine cellear. Alicia is set up to meet a former friend of her father's who was smitten with her and still is now. They meet, with the connivance of agent Cary Grant who loves Alicia but does not trust or love her enough to keep her from marrying Rains, to enable her to spy on him and his colleagues ..... the moment Rains discovers the truth and goes to his mother to help him is marvellous cinema as is the moment when Alicia realises she is being poisoned by them. Cary thinks she is drunk when she is unwell at their last meeting - before, finally, he goes to the house to rescue her, leaving Claude and his mother at the mercy of those Germans ..... Its a simple plot but marvellously executed, script by Ben Hecht, like that great zoom shot of the camera on a boom descending to the close-up of the key in Alicia's fist. I like that balcony scene too and the great long kissing sequence between the lovers, and their early meeting when Grant first meets Alicia who is drinking heavily, before she redeems herself for her father's crimes, by flying down to Rio with those American agents ..... We almost sympathise with the villain who it seems loves Alicia more than Grant does. 

Its a certified Hitchcock classic and the best of his 3 with Bergman in the 1940s. SPELLBOUND has its moments but is not quite as good, and I am one of the few who quite like a lot of UNDER CAPRICORN in 1949, not least for Jack Cardiff's photography, and I now like the 1950 STAGE FRIGHT a lot, even if minor Hitchcock - great cast of British players and Marlene plus that fake flashback ... before his great run of 1950s movies. 

Midge's place ...

Looking at VERTIGO once again on Blu-ray is  a revelation - like those other Hitchs on Blu, its the music that grabs one - those great scores by Bernard Herrmann - here, and in PSYCHO particularly, they add so much more to the film ....  but now VERTIGO has something else for me: another Apartment We Love - Midge's place - is it  studio? is there a bedroom? overlooking San Francisco. Its just too divine and like Kate Hepburn's fancy New York apartment in DESK SET, or the Harrisons' swish London one in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE or Jack Buchanan's so tasteful  (pure Minnelli) town house in THE BANDWAGON or of course the perfect mid-50s house created for NORTH BY NORTHWEST - we want to live there. 

I particularly like the ideal little kitchen area where Jimmy Stewart's Scottie makes some coffee - so compact with those ideal shelves and all one would need ...... Barbara Bel Geddes too creates one of Hitch's most sympathetic second female leads as Midge, just like Suzanne Pleshette in THE BIRDS or Diane Baker in MARNIE.

Even reading how the scene where Kim jumps into the bay was shot does not spoil the mood - it was actually a stand-in for that shot, and he jumped into parachute material, and the shot of Kim in the water was a tank shot, so nobody was actually in the ocean - movies, how we love them ! 

Class of '54 ....

Audrey in Paris: SABRINA

A quick look at those 1954 gals all going places ... Marlon (in DESIREE Napoleon costume) meets Marilyn (in one of her THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS frocks); Audrey scores in SABRINA - Wilder's valentine to her after the success of ROMAN HOLIDAY; a marvellous shot of Grace by Irving Penn - 1954 was her busy breakout year with those Hitchs + THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI and the GREEN FIRE programmer; 
Ava scored as THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA, and Elizabeth looked sensational in that haircut for THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS, one of 4 she did that year. (here with young Roger Moore),

Marilyn consolidated her 1953 successes with the Fox musical and then off to Canada for RIVER OF NO RETURN.and created headlines marrying and divorcing Joe DiMaggio. 

Other busy gals included Shelley Winters, Virginia Mayo, Janet Leigh, Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr, June Allyson, while Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and Susan Hayward were out west. Judy Garland delivered and how in A STAR IS BORN. Over in Italy young Sophia Loren had her first teaming with Marcello in the delightful TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, one of 8 she did that year ...  while in England Dirk Bogarde and pal Kay Kendall helped make DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE the comedy of the year. And again, that great REAR WINDOW shot with Hitch, Grace, Stewart and that set. Brando and Mason were actors of the year as Kazan began a new drama with an exciting youngster James Dean, who would explode on the scene next year in 1955 and be gone just as quick ...

Rebecca at 75

No, not REBECCA and those Forties dramas!  Fascinating too to see REBECCA again, this lush Forties romantic drama/mystery, typically Hitchcock and Selznick, from of course that classic novel by Daphne Du Maurier, still weaves it spell as once again we go back to Manderley. How those wartime audiences must have lapped it up, along with GWTW ......

1940 was an amazing year actually, following on from the great 1939. REBECCA won Best Picture Oscar for Selznick, but Hitchcock did not get best director - that went to John Ford for THE GRAPES OF WRATH, other contenders were Wyler for THE LETTER and Cukor for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Likewise James Stewart, in the Cukor, won Best Actor. Olivier was nominated of course, as was Joan Fontaine here, but like Grace Kelly winning over Judy Garland in 1954 - see post below - it was Ginger Rogers as KITTY FOYLE who won Best Actress. But who sees KITTY FOYLE now?, I have never seen it, and its never revived these days. Also nominated were Bette Davis (THE LETTER) and Katharine Hepburn for playing herself - sorry, Tracy Lord - in PHILADELPHIA STORY.

Joan is superlative here as the shy new Mrs De Winter, its a great performance and she is absolutely captivating. Olivier with that moustache is perfect too. No wonder women of that generation swooned over him. Add in Florence Bates as the ghastly Mrs Van Hopper and those amusing scenes in the South of France (California actually), and cad George Sanders and Gladys Cooper, Hitchcock regular Leo G Carroll as the doctor with the key to the mystery, and of course Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, and that great location and art direction for Manderley,  

It seems though a film of two halfs. I love the first half . The cinematography, the direction, the chemistry between the two leads (though it seems Larry and Hitch used to say dirty words to Joan to disconcert her), the acting, the large house and the enigma of the dead first wife, Rebecca, are all fantastic, as Hitch builds up the eerie atmosphere with the sinister Mrs Danvers. But once we find out about the true story about Rebecca it loses, for me, some of its magic and turns into a simple mystery/thriller. But, 75 years on, audiences still love REBECCA and it remains a key Hitchcock classic.

We like Joan a lot, see labels for more on her and Olivier and Hitchcock. 

The annual Psycho re-watch, Rear Window too

PSYCHO continues to be fiendishly re-warchable, in fact one should rewatch it every year, I catch it whenever it is on and get mesmerised all over again, just like I did the first time I saw it, at the time, at my local cinema in Ireland, when I was about 14 (we were able to get into X-cert films there). It remains brilliant on so many levels. Here is what I said about it, last time I wrote about it here:

Now I know PSYCHO inside out over the years but had not actually seen it for maybe 20 years or so, so I was surprised to be so totally involved and stunned by it all over again. 
It is such a rich complex film that draws one in time and time again, this time I noticed how amazing that music score is - its not just all screaming violins, as Herrmann complements the action perfectly. Tony Perkins of course had his defining role as Norman Bates, but so did Janet Leigh as Marion Crane - after all her years as a leading lady this is the role she will be remembered for (as her then husband Curtis will be for Wilder's SOME LIKE IT HOT made around the same time). Never mind the size of the role she should have been a contender for best actress of the year.

Janet has revealed how Hitch called her in, told her he knew she could act and told her what he wanted from her in his camera set-ups and left the creation of the role to her. She certainly delivers here and looks her best - she did get rather emaciated in her later years. This nice photo by Nocoletta Zalaffi is from a 1969 "Sight & Sound" interview where she discusses working with Hitch and Welles among others. The movie of course is famous for other things too: the first time a toilet is seen and flushed in a mainstream movie, and our lovers in that hotel room, frank for that era, with Janet in her bra. Odd too the date in the opening scene is given as December 11th, but there no mention of Christmas at all apart from that one shot as our heroine flees from Phoenix Arixona in her car, to that lone highway, after sleeping in her car all night attracting the interest of that cop ... the music underscores her travel to that motel perfectly;
then that great scene with that strange young man as they talk about birds and the traps they are in and she resolves to get out of hers. Great moments too with the old police chief and Simon Oakland as that psychiatrist at the end compels our attention as the swamp gives up its secrets - those eerie moments too of Norman at the swamp, and that perfect ending.. I like Martin Balsam's Arbogast too with that line "Someone always sees a girl with 40,000 dollars". We are now in the age of 'torture porn' (which I don't bother with) so PSYCHO may seem old-hat to some, but its still as powerful now as when I first saw it .... Hitch of course was the master showman here with his teasing trailer visiting the site of the motel, and those ads, during the era of continuous performances, not letting people in once it had started. Quite right too.  I have always liked Janet, more on her and Hitch at labels. 
For me PSYCHO and Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA usher in the new movie world of the Sixties - both of course are about a woman who disappears and the people looking for her - Hitch shows us what happens, Antonioni doesn't, both are complex masterpieces which repay endless viewing, even if Hitch dismissed PSYCHO as a black comedy he made millions on, as it was shot so cheap and quick like one of his TV shows. 

REAR WINDOW mesmerises too, and is maybe at the top of the Hitchcock canon. Set almost entirely in the two-room apartment of James Stewart's wheelchair-bound photographer this murder mystery is claustrophobic and masterfully controlled, John Michael Hayes script being just perfect, and Hitch creates some iconic images of Stewart with his camera and Grace in another Edith Head wardrobe. "Preview of coming attractions" indeed. She is the spunky heroine here, taking risks by getting into the apartment of the suspected murderer - that whole set of all those apartments is merely stupendous, and Thelma is delicious as ever as the pragmatic nurse, and of course all those people we snoop on in those apartments across the way ...

Its a study in the complex mechanics of voyeurism and desire - subjects close to Hitch - which has kept film theorists busy for decades, particuarly as this and VERTIGO and some others were out of circulation for years - a canny move to whet interest for them. Its also an edge-of-your-seat thriller and a fascinating love story, as we leave Grace's Lisa Fremont settling down with "Vogue" while Jimmy, now with two broken legs, is trapped in that wheelchair ... 
THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY was also on, but I just could not muster much interest in it, and I suppose I have to catch TORN CURTAIN one of these days, the only late Hitch I had no desire in seeing.