Welcome back to The Great Alfred Hitchcock rewatch! We've left the experimental period that we explored last time and we're in classic Hollywood of the 40s and back in a Greatest Hits Era.
Would you believe that at this point we've been through 30 years of movies and almost to the halfway point? The Great Rewatch is speeding by.
Previous Installments
Here is today's batch of movies, which we will be talking about in the order that I saw them, which is reverse order. We've got two of the Greatest Hitchcock Hits of All Time, a pretty good flick, a meh, and a real stinker.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Lifeboat (1944)
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Lifeboat (1944)
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Let's get into it!
Spoiler rating for this post: low
The Paradine Case (1947)
General plot summary and trivia
We're in London, and the police show up at the very posh doorstep of Mrs. Paradine to arrest her for her husband's murder that occurred six months ago. She phones a friend to get a lawyer, and calmly goes with them. We watch as she undergoes the transition from society lady to prisoner.
Her lawyer is the renowned Anthony Keene, who at first is just as taken with Mrs. Paradine as we are. Soon it becomes clear to everyone, especially his wife, that he is more taken with Mrs. Paradine than we are. Then the trial starts and the movie gets so boring and the ending is so disappointing that there is no point is recapping anything further.
IMDB tells me that the original movie was almost three hours long and that it was taken out of Hitchcock's hands and slashed to two hours. This was Hitchcock's last Hollywood movie before starting his own production company, and it feels like he did not leave on good terms.
What I think of the movie
- Before: Don't remember it, no opinion
- After: I hate this movie
The Paradine Case gets off to a strong start and the actors are terrific. But the longer it goes on, the less sense it makes and then the action comes to a dead stop for the final hour of the movie which is all men in wigs in a courtroom. The ending was meant to be shocking but it smacked of "what's the point?" Recommended viewing for Hitchcock completism purposes only.
Is there a MacGuffin? No
Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No
Is there a Wrong Man theme? Yes
Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No
Does a character have Mommy Issues? No
Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies? No, thank goodness
Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers:
- Gregory Peck is Anthony, in his last of two Hitchcock movies. His character is such a mess that I can't imagine who thought it would be a good idea to let him play a lawyer again in To Kill a Mockingbird, but thank goodness that they did.
- Charles Laughton is a weird judge and Ethyl Barrymore is his wife. His character is so creepy that it's a pleasure to watch, but his oddities are never explained. Her role apparently took most of the cuts, so it's a great actress left with gibberish. Not cool.
- Oh hey Leo G. Carroll as the prosecuting attorney (barrister?). He doesn't get to do anything except wear a wig, but it's always nice to see him.
Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes for content/no for boredom
Rate the Hitchcock cameo! Like it. He's coming off the train as Anthony pulls into town, carrying a musical instrument.
Notorious (1946)
General plot summary and trivia
The movie opens in Florida with a trial and conviction of a Nazi agent. His daughter, Alicia, is hounded by the press afterwards because she is all the rage. She's beautiful, she's the daughter of a terrible person, and she's a big time party girl.
Alicia goes home and throws a small party where she proceeds to get rip roaring drunk, but not so drunk that she doesn't notice that one of her friends has brought a very good looking man named Devlin to the party. She chases her friends away so that she can hang with Devlin. She takes him out for a drunk driving sesh, and when a cop pulls them over, he hands the officer a card and the officer salutes him and walks away from the car. Oh crap, the sexy guy is a government agent.
The next day Alicia and Devlin talk and we learn that Alicia's partying is a coping mechanism to deal with her horrible father. In the months leading up to her father's arrest, the feds wired her house, so they know from the recorded conversations that Alicia is Team USA and not into the Nazi stuff. Devlin asks Alicia to join in a spy mission against a group of her father's friends in Rio as a constructive way of fixing the past.
Alicia and Devlin go to Rio, and while they are waiting to receive their assignment, it comes to their attention that they are both sexy single people who are into each other, and they begin an affair. The only problem is that Devlin does not know how to express him emotions, so Alicia doubts his feelings for her.
Meanwhile Devlin gets called into the office and learns the details of Alicia's mission. She is to meet up with Alex Sebastian, who was a friend of her father and used to have a crush on her and start a relationship with him so that she can get into his house and find out what he's up to. Devlin expresses reluctance to pass the mission on to Alicia, and everyone else in the room reminds him that the reason that they picked Alicia for the work is that she's a little slutty.
Devlin tells Alicia what the mission is. The next step is a deadly game of chicken: she wants him to tell her not to take the job, and he wants her to refuse the job. Neither one of them blinks so she goes ahead and finds Alex all too willing to start a relationship, so she is soon embedded in his house as a spy. Alex is an open book about everything except for his frosty mother and the wine cellar. She finds a way to get Devlin in the house for a glass of wine, and Alex's mother finds a way to get Alicia a special cup of coffee.
Let's take a look:
What I think of the movie
- Before: love it
- After: love it
Notorious is first rate Hitchcock. It's a good looking, suspenseful movie about beautiful people and a love affair gone wrong that goes right. And if you like to see a bad guy get his comeuppance, you will not be disappointed by the ending!
My only beef with Notorious is the relationship between Devlin and Alicia is not great. It's not unusual for the time but it stinks when viewed in the present day. He outright slut shames her for doing a good deed for her country, and the conclusion of the movie is based on him reading her mind and realizing that her frequent hangovers aren't hangovers.
Is there a MacGuffin? Yes! The thing in the wine cellar.
Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No
Is there a Wrong Man theme? No
Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No
Does a character have Mommy Issues? Yes! Alex and his mom butt heads but when he's in trouble he doesn't make a move without her advice. As a bonus, we have an inappropriate age difference between the actors who play mother and son!
Leopoldine Konstantin as mother was born in 1886
Claude Rains as Alex was born in 1889
Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies? Yep! Spy movies were Hitchcock's jam. He had done them before and he would do them again. It feels like he revisited Notorious when he started thinking about North by Northwest: Cary Grant finds out that his gal is sleeping with the enemy and feels a certain kind of way about it. For bonus points, we have a build up of suspense around the key to the wine cellar that was revisited for the key to the apartment in Dial M for Murder.
Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers:
- Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both in their second of many Hitchcock movies.
- Claude Rains as Alex, better known to you as "I am shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling going on in here" from Casablanca. This was his only Hitchcock movie.
Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes
Rate the Hitchcock cameo! The cameo in Notorious might be my favorite Hitchcock cameo. About halfway through the movie Alicia steals Alex's key to the wine cellar right before their party. She and Devlin realize that if the servers run out of champagne that the theft of the key will be discovered. They walk toward the champagne table where Hitch is polishing off a glass of bubbly.
Spellbound (1945)
General plot summary and trivia
We're at an upscale psychiatric hospital, and the movie starts with a few titles cards to get us up to speed on the new science of psychiatry. The current head of staff, Dr. Murchinson, is being replaced by Dr. Anthony Edwards, who no one on the staff has ever met. The staff has various feelings about this, and although Dr. Constance Peterson will miss Dr. Murchinson, she is also very excited to work with Dr. Edwards since she's read his books and has followed his research.
Dr. Edwards arrives, and he is much younger than everyone was expecting, and much better looking than Constance was expecting. For his part, Anthony is very attracted to Constance, and although they both try to keep it professional, it is clear that they will be playing doctor soon enough.
But about Dr. Edwards being younger than anyone was expecting...he also doesn't seem to know what his books are about, and he freaks out anytime that he sees black lines on a white background, which happens surprisingly frequently. His secretary from his old office calls, and he doesn't recognize her voice, which prompts her to call the police, since Dr. Edwards disappeared one day after lunch the previous week, and it's obvious that the man calling himself Dr. Edwards is not Dr. Edwards.
Constance takes "Dr. Edwards" aside and starts playing doctor in the not-fun way. It turns out that the man has amnesia and doesn't know who he is, but he thinks that he killed the real Dr. Edwards. He doesn't want to get Constance involved, so he goes on the run, but she figures out where he is and tells him that they are in this together. Based on her psychoanalyst background, she is sure that he hasn't killed anyone, and she thinks she can help him get his memory back. But only if they can stay ahead of the police who are looking for them.
What I think of the movie
- Before: meh
- After: meh
Spellbound has all the pieces and parts of an epic Hitchcock movie: great music, great actors, epic suspense, the thrill of trying to figure out whether the leading man is a sexy guy, a killer, or a sexy killer, and if that wasn't enough Salvador Dali designed a dream sequence. As a bonus, the two lead actors have incredible chemistry, at a 🌶🌶🌶 level. Nothing happens besides some kissing between people who are covered from their collar bones to their toes, and I got all hot and bothered.
Where it falls apart is that what was then the cutting edge new science of psychoanalysis is yesterday's news to us today. The thing that happened to Dr. Edwards just isn't that interesting, so in the end it is all much ado about nothing. It's a fun ride to nowhere, though, so you could do a lot worse than to watch this movie.
Here's a peek:
Is there a MacGuffin? No
Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No
Is there a Wrong Man theme? Yes
Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No
Does a character have Mommy Issues? No
Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies? The themes of psychoanalysis, having something bad happen in your past, and a character being freaked out by a visual cue were revisited in Marnie 20 years later. Constance and Anthony flee by train, which feels similar to the train escape in North by Northwest.
Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers:
- Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, both in their first Hitchcock movies!
- Leo G. Carroll in the house! As a reminder, we've seen him in NxNW, Strangers on a Train, and Paradine Case and we'll be seeing him at least once more.
- Shoutout to two familiar faces in smaller roles. Norman Lloyd is a patient, and we'll be seeing him in a larger role in Saboteur soon. Wallace Ford is a creepy guy who hits on Constance in the hotel lobby. He walked a fine line between leading man and creepy guy in the early 30s and picked up two small Hitchcock roles in the 40s.
Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes
Rate the Hitchcock cameo! Love it. He's walking through the hotel lobby with a musical instrument.
Lifeboat (1944)
General plot summary and trivia
The movie starts with a ship sinking at sea after being torpedoed, and then cuts to a lifeboat with a very well dressed woman aboard. She is Connie Porter, a famous journalist, and she is filming the wreckage and writing up the story. She is soon joined by a handful of other survivors: Kovac, a very sexy crewman, another wealthy passenger, other assorted members of the crew, a nurse, and a young mother whose baby has just died. Just as everyone is glad to be alive and getting to know each other, a member of the crew of the Uboat who sank them comes aboard the lifeboat. He speaks no English, but Connie speaks German and translates for him. The Lifeboat is in an uproar - do they let the guy who tried to kill them come aboard or do they do what he tried to do to them?
Time passes without rescue and the tension continues to grow between the German sailor and the rest of the lifeboat.
Let's take a look:
Lifeboat was a very topical movie and Hitchcock's first shot at making a movie on a limited set, a theme that he would continue to hone in Rope, Dial M for Murder, and finally Rear Window.
What I think of the movie
- Before: like it
- After: like it
I don't have much to say about Lifeboat: it's a very good movie full of interesting characters. The ending is something that I'm still pondering a few weeks later. There are two ways that a movie about a lifeboat can end, and one of those things is about to happen but the conclusion of the story is about something else.
Let's award bonus points for the first black character in the primary cast that we've had since Topaz in 1969. I'm not sure if there is another. This isn't a dig at Hitchcock, it's just an observation on old Hollywood.
Is there a MacGuffin? Kind of. It has something to do with the ending.
Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No
Is there a Wrong Man theme? No
Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? No
Does a character have Mommy Issues? No
Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies? No
Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers:
The cast is where Lifeboat shines!
- Tallulah Bankhead as Connie. You either know the name or you don't, but she was a legend of her day. She didn't make a ton of movies, so Lifeboat is worth watching for her alone.
- Hume Cronyn was a frequent Hitchcock flier, both as an actor and as a writer. Acting wise, this was his second of two Hitchcocks, and he worked on the screenplays for Rope and Under Capricorn. We saw previously saw his Missus, Jessica Tandy in The Birds.
- Everyone else is terrific.
Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes
Rate the Hitchcock cameo! Love it! Since the movie is set entirely on a lifeboat, he doesn't have a way to casually walk by in the background. At one point one of the characters reads a newspaper, and he is shown in a weight loss ad with before and after pictures.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
General plot summary and trivia
The movie opens in a run down rooming house on the wrong side of the tracks and we meet Charlie, a very good looking, very well dressed, and very obviously disturbed man who is hiding out with wads and wads of cash. His landlady informs him that two men have been persistently asking to see him, which is Charlie's signal to pack up and leave town. On his way out he sends a telegram to his sister saying that he misses her and is coming to see her, and to send love to little Charlie.
We cut to the sister's world and meet the sweet Newton family who live in Santa Rosa: mom Emma, dad Joseph, and three kids. Emma is Charlie's older sister and "little Charlie" is the oldest daughter, a young woman who is navigating the gap between childhood and adulthood. Niece Charlie has the thought that it would be nice if Uncle Charlie came to visit them. She goes to the Western Union office to send him a telegram and has the wonderful surprise of receiving his telegram there with the news that he is already on the way! She and Charlie have always been on the same page and thinking the same thoughts!
Uncle Charlie arrives in Santa Rosa and Niece Charlie is living the dream but almost from the get-go she starts noticing strange things about her uncle. He takes a couple of pages out of the evening paper and throws a fit when she finds them and takes them back before she can read them. She goes to the library and looks at their copy of the paper and to her horror reads about a manhunt for The Merry Widow Murderer who has killed three wealthy widows. Soon enough two strangers come to town and start asking her all kinds of questions about Uncle Charlie. Her beloved Uncle Charlie can't be a killer! And if he is, then he would never hurt his favorite niece Charlie...or would he?
Hitchcock is on record as saying that Shadow of a Doubt was his favorite movie. He got to show the best of small town America and the worst of a serial killer. He finally got to do something that he had been wanting to do since 1926, which was to cast a good looking leading man as a killer. I think that he was able to do it since the actor who plays Uncle Charlie was just starting his movie career and played both leads and supporting roles.
What I think of the movie
- Before: like it
- After: shucks, I love it
I've seen Shadow of a Doubt a few times over the years, and I've always had special feelings for it since my family lived in Santa Rosa. If I only remembered it as a like then that was because it had been too long since my last viewing.
The movie lets us know from the get-go that Charlie is a bad man, and keeps us a few steps ahead of Niece Charlie in finding out how bad he really is. There is always the glaring gap between what we know and what Niece Charlie has found out, so we're terrified for her and her family.
Let's take a look!
Is there a MacGuffin? No
Does anyone get handcuffed in the movie? No
Is there a Wrong Man theme? It's an inverse Wrong Man theme. We know that Charlie is bad but everyone else doubts the clues.
Is it set in/filmed in the Bay Area? Yes! It was shot on location in Santa Rosa
Does a character have Mommy Issues? No
Are there elements of the movie that are similar to other Hitchcock movies? Yes! Finding out that someone you trust is really a killer is a frequent Hitchcock theme.
If we fast forward to Rear Window, we have a ring being a vital piece of evidence. Niece Charlie taunts Uncle Charlie by wearing the forbidden ring to a party, and in Rear Window Lisa hides the ring in plain sight by wearing it.
Actors of note, left handed actors, and actors that were frequent Hitchcock fliers:
- Joseph Cotton as Uncle Charlie, getting full redemption for the mess that was Under Capricorn.
- Hume Cronyn as one of the dad's friends. We previously saw him in Lifeboat.
- Wallace Ford as one of the agents on the hunt for Charlie. We last saw him in Spellbound.
Is this movie OK to show to middle school aged kids? Yes please!
Rate the Hitchcock cameo! It's alright. He's on the train to Santa Rosa, playing poker with a winning hand with a doctor who is asked to check in on Uncle Charlie.
_________
There you go, the latest round in our Hitchcock quest. Lemme know what you've seen and what you think.
Join me next time for more of the First Hollywood Golden Era.
Rebecca (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
Saboteur (1942)
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