Mystery File: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour- Don't Look Behind You (1962) Starring Vera Miles & Jeffrey Hunter

Source:Mystery File- Hollywood Goddess Vera Miles and actor Jeffrey Hunter, on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962.

"Don’t Look Behind You.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 2). First air date: 27 September 1962. Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Abraham Sofaer, Dick Sargent, Alf Kjellin, Ralph Roberts, Mary Scott, Madge Kennedy. Teleplay: Barr� Lyndon, based on a novel by Samuel Rogers. Director: John Brahm...

From Mystery File

"The Alfred Hitchcock Hour S01E02 Don't Look Behind You"

Source:Public Domain Television- Jeffrey Hunter as Harold.

From Public Domain Television

Harold (played by Jeffrey Hunter) I guess is a student of true crime who wants to become a criminal psychologist and is fascinated by it and the little crime spree that's going around his school at this time is perfect for him and he becomes consumed by it.

Daphne (played by Hollywood Goddess Vera Miles) is a doctor and plays Harold's boyfriend. She's late for a dinner party one night and her and her boyfriend arrive separately at the the party and ends up taking a walk in the woods where apparently the killer has been wandering through. Her friends and boyfriend find out about it and give her a hard time about it, even though she doesn't think it's a big deal.

Harold become obsess with this true crime story to the point that it consumes him and he wants to solve the case himself and find out why the killer is committing these crime and get into his head. He tries to get into the mind of the killer to the point that he becomes the killer himself as far as he's acting and at one point tries to kill his girlfriend Daphne and ends up getting arrested and sent to a mental institution.

Vera Miles, was perfect for Alfred Hitchcock, similar to Diana Dors or Grace Kelly, because she was drop-dead gorgeous and yet so adorable that she could seem childlike and yet very sexy as well, and also very smart and witty. Which is why she did both a lot of TV, as well as film work for Hitchcock in the 1950s and 1960s. And continued her career in television in the 1970s making a lot of guess appearances on detective shows, including Hawaii 50, Columbo, Cannon, Mannix, and other shows. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

Alfred Hitchcock: Strangers On a Train 1951- Featuring Ruth Roman

Source:Alamy- Leo Carrol, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker 

"Alamy English Title: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. Film Director: ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Year: 1951. Stars: LEO G. CARROLL; ROBERT WALKER; RUTH ROMAN."

I've been watching a lot of Ruth Roman movies and TV the last couple of months ( TCM, Movies TV Network, and YouTube ) because they've been on and I've had a bit of a crush on her since 2013 when I saw her in Untouchables episode. She has this Elizabeth Taylor quality, because she looks like her, especially with the beautiful black hair and cheeks, but not quite as adorable and more mature, as well as sexier.

I believe the best way to describe Ruth Roman is as a sexier and more mature Liz Taylor. Not saying she's as good as an actress as Liz Taylor, but she does have this Taylor quality that makes you want to see her over and over again, hear her voice over and over again. Unlike the associate who waits on you at the grocery store, Ruth was not an ordinary woman who you would say: "just someone at the grocery store." ( or wherever the place ) she is someone who stands out and grabs your attention.

Saw her in an old episode of Cannon with William Conrad last night where she plays the devoted and overly protective mother of the murderer in that episode, until she realizes that her son was the ringleader of these murders in their small town and then she turns him in. She was already 52 when that episode appeared in 1974, but you wouldn't know that because she still had the beautiful black hair, the big beautiful sweet cheeks, and the sweet voice.

This scene from Strangers on a Train from 1951, which is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best, represents what I'm talking about here. She plays the fiancee of a young and up and coming pro tennis player, who is also a murder suspect that the local Washington Police is keeping an eye on. Bruno ( played by Robert Walker ) is the real murderer here and they meet for the first time in this scene.

Source:Eddie 91: Strangers on a Train 1951- Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker - Farley Granger and his sister in the movie

"Strangers on a Train (1951)   Howard St. John , Leo G. Carroll , Kasey Rogers" 

Alfred Hitch Blog: Wemisse- Vertigo (1958) ‘I Need You To Be Madeline For a While’

Source:Alfred Hitch Blog- Kim Novak, under the Golden Gate Bridge-

Source:The New Democrat

I saw North by Northwest for like the 200th time last night ( not that I’ve been counting ) because it’s my favorite movie and I hadn’t seen in about like an entire year and it has my favorite actor in Cary Grant, as well as my favorite director Alfred Hitchcock. I was just in the mood to see that movie again and watch Cary make a comedian of himself in every basic scene in the movie, with absolutely no direction from Hitch. The scene where he’s climbing out his hospital room and sneaking into another room from by going out his window into another window, is a perfect example of that. So I’m sort of in a Hitchcock mood, plus I love Kim Novak as well.

Source: Paste Magazine- Hollywood Goddess Kim Novak 

 Vertigo is not the perfect movie, but North by Northwest is, but Vertigo has a lot things in it that are perfect. Where the movie takes place and is shot which is San Francisco, which is at least arguably the best looking big city in America, if not the world. You couldn’t shoot a movie in a better looking big city than San Francisco. The director who I don’t need to mention. The two lead characters with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. Kim playing a woman who in many ways is a lot like herself. Sort of shy and lacking in self-confidence. Which is almost impossible to believe when you look at Kim Novak and then she’s also a very good if not great actress as well, because she’s so real and turns herself into the women she plays.

Source: WTOP Radio- Hollywood Goddess Kim Novak

To be familiar with ‘I want you to be Madeline for a while”, you have to be familiar with Vertigo itself. Which should go without saying, but it’s about a man who hires an old classmate of his who is a retired San Francisco police detective ( or inspector ) who is now in retirement completely and I guess living off of his pension, to essentially spy on his wife, because he believes she in some type of trouble. Or that’s what he tells Scottie ( played by Jimmy Stewart ) but really what this is about is Gavin Elster ( played by Tom Helmore ) playing Scottie for a fool and making him believe that Madeline ( played by Kim Novak ) is in love with him. And he falls in love with her and then she suddenly dies in the movie or that is what Gavin and Madeline want Scottie to believe. And he goes crazy and has a nervous breakdown and is not able to communicate at all and even does some time in a rest home to recover from his condition.

And then Madeline comes back, except that Madeline is now Judy Barton ( also played by Kim Novak ) and Scottie sees Judy who he believes strongly resembles Madeline at a store and Scottie is still in love with Madeline and decides he wants Judy to be Madeline and dress like Madeline and go to the same restaurants and places that Scottie and Madeline went to when they had their affair. Except that Judy is really Madeline Elster and she never actually died. She and her husband are just playing this scam on Scottie that he never figures out ( even though he’s a detective ) until the last scene in the movie. Where she actually does die for real.

If I had to do a scale for the best Hitchcock movies of all-time, Vertigo would be like number five. Alfred Hitchcock made a lot of films and made a lot of great films, but North by Northwest, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Dial M For Murder, Family Plot, are all better so Vertigo wouldn’t even be in my top five, but again Hitch made a lot of great movies, so number 6 is actually pretty good. But it had a great cast, great director, the writing is a little cheesy with grown men and women using words like darn with no sense that any of these people are very religious at all and there in San Francisco and in the late 1950s when moderate swearing in Hollywood movies was becoming somewhat noticeable. But it has am iterating plot and Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, are both very entertaining by themselves and Kim is hot, sexy, and adorable enough to get met to watch her in anything that she does.

Source: The Monty An Drew: Vertigo 1958- 'I Want You To Be Madeline For a While'- Jimmy Stewart & Kim Novak

Alfred Hitchcock Presents- The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1961)

Source:The Daily Review

If you’re familiar with the movie Berserk from 1967, The Sorcerer Apprentice should look at least somewhat familiar to you. Diana Dors, is in both films. In Berserk, she plays an assistant to a magician at a circus. In The Sorcerer Apprentice she plays an assistant to a magician at a carnival. In Berserk, she thinks she knows who the killer is. In The Sorcerer, she puts the killer up to killing her husband. In neither film is Diana an angel, she just looks like one in both films. As well as anything else she’s ever done, but that is one of the reasons why she was a great actress. Because she could fool people with her hot baby-face looks and play the killer, or a killer angel as well as it can be played. If you’re familiar with the movie The Unholy Wife, where she tries to frame her husband for killing his best friend, you should have an idea what I’m talking about here.

The Sorcerer Apprentice, looks very entertaining to me, but I’m not sure it is very believable. You have a sick kid (I guess) who should be back in the institution that he escaped from (no joke) who gets picked up off the street by a magician. Who picks him up in real-life and is no trick, (ha hah) who I think can tell this kid is not completely there and is told by the kid that he’s escaped from his home. And decides to take him in anyway instead of reporting him to the proper authorities. (Damn! That sounds corny.) Again Diana, is no angel, she just looks like one and can tell Hugo (the kid) likes her and is attractive to her and she’s cheating on her magical husband (lets say) the magician and wants to move on from him. And tries to put the kid up to killing her husband. The kid is at least 4-5 beers short of s six-pack and thinks this would be fun or something.

You would think this couple having seen this kid and figuring out that he’s not completely there and needs close supervision (to put it mildly) and are less qualified to take care of kids than the guy who freaks out when he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant with his baby and ditches her, that they could give him a bite to eat, find out where he came from, if not turn him in and move on. But instead they keep him around even though they are too busy to take care of him and probably don’t want to either. But no! That could be too boring for the great Alfred Hitchcock. Instead of making it a boring everyday story, they make a killer out of this gorgeous baby-face wife whose cheating on her husband with a high-wire artist (whose probably scared of heights) and this unfortunate boy. Who perhaps nobody wants to take care of him and has really no one who loves him. Just one example of why Alfred Hitchcock was such a great director.

Stephen Reginald: 'Screening of Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (November 10, 2015)'

Source:The Daily Review

Alfred Hitchcock, is probably my favorite director. He is certainly my favorite suspense/thriller director and action/comedy director, dramatic/comedy director and even suspense/comedy director. He combined comedy with all of the different genres that his movies covered. And if I had to put a list of my top ten Hitchcock movies, I don't believe The Man Who Knew Too Much would be on it. It would be behind North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Charade, several of his short films from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour like Run For Doom, with the great Diana Dors. But that is the thing about Hitchcock, he made so many great movies that even if one of them isn't in your Hitchcock top ten that doesn't mean that movie isn't also a great movie. It just means it isn't as good as the others that are on the list.

When you're talking about great leads which are the lead actor and lead actress in a movie, I think you would have a hard time finding a better combination than Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day and then add that Alfred Hitchcock as their director. Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, are perfect for Hitch, because they are both great actors, entertainers, both very funny and very versatile. And of course in Doris Day's case she is a hot baby-faced adorable sexy blonde, but who was also a hell of an actress that Hitch loved. So they were both perfect for Hitchcock and this movie. Doris Day, in real-life is seventeen years younger than Jimmy Stewart. She still looks great today and was thirty when she did this movie. Jimmy Stewart was in his late forties at this point, but they were still great together.

The Man Who Knew Too Much, is about a vacationing American family in Morocco. Dr. Ben McKenna (played by Jimmy Stewart) and his wife Jo McKenna, (played by Doris Day) who is a singer. Their son Hank, (played by Christopher Olsen) is kidnapped by terrorists in Morocco. They meet a Frenchman in Morocco Louis Bernard, (played by Daniel Gelin) and have dinner with him. Bernard, is actually an intelligence agent for the French Republic. He is killed by these terrorists after having dinner with the McKenna's. And the terrorists tell Dr. McKenna over the phone that if he and his wife don't talk to the police, they won't kill their son Hank. And that is how this movie gets going with Dr. McKenna trying to get his son back, while at the same time preventing his wife from knowing what is really going on. She thinks their son has just been kidnapped by local thugs.

This is not a great movie, at least from my perspective. I don't think it is very believable that terrorists would target the son of an American doctor simply because the kid's parents talked to a French intelligence agent. That tells me they had no idea who this American couple was. It would be one thing if they kidnapped the kid, because their parents are a wealthy American couple and they want ransom. But there doesn't seem to be any financial motivation at all in this movie. But it is a very entertaining movie. Doris Day, is her usable hot sexy adorable self, especially as she finds out that her son has just been kidnapped. Jimmy Stewart, is his usual charming Mr. Joe Average self, who does a great job of playing an average guy in a very complicated situation. And this is a very entertaining movie.

Dejan Jancovic: Masters of Cinema 1972: Pia Lindstrom Interviewing Alfred Hitchcock

Source:Dejan Jancovic: Masters of Cinema 1972: Pia Lindstrom Interviewing Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock, is the master of suspense and perhaps the master of entertainment when it comes to movies. Because here’s a director who can scare the hell out of you and make you laugh hysterically in the same scene. North by Northwest from 1959 is probably the best example of this. Where you have a mystery suspense Cold War movie involving espionage and yet it is also a very funny movie. With funny sarcastic lines and characters in each scene of the movie. With people cracking jokes as they’re facing life and death consequences. Cary Grant, with the quip about he has dinner and theater plans right as he’s being kidnapped. And saying how inconvenient the kidnapping is for him.

Not sure you could put together a better comedic team when it comes to actor and director than Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. They were like Magic and Kareem, to use an NBA basketball analogy as far as the professional chemistry that they had together especially when it came to humor. They shared the exact same off the cuff out of nowhere sense of humor where they could both make fun of practically anything. What I love about Hitchcock, is that he gave you best of everything when it came to his movies and put everything that he had to offer on a lot of those movies. North by Northwest, my favorite Hitchcock as well as my favorite movie of all-time, is a perfect example of that.

Hitchcock, gave you mystery, suspense, drama, comedy, action and even horror, in the same movie. And he seemed to be the best at all of these types of films at least when he put them all together. North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief, are both mystery suspense movies and yet they are also both very funny. With funny people and a lot of funny lines, funny scenes and with Cary Grant, comedic improvising. And maybe Hitchcock is where I get a lot of my humor as well. He wanted to scare people and then would use humor and charm, perhaps so he wouldn’t lose his audience, but also because that is exactly how he was personally. If you listen to him narrate his TV series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour you see him almost doing standup as his talks about his shows. Hitchcock, is the master of suspense thriller, but he’s also one of the best comedic directors of all-time as well.

Alfred Hitchcock TV Series: Video: Captive Audience Alfred Hitchcock

Source:The New Democrat

The Captive Audience, is about a man Warren Barrow, played by James Mason, who is a mystery writer, who at the very least wants his publisher to believe that he’s going to kill his girlfriend’s husband and then later his girlfriend, Janet West, played by Angie Dickinson. And sends his publisher, Victor Hartman, played by Arnold Moss, what today would be called a cassette book. Barrow, has written a book on tape about the murders that he wants his publisher to believe that he’s committed. Barrow, at the very least, is unstable, after losing his wife in a car accident and suffering brain injuries that he’s never recovered from.

Victor Hartman, brings in one of his other writers, Tom Keller, played by Ed Nelson, to listen to Barrow’s self-confession tapes, to see what Keller thinks of the tapes. Hartman and Keller, are trying to figure out whether Barrow has just completed his latest murder mystery, or is he serious about murdering these two people. His girlfriend and her husband. They decide that Barrow is serious about these murders and even talk to him about his book. And give him some constructive criticism about his book. Barrow, being unstable, doesn’t take the criticism well and freaks out about it. And takes it as if Hartman and Keller simply don’t understand the book.

Angie Dickinson, is hardly an angel on this show. Just looks like one, but her character Janet West, is married to a wealthy man whose old enough to be her father and she’s not in love with him. She uses men to get what she wants and uses Barrow as well and doesn’t love him either. And this is all part of why Barrow is at the very least considering murdering her. He’s very unstable and doesn’t handle rejection and being used very well. They do a very good job with this episode of not making it clear whether Barrow actually murders his girlfriend, or is this simply part of his book. He’s writing a murder mystery that actually doesn’t happen in real-life. And its one of the better murder mysteries that I at least, have ever seen.

CBS: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour- Murder Case 1964: Starring Gena Rowlands and John Casavetas

Source: The Daily Journal- Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetas, starring on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1964. 

Source:The New Democrat

This is one of the better episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, simply because of the people in it. You have two up incoming actors Diana Justin, ( played by Hollywood Goddess Gena Rowlands ) and Lee Griffin, ( played by John Cassavetes ) who were once a couple themselves, who meet again on set in London for a play they’re in. They discover that they’re still hot for each other and want to get back together. The problem is, Diana is married to Charles Justin. ( Played by Murray Matheson ) Charles, is a very wealthy jewelry dealer, who is also old enough to be Diana’s father. To put it mildly, Diana is not with Charles because she loves him. But that is fine with Charles, as long as she makes him feel good.

This new couple, sets out to murder Diana’s husband. They fail once with the breaks in Charles’s car and try it again. Another thing I like about this show, is Charles is not rich, because he’s stupid, or dense. He knows that Diana and Lee are back together and might even try something dangerous. Which is why he sends his wife on vacation to get her away from her boyfriend. Diana, figures out that Charles is on to her, but Charles still wants her. And if you’re familiar with Gena Rowlands, you can easily see why. Doesn’t take a genius, or even someone with average intelligence to figure it out. And Charles, is not going to give up his goddess wife without a clean fight.

Murder Case, despite its simplistic and dull as a brand new pencil title, is one of the better episodes in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour series. It has a great cast and a great plot. Normally in shows like this when the older wealthy husband figures out that his young gorgeous sexy wife, is having an affair with a young man, he dumps his wife as soon as he can. He hires detectives, he gets all the evidence that he needs to get a clean divorce. So he doesn’t have to pay his cheating wife anything. But Charlie, fights for his wife and knows exactly what is going on all the way up to the end. And is just one example of why this is such a great show.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Run For Doom (1963) Starring John Gavin & Diana Dors

Source:The New Democrat

I think Run For Doom is Alfred Hitchcock at his best because you see the full-scale of what he wanted to give his audience. A suspense/thriller involving people who were not saints or angels and not devils either, but real people who tend to be somewhere in between. With clever writing and a lot of humor and the female lead being a goddess. A gorgeous sexy women who is also very adorable and yet very clever and witty. Which is Diane Dors at her best, Jayne Mansfield who was also on this series and several other women who appeared on this series.

Run For Doom is about a nightclub singer with a bad history of marriages and relationships where the men in her life do not survive the relationship. And she walks away with a lot of money from the experiences. Diana Dors plays Nikki Carroll the nightclub singer and she’s performing one night and is introduced to a young doctor. Dr. Don Reed played by John Gavin and they naturally hit it off. Reed being a doctor is probably Nikki’s main interest him, but he’s a young doctor who doesn’t have a lot of money yet.

Dr. Reed has an ailing very wealthy father and his relationship with Nikki goes well enough for him to want to marry Nikki. Reed has gotten several warnings about Nikki’s history with men and her dead husbands and is warned not to pursue her. But I guess he’s blinded by his love for a women who doesn’t love him and decided to propose and marry her anyway. Reed’s father dies after finding out that his son is going to marry Nikki and now Reed is a very wealthy man. And naturally Nikki looses personal interest in Reed and looks to get out of the marriage.

Nikki has something that she can blackmail her husband on. Dr. Reed accidentally killed someone on their honeymoon by pushing a man over the cruise boat that they were on. And they didn’t bother to report the incident. Nikki tells the doctor to give her his money or she’ll report the killing to the police. Nikki also has a long-term on and off again boyfriend who wants her back. And knows what she is up to with her husband and decides to step in to get a piece of the action. And they have a physical struggle that leads to him strangling her and thinking he killed her.

To be honest with you, Diana Dors was the main reason why I’m so interested in this show. But it is a very entertaining and at times a pretty funny show as well. With Diana playing a women that is so cunning personally and bright and yet she looks too sweet and cute to hurt, let alone kill anyone. And yet she has a history of dead boyfriends and husbands. But in this marriage she is the one who doesn’t survive the affair.

CBS: Video: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Lonely Hours, From 1963

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

The Lonely Hours is about a couple that has a spare room to rent. Even though we never see the husband in this show. But this couple with Gena Rowlands playing the wife have three kids together. A women who sees their ad in the paper I guess played by Nancy Kelly, stops by to rent the room at the Henderson’s house. She also ends up becoming the kids babysitter even though Mrs. Henderson has done no research on the women who is renting her bedroom. And has no idea who she is, about her history and what she’s doing there.

Nancy Kelly plays a very lonely women who almost falls in love with the Henderson baby. Sounds strange but loves this baby so much that she now believes the baby is actually hers and even kidnaps the baby. And that is what Mrs. Henderson finally wakes up and realizes that the new women is not right and something really bad is going and sets out find her and get her baby back. Gena Rowlands not only looks like a goddess on this show with her hot baby-face looks and tall sexy body. But she’s also a hell of an actress and does a great job of playing the loving mother protecting her family from a sick dangerous women.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Hangover (1962) With Tony Randall & Jayne Mansfield

Source:The New Democrat

A chance to see Jayne Mansfield with short hair. Don’t worry, she’s still baby-face adorable and hot with short hair. Tony Randall plays a talented, but alcoholic advertiser who’s drinking has gone too far to the point that it costs him his job, which is a very good job and his wife. And as well as his memory where he doesn’t remember the night before. Where he gets kicked out of a bar, screws up his presentation at work for one of his clients and wife walks out on him. He also forgets about an affair he had with Marion played by Jayne Mansfield.

He actually shows up at work the next morning thinking everything is normal and that nothing incredible happened the night before. He doesn’t even remember being fired and is wondering what Marion is doing at his home the next morning. He shows up to work locked out of his office where they tell him again that he was fired. And essentially spends the rest of the day trying to figure out what happened the day before.

As Alfred Hitchcock said on this show himself, this was about showing people the dangers of alcoholism, which I’m even surprised that term was even around in the early 1960s. And would assume that people who were alcoholics were considered to be mentally weak and not people with disease that needed serious treatment. But alcoholism causes Hadley Purvis played by Tony Randall his job and his wife and he loses his temper and takes it out on Marion.

Movie Clips: Vertigo (1958) Kim Novak & Jimmy Stewart: 'Let's Wander Together'

Source:Movie Clips- Hollywood Goddess Kim Novak, as Madeline in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

From Movie Clips

I could simply listen and watch Kim Novak until Israel and Palestine came to peace and agreed to a two-state solution. There's just something about her voice and those eyes and cheeks that just makes me want to go "aw, she's so sweet and sexy". Angie Dickinson who is from the same generation as Kim has the exact same effect on me. And not only that, but her movies were really good and she worked for and with great people like Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. So you got to see her in great roles. 

This scene right here is just coming after Madeline spending the night or a big part of the night at Scottie's apartment in San Francisco the nigh before. They were complete strangers, but she fell into the San Francisco Bay and Scottie rescued her and brought her back to his place. He was paid by her husband to follow her because the husband claimed to be worried about her mental condition. 

What Scottie wasn't aware of was that a lot of this was part of a big act that the husband was setting up to cover up a murder. And they were using Scottie in this process. 

You can also see this post at The Daily Press, on Blogger.

Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo (1958) Starring Jimmy Stewart & Kim Novak

Source:Movie Clips- the official trailer for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, (1958) according to Movie Clips.

"CLIP DESCRIPTION:

A San Francisco detective (James Stewart) suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

FILM DESCRIPTION:

Dismissed when first released, later heralded as one of director Alfred Hitchcock's finest films (and, according to Hitchcock, his most personal one), this adaptation of the French novel D'entre les morts weaves an intricate web of obsession and deceit. It opens as Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) realizes he has vertigo, a condition resulting in a fear of heights, when a police officer is killed trying to rescue him from falling off a building. Scottie then retires from his position as a private investigator, only to be lured into another case by his old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore). Elster's wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), has been possessed by a spirit, and Elster wants Scottie to follow her. He hesitantly agrees, and thus begins the film's wordless montage as Scottie follows the beautiful yet enigmatic Madeleine through 1950s San Francisco (accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's hypnotic score). After saving her from suicide, Scottie begins to fall in love with her, and she appears to feel the same way. Here tragedy strikes, and each twist in the movie's second half changes our preconceptions about the characters and events. In 1996 a new print of Vertigo was released, restoring the original grandeur of the colors and the San Francisco backdrop, as well as digitally enhancing the soundtrack."

Source:Movie Clips

I wouldn't say that Vertigo is a great movie, especially not a great Alfred Hitchcock film. There are at least three others and probably more Hitchcock movies that are better. North by Northwest my favorite, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief, and I'm sure others are definitely better than Vertigo. Vertigo is not Kim Novak's best movie either. But Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart made Vertigo a very good and entertaining movie almost by themselves by how they worked together and the chemistry they had.

Vertigo does have a very good plot. Jimmy Stewart plays a former San Francisco police detective who is now in semi-retirement. His old buddy from I believe college gets a hold of him with a job for him, but now as a private detective. His old friend who hasn't seen a long time is a very wealthy San Francisco businessman who has a gorgeous, baby-face, goddess, of a wife Madeline (played Kim Novak). He wants Scottie (played by Jimmy Stewart) to believe that his wife is going crazy and wants her to tail her to see what she does during the day.

What Scottie isn't aware of is that this couple is using him and is in on a murder plot. They want Scottie to think that Madeline (played by Kim Novak) is dead. When the fact is she is alive and well and comes back in the movie playing another character that just happens to meet Scottie. And Scottie is blown away by her because of the incredible resemblance and falls in lover with the same woman again. A very interesting and good movie, but certainly not the best Hitchcock movie.  

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on Blogger.

Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window (1954) Starring Jimmy Stewart

Source:Turner Classic Movies- Jimmy Stewart as Jeff.

"A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building."  

From Turner Classic Movies 

"A wheelchair bound photographer (James Stewart) spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder."  

Source:Movie Clips- Jimmy Stewart as Jeff.

From Movie Clips

Rear Window might be the best not so believable movie I've ever seen. . It's about Jeff (Jimmy Stewart), a photographer  in a wheelchair with a broken leg solving a murder, practically. on his own.  He gets some help from his girlfriend (Amazing Grace Kelly) and his nurse (Thelma Ritter).  It's not, you know,  the most believable plot ever written.

Jeff has a friend (Wendell Corey) who's a lieutenant in the NYPD.  The lieutenant is the only person in the movie who has any real life, detective or police experience.  Jeff has a theory about how a supposed murder goes down in the apartment across the courtyard from his.  The lieutenant doesn't believe Jeff's theory.

The movie takes place in Greenwich Village in the middle of one of those famous humid heat waves  they get every summer.  Jeff has nothing to do all day but to look out the window, talk to his nurse (Thelma Ritter) when she comes by to check on him, and, of course, hangout with his hot sexy baby-faced girlfriend (Grace Kelly) when she comes by at night.

From his window, Jeff notices some strange things going on in the apartment across the courtyard.  A woman who's sick and confined to her bed is suddenly missing.  Her husband (Raymond Burr) does strange things at night.  He goes out with a suitcase when it's raining and comes back shortly thereafter.  Jeff thinks there's something suspicious in the suitcase, like the body parts of the missing wife. He wants his detective friend to look into it.

All the while, Jeff thinks his girlfriend is too perfect for him, his job being very stable.  He's always traveling.  He thinks that they would both be better off keeping things as they are.  She wants to marry him and that is not a commitment that Jeff wants to make.  He just wants to recover from the broken leg and go back to work and have his girlfriend available.

This movie stretches credibility but it is very well written and has a great cast, Jimmy Stewart, Wendell Corey, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr and others.  It has a lot of great humor, especially between the lieutenant and Jeff.  The cop sees his friend as an amateur sleuth, at best, and makes fun of him.   He's doing his best to show that Jeff only has a theory and a weak circumstantial case.  It becomes a great murder mystery. 

You can also see this post at The Daily Journal, on Blogger.

Movie Clips: Alfred Hitchcock- Family Plot 1976: Barbara Harris, Karen Black, Bruce Dern & William Devane

Source: Movie Clips-

Source:Movie Clips

Lets say you have a movie with William Devane, Bruce Dern, Ed Lauter (the best character actor that no one knows, except for me, just kidding) Karen Black and Barbara Harris.  It's also important to know that the movie is directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  How could this movie go wrong?  Who could  possibly screw it up, a with a cast like that?  These are just the main famous names in the movie. It's like the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers.  How do you not win the Super Bowl with what they had to work with on both sides of the ball and Chuck Knoll as the head coach?

If there ever was a great director that everyone wanted to work with, great actors and actresses alike, it was Alfred Hitchcock.  This gave him the power to put together any type of movie he wanted and to assemble the cast he really wanted for any film that he wanted to make. That's what power is in Hollywood and Hitch had it.  He was such a great director because he always had a great cast to work with.

Family Plot is about Eddie Shoebridge (William Devane) who wants to escape from his life and takes off without telling anyone where he is going.  He comes from a wealthy, somewhat famous, family and is a bit of a  jewel thief.  He also just happens to run or own a jewelry store, which is perfect for his other job.  His  grandmother wants to find him before she dies and hires two, at best, amateur detectives for the job.  They are wannabe actor George (Bruce Dern), whose day job is cab driver, and his girlfriend (Barbara Harris), who's a wannabe psychic.

Shoebridge and his wife (Karen Black, R.I.P.) do not want to be discovered and quickly find out from one of their associates (Ed Lauter) that this couple is looking for them.  Shoebridge hires Ed Lauter's character to kill the couple.  He fails and the couple spend the rest of the movie tracking down the Shoebridges and George's girlfriend does exactly that before the Shoebridges kidnap her.

For a pair of amateur detectives, George and his girlfriend, who in their other lives aren't very successful at anything, do a hell of a job catching the Shoebridges, who've gone out of their way not to be discovered by anyone from Eddie's past.  This movie, typical for Hitch, has a lot of great humor, twist and turns of plot, including the kidnapping and the cab driver's rescue of his girlfriend and the nailing of the Shoebridges.  They finished the job they were hired to do.

Movie Clips: To Catch a Thief (1955) Starring Cary Grant & Grace Kelly

Source:Movie Clips

To Catch a Thief is neither the best Alfred Hitchcock movie of all time nor the best Cary Grant movie of all time but I believe it is the best Grace Kelly movie of all time and that includes Rear Window and Dial M For Murder.  It showcases all of her great talents, the hot baby-face, her great sex appeal, her charm, her wit, and her dramatic abilities.  She was the perfect actress for Alfred Hitchcock because he wanted serious movies that were humorous.  Cary Grant was perfect for him as well.

Cary Grant plays John Robey, a retired jewel thief living on the French Riviera. He was so successful as a jewel thief that he doesn't have to work anymore.  Every time there's a string of jewel robberies in his new home, law enforcement suspects him, which is exactly what happens in this movie. A new cat burglar strikes Mediterranean France, the legal authorities bring him in for questioning, and he escapes from them.

Robey concludes that the only way to get out of this is to find the real burglar himself.  Thats where Grace Kelly comes in.  Her character, Francy, is the daughter of  a woman who owns a lot of very expensive jewelry and they just happen to be vacationing in the south of France at the time of these new jewel robberies.  Robey needs them to play decoys to get the cat burglar to strike again.  He befriends them, believing they are the next targets.

John Robey's plan here is to catch the real cat burglar when this person strikes his target so he can get in the clear and move on with his life.  There are a lot of great suspense and action scenes in this movie as well as Cary and Grace taking a lot of humorous verbal shots at each other.  Once she learns that Robey was a cat burglar, she believes he's still in business and tries to use this to start a romance with him but his goal is to catch the real thief, even if that means using innocent people like this mother-daughter duo.

Movie Clips Trailer Vault: North by Northwest (1959) Starring Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint

Source: Movie Clips Trailer Vault- Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint-

Source:Movie Clips Trailer Vault

North by Northwest is my favorite movie of all time.  Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time and Alfred Hitchcock is probably my favorite director of all time.  I have a couple versions of this movie on DVD, saw it on Turner Classic Movies a couple of nights ago and again on  DVD last might.  I decided to write a blog about it today because I've been thinking about it a lot. This movie is Cary Grant, perhaps the best comedic actor of all time, at his best.

North by Northwest has all the ingredients of a great Hitchcock movie. A great plot, great writing, great cast,  Hitchcock's sense of humor, that Cary Grant shares, and James Mason. The very sexy and beautiful Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, The Russians are Coming) has a big role in the movie. According to my father, she's smarter, sexier, and more beautiful than Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe.  She reminds him of my mother.

Then, there's Jessie Royce Landis who plays Roger Thornhill's (Cary Grant) mother, a great smart ass,  even though she's only four years older.

The movie is a Cold War thriller about a man, Van Damme (James Mason), who exports American weapons and national security secrets.  Thornhill gets caught up in it, accidentally, and you have a great movie.

Thornhill is a charming playboy New York advertising man who's just living his life as a very successful businessman.  He's kidnapped by Van Damme's henchmen at a New York bar.  They believe he has inside information about Van Damme's organization.

The Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill but he gets away.  He tries to get back in touch with Van Damme and instead connects with Lester Townsend, someone Van Damme had pretended to be.  The Van Damme crew, trying to murder Thornhill, instead murder Townsend.  They believe he also knows something about their organization that they want kept secret.  Thornhill is now not only on the run from Van Damme and company but also fron the NYC PD, the New York State PD, and  the Feds.

Thornhill once again escapes and is now on the run from everyone because of the murder he didn't commit.  This time, he escapes by train where he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who just happens to be an undercover Federal agent pretending to work for Philipp Van Damme.  She's actually working to bring down Van Damme's and his organization.  She has Thornhill believing she's on his side and helping him to escape.  She's actually just using him.

This movie starts in New York, moves to Chicago and then Indiana where the Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill and Thornhill is trying to meet the real George Kaplan to find out what this whole thing is about. The problem is that George Kaplan doesn't exist.  Back to Chicago Thornhill gets arrested again, thinking that he would be safer with the police than on the run. The Feds grab him instead and use him to help bering down Van Damme and company in Rapid City where Philipp Van Damme has a home. This is one of the best action suspense comedies you'll ever see.

Movie Clips: Vertigo (1958) Judy Jumps

Source:Movie Clips- Jimmy Stewart, playing Scottie (the man with Vertigo) in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

"CLIP DESCRIPTION: Scottie (James Stewart) accuses Judy (Kim Novak) of murder in the bell tower; they are surprised by a nun and Judy jumps to her death."  

From Movie Clips

The movie Vertigo had several sad scenes.  Madeline, played by Kim Novak, supposedly dies  and Scotty, played by Jimmy Stewart, who was in love with Madeline,  is committed to a mental hospital because of his reaction to her death.  But Judy, also played by Kim Novak, a goddess of a women dies for real.  She is my favorite character in the movie because with all the supposed freedom in the world,  she was so vulnerable.

Movie Clips: Vertigo (1958) Judy Become Madeleine

Source:Movie Clips- Hollywood Goddess Kim Novak as Madeline.

"CLIP DESCRIPTION:

Scottie (James Stewart) convinces Judy (Kim Novak) to do her hair like Madeleine and is overwhelmed by her appearance." 

From Movie Clips 

Scotty (played by Jimmy Stewart) falls in love with Madeleine (played by Kim Novak) who also happens to be the wife of a client of Scotty's, who is a private detective conducting and investigation of Madeleine for Madeleine's husband. Madeleine apparently dies but not really and Scotty finds a woman who looks a lot like Madeleine, only she has red hair instead of blonde and he becomes obsessed with Judy the red head because she reminds her so much of Madeleine, but Judy and Madeleine are the same woman. 

The whole plot of this film, is really a scam that Scotty's client and his wife try to pull against Scotty. And they almost get away with it. It's only till the final scene that Scotty, even though he was a veteran San Francisco, big city police detective, finally puts it all together. 

You can also see this post at The Daily Press, on Blogger.