The past two seasons we have focused entirely on female actors. This was initially chosen for our first season because my thought process was that so often when you see retrospectives on the careers of cinematic artists, it's almost always on directors, and directors, particularly in Classic Hollywood, tend to be male. This was why I chose under-sung Classic Hollywood leading ladies for our first season. The second season was focused on Classic Hollywood sex symbols, and how they were oftentimes given lesser material, some of which they elevated and some of which they failed to do so. While there were a couple of male sex symbols that might have fit this bill (Harry Belafonte & Tab Hunter come to mind), I ended up going with all women in Season 2. To quote Adele, "I believe in trilogies," and so for Season 3 we will have one final season that will feature twelve different actresses, all leading ladies ranging from the late Silent Era stretching into the 1980's, but we will do so with a catch. While we will have 12 women whose careers we will focus on this season, we will do so with one man standing as a through line to the season: Alfred Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock had one of the most impressive careers as a director you could possibly imagine, making feature length films from 1925 to 1976, a span of fifty years. During that time frame, Hitchcock enjoyed particular peaks of creative & financial success, but his movies remained important and influential throughout. As a result, he's the rare filmmaker that cinephiles might have seen all of his movies. However, he made a lot of them, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that you've seen most of Hitch's films...only to realize that you, in fact, have only seen 30-40% of the films.
Hitchcock also had a very complicated history with women. Unlike a lot of directors of the era, he almost never had a movie where there wasn't a key role for a female lead, and oftentimes the female lead was the most important role in the picture. Hitch's relationship with his leading ladies, though, frequently crossed the line into sadistic or sexually inappropriate. While we're going to be celebrating the women that make up his filmography, and by proxy the director himself, I'm not going to shy away from the very public comments some of these actresses have made about Hitchcock, and what it was like to film with him-we're taking his genius, but also the very, very flawed man behind it, for a journey this season.
I will be continuing my trend of looking at actresses' entire careers during these months, but for every one of these stars we will focus on at least one Hitchcock picture (that "at least" is for one actress who led two of his films we'll profile). For some of these women, Hitchcock's movie with them was the most important of their careers-for others a mere speed bump (and in the case of one, a bit of an embarrassment). We will also, however, stick to my trend of only focusing on films that I either haven't seen or haven't seen in decades (and thus have no memory of)-this means that certain actresses where I've seen all of their work with Hitchcock aren't going to be included. Big stars such as Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, Kim Novak, and Eva Marie Saint are not going to show up this season as I've seen every film they did with Hitch, even if they might make interesting subjects. Additionally, with one tiny exception (because I wanted one star to get a fifth Saturday since her filmography is so long), we'll go completely chronologically, and thus our first star will be in a very early Hitchcock picture.
The thing about this is, though, that we'll only get me 13 pictures off of the Hitchcock list this way, and that leaves me with 24 more films to watch (technically 25, but The Mountain Eagle is lost so if you're complaining then you better come armed with a print for us both to watch). So for this season, we're going to have "Sunday Leftovers" for Saturdays with the Stars focused entirely on Hitchcock's remaining filmography. I will be watching the remaining Hitch films, and on every other Sunday starting January 30th (we'll wait the first month so that it won't be obvious who the next month's star will be), I will be taking a look at the ones I haven't seen chronologically. Therefore, we'll not only get to talk about twelve incredibles actresses, but also I will officially be able to say I've seen every (non-lost) movie Hitchcock ever made. The year of Hitchcock's Leading Ladies will commence in a fortnight!
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