Top 10 Films of 2021 (that aren't from 2021)

All right, we are officially going to be doing two days to close 2021 today.  While we won't be bidding adieu to the year exactly (Oscar predictions are to come, and of course we'll eventually get to the 2021 OVP when Oscar gives us his nominees), but today we'll be doing my Top 10 lists of the year.  As is tradition for a blog that focuses a lot on classic movies, we're not going to start with movies from 2021's calendar year (that's tomorrow), but instead we're going to focus on movies that I saw for the first time in 2021.  As you can imagine if you've been playing along this year, our Saturdays with the Stars project (which focused principally on the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock) meant that the Master of Suspense is going to be well-represented here (I saw, for the record, 351 movies in 2021, a personal best, but Hitch was by far my most-watched director).  Weirdly, though, our series of Saturday with the Stars also resulted in a different director getting a double dip below.  I won't keep you waiting any longer-here are the (alphabetical...choosing this lot was hard enough) list of the films I saw for the first time in 2021:

The Children's Hour (1961)

dir. William Wyler

More modern than I expected, and definitely more sympathetic than I'd have guessed, The Children's Hour is a splendid achievement.  The whole cast is giving it their A-Game, though none more than Shirley MacLaine (criminally snubbed at the Oscars) for a woman who increasingly cannot tell truth from fiction.

Dead End (1937)

dir. William Wyler

Weirdly modern given its release date & studio, Dead End is a wonderful ensemble look at the day in the life of a series of jaded New York City slums, as every character faces consequences & realities that they aren't prepared for.  Best of the lot are Humphrey Bogart & Claire Trevor, the latter in just a few minutes of screen-time giving us decades of history in every urgent stare.

The Innocents (1961)

dir. Jack Clayton

Completely shocking, and genuinely terrifying (not just 1960's scary...watch this alone at your peril).  This might be the best performance I've ever seen from Deborah Kerr (leave it to Oscar to nominate her regularly for routine work & then skip when she's seismic), and the sound is of another dimension.  You won't be able to forget it.

Journey to Italy (1954)

dir. Roberto Rosellini

A deceptively simple, but persistently devastating look at a marriage on the rocks.  Sanders is perfectly cast as an insecure cynic, Bergman is mesmerizing as a woman at a crossroads, but perhaps the best part is the way that Rossellini consistently uses a war-ravaged (real world) Italy as a metaphor for their fractured union.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

A genuinely compelling mystery, one that starts out as a Grand Hotel-style ensemble before giving us one of Hitchcock's funniest thrillers.  The mystery will keep you guessing, the cast never disappoints...this is perhaps Hitchcock's earliest true masterpiece.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

dir. Preston Sturges

Genuinely wonderful little charmer, with great (dare I say Oscar-worthy?) performances from Hutton, her sister Diana Lynn (a riot), and her father William Demarest.  Madcap (this is not an "on in the background" screwball), but totally worth it.

Moonrise (1948)

dir. Frank Borzage

Moodily lensed by cinematography legend John Russell, Moonrise is a bleak, gorgeously-shot film noir with a cascade of marvelous performances.  If you've always thought Ethel Barrymore was a bit too "stage-y" in her film roles, watch this-it'll make you a believer (here is the role she should've won that Oscar for).

Rope (1948)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Totally fascinating editing, completely gay-Dall & Granger are flawless together as killers (and probably lovers) with very different agendas.  Hitchcock rarely shied away from implied sex, and this movie has it in a ticking clock mystery where the cast is so good even Jimmy Stewart sometimes finds himself upstaged.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

One of the many undersung Hitchcock deep cuts I watched this year, Shadow of a Doubt is a nasty, delicious affair where Joseph Cotten (marvelous) ruthlessly torments & manipulates his confused niece (a never better Teresa Wright).  Everything about this movie works.

La Strada (1954)

dir. Federico Fellini

A glorious, foundational movie, one that continues to reverberate after you leave the theater, understanding the cruel ways that the film's plot doles out reality (cause ultimately that's what this movie is about, the reality of what matters and how we don't understand it until it's gone).  Masina is otherworldly as the tragic Gelsomina.

Saturdays with the Stars Season 3 Finale

Two of our stars, Shirley & Grace

With this past week's viewing of The Seduction fo Joe Tynan, we are officially done with our third season of "Saturdays with the Stars."  I really like to find a moment before I start the new season (which, unlike past seasons, I haven't told you the theme of & will be doing so in the coming days, as we will indeed do a fourth season starting on Saturday) to discuss the season, talking about what I learned, and also focusing on some of the best of the year's movies/performances.

When I decided to do this theme, I wanted to see how it would turn out picking twelve women who had really nothing in common other than Alfred Hitchcock.  You couldn't find stars as divergent in the way that cinematic history or even contemporary audiences treated them as, say, Maureen O'Hara & Barbara Harris or Shirley MacLaine & Margaret Lockwood.  Hitchcock wasn't always successful with his leading ladies, but it does show what a versatile director he was that he continually tried new things, occasionally making masterpieces but just as often strange curiosities.

It also showed, especially in our month devoted to Tippi Hedren, how Hitchcock's legacy is at once peerless in quality but blemished by the director himself.  Hitchcock was a complicated man, one who brought the downfall of a career or two (Hedren's career, as we discussed, never flourished the way it might have with a less authoritarian mentor), but who also clearly made some of the best films ever made.  What was great about this year was not just focusing on him, but getting to see unknown chapters in these twelve women's lives (I love that I stick to the rule of seeing only films I haven't seen before, because it means every week I get to see a new facet of an actor I thought I knew well, but frequently have my perceptions changed).  As I continue to watch deeper and deeper cuts from Old Hollywood (after three seasons devoted to it on the blog, it seems like watching fresh viewings demands getting into the rafters of these icons' IMDB pages), I am reminded once again how this period of Hollywood has countless movies & careers left to explore.  Thank you so much for playing along!

Favorite Performance from Each Star

January: Madeleine Carroll-The General Died at Dawn

February: Sylvia Sidney-Sabotage

March: Margaret Lockwood-Cast a Dark Shadow

April: Maureen O'Hara-Rio Grande

May: Carole Lombard-Twentieth Century

June: Anne Baxter-The Luck of the Irish

July: Ingrid Bergman-Autumn Sonata

August: Grace Kelly-Dial M for Murder

September: Shirley MacLaine-The Children's Hour

October: Julie Andrews-Thoroughly Modern Millie

November: Tippi Hedren-Marnie

December: Barbara Harris-Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical, and based solely on the films we watched as a collective & not on the rest of their careers)

Ingrid Bergman

Barbara Harris

Margaret Lockwood

Carole Lombard

Shirley MacLaine

5 (err-6, I couldn't corner down) Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Ingrid Bergman, Autumn Sonata

Ingrid Bergman, Journey to Italy

Margaret Lockwood, Cast a Dark Shadow

Margaret Lockwood, The Wicked Lady

Carole Lombard-Twentieth Century

Shirley MacLaine, The Children's Hour

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

Autumn Sonata

Cast a Dark Shadow

The Children's Hour

Dead End

Dial M for Murder

Journey to Italy

The Lady Vanishes

The Trouble with Harry

Twentieth Century

The Wicked Lady

Top 10 Performances of the Year (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Diane Baker, Marnie

John Barrymore, Twentieth Century

Dirk Bogarde, Cast a Dark Shadow

Humphrey Bogart, Dead End

Sean Connery, Marnie

Audrey Hepburn, The Children's Hour

George Sanders, Journey to Italy

Claire Trevor, Dead End

Liv Ullmann, Autumn Sonata

John Williams, Dial M for Murder

Family Plot (1976)

Film: Family Plot (1976)

Stars: Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane, Karen Black

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: Harris was nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes, but couldn't translate that to an Oscar citation.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Barbara Harris-click here to learn more about Ms. Harris (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are celebrating Barbara Harris all month long on the blog, but as we are seeing a film that was released within several months of Freaky Friday, our movie from last week, we're going to take a little break this week from discussing Harris's career (since we're in roughly the same spot), and instead focus on our other star of the year, Alfred Hitchcock.  I will admit that a new job & the jolt of being back in public has made it difficult to keep up with all of my goals of 2021 (anyone who hits all of their goals every year, teach me your ways), and one of the projects that kind of fell by the wayside was our Sunday Leftovers series.  Though I saw a lot of Hitchcock films this year, I still have twelve remaining so we will not have the synergy of me finishing Hitchcock's filmography completely this week with his final picture.  I will eventually get to those twelve remaining (non-lost) movies, but alas we will just have to chalk off my goal of finishing all of the Master of Suspense's greatest masterpieces a different day.  Today, we will bid adieu to Hitchcock, though we still have one more week left of star Barbara Harris, who continued making movies after they intersected on Family Plot.

(Spoilers Ahead) Our movie is focused on a couple, psychic impersonator Blanche Tyler (Harris) and her long-time boyfriend George (Dern) who are trying to find the long-lost nephew of a wealthy woman who is dying, and wants to give him her fortune before she dies.  Blanche & George try to track down this nephew, Edward (Devane) whom they originally assume is dead when George sees his grave, but they soon discover that he faked his own death and is living as Arthur Adamson.  He's doing this because he and his girlfriend Fran (Black) are involved in a criminal enterprise where they kidnap dignitaries and demand jewels as ransom.  These two intersect, with Edward & Fran assuming that Blanche & George are investigating them due to their involvement in crime, when in reality they are trying to give them a large sum of money (a classic Hitchcockian bit of black comedy).

Family Plot is good.  I think it gets a bit of a bad rap because it's Hitchcock's final film, and because it's not Vertigo (to be fair, few films are).  The movie is silly and occasionally the fun kind of twisty, but it probably needed a starrier cast to work better.  Black & Devane aren't able to pull their characters off the screen quite well enough, and in both cases we need them to pop more to make the contradiction to Harris/Dern's more fully-fledged romance feel sharper.  Harris is the best in show (though at this point, you have to question when is she not?), and John Williams taking up the baton from Bernard Herrmann (his only work with Hitchcock) works well as Williams has enough talent to make Family Plot's score standout.

Hitchcock would attempt to make one more picture, a spy film called The Short Night, that made it to pre-production but not much further (if you want to daydream, some of the stars considered for the film included Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Catherine Deneuve, and Liv Ullmann...I prefer the strange combination of Eastwood & Deneuve in terms of actors I think Hitchcock could've made magic with).  Both he and his wife Alma had a series of health problems, and while he made public appearances, they became less frequent.  Hitchcock was knighted in 1980, but was in so ill health he couldn't accept the designation from the Queen, and would die three months later.  We'll talk a little bit more about Hitchcock in a week when we do a recap of this season of Saturday with the Stars, but it's nice to know after Family Plot that he didn't end on a dour note, even if it wasn't also a triumphant one.  Next Saturday, we're going to conclude our month-long look at Barbara Harris when we see what happened beyond her brief period as a leading lady, and a movie where she'd star alongside an iconic blonde of an era beyond Hitchcock.

Marnie (1964)

Film: Marnie (1964)

Stars: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Martin Gabel, Louise Latham

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Tippi Hedren-click here to learn more about Ms. Hedren (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned on Monday, we are going to start Hedren's career not with The Birds, which would make her a household name, but with Marnie, as I only watch films I've never seen for this series & I've seen The Birds countless times.  In a year where we have profiled dozens of Hitchcock films, Marnie stands apart as a particularly important one, because depending on who you ask, it is either The Birds or Marnie that would be Hitchcock's last "great" picture.  Contemporary reviews tended to favor the theory that it was the former, but many retrospective reviews have salvaged Marnie's reputation, and as someone who adores The Birds, I was curious to see what would happen when I finally caught this, one of the most important movies in Hitchcock's filmography I hadn't seen prior to 2021.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie plays a bit like a riddle.  The beginning of the film involves Marnie (played by Hedren, she goes by multiple names in the picture but we're going to refer to her as Marnie to help continuity), who has recently stolen $10,000 from her employer Sidney Strutt (Gabel).  In her next job, she meets Mark Rutland (Connery), who recognizes her as the thief from before, but doesn't say anything initially.  He becomes fascinated with the beautiful woman, and curious as to why the color red & thunderstorms are emotional triggers for her.  When she tries to steal again, Mark blackmails her into marrying him, and she agrees despite the protestations of Mark's sister-in-law Lil (Baker), who is clearly in love with Mark.  On their honeymoon, they initially avoid physical intimacy, but at a crucial point Mark rapes Marnie, as he's become obsessed with her.  He slowly works to reimburse her victims to get the charges to go away, but while he's doing this Marnie is hating him more for trapping her.  In the films final moments, Mark decides to do something about the emotional instability of his wife, and he takes her to see her mother Bernice (Latham).  There, during a manic state, Marnie realizes that her mother was a prostitute, and one of her clients, after attempting to molest Marnie, was killed by Bernice, which is why the color red (blood) and thunderstorms (it was raining) are triggers for Marnie.  Afterward, Marnie & Mark decide they can make it work, now knowing where Marnie's troubles stem from.

The movie is marvelously shot & edited.  The opening scene of the film, which includes a raven-haired Hedren clutching a yellow purse (that looks, let's face it, a little bit like a vagina), while walking carefully down a train platform is so fascinating & brilliant, you'd honestly assume that the film wouldn't be able to follow it with anything as terrific, but you'd be wrong.  The first half of Marnie is a mystery, with us at first trying to understand this strange woman who clearly is suffering from psychological trauma, and then at the midpoint we are given a true twist when Mark ends up being a bit of a psychotic, raping Marnie & basically holding her captive, obsessed with finding out the truth about this woman he has basically tricked into marrying him.

The movie's ending feels like a letdown as a result.  For a modern audience (but I suspect considering the many discussions about whether it should be included in the film, contemporary ones as well), it's hard to imagine wanting to cheer on Mark after he assaults Marnie, and the film doesn't really know how to deal with this.  In a modern film, we'd end with Marnie getting revenge on Mark, but neither he nor the audience getting to know her in the process, leaving her a cool, unknowable figure-in that, we'd have gotten a great movie.  Here, we get them trying to rehabilitate Mark's image, and a relatively groundbreaking bit of psychoanalysis that goes nowhere.  Still, this is a brilliantly-acted movie.  Connery is vicious & is giving some of his best work as Mark, a complicated he-man figure who has never been told "no" before Marnie.  Diane Baker is excellent as his scheming, in-the-wings sister-in-law, and Latham stands out in her two big scenes.  And yes, Tippi Hedren can act, and does so wonderfully here, finding rich layers under a sheen of hardened plastic.

Marnie would be Hitchcock's last film with Hedren, and that appears to be more her choice than his.  Hedren has in the years since been quite adamant about how little she liked the director, and his predatory behavior on-set.  According to Hedren, he had her followed, and would tell cast-and-crew not to speak to her on set (her costar Baker would later confirm this to be the case).  He became sexually obsessed with her, making overt requests for sexual favors, and threatening to "ruin her career" if she didn't honor her contract after Marnie (as she said she didn't want to appear in any of his future movies).  As she was under contract, he knew he could bankrupt her because she couldn't support her aging parents or her daughter Melanie without her income from movies.  For three years after Marnie, Hedren did not, indeed, work, and she would never have the career that The Birds and Marnie would've insinuated she would.  As promised on Monday, though, we will take a look at the career she did have in the coming weeks, and next Saturday we'll discuss a film she made with a director who, believe-it-or-not, is as culturally significant as Hitchcock himself.

The Skin Game (1931)

Film: The Skin Game (1931)

Stars: CV France, Helen Haye, Jill Esmond, Edmund Gwenn, John Longden, Phyllis Konstam

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

I love the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but I am learning as we're going along with this Sunday Leftovers series that watching a man's full filmography, particularly when he has a robust early filmography, can be a bit demanding (which is why we are consistently running late on this series).  Hitchcock's filmography makes this demanding in a strange way for me because so many of his films take place in the early Sound Era, which is my least favorite time frame for film.  While there are great sound movies during this period (King Kong, Dinner at Eight, Duck Soup), from 1927-33 I am generally wishing that the movies had just shut up (particularly considering how the best Silent Era movies took place in the late-1920's).  This is personified with The Skin Game, a movie with an intriguing plot, but one that gets totally glossed by in the early sound technology.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about two feuding families: the Hillcrists, Jack (France) and Ivy (Haye, and it's Helen Haye-not Oscar-winner Helen Hayes, though their remarkably similar names had me thrown off as well), who are a longtime upper class family in the English countryside, and the nouveau riche Hornblowers, including their patriarch Mr. Hornblower (Gwenn), his son Charles (Longden), and his pregnant daughter-in-law Chloe (Konstam).  The Hornblowers are buying up much of the land around the Hillcrists, obstructing their view by putting up factories.  When one last parcel of land is up-for-sale, they get into a bidding war that leads to the Hornblowers winning the land, but before they can do anything with the property, Ivy has a catch-she knows that Chloe used to be a prostitute, and as a result she blackmails Hornblower into causing a scandal for his family (and incoming grandchild) if they put up factories.  They swear an oath not to say anything in exchange for the land remaining untouched, but Chloe's guilt & the gossip this stirs up is too much for her, and she kills herself.  Angered by the Hillcrists' blackmail killing his future grandchild, Hornblower goes back on the deal, destroying the last views of the Hillcrist estate.

There's something fascinating in this movie, I'm not going to lie, as it's a good plot.  I love stories about the minutia of rich people, and how you can use seemingly silly things (like a parcel of land & the view it provides) and turn it into a much more dire set of circumstances (i.e. the reputation & life of a young woman).  Hitchcock even tries to preserve the majesty this had in previous iterations by hiring Gwenn & Haye, both of whom were in the 1921 silent version of this picture.  The late scenes where Gwenn, a fine actor then as well as later (he'd eventually win an Oscar for Miracle on 34th Street) tells off the Hillcrists & promises revenge, are solid stage work.

But this isn't a play, and huge stretches of the film are exceedingly dull.  The auction scene goes on at a glacial pace, and doesn't have the excitement it would have if this film was made a decade later, and the dialogue becomes interchangeable between, say, Chloe and the Hillcrists' daughter Jill.  Combine in that Chloe's prostitution isn't actually mentioned (though it's heavily implied for anyone who can remotely read between the lines), and there feels like 30% of the film just having shocked people trying not to say Chloe's "sin."  As a result, what might have been a great film gets bogged down as Hitchcock (like nearly all directors of this era) trying to capture what sound-in-film would feel like.  As a result, The Skin Game becomes like many Hitchcock movies of this era-only necessary if you're a completionist.

Torn Curtain (1966)

Film: Torn Curtain (1966)

Stars: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjorg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Julie Andrews-click here to learn more about Ms. Andrews (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Yesterday we kicked off our month devoted to Julie Andrews (click the link above for more, you know the drill), but while we usually talk about in our first article how a star became famous, Andrews' origin story might be one of the most well-known in Hollywood history, so this is probably a tale you already recall.  For the unfamiliar, after being a sensation in both television (Cinderella was seen by over 100 million people when it was broadcast by CBS in 1957) and theater (both The Boy Friend and My Fair Lady were absolute smashes), Andrews turned her eyes to Hollywood.  Initially she assumed she'd be cast as Eliza Doolittle in the big-screen adaptation of My Fair Lady, but that didn't happen as Jack Warner wanted a bigger star (Audrey Hepburn) to lead the movie, so instead she made her debut in Mary Poppins, which won her the Best Actress Oscar (Hepburn wasn't even nominated).  There was no sophomore slump for Andrews-the next two years she made the highest-grossing film of both 1965 (The Sound of Music) and 1966 (Hawaii). So at the point Andrews teamed up with Hitchcock (who did not want her initially for the part-he favored Eva Marie Saint) she was basically Hollywood's box office insurance policy, not just having yet to make a flop, but she was basically the monetary guarantee that someone like Dwayne Johnson is today.  As a result, Hitchcock was required by Universal to put Andrews in his picture (coming full circle on the Eliza Doolittle situation), which brings us to Torn Curtain.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the mid-1960's, where Dr. Michael Armstrong (Newman) is on a secret mission in Copenhagen where he receives covert instructions to contact π if he gets into trouble.  Armstrong is defecting to the Soviet Union, much to the shock of his fiancee Sarah (Andrews), who follows him to the Soviet Union & is then pressured to also defect, except she assumes this to be legitimate.  It turns out that Armstrong is trying to learn secret anti-missile secrets from the Soviets, and when he does he is found out, with the Soviets intending to kill both he & Sarah before they can flee back to the United States with this information.  π ends up being a group of people that use a decoy bus to get people out of the country, and with the help of this organization (and Lila Kedrova in a cameo as an exiled Polish countess), the two flee to America, their romance renewed & America stronger for another day.

The film itself, despite its relatively twisty plot, reads as pretty straightforward when you're watching it. Part of the problem is that it doesn't feel like it has a lot of Hitchcock's best flourishes.  It still looks great (beautiful stars, glamorous hotels...there's definitely a polish there), but it doesn't have the artistry that Hitchcock's films were known for.  I know we're cheating a bit by not featuring more of Hitchcock's greatest films (1954-64 is generally considered to be when he made his best pictures), as the confines of the rules of this series (I only watch "new to me" films) hurts that cause since I've seen virtually all of Hitchcock's films in that era, so we aren't going to focus on him in his glory, but as it's October (the year is winding down) we shouldn't forget that Hitchcock never really stopped making movies, even when the public started to lose interest.  Torn Curtain was not, as some describe it, a flop (it was a minor hit, though nowhere near the success of Psycho or The Birds), but it definitely represents a different era of creativity from Hitchcock.  I have not seen any film he made after this (we'll get to all of the rest of them in December), but I will admit this feels listless in the way some of the "director for hire" work we've been seeing Hitchcock made in Sunday Leftovers did, rather than peak creativity like he had just a few years earlier.

Part of the problem, I'm sorry to say, is the leads.  I love Paul Newman & Julie Andrews-both brilliant actors, I'd give them both Oscars at points in their careers-truly great stars.  But they don't work well together-there's not a lot of chemistry between Andrews' bright-and-bouncy screen aura & Newman's sex-driven, sensitive soul.  Andrews in general is not a great fit for Hitchcock.  I think the logic here must have been "Doris Day made it work, why can't Julie Andrews?" but that doesn't pan out-Andrews onscreen persona did eventually shift, but in the 1960's there was too much money to be had from not breaking it, and the character here doesn't really warrant it.  As a result, Andrews feels tonally out of place, and this is the rare dud for me from our Star of the Month.  Next week, though, we'll be getting into one of Andrews' most successful pictures, and a movie far more in her natural wheelhouse.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)

Film: Juno and the Paycock (1930)

Stars: Marie O'Neill, Edward Chapman, Sidney Morgan, Sara Allgood, John Laurie, Kathleen O'Regan, Barry Fitzgerald

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

One of the recurring themes I've realized as we have done this "Sunday Leftovers" series about Hitchcock, specifically looking at the films I hadn't seen, is that early in his career Hitchcock had a wide variety of effort that he put into what feels like (in retrospect) "director-for-hire" work.  Generally I find that some of his work that is clearly not something he was "invested in" becomes pretty generic.  This is most evident with a movie like Juno and the Paycock, generally considered to be one of Hitch's least representative films, one of his least-known pictures, and well, one of his worst.  I honestly had no idea going into the movie what to expect, but was a bit confused by the weird tonal shifts between comedy & drama the film takes, and the revolving door of main characters & focus.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie initially is centered around Captain Boyle (Chapman), who is a roustabout who lives in Dublin with his long-suffering wife Juno (Allgood), who refers to him as a "paycock" (meant to be a peacock) because he's "useless and vain."  They have two children, Johnny (Laurie) and Mary (O'Regan), Johnny being handicapped and (unbeknownst to his family) a traitor to the Anti-Treaty side of the war, as he's just sold out a supporter who was subsequently killed, and Mary being a good girl engaged to a local bloke.  Their lives change when a solicitor comes to tell them that a relative of the Captain's has left him a small fortune, which changes all of their lives.  The Captain & Juno buy fancy things for the house, they brag to all of their friends about their recent fortune, and Mary dumps her boyfriend for the handsome solicitor.  When it turns out that the inheritance isn't coming due to a clerical error, their lives are town asunder as all have lived without control in a way that only money can save them from.

This is a weird movie, because until the point of them losing their inheritance, it's intended to be a comedy, though it's not funny.  The movie is filled with long acts, with Hitchcock basically setting up a camera and filming it like a taped stage play (it is based on a play, for the record), and unless you're into a specific brand of dated Irish humor, you're not going to be into this story (I wasn't).  This all changes when the inheritance runs dry though, as it suddenly becomes a cautionary drama.  Johnny is found out by the IRA (and subsequently killed), the Captain has to give back all of his belongings & ends up in total ruin, and Mary reveals that she's pregnant with the solicitor's baby, and as he's run off, she's going to become an unwed mother.  The film ends in a bizarre place where Mary & Juno are trying to come to terms with their faith, leaving their fates to God, and basically just disregarding the Captain from their lives...except the Captain himself has not died or even left them, he's just not around for the final act.

This sort of inconsistency doesn't work for me, but it's throughout the film.  The opening scene has Barry Fitzgerald playing an assassinated orator for pretty much no reason.  Though he's the most recognizable figure in the film today, this was his first film at the time, so I get why he has a small part, but it's never really explained as to his significance to the story.  On stage, Fitzgerald played the Captain, and I kind of wish he would here as there's a lacking in charisma from Chapman in the role.  But overall, this movie reads as a genuine mess, and if there are Hitchcockian touches, I certainly didn't find them lounging in this rubble.  Next week we're going to watch a film called Murder!, which I know nothing about other than the title, but I'm going to feel much more confident this is up Hitch's alley.

Blackmail (1929)

Film: Blackmail (1929)

Stars: Anny Ondra, John Longden, Cyril Ritchard, Donald Calthrop

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

As I mentioned last week, Hitchcock is officially entering the Sound Era with this week's Sunday Leftovers, never to return back to silent pictures.  Blackmail, though, wasn't just the first moment for Hitchcock in the Sound Era, but in fact the first sound film, period from British cinema, making it the historic equivalent in the UK to what The Jazz Singer is to American audiences.  As I've mentioned on here a couple of times, The Jazz Singer is not a good movie, a reputation pretty much everyone who discusses it admits, even if the film itself is an inescapable part of film history if you're a completionist.  Blackmail, however, still enjoys a solid reputation amongst both Hitchcock enthusiasts and film fans in general, so I was curious what it would entail, particularly as the title indicated we were headed into Hitchcock's strong suit.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows Alice White (Ondra), whose boyfriend Detective Frank Webber (Longden) has just gotten into a fight with her.  As a result, she storms off, perhaps to make him jealous or perhaps just to see what else is out there, with Mr. Crewe (Ritchard), an artist.  While they are flirty together, it's quickly clear that Mr. Crewe has other intentions, and though it happens off-screen, it's pretty evident in the movie that he intends to rape Alice...until she pulls out a knife and kills him.  She quickly tries to cover up her crime, but forgets her gloves in the studio.  When the body is found the next day, Frank is one of the detectives on the case and finds one of Alice's gloves, and goes to talk to her (where she neither confirms nor denies her involvement in Crewe's death).  Meanwhile, a local man called Tracy (Calthrop) finds the other glove, and soon starts to blackmail the two, assuming they are covering up for each other in terms of the death.  Frank tries to reverse and say they'll blame Tracy, a former felon.  This causes a chase, and in the process, Tracy dies, with everyone assuming he's the killer.  In the end Alice does confess to Frank the real cause of the crime (that it was self-defense), and they live happily ever after...though with the canvas that Alice painted with Mr. Crewe still in evidence, a permanent admission to her involvement in the death.

The film, like a number of films in 1929, was originally intended to be silent (if you look hard enough you can apparently find silent versions of the picture, though I saw the sound one for this review).  You can see this in that the dialogue does feel ancillary to the plot-much of the movie is about visual storytelling.  What's great here, though, is that Hitchcock is given giant leeway with the plot.  The story of Alice's self-defense reads as shocking, and though the word "rape" doesn't get uttered in the picture, it hangs so ferociously it might as well have.  I'm curious as we get into the rest of Hitch's pre-Code films in the coming weeks how often he uses this looser, more jaw-dropping ability to amplify his script to his advantage.  I also loved Hitchcock's use of the British Museum for the chase sequence, foreshadowing everything from Mt. Rushmore to the Golden Gate Bridge in future pictures (the man loved his monuments).

This is a tightly-scripted film otherwise.  Short, without much fat on the plot, it works well.  Like all prototypical films (it's clear that Blackmail influenced not just Hitchcock's later films, but everyone from Fritz Lang to Michael Powell (the latter of whom worked on the picture for their on-set publicity photography), it reads as a bit provincial to modern audiences, mostly because you know that something better would be coming out of this (like The Lady Vanishes or Notorious), but this is an impressive sound debut from Hitchcock, even if much of the film's strength still resides in silent movie techniques.

The Manxman (1929)

Film: The Manxman (1929)

Stars: Carl Brisson, Malcolm Keen, Anny Ondra

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

We are hitting a precipice in our Sunday Leftovers season on Alfred Hitchcock today.  For months we have been focusing on Hitch's Silent Era films, the many movies he made before he became, well, "HITCHCOCK."  This week we are still in the Silent Era, but we are in the final Silent Era picture of the Master of Suspense's career.  Next week we will enter the sound era (as will all of British cinema, in what is generally considered to be the first British talking picture) with Blackmail, but today we need to talk about yet another sudsy romance when Hitch was still something of a (prominent) director for hire: The Manxman.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is essentially a (very messy) love triangle tale.  Pete (Brisson) and Philip (Keen) are best friends from different walks of life; Pete is a broke, handsome fisherman while Philip is a middle-class lawyer that could become the city's chief magistrate if he plays his cards right.  They both fall for Kate (Ondra), the daughter of a local pub owner.  Initially Pete is rejected when Kate's father doesn't want her marrying some poor schlub, but she promises to wait for him while he's off making his fortune.  While he's away, Philip & Kate fall in love, though both are reluctant to acknowledge their passionate affair since they are betraying Pete's trust.  When Pete returns, he is rich & Kate's father insists she marry him, but her heart belongs to Philip, and soon we learn it's more than her heart he's gained access to, as she's pregnant with their love child.  When the baby girl is born, Kate leaves Pete, who is bereft but takes solace in fatherhood, but when Philip won't acknowledge their love affair, Kate attempts to kill herself.  This all leads to a court case where Philip confesses that he has made Kate a "lost woman" and must step down as chief magistrate.  The film ends on a dour note, with Philip & Kate getting their daughter, but their lives upended & ruined by scandal, while Pete goes out into the sea once again with nothing, his wife & daughter lost to him forever.

The movie is too long-I think there are different cuts of the picture, but I definitely got the one that is nearly two hours.  The plot gets repetitive, and while there is a lot of juice in this plum in terms of sudsy storylines, they start to peter at the hour mark.  This is honestly more to do with Ondra than anything.  It's not clear early on why she prefers Philip to Pete.  Keen is utterly charmless as Philip, and well, Pete is an affable hunk.  You don't get the sense that she's after Philip initially for her money or his prestige, particularly since it's not clear she cares a lick when Pete comes back and is even richer than Philip.  Her motivations are so core to the film that I felt lost at times since she wasn't giving us much intuition into how she saw Kate, and in silent films, subtle acting is not your friend.

That said, Brisson is excellent as Pete.  He plays the guy as this lug-headed himbo, and honestly, it's one of my favorite performances we've seen so far this year for Sunday Leftovers.  He's such a sweetheart, and has a sort of Chris Pratt vibe going for most of the film.  You see his final break, when he realizes that Kate has betrayed him, and he doesn't react with anger, but more sorrow & confusion.  This is a nice change-of-pace for an era where the jilted husband would most-often come armed with a gun rather than a broken heart, and it's a nice modern touch that doesn't ruin what is the movie's best asset.

Champagne (1928)

Film: Champagne (1928)

Stars: Betty Balfour, Jean Bradin, Gordon Harker, Ferdinand von Alten

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

Today in "Sunday Leftovers" we're hitting our penultimate Hitchcock silent feature.  Hitchcock would continue to make films outside the thriller genre throughout the early 1930's, so we aren't going to be saying goodbye to his formative years quite yet, but as today's Champagne proves, Hitchcock wasn't adept at everything.  Champagne is a weird movie, and we'll get into some of the reasons why below, but it's also the second comedy that the Master of Suspense would make (though not his last, as we discussed during our month devoted to Carole Lombard).  The first one, The Farmer's Wife was okay if a bit misguided.  Champagne feels more experimental than that picture, but also less successful, particularly when it comes to, well, comedy.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Betty (Balfour), a spoiled heiress who is jetting across the world and crashing an airliner just to rendezvous with her boyfriend (Bradin), against her wealthy father Mark's (Harker) wishes.  The two are planning on eloping, even as Betty is pursued by a mysterious man (von Alten), but when her father comes aboard the ship, he tells her that he's lost his fortune, and they are now broke.  Betty's boyfriend leaves in the confusion, and Betty then assumes he was just a fortune-hunter.  Betty & Mark start living in poverty, with Betty attempting to make the best of it, though Mark's behavior seems to indicate that he might be tricking Betty.  This proves to be the case when Betty gets a job selling flowers at a night club (there's a firm hint this is going to be, if not prostitution, at least an escort situation), and both the boyfriend & dad come to tell Betty that this was a ruse to get Betty to be more serious, and her fortune isn't loss.  Betty runs off with the mysterious man, who it seems at first is going to kidnap her, when suddenly we realize that he is also in on the ruse, and was on the ship to stop Betty from marrying her boyfriend, who now that her dad also thinks he's worthy, she'll marry.

The plot reads as messed up because it is.  Betty is not a particularly good person in the first ten minutes of the picture, but for the remainder of the film she's basically gaslit by the men in her life, trying to manipulate her into being exactly who they think a woman should be.  Considering she takes her father losing his fortune in stride & gets a job right away (and is promptly slut-shamed for it), she's a better person than all of them and deserves to let them rot, for my money.  The film's comedy elements are also pretty sparse, and the treatment of Betty to a modern audience doesn't read as comedy.  The flagrant sexism of The Farmer's Wife is broad enough that even if it's problematic, you still see the humor motifs on display.  Champagne doesn't do that, though, and as a result it's a comedy without any laughs.

I will say, to its credit, that Hitchcock is clearly getting his footing in the first twenty minutes, and you almost think you're about to see a different movie.  The mysterious man and the woman headed for danger are classic plots of his later films, and would've worked better in a straight drama.  I also loved the cinematography in the scenes with the plane & the ship, even if I found them a bit confusing (it wasn't entirely clear what was happening in the early scenes-I saw an earlier cut of the film rather than the restored version, so this might work better in the 104-minute version).  But nice camera work doesn't get around that this movie is a snooze.

The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Picture: The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Stars: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: The film received a number of what we'd consider today to be "traditional" precursor citations-MacLaine won a Golden Globe & was nominated for a BAFTA, while Hitchcock was cited for the DGA.  But it didn't get any nominations overall at the Academy Awards.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Shirley MacLaine-click here to learn more about Ms. MacLaine (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

With Shirley MacLaine, we begin with Hitchcock, because with Shirley MacLaine, her cinematic journey began with Hitchcock.  As I'll likely bring up in pretty much every review we do this month, Shirley MacLaine is who I consider my favorite actress of all time, but I'd never seen her debut film, which despite the third-billing up top was very much a lead role (she got the "Introducing Shirley MacLaine" title credit, which made me squeal with delight while watching it).  MacLaine had gotten to Hollywood through an unlikely path.  After spending a couple of years on Broadway doing chorus work (MacLaine's first great love was not acting, but dance, something that would feature prominently throughout her career), MacLaine landed the understudy role in The Pajama Game after star Carol Haney injured her ankle (Haney, who won a Tony Award for this part, had a steep career fall after a promising start following this incident, proving that Hollywood cliche "for one star to rise, another must fall").  This led to Hal Wallis seeing her in the role, and signing her to a contract with Paramount, where her first film was The Trouble with Harry.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Trouble with Harry is a comedy, albeit a macabre one (in a strange coincidence, our Sunday Leftovers piece tomorrow is also going to be a comedy from Hitchcock, which was not a genre he frequented).  The movie takes place in Highwater, Vermont, where several residents find a dead body of a man they learned to be named Harry up on a hill.  The question, of course, is how he died, and several people worry as the film progresses that they are the cause.  They include Captain Wiles (Gwenn), who initially believes he shot the man while rabbit-hunting-in order to cover up the accidental crime, so he & local artist Sam Marlowe (Forsythe) bury the man, but it turns out that he had instead actually shot a rabbit.  Both Jennifer Rogers (MacLaine), Harry's estranged wife, and prim Miss Gravely (Natwick) are worried they killed him, both by hitting him with blunt objects, but as we learn by the end of the picture Harry, despite being buried & unburied throughout the entire film by the guilt-ridden quartet, died of natural causes.  The film ends happily, with both Jennifer & Sam and Captain Wiles & Miss Gravely ending up together.

The Trouble with Harry was something of an experiment for Hitchcock-he wanted to see what a film led by character actors and "non-stars" would do at the box office.  MacLaine was doing her first film, Forsythe was relatively early in his career, and Gwenn/Natwick were hardly newcomers, but were well-known as character actors, not headliners.  This ended up being an experiment that would end in failure-The Trouble with Harry was a commercial flop, and critics weren't entirely won over either.  Certainly compared to Hitchcock's massive recent hits with Grace Kelly, the film did not meet expectations and it doesn't feel like a coincidence that his next movie starred established stars Jimmy Stewart & Doris Day.

This is a pity, because there's not any trouble with Harry-it's a delight.  The cinematography is gorgeous (the bright red-and-orange foliage of autumn in Vermont sings in Technicolor), and the Bernard Herrmann score (his first partnership with Hitchcock) is playful & fun.  I loved the entire cast-everyone is hitting a home run of the four main quartet.  Forsythe plays his rugged hipster with a wink, Gwenn & Natwick are grand as a pair of clumsy, unexperienced lovers, and MacLaine starts out her film career totally captivating.  Jennifer is a hard role to play-she's at once alluring, bold, & needs to be absurd without ever feeling like she isn't real.  This would be a recipe that MacLaine would perfect throughout her career, especially the first decade of it, and honestly I'd struggle to think of any other actor of her generation who wouldn't have overplayed the mysterious elements of Jennifer, ruining the comedy, so well done to Paramount for casting her so well so early in her career.

MacLaine is the first of the stars we've profiled this year who not only worked with Hitchcock, but has gone through the modern circuit of talk shows so she's discussed Hitchcock.  She only worked with him the one time (her leading man Forsythe would partner with him a decade later in Topaz), and her comments about him aren't as problematic as some of the other actresses who would work with him during this era, though it's worth noting that in interviews she's clearly aware of his behavior with some of the blonde actresses who would bookend Harry (in an interview for the Hudson Union, MacLaine would say "I was not blonde & ethereal, so he wasn't going to jump at me").  Instead the most common stories MacLaine talks about are his appetite (starving off of years on Broadway, she gained 15 pounds eating with the director during the film until the studio called & demand she stop), and his bizarre directing style (using Cockney riddles to get her to relax on set).  She would later state that he was "colorfully cruel" and that his actors were "insignificant"...neither of which sounds good even if MacLaine tries to make light of them.  All of this is to say as we try to reconcile Hitchcock the man with the movies that we love so much, MacLaine isn't the most damning of the women he'd work with, but she's also far from complimentary.  We'll move beyond Hitchcock, though, in the coming weeks (as MacLaine did), and get to three major gaps I have in MacLaine's extensive filmography.

Easy Virtue (1928)

Film: Easy Virtue (1928)

Stars: Isabel Jeans, Robin Irvine, Franklin Dyall, Eric Bransby Williams, Enid Stamp Taylor

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

(Throughout the year, in connection with our 'Saturdays with the Stars' series, I am watching every gap I have in Alfred Hitchcock's filmography in what we're calling 'Sunday Leftovers.'  Every Sunday, I'll be watching a Hitchcock film that I've never seen before as I spend 2021 completing his filmography)

We are back!  We have slowly, but steadily after my brief hiatus in early July been reintroducing all of our series, and we are back with our final missing series "Sunday Leftovers" today.  For those unfamiliar, I have been chronologically watching all of the Hitchcock films that I haven't seen before and that aren't part of our "Saturdays with the Stars" series.  I have timed this well so that we have exactly enough Sundays left to match the number of Hitchcock films that I haven't seen, so we are going to be doing a late-night article today to make sure we stay on track.  Each Sunday for the rest of the year my plan is to get another missing Hitchcock film, so we'll end the year with his whole filmography completed.  Today, we're going to be back in the Silent Era with Eaty Virtue, based on a play by Noel Coward.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts in something of a strange manner, with a courtroom scene between two figures we don't yet know (I was confused at first, thinking that perhaps a scene was lost on my DVD, but this is how it was meant to be filmed).  We soon learn that Larita Filton (Jeans) is on trial for a divorce, as her jealous ex Aubrey (Dyall) shot a man named Claude (Williams) who had made a pass at her, and he gets away with this violence even though Larita had no intention of romancing Claude.  Larita leaves, disgraced, and moves to the French Riviera where she exists under an assumed name to avoid the press.  She meets a man named John Whittaker (Irvine), who falls for her, but when they impetuously marry, his family doesn't approve of Larita, and John doesn't know about Larita's secret past.  John's mother slowly poisons her son against Larita, and soon he openly is hoping for a divorce.  When they figure out the scandal, Larita says she has no need to apologize, but in the end grants John an uncontested divorce.  The film ends with Larita single again, but this time not fleeing from the photographers, proclaiming that she has nothing left for them to destroy.

We are still in the era where Hitchcock was making domestic dramas that didn't lean into his thriller tendencies that we know so well.  This isn't an era where he hadn't started doing them, mind you (his iconic The Lodger had already come out), but he was still making films that aren't in his obvious wheelhouse.  About the closest we get to a natural Hitchcock angle is Larita, a woman with a terrible secret who is being pursued by a clueless man (which is the background of a lot of his pictures).

But Hitchcock weirdly doesn't know how to handle this scandal.  It doesn't help that divorce, more than any other taboo from early cinema, isn't remotely forbidden today.  Though obviously a murder would get headlines in any era, the scandal of being divorced certainly wouldn't, and so Larita's sins play differently to a modern audience.  But it's also strange because it's not clear whether or not Hitchcock thinks Larita should be punished.  The story reads as a woman caught in a difficult scenario, inviting sympathy, but the ending also has her miserable & alone, starting over honestly but still without a man or the kindness she deserved.  The title of "easy virtue" doesn't really jive with this treatment of Larita, and as a result the movie feels disjointed.

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Film: Dial M for Murder (1954)

Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Grace Kelly-click here to learn more about Ms. Kelly (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Alfred Hitchcock, our mascot of this year's Saturday with the Stars, once called Grace Kelly his favorite leading woman, and indeed she appeared in three of his most iconic movies: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief, the former of which I saw for the first time for this series (the other two I've seen previously, in Rear Window's case, multiple times).  We've talked multiple times about Hitchcock's obsession with his leading ladies & cruelty to them, and while that had happened before Kelly (he was vicious to Ruth Roman during Strangers on a Train's shoot, Joan Fontaine basically got gaslighted by Hitchcock throughout the production of Rebecca), she became a template for most of Hitchcock's future stars.

It's hard to grasp by modern standards how to treat Kelly's relationship with Hitchcock.  It seemed to be one of some respect-she worked with him three times, and even after she became a princess she actively considered taking the offer to be his leading lady in Marnie.  But Hitchcock became obsessed with Kelly, trying to control everything about her, a trait he'd bring to his relationship with multiple women in the following pictures, which we'll talk about a bit in the coming months.  While he liked her, he also messed with her head, and like he would with several of his later leading ladies (and like he did with Madeleine Carroll in Secret Agent), Hitchcock inflicted bodily harm on Kelly during the course of shooting.  In the famous attack scene in Dial M for Murder, Kelly shot the sequence for five days straight in order to get it exactly right for the 3-D technology...by Day 4, she was covered in bruises.  Kelly's treatment by Hitchcock is one of the many factors that have tarnished his legacy, a brilliant man (we're getting there in a second, but this is a very good movie) who tore up the boundaries of common decency in his quest to finish his movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) So let's discuss the movie at hand.  Dial M for Murder is about Tony Wendice (Milland), a former tennis ace who is well past his prime and is married to the wealthy Margot (Kelly), who is having an affair with Mark (Cummings), and will likely soon leave her for him.  Tony blackmails his old friend into murdering Margot, thereby getting her inheritance, but the plan goes awry when during the attack Margot kills the would-be assassin.  The film takes a turn for the twisted when afterward, Chief Inspector Hubbard (Williams) begins to suspect that Margot killed the assassin on-purpose, rather than in self-defense, as a result of him blackmailing her about the affair (which it turns out Tony had also done to get money from Margot).  This leads to Margot's arrest, and near execution, before Inspector Hubbard, with the help of Mark, finally cracks the case and the film ends with Mark & Margot together, Tony realizing the gig is up & that he will soon go to jail.

I said at the beginning of this month that Grace Kelly is a weird actress for me because despite seeing virtually all of her movies (I'll have maybe 1-2 that I haven't seen by the end of this month, but the rest I'll have seen), the only ones that I enjoy are Hitchcock's...but I genuinely enjoy her in those movies.  That still holds true after seeing her third collaboration with the director.  Dial M for Murder, is a smart, cheeky murder mystery that unfolds with us knowing the killer the whole time, but being genuinely perplexed as to how he'll be convicted (it's 1954-there's no way he's getting away with this), and Grace Kelly is good in it.  She brings a sort of misguided confidence to the role-she's a wealthy, beautiful woman, who has no real concept of the world around her being anything other than on a platter, and as that starts to crumble, she can't really handle it.  Some criticized this role for being a bit too thin at the time, but I don't buy that-I think Kelly is servicing the character well by having her play not just a blank slate for the audience, but also someone who has never really considered the consequences of her actions before (she is, after all, having an affair from the beginning of the picture).

But the men dominate this film.  This is the most fun I've ever had with Ray Milland, an actor I usually find bland but who sinks his teeth into the vain, erudite killer.  Even better is John Williams as the wily detective, getting his best Columbo quirks on in this picture.  This is not, for the record, famed composer John Williams, but instead you'd probably know him best as Audrey Hepburn's dad in Sabrina-Hitchcock always takes such good care of his supporting characters, giving them plum parts, and this is a doozy of one, as he lights up the second half of the movie, trying (in vain) to prove that there's clearly something wrong with this case.

Under Capricorn (1949)

Film: Under Capricorn (1949)

Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Ingrid Bergman-click here to learn more about Ms. Bergman (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I had an unexpected trip this morning & afterwards a nap that took longer than expected, but if I was able to keep this streak going through pneumonia & 104-degree temperatures three years ago, I'm definitely not going to stop it today simply because of a four-hour car ride.  And so we're going to get a late night (but still Saturday!) check-in with our Star of the Month, Ingrid Bergman.  Last week we talked about Bergman's unparalleled level of box office & awards supremacy with Joan of Arc, which had the actress playing a literal saint, something she was expected to do offscreen in the eyes of the public.  We're going to take a step back from that today with Under Capricorn, the third and final film that Bergman made with our mascot for the year, Alfred Hitchcock.  The pairings last two films had been large successes, both commercially & critically, and are considered two of the better films Hitchcock made before his most celebrated run in the 1950's.  However, I've seen both of those films (Notorious being one of my personal favorite films from Hitchcock), and as we only see films I haven't seen before for this series, we're going to look at the least-known of the Bergman/Hitchcock pairings, one that is probably less known for a reason...

(Spoilers Ahead) Under Capricorn is a strange movie in that in a lot of ways it's not really about anything, but if you want to summarize it into a plot, it's focused on a love triangle (though at least one character is hoping it'll be a square).  Set in Australia, the film has Charles Adare (Wilding), the second cousin of the local governor Sir Richard (Parker), meeting a childhood friend in the form of Lady Henrietta (Bergman).  Henrietta was once a lady-of-society, but inexplicably she married a man of no fortune named Sam (Cotten), who killed her brother & spent years in prison.  The two have found some financial footing in Australia, but Henrietta has become an alcoholic, and only entrusts Milly (Leighton), her maid, to do the work of running the household.  Charles begins to help Henrietta recapture some of her old stamina & glamour, but it comes at a cost-they're falling in love with each other.  A fateful night reveals this truth, but also another one-that it was Henrietta who killed her brother, not Sam, which is why they are bound together forever as he gave 7 years of his life for her crime.  Meanwhile, Milly is fired, & we find out she is using witchcraft (including leaving a shrunken head in Henrietta's bed, and it reads as problematic as it sounds to a modern audience) to try & keep her drinking so that Sam will leave his wife for her (a plan that kind of just disappears).  In the reveal of the affair, Sam accidentally shoots Charles, and is supposedly going to be hanged for it, until Henrietta says that it was she who killed her brother many years earlier, and Charles eventually lies to save Sam, saying the shot was no one's fault.  The three end on good terms, with Charles returning to Ireland.

That might sound like a lot of story, but it's really not as it plays out.  The stakes remain low-the first 70 minutes of the movie virtually nothing happens, and it meanders way too much, to the point of tedium.  When Sam shoots Charles, the stakes somehow don't increase.  The Hays Code requirements of the time indicate that Bergman's Henrietta isn't going to leave her husband, who is a relatively decent if short-tempered man, for the wealthy playboy (however well-meaning), and so the twists are kind of foregone.  This is a pity, because Margaret Leighton's maid could have left us with some genuine thrills, as she's by-far the best character in the movie, but nothing happens there-her dismissal feels underwhelming, almost as if Hitchcock had lost track of his most interesting character.  As a result, Under Capricorn, despite a pretty strong pedigree, falls flat-it has some moments of fun as a melodrama, but it doesn't stand up to the other Bergman/Hitchcock collaborations.

Bergman is one of the last actresses to have a properly uncomplicated relationship with Hitchcock that we'll look at this year.  Hitchock's treatment of women was sketchy at best and horrifying at worst (and horrifying was increasingly the case as his career continued).  We're not going to gloss over that as the series continues, but I do want to point out that at least for Bergman, this was a partnership that she seemed to enjoy & a friendship that lasted beyond their three pictures.  At his AFI tribute, which she hosted, she called Hitchcock an "adorable genius" and in his acceptance speech he referred to her as "Queen Ingrid."  Hitchcock & Bergman wouldn't work together again after this, despite both making films for a few more decades.  We're going to get into the why of that next week as we encounter one of the most, well, notorious scandals in the history of Classical Hollywood.