On a Hitch jag. Color + 1950s + New York Street Scenes = happiness from the very start. I know I did a freeze-frame analysis of the opening scene previously, perhaps years ago. This:
And I’m quite sure I noticed her.
Searching . . . sure enough: I wrote about it a few years ago, and said:
Hello. She walks in front of Cary Grant and into history. No mention of her on the credits at imdb, unless she’s “Woman” – which she certainly was – in which case she’s Anne Anderson, wife of Bert Convy.
Well, since then, episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents have become available through Hulu – or, since then, I realized they were available – and it turns out she did one in 1959 , with Steve McQueen. (Judging from the description, it’s an overhaul of this episode from X-Minus One, an old radio show.) Well, here’s Anne Anderson on the Alfred Hitchcock show.
Watched “Suspicion” last night. Or was it “Suspected?” Or “Insuspicion?” Or “Indiscreet”? One of those. The Hitchcock one. With Ingrid Bergman and a thin Gregory Peck looking sweaty and tormented. She loves him because – well, because she’s repressed and has never known true love, and thus falls for a twitchy newcomer who snaps and yells at her in front of everyone at lunch within five minutes of meeting her. But he charms her later by going on a walk outside, and after that she’ll throw her career away because he can’t be a murderer! He just can’t. He’s repressing something.
“Yes,” he tells her, in so many words. “A murder. I’m pretty sure I killed someone.”
“You can’t! Oh, I know it’s not so. You’re repressing something from your childhood.”
“No, I think I killed a guy. Look, I showed up at your job pretending I was him. And he’s dead. Two plus two, Doctor Lady.”
“Mathematics have no place in the modern world. We understand the brain now, how you are repressing a childhood event.”
“Only if I killed the guy in grade school.”
“No! We must go visit my old friend, Herr Doktor Stereotype, and he will use all the powers of his charming, Viennese accent to tease the solution from your tormented brain.”
So they go to see the doctor, and I’m reminded what a great old stereotype he was at that. The short, cultured, cheerful intellectual who nevertheless has a wreath of bittersweet rue around his head. He is an Expert! He knows Ze vurkings uff der mind. And so they get Gregory Peck to describe a dream, and it’s the famous Salvador Dali dream sequence. Maybe you dream like that; mine are much more straightforward. Highly complex, intricately plotted, and always quite realistic. No men in suits using enormous scissors to cut a curtain painted with eyes. Nevertheless, they get the symbolism figured out, so they can solve the mystery.
My favorite moment came when they opened the blinds, and Gregory Peck winced and turned away.
“Photophobia!” says Herr Doktor Stereotype.
“No, the whiteness reminds him of something,” said Ingrid.
Maybe it was just too fargin’ bright. Well, Hitch did better once he wasn’t working for Selznik – who himself was in the throes of zzzzzycho-analysees, and bought all that watered-down pseudo-Freud claptrap. But I think that much of Freud was pseudo-Freud, if you know what I mean. If you do, tell me, because I don’t. I’m REPRESSING.
I watched the movie years ago, and had no need to revisit it; I love Hitchcock, but this one just seemed silly. The opening doors sequence in the kiss, though: wow. Simple and perfect – partly thanks to the music. And it’s the music that made me watch it: heard some of the score the other day, and since I love movie music – it’s where the symphonic tradition went to make ends meet after it lost its day job – I wanted more. Turns out the movie has an overture:
To repeat the tweet: it’s the nicest piece Howard Hanson never wrote. Reminds of Hanson’s second, anyway. It’s by Miklo Rozsa. It’s very nice. But compare it to this simple piece the incomparable Bernard Herrmann wrote for “North by Northwest.” It’s called “Conversation Piece.” By comparison, the Rozsa piece sounds like schoolgirl mooning.
About the Hitch cameo in “North By Northwest”:
Public municipal ashtrays.
Oh, and about that book she’s reading in her train compartment when they’re looking for Cary Grant:
I can’t find anything about such a book. It’s possible it doesn’t exist. It’s possible it’s a private joke, or a dummy book picked from the prop department, or a message from Hitch himself.
1959. All things considered . . . an agreeable age.
Last pic: why is this amusing? Spill your theories in the comments – although I’m pretty sure someone will get it right off the bat. You guys are just like that.
Hey! That brings us to this week’s Black and White World, available HERE. Ever heard of Olsen and Johnson? No? HERE.
Pass it along, if you wish
94 Responses to An Agreeable Age
Host with the Most
Gee, now your going to tell me the killers in “Rope” were gay and that Bruno in “Strangers on a Train” was gay. At least the prison shrink in “Psycho” flatly denies that Norman is gay despite the cross dressing thing.
@Brerarnold It is always a pleasure to read something genuinely informative, even if it is in the context of someone’s opinion. Thank you for posting this.
That ain’t French. I think it’s Romanian.
Before now, I might have been interested to find out what happened to Mack Charles Parker in 1959. Oddly, now I’m not.
re NBNW, I recall at the real Rushmore the visitor center had the same stone work but, I agree the used a set in the film so, they must have worked from photos of the real thing.
Spellbound seems to coast on the Hitchcock style. Besides the atrocious pseudo psychology, the dialog is pretty bad which is odd since Ben Hecht wrote the screen play. Two things I like in the film, Bill Goodwin of the “Burns and Allen Show” as the house dick and the gun at the end. The scene in childhood is a odd/shocking surprise.
I never refer to the Viennese shrink as anything but Professor Lilloman.
I also compliment Grumpy Gus on his breadth of knowledge.
that automatic pistol is also a belly gun… no barrel, you can’t hit your target unless you’re bruising it with the front sight.
and it doesn’t match the gloves. wrong shade.
Olsen and Johnson I recall from an MST3K short. I do not recall them being funny in it.
The kid in the background – who can’t see the gun – has already got his fingers in his ears in preparation for the sound of the gunshot. Must have been take two or three.
I’m probably wrong, but the dark-haired guy in that last shot has always reminded me of George Chakiris (“Bernardo” in West Side Story).
I hadn’t really thought about whether the Martin Landau character was gay. I haven’t seen N by NW in a while, although it’s one of my favorite movies. My question is so what? What does it do to my understanding of the movie if the character is gay? Is there some underlying tension between Landau and Mason (the ultimate calm and cool villain here)? Or Landau and Thornhill?
In _Rope_ and _Strangers on a Train_, the homosexual characters are pretty obvious and relevant to the stories.
Also, that piece by Hermann is really beautiful. I’ve never heard it by itself before. Fine piece of music in itself, aside from being a great film score.
Yeah, I could’ve done without the Dali silent eyeball cutting. OGH didn’t screen the clip all the way before he posted it.
Good question Grebmar, Leonard’s orientation does not seem relevant unless it was suppose to convey evil or something. It is probably why the questions comes up, why the gay character? Maybe Hitch and Ernest Lehman where ahead of their time and introduced a character who was just who he was. It was the agreeable age.
@DryOwlTacos: “I could’ve done without the Dali silent eyeball cutting.”
I heard Dennis Miller say that David Bowie used an art film (can’t recall the title), with a gruesome scene – including eyeball cutting – near the end, in place of an opening act.
Dennis said he asked why, and David told him that when he heard the collective “Ghaaaghhh!” from the audience, he knew he had ten minutes to get on stage.
The title is “Un Chien Andalou” (An Andalusian Dog) by Bunuel and Dali. The eyeball is actually that of a (dead) donkey, but no-one looks too closely after the quick cut.
Make that Buñuel.
I always felt Hitchcock could get pretty gimmicky in the 40s, not always to the best advantage of the story (Saboteur, Spellbound, Rope). Also, Hecht was big into psychoanalysis when he worked on Spellbound.
I wish the NBNW kid had never been pointed out–ruins the scene for me now.
It has always seemed pretty obvious to me that Leonard, is homosexual and that he has a thing for Vandamm, which is his motivation for his constant suspicion of Eve. He is jealous.
North by Northwest is a great flick, one of my favorite Hitchcocks. Being from Michigan, I always listen in the scene in the train station in Chicago for the announcement of the train to Detroit in which they list all stops in the small towns across southern Michigan.
Also, Suspicion (not Spellbound) is another of my favorites, a superb (IMHO) Hitchcock with outstanding performances by Grant and Joan Fontaine.
@MDG14450: just keep thinking, “nyaaahhhh nyaaaahhhh nyaaahhhh, I can’t HEARRRRRR YOUUUUU! pfffftttpp! so there, Wally.”
@MDG14450, maybe the kid was being lectured by his mother to eat his vegetables and he was doing the “I am not listening” thing. Does that help?
(Check out the sideburns on Daddy-o).
hah, swschrad and I were thinking the same thing.
@shesnailie: That ain’t French. Not sure what it is, but it ain’t French.
It’s Romanian. Only the title of the blog is French. Here is the translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ro&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcinesseur.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F04%2Fse-cauta-informatii-despre-cartea-pe.html
In re: Landau’s character’s homosexuality in NbNW, it does tend to tone the jealousy angle wrt Eva Marie Saint. Plus, at the time (Red Scare) gays were considered security risks since if the KGB found out they could use it to blackmail the closeted – very much a damned if you are out, damned if you are in situation.
But I bet Hitchcock made him gay so he could use the female intuition line.
New York, 1940s, in colour
http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/07/new-york-1940s-in-colour/
On the gay thing in the Hitchcock movies.
Leonard being gay does have a bearing as NeonCat says because it influences his feelings toward Eve. He is more suspicious of his boss’s lover.
In Rope – the subject is homosexuality but Hitchcock and everyone denied it according to Arthur Laurents. Interestingly, not only the two killers but Jimmy Stewart is supposed to be gay and if you know that, he isn’t really cast well for the part.
Re: Falcon. Bogart uses the term “gunsel” to describe Wilmer. Today the term is used to describe a gunman – but it wasn’t then.
When I was a kid I wrote some stories with gay characters in them. Only I didn’t know they were gay, or what gay was. I was just drawing from some people I knew. If a psychiatrist read my stuff, all sorts of wrong conclusions might have been drawn. So I tend not to read too much into whether Landau (or Dumbledore) is or isn’t. Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke.
re: Rope.
Maybe someone knows the subject better but, I recall that in anything I have read about the trial of Leopold and Loeb that very little was made of their homosexuality. Lots of other zany stuff was brought by both sides but, homosexuality was not made an issue.
Could have carried over to the film. The signs were there but, not made an issue.
“Gosh, Beav, why are you ruining the scene. What, are you mental or somethin?”
“I doh-no Wally, I guess I jus’ don’t like that gun or somethin’, but you don’t have to go all Eddie Haskell on me.”
What about Mrs. Danvers or Jack Favell (George Sanders) in “Rebecca”?
What about the “bird expert” Mrs. Bundy in “The Birds”? or for that matter Suzanne Pleshette’s character (maybe it is just her “Dr. Girlfriend” voice).
Binky is “Suspicious”? Alexander Sebastian was too much of a momma’s boy in “Notorious”.
I am having a gay old time here
Here’s another thing that will ruin NbNW for you: Look for a shot where Grant is on the right of the screen in left profile. I don’t think there is one, but I just FF’d through a chunk of it just now. I heard he was sensitive about his left side – God knows why.
In the Olsen and Johnson clip is that William Frawley (Fred Mertz) popping in with the black derby hat doing the nose tapping thing?
I’ve always said that if a magic genie said he had the power to make me look like any guy in history, I wouldn’t hesitate. Cary Grant was the best-looking guy of the 20th Century.
And no, I’m not a gunsel.
It’s not Frawley, and he is actually “playing” his eyelids, which make a moist slapping sound. GAAAH!
New York Times, Nov 2, 1969
Someone once said to Cary Grant that every man wanted to be Cary Grant and he said, “I wake up in the morning and I want to be Cary Grant”
My problem with N by NW is that when they are on the 20th Century from NY to Chi, the lake is on the wrong side of the train.
Man, that Olsen and Johnson clip was pure torture. It’s amazing that audiences laughed at that krep.
It’s funny, but when OGH asked us to check out that first still in this column I immediately noticed the young woman in the upper left.
My gosh, it’s Peg from Mad Men! No wonder she does the early 60s gal so well – she did some time travel on the side for a little real life experience. She surely gets into character, but futzing with the space/tie continuum is going rather far.
@Cory:
I always assumed it was the Hudson River, which would put it on the correct side of the train.
I’ve never seen the movie and I haven’t read the comments, but it the picture amusing because the kid in the back is plugging his ears because he knows the gun is going to go off?
Now I’ll go read the comments
re: gunsel
Today the term is used to describe a gunman – but it wasn’t then.
Yep, thanks to Dash Hammett pulling a fast one on his editor.
The link for Olsen & Johnson didn’t work for some reason; I ended up at http://lileks.com/bw/40s/crazy/index.html , which was…a lot of slapstick.
Wagner von Drupen- Sachs says:
The kid with the fingers looks like Jerry Mathers, and the guy across the table (barely visible) who seems to be scolding him looks like Tony Dow.
Gosh, Beave, why ya gotta stick yer fingers in yer ears like that?
The gun’s really loud Wally. And she just keeps shootin’ it. And sayin’ the same stuff.
Don’t be a dope Beave, it’s a movie. She’s supposed to say that stuff over and over till she gets it right.
Well, I think she’s got the gun part right. It’s the same every time. Can’t she stop that part? It hurts my ears.
Just pipe down and put your hands down. Otherwise that fat guy’s gonna bawl us out again.
Ok Wally.
Viennese pshrink? Selznick? Come Christmas season – the film’s best enjoyed then, rent yourself 1944′s ‘Since You Went Away.’ Now I hope you wont rush off to IMDb and spoil it for yourselves.
Also, in the movie’s pshrink scene, you may enjoy a little peek into the future of the actor the pshrink’s got on his couch.
“Un Chien Andalou” can be streamed from Netflix, if anyone is interested in seeing it outside of a film class. It’s not all as grotesque as the eyeball thing, though it is unrelentingly weird.
When I was a film student I made a tongue-in-cheek surrealist film on Super 8. It wasn’t a direct parody of Bunuel and Dali, but I titled it “Merde d’un Chien Andalou.”