Hitch @ 113

From the Master.

Today is the 113th birthday of Alfred Hitchcock, the universally acknowledged ' Master of Suspense ', which is a fairly accurate description of his work as a whole for no one has really gotten the anxiety, paranoia, that unsettling feeling we sometimes get in the pit of our stomach, quite as well. It has been documented in the last 30 years or so, that Sir Alfred was a bit creepy or that, at least, he had certain hang ups. These so called obsessions worked their way into his film time and again: The voyeurism [ Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo ],  domineering or overbearing mothers [ The Birds, Notorious, Psycho, To Catch a Thief ], the cool blondes [ Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Marnie or just about any film Hitch made ] sex and food [ Frenzy, Rope, To Catch a Thief ], misogyny [ Marnie, Vertigo, Psycho, Dial M for Murder ],  fear of heights [ Vertigo, North by Northwest, Saboteur, Rebecca ], role-playing [ North by Northwest, Stage Fright, Vertigo, Psycho, To Catch a Thief ],  wrongful accusation [ Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, The Wrong Man, I Confess, Saboteur, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps] etc; these and other themes crop up in his films over and over. These, among others, are the things Hitchcock feared, fantasied and preoccupied him all his adult life. 

Jimmy is watching you.

The chubby, shy, Catholic-British boy grew up to become one of the most celebrated movie directors ever. Recognized round the world, Hitchcock had everything a man could possibly want except, perhaps, true love. It's pretty well known that Hitch was obsessed with the ice-blonde female princess, best personified by Grace Kelly in ' Rear Window ', ' Dial M for Murder' and ' To Catch a Thief '.

Alfred's Muse

The ultimate cool blonde that Hitchcock said was a perfect lady, until one got her into the back of a taxi cab and then watch out! That elegance would unleash itself and devour the male. Or so he liked to believe. According to legend this impulse to pursue such a woman remained a fantasy of his that he never acted upon. His lust for Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly or Joan Fontaine remained private. Then he met Tippi Hedren in 1962. Hitch cast her as Melanie Daniels in ' The Birds' and he was besotted. It wasn't until he made ' Marnie ' with Miss Hedren the following year that Hitchcock's lust got the better of him. He supposedly made a pass at her, she rebuffed it and the rest, as they say, is history. Hitch, who had her under personal contract, refused to let her work for either himself or other directors [ one exception was 1967's ' A Countess from Hong Kong ' Charlie Chaplin's last directed feature ] for years. So her career was ruined. Not so her life, Miss Hedren says. 

Alfred's obsession

But such bad manners doesn't prevent one from still enjoying his films. For Hitchcock was a master. Has any one filmmaker had such a run of classics? Without even going into his output from the previous 10 or 15 years, consider this run of films from 1951 to 1960: ' Strangers on a Train ', ' I Confess ', ' Dial M for Murder ', ' Rear Window ', ' To Catch a Thief ', ' The Trouble with Harry ', ' The Man Who Knew Too Much ', ' The Wrong Man ', ' Vertigo ', ' North by Northwest ' and 'Psycho '. That's 11 films in 10 years. No, not every one is a masterpiece but each one is at least watchable [  I Confess , Trouble with Harry  ], or at least entertaining [  Dial M for Murder , To Catch a Thief , Man Who Knew Too Much  ] with the remaining excellent examples of brilliant cinema with at least 3 of those being masterpieces [ you can pick at least 3 can't you ? ]. For today's audiences it's possible that some have highly improbable plots that at times stretch the limits of believability, but Hitchcock always regarded his films not as " a slice of life, but a slice of cake ".  All of very high quality, that I dare say is impossible to match in almost anyone's filmography.

Psycho

With Doris Day, on location.