Authors: Patrick McGilligan
Charles Higham, “Program Notes: Vintage Hitchcock,” August 14-15, 1972
1948
Rope
As director and coproducer.
Sc: Arthur Laurents. Adaptation: Hume Cronyn, from the play
Rope’s End
by Patrick Hamilton. Ph: Joseph Valentine, William V. Skall. Technicolor Dir: Natalie Kalmus. Technicolor Assoc: Robert Brower. Art Dir: Perry Ferguson. Set Dec: Emile Kuri, Howard Bristol. Prod Mgr: Fred Ahern. Ed: William H. Ziegler. Asst Dir: Lowell J. Farrell. Makeup: Perc Westmore. Sound: Al Riggs. Operators of Camera Movement: Edward Fitzgerald, Richard Emmons, Paul G. Hill, Morris Rosen. Lighting Technician:
Jim Potevin. Music Dir: Leo F. Forbstein. Miss Chandler’s Dress: Adrian. Radio Sequence: the Three Suns.
Cast: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, Douglas Dick, Edith Evanson, Dick Hogan, Joan Chandler, and Alfred Hitchcock (glimpsed on a neon sign).
(Color, Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein for Transatlantic Pictures, 80 mins.)
… a quintessentially Hitchcockian thriller. For, in addition to the suspense implicit in its plot (a pair of Nietzschean dandies murder a close personal friend merely to demonstrate their own intellectual superiority), it generates an even more powerful
meta-suspense
through the very technique by which Hitchcock has opted to film it.
How long is this shot going to last?
we nail-bitingly ask ourselves.
Surely a cut is due any second now?
And (even if common sense tells us that nothing of the kind can possibly occur in a completed film)
is one of the performers about to make a wrong move?
The paradox of a shot as emblematically cinematic as the ten-minute take is that what it ultimately mimics are the tensions of the real, of the live experience.”
Gilbert Adair,
Flickers: An Illustrated Celebration of 100 Years of Cinema
1949
Under Capricorn
As director and coproducer.
Sc: James Bridie and Hume Cronyn, based on the novel by Helen Simpson. Ph: Jack Cardiff. Technicolor Consultants: Natalie Kalmus, Joan Bridge. Prod Design: Thomas Morahan. Ed: A. S. Bates. Costumes: Roger Furse. Asst Dir: C. Foster Kemp. Script Supervisor: Peggy Singer. Sound: Peter Handford. Makeup: Charles E. Parker. Set Dec: Philip Stockford. Music: Richard Addinsell. Prod Mgr: Fred Ahern. Music Dir: Louis Levy.
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker, Denis O’Dea, Jack Watling, Harcourt Williams, John Ruddock, Bill Shine, Victor Lucas, Ronald Adam, Francis De Wolff, G. H. Mulcaster, Olive Sloane, Maureen Delaney, Julia Lang, Betty McDermott, and Alfred Hitchcock (twice, early in the film wearing a coat and hat in Sydney town square, and, later, among the men on the steps of Government House).
(B & W, Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein for Transatlantic Pictures, 117 mins.)
“Ranks among Hitchcock’s “astonishing achievements … a rich account of emotional self-sacrifice.”
David Thomson,
A Biographical Dictionary of Film
1950
Stage Fright
As director and producer.
Sc: Whitfield Cook. Adaptation: Alma Reville, based on the novel
Outrun the Constable
by Selwyn Jepson. Ph: Wilkie
Cooper. Art Dir: Terence Verity. Ed: E. B. Jarvis. Sound: Harold King. Makeup: Colin Garde. Prod Supervisor: Fred Ahern. Music: Leighton Lucas. Music Dir: Louis Levy.
Cast: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh, Miles Malleson, Hector MacGregor, Joyce Grenfell, André Morell, Patricia Hitchcock, Ballard Berkeley, and Alfred Hitchcock (man on street who passes Wyman, rehearsing her part before entering Dietrich’s apartment, notices her, then walks away puzzled).
(B & W, Hitchcock for Warner Bros., 110 mins.)
“Never a man to make things easy for himself, director Hitchcock has tried in
Stage Fright
to work within the discipline of a tricky story conceit: his heroine (Jane Wyman) plays romantic nip and tuck simultaneously with a suspected murderer (Richard Todd) and the Scotland Yard man (Michael Wilding) who is tracking him down. Hitchcock exploits the situation as much for chuckles as for chills. The result is an entertaining show handsomely produced against a London background, studded with effective scenes and enlivened by an excellent cast.”
Time
, March 13, 1950
1951
Strangers on a Train
As director and producer.
Sc: Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde. Adaptation: Whitfield Cook, from the novel by Patricia Highsmith. Ph: Robert Burks. Art Dir: Edward S. Haworth. Ed: William Ziegler. Sound: Dolph Thomas. Set Dec: George James Hopkins. Wardrobe: Leah Rhodes. Makeup: Gordon Bau. Special Effects: H. F. Koenekamp. Assoc Prod: Barbara Keon. Musical Direction: Ray Heindorf. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin.
Cast: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliott, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale, Howard St. John, John Brown, Norma Varden, Robert Gist, and Alfred Hitchcock (man boarding train carrying double bass).
(B & W, Hitchcock for Warner Bros., 101 mins.)
“A dual figure again, with the extravagant notion of the exchange murders speaking the language of desire and repression, within the context of a morbid dream where the tennis game is a clear metaphor for the exchange.”
Jean-André Fieschi, “Alfred Hitchcock,”
Cinema: A Critical Dictionary
1953
I Confess
As director and producer.
Sc: George Tabori and William Archibald, from a play by Paul Anthelme. Ph: Robert Burks. Art Dir: Edward S. Haworth. Ed: Rudi Fehr. Sound: Oliver S. Garretson. Set Dec: George James Hopkins.
Wardrobe: Orry-Kelly. Prod Supervisor: Sherry Shourds. Prod Assoc: Barbara Keon. Makeup: Gordon Bau. Asst Dir: Don Page. Technical Adviser: Father Paul LaCouline. Musical Direction: Ray Heindorf. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne, O. E. Hasse, Roger Dann, Dolly Haas, Charles Andre, Judson Pratt, Ovila Légaré, Gilles Pelletier, and Alfred Hitchcock (man crossing top of stairs during opening credits).
(B & W, Hitchcock for Warner Bros., 95 mins.)
“The real star is Hitchcock himself. Few directors move their cameras so daringly, frame their action so expertly, or know so well the precise moment to cut from action to reaction. Few directors have his flair for staging a scene to give the almost newsreel quality of reality caught by chance.”
Arthur Knight,
Saturday Review
, February 21, 1953
1954
Dial M for Murder
As director and producer.
Sc: Frederick Knott, as adapted from his play. Ph: Robert Burks. Art Dir: Edward Carrere. Ed: Rudi Fehr. Sound: Oliver S. Garretson. Set Dec: George James Hopkins. Wardrobe: Moss Mabry. Makeup: Gordon Bau. Asst Dir: Mel Dellar. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin.
Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Leo Britt, Patrick Allen, George Leigh, George Alderson, Robin Hughes, and Alfred Hitchcock (in college reunion photograph).
(Color, Hitchcock for Warner Bros., 105 mins.)
“I should mention that this is one of the pictures I see over and over again. I enjoy it more every time I see it. Basically, it’s a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn’t all that easy to command the audience’s undivided attention for a continuous dialogue. I suspect that here again the real achievement is that something very difficult has been carried out in a way that makes it seem very easy.”
François Truffaut,
Hitchcock
Rear Window
As director and producer.
Sc: John Michael Hayes, based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich. Ph: Robert Burks. Technicolor Consultant: Richard Mueller. Art Dir: Hal Pereira, Joseph MacMillan Johnson. Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton. Set Dec: Sam Comer, Ray Moyer. Asst Dir: Herbert Coleman. Ed: George Tomasini. Costumes: Edith Head. Technical Adviser: Bob Landry. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Sound Dir: Loren L. Ryder. Sound Recording: Harry Lindgren, John Cope. Music: Franz Waxman.
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian, Georgine Darcy, Sara Berner, Frank
Cady, Jesslyn Fax, Rand Harper, Irene Winston, Havis Davenport, and Alfred Hitchcock (man winding clock in songwriter’s apartment).
(Color, Hitchcock for Paramount, 112 mins.)
“In an impressive oeuvre
, Rear Window
is arguably the most exquisitely handcrafted feature. … [It] has often been described as Hitchcock’s testament because it sums up so many of his ideas about filmmaking: His fascination with voyeurism, his love of technical restrictions (which had also motivated
Lifeboat
and
Rope),
and his cultivation of certain stars—it was the second time he’d used Stewart
(Rope)
and Kelly
(Dial M for Murder).
It also sums up his ideas about editing, especially as a means for soliciting the audience’s involvement in the action.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader
, February 25, 2000
1955
To Catch a Thief
As director and producer.
Sc: John Michael Hayes, from the novel by David Dodge. Ph: Robert Burks. Technicolor Consultant: Richard Mueller. Art Dir: Hal Pereira, Joseph MacMillan Johnson. Second Unit Ph: Wallace Kelley. Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton. Process Photography: Farciot Edouart. Set Dec: Sam Comer, Arthur Krams. Ed: George Tomasini. Asst Dir: Daniel J. McCauley. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Sound: Harold Lewis, John Cope. Music: Lynn Murray. Second Unit Dir: Herbert Coleman. Costumes: Edith Head. Dialogue Coach: Elsie Foulstone.
Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vanel, Brigitte Auber, Jean Martinelli, Georgette Anys, and Alfred Hitchcock (man on bus seated next to Cary Grant).
(Color, Hitchcock for Paramount, 106 mins.)
“A remarkable film, and in it Alfred Hitchcock has managed to surpass himself. His favorite themes, which the young Hitchcock-Hawksian French critics seem to have revealed to him, are very much in evidence here. Despite his claim of not having gotten deeply involved in this film, Hitchcock’s themes, treated in a relatively formal and externalized way, are clearly stated—especially the primary one, which François Truffaut has extricated in a fairly irrefutable way: that of the identification of one character with another, a kind of ontological identification which is the ulterior motive for the action.”
André Bazin,
L’Observateur
, December 29, 1955,
The Cinema of Cruelty
The Trouble with Harry
As director and producer.
Sc: John Michael Hayes, based on the novel by Jack Trevor Story. Ph: Robert Burks. Technicolor Consultant: Richard Mueller. Art Dir: Hal Pereira, John Goodman. Ed: Alma Macrorie. Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton. Set Dec: Sam Comer, Emile Kuri. Asst Dir: Howard Joslin. Costumes: Edith Head. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Sound:
Harold Lewis, Winston Leverett. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Song: “Flaggin’ the Train to Tuscaloosa” by (lyrics) Mack David and (music) Raymond Scott. Associate Prod: Herbert Coleman.
Cast: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers, Royal Dano, Parker Fennelly, Barry Macollum, Dwight Marfield, Shirley MacLaine, and Alfred Hitchcock (walking past limousine of art collector).
(Color, Hitchcock for Paramount, 99 mins.)
“This little gem of black comedy—alive with the sort of wry, sparkling wit we associate with
Punch
or
New Yorker
cartoons in their heyday—was a flop in 1956 America, but a huge hit in Europe, playing to packed houses at a Champs Élysées theater for over half a year. It is one of Hitchcock’s great personal favorites, a mine of his special, sophisticated, larkily evil brand of humor.”
Michael Wilmington,
L.A. Weekly
, April 20-26, 1984
1956
The Man Who Knew Too Much
As director and producer.
Sc: John Michael Hayes, based on a story by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis. Ph: Robert Burks. Technicolor Consultant: Richard Mueller. Art Dir: Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead. Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton. Process Photography: Farciot Edouart. Set Dec: Sam Comer, Arthur Krams. Technical Advisers: Constance Willis, Abdelhaq Chraibi. Ed: George Tomasini. Asst Dir: Howard Joslin. Costumes: Edith Head. Asst Dir: Howard Joslin. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Sound: Paul Franz, Gene Garvin. Music: “Storm Cloud Cantata” by Arthur Benjamin and D. B. Wyndham-Lewis, performed by London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Herrmann, with Covent Garden Chorus, Barbara Howitt, soloist. Score: Bernard Herrmann. Songs: “Whatever Will Be” and “We’ll Love Again” by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Associate Prod: Herbert Coleman.
Cast: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles, Ralph Truman, Daniel Gelin, Mogens Wieth, Alan Mowbray, Hillary Brooke, Christopher Olsen, Reggie Nalder, Richard Wattis, Noel Willman, Alix Talton, Yves Brainville, Carolyn Jones, Bernard Herrmann (the Conductor), and Alfred Hitchcock (man with back to camera watching acrobats in Moroccan marketplace).
(Color, Hitchcock for Paramount, 120 mins.)
“This film by a supposedly misogynous director has as its sole mainspring—assuming one resolutely rejects metaphysics—feminine intuition. It is, like his preceding films, without self-indulgence, but the better displays its moments of grace and liberty. Sometimes, like the little boy held prisoner in the
embassy who hears his mother’s voice as she sings in the salon, we are touched in the work of this caustic and brilliant man by a grace which may only come to us in snatches from afar, but which minds more immediately lyrical are incapable of dispensing with such delicacy. Let us love Hitchcock when, weary of passing simply for a master of taut style, he takes us the longest way around.”