POLL: Favorite Hitchcock film

[Vic Sage]

which one is your favorite, from among this list?
feel free to write in any others, as well.

[TransMonk]

NXNW

[Edgy MD]

Too hard. How big is that gun pointed at my head?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Lotsa good choices, but my heart is with Shadow of a Doubt.

Perhaps I identify with it because I too am a creepy uncle.

[Vic Sage]

How big is that gun pointed at my head?

.457 magnum ... biggest handgun known to man... been known to blow a man's head clean off.
So you gotta ask yourself one question... you feelin lucky, punk?

[Edgy MD]

A .457?

That would be big. Harry carried a .44 though.

[Vic Sage]

doh

[batmagadanleadoff]

Psycho was always my fave Hitch movie -- up until my last viewing of Rear Window. RW holds up better, what with Psycho's cheap dime store psychiatry novel ending. I'm with Grimm on SoaD. Shadow's my favorite Hitchcock movie of the pre-technicolor era.

[metirish]

I'm no expert but Psycho scared the living daylights out of me as a young lad.

[Guest themetfairy]

Not on this list for obvious reasons, but Mel Brooks' High Anxiety is a great spoof of and homage to Hitch.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Creepy Jimmy Stewart trumps creepy Robert Walker, creepy Tony Perkins, and creepy James Mason/Marty Landau.

[smg58]

I'm partial to Psycho (with The Birds a close second), but my wife would go with North by Northwest were she on this forum.

[Frayed Knot]

Psycho / NXNW / Dial M could all take my top spot.
I'll have to think about this one.

[Edgy MD]

The band playing CBGB in Hannah and Her Sisters was called The 39 Steps.

[Willets Point]

My head is spinning because more people aren't voting for Vertigo.

[Vic Sage]

just you and me so far, WP.

[Edgy MD]

A lot of good answers, though. My missus saw me posting in this thread and rented 39 Steps last night.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I can't get through Vertigo in one sitting. I'm aware of its stellar critical reputation, but I struggle to view it. I find it to be overly contrived, even for a movie. Maybe I'll give it another shot the next time I decide to watch a movie. What am I missing? What should I be focusing on?

[Vic Sage]

what is most remarkable to me was his consistency over a 50 year career. Even compared to other great filmmakers, he rarely had a fallow period, with relatively few flops (either commercial or critical failures) sprinkled out over the course of 1/2 century of films.

[Vic Sage]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I can't get through Vertigo in one sitting. I'm aware of its stellar critical reputation, but I struggle to view it. I find it to be overly contrived, even for a movie. Maybe I'll give it another shot the next time I decide to watch a movie. What am I missing? What should I be focusing on?

Your right, its a difficult film, tough on viewers. It's unusual in Hitch's ouevre because, rather than employing entertaining elements of suspense or horror, the film is a TRAGEDY of sexual obsession and psychological disfunction, with little comedy and few thrills to leaven the depraved goings on. In that way, its probably the most autobiographical and disturbing of his films, which is why it has a certain cache with critics, who see it, not just in isolation but in the context of the filmmaker's life and career.

If you'll pardon an absurd comparision, VERTIGO is to his career as DUCK SOUP was to the Marx Bros, in that it is quintessential. In DUCK SOUP, the brothers dispensed entirely with the romantic subplots that always distracted from their looniness and its just pure Marxian insanity. It flopped but later earned a critical rep because of its "purity" of vision. Similarly, VERTIGO is, in many ways, the purest and most distilled version of Hitchcock's particular assortment of festishes, without the crowd pleasing veneer he usually slathered on. And the ending is a sucker punch to the solar plexus that knocks all the wind out of the viewer, with a searing tragic final image that makes everything else he ever did seem like doodling with an etch-a-sketch.

That's why its my favorite.

But your mileage may vary.

For pure entertainment value, i might go with either REAR WINDOW or NxNW, which both are funnier and lighter, though with an appropriately unhealthy dose of Hitchockian sexual wackitude.

[Vic Sage]

themetfairy wrote: Not on this list for obvious reasons, but Mel Brooks' High Anxiety is a great spoof of and homage to Hitch.

While certainly a spoof and a homage, its greatness is highly debatable.

[Edgy MD]

It was brilliant using Jimmy Stewart as a leading man, because he was cashing in all the chips that Frank Capra had earned.

Jimmy Stewart's earler everyman characters had earned so much audience identification that when a Hitchcock movie opens and he seems genial enough again, the viewer has no problem going along for the ride with him. When it unfolds that his character is creepy or disturbed or coldhearted or some combination of those, it's too late for the audience to escape. They're sympathizing with him and probably not a little disturbed with themselves for doing it.

[Guest themetfairy]

Vic Sage wrote: themetfairy wrote: Not on this list for obvious reasons, but Mel Brooks' High Anxiety is a great spoof of and homage to Hitch. While certainly a spoof and a homage, its greatness is highly debatable.

Well, I always enjoy it when I catch it on cable. It had a great cast, and it still makes me laugh.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Thanks Vic. I may have to watch Vertigo this weekend. It's not as if there's any baseball being played that's interesting me.

I don't mind the moroseness of Vertigo so much. I just remember the plot as being flawed. But I'm the guy that walks away from Casablanca because Paul Henreid as Laszlo, an enemy of the Third Reich, is allowed to exist in Vichy France with all of the apparent freedom of the King of Siam.

Duck Soup's one of my all time faves -- a desert island movie.

[Edgy MD]

The historical credibility of Casablanca is not vast.

[Vic Sage]

don't mind the moroseness of Vertigo so much. I just remember the plot as being flawed. But I'm the guy that walks away from Casablanca because Paul Henreid as Laszlo, an enemy of the Third Reich, is allowed to exist in Vichy France with all of the apparent freedom of the King of Siam.

its not just moroseness... its tragedy.
And walking away from CASABLANCA is inexusable.
Flawed plots do not bother me overmuch. Or rather, if i like a film, i'll excuse logical plot flaws. And if i don't like a film, i can pick its plot apart with disgust. But plots are just story-telling mechanics, and they can work better or worse, but are generally not a cause for my liking or not liking a movie, which has so many other story-telling tools at its disposal.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Vic Sage wrote: don't mind the moroseness of Vertigo so much. I just remember the plot as being flawed. But I'm the guy that walks away from Casablanca because Paul Henreid as Laszlo, an enemy of the Third Reich, is allowed to exist in Vichy France with all of the apparent freedom of the King of Siam. its not just moroseness... its tragedy. And walking away from CASABLANCA is inexusable. Flawed plots do not bother me overmuch. Or rather, if i like a film, i'll excuse logical plot flaws. And if i don't like a film, i can pick its plot apart with disgust. But plots are just story-telling mechanics, and they can work better or worse, but are generally not a cause for my liking or not liking a movie, which has so many other story-telling tools at its disposal.

Dick Crazy sez it was Cleopatra with a gun in a lover's quarrel. Cleopatra with a gun? How's that for a plot flaw?

[Vic Sage]

well, when Charlie Clam said it was Henry VIII using an axe in a lover's quarrel, i saluted his historical consistency.

[Valadius]

North by Northwest, hands down. Absolute masterpiece.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Hitch gets the What me Worry? treatment and then cameos on the Simpsons: