Few filmmakers have made such an impact on the cinematic landscape as Alfred Hitchcock. Over a career spanning six decades, going from silent films to talkies and black-and-white to colour, the Master of Suspense crafted over fifty films, many of which (such as Vertigo and Psycho) have rightly become cinematic classics.
One of the hallmarks of a Hitchcock film- aside from a glacial female blonde, strikingly innovative visuals, and the inconsequential-plot-point that became known as the McGuffin- is the cameo appearance by the maestro himself. Hitch made cameo appearances in 40 of his major films, often carrying a musical instrument and sometimes even breaking the fourth wall to clock the audience directly.
So here, in chronological order, are five of Hitch's most ingenious cameos
Lifeboat (1944)
So, you decide to film a picture featuring eight disparate people crowded together in a lifeboat. OK. How on Earth do you do a cameo in that set-up? Dismissing the idea of floating past as a dead body from the torpedoed vessel, Hitch instead makes what I think is his most clever cameo: in the "before" and "after" pictures in the newspaper ad for "Reduco Obesity Slayer" (in real life, he had lost a lot of weight during the filming).
Rope (1948)
Hitch actually has two cameos in this film- his first is more traditional, in the opening credits, he is the man walking down the street with the lady- but his second cameo is the more ingenious one. Bear in mind the action of the film takes place entirely at the party in the apartment. At just under an hour in, Hitch makes a cameo as a red flashing neon sign of his trademark profile in the window.
Dial M For Murder (1954)
Another example of Hitch's cameo coming in an unexpected format. Approximately 13 minutes in, he can be seen on the left side in the class reunion photo that Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) shows to Swann (Anthony Dawson).
North By Northwest (1959)
As his reputation for making cameos increased, Hitch would make sure he appeared earlier so as not to distract from the story. Here, to make sure people weren't distracted from the rip-roaring case of mistaken identity, his cameo comes in the first two minutes: just after his name appears on screen, he misses the bus!
Topaz (1969)
Whilst Topaz might not be one of Hitchcock's better-known films, it does however feature one of his best cameos. At around 30 minutes into the film, at the airport, Hitch can be seen being pushed in a wheelchair. He gets up from the chair, shakes hands with a man, and walks off to the right!
Bonus: Psycho (1960)
Now, Hitch's cameo in the infamous 1960 slasher isn't necessarily in and of itself remarkable - he's seen standing with his back to the window as Marion (Janet Leigh) returns to the office from her lunch with Sam (John Gavin), wearing a fetching Stetson hat.
The reason I bring it up is that the moment is recreated in Gus Van Sant's utterly pointless shot-for-shot 1998 colour remake which shows a figure remarkably similar to Hitch giving director Gus Van Sant a bollocking for something (probably for having the temerity to remake a film that's dangerously close to perfection and adding precisely zero to it)
So which is your favourite of Hitchcock's cameos? Let us know!
The story behind the making of Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror/thriller, is as interesting as the finished product. Based on the book by Stephen Rebello which chronicles the entire process, from conception to finished product and beyond, Hitchcock is director Sacha Gervasi's first non-documentary feature film (after Anvil: The Story Of Anvil).
The opening scene sets the tenor for the film. Wisconsin mass-murderer Ed Gein (Michael Wincott) kills his own brother. After the fatal shovel blow happens, the camera pans across to see Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) standing there with a cup of tea. He then delivers a cheeky speech straight down camera. This blend of drama and wit permeates the film, making a likeable if slightly insubstantial drama, akin to My Week With Marilyn.
Anthony Hopkins gives a sterling performance as Hitchcock; Hopkins is a gifted mimic and has Hitch's rolling accent down to a tee. There are hints of his 'darker side' (explored more fully and unflinchingly in The Girl)- voyeurism, his 'fantasy romances' with his leading ladies, his tendency to emotionally manipulate his actresses to get the desired result- but these faults never tip him over into being fundamentally unlikeable. Psycho was a massive gamble for Hitchcock and, as such, the stress and anxiety are there in spades. The prosthetic make-up is just brilliant too. The moment when he's outside the movie theatre and is almost conducting the screams of the audience during the shower scene is absolutely brilliant.
Helen Mirren is also just sublime as Alma Reville, Hitch's devoted wife and collaborator. She bears a lot with exceedingly good grace- her husband's infatuations, the people who look past her and through her (despite everything she's done to help Hitch get where he is)- but her performance is never martyred, never suffering. Indeed, one of the main plot points is whether she will have an affair with the silky Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston, turning on the smarm), a conflict that's never really a threat. Her quiet demolition of Hitch when he declares she should be giving him her 'full support' is a brilliantly written and played scene: she never gets hysterical, she keeps it under control but lets him know in no uncertain terms what she does for him.
There is uncanny casting for the cast of Psycho, so hats off to Terri Taylor (casting director) for getting so close to the original. Perhaps the best is James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins. Whilst he bears more than a passing physical resemblance to the late Mr Perkins, D'Arcy's brief performance evokes the actor fully. Scarlett Johannson gives a brilliant performance as Janet Leigh and there are scenes when she's shooting the car scenes for Psycho where I had to do a double take; the hair and make-up team have also done a sterling job. Good too is Jessica Biel as Vera Miles; Miles and Hitchcock had a famously fractious relationship after she dropped out of playing Madeleine in Vertigo due to being pregnant. She gets a couple of meaty scenes not only with Hopkins but also with Johansson, warning Leigh not to get to close to the maestro.
Other decent performances are Toni Collette as Hitch's secretary Peggy Robertson, quietly aghast at the content of the movie but still standing by her boss. Michael Stuhlbarg is also great as Hitch's agent Lew Wasserman, standing up to the studio boss when Hitch is determined that Psycho will be his next picture. Kurtwood Smith is good as head of the censor board Geoffrey Shurlock who clashes with Hitch over some of the content of the film (most notably the flushing toilet, a first for American cinema) and there's a nice one-scene cameo by former Karate Kid Ralph Maccho as screenwriter Joseph Stefano.
The film does take a few mis-steps in places- most notably the use of Gein to show Hitchcock's inner feelings. The killer- inspiration for Norman Bates, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence Of The Lambs- appears to Hitch in dream sequences and even acts as his psychotherapist at one point. Whilst the scenes are used to show Hitch's internal feelings, I couldn't help but feel that a better screenwriter would have found a way around it. A cardinal rule of creative writing is show, don't tell. Sadly, John J. McLaughlin doesn't always do this and the film suffers a little because of it.
The other mis-step is the length of the film. At a positively svelte 98 minutes, the film nips along at a fair old pace. But I wanted more. More information about the actual making of the film, the nuts-and-bolts process, some of the stories (the blood in the shower scene). More about what the actors felt about what they were doing- there are hints that Perkins had a very similar relationship to his mother that Bates did (without the corpse-stealing and transvestism, of course), so that would have been interesting to explore. What the film has done is made me want to read the book it's based on, so that's no bad thing.
You don't really need any prior knowledge of Psycho before you go in, but it'll enhance the experience if you do. All said, a handsomely-made piece, impeccably acted throughout, a wonderful glimpse of behind the scenes of a classic film. It left me wanting more.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tez
Ahead of the release of Hitchcock, which tells the story of the making of Psycho, it's a good time to go back and take a look at the classic 1960 thriller.
Based on the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, the story sees Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) embezzling $40,000 from her employer to help her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) and going on the run. She stays at the Bates Motel, run by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who lives with his mother in an old house close to the motel. It's a decision that proves fatal... Much like The Exorcist, so much of Psycho has passed into popular culture that it's entirely possible to know the film without having seen it. No more is this evident than in the famous- or infamous- 'shower scene'.
Having decided to return the money she's stolen, Marion takes a shower. Whilst in there, a shadowy figure- Norman's mother- enters the bathroom and stabs Marion to death. Hitchcock plays an audacious twist on his audience by killing off his leading lady so soon into the picture. Up until this point, the story has been all about Marion. We sympathise with her, even if we don't agree with her actions. It's a truly shocking moment when she's murdered- but it's a truly iconic one too. It's a moment that has been referenced and parodied throughout popular culture- there's a particularly elegant pastiche of it in an early episode of The Simpsons. The scene, which took a week to film, features seventy-seven different camera angles. Psycho is filmed in black-and-white so the blood in the shower was actually Bosco chocolate syrup which looks more realistic than stage blood. The sound effects of the stabbing were achieved by stabbing a knife into a casaba melon. Due to the frenetic editing during the attack, you never see the knife penetrate flesh (although it does touch it at one point). The audience's mind does most of the work. There is no truth to the rumour that Hitchcock made the water run ice-cold in the shower to elicit a genuine scream from Janet Leigh. There also seems to be no truth to the rumour that Saul Bass- who storyboarded several scenes and created the title sequence for this and other of Hitchcock's films (Vertigo and North By Northwest)- actually directed the shower scene, although he would have storyboarded it.
One of the integral parts of Psycho is Bernard Herrmann's sublime score. Recorded using only string instruments, it is one of the most recognisable scores in movie history. Despite Hitchcock's objection to there being music in the motel scenes, he soon changed his mind when he heard 'The Murder'- the infamous shrieking strings that accompany the shower scene. Hitchcock later remarked that '33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music' and reportedly doubled Herrmann's salary to $34,501. The film simply would not have the impact it does without Herrmann's score.
There are strong performances throughout, with Anthony Perkins giving such a brilliant performance as Norman Bates that it nearly ruined his career (as he was constantly typecast). He's nervy and can deliver lines like 'We all go a little mad sometimes' without sounding like a lunatic. Even though he doesn't say a word in the final scene, he is absolutely chilling. Leigh gives a warm and empathetic performance as Marion which makes her demise all the more shocking. Martin Balsam gives a solid performance as Milton Arbogast, a detective who is commissioned to find out what happened to her sister; his murder is another shocking and unsignposted moment. Vera Miles is also strong as Lila, although John Gavin's performance as Sam is a little wooden in places. Simon Oakland's slightly hammy performance as Dr. Richmond in the final scenes also slightly detracts from the explanation he's giving.
The marketing and promotion for Psycho was a masterstroke by Hitchcock. The original trailer was over six minutes long and featured Hitchcock giving a tour of the house and motel, culminating with a shock... Cinema managers were sent large cardboard cut-outs of Hitchcock pointing to his watch with a message stating that 'The manager of this theatre has been instructed at the risk of his life, not to admit to the theatre any persons after the picture starts'. There would be no late admissions to any screening; if you missed the beginning, you simply had to wait for the next screening (a ploy that should be revived today, if you ask me). Newspaper adverts confirmed the 'no late admission' policy, and also asked people who had seen the film not to give the ending away as 'it's the only one we have'. So determined was Hitchcock to preserve the plot that he forbade Leigh and Perkins from doing promotional interviews (preferring to do them himself) and also did not give advance private screenings to film critics- meaning the critics had to line up with the general public to get to see the film. Early reviews were, as you might expect, mixed; but one reviewer- C.A. Lejeune- was so offended by the film, she not only walked out of the screening but resigned as film critic for The Observer.
It was nominated for four Academy Awards- Best Director, Best Supporting Actress for Leigh, Best Cinematography (Black-And-White) and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Black-And-White)- but sadly did not win any, although Leigh did win a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. It was also selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1992. It's also spawned two sequels- Psycho II (1983) and Psycho III (1986)- as well as a TV movie prequel- Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)- all of which starred Anthony Perkins. There was also a truly dire, excruciatingly pointless virtually shot-for-shot colour remake by Gus Van Sant in 1998 which is best avoided. A television series, Bates Motel, based on the early life of Norman Bates (to be played by Freddie Highmore) is currently in production.
I had the very good fortune to see Psycho on the big screen in 1998, in an art-house cinema in Cardiff. It was an absolutely thrilling experience. Shocking, tense and gripping, Psycho truly is a masterpiece.
Tez
It's Day 12 of The Watchers' Advent Calendar and we're half-way through! This post is going up quite late, but that's rather appropriate. Yesterday, we featured Gremlins. Anyone who has seen Gremlins will tell you that, whilst parts of it are funny, it's a bit on the dark side. So we thought we might take a bit of a longer look at the darker side of Christmas with...
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Christmas Horror Movies
Holiday-based horror has been made since the 1970s- Halloween (1978, remade 2007), My Bloody Valentine (1981, remade 2009), April Fools Day (1986, remade 2008)- so it's no surprise that there are a couple of Christmas-based horror/slasher films out there.
Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974) is an atmospheric and creepy horror film set in a sorority house. The girls- among them Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey- receive obscene phone calls and then start to die one by one... There's no real explanation of who the killer really is (apart from the name 'Billy') or what they've done (elliptical hints are given throughout) which is much more unsettling. Some of the death scenes are tense and inventive. The film was remade in 2006, starring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, but the remake lacked the all-pervading tension of the original and was instead a much more standard slasher flick, albeit with Christmas lights and ice-skates used as weapons.
Any film that has a killer dressed as Santa Claus was always going to cause a bit of controversy. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) sees a young man- traumatized by the murder of his parents by a man dressed in a Santa suit- emerge as a killer after growing up in a Catholic orphanage. The young man is asked to play Santa at his job and then goes on a killing spree after seeing someone being 'naughty'. Understandably, the film met with protests and the film was withdrawn from cinemas by distributor TriStar. Despite this, the movie out-grossed A Nightmare On Elm Street- both films opened on the same weekend- and went on to spawn four sequels (although Parts 4 and 5 dispense with the 'Killer Santa' motif) and a remake is due out this Christmas.
Not to be confused with the saccharine 1998 Michael Keaton family-friendly vehicle of the same name, Jack Frost (1996) features a killer who comes back as a snowman after an accident with genetic material causes him to mutate and fuse with snow. As you do. It's low budget with terrible special effects, poor acting, a bad script and the death scenes are more comical than upsetting. A sequel- Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman- was made in 2000.
Finally, whilst Christmas doesn't play a part in the main action of the film at all, Hitchcock's classic Psycho (1960) starts on Friday, December the Eleventh (as seen by a graphic at the start of the film) and Christmas decorations can be seen in the opening shot of Phoenix. The reason for this is simple: filming took place over the Christmas period in 1959 and, rather than reshoot this footage, Hitchcock decided to include the title graphic instead.
So if you're in the mood for something festive but a little darker, why not try one of these?
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Hope you're still with us! Tomorrow's entry is a bit more family-friendly...
The Watchers Film Show: Ep 24 from
The Watchers Film Show on
Vimeo.
Programme 24 is now available!
Tez reviews Ben Affleck's latest movie Argo and we discuss our favourite movies from the 1960s!
In the news, there's a belated sequel to a Hollywood classic, the opening weekend box office for Skyfall and casting rumours for a Tarzan remake.
Podcasts versions are also available here and here.
Enjoy!
With recent news that Robocop is due to be remade, A Star Is Born is being remade for the third time and that Michael Bay has been sniffing around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, remakes have been on my mind.
I understand that remakes are popular- see, for example, the amount reeled off Hayden Panettierre's character in Scream 4 when challenged by the killer on horror remakes. However, it is rare to find a well-done remake. I enjoyed the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate andthe 1954 version of A Star Is Born is a delight to behold, but generally remakes tend to be by-the-numbers or lacking a certain spark evident in the original.
Below are, in my opinion, five of the most egregious examples of unnecessary remakes.
1. The Wicker Man (2006, dir. Neil LaBute)
The Wicker Man (1973) is not only one of the finest British films ever made, it is also one of the finest thrillers. Atmospheric, tense and skilful in its manipulation, it is a cult classic. To say that this remake doesn't come close to capturing a millionth of the original's class is a sad understatement. This is an absolute travesty. Rightly deserving its five Razzie nominations, this despicable waste of money and talent (Molly Parker, Frances Conroy and Ellen Burstyn for example) should be erased from the canon of film.
2. Psycho (1998, dir. Gus Van Sant)
For anyone who has seen Van Sant's preposterous scene-for-scene reimagining of Hitchcock's 1960 classic, you may have noticed a deeply disturbing rolling sound accompanying the action of the film: that noise is Hitchcock turning in his grave. If you're going to try and assay one of cinema's most well-known films, do something more imaginative with it than a bland rehash. Even facile additions (such as Vince Vaughn's pleasuring himself whilst spying on Anne Heche) do nothing but disappoint. This is a rare blot on Van Sant's copybook; as a film-maker he is so much better than this.
3. Halloween (2007, dir. Rob Zombie)
Another example of a remake which bleeds the tension and atmosphere of the original dry and replaces it with something dull, bludgeoning, uninspired, lacklustre and frankly boring. Had I not been with friends when I saw this, I would have walked out. There is a decent cameo by Sheri Moon Zombie as Michael's mother and Malcolm McDowell slices the ham thick as Dr. Loomis but this is generally just unwatchable tripe.
4. The Ladykillers (2004, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)
There's a quintessential British charm to The Ladykillers, one of the most well-liked of all the Ealing comedies. Sadly that charm doesn't travel into this slightly leaden Southern Fried adaptation. Despite a pretty fearsome performance by Irma P. Hall as Mrs Munson (the titular lady), the other performances lack any credible spark, led by the front by the Colonel Sanders-like Tom Hanks (in the Alec Guinness role).
5. Sleuth (2007, dir. Kenneth Branagh)
I wanted to like this film, being a fan of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1972 original. Kenneth Branagh directing, Harold Pinter writing, Michael Caine acting (along with Jude Law, who I can take or leave and prefer to leave, if I'm honest)- the signs looked favourable. Alas, not so much when push comes to shove. Whilst Pinter's script is whip-sharp and the actors spar convincingly, the stripped-back minimalism of the house and the alteration of certain plot points take away a certain oomph present in the original.
There are bound to be more in the cinematic canon. Let me know some of your most unnecessary remakes in the comments below.
Tez
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