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In the US: Happy Fourth of July (with a Hitchcock vibe, Psycho Included)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
12 replies | jump to latest

I have a little time here to take note of this holiday, a personal favorite of mine given its placement in early summer. I realize that these boards have an international audience so I guess I should soft-pedal the patriotism , but heck it just always been a fun day for me, from childhood(easily) to adulthood(requiring a bit more work to make it work), to older adulthood(well, more work.)

Now, that Hitchcock vibe. We all know he was British-born and lived there for almost half his life, making distinctly British movies up through 1939 IN Britain, and then, with his move to America in 1939 making movies ABOUT Britain In America (Rebecca, Suspicion, Dial M.)

Still, Hitch could take a loving look at his adapted America in a few films, and salute it accordingly.

The big two in that regard, I suppose, are Saboteur(1942), in which, to clear his name of a murder he didn't commit, Bob Cummings travels north by northEAST(from Glendale, California) to the Statue of Liberty for the climax; and well, North by Northwest(1959), where, to clear HIS name of a murder HE didn't commit, Cary Grant travels...you know, from NYC(near the Statue of Liberty) to Mount Rushmore for the climax.

One figures that Hitchcock wanted to film climaxes at the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore principally because they were "cool" (the monuments are, effectively , human giants upon which little humans can scamper and cliffhang.) But of course he ended up with "statements": Americans make their final stands against the Enemies of Democracy at the monuments TO Democracy(or a Republic ? I dunno, everything's do damn political these days.)

This conflict pretty clearcut in 1942 when the enemy was the Nazi party out of Germany, but of course Saboteur showed us a cabal of Americans who rather LIKED what Hitler stood for, and were interested in helping him "take America from within."

Came 1959 and North by Northwest, Hollywood's siege by DC over domestic Communism was such that NXNW couldn't ever dare to call Vandamm and his company..Communists. But whoever they were, they had no compunction about killing CIA agents and the US Ambassador to the UN.

The Statue of Liberty didn't have much area for a climax; it boiled down a silent sequence in which one man hangs from Lady Liberty's fist gripping the torch, while another man tries to haul him up. Given that the man in danger was the VILLAIN, this was rather "suspense for suspense's sake."

Hitchcock got it right on North by Northwest. The hanging man is the hero; the heroine is hanging from his hand; the subvillain is crushing the hero's other hand with his foot...suspense AND involvement. Not to mention, versus the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore offered a sweeping expanse of terrain for the chase and for cliffhanging, all under the dead-staring eyes of four Giant Presidents. And the silence of the Statue of Liberty scene is replaced with an thrilling, thundering, exhilarating run of Berrnard Herrmann music at full blast.

If Saboteur and North by Northwest were out to celebrate the freedoms of America versus Totalitarian foes, they also rather celebrated the country itself. Cary Grant ends up in ANOTHER life-or-death chase among amber fields of grain. Bob Cummings passes Hoover Dam(and will be involved in an effort to stop sabotage of it.)

Interestingly, neither film can send its hero all the way across the US for the adventure; North by Northwest takes Cary from NYC to Chicago(by means of a very romantic 20th Century Limited) to Rushmore, and Saboteur tends to center on Bob Cummings in the West and the desert lands of America(with a side trip to the high Sierra tree country.) From the desert, Bob zooms on to NYC(in an unseen car trip, he doesn't fly.)

Subtract out the forested mountain sequence in Saboteur and you find yourself in PSYCHO country: the desert and Southern California. Saboteur and Psycho are among the only two Hitchcock pictures that take place(for awhile) near Los Angeles.Hitchcock, a longtime resident OF Los Angeles, didn't seem to think it was Hitchcock Country. (It was Big Sleep/Chinatown country is what it was.) And yet, Marion Crane in Psycho buys a Los Angeles paper (in Bakersfield, about 100 miles north but LA papers are sold there), and tells Norman that she is from Los Angeles.

Does Psycho share with Saboteur and North by Northwest a celebration of America? No, not really. But given that 12 years later, with Frenzy, Hitchcock would make a decidedly BRITISH thriller about a decidedly BRITISH killer(in decidedly British London and Covent Garden), Psycho becomes, by contrast, a rather All-American shocker.

Take Fairvale. Its little-seen in the picture, but we can feel it. A small town where a man can run a hardware store and make a meager living on main street. Where Sunday morning is for church. Where you can ring the doorbell of the local Deputy Sheriff in the dead of night...and he will answer the door.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Take the interstate highway. We learn that the reason the Bates Motel now does so little business and is nearly abandoned is that "they moved away the highway."

This was a fairly big part of the Eisenhower years(1953-1961.) I believe it was under that President that the interstate system of superhighways were born. 6 hour trips from Los Angeles down to San Diego using a costal two lane became two hour trips on a superhighway. Bodega Bay from SF was two hours or one, depending on using the interstate. And California Valley business like the Bates Motel on the Old Highway would get bypassed and ignored. (We can figure that maybe the interstate bypassed Fairvale, too -- maybe Sam's business is struggling like Norman's is, except Sam provides needed supplies to the townspeople.)

Take motels. I'm sure that there are motels in other countries, but at the movies at least, motels seemed to be a very American phenomenon. Places for weary travelers to stop along those long interstates, or certainly on those once-busy old highways. Motels are also a rural phenomenon, the no-frills alternative to a big city hotel.

Marion Crane emerges from a fairly American mileau. She's a worker bee in capitalism, while her boss makes his money off of real estate deals and his client is a millionaire oilman with a wad of cash who throws his weight around, financially and sexually. The real atmosphere of Psycho is the American Southwest, but the cowboy hats in evidence(on Cassidy and on Hitchcock!) remind us of the Wild West...an American place that even Italy and Spain couldn't REALLY duplicate on film.

So, British though he could be on film(right up to his penultimate film, Frenzy), Hitchcock could take in America on occasion as well. Note also that sometimes he sent his American protagonists to foreign lands(Monte Carlo in To Catch a Thief; Morocco and London in Man 2), so to that extent, Psycho, Saboteur, and North by Northwest are "self contained in America."

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

And eventually, RURAL America. The plots of Psycho, Saboteur, and NXNW take urban dwellers out of their concrete nests and put them " on the road in America," where Marion will meet California Charlie, Roger will meet the Farmer in the Middle of the Road, and Barry Kane will meet a travelling circus caravan. These are the parts of America that Hitchcock ignored when he set his tales in NYC(many of them: Rope, Rear Window, The Wrong Man) or San Francisco (Vertigo.)

On the whole, NXNW and Psycho are my favorite Hitchcocks, and I do really like Saboteur(I just wish it had a bigger star male lead, though first-billed Priscilla Lane was a real beauty IMHO, of a modern type.) Perhaps their "All American" look is part of that allure.

Except I like Frenzy, too so...naw.

Happy Fourth to those who celebrate, best wishes to everyone else.

Off to the festivities for me...

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Happy Fourth to those who celebrate, best wishes to everyone else.
Off to the festivities for me...

Happy July 4 to you ecarle.

A couple of remarks:

1. It occurs to me that part of what has made Blow Out (1981) endure after originally being quite a flop is its Hitchcock-worthy July 4 climax. While the movie has many debts to both Blow-Up & The Conversation, ultimately it's Vertigo's tragic structure, the sickness of John Lithgow's killer and the bravura character of the fireworks shots (which Hitch would have loved I think, and appreciated their topping of anything in To Catch a Thief) that control how the film sticks in your memory. Blow Out *feels* like a late, post-Frenzy Hitchcock film, one that by its connection to landmarks (Liberty Bell) and dates (July 4) *would* have tempted him.
2. Some of the biggest blockbuster movies have claimed July 4 for a launch-pad, esp. Independence Day. This year the 3rd Season of Stranger Things is being released on Netflix on July 4, and for the first time it's set in summer - honestly, millions of Americans (and millions more world-wide) are binging those 8 hours or so this July 4 (and over the weekend for the keen but not crazed like me). Stranger Things is a mostly pretty inspired combination of, as they say, the '80s Johns (Hughes & Carpenter) & Steves (King & Spielberg). Linking it to July 4 is marketing genius by Netflix, again figuring out a way to out-Hollywood Hollywood.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Happy July 4 to you ecarle.

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Thank you. It was fun. As with these boards, one must stay "young at heart."

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A couple of remarks:

1. It occurs to me that part of what has made Blow Out (1981) endure after originally being quite a flop is its Hitchcock-worthy July 4 climax.

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SPOILERS FOR BLOW OUT. I like this, swantstep. I rather "reached out" to find a Hitchcock/4th connection(with his two all American spy films and at least one of his American-set psycho thrillers) and you recall a much more DIRECT thriller connection to the Fourth. As I've noted before, Blow Out is probably my favorite of Brian DePalma's "personal films/Hitchcock homages" (as opposed to the more commercial Scarface/Untouchables/Carlito's Way trilogy) and indeed it has a stunning climax, stunning particularly in how it seems like it may have a "happy ending" but veers instead into horror and tragedy -- with an added fillip that I've always liked: Travolta, ON THE SPOT, stabbing the political assassin/psycho killer to death. No Gavin Elster getting away here. (And the cops surmise that the victim stabbed Lithgow before dying herself.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

While the movie has many debts to both Blow-Up & The Conversation,

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Yep. I guess you could say DePalma was a "borrower," but of course Hitchcock did that too -- Psycho from Castle, Diabolique and other sources; The Birds from Godzilla; Marnie from the Southern psychological Gothic genre; Torn Curtain from The Spy Who Came in From the Cold etc.

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ultimately it's Vertigo's tragic structure,

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Yes...I've always found in both Chinatown and Blow Out what I clumsily call "the failed redemption of the second death" -- the hero is guilty over causing someone's death, he tries to protect another person and causes HER death(a "her" in all three films). Except in Vertigo, Scottie believes he caused TWO deaths(uniformed cop, Madeleine) before he cause the tragic third (Judy). In Chinatown, Nicholson reveals to Dunaway that as a beat cop IN Chinatown "I tried to protect someone from getting hurt, and I made sure she WAS hurt." And Dunaway's death is the blow at the end. In Blow Out, Travolta's sound equipment revealed a mob rat to his bosses and got him killed. And Travolta indirectly gets a sweet rough-hewn woman killed at the end. Notable: Stewart, Nicholson, and Travolta all end up pretty much near catatonic and destroyed at the end.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

the sickness of John Lithgow's killer

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Blow Out is interesting in "mixing and matching" Lithgow's killer as a psycho strangler terrorizing the city(ala Frenzy) AND a paid political assassin. Its as if he found a way to turn his hobby into a job.

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and the bravura character of the fireworks shots (which Hitch would have loved I think, and appreciated their topping of anything in To Catch a Thief)

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I saw fireworks last night and when they reached their inevitable climax and filled the sky -- I was indeed reminded of To Catch A Thief(thus recalling that Hitchcock sure used a lot of motifs and symbols in his career) and indeed of the literally orgasmic quality of the final explosions. Fun for kids -- fun for adults.

But indeed, Blow Out takes ITS final fireworks show, mixes in a circling Vertigo shot of tragedy, not ecstasy, and comes up with something very memorable.

(Note in passing: I seem to recall the Fourth of July footage in Blow Out -- taken at a REAL Fourth of July celebration in Philadelphia -- to have disappeared or been stolen or something. I think DePalma had to re-shoot a lot of it, not on the actual holiday.)

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that control how the film sticks in your memory. Blow Out *feels* like a late, post-Frenzy Hitchcock film, one that by its connection to landmarks (Liberty Bell) and dates (July 4) *would* have tempted him.

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Yes, for once here was DePalma ADDING new elements to the Hitchcock model, and creating something that maybe Hitchcock himself would have made. Keep in mind as well that Blow Out came out in 1981, the year after Hitchcock's death, and thus could be seen as "a continuation of the Hitchcock tradition."

And this: the slasher movie that Travolta's character is sound man on is called: "Co-Ed Frenzy."

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Some of the biggest blockbuster movies have claimed July 4 for a launch-pad, esp. Independence Day.

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I recall in the 90's after he had big hits on July Fourth -- Independence Day(1996) and Men in Black(1997), Will Smith noted the July 4th opening of his Wild, Wild West and said "Here we go again -- Big Willie Weekend!". Third time wasn't a charm. WWW was a big flop.

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This year the 3rd Season of Stranger Things is being released on Netflix on July 4, and for the first time it's set in summer - honestly, millions of Americans (and millions more world-wide) are binging those 8 hours or so this July 4 (and over the weekend for the keen but not crazed like me). Stranger Things is a mostly pretty inspired combination of, as they say, the '80s Johns (Hughes & Carpenter) & Steves (King & Spielberg). Linking it to July 4 is marketing genius by Netflix, again figuring out a way to out-Hollywood Hollywood.

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I'm seeing Strangers Things promotions and reviews all over the place, and now I get why. I will likely add it to my queue eventually -- starting with Season One. I tend to be a year or two behind many streaming series, trying to catch up.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Right now, "in real weekly time," I'm watching Meryl Streep do the Mother from Hell on HBO's starry "Big Little Lies." In Season One, a group of rich Monterey women led by Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman killed the abusive husband of Kidman when he made the "wonderful" error of beating and kicking Nicole in front of her friends(a truly satisfying moment; so often these guys "get away with it behind closed doors.") That's how the novel that sired the show ended, and the show seemed to be a one-shot deal.

But here's Season Two with Streep --clearly as cold and crazy as her brutal son -- come to avenge his death and mess with all the ladies who brought it upon him(one in particular -- the nicest of them -- actually pushed him down concrete steps to his death; but the cops ruled it an accident). There is surely a "Psycho" vibe to mother and son here, but also a tie to "Strangers on a Train," in which, as Truffaut said, "the mother is as crazy as the son" -- refusing to believe that her son was capable of beating Kidman or raping another younger woman and siring a son. Right now, Meryl's here to take custody of those kids, but I'm sure her madness will come out full blown eventually. Its soap opera, but its HBO -- three Best Actress Oscar winners, sex, murder...and Streep is having a lot of fun with some false teeth playing Mama.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

I'm seeing Strangers Things promotions and reviews all over the place, and now I get why. I will likely add it to my queue eventually -- starting with Season One.

Season 1 is *really* great. Season 2 was fun but both a little uneven and somewhat wheel-spinning. Having just watched the first two eps of Season 3, there seems to be a further drop-off in quality both writing- and execution-wise. I'm committed to watching this season to the end but objectively the show's starting to look out of good ideas. Disappointing.

[–] christomacin (4655) 5 years ago

I like Blow-Out quite a bit. There was quite a bit of interesting symbolism with Philadelphia and the flag, but a more subtle bit of symbolism occurs when John Lithgow eliminates a prostitute who he thinks is Nancy Allen in the bathroom stall - in the stall we see a "Stay Free" Maxipad dispenser attached to the wall. That's almost Kubrickian in its subliminal cleverness. There's another bit in this film about John Lithgow going in disguise as a telephone repairman, and I've always wondered if De Palma meant that as an in-joke reference to the 1967 James Coburn spy/conspiracy spoof "The President's Analysts", in which the big reveal at the end is that it's the phone company (AT & T before the breakup, obviously) that is behind the evil conspiracy.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

Happy 4th!!! woot!

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Happy 4th!!! woot!

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Hey, now!