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thirtysomething's Hitchcock Episode 'South by Southeast' is back on youtube

posted 7 months ago by swanstep (2715)
11 replies | jump to latest

Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1nN-xwz__g
It's not the greatest quality, just 360p, doesn't include the show's title sequence, and is bundled together with the two subsequent eps in the series, but... it's great at least if you can get past thirtysomething's basic predilections. As its title suggests, the ep. is mainly inspired by NbNW, but Dial M, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and even The Birds are all played with. Enjoy it (and indeed any other fave thirtysomething eps - I'm particularly partial to an anomalous 3rd season ep. 'Arizona') before the copyright goons arrive!

Update: The episode was written by the now somewhat notorious Paul Haggis. Haggis won screenplay Oscars for both Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), becoming the first screenplay winner to win in consecutive years. He's also a famous ex-Scientologist with lots of criminal law entanglements since leaving the church, some of which have been alleged to be frame-up jobs by the Church of Scientology. He's currently in Italy trying to have a 2022 assault charge (alleging he imprisoned a British woman for 3 days) that's never gone to trial formally dismissed.

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1nN-xwz__g
It's not the greatest quality, just 360p, doesn't include the show's title sequence, and is bundled together with the two subsequent eps in the series, but... it's great at least if you can get past thirtysomething's basic predilections.

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"its great at least if you can get past thirtysomething's basic predlictions."

Ha. As I recall, the series went from being a critical fave to being besmirched as the "ultra-navel gazing Yuppie show of the eighties." I give the show great credit for that title: "thirty something." It became a shorthand catchphrase for ALL generations: "twentysomethings," "fortysomethings," "fiftysomethings." I think the phrase " Yuppie" predated the series but the series very much epitomized the Yuppie type. (All pretty much white people and isn't it horrible how nowadays one has to take note of that as if maybe refusing to acknowledge that that's who the show was SUPPOSED to be about? Used to be, we didn't make such distinctions. And after all the 80s was when The Cosby Show reigned supreme.)

I watched it every week. By the eighties I was settled down with a sig other and that's the kind of show you could "share."

I had to smile seeing Ken Olin in his suspenders. THAT was a look(also pushed by Michael Douglas in Wall Street.) Yeah, I wore them for awhile. Til I didn't.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

And a nod to the female guest star in this Hitchcock episode: one Dana Delaney. She was and is a constant TV star, and seemed well possessed of a distinctive face, a girl next door quality -- and a rather hard-to-figure sexiness. One of my crushes. Two movies put her on the map that way: One was Tombstone, that cult 1993 Western where her traveling roadshow actress sets her sights on married Wyatt Earp(Kurt Russell) and gets him. The other was (on the one hand) an awful, horrible stupid comedy set on a n "S and M island" (with Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Ackroyd undercover in black leather -- YIKES) and(on the other hand) but..but..but, Ms. Delany out to assert her sex appeal in black leather(that worked on her) and, if I recall, a nude scene. Critics hated the movie and thought Delaney was totally miscast as a dominatrix(with romantic heart for a handsome hero) but..hey she put that image out that one time and it stuck.

Best: Ms. Delaney is a sixty something now, and still quite attractive and I am of that generation and I like to see that.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

As its title suggests, the ep. is mainly inspired by NbNW, but Dial M, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, and even The Birds are all played with.

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The maker/writer/"showrunners" of thirtysomething seem to be a prime example of "Hitchcock fans in their youth who could extol him in their 30s." A bunch of us "civilians" got the Hitchcock Jones in the 60s(when his big classics hit TV and his TV show reigned supreme for the first half til 1965), but a smaller select few actually BECAME filmmakers AND TV show makers(thirtysomething) and got to take their Hitchcock love out for a spin on screen. ("Moonlighting' had a few Hitchcock based episodes in the 80s, too.)

When we talk the oringal Psycho we are returned to 1960, the "50s/60s cusp" for movies, and the entire 1960s in which the movie kept playing with fire even as it kept playing: a network TV cancellastion, two re-releases, the local TV debuts. (And keep in mind that with the 60's "getting violent" in wars, riots and assassinations, Psycho was often used as a touchstone for the real-life violence of the decade...until Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch came along.

But here is "thirtysomething" slingshotting us on out of the 60's, past the 70s and into the 80s -- a decade of entertainment where, frankly, a "movie-savvy" generation started to live in the past.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

Alfred Hitchcock died in 1980 and ...became big all over again IN The 80's. Psycho II(a big hit) in 1983. Psycho III(a better movie and a lesser hit, directed by brilliant Anthony Perkins) in 1986. A reboot of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1985(with Hitch brought back to life -- COLORIZED per the 80's thing -- for his b/w introductions. And biggest of all -- starting in 1983 -- the re-releases of "the lost Hitchcock 5' -- Vertigo, Rear Window(the two biggest ones) plus Rope, The Trouble With Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much '56. Vertigo and Rear Window going to art houses in 1983 led to articles like "The Best Movie of 1983 was made in 1954"(Rear Window) and "The Hottest Director of 1983 has Been Dead for Three Years."

Oh, what a time the 80s was..for living in the past!

That thirtysomething episode was VERY sophisticated in how it 'mixed and matched" REAL Hitchcock(clips from NXNW and Herrmann's Psycho screeching) with "pseudo-Hitchcock"(Herrman-ESQUE music to recreate the rich "otherworld" of Hitchcock scores ) . I liked how the episode found time to switch to black and white to do a decent "Strangers on a Train" spoof(complete with references to the great opening sequence of the FEET of two men coming together) and some Dial M. For once not ONLY Psycho and Rear Window and NXNW and The Birds were spoofed.

Of note:

One astute critic offered up these as "Hitchcock's Golden Seven" (his most "something films" -- best? entertaining? remembered?)

Shadow of a Doubt
Notorious
Strangers on a Train
Rear Window
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Psycho

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

With apologies to The 39 Steps and Rebecca and The Birds(for fame), those really ARE the big ones, aren't they?

The Big Three in a Row with Herrman music and Bass credits: Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho
The AFI "Four Best Hitchcocks": Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho
Hitchcock's Big Action/Psycho Comeback of the Fifties: Strangers on a Train
Hitchcock's two best "ahead of their time" movies of the forties; Shadow of a Doubt(domestic terror), Notorious(anguished spy love story)

The Birds often makes these lists too -- it remains along with Psycho the most famous Hitchcock movie today.

Anyway, here was "thirtysomething" getting MOST of those movies into its spoof -- plus Dial M(which is beloved in some quarters, and has, as a central set-piece, a rape-like sequence that mixes sexuality with brutality when the supposed killer himself is killed.)

I don't think they found a way to squeeze Shadow of a Dbout in there -- I think Cary Grant subsumed Notorious into NXNW - -as he did in the REAL movies. But otherwise, they got 'em all.

Kudos to two bits:

ONE: When Peter Horton is stabbed to the Psycho music, his fall is a mix of Arbogast's AND Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo -- a reminder that, in Hitchcock, there are all sorts of ways to fall..

TWO: I liked the psychiatrist character showing up -- "Dr. Vandamn" by an actor doing a smash up James Mason impression. (Which reminds me: I watched a 1962 Alfred Hitchcock Hour the other day and I was astonished to see James Mason starring in it -- just three years after being "the big movie star villain" in North by Northwest and in the year he starred in Kubrick's Lolita. I couldn't tell if it was a comedown for "movie star James Mason" or a mark of how prestigious "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" was at the time.

[–] telegonus (736) 7 months ago

I liked the James Mason Hitchcock hour entry very much when I first saw it just a few years back, when I still had a television, thus still had MeTV (it's a long story, but I moved last November, and the same day accidentally broke my set when I placed it on an overupholstered chair, and it hit the hardwood floor hard, and just smashed).

Mason's star power sells his episode, though it's a good one to begin with, but just imagine if it had been Barry Sullivan, Joseph Cotten or James Daly, good actors all, but not in Mason's league as a star, and not charismatic, and imagine how well it would played. Two of my first hour long seasons eps are from early on, A Piece Of The Action, just a good, well acted story, and Don't Look Behind You, in which Vera Miles seems to be stalked by half the male faculty members of a college. Great atmosphere, a spooky score, fair to middlin' writing, with Dick Sargent coming through in the end like he's the only sane one of the bunch.

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

Hi, telegonus!

roger1 (ecarle) here.

You wrote:

Mason's star power sells his episode, though it's a good one to begin with, but just imagine if it had been Barry Sullivan, Joseph Cotten or James Daly, good actors all, but not in Mason's league as a star, and not charismatic, and imagine how well it would played.

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Well, I guess it might have been a standard "good" Alfred Hitchcock Hour, but not necessarily a special one. James Mason made all the difference. I've somewhat aged out of my "star worship," but I remember thinking that with North by Northwest , Hitchcock finally had the respect AND the budget(courtesy of MGM making just one movie with him on a special deal) to hire not only ONE big star to be the hero(Cary Grant, not Bob Cummings, ala Saboteur) but a SECOND big star to play the villain(James Mason, not Otto Kruger, ala Saboteur.) Plus Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint.

James Mason had been in the major Judy Garland vehicle "A Star is Born"(in a role TURNED DOWN by Cary Grant). He had been in Odd Man Out and The Reckless Moment early on, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (as the sympathetic villain Captain Nemo opposite a less-suave-than-Cary-Grant Kirk Douglas.) He was a big deal.

On here he was on a Hitchocck Hour? The same year he made Lolita?

Well, consider this: In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock tentatively signed two movie stars for a movie to be called 'No Bail for the Judge." One was an established star and Oscar winner: Audrey Hepburn . The other was newly minted "British angry young man " -- Laurence Harvey, whose stardom arrived quickly with "Room at the Top."

Harvey would soon appear with John Wayne(!) in The Alamo and with Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate(with Harvey's greatest role as a supercilious, cold and pathetic man who is brainwashed as a killer.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

But en route to those two movies, Hitchocck's "No Bail for the Judge" fell apart and was never made. So Hitchocck put Laurence Harvey in an ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS episode. It was "only" a half hour one -- not a great big more expensive hour episode like James Mason got.

Harvey's episode was called "Arthur"(not to be confused with the 1981 Dudley Moore vehicle) and the episode opens with a rather striking image of Harvey holding a chicken and standing in front of a chicken coop abolutely FILLED with the clucking birds. (Yes, The Birds is telegraphed here as much as in Psycho, made the same year as Arthur in 1960.)

Arthur is a pretty quick and simple tale about Harvey killing his obnoxious, beautiful fiancee and grinding into feed for his chickens. "TV gruesome."

But again, as with James Mason two years later, here was a "major movie star"(albeit a new one in Laurence Harvey's case) immediately "lowering himself" to TV. Except with Hitchcock, it was not lowering.

Laurence Harvey kept his semi-star career going for the entire 60s in movies. In 1970, Harvey appeared with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and...Anthony Perkins...in "WUSA" and it was as if these 60's stars suddenly seemed out of their era -- except for Paul Newman.

Harvey would again move to "prestige TV" by playing the guest killer (a chessmaster) on a 1973 Columbo episode. And then he died pretty young of leukemia.

Back to the James Mason episode: his co-star was the ever sexy Angie Dickenson, playing one of her double-crossing characters(see: The Killers.) And Mason turned out(as I recall, I just saw this and my attention wasn't focussed) to be a bit of a Norman Bates himself....some OTHER personality within him was a killer.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

I did a quick skim of James Mason's IMDB list and it looks like he did some TV roles in the 50's and then in the 60s...including Dr. Kildaire and Stoney Burke other than the Hitchocck. "Maybe he needed the money." He went through a heart attack and a costly divorce around this time.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

Telegonus wrote:

Two of my first hour long seasons eps are from early on, A Piece Of The Action, just a good, well acted story,

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The first Alfred Hitchcock HOUR broadcast, I believe, and starring Gig Young(then an established star) and Robert Redford(newbie.) They played brothers. Both were handsome, suave men -- they made sense as brothers. Its about a gangland poker game in which Redford puts his older brother's life on the line.

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and Don't Look Behind You, in which Vera Miles seems to be stalked by half the male faculty members of a college.

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Ha. "A woman alone," and lots of lonely walks through tree-ridden campus areas.

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Great atmosphere, a spooky score, fair to middlin' writing, with Dick Sargent coming through in the end like he's the only sane one of the bunch.

--
Here is something interesting about "Don't Look Behind You."

It started as a short story. I bought one of those "Alfred Hitchcock short story books"(the ones for adults, even as I had the kids collecections,, and that story was in it. It scared me a bit before I laughed at the concept.

The opening paragraph, paraphrased:

"Don't look behind you. I'm watching you...but you can't see me. I'm not watching you all of the time, but I am watching you a lot of the time. And I am going to follow you. And I am going to kill you."

Yikes.

It got worse at the end of the story:

"You see, I found a book of short stories. One story was called "Don't Look Behind You." I bought the boo, and tore out the pages with THAT story, and put in pages with THIS story -- just for you. I made certain to use the same printing press for the pages and the same gum to hold them in.

And I am coming for you. And I am going to kill you.

Don't Look Behind You."

Scary, uh? I almost believed it, but then I check other copies of the book, and the same short story was in every one.

PS. I'm sorry about your TV, Telegonus. Anymore, I can't find all the movies I want to see on TV. I"m thinking of getting more involved in reading books!

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 7 months ago

swanstep wrote:

Update: The episode was written by the now somewhat notorious Paul Haggis. Haggis won screenplay Oscars for both Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), becoming the first screenplay winner to win in consecutive years.

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I remember that. Haggis was a big deal for a time. I think I'm one of those people who always rather favored screenwriters as "the true stars of Hollywood" -- when the movie is good. From Ben Hecht to John Michael Hayes to Ernest Lehman to Joseph Stefano to Anthony Hopkins -- those are my Hitchcock favorites. But also Peter Stone(Charade, Mirage, The Taking of Pelham 123) and Willaim Goldman (Harper, Butch Cassidy) the Great Paddy Chayefsky. Plus writer-directors Billy Wilder, Woody
Allen and Quentin Tarantino.

Haggis caught "lucky breaks" with Million Dollar Baby and Crash. Crash had its enemies in Hollywood for winning Best Picture against Brokeback Mountain.

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He's also a famous ex-Scientologist with lots of criminal law entanglements since leaving the church, some of which have been alleged to be frame-up jobs by the Church of Scientology. He's currently in Italy trying to have a 2022 assault charge (alleging he imprisoned a British woman for 3 days) that's never gone to trial formally dismissed.

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Yes, I recall reading that. I tend to mix up the scandals of Paul Haggis with another writer-director named James Toback, who made pals with guys like David Thomson(writer) and Alec Baldwin en route to HIS sexual scandals.

We shall see...