MovieChat Forums > Marnie (1964) Discussion > Marnie -- Hitchcock's Luck Runs Out

Marnie -- Hitchcock's Luck Runs Out

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
18 replies | jump to latest

From 1958 through 1963, Alfred Hitchcock produced a four-in-a-row of movies that were hits that became all-time classics -- the most impressive run of movies in a row by one producer director ever.

More amazingly still, the first three of the four were released back-to-back to back in 1958(Vertigo), 1959(North by Northwest) and 1960(Psycho.) The Birds followed Psycho by three years(the longest gap between Hitchcock films ever to that date) because (a) Psycho had been such a huge blockbuster hit; (b) it took a long time to find a movie to top Psycho and (c) The Birds was a prodigious technical task for Hitchcock and his team in pre-Silicon Valley Hollywood.

Anyway:

Vertigo(not very successful on release but considred "the greatest movie of all time" in a Sight and Sound poll)
North by Northwest(a big hit, the ultimate spy chase romantic thriller adventure and "ground zero for Bond and the action thriller)
Psycho(the biggest hit of them all -- full house theaters screamed -- that also made landmark history -- and not just at the movies)
The Birds (Hitchcocks most famous title today after Psycho...and its own landmark of visual special effects and terrifying electronic sounds.)

Whew.

Not even Spielberg came close to this. Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET were "back to back"(1981 and 1982) but preceded by 1941(not good) and followed by Spielberg's segment of The Twilight Zone Movie(bad.)

I don't much remember 1958 to 1963, though I was a little kid then. But I wonder how Hitchcock fans felt at the time: One. Two. Three. Four. Four major movies -- three hits, one of them the Number Two grosser of its year(Psycho.)

After all those home runs...when would Hitchcock finally whiff the pitch?

After The Birds. Just ONE YEAR after The Birds. 1964. Marnie.

Like the man said : "'Wo hoppen?" (what happened?)

Is the issue here mathematical? Is the deal that no winning streak can go unbroken? Perhaps. But Hitchcock and Marnie are a special case.

Consider Hitchcock in the fifties. The run of back-to-back films heading up to Vertigo was rife with hits and classics, one right after the other: Strangers on a Train, I Confess, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much remake, The Wrong Man...and THEN Vertigo et al.

An incredible run. Still , of the group before Vertigo, only Rear Window has been seen as an "absolute best Hitchcock." Strangers on a Train the rest are merely "great."

So Marnie was really breaking over a decade of steady Hitchcock hits.

I believe that the first danger to Marnie was this: with North by Northwest(action and romance) but especially Psycho and The Birds(horror and fantasy), Hitchcock had "discovered the youth audience" that would find fruition in the 70's via Lucas and Spielberg, Jaws and Star Wars and the rest. Hitchcock just got there first (Psycho was a SUMMER blockbuster when that didn't happen; Hitchcock even predicted THAT.)

One critic wrote of Psycho and The Birds back then: "They were a private teenage preserve; nobody's parents approved." Hitchcock had the Spielberg/Lucas teenage youth audience "early" (along, I suppose with the Stephen King audience to come) and...he next gave them a "old fashioned melodrama" with little interest to teenagers at all.

Even the CREDIT SEQUENCE of Marnie announces "old movie." After Saul Bass's exciting state-of-the-art credit sequences for Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho, and then somebody else's Bass-like credits for The Birds...what was this? PAGES TURNING? Like from an old Irene Dune movie from 1944?

I always felt that that "pages turning" old-fashioned credit sequence for Marnie was at once (a) a bit of a spoof (THIS 1944 movie is going to be about poisoned sexual relationships) and (b) Hitchcock purposefully pushing the teenagers out of the theater, as if to say "I'm doing one for the grown-ups this time...please leave."

In his trailer for Marnie, Hitchcock says "this is not Psycho, nor are there a bunch of birds flapping about willy nilly" -- yet again, a direct message: "No horror this time, not a teenager movie." But he shifts to call Marnie a "sex mystery." He made another commercial where he was pouring ingredients into a huge soup caldron and -- he spills all the "SEX" ingredients by accident into the cauldron.

So audiences showed up at least expecting a "sex movie" and -- what did they get? A movie about a woman who CANNOT have sex..she's frigid, she recoils at the touch of men(even sexy Sean Connery.) There's a flashback at the end to the hooker past of Marnie's mother(when Marnie was a little girl) and we see a "sailor John"(Bruce Dern!) so sex appears there. And Connery, of course, rapes Marnie(Tippi Hedren) on her wedding night. So yeah..there IS sex in Marnie...but its not sexy. North by Northwest and Psycho were far sexier in THEIR love scenes.

MORE

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

CONT

I suppose that Hitchcock also believed that Universal owed him a "personal movie" after he had just delivered three big hits in a row (NXNW, Psycho, The Birds.) Except Universal was the distributor of only The Birds among that group, and it had performed less well than Psycho(like, less than half.) So Universal bosses weren't quite so accommodating once they saw Marnie.

Marnie may SEEM dull and old-fashioned after the action and horror of the three movies before it, but Hitchcock was also clearly reverting back to a "twisted romance tale" in the tradition not only of Vertigo(which Marnie resembles a lot) but of a whole sub-genre of Hitchcock movies: Rebecca, Suspicion, Spellbound, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn. Hitchcock liked 'twisted love" stories as much as -- if not more than -- his spy movies and his psychopath movies(Psycho, yes, but also Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt.) Wasn't it time for him to make one of THOSE?

Evidently not. Comparing Marnie(made at cheapjack Universal) to Vertigo(made at top of the line Paramount) shows the problems right away. Vertigo was allowed to film at gorgeous San Francisco and Bay Area peninsula locations. Marnie(perhaps because of Hitchcock's health) used only process shots of East Coast locales and some second unit work to give us Maryland and Philadelphia. The sets were cheaper. Even(sadly) Bernard Herrmann's score(his last for Hitchocck) felt more shrill, less lush than his classic score for Vertigo.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And that's another issue. By 1964, Hitchcock WAS almost 64(his age matched the year) and getting tired. Health problems. Drinking problems. Even some mental problems(the massive success of Psycho had put him on the spot to "do it again" when he couldn't.) One intimate noted that Hitchcock "never should have gone right into Marnie after all the hard work on The Birds." Hitchcock even wrote a note to a colleague as he worked on Marnie saying "you may have to finish this movie for me...I don't feel well." Possibly true.

But there was also "the Tippi problem." Hitchcock had hired the unknown, untrained model off of a TV commercial for The Birds and at least there, she had the horror and the special effects in support of her efforts. Here...she was on her own. And not terribly well-matched with Connery(who wasn't a big star yet -- he was at Roger Moore level with only two Bonds done.)

If Marnie was the breakdown after "the big four," you could see the wheels starting to come off on "The Birds." The script was poor in many places; the movie too slow in the beginning and -- in Tippi Hedren -- Hitchcock had a "star who wasn't a star" -- she had no history with audiences(as Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Janet Leigh did) and she practically had to carry Marnie.

Did Hitchcock sexual harass Tippi Hedren on "Marnie" did he DO or SAY something sexual? I say we don't really know. Many other Hitchcock actresses say he never treated them like Hedren said - -and these were actresses who worked for Hitch both before and after Marnie. In any event, Tippi Hedren wasn't a star. Marnie was meant to bring Princess Grace Kelly out of retirement, and she tried to accept(it fell through.) It could have starred Eva Marie Saint or Lee Remick. But Hitch "gave it to Tippi" and Marnie suffered.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The film has a rather poor script. Its own screenwriter -- Jay Presson Allen(a woman) -- said "I think it is in the bottom third of Hitchcock screenplays." Oddly enough, much of the script looks to mimic the great interrogation of Norman Bates by private detective Arbogast in Psycho! Sean Connery keeps badgering Marnie about all of her lies (just as Arbogast did with Norman) but in a much less friendly manner, and in scene after scene after back-to-back scene in which the interrogation goes on and on and on. On a series of poor Universal studios soundstage sets(only a letter perfect Howard Johnson's has any personality.)

Marnie has picked up its own fan base over the years, many of which add it in after The Birds as "the last Hitchcock masterpiece, albeit flawed." After all , its the last time that Hitchcock had Bernard Herrmann(score) George Tomasini(film editing -- see Psycho shower scene) and Robert Burks(cinematography) on hand. Tomasini and Burks would soon die; Hitchcock would fire Herrmann off his next movie Torn Curtain.

Indeed, if Marnie "broke the streak" of Hitchcock greats, it also began the streak of Hitchcock sixties "disappointments of decline." Torn Curtain(Universal demanded a spy movie, but they didn't get NXNW, even with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews for star power.) Topaz(ANOTHER spy movie, duller than Torn Curtain, and without stars.)

Hitchcock buffs know that Hitchcock surprised everyone with an R-rated psycho hit called Frenzy in 1972, but even that was held up to suspicion in some quarters: "Its no Psycho." And Truffaut in the late seventies wrote "I much prefer Marnie to Frenzy." (Those were the two "good ones" after The Birds, so it seems. Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot, didn't make the grade.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

In any event, fans and praise aside, and maybe even accommodating for the ties to Spellbound and Vertigo....Marnie single-handedly ended Hitchcock's connection to the youth audience. Other directors would take up the youth market, maybe Hitchcock didn't want them.

Marnie ended a hot streak.

PS. One critical beef with Marnie that i do NOT agree with is about "the really bad matte painting of a ship in harbor near the house of Marnie's mother." Its clearly a matte painting...but it is no worse than similar matte paintings in Vertigo(the bell tower), North by Northwest(the house on Mount Rushmore in some shots) or most of Torn Curtain.(Only Psycho rather avoided the problem.)

I'd say in all four cases, the "false" look helps create an almost Disney-like sense of fantasy. Hitchcockland is Disneyland with a dark side.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

IMHO the biggest reason I dislike Marnie, is that this is the film where Hitchcock put all his worst impulses into the script, and made only the most minimal attempt to disguise them with psychology, plausibility, or romantic trappings. There's a nastiness to "Marnie", compounded of Hitch's soured relationship with Hedren, a desire to shock, over confidence, and personal unhappiness.

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Its been said that, from Psycho on, Hitchcock -- even as a rich and powerful man in both movies and TV --- just sort of lost it...injecting his movies with a bleakness and a brutality and pretty much losing the humor which had kept movies like Rear Window and To Catch a Thief buoyant along with their suspense. Only at the very end, with Family Plot, did Hitchcock try to "reverse course" and offer up a fun thriller with as much humor as suspense.

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Which probably boils down to the same thing as ecarl said, in 1/100th of the space!

PS: Ecarl, please don't take that as a slight, we just have differing attitudes about the value of brevity.

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I don't take it as a slight. Some of my posts ARE short (you can find them) and other times, my "multiple posts in a row" are simply because the word count is limited. For my part, I often enjoy reading longer posts because they can get into more detail and bring more to the fore. My Marnie OP here is based on a key question: "How and why does a winning streak end?" and the answers seem to be (a) winning streaks ALWAYS end and (b) in Hitchcock's case, it was for a large group of reasons that sort of "caught up with him."

But I also think that even if Marnie was a disappointment to teenagers after the action and horror of NXNW, Psycho and The Birds -- Marnie was VERY MUCH a "typical type" of Hitchcock movie(Rebecca, Spellbound, Under Capricorn are forebears.)

And that took some time to say.

Still to others and all, I say: don't read if you don't want to read. Ignore if you want to ignore.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

Well, to me, "The Birds" marked the beginning of the end. Yes, there's some masterwork there in some scenes, but it's a joyless, heartless film, unleavened by humor or heroism.

Hedren really was bad for Hitchcock, and vice versa. She brought out the worst in him, completely unintentionally by all accounts. She just wanted to act and go home.

[–] telegonus (736) 4 years ago

While I'm at it, EC, I may as well weigh in for a bit. I've only seen Marnie once in its entirety, and liked it; and I've never been able to pull that off again. The very notion of sitting through this movie turns me of. It was good, but it wasn't fun. I didn't think Tippi Hedren was awful in this, she just lacked charisma and screen magnetism. These, Sean Connery possessed in abundance. Better still, for the first (and possibly last) time in his career Connery convinced me that even if he was not himself an intellectual, he could play one. As I recall, he's quite out of character cerebral in the film.

One problem I remember with Marnie is that it felt atypical of Hitchcock in being not all of a piece; nor did the story move at a good pace. It felt fragmented. Hitchcock wasn't one for "choppy" movies. One not may care for the ambiance of a particular film of his, yet once chosen, he sticks with what he planned to do in the first place. I have no idea WTF was up to with Marnie. It seemed too "modern" for Hitch as to subject matter, and, quite frankly, sexuality. The director's reach exceeded his grasp. He was out of his depth. Unusual for him. His was a sophisticated talent, yet his realm of sophistication did not, could not, comfortably embrace the issues of this particular picture.

For me, Connery's character saves it. I, even at eighteen, had an adult male view of the subject matter, and I dug Connery; his obsessions, his intellectualizing (maybe too much for his own good,--but then who am I to talk?), all drew me empathetically into his thought process. Marnie, for her part, didn't seem quite the right woman for Connery to concern himself with. I can't see Grace Kelly as right for Marnie, either, but a young Joan Fontaine might have worked, as she worked well for Rebecca. Downside here for Hitchcock: Marnie was a much more intimate project than the grand scale du Maurier adaptation, maybe the wrong movie for Hitch at this late phase of his career.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

This period was extremely difficult for Hollywood. The tastes of the nation were so heavily divided that you could expect only half the audience you normally would get. The characters in this were simply uninteresting for a country embroiled in assassinations, war, political corruption and a sexual revolution. These characters (aside from the mother) were far removed from a middleclass that now accounted for ticket sales. The same could be said for Topaz and Torn Curtain. As someone said, there is an obvious lack of the Hitchcock humor in these dour stories. I can enjoy them for the usual Hitchcock camera angles and great scores (not so much Topaz but I'm one of the few who actually likes the score in Torn Curtain.) And the secondary characters are much more interesting than the leads, both written and performed.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Well, to me, "The Birds" marked the beginning of the end. Yes, there's some masterwork there in some scenes, but it's a joyless, heartless film, unleavened by humor or heroism.

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It is conceivable that "something happened" within Hitchcock that brought forth not only his worst impulses(about sex and domination and humiliation of women) but a certain bleakness about the world in general. Psycho had been pretty mean -- beautiful Marion is killed just as she has decided to repent, Sam will be left guilty(the Bates Motel was near HIM; if Marion had not come to HIM, she wouldn't have died); Lila will be left enraged and bereft. Even the rather back story-free Arbogast's tale is a tough one: he was killed for doing his job too well(and he DID alert the others to the solution of the mystery, it was his sacrifice.)

But Psycho had elements of fun and humor to make the bleakness go down better -- the movies from Marnie through Topaz were way too serious. Frenzy had plenty of dark humor but was even worse in its final tally than Psycho -- BOTH heroines die -- its as if Janet Leigh AND Vera Miles died.

Marnie started that bleakness, it lacked the "fun" of NXNW, Psycho and The Birds.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Hedren really was bad for Hitchcock, and vice versa. She brought out the worst in him, completely unintentionally by all accounts. She just wanted to act and go home.

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In some ways it is a complex tale, in other ways -- not at all. Consider Hitchcock here as a PRODUCER, not a director(he never took the produced by credit, but he was.) Aging male producers in Hollywood often put young pretty women in films as a matter of seeking favor from them. We don't know if they got it every time...but a number of them DID. Darryl F. Zanuck, Hal Wallis, Howard Hawks, John Huston, Charles Feldman...even, later on, Brian DePalma(Nancy Allen) and Peter Bogdanovich(Cybill Shepard -- who was pretty responsible for the collapse of HIS career.) And don't forget Roman Polanski. What's "funny" in Hitchcock's case is that he never had any sort of chance with Tippi Hedren. And like too many actresses just "plucked" from nowhere and given leads, Hedren had not EARNED audience affection or respect. If she was meant to be a star after Marnie...she would have been one.

Personally, I've never quite believed Tippi Hedren's tales of Hitchcock because (a) they changed too much over the years;(b) she and her brood have proven pretty "Hollywood nutty" and (c) a TON of other Hitchcock actresses -- and the many women who worked for him -- said that he was NEVER that way. (Except Brigitte Auber of To Catch a Thief said Hitch tried to kiss her in a car and she was sad rather than offended.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

While I'm at it, EC, I may as well weigh in for a bit.

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Hello, telegonus! I come back here late, and find you, always good news.

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I've only seen Marnie once in its entirety, and liked it; and I've never been able to pull that off again.

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I've seen it a few times. Most famously (for me), I saw it WITH Tippi Hedren there, to speak afterwards, in person...at a college cafeteria after hours(the college film club invited her; it was very weird sitting with her with cafeteria utensils in the background.)

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The very notion of sitting through this movie turns me of. It was good, but it wasn't fun.

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It has been said of ALL of Hitchcock's "late films"(from Marnie on, and yes, including Frenzy) that "the technical mastery was still there, but the heart was not." I think Frenzy still came out better because it had a gripping, graspable plot, a charming psycho, some set pieces and (maybe above all) a spectacular , atmospheric setting in London's Covent Garden marketplace. And THAT movie -- unlike Marnie -- had a lot of real on-location footage And yet, Truffaut went on record as much preferring Marnie to Frenzy. Possibly because Marnie at least WRESTLED with a love story and empathy. Frenzy was just plain mean.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I didn't think Tippi Hedren was awful in this, she just lacked charisma and screen magnetism. These, Sean Connery possessed in abundance. Better still, for the first (and possibly last) time in his career Connery convinced me that even if he was not himself an intellectual, he could play one. As I recall, he's quite out of character cerebral in the film.

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It remains a weird attempt at "star couple casting." One film later in Torn Curtain, at least Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were BOTH firmly established stars with major hits on their records (and Andrews had bigger ones than Newman.) Putting "Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery" BOTH above the title for Marnie felt -- to critics of the time -- wrong. She wasn't a star at all, and never would be. With Connery, he wasn't quite a full star YET -- within about three more years, he would be -- Goldfinger and Thunderball were blockbusters and he got other roles.

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Better still, for the first (and possibly last) time in his career Connery convinced me that even if he was not himself an intellectual, he could play one. As I recall, he's quite out of character cerebral in the film.

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Yes, the character has a deep understanding of African art, of zoology, and of Freudian psychology (a psychiatrist character in the book was dropped and his lines given to Connery.) He's rich, but not idle rich. I think Hitchcock felt that Connery was somewhat miscast as a "country gentleman." Hitch saw Young Laurence Olivier in the part, but Olivier was now old. Connery brought all that sexual heat and masculine quality to the part.

Even on the issue of the film's "marital rape," while male screenwriter Evan Hunter couldn't bring himself to write it, and was fired, female screenwriter Jay Presson Allen COULD write it, and said it wasn't really a rape. The debate rages still, but I think Allen was suggesting that Connery's Bondish way with the ladies made Mark Rutland perhaps more "fantasy friend than foe" here.

I disagree. I think the story has a sick mathematical simplicity to it: (1) Connery wants Tippi sexually but can't have her(and he gets all the other women he wants); (2) Connery blackmails Tippi into marrying him and (3) now as her husband, Connery "claims his spousal rights" and makes love to his wife, STILL against her will. Its a rather bitter logic. Very sexist today. But hey, Jay Presson Allen, a woman, rather thought women dug this whole set-up. What do I know?

And maybe the proof IS in the pudding. Connery IS the star of Marnie(he gets a GREAT star entrance, popping his head and torso into the frame of a doorway, with a jacket flung over his shoulder, so that women swooned), he had the "right stuff," Cary Grant with more roughness. Paul Newman, a bigger star at the time, one year later in Torn Curtain, was NOT very Cary Grantian...he was too much the wiseguy and, compared to the strapping Connery , a bit too thin and spindly. Also, yes, a bit too nervous and "Method." (Still , I LIKE Paul Newman in just about anything, even Torn Curtain, which benefits from his stardom.)

Hitchcock "got it" about Sean Connery. He tried to sign Connery to a multi-picture deal(no dice); he offered Connery the FRENCH lead in Topaz(say what? A French brogue?) and tried to interest him in such unfinished projects as The Three Hostages and The Short Night. (Hey, Connery would have made an interesting Richard Blaney in Frenzy, too.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

One problem I remember with Marnie is that it felt atypical of Hitchcock in being not all of a piece; nor did the story move at a good pace.

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Around this time -- and with Torn Curtain -- Hitchcock started complaining to the press about the inability to find really good screenwriters -- well, at least HE had trouble.

Jay Presson Allen herself says she believes the "Marnie" script is "in the bottom third of Hitchcock scripts." (Didn't she win the Oscar for Cabaret?) She may have been unseasoned at the time, and Hitchcock couldn't help her. As I note "up-thread," the movie really bogs down into back-to-back-to back sequences of Connery interrogating and threatening Hedren(he even threatens to beat her at one point.) And they often talk in cars with "rainy back projection." This worked with Janet Leigh in a super-shocker, here; not so much.

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It felt fragmented. Hitchcock wasn't one for "choppy" movies.

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Well perhaps the Evan Hunter script and the Presson Allen script were messily mixed and matched. (And Joseph "Psycho" Stefano wrote a first treatment before quitting the movie to produce "The Outer Limits.") I haven't read the book, but I HAVE read the movie made major changes: a male rival for Connery became a female rival (Diane Baker) for Tippi(and Marnie doesn't CARE about a "rival"); the psychiatrist's part was merged into Connery's. Hitchcock and his writer may just have lost control of a book and story that weren't as "easy to tell" as Psycho or The Birds or NXNW.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

One not may care for the ambiance of a particular film of his, yet once chosen, he sticks with what he planned to do in the first place. I have no idea WTF was up to with Marnie. It seemed too "modern" for Hitch as to subject matter, and, quite frankly, sexuality.

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Well, in subject matter, Hitchcock had been there before -- Rebecca (the Lord of the Manor and his bride); Suspicion(husband/wife tensions); Spellbound(two lovers, one with buried memories to unlock) and Notorious(Bergman: "Ours is an interesting love. Grant: "Why?" Maybe because you hate me.") The Paradine Case and Under Capricorn are VERY on point. Frankly , Hitchcock had made almost as many "Marnie" type movies as spy movies.

But not LIKE Marnie. Here was Hitchcock -- old, tired, long celibate -- trying to explore sexuality and with only half the team for it: Connery was in there swinging, but Hedren was brittle and high strung and COULDN'T play sexy(think Ingrid or Grace or Eva Marie Saint or Janet Leigh.)

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The director's reach exceeded his grasp. He was out of his depth. Unusual for him.

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Yes. Somehow, the background in Notorious and Under Capricorn didn't "transfer" to the Sexy Sixties. But evidently the man himself was tired, fearful , insecure when he made this movie.

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His was a sophisticated talent, yet his realm of sophistication did not, could not, comfortably embrace the issues of this particular picture.

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I've lost track if somebody has tried to remake Marnie -- like on the BBC or something. But maybe it is worth a try with the Hays Code long destroyed and more frank sexuality allowed. The problem is, this "sex mystery" has no REAL sex or lust in it (well, that close-up on Connery's lips savagely and lustfully and yet tenderly kissing down on Tippi's during the storm is pretty hot; that's about it.)

And of course, a better female lead. And good luck finding a "new Sean Connery." He's as hard to replace as Cary Grant was.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

filmcollector wrote:

This period was extremely difficult for Hollywood. The tastes of the nation were so heavily divided that you could expect only half the audience you normally would get.

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Yes!

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The characters in this were simply uninteresting for a country embroiled in assassinations, war, political corruption and a sexual revolution.

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Yes. Its always been interesting to me that two "great envelope pushing directors" -- Hitchcock and Billy Wilder -- seemed to simultaneously become "old hat" in 1964(Marnie, Kiss Me Stupid) and 1966 (Torn Curtain, The Fortune Cookie.) And not a few years EARLIER, they had been totally on top of their game and feeling the pulse of the times (Some Like it Hot, North by Northwest, The Apartment, Psycho.) When Wilder won a fistful of Oscars for The Apartment, the presenter whispered in his ear, "time to quit, Billy." You could have said the same thing about Hitchcock.

But no. There was more money to be made, more fame to be milked, more relevance to cling to even as the times changed.

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These characters (aside from the mother) were far removed from a middleclass that now accounted for ticket sales.

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Well, Hitchcock said that both Rebecca and Marnie are "rich prince and poor girl" stories.

The mother was middle-class but oh what a tawdry past. When Louise Latham came on set dolled up as the young hooker her character once was, some men on the crew didn't know it was "Mother.,"

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The same could be said for Topaz and Torn Curtain.

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Funny thing, there. Hitchcock was actually trying to "stay current." Suddenly, Communists could be named (as Nazis once were) as the villains in movies. They couldn't be named as such in The Man Who Knew Too Much or North by Northwest. So Hitchcock made TWO Cold War spy films -- which were all the rage, both on the Bond side(action) and the cerebral bureaucratic side(The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Funeral In Berlin; The Quiller Memorandum.)

Hitchcock was "joining that club" but neither Torn Curtain nor Topaz had the action of Bond OR the seriousness of Le Carre. What they DID have was great Hitchcock cinematic style, but it wasn't enough.

Also -- and bad for Hitch -- there were some international critics who didn't take kindly to Communist villains. Che was a hero to some when Topaz came out.

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---someone said, there is an obvious lack of the Hitchcock humor in these dour stories. I can enjoy them for the usual Hitchcock camera angles and great scores (not so much Topaz but I'm one of the few who actually likes the score in Torn Curtain.)

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I bought some years ago the original 1966 soundtrack album for Torn Curtain. It DOES have a very exciting theme song -- a bit more "peppy" than the one that Herrmann wrote(which can also be heard on YouTube and elsewhere) and that theme song helps kick start the rather awkward "bus chase" sequence.

Topaz is rather "standard Maurice Jarre." It sounds like Dr. Zhivago and The Professionals and other of his works, rather dull in parts, more "atonal aural wallpaper" than thriller music(The Professionals STARTS exciting, but soon turns into this stuff too.). Except: the opening notes of the Topaz credit music, build and build and build and BUILD -- ala North by Northwest, except using DRUMS for a martial beat(as we watch a Russian military parade.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

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And the secondary characters are much more interesting than the leads, both written and performed.

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Yes! We started to see this in Psycho, where, less than Perkins and Leigh, but more than Gavin and Miles -- the secondary folk were ALL more interesting, from Arbogast on down.

Cary Grant and James Stewart had to contend with John Williams and Leo G. Carroll and Wendell Corey and Thelma Ritter, but they were stars enough to hold their own.

Paul Newman didn't much WANT to compete, so Gromek took over -- and I rather like Gromek's boss, some German(?) actor who looked rather like Chevy Chase! He has a great line offering Newman a cigar: "Cuban. Your loss, our gain."

The unknown Frederick Stafford just gave up and yielded to the Topaz support cast. Nowhere is this more apparent than the "Hotel Theresa in Harlem" sequence where Stafford just stands across the street and dully (with weak facial expressions) watches the REAL star of the sequence -- Roscoe Lee Browne wheedle his way into Castro's NYC stronghold. As the film goes on, Stafford yields to John Vernon's Cuban, Rico Parra, and the French turncoats(Michael Piccoli and Phillipe Noiret) in Paris.