I love the way that Paul Newman basically holds the guy while the woman does all the work. In the scene where she falls to her knees to drag him to the oven she looks like shes wearing knee pads under her tights.
Im going to buy my girlfriend an apron like that and have her drag me across the floor(Not sure about being hit in the legs with a shovel though)!!
Why in the heck didn't she just bash him over the head with that darn shovel? Guess that would've been too un-Hitch like ;-)
shareI was rolling my eyes during that little bit.
Which is easier, to drag two men across the room to an open oven, or to whack a guy in the head with a shovel?
And while we're at it, they shove the guy's head in the oven, but they're right there next to him. If he gets poisoned then so do they.
And how about the weakest knife ever? She stabs him and it just breaks off?
And what made Newman's character so stupid as to consider that perhaps the cabbie just might have noticed the whole thing? And why didn't he erase the symbol?
And how does the Stasi guy jump to the conclusion so readily? Newman tries to lose him (don't know how he messed that one up), the Stasi guy finds him somehow and with no evidence at all manages to unravel the whole plot.
I hate to use the "o" word on these boards, but this is why I think Hitchcock is so overrated--almost every movie he's made has glaring plot holes and his characters seem to always have these temporary bouts of stupidity at just the right time to advance the story. It's practically deus ex machina.
I assure you there is nothing convenient about a temporary bout of stupidity! Just like it was Hitch's point to demonstrate the difficulty in killing a man (and quietly to boot), I believe it is also frequently his point, across many of his films, that everyone is capable of doing stupid things (even scientists). Naturally, this is especially the case when in a highly stressful situation, such as oh I don't know, having a guy in your house pull a gun on you? The way her mind works is desperate, but follows how a mind would work under those circumstances.
She can't use the gun, she puts it in a draw and sees the knife, bingo! It won't even cross her mind how weak it is, it's a massive knife! After that, her eyes scan the room for something she can use, and they settle on the shovel. Why didn't she hit him in the head? Watch it again. They're swaying all over the place, she could have easily missed and hit Armstrong instead, especially given the difficulty for her in swinging with that thing anyway. However the legs are barely moving, so she goes for those. Still not enough, so running out of ideas she gets really desperate, hence the oven. Is it the best solution? Hell no, but it's a solution and at that point she goes with the first one that crosses her mind, just like anyone else would. It's rough, but it works.
Why didn't Armstrong erase the symbol? Simply because he's NOT a spy by trade, he's not trained, he's a human being and he's forgetful. At that point he didn't think he had been followed, it probably never even crossed his mind to get rid of it when they were in the middle of nowhere. It was a very easy mistake to make, and it's far more realistic that these people do make mistakes. Far better than the Hollywood idea of the perfect hero, who always does everything right first time. If this film were remade today, that farm woman would have probably defeated the guy on her own using a mix of kung-fu, wits and sass, just to keep the feminists happy and push the actress into the centrefolds.
Oh, and how does he unravel the plot? He was already suspicious, remember we're talking about an American scientist defecting to behind the iron curtain, in the 60s! Armstrong visits a museum for about 2 minutes then disappears out a back door, jumps in a taxi and arrives at some obscure farm house. The pi symbol on the floor is more than enough to clinch it, only an idiot would have been taken in by the 'relative' excuse.
Overrated? No. The man was a genius, and every plot hole or convenient bout of stupidity you can find was almost certainly done delibrately. That said, everyone is capable of doing stupid things... even a genius.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Interesting bit of apologetics.
The sequence is more interesting in the abstract than in the execution.
I just re-viewed it now and it certainly had my attention. I think it was a wise choice to leave it unscored, but I agree with the complaints aired above and would add two other large ones.
- Why do the Stais vocal cords stop working? Newman is only choking him for a third of the sequence. He has plenty of time to yell.
- Letting the Stasi rise up one last time and open the window (but fail to yell) is just too much.
It's the best secen in the movie. But it's still pretty flawed.
Well-roared, lion! I enjoyed reading your text, it definitely is written on a level one doesn't often encounter on these boards. Plus, I fully agree with your psychological argumentation for the protagonists' behaviour.
Why is it so unbelievable that they didn't execute perfectly? Surely it would have been far more unbelievable if everything went perfectly? The scene was supposed to show how difficult it is to kill someone as opposed to a great deal of glamourized spy films. Perhaps the desire to make this point caused the murder scene to be a little less than believable, though, but I don't think it is that flawed.
I agree a little bit about the cabbie, and about not erasing the symbol, but I think you have to remember that Newman's character isn't a spy, he's a scientist.
I got the idea that the German girl wasn't especially experienced with killing people, either.
I think the script was probably one of the weakest points, though. Supposedly neither Hitchcock or Newman were very happy with it, but they had to get to production because Julie Andrews only had a small window in which to film, or something.
Some velvet morning when I'm straight...
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Hitchcock said in an interview that he wantd to get across the point that it is not easy to kill someone (especially if you don't have a gun, or can't use it because it would give you away) and that is why the scene is so drawn out. Still, I think it is overblownn and not worthy of the great master. A good, but lesser work. He rose again in "Frenzy" even with the excessive, over-the-top brutality of the rape scene
shareTO the "plot hole" poster, with respect:
The knife breaks because, in real life...they do.
A criminologist made a study of many failed murders after "Psycho" came out...the killers kept using kitchen knives and they kept breaking. The "killers" ended up in prison on attempted murder. "Psycho" saved lives.
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You're assuming that that woman had the upper body strength to lift the shovel over her head and then make a swinging blow with the shovel TO Gromek's head,that would kill him...without accidentally hitting Newman in the head instead.
That's what this scene is ABOUT...how, in real life, weapons don't work like they are supposed to, and people are hard to kill (see my post from Sam Peckinpah on this thread, if you wish, on the same subject.)
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The taxi driver outside forces Newman and the woman to kill Gromek with their bare hands and kitchen implements (a Hitchcock theme, but you evidently don't know that, either: "Use the means available," just like Jimmy Stewart used his photographic equipment in "Rear Window" to snoop and fight the killer, or Cary Grant BIDS his way out of the auction in "North by Northwest.").
They HAVE to kill Gromek, and frankly, had the taxi driver come in, they would have had to kill him, too. Probably with the gun.
Nobody said this was "the perfect crime." It was a crime of survival, of desperation. Newman headed out the back way, probably forgot about the "pi" sign. When Newman gets back to the city, he knows his time is limited to get the information and get the hell out.
I never quite understand people accusing Hitchcock of plot holes when they themselves don't seem to understand what's going on...
She didnt have the upper body strength to heave the shovel but she did manage to drag a fully grown man across the whole length of the room? (Newman didnt seem to be helping.
Must have been an honour to have a "post from Sam Peckinpah" particularly as hes been dead all these years!
I had the same reaction as to why this women didn't blast that nasty German over the head with that shovel. I have seen German farm women and they are very strong.
It was a poor scene of her just hitting his knees.
I have a drawer full of every knife you can imagine. My french knife carved out skin and cuts plenty of fingers from culinary school.
Even a Rambo knife would of not broken. That flimsy knife was ridiculous.
These women are forever cutting up animals to eat so she should of have sharp knives to butcher that fellow.
Pulling him to the oven was laughable.
Of course her husband if he was, being in the spy business would of just used that farm as a place to meet up with other spies.
But has anyone thought about the fact that it was someone (albeit eventually) being gassed in an oven in Germany.....? I think Gromek is a predominantly Polish name - is it a common Jewish name?
Also ecarle is right as usual - it is that hard to kill another human being quietly ... exactly Hitchcock's point.
But don't try this at home.
Hitchcock shot horrors of concentration camps with the help of his friend Sidney Bernstein. Hitchcock was shocked what he saw at concentration camps. This may have influenced him in the creation of the death of Gromek.
shareHitchcock commented on this scene for the 1973 series The Men Who Made Movies: 'One couldn't help think that, here we are back at Auschwitz again, with the gas ovens.'
Except, of course, that Auschwitz didn't have gas ovens. But, I digress.
This is without doubt the worst and most stupid fight I have ever seen on a film.
In fact the entire film is a disaster, giving the impression that Hitchcock made it up as he went along.
And then, suddenly I realised what was wrong.
It was a missing story from Get Smart. Paul Newman played the part of 86 and Julie Andrews was 99.
And then all those extremely stupid scenes made sense.
They were supposed to be funny.
I think they should try remaking it as a comedy-spoof.
But as a real suspense film this is quite, quite dreadful.
Petra - Hitchcock story-boarded all of his films in advance - you could actually watch it in sketch before the filming started. hence, the notion that Hitch made it up as he went, is spurious.
Hitchcock didn't really need great actors - apparently, he resented the price tag of Andrews and Newman for this one. he just wanted performers with the right 'look' to walk through the images on the storyboards.
However, I agree this film has defects - the pacing is a tad slow, and the performances are somewhat uneven. there were a few rewrites that may have upset the flow of the story. it remains a middle-of-the-pack suspense flick.
:-) canuckteach (--:
I thought the murder was a bit graphic and not genteel enough for a 1960s film of it's type, and it made me lose tremendous respect for anything made post-1965!
I mean, to actually see the knife go in and blood come out---and in color, no less! Yuck!! It would have been slightly less offensive in b/w, but nope, didn't happen that way, unfortunately.
Please excuse typos/funny wording; I use speech-recognition that doesn't always recognize!