First of all, even with the fairly bad process work (Hitchcock was double-crossed by Universal; that was done in the lab, not in the studio), I think the runaway car sequence is pretty nifty and intensely "Hitchcockian". It's all those POV shots that do it; on the big screen, you could get awful dizzy, because Hitchcock never let you out of the car. He also removed any "frame" of the car dashboard or hood ahead of the view: just the roadway. The scene mixes laughs and thrills in equal measure, and is meant as a non-violent set-piece after the horrible sex murder one film before in "Frenzy."
Hitchcock indeed tried to cast youngish New Hollywood types in this film. Unlike older filmmakers like John Ford and Howard Hawks -- who tended to use old pals like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart all the time near the end -- and Billy Wilder, who depended on Lemmon and/or Matthau for most of his last films, Hitchcock endeavored to keep casting from the ranks of new young stars: Sean Connery, Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Dern, Black, etc.
The "Family Plot" cast didn't look THAT out of place. Though Karen Black had been in "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces", she had also tried to go mainstream with "Airport '75." Bruce Dern had worked with Hitchcock before (murdered in "Marnie") and appeared in John Wayne movies and other "older" productions. Barbara Harris (who had just been in Altman's "Nashville" WITH Karen Black) was more a Broadway star than a New Hollywood presence. And William Devane was just happy to get some work.
Your point is well taken: the 70's mixed Old Time Hollywood (Hitchcock) and New Hollywood (the actors) , and the result looked kind of odd. But it was pleasing, too, as if the Young Turks were willing to turn themselves over to the Old Master for one joint appearance.
Now, if only Hitchcock could have gotten who he REALLY wanted for "Family Plot": Jack Nicholson (Dern) Faye Dunaway (Black) and Burt Reynolds (Devane.) That would have been a real 70's mix-up.
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nosnojsirhc
18 years ago
Thanks for taking my general point - when I posted, it was some time after viewing the movie, and I still can't picture exactly who the dame was in the car, whether it was Black or Harris (I'm assuming Harris after the correction...). Anyway, you got my general notion and extrapolated. Too bad Hitchcock never worked with Nicholson... That would have been something for sure. Dunaway and Reynolds, fun, but Nicholson - something to watch for sure.
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ecarle
18 years ago
What was sad for Hitchcock was that he WANTED to work with the new top stars as they arrived, like Nicholson, but after "Torn Curtain," he just didn't have the "juice" to attract them. In the 70's, Nicholson required "very important movies," and Hitchcock wasn't making them. I'm not so sure Hitchcock was making "very important movies" even when big stars like Cary Grant were appearing in them.
He was simply making exquisite "art films with entertainment value."
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nosnojsirhc
18 years ago
After referring to actors as so many cattle to be herded in interviews, I'm not so sure that the actors felt as sorry for him as we might! Although there are some who worked with him who say that he was a great person to work for, there were many who disliked his style of directing. Fortunately for us, none of that matters as he left behind a great number of films that are watchable and rewatchable...
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ecarle
18 years ago
Good points. Hitchcock could get away with jokingly saying "actors are cattle" when he was making big-budget surefire hits, but when he started flopping, actors weren't so happy to put up with it.
And New Age Actors like Redford and Beatty were itchin' to direct, anyway.
Hitchcock's more biting comment was "Actors are children" -- by which he meant they were spoiled rotten, love-and-sex-crazed and got whatever they wanted, throwing temper tantrums if they did not.
Steve McQueen said of Hitchcock's "actors are children" statement: "That was mean of him to say that. But I guess he's right."
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nosnojsirhc
18 years ago
I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but I seem to think that I found a book of interviews collected over the years and published by his daughter or someone like that. In the interviews, at some point, Hitch tried to go into the relationship with actors a bit more. It seemed like he wasn't trying to say so much that they were cattle because he hated them, but because, for him, a movie was a canvas that the director assembled, which would include choosing and placing actors who would then recite their lines in the manner dictated by the director... other directors give much more leeway for the creative moment, but Hitchcock had everything planned out down to the curtains...
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ecarle
18 years ago
Well, by all reports, Hitchcock's "actors are cattle" statement was a bit of a joke -- an "act," if you will -- and certain actors who worked with him more than once (Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly) said it was balderdash. The actress Carole Lombard, who cajoled Hitchcock into directing a "straight comedy" ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith"), greeted Hitchcock on the set with three cows, each one with a sign round its neck with the name of one of the three stars of the picture.
Hitchcock was very exact in his camera placements and where he wanted the actors to stand and move, but he left a lot up to them, too. Several actors said they felt so comfortable in Hitchcock's "great set-ups" that acting was that much easier.
Anthony Perkins and Martin Balsam improvised the hell out of their interrogation in "Psycho." If you read the script, the information is the same, but the words are different.
Speaking of Tony Perkins, he was on a TV talk show in the seventies and said this (paraphrased) about Hitchocck with actors:
"I'd heard these stories about Hitchcock being mean to actors on set. But he was nice to all of us on the 'Psycho' set. We had a great time. Maybe, just that one time in his entire career, he decided to be nice to actors. Yeah, that's it."
And then he smiled.
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