Posted Dec 5, 08 01:35 PM
Farley Granger Should’ve Cashed in His Frequent Flier Miles
This may be sacrilege to say, but Alfred Hitchcock is a wee bit… over-rated.
(Just a sec. Let me get my umbrella. Today’s forecast is tomatoes, eggs, and lettuce.)
(Okay. That’s better. Cinema puritans rarely pack an accurate uppercut.)
Hey, I don’t discount that Alfred Hitchcock’s style is absolutely signature. He’s a deserved auteur whose visions have given the world superb escapist entertainment like Shadow of a Doubt, Vertigo and Rear Window. (Yes. Yes. I knowwwwwww. I’m saving the titles you’re thinking of for later.) And I’m jazzed that his influence is traced to another generation filmmakers -- Brian De Palma’s my fav. But there are “but”s.
Hitchcock’s plots – all too often – were stunts, front-loaded to serve a heavy reliance on twists and hooks. Rope, case in point, WAS an ingenious experiment: a feature constructed from multiple 10-minute takes. Great idea. Great film? Welllllll… Then there was Lifeboat, a WWII suspenser set almost entirely on that cramped title vessel. Daring. But memorable? Only for being daring. Nothing happens in the first hour of The Birds!
In short, to hear aloud one of Alfred Hitchcock’s narratives usually turns out to be more entertaining than actually sitting through a lot of his films. Why?
Character development. Emotionally investing the audience beyond the jugular, deeper than the visceral. With obvious exceptions, this was the director’s weakness. And he aired out his disinterest – aloofly.
The story goes that a reporter asked Hitchcock if he really said that “actors are cattle”. “Of course not,” the director replied. “I said that actors should be treated like cattle.” When you consider that many Screen Actors Guild members also serve as voting members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, it’s not difficult to assume why Alfred Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar. (Although the Board of Governors bestowed him with an honorary award.)
Fear-based emotions were the extent of his grasp of the human condition. Not surprisingly, Hitchcock’s protagonists were often bland and interchangeable – although heavily buoyed by the Jimmy Stewarts and Cary Grants. His leading ladies assumed a frosty blonde allure onscreen – and a startling realization that their director wanted to control them OFFSCREEN, as well. (Okay, that’s creepy-weird.) Villains, however, naturally peaked the director’s enthusiasm.
Hitchcock was also working under a machinist studio system. That meant his resume was riddled with inferior talkfests like Stage Fright, Torn Curtain and Marnie. And what credit did his writers ever receive? After all, it was Robert Bloch who devised Janet Leigh’s shocking early exit on paper in Psycho. And it was novelist Patricia Highsmith who conceived the criss-cross murder plot that inspired Strangers on a Train (and subsequently The Talented Mr. Ripley).
And you’ll hear no complaints from me when – Friday December 5 at 9pm -- Chiller broadcasts Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 masterpiece, Strangers on a Train -- one of the greatest thrillers ever put to celluloid. If you’re watching Danny DeVito hit Billy Crystal over the head with a frying pan, you’re on the wrong channel, dude.
Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a tennis pro trying to divorce his wife so he can marry a senator’s daughter. Along comes Robert Walker’s smarmy and immortal Bruno; he turns a shared loco ride loco. When you see the shot of the rail tracks converging, the film officially arrives.
Bruno knows a lo-o-o-o-t about Guy’s personal life, sits a little too close next to Guy in the seat, and propositions him: you murder mine, I’ll murder yours. (It’s 1951, so the homoerotic subtext – which Hitchcock was fully aware – is incredibly subtle.)
Guy writes off Bruno, but Bruno considers it a gentlemen’s agreement. He does in Bruno’s ex. I’m hard-pressed to remember carnival grounds utilized more effectively (and menacingly) in any other film. You will never forget the precise moment when Bruno’s shadow overtakes his elusive victim on a boat ride through the tunnel of love.
Now Bruno comes calling – it’s time for Guy to complete his part of the “deal”. Everyone say “Ooooooooo!”
Perhaps the most famous set piece in the movie – spoiler alert! – is the finale in which a carousel spins out of control, an image of pleasure again subverted into one of pain. For all of the trickery, take note of one shocking reality: when the carnival operator crawls under the merry-go-round to reach the brake he really is doing it. If the operator lifts his head just an inch or two higher, he’s dead. It’s one of the most unbearable stunts in all of motion picture history.
Robert Burks’ cinematography was nominated for an Oscar, and Hitchcock was recognized with a nod by the DGA. That’s it???!!!
The next time you have surplus tomatoes, eggs, and lettuce, consult the Academy’s listing in the Yellow Pages.
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 01:35 PM