The Birds

Considered Hitchcock's last great film The Birds tells a troubling story of all the birds going crazy, flocking together, and attacking humans.

As the movie begins Melanie Davis played by Tippi Hendren enters a pet store to pick up a bird she has ordered. As she waits a man mistakes her for a store employee and she plays along. Eventually it is determined she is not telling the truth and he and she both leave without their birds.

On a lark she determines to deliver his birds to him, and when a neighbor informs he has gone to Bodega Bay for the weekend she decides to deliver them there. We see her take a set of lovebirds to him, even crossing the bay in a rented skiff to surprise him. When he discovers her gift he races on the coast road and is there waiting for Melanie as she passes back across the lake. As she pulls up to the dock a gull attacks her leaving a cut on her head.

This is just the beginning of some very scary events.

The cast is strong. Jessica Tandy plays Lydia Brenner, the young man Mitch's mother, for much of the movie we see a remnant from Psycho, a domineering mother but by movie's end she is a more sympathetic character.

Hendren is strong in her role but certainly not as captivating as her forebears Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Janet Leigh. Susanne Pleshette plays Annie, the schoolteacher in the village who as a former flame of Mitch offers friendship to Melanie as she decides if she is attracted to Mitch or not.

This is a good movie but it certainly suffers in comparison to many of the Hitchcock movies I have seen and enjoyed, the plot is less about the suspense between human relationships and more about the supernatural. For me that makes the movie solid but certainly not as successful as some of the earlier movies.

Strangers on a Train

This 1951 Hitchcock movie is fantastic. In the late fifties Jimmy Stewart became the go to guy for many of the Hitchcock movies but this movie, being earlier, in the decade had no one in the cast I had ever heard of.

No matter, one thing I have learned from watching Alf red's movies is that they are all fantastic and this movie is nothing short of that.

Centering on a chance meeting between a young tennis pro named Guy Haines. Played by Farley Granger, Haines is married to a crass, adulterous, woman and wants a divorce so that he too can marry the daughter of a Senator he has been dating. As a slightly famous person Haines is not shocked to be recognized on the the train he is traveling by a man named Bruno Anthony. Played brilliantly by Robert Walker Bruno is forward and loud. He discusses the items currently appearing in the gossip columns about Haines wife and his own lovelife.

Guy is uncomfortable with the conversation but allows himself to be drawn in. He is shocked however as the conversation extends to hear Bruno say that the perfect murder would be for two people who do not know each other to swap murders to commit. His reasoning is that with no ties to the victims both crimes would be unsolvable. Haines cuts the conversation short, realizing that the man might well be unbalanced.

We, as the audience, know what is going to happen and we are not disappointed. We see it happen. Soon enough as Haines returns home one night Bruno is waiting for him to tell him that he has completed his half of the deal. Haines shocked and surprised to see Bruno again does not believe Bruno's claims but when the phone rings inside and Bruno tells him that will undoubtedly be the police he realizes what he is caught up in.

What does Guy do? Does he go to the police and confess what he has got caught up in. Or does he get sucked into the murder plot further and actually commit the unspeakable act.

With some great scenes set around an amusement park Hitchcock again brings all the moving parts together to an exciting ending. He was perhaps the greatest filmmaker of his time and it is surprising in a way how little he is referenced as one of the greats. Perhaps thrillers are not considered as worthy of the great epics such as the works of David Leen. More likely in our now is better culture we revere the works of Spielberg and Malick, both great directors, and forget who came before.

This is a wonderful movie.

To Catch a Thief

This 1955 Hitchcock movie stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. In the movie Grant plays John Robie, a man who had earlier in life been known as The Cat and was the most famous Cat Burglar in France. In World War II both he and his crime compatriots had been active members of the French resistance leading to parole for them.

As the movie starts a wave of burglaries reminiscent of the style of Robie have been occuring and suspicion is quickly cast on him. Realizing the only way he can prove his innocence is to capture the true thief he begins just that.

Grace Kelly plays Francie Stevens a woman visiting the French Riveria with her Mother and who is " husband hunting" as Robie puts it.

This is a good movie and any movie with Kelly in it will always have that going for it. She might well be the prettiest woman ever in film. That said, compared against most other Hitchcock movies this one pales a bit.

The scenery in the Riveria is wonderful, Kelly is strong but Grant seems too old to be a real love interest for Kelly, and the movie's plot is not confusing in a normal twist and turn Hitchcock way but more confusing for the sake of being confusing.

This movie does not get a high rating.

North by Northwest

This 1959 Albert Hitchcock movie is one of his best. Starring Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill and Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall this is a mistaken identity plot gone far and long.

Roger Thornhill is a ad executive who as he puts in supports a mother, two ex wives and several bartenders. As he dines one day a waiter asks for a Mr Kaplan in the room. At the same time Thornhill asks the waiter to come over prompting two gentleman to confirm in their minds that he is Kaplan.

As he goes to make a phone call he is grabbed and whisked away. Over the course of the next two hours we see a plot take Thornhill from a meeting with those who assume who they think he is, a perilous journey down a winding seaside road, The United Nations, a ticketless train trip, an art auction in Chicago and ends at Mt Rushmore. This is truly a seat of your pants movie.

Grant is superb, playing a nonplussed ad exec thrust into the role of superspy caught between both the good guys and the bad guys with a romance adding to the mix.

in Hitchcock's cameo in this movie he portrays a man who misses the bus in the opening credits. He did not miss the bus on this movie. Four stars.

Dial M For Murder

Alfred Hitchcock. Movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest are some of the greatest movies you will ever see. I had never seen Dial M for Murder. Starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, and Robert Cummings as a triangle gone wrong.

Milland plays Tony Wendice a tennis player who has met with moderate success but perhaps not enough to placate his rich wife played by Grace Kelly. She would like him to stay home and have a real job. The movie is told backwards at times. We learn that Margot Wendice has been having an affair with mystery writer Mark Halliday who is played by Robert Cummings.

Being a Hitchcock movie we expect lots of twists. The difference in this is that we know the twist. Tony wants to kill his wife. He sets this up. When this fails he makes adjustments on the fly. The pieces fit together, until they don't.

I watched this movie with my son. He appreciated the movie as well. The twists and turns of a good mystery was a new experience for him. No one will ever convince me that a Hitchcock movie without gore, language and other modern movie magic is not better than alnything you would see today.

After watching this with my son I hope he agrees.

Twilight Zone---The Original Series

One of the good things about a long weekend is I can usually TIVO a few episodes of the original Twilight Zone of the Scyfy channel. This show is almost always well worth watching. Today I watched an episode about an old man who loved his grandfather clock and felt that if it stopped he would die as it had been given to him at his birth. Many famous actors and actresses appeared in Twilight Zone episodes and some of these are top notch.

The most famous is probably the one of the campiest, the William Shatner episode where he sees an alien being on the wings of an airplane. Surely it is campy, silly even, and by todays standards not even close to realistic, if such a thing can be but it is something you remember.

Not many TV shows can say that. Give me this show and Alfred Hitchcock presents and I can easily while away sometime in front of the black and white screen.

Thank you Rod Serling

The Far Country

Watched this old Jimmy Stewart western the other day. It appears that after the Hitchcock movie era Stewart went back and played in quite a few Westerns.

In this movie Stewart joined Walter Brennan as two men determined to take a herd of cattle to the town of Dawson in Northern Alaska to take advantages for the inflationary prices for beef.

They run into some bad characters on this trip and Stewart is actually on the run from a trumped up hanging charge.

Not a great movie, barely a good one. But for me Jimmy Stewart makes it worthwhile.