Young and Innocent 1937

Hitchcock, 82m

A suspected murderer is on the run with police at his heels and who should come to his rescue but the daughter of the police officer in charge of the investigation. We have a long chase drama taking us around the countryside in search of a raincoat, the vital piece of evidence which would establish the innocence of the hero of the film.

This is a light, delightful and simple story and we enjoy the leisurely journey through the cottages, lanes, abandoned barns, woods, pubs and even a mine in this very English post Victorian world. Cars need perpetual cranking and occasional pushing and are jolted to a stop by passing steam locomotives. There is something of Toy-land here.

Hitchcock in one of his much later interviews humorously observed that people were surprised to find him not quite the unpleasant kind of person they expected. The present film conveys the director at his most civilized, an acute observer of the ordinary details of life and human behavior, and a great sense of fun. A highly enjoyable film with the innocence and idealism of youth.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Robert Wiene (director), 1920, 71m, silent, Germany

German expressionism is the way the German's expressed themselves specifically in the aftermath of WW1 and what they felt doesn't seem to have been very pretty. Other movies that could slide under the generic label are M (1931), Faust (1926), Metropolis (1927). All these films share an element of perversion and a disoriented imagery projecting a process of disintegration, decay and despair.

Caligari is about a mad scientist (alchemist would be a better word) who is carrying out weird experiments on somnambulism, or sleepwalking. He has set up a stall in a fair in which he displays Cesare, who has been sleeping for twenty three years, and who momentarily wakens to his command, and tells futures. He predicts the death of one young man the next day, and this young man is murdered as foretold. Meanwhile a series of murders shakes the town. Caught in this sorcerer's web is the beautiful Jane and her two suitors.

Most notable about the film are the sets, which seem to be two dimensional drawings depicting interiors and streets across which the actors move with exaggerated actions, as usual in silent cinema. Everything is acute angled, as though the surroundings are in a process of shrinking and crushing the hapless manikins. The lanes are a zig-zag sawtooth and even the placards to display the inter titles are lightening strokes in tune with the bizarre angularity of the film.

We are in a restless, hope starved world of fearful impermanence and uncertainty, prescient of what was about to befall the ill fated continent.

Roger Ebert

To Catch a Thief

Hitchcock, 1955, 120m

Cary Grant is John Robie, a former high profile burglar specializing in jewelry. He was nicknamed the Cat, due to his stealth and prowess in scaling upper floors and moving along rooftops. He lives in his picturesque villa on the French Riviera with a housekeeper who bakes cakes "light as air" and who in another time "strangled a general without a sound". He is no longer professionally active but a series of jewelry thefts again puts him under suspicion and he resolves to catch the new Cat to clear himself. To this you can add an American millionairess and her daughter (Grace Kelly) to fill the comic and romantic slots respectively.

The film's unforgettable-ness lies in the ravishing picturization of the Riviera, with it's châteaux and ageless villages and vineyards, a locale where even crime cannot but be sport. Two chase sequences are a good enough excuse for some magnificent aerial photography and we peer down the dizzy colorful ravines with the Mediterranean Sea stretching away from the coast. Everything is a pretext to frame a travelogue through what could be some of the loveliest vistas on the planet, and this dazzling feast for the eyes is what makes this film well worth it's pennies. After all, a Hitchcock movie is primarily about Hitchcock and his cinematography--cast, character and plot are but props.

Torn Curtain

Hitchcock, 1966, 122m

An American physicist defects to East Germany, taking us back to Cold War days. The curtain in the movie's title refers to the Iron Curtain which fenced off the world of communism, a term with to the present generation is unlikely to mean much.

Hitchcock in his last phase seems to have lost his taste for the macabre and gruesome. He is done with the psychotic worlds of Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). With these two films (Marnie (1966) can also be included) he had exorcised his demons and was to provide us with entertainment of a more wholesome sort.

This is another espionage romance set in the beautiful environment of Copenhagen and Berlin. It is a delight to visit these places in the company of the Hitchcock camera, which lends beauty and life to everything. The movie is a feast for the eyes. One of the nicest sequences is a chase through a museum, and we travel over the marble floors with the figures in all those paintings watching the action in grim amusement. Of course everything is subordinate to the action of the narrative and beauty after all is best enjoyed when it passes by, rather than when one goes after it in a self conscious way. The romance of the physicist-lovers played by Julie Andrews and Paul Newman is the binding thread.

The film is over long and the pace of action and suspense cannot hold one's attention. Beyond a certain point the momentum of the urge to see it to the end and find out what happens and to tick off one more Hitchcock is what carries one through. We are glad when it is over. Hitchcock is there with his craftsmanship and talent but the inspiration is missing. Perhaps it is because I have just seen Topaz, a riveting movie of similar genre. This is not the best Hitchcock, but neither by any means it is the worst.

Bosley Crowther

Topaz

Hitchcock, 1969, 120m

This espionage thriller is built around the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians are secretly setting up an array of nuclear missiles aimed at American cities. A Russian diplomat has defected to the US and the hero, a French diplomat, is sent to Cuba to confirm the information. Add in the right proportion of sizzling romance, and a racy script, and you have all the ingredients for a hit. The comparison to James Bond is inevitable and it is likely that Hitchcock put his monumental talents as an entertainer and artist to cash in on the then popular genre. The film must have been extremely topical.

One of the yardsticks that can be applied to a movie is it's ability to suspend the sense of passage of time. This one is precisely the right length and leaves you with a sense of contentment and none of fatigue. Easy to follow plot wise, the lush shifting locales and the bright daylight scenes are meant to lull you into a relaxed stupor, coming to a somewhat abrupt end when you could have taken a bit more.

If not a masterpiece, this is one of the sunniest of Hitchcock films.

Vincent Canby