TV and Movies

[Oznell]

There's a whole string of FIVE of them running consecutively Wednesday, 7/19 starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.  I'll mention a few of the ones that may not have been shown that much before, in case anyone's interested:

8:00 p.m.-- "Rope"   Takes place mostly in a swank New York apartment of two chums who have murdered a third friend, then held a cocktail party with the body concealed in a large chest in the living room.  Among the guests are the fiancee of the recently deceased boy, among others.  The two murderous young men are loosely based on the case of the famous Leopold-Loeb murders, done by two similarly bright, twisted youths.  Jimmy Stewart is terrif as usual as an increasingly suspicious party guest....  This one can have you queasy at the sheer evil of the enterprise, but it's a good character study of a sort of "codependent" criminality...

9:30 p.m.--  "Stage Fright"   Has a London theater setting.  Neophyte actress Jane Wyman gets swept into trying to prove that glamorous, temperamental star Marlene Dietrich committed murder.  This has some chilling suspenseful, moments, and the unusual setting makes it fresh.  Wyman is good, but should have worked more on her British accent, I think.  Dietrich does her shrewd, world-weary cosmopolite to perfection...

1:30 a.m.--  "I Confess"   Has Montgomery Clift as a sensitive, tormented but honorable priest "with a past" in Quebec.  Enough said?  He's fabulous.   Also interesting is Anne Baxter as a married woman he once loved.  Baxter is a prominent socialite, a chic Quebecoise blonde in this.  (The blonde bit must have been Hitchcock's idea, and it's genius.  I usually don't like obligatorily bleached Hollywoodians, but Anne Baxter's short, blonde 'do gives her a sophistication and mystery here.)  Montgomery Clift is pretty much fingered for murder in this film by the police. He's all hemmed in by that, and by his own scruples, so you really don't know what's going to happen.  Atmospheric and great fun to watch.

The other two films are great but are very familiar and constantly shown, so I won't bend your ear further with summaries... 

[Caaareful Shopper]

Thank you @Oznell.  "Rope" is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies!  I've never seen "Stage Fright" but I will now.

[chloe66]

Thanks Ornell, I just set the recorder.  Love the old Hitchcock movies...especially with Montgomery Clift!!

[Judaline]

@Oznell  I did like Stage Fright, even tho I'm not a Jane Wyman fan. I thought she was good in it. 

I didn't like Rope. A bit too macabre for me. Yet I can watch Psycho more than a few times. Go figure. I wonder why Hitchcock cast Farley Granger a number of times? (seems like) I like him all right, I was just curious.

[Oznell]

That's true, judaline.  Hitchcock did seem to have certain favorites he used more than once.  Let's see, Hume Cronyn, Grace Kelly, Farley Granger, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, poor Tippi Hedren, (I say that because of the way he treated her) and on and on.  I wonder if he used Farley Granger in this one because he had that almost deer-in-the-headlights quality suitable for the one who seemed to be following the other guy's lead in the crime.  He seemed weak and impressionable...

[Judaline]

@Oznell  Yep, he always played the same part. He's just a little too docile for me. Nice looking guy, good actor, but no gumption in his characters. Makes me crazy. I believe he recently died? Maybe I'm wrong.

[golding76]

My Dear Oznell,

In truth, I cannot remember the last time I was so spellbound by a movie and its rapid-fire dialogue and sense of frightening intrigue as I was while watching Rope last night.   Rapt and at times fully lost in the twisted thinking revealed in the film, I would momentarily snap back to real life and think that it's been a long time since any film captured my focus like Rope. 

Before your heads-up to watch it, I had never heard of Rope.  So glad I paid attention to and followed your suggestion.   Really, I am still in an odd state of mind after viewing that movie last night.  

Could this be Hitchcock's greatest film for me?  Greater than Psycho?  I can have rogue taste at times.  (Also have a teeny weakness for drawing-room drama.)

Thank you so much, dear poster and online friend.

[Mz iMac]

Has anybody noticed that Hitchcock has a 1 time only cameo appearance in all of his films?

Sometimes Hitchcock is a face in a street crowd, a passenger on a plane or train, a restaurant patron, etc.

[golding76]

Mz iMac, I was aware of that, but did he do a cameo in Rope?  Was he in the sideboard?  (Joke)

It just hit me that the "sideboard" was actually a storage trunk with legs, right?  Used as a sideboard in their ugly, fiendish plot.  The books had been stored in it.

[Mz iMac]

@golding76

Rope (1948) - Hitchcock's cameo