Spellbound (1945)

Posted on December 27, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip for French Toast Sunday.

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a brilliant psychiatrist, but is lacking in bedside manner. She works at Green Manor amongst some quite sexist male colleagues and has never found love, until the new hospital director, Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck, and I’d love it if in E.R. Anthony Edwards played a Dr. Gregory Pecke, but alas life isn’t perfect) arrives to take over from long-term serving director Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll). Constance and Edwardes become close but his behaviour concerns her, particularly his outbursts whenever he sees dark parallel lines against a pale background and, in digging into his past, Constance discovers that Edwardes may not be quite who he seems. 12518_55 Continue reading →

HitchcOctober: Dial M For Murder

Posted on October 9, 2015 by jaycluitt

Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) is a former tennis pro who has grown too old for the game and now works as a sports equipment salesman, living with his beautiful young wife Margot (Grace Kelly). Tony has recently begun to suspect that Margot has been having an affair with American detective novelist Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), and has obtained proof via a letter from Mark that Tony stole from Margot’s handbag. Instead of confronting his wife, Tony plans instead to enact revenge. He hires a down on his luck old college friend of his (Anthony Dawson) to murder Margot, and forms a flawless scheme to ensure he is the major beneficiary of all her money. As expected, however, not everything goes to plan.
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HitchcOctober #2: Pre-View

Posted on October 1, 2015 by jaycluitt

HitchcOctober is back! It’s my second annual celebration of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and this year I’m trying to finish them all. I’ve got eight films left to review, plus a few others that are tangentially related that might get thrown into the mix as well. Of those left there’s a couple I’ve seen before, including a personal favourite, a few I’ve got no idea about, and at least one that I can’t actually get hold of yet, but will try and track down by the end of the month. This time last year it was on Youtube, but alas it’s no longer available. A few of those remaining are also on some of the other lists I’m going through, so multiple birds are being killed with far few stones.
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HitchcOctober Final Re-Cap

Posted on November 1, 2014 by jaycluitt

Everybody breathe a sign of relief, HitchcOctober is over. I’m proud to say I watched and reviewed 30 Hitchcock movies in October, some new, some old, some from the 1001 list, some not, and I’ve collected on the posts I’ve written – including the ones that already existed before last month – in this handy-dandy list, that’s also been ranked from worst to best. I still have a few Hitchcock movies left un-reviewed, but where that number was 38, it’s now just 8 movies (plus a handful of shorts I can’t find at the moment), including two remaining 1001 List movies (Spellbound and Frenzy). Therefore, I may well pick this project up again next October, but at a much more relaxed pace of one film every three days, instead of the deeply regrettable one-a-day.

Also last month I expanded my HitchcOctober celebrations into a couple of other sites.

For Robert over at To The Escape Hatch I took part in his Favorite Scene Friday series (something I try to do every month) by discussing my favourite scene from The Birds. The_Birds_1963_720p_HDTV_x264_aac_en

And over at French Toast Sunday (who also celebrated HitchcOctober with me) I wrote about my 5 Favourite Things about Rear Window, my Top 7 Hitchcock Villains and my Top 5 Hitchcock Cameos, so be sure to check those out too. RW6

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HitchcOctober Day 31: The Paradine Case

Posted on October 31, 2014 by jaycluitt

Colonel Paradine, a wealthy blind man, has been murdered by a poisoned glass of burgundy. His wife (Alida Valli) is the prime suspect, and is therefore arrested. Via the family solicitor Sir Simon (Charles Coburn), she hires hotshot lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) to defend her, but things get tricky when Keane starts to fall for his latest client, despite being happily married to the idyllic Gay (Ann Todd), who is also friends with Sir Simon’s daughter Judy (Joan Tetzel).
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HitchcOctober Day 30: Shadow of a Doubt

Posted on October 30, 2014 by jaycluitt

Charlie (Teresa Wright) is in a state of despair. She believes her family are far too boring and ordinary, and prays for a miracle to save them from this rut. This miracle manifests in the form of her mother’s brother, the man she was named after, Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), who is coming to stay for reasons undisclosed. The family and entire town are quick to embrace Uncle Charlie, with his lavish gifts and big city thinking, but young Charlie begins to suspect that all may not be as it seems, as her uncle seems to be hiding something. shadow-charlie
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HitchcOctober Day 29: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Posted on October 30, 2014 by jaycluitt

Ben and Jo McKenna (James Stewart and Doris Day) are holidaying in Morocco with their son Hank (Christopher Olsen) when a ruckus on a bus causes them to meet Frenchman Louis Bernard (Daniel Gélin). They spend some time with the mysterious man, as well as an English couple, the Draytons (Brenda de Banzie and Bernard Miles), but when at a market the next day, Bernard is killed and, with his dying breath, tells Ben a few fragmented details of an assassination attempt in London in the near future. When Hank is kidnapped, the McKennas must attempt to solve the case without assisting the police, or risk their son’s wellbeing. the-man-who-knew-too-much-hank-tells-a-joke Continue reading →

HitchcOctober Day 28: Stage Fright

Posted on October 29, 2014 by jaycluitt

Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) is the bit-on-the-side for famous stage actress Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich and her ridiculous eyebrows). He’s hopelessly in love with her, so when she arrives on his doorstep with a blood-stained dress and claims of having murdered her husband, he doesn’t take much convincing to head to the scene of the crime to stage a robbery and pick her up a clean outfit. Alas, Charlotte’s maid (Kay Walsh) sees him, and Johnny suddenly finds himself accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Fortunately, his more steady ladyfriend Eve (Jane Wyman) is on hand to secret him away with her father (Alastair Sim), whilst she sets about clearing his name, first by becoming close to the investigating police detective Smith (Michael Wilding) and second by posing as Charlotte’s replacement maid, Doris. Continue reading →

HitchcOctober Day 27: I Confess

Posted on October 27, 2014 by jaycluitt

Father Michael Logan (Montcomery Clift) is in a bit of a pickle. A man in his town has just been murdered and, immediately afterwards, the culprit – Otto Keller (O. E. Hasse), a handyman who lives and works predominantly at the rectory – confesses to the murder to Logan, within the safe confines of the church’s confession booth. The next day the police are alerted once Keller “discovers” the body during his regular duties, and Logan looks on in pained disapproval, knowing the murderer is free and walking amongst his clergy. What makes matters worse is when a couple of schoolgirls claim they saw a priest fleeing the scene of the crime – Keller wore a priest’s cassock to conceal himself – and Logan finds himself accused of killing the man, not helped by his shaky alibi and motive for wanting the man dead. 1TRPjP8SILPt2K4udjpoPZD74Kh
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HitchcOctober Day 26: Notorious (1946)

Posted on October 26, 2014 by jaycluitt

When her German father is arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for treason, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is recruited by the American government as the perfect candidate to spy on some suspected Nazi agents in Brazil. For her mission, Alicia must become close with one of the agents, Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains) which doesn’t sit well with her American correspondent Devlin (Cary Grant), as he and Alicia have recently fallen in love.
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