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 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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HitchcOctober Day 23: Rear Window

Posted on October 23, 2014 by jaycluitt

L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (James Stewart) is a renowned photographer, whose latest on location piece resulted in a broken camera and a broken leg. He has been wheelchair-bound inside his two-room apartment for six weeks, with his cast due to be removed in seven days time. He is regularly visited by his acerbic carer Stella (Thelma Ritter) and fashion model girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly), who wants to marry Jeff, but he has deemed her too perfect for him, and is reluctant to settle down from his country-hopping lifestyle. With cabin fever beginning to set in, Jeff spends his days peeping on his neighbours, including a lonely woman looking for love, a beautiful and nubile ballerina, a pair of newlyweds, a composer, a married couple with a dog and a salesman with his ill wife. After piecing together a few out-of-character actions, Jeff begins to suspect that the salesman (Raymond Burr) may have murdered his wife, so he calls in his detective friend Doyle (Wendell Corey) to look into it. Continue reading →

HitchcOctober Day 21: Family Plot

Posted on October 21, 2014 by jaycluitt

Blanche (Barbara Harris) is a phony psychic (otherwise known as just a psychic) who is currently pretending to communicate with the deceased sister of her latest client, Mrs. Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbitt). Rainbird is exceedingly wealthy and very old, but her only known relative and heir is her nephew, her sister’s son, who was given away as a child to protect the family’s honour. Blanche is recruited to find the son, and uses her partner George (Bruce Dern), an actor working as a taxi driver and moonlighting as a private detective, to help. Meanwhile, two kidnappers (William Devane and Karen Black) have just collected their latest ransom – a rather large diamond – in a flawlessly executed crime. It’s not long before these two plots become entangled within one another in Hitchcock’s final completed film. 4624
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HitchcOctober Day 20: The Birds

Posted on October 20, 2014 by jaycluitt

Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is the wealthy, carefree daughter of a newspaperman (not a man made out of newspaper, that would be biologically impossible, he’s a man who runs a newspaper, stop being so silly). One day, whilst attempting to purchase a talking mynah bird at a pet shop she begins a back-and-forth with Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a lawyer who had a dalliance with her in the past. The two hit it off, and when he leaves she tracks him down to give him a pair of lovebirds as a prank-slash-gift. Alas, he has gone to the nearby Bodega Bay to visit his mother and younger sister, so Miss Daniels heads there too. Upon arriving, she begins to notice all the birds in the town are behaving strangely – the chickens belonging to Mitch’s mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) won’t eat their feed, a seagull attacks Melanie in a boat and another flies head first into a closed door. This, however, is just the beginning.
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HitchcOctober Day 19: Foreign Correspondent

Posted on October 19, 2014 by jaycluitt

Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea), a reporter for the New York Globe, has just been assigned to be the newspaper’s foreign correspondent in pre-Second World War England. Jones has no knowledge of anything outside of America – his foreign language skills amount to being able to ask “Parlez vous Francais?”, “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” and pig latin – which is exactly why he was hired – his boss wants someone fresh to the situation, an “unused mind” (which basically means he’s an idiot). As with most Hitchcock movies, out hero (who has been given the pseudonym Huntley Haverstock, but in true James Bond fashion still introduces himself to everyone as Jones) becomes unwittingly embroiled in a murder, and goes rogue attempting to solve it with some friends he has made on his travels. picture-31
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HitchcOctober Day 18: The Trouble With Harry

Posted on October 18, 2014 by jaycluitt

Harry is dead. He is found lying in the woods with a bleeding head wound, so when Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) comes across the body whilst out rabbit hunting, he assumes he accidentally shot the man. Unfortunately, Wiles isn’t the only person to happen upon the body, with almost everyone in town traipsing through the copse, including Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick), Miss Rogers and her young son Arnie (Shirley MacLaine and Jerry Matthews), Dr. Greenbow (Dwight Marfield), a tramp (Barry Macollum) and local artist Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe). All these people have differing opinions of what should be done with the the body, and what might be the cause of his death, with a stolen pair of shoes and a portrait complicating the matter as well.
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HitchcOctober Day 14: Rebecca

Posted on October 14, 2014 by jaycluitt

Whilst working as a paid companion (no, not that kind of paid companion; filthy mind) a girl with no friends or family (Joan Fontaine) meets the wealthy but recently widowed Max de Winter (Laurence Olivier). The girl’s obnoxious employer (Florence Bates) comes down with a bout of the flu, leaving Max and the girl to become acquainted enough for him to propose instead of losing her when the trip comes abruptly to an end. The newlyweds return to Manderlay, the stately home of the De Winters in Cornwall in the south of England (where Jamaica Inn was also set, and if I’d watched this when I was down there recently as well – and there was a chance; I took Rebecca with us as well – I think I’d have probably freaked right out), where the new Mrs de Winter feels very much out of place, especially because the memory of her predecessor seems to have a powerful effect on the house and its staff, particularly the head of the household, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson). Continue reading →

HitchcOctober Day 13: The Lady Vanishes

Posted on October 13, 2014 by jaycluitt

In a small European town, an avalanche has forced a variety of people to stay at an overcrowded hotel. Many of the guests are waiting for the snows to clear so they can catch the train the next morning. One such guest is Iris (Margaret Lockwood), a much-travelled young woman heading back to England to meet and wed her fiancé. She befriends an elderly women travelling alone by the name of Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a governess who has been in Europe for a number of years, and is now regretfully heading home. Amongst the other passengers are a rude clarinet player named Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), an adulterous couple attempting to hide their situation (Cecil Parker and Linden Travers) and two cricket-obsessed Englishmen (Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford). Before the train sets off, Iris suffers a blow to the head from a falling potted plant. Miss Froy cares for her, but after Iris takes a short nap she awakes to find Miss Froy has disappeared, and everyone else on the train denies her existence. Something is definitely amiss – either Iris’ head injury is causing her to be delusional, or there’s a far greater conspiracy at hand.
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