Spooky movies! The Birds, Psycho and Frenzy

Ah, I love me some Alfred Hitchcock. The Birds was released in 1963, starring the fantabulous Tippi Hedren as a wealthy socialite who follows a fellow to the semi-rural Botega Bay on the pretext of delivering a pair of lovebirds to him for his sister's birthday. After her arrival, all of the birds go berserk for no apparent reason, start attacking people in big flocks, and absolute mayhem, including gratuitous eye pecking, ensues. I love Tippi, and I love this movie. I saw it as a very young child, and it scared me to death, especially that scene with Tippi all alone in the attic room and the birds just attacking relentlessly, with squeaks and flapping wing sounds. Yikes. As an adult, my biggest concern is that Tippi wears the same suit throughout the entire three days, and I worry if she's washing her undies out in random bathroom sinks or what. Apparently, there's a remake in the works, with Naomi Watts and George Clooney. Why? Now that is a scary question.

The classic killer movie, Psycho, was released in 1960, with the unbelievably wonderful Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh in amazing bras. We all know the story of Norman Bates and his mother. I first saw this movie when I was about eight, and I don't recall being all that scared at the time. My favorite Psycho story: The sound you hear when Norman is stabbing Marion in the shower is a knife being plunged into melons. Hitchcock actually auditioned melons. He had some assistant buy every available type of melon, and then had him stab the melon while Hitchcock was not looking. The assistant would announce the type of melon, stab, Hitchcock would listen. At the close of this experiment, Hitchcock said, "Casaba." Oh, man, wouldn't it be great to sit and have a couple of hours worth of chat with him? Best Psycho line: "We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?"

Frenzy was released in 1972, and is the most disturbing of the three. The Necktie Murderer is loose in London, brutally raping and strangling women with neckties. The wrong fellow is accused of the crime, and the film focuses on the criminal investigation, as well as the hijinks of the dapper murderer himself. There are several grisly scenes, one with extreme black humor, as well as one where a murder occurs off camera that is almost more unsettling than the fairly graphic one that we see on camera. It's a suspenseful, tense little movie, with great seventies flair. Hitch does that great thing of his, where we know who the murderer is throughout the movie; we're just waiting for the authorities to catch up. Also wonderful are the scenes with the lead police detective and his gourmet cook of a wife.

I recommend all three as classics. Face it, even the worst Hitchcock movie is better than 95% of the movies released today. Okay, if we leave Family Plot out of the equation. . .

New movie obsession

Okay, I've exhausted all of Hitchcock. Yes, even Family Plot! So, I need a new movie obsession. I've decided to go with Film Noir. IMDB lists the top fifty best Film Noir movies as follows:

1. Sunset Boulevard (fab with excessive and glorious Gloria Swanson and dead narrator)

2. Double Indemnity (double fab with excessive blonde pageboyed Barbara Stanwyck)

3. M (wunderbar, sinister and German)

4. The Third Man (fab, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles)

5. The Maltese Falcon (fab with Bogey and Lorre and a statue)

6. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, YES! love this movie)

7. Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, my favorite movie of all time)

8. Notorious (Hitchcock, spies and wine cellars and poison)

9. The Big Sleep (more Bogey and the magnificent Lauren Bacall)

10. The Ox-Bow Incident (huh? always thought it was a Western)

11. The Night of the Hunter (oh, my goodness yes, Robert Mitchum as bad daddy preacher)

12. Sweet Smell of Success (always thought it was a musical by the title. . .)

13. The Killing (the Stanley Kubrick racetrack movie, fab nonlinear narrative)

14. Ace in the Hole (huh?)

15. Shadow of a Doubt (Joseph Cotton as widow murdering uncle, Hitchcock's favorite of his own movies)

16. Laura (saw it a long time ago, plus my name is Laura!)

17. O Drakos (huh?)

18. Du riffi chez les hommes (pretty sure this one is French :))

19. Out of the Past (don't know this one)

20. White Heat (excessive Jimmy Cagney gangster, wonderful)

21. Key Largo (more Bogey, more Bacall)

22. I Am a Fugitive from a Chaingang (haven't seen it, but know that feeling)

23. Night and the City (don't know this one)

24. In a Lonely Place (nope, don't know, more Bogey)

25. The Big Heat (oh, gosh, yes)

26. Pickup on South Street (sounds smoldery for 1953, How the law took a chance on a B-girl... and won!)

27. Angels with Dirty Faces (think this one is about fugitives on the lam or something)

28. Asphalt Jungle (not to be confused with Blackboard Jungle, gritty and great)

29. Body and Soul (not sure about this one, boxing)

30. Odd Man Out (don't know this one, but James Mason!)

31. The Killers (the lovely Ava Gardner, but I haven't seen it)

32. Scarface (the original, not the Al Pacino, no cocaine)

33. Scarlet Street (never heard of this one)

34. Deadly is the Female aka Gun Crazy (oh, wow, a great campy violent movie about a gun wielding couple)

35. Thieves' Highway (never heard of this one either, Rackets Ride The Roads!)

36. The Narrow Margin (never heard of it or anyone in it, wow)

37. The Woman in the Window (seriously, have you heard of any of these?)

38. The Letter (finally! Bette Davis)

39. The Set-Up (boxing, never seen it)

40. Mildred Pierce (oh, my golly, yes, gratutious Joan Crawford!)

41. The Lady from Shanghai (yachts and murder, yay!)

42. Gilda (the incomparably gorgeous Rita Hayworth)

43. Brute Force (don't know, prison picture)

44. The Big Clock (ditto, don't know, The strangest and most savage manhunt in history)

45. The Naked City (HER GLORY STRIPPED! HER PASSIONS BARED!)

46. No Man of Her Own (ooooh, that sounds steamy, more Barbara Stanwyck)

47. Leave Her to Heaven (Hers was the deadliest of the seven sins. . . I'm guessing not sloth.)

48. Where the Sidewalk Ends (the book by Shel Silverstein? No, this is different)

49. Murder, My Sweet (one of the greatest titles of all time)

50. Nightmare Alley (He was all things to all men ... but only one thing to all women)

So, I'm going to try to watch all of these here over the next couple of months. Don't be surprised if I start using the term "dame" a lot, okay? I'm still wondering how they missed Cat People. I thought that was high noir?

More Hitchcock: Marnie versus Vertigo

From what I've gathered, most people consider Vertigo Hitchcock's greatest masterpiece. It is a beautifully shot movie, with one of Hitch's favorite actors, Jimmy Stewart, and the gorgeous Kim Novak in a sort of dual role. It has suspense and neurosis and an unexpected ending, all of those things that we all love from a Hitchcock movie. Yet, I just do not like it. Not even a little bit. I re-watched it last week, and I've been trying to figure out why it doesn't work for me when it ought to. I think I've finally figured it out. It's utterly sad and hopeless.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like a good downbeat, depressing movie. I'm not one of those people who needs a happy ending in order to feel I've gotten my money's worth. But you get kind of lulled into the Hitchcock formula. Yes, it's going to be a bumpy night, but there will be some sort of redemption or hope or reward at the end. Even in Psycho, there's a feeling that all has been set right by the close of the film. And whenever Hitchcock sets up a romantic coupling, they usually end up together with a future by the time the credits roll. Not so in Vertigo. The movie is entirely dedicated to obsession, loss and sadness, without redemption or cure. Maybe I don't like seeing the always sympathetic Jimmy Stewart more messed up at the end of the movie than he was at the beginning, with really no hope of finding whatever it is that he needs. Nothing is set right. There may be a small flash of justice, but not a satisfying enough one for me.

And then you have Marnie, a lesser known Hitchcock movie, with a strikingly young Sean Connery and Miss Tippi Headron from The Birds. Hitch called it a "sexual thriller," and it's certainly not a light and happy film by any means. But Marnie herself is such an intriguing character, and an amazingly modern one. If the movie were made today, it would be hailed as brilliant. There are several scenes in the movie that cause me to wince with discomfort. I won't spoil it for those of you reading this who may not have seen it yet, but you will know them when you see them. It borders on brutal several times. But you get a payoff with an ending that satisfies for all you've watched. It has, for lack of a better word, closure, with an evenly matched romantic pair and some kind of settling to all of the brutality and confusion that preceded it.

All of the movie scholars would certainly disagree with me, but I doubt that I'll ever watch Vertigo again. Marnie I would re-watch even if I caught it half-way through on TCM.

My favorite brunettes, Suzanne Pleshette

Oh, let's start with Suzanne Pleshette. I was watching The Birds last night, and she was so wonderfully sexy and earthy in the movie. The expressive eyes, the sultry contralto voice--she's so amazingly brunette. Of course, she wasn't an icy blonde, so Hitchcock let the birds get her.

Last year, I watched a bunch of the old Bob Newhart shows, where Suzanne played his wife, Emily. Such a smart, sardonic character, great hair, great clothes, and she played off of Newhart so well. That couple had great sex, you could just tell by the way they interacted.

She was on the Johnny Carson show in 1971, and delivered the line that supposedly got her the Newhart role. Johnny was talking about his childhood in Nebraska, and asked Suzanne if she'd ever ridden a tractor. Suzanne replied: "Johnny, I've never even been in a Chevrolet."

Ah, fabulous.

Edith Head, the hardest working woman in show business

Not a very glamorous looking lady, perhaps, but she designed utterly glamorous costumes for over a thousand, yes, a thousand, movies, spanning the years from 1924 until 1982. She was nominated for thirty-five Academy Awards, and won eight. And you thought Meryl Streep was an over-achiever! She was a self-made woman, divorced young, who started out in costume design sketching in 1924 at Paramount, despite the fact that she had no background in costumes, design or sketching. In fact, she had an MA in Romance Languages, and had been a French teacher at a girls' school.


She preferred to work closely with the stars she was dressing, and part of her initial success was due to the fact that she began dressing actresses early in their careers, listening to what they liked to wear, explaining how they could camouflage their faults and play up their assets. As the starlets became major stars, they remained loyal to Edith and requested her, because they trusted her to make them look fabulous on the screen.


It's rare to see Edith photographed without dark glasses. She originally wore dark blue-tinted glasses, because their tint allowed her to see how fabric would photograph on black and white film. After films moved over to color, she began wearing dark-tinted glasses to appear inscrutable at all times. I love that! Despite the fact that she designed some of the most glamorous screen gowns in the history of film, Edith always wore a simple suit, dark glasses, and her dark hair in a bun. She was a working woman going to the office, after all, even if her work for the day was to design a mink-lined evening gown for a Ginger Rogers dance number.


She designed for everyone, from Mae West and Gloria Swanson to Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn, from Rita Hayworth and Katherine Hepburn to Paul Newman and, of all people, Steve Martin. And she designed a great deal for Alfred Hitchcock, who had specific ideas about what his actresses should wear and why. She worked on The Birds, Marnie, Vertigo, Rear Window, Topaz, the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Notorious. And she designed the costumes for To Catch a Thief.



Now, To Catch a Thief is one of my least favorite Hitchcock movies. The cinematography is gorgeous, the script is smart, and the actors are fantastic. It's a story issue for me, I think. I like more Hitchcockian suspense in my Hitchcock films. This one is a little too heavy on the romantic fluff for my taste. But the costumes? To die for! That gold lame ball gown that Grace Kelly wears to the masquerade ball at the close of the movie has to be one of the most decadently lovely dresses ever created. I want to wear it grocery shopping, for heaven's sake. It's romantic fluff formed into clothing!


Edith made a living doing what she loved to do. She was respected by those who worked with her and honored by her peers. She worked for over six decades at her craft, and we are still marvelling at her creations on film today. Could one really ask for a more wonderful life? Plus, it seems that she did all of this more or less on her own terms.


My favorite Edith Head quote. . . The studio brought Edith in to consult on the costume designs for Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, with Faye Dunaway. Edith's thoughts? "I see chiffon, yards and yards of chiffon." Can you imagine the outrageous bank robbing evening gowns she might have created? Wow.


For more on Edith Head:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Head


http://www.mannartgallery.com/edith.html

Grace Kelly and the elegance of pearls

I was watching Rear Window last night (yes, for the five hundredth time), and I was knocked out once again by the elegance and perfection of Miss Grace Kelly in that movie. I won't even say that I'm a huge Grace Kelly fan, but in Rear Window she epitomizes Hitchcock's icy, idealized blonde. When she comes into Jimmy Stewart's apartment in that fabulously impractical black and white evening gown, with dinner from 21, and says, "From top to bottom. . . Lisa. . . Carol. . . Fremont," you can't help but think, "Oh, yes, I want to look just like that, and be urbane and sophisticated and blonde and gloriously dressed." She already has princess written all over her.

Yes, the plot of the movie is wonderful. Jimmy Stewart is fantastic. Thelma Ritter is even better. There is suspense and love and humor and voyeurism galore. It's one of Hitchcock's best movies, and I could write fifty paragraphs on why. But, when you watch it next time or for the first time (lucky you, if it's for the first time), focus on Grace Kelly, the way she moves, the way she speaks, the way she lounges across a sofa. Somehow, she manages to be icy blonde and emotionally warm simultaneously.

Once you get past the beautiful Edith Head costumes, notice her accessories. They're mostly spare and elegant: a gold link bracelet with one large dangling charm, an elegant hat with a bit of veil, and pearls. In nearly every scene, Grace wears pearls. While part of this was probably due to the de rigeur of wearing a string of pearls in the fifties, even when vacuuming, another explanation for the pervasiveness of pearls could be that few things in fashion are as appropriate and elegant as pearls. Of course Lisa Fremont always wears them; put on a simple triple strand with any dress, and you are accessorized for the day. You can go to work, a luncheon, dinner at 21, dancing after, and unravel a murder with your invalid boyfriend before dawn. Pearls truly are universally elegant.

I buy pearls all the time when I go bead shopping, different colors and shapes, freshwater, button, potato, the more inexpensive glass pearls. Yet, I never seem to have any, because I use them all up immediately. Whenever I want to add a bit of elegant, sweet gleam to a piece, I add pearls. Whenever I want a piece to look richer, I add pearls. Whenever I want to break up too much shine from too many crystals, I add pearls. They accentuate any color of metal, any color of glass, any pendant. The painted jasper pendant at the top of this post--while I doubt Miss Grace Kelly would have ever worn it--offers a great example of how the understated sheen of pearls can change the feel of any piece of jewelry. They add lavishness and class to the necklace.

I remember, in high school, I had three favorite pieces of jewelry. My mother's strand of graduated pearls that she wore in her senior high school picture, a strand of pink pearls that I got for my fifteenth birthday, and an opera length strand of gray pearls that I bought at the Limited and wore, knotted, with everything. I still have all three pieces. Later came the skulls and vintage rhinestones and moons and stars, but I wore them with pearls. And now, whether I'm getting dressed to go out, or laying out a new piece of jewelry on my bead board, I reach for the pearls.

Few of us will ever reach the level of Miss Grace Kelly, aka Lisa Carol Fremont, in Rear Window, but, if we put on some pearls before heading out, whether the lushness of cultured pearls, the sweetness of freshwater pearls, or the less expensive but still lovely glass pearls, we can add a bit of elegance to every day. And couldn't every day use a bit more elegance?

Just beware of the unspeakable activities of the fellow in the apartment behind you!

imdb link to Rear Window:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/

Color and The Trouble with Harry

The Trouble with Harry is a film Alfred Hitchcock released in 1955. A strange little movie, it's a comedy of all things, a comedy about a corpse. A little boy (later Beaver Cleaver) finds a dead man in the woods, and hilarious hijinks ensue. Several people believe they have killed the man, and they proceed to bury and dig up poor Harry throughout the film. Also, look for the wonderful Shirley Maclaine in her first starring role. Her gamine haircut and sass are enough to pull the entire picture along.

As much as Hitchcock has come to be known for his careful crafting of suspense, I also have a huge appreciation for his dry, wicked wit. This black comedy is as charmingly dark as any movie that followed. According to those who knew Hitch, he told jokes so convoluted that often he was the only one who could understand them. Such a brilliant man, it seems that he spent a great deal of his life trying to keep himself amused. His movies reflect his need to share that joy, and that terror, with the audience. Corpse jokes are not an easy feat to pull off, but he does just that so well in this odd film that you will find yourself surprised to laugh at the subject matter. And that ought to be the definition of comic success right there.

This is also a film about the creation of art. John Forsythe co-stars as a burgeoning postmodern painter, whose artworks are completely indecipherable. His bright blobs and squiggles are a nonsensical mishmash to most of the folks in the small town, and, to be honest, I didn't really get them either. However, never fear. As so often happens in a Hitchcock movie, there is a happy romantic ending for our two leads.

As an artist of any kind--a painter, a photographer, a crafter--watch the movie for the colors. For as much as Forsythe's paintings are surreal, the colors in this film are fantastically vibrant and lovely. The quality of the Technicolor is brilliant and amazing, with each scene looking like it was handpainted in gorgeous oils. It's autumn in the woods and the small town, so, while we do spend the hour and a half worrying over an incovenient corpse, we also spend that time in the most stylized, idealized fall countryside that you will ever see, this side of animation. Falling leaves, vast skies, beauty.

If you need inspiration for your fall creations--your jewelry, your clothing, your art--spend an evening with this movie, studying the sets. You'll get a great, strange little laugh behind it, as well as an unusual and thrilling bouquet of rusts, golds, yellows. Droll satiric humor and an inspirational pallet of warm autumn colors. And poor Harry.

imdb link to The Trouble with Harry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048750/

Steampunk and Strangers on a Train

So, I've been on an Alfred Hitchcock binge lately, and, thanks to Netflix, I'm about a dozen movies into the entire process. I have to say, after seeing many of the portly fellow's films, that Strangers on a Train remains my favorite. There is something so enchanting about the anti-hero in that film, Bruno Anthony. Yes, he's a delusional sociopath, but he can be so charming, and he has a tie with lobsters emblazoned across it. He speaks French. He has a Great Dane. He wins the strongman contest at the carnival to get a kewpie doll for the lady. And he's a hoot at parties.

If you have not seen the movie, please, stop reading, go now and find it and watch it. It's deliciously funny, wonderfully suspenseful and smarter than most movies you will ever see. The focus on chance, on the impact that every meeting can have on your life, is a compelling theme. Farley Granger is wonderfully bland as the hero, Guy. The cinematography is gorgeous. The ending satisfies. And, oh, yes, there's the train.

The train becomes almost another character in the film. Our main characters meet on the train. Bruno is the dangerous stranger on the train in the film's title. The train figures singularly in most of the important plot developments in the film. It talks, it impacts, and it causes all of the action that occurs.

Which brings me to steampunk. You knew I would get there sooner or later. I love the gothic to Victorian nature of steampunk. The slightly skewed vision of the past and the present melded together. Steampunk objects are so lovely. If you have not seen any, head on over to the etsy website and type in steampunk, and prepare to be amazed. It covers a rather broad range of objects and views--everything from redesigned computer keyboards that have been altered to look like manual typewriters, to unusual vintage clothing (corsets, headdresses, footwear) that are part Dickensian and part new millenium, to some of the most gorgeous jewelry you will ever see.

The steam train epitomizes steampunk for me. Something about a time when people travelled so exclusively by train is both romantic and terrifying. I can't imagine not being able to hop in the car, or jump a plane, and reach my destination with the speed we have all become so accustomed to. I can't imagine actually meeting a stranger on a train, and talking to him long enough that it would impact my life on such a grand scale.

And the dark hilarity of Strangers on a Train also plays heavily into the underlying themes of steampunk. So much of what is created in the name of steampunk--outlandish goggles, wonderful writing instruments--has its feet planted firmly in humor, smart and dark humor. And the care used to create steampunk pieces, the precise and unbeliveable attention to detail, is akin to Hitchcock's precision in the creating of the film. A dark joy of minutae, if you will. Even with re-watching, re-looking at, you always find bits that you never noticed before.

So, Strangers on a Train has become, for me, more than a classic film. It's part of my inspiration, another spark that fires a necklace. And Hitchcock's creative legacy lives on.

I wonder what he would make of my entire idea!

imdb link to Strangers on a Train: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044079/