Check out these two great new tributes to the classic Alfred Hitchcock film “The Birds,” both of which you’re definitely going to dig!
The first, which I spotted while busily running around at Comic-Con International: San Diego a couple of weeks back (I was working!), is this awesome T-shirt that recreates Hitch’s famous silhouette in bird form. It’s available from the company Super7. They have lots of other nifty shirts, toys, books and more, but of course I was drawn to this particular item, which I was told was one of their hottest sellers at the con. You can order it here – but first, look how cool!
In a related story, I am driving to Buffalo, NY, on Saturday, August 6, for a family event – and by sheer coincidence, I learned that this is the date the stage show “The Birds Attack!” opens at the Buffalo United Artists Theater. It stars local stage legend Jimmy Janowski, who created this adaptation of the movie, as Melanie Daniels, the role made famous by Tippi Hedren – green suit and all. The show runs Saturdays and Sundays in August, and I hope to see it on the sixth so I can write a review for this Hitchblog. It sounds like it’s going to be a hoot, and you can read more about it in this article from Buffalo’s ArtVoice – and watch for my review coming up soon – if I can get tickets for Saturday night, that is!
This week, New York’s Film Forum is screening Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” in its original 3D. Shot in a format called “Natural Vision,” the movie takes on new dimension when seen this way, and it was a distinct pleasure to watch it with an audience.
Hitchcock used 3D to great effect, but also sparingly. Mostly, it adds depth to the action, rendering scenes so that some objects seem to be very close to the viewer, creating an effect that’s almost like watching a movie in a lenticular. Hitchcock shot most of the movie in the single set of the Wendice’s tiny apartment, looking up at the action from a low angle to amplify the feeling of dread. Lamps and other objects sit in the extreme foreground, creating barriers between various characters.
Only a few times does Hitchcock deploy 3D for that “it’s coming right at you” effect, in scenes when Margot (Grace Kelly) reaches for her scissors to fend off her attacker or, later, when her husband puts a key in the lock to try and open the door. It also allows the credits to stand out during the opening sequence.
It was also a revelation to watch the movie with an audience. When I wrote about the movie here, I felt that its humor took a back seat to suspense. Seeing it this week, though, I laughed along with the crowd at Wendice’s insanely convoluted scheme and his pretense of innocence and at the too-convenient reunion photo on his wall. John Williams’ hammy acting broke up the crowd as well, particularly his moment of preening at the end, after he’s solved the case.
Scott Fivelson performs a mash-up of Alfred Hitchcock movie tropes in his charming one-act play “Dial L for Latch-Key.” As the title suggests, the play takes “Dial M for Murder” as its starting point, then spins out in some very funny and strange directions.
“Dial L” features four main characters: Raymond, the scheming husband who looks like Ray Milland; G, his wife, awaiting execution for a murder committed in self-defense; Bob, a cocky American, and G’s boyfriend; and the Inspector, investigating the crime before it’s too late. In “Dial M for Murder” the inspector was played by John Williams, and Fivelson captures Williams’ tongue-in-cheek performance as a seemingly bumbling but actually razor-sharp detective.
The references to Hitchcock films fly fast and furious in Fivelson’s witty dialogue, as characters discuss notorious plans, family plots, proving someone’s guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt and more. It’s a treat for Hitchcock fans, replete with appearances by the hired killer who tried to kill G, a know-it-all film critic who resembles Peter Bogdanovich, and Hitch himself, who arrives in time to berate the cast for their inept attempts to catch the real criminal.
But “Dial L for Latch-Key” is more than a tribute to the Master of Suspense. It’s a full-on trip into absurdism, beginning with the steamer trunk in the first scene that’s decorated with travel decals boasting of trips to Sing-Sing, Leavenworth and the Old Bailey. G’s time in prison, awaiting execution, has changed her; as she puts it in a newly acquired accent, “I went in British, I came out Russian.” The shifts in identity seem to be catching; Bob is secretly an FBI agent, and the Inspector, too claims to be Russian – with the name Latchky.
“Dial L for Latch-Key” recently had a successful run at the New End Theatre in London. It’s published by Hen House Press, and you can order it from Amazon here.
And you can revisit my article on “Dial M for Murder” here.
“In this picture nothing was left to chance, and that’s why, when it was over, I took a very firm stand. I’d never worked for M-G-M before, and when it was edited, they put on a lot of pressure to have me eliminate a whole sequence at the end of the picture. I refused.” — Alfred Hitchcock
“North by Northwest,” Hitchcock’s final picture of the 1950s, put a cap on his most productive and successful decade while revisiting many of his past themes one last time. Written by Ernest Lehman, the movie starred Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, along with many other fine actors. Lehman signed on to work on the film based on two concepts: One was Hitchcock’s idea about a chase across Mount Rushmore, in which the hero would hide in Lincoln’s nose. (One of the film’s working titles was “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose,” in fact.) The other was a tale from World War II about women working in an inactive intelligence office who made up an operative with such a high degree of detail that the Germans actually tried to find this fictitious agent.
Grant plays Madison Avenue ad man Roger Thornhill, whose life runs like a whirlwind; at the start of the picture, he’s grabbing a taxi with his secretary in tow. She taking notes from him on who to call and where to send flowers, never missing a beat, until he gets out and sends her back to the office to carry out his instructions.
At his club, where he’s meeting clients, Grant realizes that he needs to tell his secretary one more thing. He flags down a waiter who’s calling for a George Kaplan, leading two thugs standing at the door to decide that Thornhill is Kaplan. They hustle him into a car and drive him to a Long Island mansion with the name “Townsend” on the lawn, where Thornhill is questioned by a man played by James Mason, who we later learn is Phillip Vandamm. Vandamm can’t get anything out of Thornhill except protestations that he is not Kaplan, so Vandamm decides to get rid of him. He has his thugs pour boubon down his throat until he’s hammered, then put him in a car on a cliffside highway. Thornhill manages to drive the car until he’s pulled over by the police, who arrest him for drunk driving. (Grant had been driven by drunk women before in Hitchcock’s “Notorious” and “To Catch a Thief.” Nice that he got to do his own drunk driving this time out!)
The next morning, Thornhill is bailed out by his mother, played by Jessie Royce Landis, and his attorney, played by Edward Platt. With two local police detectives, they visit the mansion to see if Thornhill’s story of attempted murder is true, but Thornhill is greeted by a woman who convinces everyone but him that he had been a guest at a party and had gotten drunk on his own.
Thornhill and his mother head back to Manhattan and visit George Kaplan’s room at the Plaza, but learn nothing about Kaplan other than, based on his clothes, he can’t look much like Thornhill. Thornhill takes a cab to the United Nations, where Townsend is about to address the General Assembly – and Thornhill believes that his captor was this Townsend. The real Townsend stops to chat with Thornhill, but as they talk, Townsend collapses, a knife in his back. A crowd forms as Thornhill runs, now wanted for murder.
Spectacular bird's-eye view shot of Grant running out of the U.N.
On Kaplan’s trail, Thornhill goes to Grand Central Station to catch a train to Chicago. Onboard he bumps into Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who hides him from the police. She takes a liking to him, and when they reach Chicago, she tells him that she knows Kaplan. She gets on the phone and arranges a meeting, although Thornhill is unaware that she is working for Vandamm.
In one of the most famous sequences of Hitchcock’s career, Thornhill takes a bus from Chicago into farm country, where he’s to meet the elusive Kaplan. A crop dusting biplane turns toward Thornhill, swooping down and almost hitting him before opening fire. Thornhill takes refuge in a cornfield but is smoked out by the crop dust. Reaching the highway again, Thornhill flags down a gasoline truck, nearly getting run over himself. The plane swoops in low, smashing into the truck and exploding. Thornhill steals one of a rubbernecker’s truck and shoots back to Chicago.
He confronts Kendall at her hotel, but she claims not to know what happened to Kaplan. She slips out for a meeting, and Thornhill follows her to an auction where she meets Vandamm and his right hand man, Leonard (played by a young Martin Landau). After making some ugly accusations against Kendall, Thornhill sees that he is surrounded by Vandamm’s goons. He disrupts the auction and is arrested, but after receiving special instructions, the police take him to an airport.
There Thornhill meets the Professor (Leo G. Carroll), who works for the U.S. government. He explains that there is no Kaplan; he was invented to distract attention from Kendall, who is a double agent working against Vandamm, trying to stop him from leaving the country with microfilm hidden in a Buddha – the film’s Macguffin. The Professor gets Thornhill to agree to help, since he his harsh words at the auction have put Kendall’s life in danger.
Thornhill accompanies the Professor to Rapid City, South Dakota, where, pretending to actually be Kaplan, he meets Vandamm at the Mount Rushmore cafeteria. Thornhill proposes to let Vandamm leave the country that night with the microfilm in exchange for the girl, but when she hears this, she pulls a gun and shoots him. Vandamm and Leonard rush out of the cafeteria, and Thornhill his taken away in an ambulance to a wooded spot where we see that he miraculously is unharmed, thanks to the blanks in Kendall’s gun. They make up, but she has to go join Vandamm for his flight out of the country so that he does not suspect her true mission.
Thornhill is horrified to hear this, and he slips out of the hospital where the professor has stashed him. He makes his way to the mountainside house of Vandamm and overhears Leonard telling his boss that Kendall has betrayed him, and that it’s time to get rid of her. Thornhill gets a message to Kendall, and as Vandamm and Leonard escort her to the airplane and her doom, she grabs the Buddha and runs to Thornhill’s side.
The two of them are chased across Mount Rushmore by Leonard and another of Vandamm’s men. They nearly fall to their deaths, and Thornhill tries to lighten to mood by proposing marriage. As they try to hold on, Leonard finds them and steps on Thornhill’s fingers, but is shot by a park ranger. Thornhill pulls Kendall to safety, and in one of the fastest scene changes in film history, Thornhill is suddenly pulling Kendall into the upper berth of a train car, as they are now safe and married.
Cary Grant himself claimed he could not follow the plot of “North by Northwest,” and while the story is very elaborate, it actually holds together well. Hitchcock even goes to the trouble of having Vandamm address the mystery of who killed Lester Townsend at the U.N.; this was more explanation than Hitch usually bothered with.
If Ernest Lehman set out to create the ultimate Hitchcock film, he certainly succeeded in style and in references to previous works, especially “The 39 Steps”; Roger Thornhill is the latest in a long line of wrongly accused heroes in Hitchcock’s films. Most of all, the movie recalls “The 39 Steps,” with its chase-driven plot, its fascination with trains and a mystery woman who, this time, gives the hero refuge. Its auction scene echoes “The Skin Game,” and the fall from Mount Rushmore hearkens back to “Saboteur.”
The many locales in “North by Northwest” give Hitchcock the chance to create one set piece after another; Hitchcock was known for his action sequences in interesting places, from the chase at the British Museum in “Blackmail” to the fight on the merry-go-round in “Strangers on a Train.” Here, key moments occur at a luxurious Long Island Mansion, at New York’s Plaza Hotel, at the United Nations, at Grand Central Station and at Mount Rushmore. Even the barren landscape of the airplace sequence takes on a special significance as Roger Thornhill strains to locate George Kaplan.
Like “Saboteur,” another of Hitchcock’s chase movies, “North by Northwest” blazes from one American locale to another; the two movies also kill off their villains with a fall from a patriotic monument – in “Saboteur,” it was the Statue of Liberty. But “North by Northwest” is much more fast-paced and busy than “Saboteur,” which had a meandering feel to it. Here, Roger Thornhill is in constant pursuit of George Kaplan; his goal is well-defined and never out of mind.
Hitchcock on the set, skipping his normal suit and tie on a hot day.
Hitchcock said that with the exception of the train going into the tunnel at the very end of the picture, “North by Northwest” was devoid of symbolism, yet I’d suggest that Roger Thornhill’s famous gray suit had meaning, as it stamps Thornhill as a New York ad man. The other moment of symbolism occurs when Thornhill shaves in a public bathroom at Grand Central Station, using a tiny razor from the train. Thornhill responds to a scowl from another man with a helpless shrug; surely the tiny razor represents Thornhill’s powerlessness in his situation?
This was Cary Grant’s last film with Hitchcock, and as always, he makes a dashing hero, even when he’s confused and scowling. James Mason is a delightfully slimy villain, certainly the equal of Claude Rains in “Notorious.” Eva Marie Saint lives up to her part in the film, and Martin Landau is dismissive of women as he drops hints about his character’s homosexuality, mentioning his “women’s intuition,” and admitting that he’s jealous of Vandamm’s relationship with Kendall.
The opening credits are designed once again by Saul Bass, who starts with type against a green background, then introduces an isometric grid which slowly reveals New York City. We see shot after shot of crowded sidewalks, followed by a bus pulling into the street just as Hitchcock dashes toward it. It’s one of Hitch’s more clever cameos, and he gets it out of the way almost immediately, setting the pace for the story to come.
It took a long time to settle on the title “North by Nortwest,” a phrase that comes from “Hamlet,” and which Hitch manages to reference by putting Thornhill and the Professor on a Northwest Airlines flight. Working titles included “The Man in Lincoln’s Nose,” “The Man on Lincoln’s Nose,” and “In a Northwesterly Direction.” Whatever the names it might have had, “North by Northwest” remains one of Hitchcock’s most enjoyable and lighthearted films.
In the trailer, Hitchcock plays travel agent, taking advantage of his growing recognizability from his duties as host of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
Next, we’ll look at “Psycho,” a film that launched Alfred Hitchcock in a new direction and gave us the modern horror film.
A look at “The 39 Steps,” currently playing at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota
By Keating DuGarm, Hitchcock and Me’s Midwest Foreign Correspondent
As frequent readers of this blog know, “The 39 Steps” has been adapted by playwright Patrick Barlow to the stage, following the storyline of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film along with elements from the novel by John Buchan. The original novel and movie helped to establish the modern-day spy story.
As most of you remember, this story involves Richard Hannay, who gets blamed for a murder he did not commit and goes on the run from London to the Scottish Highlands trying to stop spies who are trying to smuggle a vital secret out of the country in the pre-war United Kingdom. This war is World War I in the novel and World War II in the movie and play.
The Guthrie Theater’s production of this play proves to be similar in the kinetic spirit that Adam talked about the New York version having last spring during his “39 Days of the 39 Steps.” You can view this short video and compare it to the ones Adam posted:
This play features more than 150 characters which are brought to life by a cast of four actors. All four are based in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Robert O. Berdahl plays Richard Hannay, the bored everyman who gets involved in secrets and spies. Berdahl graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Sarah Agnew plays all three female characters who are also potential lovers for Hannay. The wig design (probably by the costume designer) for her worked most effectively.
Jim Lichtscheidl and Luverne Seifert play the clowns, which is what their characters are called in Patrick Barlow’s play. They portray the huge supporting case including incompetent detectives, slapstick vaudeville players, political speakers, odd innkeepers, women and men. This quick change process is explained by costume designer Amelia Cheever in this video:
All the actors are effective, but the switching from character to character of the clowns, sometimes within seconds using only hats, makes one appreciate the craft of these thespians.
The set and props get the audience involved from the get go. Sheep on wheels represent a flock of sheep, and life-size kilted cutouts operated by the actors comprise a huge Scottish political parade. Travel trunks become trains. As the characters crawl up and down on these trunks, they flap their hats and coats to indicate a strong wind. In this interview, which you can read here, set designer Richard Hoover discusses the production.
Hannay’s journey comprises a sequence of shadow puppets invented by Michael Sommers which includes references to “Psycho,” “North by Northwest,” and “Rear Window” as well as other non-Hitchcock classics like “King Kong. Naturally, this includes a cameo by Alfred Hitchcock in the form of a silhouette, a la “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
Much of the dialogue is used exactly from the movie. Fast changes of costume and smart theatrical tricks are utilized to show character changes. The director makes this all work nicely.
“The 39 Steps” is directed by Joel Sass who usually works at the local Jungle Theater. At the Jungle Theater, he directed the suspenseful “Hitchcock Blonde” where he displayed a true feeling for Hitchcock-type suspense. In this production, Mr. Sass seems to enjoy taking down those same conventions. Joel talks about this production here:
This play has much in common with sketch comedy like Monty Python. As in any sketch comedy show, some bits work better than others depending on one’s sense of humor. I love sketch comedy and I enjoyed much of this. The Scottish innkeeper characters and the male “clowns” dressing up and speaking as women reminded me specifically of Monty Python. In fact, Eric Idle of Monty Python stated about the New York version of this play that: “Everyone should see this. It’s brilliant!”
Here is a rather well-done guide to the play, book and movie in all its incarnations.
Also, long-time readers will remember that Adam was featured on the stage for a post-play discussion after one of the New York City performances of “The Thirty-Nine Steps.” The Guthrie theater is doing that as well following the matinee performances on Saturday, November 20, Sunday November 28 and Saturday, December 4. There, audiences will have an opportunity to enjoy a post-play discussion with actors, artists, and theater staff.
This entertaining version of the play runs through December 19, 2010 and you can get more information here. All Hitchcock fans who find themselves anywhere near the Twin Cities before December 19 are advised to go!
Thanks to my pal and fellow Hitchcock fan Mike Callies, who works at the Guthrie, for attending a production of this show with me!
The Hitchcock Report 