Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 (8.7*)
This is perhaps Hitchcock's most serious film, eschewing the usual tongue-in-cheek humor for a character study of a seriously flawed hero in James Stewart. Uniting with Hitch for the last time as a police detective, he has a sudden vertigo attack for the first time during a chase, which leads to the accidental death of a colleague, thus starting his emotional torments. He is hired after recuperating as a private investigator to follow a man's mysterious wife, played by Kim Novak, perhaps out of her league here, and she leads him into a thickly plotted crime story that becomes his next torment.

Without spoilers, I can't describe the action, just to say that there are a couple of major plot surprises that take a routine plot into the extraordinary, largely on the performance of Stewart. Some of the film is a little cheesy, such as a psychedelic dream sequence that looks like a Warhol acid trip, or worse, a Peter Fonda 60's trip movie. The film is also a little slow and lengthy, but it remains Hitchcock's most complex character study, and film with the most depth of his Hollywood period, which, to me, wasn't as critically successful as his earlier British films in black and white (The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train).

The film is somehow ranked #2 on the critics consensus poll after Citizen Kane - how it's above The Godfathers, 2001, All About Eve, Lawrence of Arabia and others is a mystery. This is #41 at IMDB, ranked after North by Northwest. Personally, I prefer Hitch's b&w British films The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes to any of his Hollywood productions, though Vertigo is certainly just as good, certainly is more sophisticated. Oscar® nominations for art direction and sound. Hitchcock himself never won an Oscar® which some think is a travesty, but I can see why, as no one film excelled in any particular year, he's more respected for his entire body of work.

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North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock, 1959, (8.0*)
The master of suspense as they like to call him branched out to pure action-adventure of the Hollywood variety with this audience favorite of his. Cary Grant proved not too old to play that era's equivalent of an everyman thrown into a Bondish plot involving secret agents from both sides. Eva Marie Saint is the bait used to ensure his entrapment, so there was more than a little romance as well, as the two spend the night together on a train, and as she says 'with nothing to do since I don't like the book I brought.'

This is the old fish out of water tale, with Roger Thornhill (Grant) as the fish. There are some baffling scenes, there just for action. My fave has Roger being chased on a deserted South Dakoka highway by a low-flying crop duster which apparently is trying to either chase him to death or catch him in a prop as they have no guns or grenades. The pilot manages to hit the only object visible for miles: a gasoline tanker strategically placed on the highway by Hitch. Later the two heroes end up climbing all over the heads carved at Mt. Rushmore without any equipment - nice stunt work. These shots and others, such as a pine forest, have a dreamy, special effect quality that has a sort of b-movie, studio look but also the stuff of matinee Saturdays, when you needed a little fantasy to escape the gray cold war world outside.

With Grant, we had enough humor that we knew not to take this all too seriously, and we also had Hitchcock's most-used actor Leo G. Carroll as the wise old watchdog. This is the Indy Jones of its era, and though it will look slow and tame by comparison, it still has enough action and plot twists to provide an entertaining popcorn flick as along with Vertigo, it's one of the best two of Hitchcock's Hollywood era. This is #30 at IMDB, #49 in the Critics 1000. Oscar® nominations for editing, sound, and screenplay.

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The 39 Steps

Alfred Hitchcock, 1935, bw (8.5*)
This is one of the early British films of Hitchcock before he developed a more formulaic approach for Hollywood , so it's really one that put him on the map early in his career. 39 Steps fits with this month's obvious spy theme, as its a pre-WW2 foreign spy film. Robert Donat stars as the common man discovering a possible plot, a theme often repeated later by Hitch. Features nice use of black and white to create an ominous mood, almost expressionistic. This has remained my favorite Hitchcock film, much preferred over more famous technicolor releases two decades later (well, except maybe for Vertigo, his most serious and successful color film), especially in its use of suspense, and is an early classic of the espionage and mystery genres.

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