Illustration by John Leavitt
ICY BLONDE WOMAN [weighted down with diamonds]: I’m awfully nervous, John
A PSYCHIATRIST: You’re absolutely crazy, Madeline. The specific nature of your madness has long been of interest to men of science. Allow me to deliver a thirty-minute lecture directly to the camera in front of the blackboard on the subject. [He does so.]
DETACHED BLONDE WOMAN: I tell you I won’t do it. I won’t do it. I can’t bear to go along with this scheme a second longer. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t–
A PAIR OF SUNGLASSES WITH STRONG MIDCENTURY LINES: Madeline, you’re absolutely out of your mind
FRIGID BLONDE WOMAN [almost entirely encrusted with diamonds]: I sometimes wonder if I am going mad.
[A procession of sneering train passengers walk past and strike the blonde woman, who responds with indifference.]
FROSTY BLONDE WOMAN [in a subtle, Nordic sort of way]: Am I going mad, Arthur?
A SINISTER HAIRLINE IN A WELL-TAILORED SUIT: I don’t like women at all but I am obsessed with them which is just as good
Someone named Ethel probably: what if something happened to a woman with dark hair
shut up Ethel
A BELOVED UNCLE: we were all Nazis the whole time
ALOOF BLONDE WOMAN: I have small breasts and am therefore fascinating and unknowable
A MAN WHO IS TEN THOUSAND YEARS OLD AND LOOKS LIKE THE GRANDFATHER OF RAISINS AND IS EITHER CARY GRANT OR JIMMY STEWART: kiss me, you crazy Madeline [she does for some reason]
ENIGMATIC BLONDE WOMAN: [dies in a lovely blue skirtsuit]
OR WAS SHE
shut up Ethel
we are all Ethel.
CURIOUSLY WELL-DRESSED MAN: I’m not gay but then again I might be
NAÏVE YOUNG COLLEGE STUDENT: me neither. let’s murder someone together to prove how gay we aren’t
That’s Rope, right?
yeah but there’s a ton of homoerotic subtext in Strangers on a Train as well
for Very Good Reasons
YOUNG WELL-DRESSED MAN: has mommy issues
There should be a PETER LORRE STAND-IN part, right? Or am I remembering my Hitchcock incorrectly?
*runs, ducking, under helicopters and birds, shirt and tie casually flapping & belying frantic emotional state, until such time as one stops short in front of the camera & shouts*
[red phone rings shrilly]
HANDSOME SWEATING FOREHEAD: [stares, maniacally and unmoving, at ringing phone, for it is the herald of death]
MADELINE desperately wants to marry the TEN THOUSAND YEAR OLD MAN, but he’s not quite ready to settle down, and certainly not with someone as rich and beautiful and blonde and anxious to please as her.
cackling. the collective rage on this site is so cathartic.
Except Rear Window, which is perfect and lovely and I love it forever and you can’t make me stop
Edit: Well, ok, partially yes Rear Window BUT STILL
And then the Lovely Blonde Woman became an actual real PRINCESS, perfect. Just as the world should be.
Oh! Was just reminded that Rebecca (1940) was also Hitchcock!
“THE GRANDFATHER OF RAISINS ”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ded.
The Hitchcock silhouette should be somewhere in there, y/y?
There is a rock that slightly overhangs the road on the way to my parent’s house. It looks like the the nose and chin portion of the Hitchcock silhouette. Every time we passed it my roommate would yell out “Hitchcock!”
Grandfather of Raisins: My fear of heights stands for things, Madeline.
Lady made of diamonds and blonde hair swirls: Does it have something to do with this Coit Tower thing that is always in frame with you somehow?
Grandfater of Raisins: No, no, no-it doesn’t stand that tall. It just stands for THINGS, Madeline.
And this is why my faves are “The Lady Vanishes”, “Foreign Correspondent”, “The Trouble with Harry” and “Stage Fright.”
So I’m off-brand! I get Margaret Lockwood, Action Spinsters, comedy, Cool Dad Alastair Sim and charming men in suits.
I just saw “The Lady Vanishes” last weekend, and my goodness did I enjoy it.
Off to look up the other titles you’ve mentioned!
Miss Froy and Iris’ ethos of “sisters before misters”! Charters and Caldicott (whom the screenwriters liked so much that they put them in a bunch of other movies!) Very young, very beautiful Michael Redgrave! Trains!
don’t forget the 39 steps !
The Trouble with Harry is one of my favorite movies ever. I have the male lead of the The Lady Vanishes because of how he behaves in the hotel, so I just pretend the movie starts with the train so that I can keep liking it.
He IS a stinker in the hotel. Fred was much better to Ginger (though still a bit creepy) in “Top Hat” about the whole “making noise on the upper floor while someone’s trying to sleep” thing.
I love “The Trouble with Harry” mainly for Shirley MacClaine but also because I discovered upon moving to Vermont that it is exactly how Vermont is in the fall, every fall. They tell you not to go hiking the fall b/c of hunting season but it’s really b/c we don’t want tourists tripping over all the dead bodies already there.
I sometimes watch The Trouble With Harry and don’t even pay attention to the plot, but just look at the scenery and houses. (I think, actually, part of it was filmed near where my mother lives.)
It was filmed in Craftsbury, VT in the Northeast Kingdom aka “Vermontland” as my friend calls it. In Vermontland most of the rides involve quaint town greens and white steepled churches.
Hmmm, then my mother has been lying to me, as she lives in southern Vermont.
“The Trouble with Harry” is the best! My partner generally does not like Hitchcock but he likes Harry.
Whenever I declare my dislike for Hitchcock movies (I’m not built to handle the frustration of watching movies with plots that would be much shorter if the characters would just talk to each other frankly), I always make an exception for the first three. I’ll have to watch Stage Fright now, if it’s grouped in those three.
A train goes into a tunnel. This is in no way symbolic, how dare you.
FRIGID BLONDE WOMAN [almost entirely encrusted with diamonds]: I sometimes wonder if I am going mad.
How did Emma Frost get into a Hitchcock picture?
Whereas I thought of
Cinematography: *wavers intensely between Gorgeously Thrilling or Holy Crap What Is Wrong With You*
I’ll never again see Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt without thinking SINISTER HAIRLINE IN A WELL-TAILORED SUIT.
Me, too! Well, that and picturing him saying “pardon me” to a flock of chickens because he was so charming in Farmer’s Daughter.
brb, sending this to every man who ever lectured me about how Vertigo is the best movie ever made
“I have small breasts and am therefore fascinating and unknowable”
Well. My complicated relationship with my large chest just got more complicated.
Preach. Dealing with the “small-breasted women are given the space to be aesthetically appreciated, without sexualization” is enough to screw magnanimously with my head on a frequent basis.
*strangely frumpy old man completely out of character with the rest of the movie appears on screen for several seconds.
[A tall, graceful woman in a well tailored Edith Head gown glides into the room.]
WOMAN: What a delightful brunch that was. I am put perfectly at ease and off guard.
[She slips into the pristine bathroom to change into her day-to-day lounging gown, also designed by Edith Head.]
There have been very few movies I’ve seen that I’ve hated, but Marnie tops that list. I took a class on music in Hitchcock films so I had to watch a bunch, and it was by far, the most terrible. (Though reading the plot description today, I don’t actually recall most of it, just the worst bits.)
I once got in trouble in HS for mocking Rear Window while we were watching it.
Mystery Science Theater style?
BUT ALSO:
Beautiful But Apparently Psychotic Man:
Maybe I have been killing everyone. I just don’t know.
Previously Frigid Lady Psychiatrist:
I can tell by the way you kiss me that everything will be allright.
You know, I had only ever seen Mockingbird Gregory Peck, not Young And Dashing Gregory Peck so I rather liked Spellbound.
BRITTLE BLONDE WOMAN: I am constitutionally incapable of flirting
Unless stalking is flirting
in which case flirting is the only job I will ever need
PLAIN WOMAN IN DISTINCTIVE GLASSES: Let me fumble near you
I know What Is Really Going On
I say it out loud like six times but no one listens
I am here to be equal parts amusing and repulsive
INSCRUTABLE BLONDE WOMAN: Why are you talking
My eyes are fixed on a distant point
Plus ennui
[not at all symbolic train rumbles past]
MUSTACHE [on train]: I am a genius and a gambler and my secrets are the secretest
BEADY EYES OPPOSITE: My secrets are greasy
and not very smart
MUSTACHE, TWITCHING SLIGHTLY: I will tell you my secrets
For your insufficient admiration causes me to wilt
Handsomely
EYES: You are handsomer than secrets
MANSTACHE: Let me introduce you to my sister
She is plain yet ornately bespectacled
No one will believe anyone
I maintain that if Dial M for Murder had a few more sad trombone noises it would be widely hailed as one of the great comedic farces.
THE GRANDFATHER OF RAISINS
NORMAL BRUNETTE: The police suspect us; shouldn’t we leave?
FIANCE WHO HAS ENDANGERED THEM BOTH: NO! Our only hope is to act EXTREMELY NORMAL as if NOTHING IS WRONG
BRUNETTE: But how long d–
FIANCE: UNTIL THIS MONTAGE ENDS
[ten-minute montage of EXTREMELY TENSE NORMALCY]
Is this a reaction to seeing Carol
oh my god, the brilliance of this
Mallory you’ve absolutely outdone yourself
it was so funny I couldn’t even laugh, does that make sense?
You know, I think that things are getting better in tech for women in some ways (we're having vocal debates now!), and then low-key sexist shit like that just keeps on keeping on.
Can you imagine Wired doing a bejazzled man's crotch? No, me neither.
There is a rock that slightly overhangs the road on the way to my parent's house. It looks like the the nose and chin portion of the Hitchcock silhouette. Every time we passed it my roommate would yell out "Hitchcock!"
Never got Hitchcock, but the 1934 Man Who Knew Too Much where the cop refuses to take the shot and the mom….
So much awesome.
Camera PAN down to busy busy city street. Many hurrying feet and legs – suits, high heels and stockings. ZOOM in to “Consolidated Water Co.” manhole cover. Manhole cover moves, lifted from below. Cover slides to one side, head and shoulders of sewerage worker slowly emerge, turn to camera. It is Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock sinks back into manhole, cover slides shut. More hurrying feet and legs.
a bejazzled man's crotch
…must…not…Google…
*sits on hands*