So, Alfred Hitchcock is probably one of my favourite directors of all time if not my favourite. The guy didn't make too many clunkers (most of those that were occured near the end of his career). If you haven't had the opportunity to see movies like Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and my all-time favourite Vertigo...then why are you reading this post? Get to a television, and watch those movies, you clown! Seriously, though...the guy was a genius behind the counter, and this post is dedicated to reviewing 2 of his which I recently watched: Spellbound, and Rebecca. I'll start with Spellbound first.
Spellbound had to be one of his weaker films. Up to this point, the only movies he made that I wasn't quite into was The Birds and Suspicion. Suspicion was predictable, and The Birds...well Tippi Hedren running around is enough to make anyone root for the birds. Just kill her, already! I can't stand her voice! She sounds like she swallowed a gallon of helium! Where was I?....oh yes. Spellbound. Yeah, Spellbound is very predictable, I found. We all know Gregory Peck didn't do it. He's Gregory Peck for crying out loud...outside The Boys of Brazil, when was he ever the bad guy? Oops, getting a head of myself.
So, Ingrid Bergman is playing an emotionally distant doctor (emotionally distant characters were Ingrid's speciality...she certainly played enough of them), who falls for the mysterious new head doctor of the asylum she works at. However, the doctor, Gregory Peck, seems to have problems looking at white backgrounds with tracks through them. As it turns out, Peck isn't the new head doctor of the asylum...he's actually an amnesiac, and thinks he is a murderer, responsible for the death of the real head doctor. Ingrid doesn't believe him, but she has a thing for him, so she can't be trusted. Did Peck kill him? If not, who did? It's pretty obvious, but I won't give it away if you didn't see the movie. Let's just say you'd figure it out pretty quick, if you're paying attention at all.
Needless to say, this movie had it's moments. I liked the little scene where Peck comes downstairs in a trance, holding a razor blade, and the kindly, foreign doctor tricks him to escape potential danger. The surrealistic dream sequence created by Salvador Dali deserves its legendary status, it's pretty neat, and must have been mind-blowing back when it was made. Little stuff like that, and the scene at the end with the giant hand holding the giant gun, it's nuances like that I enjoyed in the movie, not anything the movie itself had to say. I understand that it would pretty innovative back in the day, being the first film to really tackle the subject of psychoanalysis. Unfortunately nowadays, the subject has been done to death, and I doubt anyone these days would care about what the film was trying to say.
Rebecca on the other hand, is simply brilliant. I don't know how much of a hand Hitchcock played in this one (or Spellbound for that matter), as the producer was the manic David O. Selznick (he of Gone With the Wind fame), who was known to be pretty "hands-on" with his film projects. However, whatever interference he had, the movie is great. Rebecca is a gothic drama, with a huge house, a mysterious husband, an over-matched wife, a sinister head housekeeper, and the presence of the deceased Rebecca haunting both Manderlay and its occupants.
Joan Fontaine plays a young companion to an overbearing mistress. Running into the brooding Laurence Oliver one day, they strike up a fast friendship that quickly blooms into marriage when Joan tells Laurence she was leaving for America with her employer. Taking Joan back to his mansion named Manderlay, he introduces her to his head houskeeper, Dame Judith Anderson, who had a fanatic admiration for Laurence's previous wife, Rebecca. It seems that Laurence has never really gotten over Rebecca's death, as he goes nuts at the mention of her name, or of the particulars of her boating accident. Was it an accident, though? What really happened to Rebecca? Will Judith Anderson kill Joan Fontaine's character? She certainly seems crazy enough to! The movie is long, but it's quite engrossing.
The thing that really works in this movie is the actors, and the characters. Each one is interesting in their own way. Joan makes her character (cleverly never named in the film, so as to emphasize her inferiority to the dead Rebecca), who could have been annoying, extremely vulnerable, and sympathetic. However, you're also forced to sympathize with Oliver's Maxim, because even though he seems distant and cold, his reasons and his motivations make him just as sympathetic as Joan. Then there's Judith Anderson...I'm going to check, but I hope she won an award for her portrayal of Miss Danvers. She's crazy without being drooling, hand-wringing over-the-top crazy, which makes her ten times scarier than someone who is. You don't really know how far she's going to go, or what she's going to do, and you're just praying that Fontaine will tell Maxim what Danvers has been up to, but you're also a little scared that even if he finds out, he won't have the cojones to stand up Miss Danvers, who almost seems like a force of nature.
Another brilliant thing was the sets. I know it was in miniatures, but Manderlay is almost like a character in itself. It's imposing, you could literally get lost in there, and thanks to Miss Danvers, there's always a feeling that the deceased Rebecca is close by, her presence is everywhere, and you have the feeling that Fontaine and Olivier don't just have to deal with the unhinged housekeeper, but also with the very spirit of Rebecca. This isn't exactly an action-packed movie, but it's unsettling, and when the big revelation comes (and don't worry, there's always a big revelation in a movie like this), you may be surprised. I know I was.
So, where does Rebecca rank in the all-time Hitchcocks? Well, not top 5, because his top 5 is just crazy, but I will definitely say it's top ten material. It's that damned good, and I encourage anyone to buy the film and give it a look. For the record, my top 5 Hitchcock's are:
- Vertigo
- Psycho
- Rear Window
- North by Northwest
- Strangers on a Train
So, there you have it. 5 brilliant films from probably the greatest filmmaker of all time. Check them out, you won't be disappointed.
Ratings: Spellbound - 3 stars, Rebecca - 5 stars
I bid thee a fond good evening
- Stephenstein
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