Hitchcock
The Hitchcock Players: Barbara Harris, Family PlotThursday, 30 August 2012
Alfred Hitchcock famously loved his blondes, and they didn't come much more lovable than Barbara Harris. A Broadway star during the 1960s who later shifted her attentions towards film, Harris was at the peak of her talent in Family Plot, a... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford, The Lady VanishesWednesday, 29 August 2012
Never one to underestimate the potency of a cameo (as evidenced by his own appearances in his films), Alfred Hitchcock had a particular genius with supporting roles – generating menace, intrigue or comedy with the fewest of brush strokes. Two of his... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Hume Cronyn, Shadow of a DoubtTuesday, 28 August 2012
Shadow of a Doubt was reputedly Hitchcock’s personal favourite among his films. Joseph Cotten was cast against type as the glamorous, homicidal uncle, fleeing from the police and pitching up unexpectedly in his sister’s household in a sleepy... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Grace Kelly, Dial M for MurderSunday, 26 August 2012
Aside from the platinum hair and the porcelain beauty, there is no identikit Hitchcock blonde. She can be an ice-hearted femme fatale or a traumatised hysteric, or she can be Grace Kelly, a peachy embodiment of femininity whom the director enjoyed... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Cary Grant, NotoriousSaturday, 25 August 2012
Like his great contemporary Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant not only gave some of his best performances for Hitchcock, he also grabbed the opportunity to darken his screen persona. It was never the case, with either of them, of simply playing “baddies”.... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Lila Kedrova, Torn CurtainFriday, 24 August 2012
There’s an affecting moment in the café scene in Torn Curtain (1966) when the physicist Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) and his fiancée-assistant Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews), desperate to flee East Berlin, are awed into compassion for the jittery... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Tippi Hedren, The Birds, MarnieThursday, 23 August 2012
The relationship between Hitchcock and Hedren was already subject to scrutiny, and is symbolic of his fascination with blondes. Soon, with Sienna Miller playing the leading lady of 1963’s terrifying The Birds and Toby Jones as the director, it’s... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: James Stewart, Rear WindowWednesday, 22 August 2012
Hitchcock was fond of the locked-box mystery, but never in the obvious form: whether it’s the leads in Rope, stuck in their apartment with a body shut up in a trunk, or the survivors from a ship murderously bobbing along together in Lifeboat, the... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Farley Granger and Robert Walker, Strangers on a TrainTuesday, 21 August 2012
Some actors build their characters from the feet up. In fact, it’s a theatrical commonplace to think that shoes can hold the key to a character's psychology. Hitchcock takes the idea and applies it to the opening sequence of Strangers on a Train,... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Anthony Perkins, PsychoMonday, 20 August 2012
In Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho, Norman Bates was plump, balding, bespectacled and 40 years old, the physical antithesis of the lean, lanky and boyishly good-looking 28-year-old Anthony Perkins. The casting satisfied Hitchcock’s desire to create... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Anny Ondra, BlackmailSaturday, 18 August 2012
Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh – these are only the best-known of that special breed, the Hitchcock blonde. For some reason, whether he wanted a femme fatale or a romantic accomplice or a tragic... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Barbara Bel Geddes, VertigoThursday, 16 August 2012
Vertigo’s recent elevation to the top of Sight and Sound’s contentious Top 10 makes its minor shortcomings all the more glaring. But dodgy back projections, a plot full of holes and a truly terrible painted portrait ultimately don’t dim its... Read more... |
