The Hitchcock Poll

vertigo>psyco>rear window>north by nortwest>birds>shadow of a doubt>39 steps>strangers on a train> a man who knew too much(1956)>the rest.
or something.

It's hard, because he made so many different KINDS of movies. Rear Window is my favorite, because it seems in the middle, both production-wise and ideology-wise, of the big Hollywood movies and the clever-clever low art.

Psycho is easily the best "b-movie" of all time.

Dun think I seen anything b'fore Rope.

Film Threat to thread, tho.

vertigo is not his "perfect" movie, it's too long, but it's his deepest,richest, and timeless, imo.

39 Steps, but it could have been Rear Window, The Wrong Man, Strangers on a Train or Vertigo.

Rear Window > Vertigo > Notorious > 39 Steps > Psycho > Rope > Strangers on a Train > I don't care to rank much else

xpost

Voted pragmatically and went with Rear Window, though it kills me to not vote for Vertigo, The Wrong Man, The Lady Vanishes, the two Tippi Hedren ones, et al.

I have never seen The Wrong Man. I will.

It's great, dour and with surprising gravitas. That and I Confess.

ok, about The Birds... dumb monster movie or great monster movie?

dumb in the mute sense, yeah

great in every other sense

The Birds is great!

xpost

no, I thin kit's great, too, II guess I'm wondering if it's dumb just because it is, essentially, a monster movie. And Hitch does not reforn the genre, he adheres to it nicely.

i once did a work during my studies about the story-board as used in "shadow of doubt": hitch new how to get into details i tell you.

hitch shot from his storyboards and nothing else, if you believe the stories.

Strangers On A Train, which has his least ridiculous plot, a couple of good supporting performances (by Ms. Hitchcock and Ruth Roman), homo overtones, and a crackling script.

and he knew perfectly how the scene would go before the actual shooting, all was in his head, if you believe the stories

OH GOD I MISSED Notorious! Can I retract??

Also: can anyone tell me if the seventies films are worth the trouble?

frenzy is great,one of his best really, family plot havent seen though heard not such good thing

x2 yes

Yeah, Family Plot is totally fun. I haven't forced myself to watch Topaz yet, tho.

... which isn't in this poll, unsurprisingly

I feel like waiting until Redacted comes out to to my inevitable Brian De Palma poll.

Strangers On A Train, which has his least ridiculous plot

That's not true. All his plots are "ridiculous."

But "crackling" is a good word for the dialogue, for sure.

'Strangers...'

god it rocks so hard.

All plots are ridiculous.

The thing about Strangers is that it might be his MOST ridiculous movie... the end scene of the merry go round? Come on, that's just silliness. But it's great.

But Strangers... does the wrong-man anxiety with greater ease than North By Northwest and, er, The Wrong Man (or earlier films like Foreign Correspondent and The 39 Steps). By tapping into the horror of the most banal circumstance -- how talking to a creepy stranger who buys you an expensive lunch and won't leave you alone -- he comes closest to defining what life must be like in a police-state.

like douglas sirk, he worked in hollywood most of the the time, so he had to fit to the genres rules, but he liked it probably, and it made his films as great and popular as they are.

*talking to a creepy stranger who buys you an expensive lunch and won't leave you alone can lead to the most absurd mix-up.

*and is gay

i voted for notorious (=most perfect hollywood movie ever), but vertigo is the best.

too many defensible candidates to make a rational choice, so i went with most fun. (i.e. north by northwest)

(strangers on a train and vertigo are probably the MOST defensible, but really there's an embarrassment of options.)

i voted for notorious (=most perfect hollywood movie ever), but vertigo is the best.

this is correct!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Birds is actually ABOUT THE HUMAN CHARACTERS, shhhhhh

Too hard. My brain is exploding.

nbnw

I wonder if anyone alive has seen The Pleasure Garden.

It's great, dour and with surprising gravitas.

Hm. The Wrong Man I found pretty good, certainly dour, and with a disappointing ending title card. Not that I wish harm on the woman, but that card took the air out of the scene before it. But it was very pretty and had Henry Fonda.

The end card is the most obvious Studio Imposition ever, and so I just pretend it isn't there.

(oh - maybe 2d most-obv to the framing scenes of Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Strangers On A Train for me. The first Hitchcock film I ever saw and still my favourite.

I saw Torn Curtain one afternoon years ago, I think I was home from school "ill". I remember being surprised at how violent it was. For a film on at 2 in the afternoon, anyway.

Dr Morbius - what are your favorites?

birds foreva

rope and vertigo are my favorites

Too many to name, but I make a habit of Vertigo, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Frenzy, Psycho, North by Northwest, the second Man Who Knew Too Much, Birds, Marnie, 39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, Sabotage, Foreign Correspondent. (Few duds aside from Topaz and Torn Curtain.)

and let's not forget "Lamb to the Slaughter."

I wanted to like Stage Fright a lot (Jane Wyman is great) but man, what a mess. Or just confusing? I do have the urge to watch it again - at some point - unlike the bottom 5 or 6 of the 32 Hitchcock movies I've seen.

Some howlers in the subtitles for Murder!, such as NEWS CUP IN JAR for New Scotland Yard.

Forgot about Michael Powell working on Blackmail

so how's Stage Fright? Been too long.

Talking on twitter recently to the chap responsible for the great big 600-page Hitch Taschen book and he recommended Young and Innocent as a lesser-known classic. I've never heard of it! Can't wait to check it out now though.

Young and Innocent is grebt. Don’t won’t to say much more to avoid spoilers.

Now I want to buy this book Hitchcock’s Music.

Stage Fright is OK--Jane Wyman's attempt at an English accent is really rough, but Dietrich is great and Wyman is too otherwise, it's solid lower-middle tier Hitchcock imo.

I've warmed to Shadow of a Doubt, despite the script's overemphatic small town Americana and the way Teresa Wright gives every line the expected stresses.

the script's overemphatic small town Americana

Wasn't the script literally written by Thornton Wilder? Anyway, it's a great one, and a great (early-ish) Joseph Cotton role.

Yep.

Cotton is well-cast.

*Cotten

Feel like the relationship between the two Charlies is the apex/epitome of Hitchcock "doubling."

Did you ever watch Stage Fright, Alfred? flappy bird's assessment is pretty accurate.

a meh

Yeah. I remember exactly one line from it, when Dietrich wanted to tart up her widow's weeds.

Which I see I mentioned upthread ten years ago. Time flies.

The Hitchcock Poll

Teresa Wright the GOAT. I actually think she gave a better performance in the Hitchcock Presents episode she did, "Lonely Place" or something, Bruce Dern is in it. it's on streaming sites that are not youtube that are easy to find. Absolutely astonishing performance. Frankly last time I watched SOAD I thought she was a bit too gee-shucks for some of it, but it's necessary for the incest subtext

who gives a fuck what's best? Vertigo is great, so is Notorious, Rear Window etc. Enjoy.

Right as usual, Morbs.

You can enjoy the movies AND enjoy discussing what's best!

"no need to argue about movies when we can all enjoy our different favorites without conflict"

LOL who posted that and what did they do with morbs

Lol, exactly.

Although truth be told, that seems to be a classic flanking maneuver that I believe he employed upon more than one occasion.

It had been so long since I last saw "Rebecca" that I not only forgot so much of it *doesn't* take place at the house, but I forgot basically the last half hour deviates from the Gothic stuff entirely and becomes kind of the George Sanders show.

ha yeah, i always forget about that part too, and then when it comes its like a whole extra bonus movie!

watched marnie last night for the first time in a couple decades and man, is that movie such a bizarre misfire. i was enjoying the first two thirds or so just watching these two characters who initially seem super cool and sexy and together, and then the layers get peeled back until we eventually see that theyre both completely twisted walking disaster areas - almost reminded me of phantom thread, love story between two deeply warped people whose pathologies nevertheless complement each other. but as the freudian stuff takes over more and more it just gets so goofy. at the end my partner was like "oh so she bonked bruce dern on the head, big deal", which made me lol in agreement.

Forgot about Michael Powell working on Blackmail

This was just on, I'd never seen it before, it was good!

Yes

To-Night
'Golden Curls'

Saw Notorious for the first time today and as much as I fell for Bergmann, the character I can't stop thinking about is Claude Rains'. Only Hitchcock could/would make me feel sorry for an actual Nazi (notwithstanding John Boyne's efforts)?

What I came to ask: is there a definitive Hitchcock documentary?

Hitchcock/Truffaut maybe?

Watching Rebecca for the first time in a while, I'm struck by Laurence Olivier's proto-Method performance: mumbles, ear pulling, tossing lines away.

saw ROPE for the first time last night. nothing really works and the acting from the leads is awful, but the wardrobe is fantastic.

I'm still buzzing from Notorious last night (only my second time ever seeing it). Just incredible.

This is the fifth Hitchcock I've watched in the last few weeks, inspired by finally reading Truffaut's book. I felt like I was picking films mostly randomly but it seems like I've been gravitating to the Grant films.

saw ROPE for the first time last night. nothing really works and the acting from the leads is awful, but the wardrobe is fantastic.
Yup. I think it's one of his most overrated films.

I'm still processing my recent discovery that Patrick Hamilton, the author of the play Rope, also wrote the play Gaslight (aka Angel Street) and the novel Hangover Square.

Rope was overrated in this poll, The Birds and especially Psycho were underrated.

I don't think anyone rates Rope much. After you absorb Hitch's gimmick there's nothing to savor except the queer overtones and the awful acting.

Rope is a good kids movie (or was for me)

Rope is notable for inspired some groundbreaking queer analysis back in the day from the likes of D.A. Miller and Robin Wood, but I agree it ain't much of a movie.

*inspiring

Nowadays when I see it I mostly just admire the fake skyline and fiberglass clouds

^^^ lol I came here to post exactly this.

it doesn't sound like something I'd particularly enjoy but Rich and Strange is such a good title.

Frenzy is unquestionably his best post-Psycho work. Hilariously droll and a really entertaining critique of Britain from someone who left decades earlier. One of the greatest tracking shots ever, too

Interesting to note that Jack Nicholson owns a number of the paintings Salvador Dali painted for Spellbound. They were loaned to that big retrospective of his work that toured a number of years back. I saw the film in nitrate once

queer overtones and the awful acting

one and the same! the stagey, melodramatic closet panic* is a delight. Hitch never did realism anyway, so why not lean into the artificiality of this gimmicky stage adap.

the confident / nervy dynamic reads great, depending on the audience, as wasp-passing / ethnic, butch / soft, or - yeah, for kids (my first Hitchcock) - the common imbalance in immature friendships (esp if $ / class involved)

* and extra fun that for 1948 their entire circle seems to be entirely accepting of them as a pair, but Granger is terrified of being outed

Yeah, there’s nothing *to* the film really, but like actually great Hitches, it plays differently each time if you rewatch it once a decade.

I agree the artificiality works, almost anticipating Sirk's Universal work by a few years. And my first Hitchcock too.

I finished my first watch of The Birds a few nights back. About 2/3 of the way through when the chaos ensues I was onboard but I was surprised to see it just limp along after that.

i'm watching Rope for the first time and it's a great high school play so far. john dall is fantastic.

update?

greatest gay single shot movie? stewart just seems adrift for this one. those opening 10 minutes should be taught in acting schools.