MovieChat Forums > The Trouble with Harry (1955) Discussion > Crystalline

Crystalline

posted a year ago by ecarle (14979)
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I was watching The Trouble With Harry the other night. Its always a "good break" for a Hitchcock buff to "break free from the ones that have a grip forever" (Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo with reservations and yep...Frenzy from my own cognitive lifetime) and check out some other Hitchcock films.

I've always liked The Trouble With Harry. All the critical emphasis is on its being "a rare Hitchcock comedy," or "a deadpan British comedy set in America," or "a black comedy about a body that won't stay buried" is true enough, but rather misses the point of the EXPERIENCE of watching and listening to the movie itself.

Its star, Shirley MacLaine, put it this way: "It was a bomb...an arty bomb, but a bomb nonetheless." And it was her movie debut. But not to worry, her next movie was a Martin/Lewis and she was on her way.

But she was right about The Trouble With Harry. It IS arty. Almost an art film(though it can't be, because I understood it.) The art is largely in the very quiet pacing of the film, the way -- even with Bernard Herrmann's first score for Hitchcock floating in and out in ways alternating the pastoral with the macabre -- it is almost a SILENT film. Hitchcock uses what film critic James Agee called "air pockets of silence" to almost FORCE the audience to take it easy...slow things WAY down...and take in this tiny little Vermont hamlet with its very small assortment of very eccentric people.

John Forsythe's "entrance" is a case in point. Before we see the man clearly -- before we see his face -- he is a tiny, distant figure walking into "town"(two buildings) from the beautiful fall foliage. And he is SINGING. Acapella -in a big rich deep masculine voice that , quite frankly CANNOT be the voice of John Forsythe(someone compared it to Paul Robeson.)

Hitchcock paces time between the lyrics for Forsythe to STOP singing, for silence to take over, and we all lean in to the absence of sound. And then the big voice starts singing again. Its all very emotional AND technical(to create the ILLUSION of a man singing far away from us, his voice disappearing into the whispery rustle of tree leaves and the silence of nobody there.)

The rest of the movie follows a "fade out and pause" structure that was first used in Rear Window to capture James Stewart's "awake then asleep" napping in his hot NYC apartment, then used in To Catch a Thief to turn Monte Carlo into a dangerous city of night and silent rooftops and here-- to convert a small place in Vermont into a kind of "Brigadoon with 7 people" -- where IS the rest of the world. (A Psycho reference would be Arbogast's take on the Bates Motel: "This is the first place I've seen that looks like its hiding from the world.")

The movie is famous for its gorgeous Technicolor shots(by cinematographer Robert Burks, fresh off of an Oscar for To Catch a Thief) of the gorgeous golds, yellows, browns, and reds of autumn in Vermont under blue skies and against green hillsides.

As I've noted before, I personally love -- sometimes -- to pull out my Trouble With Harry DVD and just watch/listen to the opening minutes (before Jerry Mathers arrives as first on screen) -- with calm shot after calm shot after calm shot of the Vermont countryside and homes as Herrmann spins out his most BEAUTIFUL music ever. Its like one of those "relaxation tapes."

But on this recent re-watch, I was reminded that along with its gorgeous daytime scenes, The Trouble With Harry has several great NIGHTIME scenes.

Most of them have to do with the "burial squad" (one young couple, one middle aged couple) moving up and down the hillside to bury, dig up, and rebury Harry. There is at least one great shot of all of them along a ridge against the night sky.

But also two shots from different angles:

ONE: Long shot looking UP the hill: the deputy sheriff's old jalopy coming DOWN the hill road into town.

TWO: Long shot looking DOWN the hill: the deputy sheriff's old mother running UP the hill to tell "the burial squad" that they must come quickly...something WONDERFUL is waiting for them in town, the answer to all their dreams.

These night time shots all have some "plot" to them, but they are more important for setting a MOOD...in this tiny Vermont hamlet surrounded by countryside, spooky things are going on -- a man's dead body is being moved about, buried, dug up and reburied , but -- the WORLD in which this story takes place -- especially the night world -- is otherworldly.

And, as a photographic matter, that world is : crystalline.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Burks images of Vermont at night are so clear and clean and "lonely" , we can't help but feel strong feelings just looking at them.

I will note that some of these shots look done "day for night"(filmed during the day with a filter) and one, maybe two of them -- looks like they were done by shining actual lights on the actors in the darkness, carefully so as not to to brightly illuminate them. But either way, the shots play the same to our eyes: crystalline. And we experience EMOTION(as Hitchcock wanted) accordingly. We RELATE to these "night movements."

Which brings me, indeed, to Psycho:

Psycho, like The Trouble With Harry, is set largely in rural America. Vermont on America's East Coast in Harry becomes California on America's West Coast in Psycho...and in Psycho, things move to the northernmost inland region of the state -- far away from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

I can't remember the name -- if any-- of the "town" (two buildings) in Harry. But the town near the Bates Motel is the fictional Fairvale (in real Shasta County, California.) In both films, the towns matter somewhat less than the open rural areas beyond them -- and in BOTH films, a lot of the action takes place at night, away from any population. And in BOTH films, at night bodies are moved and buried(though not reburied in Psycho.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Los Angeles Times critic Philip K. Schuer wrote in his 1960 review of Psycho that "this is Hitchcock's most disagreeable film since The Trouble With Harry, which was disagreeable in a different way." I suppose so, but perhaps that "disagreeability" in both films was in the callous handling of corpses -- and an emphasis, in all cases, that the corpses WERE living , breathing, human beings. Marion Crane was the worst of these -- we spent 40 minutes in her company watching her as a living , breathing human being. But with Harry, we certainly hear a LOT about how HE was when HE was alive, and all the people he "touched" (pretty badly as it turns out --- did one of them murder him?)

Anyway, that's the "content" link between The Trouble With Harry and Psycho.

As to the visual link: crystalline.

I'm thinking of two particular shots from the same angle at different moments:

Arbogast has finished talking to Norman inside the office and walks to the edge of the porch while Norman heads to Cabin One to change sheets. Arbogast looks up behind the house:

Arbogast's POV:

The Bates house. On the hill. Standing proud against a night sky(more gray than black.) And painfully intensely CLEAR to the eye.

Crystalline.

This is probably the best individual shot of the house on the hill in all of Psycho. And Hitchcock returns to that same crystalline shot later, when Arbogast returns to the motel and again looks up at the house on the hill before deciding to walk up there.

Crystalline.

The only difference between the two shots -- likely taken at the same time or as one continuous shot "split into two" via editing -- is that in "shot one"(Arbogast on the porch with Norman nearby) -- Mother can be "seen" in the window. In "shot two" (Arbogast on the porch with Norman...out there somewhere) -- Mother CANNOT be seen in the window. Otherwise, same shot: crystalline.

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I will here note that "shot one" has one of the few real "glitches" in Psycho to me. Mother in the window -- we learn later -- is DEAD mother. When we saw Mother in the window much earlier(when Marion saw her up there), she MOVED. We learn later -- that was Norman in dress and wig. Thus are we tricked for the whole rest of the movie. We saw her move ONCE...so later, we don't see her move(when Arbogast sees her) or we just HEAR about her in the window(when Sam tells the sheriff what he saw.)

But "dead Mother in the window"(from Arbogast's view) just looks bad to me. I'm guessing that they took the "crystalline" shot of the house on the hill and "drew in" Mother in the window. The figure looks too tall and thin -- like a stick figure -- and a chair is drawn in as well. Unreal. if you are looking to "solve" Psycho, that weird unmoving stick figure in the window might do it.

Thus of the TWO "crystalline" shots of the house on the hill, the second one(NO mother in the window) is the better one and...

...I think THAT photo of the house on the hill is the one that has been used MOST ever since in internet articles on Psycho. A screen capture of the crystalline shot. No fake mother in the window. The Psycho house shown -- in glorious gray on black on white -- as great and weird an otherworldly as it has ever looked on film. No such shot can be found in any of the Psycho sequels, and Van Sant(incredibly) used a DIFFERENT HOUSE.

Interesting: Robert Burks shot all the Hitchcock movies from Strangers on a Train through North by Northwest, and they are ALL crystalline -- almost three-dimensional -- in texture and clarity. And yet, Robert Burks did NOT do the cinematography on Psycho. Hitchcock used one of his DPS from his TV show -- John L. (Jack) Russell.

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

This begs the question to me: maybe NEITHER Robert Burks NOR John L Russell was responsible for the crystalline quality of the shots in The Trouble With Harry and Psycho. Maybe Hitchcock was the real genius about how his movies LOOKED.

John L. Russell ended up with one of the few Oscar nominations given to Psycho: Best Cinematography(black and white.) The Apartment won. The Apartment has some great shots(one with Ray Walston in a phone booth with a Marilyn Monroe clone waiting outside SHIMMERED on the screen.) But Psycho has more. And the cinematography isn't just a matter of the "crystalline" thing. We get those great camera MOVEMENTS (down into a Phoenix window, up over Arbogast on the staircase, WAY up over Norman on the staircase).

Truth be told, though Hitchcock never got a Best Director award and had few of his movies nominated as Best Picture(Rebecca won), I think many of his movies got "Best Cinematography" noms, and To Catch a Thief won.

Meanwhile back at Psycho:

I've stated before that my favorite SHOT in Psycho indeed has the house in it but the shot has other elements: Arbogast IN the shot(he is not in the POV shots) climbing the bushy, furry hill up stone Gothic steps to the house, motel screen right. My favorite shot in Psycho, my favorite shot in Hitchcock.

But not quite as crystalline as the POV shots. Its too "busy" for that, what with Arbogast and the motel in the shot. Probably day for night(Arbo casts a long shadow as he climbs the stone steps.) Also, to get all the elements into the shot, Hitchcock shows us LESS of the house -- none of the roof as I recall. Still, this shot MEANS something: it brings together the Gothic horror of the atmosphere with the modern crime noir character of the tale(the detective, the cheap motel where sex might happen).

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I like the Arbogast SEQUENCE in Psycho the best, not just because of the character(Arbogast), but because of how he interacts with Norman(who looks his best in dark crew neck sweater with white button down shirt), but because all those great SHOTS are in there: the two crystalline POV shots of the house; the shot of Arbogast climbing the hill to the house -- AND -- that great shot that takes in Arbogast's return to the motel, Norman seeing him and scurrying off, and the "day for night" take on the motel in the distance and the house on the hill behind it(window lit, no Mother, it seems.)

Not to mention ALL the shots attendant to Arbogast's murder.

Meanwhile:

In Marion's segment earlier, the house POV shots are first "realistic" (the house viewed through pouring rain, its wooden sides gleaming like reptile skin) and then "fake/messy"("matted in clouds" after the rainfall, courtesy of Saul Bass.) The rain shots of the house are good; the "matted clouds" less so -- the clarity of the Arbogast scenes (a week after any rainfall) are better.

And: there is one scene late in the film when Norman goes up to the house having hung up on his call from Sheriff Chambers down below at the motel. This looks like it was shot the same day/night as all the earlier shots of Norman going up and down the hill (during the Marion sequence) and while the sky doesn't have that bad matted cloud look, they had to do SOMETHING with the sky, and it does look right.

And: finally when Sam and Lila come to the house, it is in DAYLIGHT. A bit less scary looking but terrifying because we know who is in there(Mother) as Lila climbs the hill to the house(Hitchcock here uses, for the first time in approaching the house, his travelling POV shot -- Arbogast was not given that identification.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

But zeroing back in:

The "crystalline" night shots of countryside in both The Trouble With Harry and Psycho share something: they create a mood, an emotion, that drives the weirdness of both tales and links them in a specific way: they are both tales of people living "away from urban society" and engaged in long nights of illicit body-burying activity. That's the content. "Crystalline" is the look.

PS. I forgot to mention it above, but I think a big contributor to the artiness and weirdness of The Trouble With Harry is John Forsythe as the "hero" -- an extremely free-living, liberal(in the pure sense) and almost countercultural artist ...he's laying the groundwork for the beatniks and hippies yet to come while living apart, it seems, from society at all (he calls the big city - NYC? - a place populated by "people with hats," and he finds that horrible. I can picture Forsythe and MacLaine as married old hippies in the 60's, hanging out in their Vermont commune, smoking pot and selling paintings. Arty.