MovieChat Forums > Rear Window (1954) Discussion > Was Lars Thorwald a Psycho?

Was Lars Thorwald a Psycho?

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
57 replies | jump to latest

As a Hitchcock buff, I like to spell out something "nice and neat":

Hitchcock made one movie about a psychopathic killer in each decade he worked in America:

The forties: Uncle Charlie(Joseph Cotton), Shadow of a Doubt(1943)
The fifties: Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), Strangers on a Train (1951)
The sixties: Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins), Psycho (1960)
The seventies: Bob Rusk(Barry Foster), Frenzy (1972.)

And with each decades decline in censorship, each killer was more graphic in his crimes than those in the decade before him:

We don't even see Uncle Charlie kill anyone.
Bruno Anthony strangles Miriam in a somewhat lengthy act that ends up reflected in her fallen eyeglasses.
Norman Bates(as Mother) stabs Marion Crane and later Arbogast with a butcher knife. Much is hidden from view, but not the slash down Arbogast's face and the knife blows HEARD entering into Marion and Arbogast.
Bob Rusk first rapes, t hen strangles(with a necktie) his young female victims. We see one of these murders and the strangling is lingered on and protracted.

Four decades, four psychopaths, each worse than the one before.

But the theory is tested a bit along the way.

Were the two young, male, gay killers in Rope psychos? They killed for the thrill of it, the pleasure of it, to follow the dictates of a pompous professor who had advocated getting away with the murder of 'lesser."

And...how about Lars Thorwald in Rear Window? He comes between Bruno in 1951 and Norman in 1960 and his crime is pretty gory:

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Lars killed his invalid(or faking?) nagging wife, and proceeded to cut up her body into parts in his apartment bathtub. Mrs. Thorwald's head ended up first in a flower garden and was then moved to a hatbox in Thorwald's closet(after a small dog almost dug the head up and had to be strangled for trying.) As for the rest of Mrs. Thorwald's body parts...Lars traspnorted them in his heavy salesman's suitcase and threw them in the Hudson River. Several trips were required.

All of these acts are merely suspected -- by snooping James Stewart and his girlfriend Grace Kelly and by the audience-- through most of Rear Window, but all of this is proved at the end. Pretty gory...and seen only in our minds eye, as dictated by 1954 Hays Code censorship.

So again, the question: is Lars Thorwald yet another Hitchcock psycho, to join the ranks of Charlie, Bruno, Norman, and Bob?

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Thorwald is very different from the Hitchcock psychos. He's a very ordinary type who loses it for a moment. Yes, his cleanup is grisly, but he lives in a crowded city and can't very well carry the body to his car and dump it in a swamp as Norman does.

And given his ordinariness and the anonymity of urban life, he would certainly have gotten away with it if not for Jeffries's relentless pursuit.

[–] Prelude (1443) 7 years ago

Given ecarle's excellent break-down of the actions of Lars, I would pretty much say yes, he's a psycho not just an "ordinary type who loses it for a moment."

That person would feel grief and panic immediately. This guy didn't even display any emotion. Another hallmark of a psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Given ecarle's excellent break-down of the actions of Lars,

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Thank you!

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I would pretty much say yes, he's a psycho not just an "ordinary type who loses it for a moment."

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I'm inclined to go that way. Yes, he had to cut up that body to get it outta there, but there are coldnesses to Lars . He broods smoking that cigarette in the dark. And he didn't really HAVE to kill that dog(which would certainly arouse suspicion in his neighbors -- hey, there's a dog killer on the loose!)

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That person would feel grief and panic immediately. This guy didn't even display any emotion. Another hallmark of a psycho.

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Yes, he rather coldly pads around his apartment.

Its funny -- its the dismemberment that triggered "psycho" for me with Lars(I mean, keeping that damn head in his bedroom!). But perhaps its his personality that suggests it , too.

For all his sympathy, he's rather "the banality of evil."

And yet, as I note elsewhere in this thread, Lars is never given the screen time and study that Charlie, Bruno, Norman and even Rusk get in their films. He's a "supporting psycho."

If he's a psycho...which I kinda think he is...

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Since none of us are clinicians (presumably), there are two ways to approach the question. The first is objectively. What do Charlie, Norman and Bob have in common? They've all killed multiple times before, and would have gone on doing so. Where does that leave Bruno? It leaves him with the second and, I think, more meaningful approach: how does Hitchcock want us to feel about them?

In the case of Bruno, Hitchcock tells us right up front that he's, at the very least, rather cuckoo. And along the way, reveals the same about Charlie, Norman and Bob. Where Bruno differs is that, among the four, he's the only one we meet before he's killed, and whose reason for doing so is explained beforehand. From a narrative standpoint, he has this in common with Lars. We understand his reason (hatred for his father), and it's his means of doing so - necessitating a second, anonymous and cold-blooded killing, along with other behaviors - that push him into possibly psychotic territory.

And here's where Lars is set apart from the group: he's presented as a sympathetic (if pitiable) character before his crime has taken place...and we don't even know for sure until the climax IF there's been a crime. But by the time we do, the groundwork for it has established: he's the long-suffering husband of a haranguing and contemptuous woman, and happens to have another woman on the side. All in all, rather prosaic motives, despite the grisly particulars.

As is often the case when comparing Hitchcock films, a mix-n-match approach can be discerned. Sympathy for Norman, and Bob, to a degree, is established before we know about the killings they'd already done...and before their psychoses have been revealed. Bruno's apparent psychosis is revealed before his crime takes place. Charlie's crimes are revealed before his psychosis is. And we can throw this into the mix: Charlie, Bruno, Lars and Norman all become threats to protagonists only when their exposure is at hand.

More...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Since none of us are clinicians (presumably), there are two ways to approach the question. The first is objectively. What do Charlie, Norman and Bob have in common? They've all killed multiple times before, and would have gone on doing so.

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Indeed. And indeed, all the evidence suggests not only that Bruno hasn't killed before Miriam...he's haunted BY the murder. For pretty much the entire film.

My take on Bruno -- who is quite mentally ill, I think -- is that he's been fashioning mad fantasies of murder for his entire life...and now is the time to make a fantasy come real. (Perhaps his...desire for Guy...is what drives it; he's really studied up on Guy and his life.)

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Where does that leave Bruno? It leaves him with the second and, I think, more meaningful approach: how does Hitchcock want us to feel about them?

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You know, I only think Norman Bates manages to pull off true sympathy, and even then, only sort of, of this crowd. Bruno proves so cruel and "delighted" with his framing of Guy(and his mental torture of Ann when she comes to try to reason with the nutty Mother Anthony) that you just start rooting against him, I don't care how funny and dynamic he is. I mean...he's STILL trying to frame Guy with his dying breath.

Uncle Charlie has been presented in some Hitchcock studies as a charmer...and certainly some ladies like him(his own sister, his niece , and the girls and widows of everywhere, it seems)...but he always struck me as rather immediately cold and superior to everyone around him. Its as if the "girls" love only the handsome man EVEN AS the rest of us (men and women in the audience) see his darkness almost immediately. Uncle Charlie isn't very good at hiding his madness, either (see: the dinner table speeches, and the one in the bar.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Rusk...well, a delightful guy in his first scenes, but once he's done the rape-murder, THAT's over. (I will note here that one of my reasons for visceral hatred of Rusk is how he manhandles Brenda by throwing her around and into the chair early on; I just wanted to reach into the screen and strangle HIM.)

Intriguingly about Rusk -- who, alas, may well be the "skimpiest" in backstory and depth among Hitchcock psychos (he simply doesn't get enough scenes) -- is how his cheeriness seems so utterly false once we KNOW him that we're amazed the other characters don't see right through it. Though WE did....

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In the case of Bruno, Hitchcock tells us right up front that he's, at the very least, rather cuckoo.

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Its a justifiably great performance by the sadly doomed Robert Walker(who died the next year.) It hits on so many cylinders at once -- gay(around Guy) yet a macho ladykiller(at the fairgrounds seducing Miriam), otherworldly, witty, angry -- and unwilling to ever really listen to Guy's protestations, whenever Guy says "Bruno, you're sick...you need help." Walker simply filled very frame with Bruno in everything he did: voice, face, body language...

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And along the way, reveals the same about Charlie, Norman and Bob.

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Thats a great point about Bruno, though. HIS nuttiness is on display from Scene One. (I suppose we even give Uncle Charlie the benefit of the doubt when we see cops hunting him -- he might be The Wrong Man.)

Norman, we like, feel sorry for and -- female or male gay -- LOVE.

And I've said it before: if I didn't know the real Bob Rusk, he'd be the best drinking buddy I could ever have.

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Where Bruno differs is that, among the four, he's the only one we meet before he's killed, and whose reason for doing so is explained beforehand. From a narrative standpoint, he has this in common with Lars. We understand his reason (hatred for his father), and it's his means of doing so - necessitating a second, anonymous and cold-blooded killing, along with other behaviors - that push him into possibly psychotic territory

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What's ironic is that it is only the second killing that actually happens. Strangers on a Train ends with Daddy still alive.

We can figure, perhaps, that in the "personal history" of many a murderer, it had to be built up to: years of mad fantasy plotting for Bruno, years of being henpecked and downtrodden for Lars(yes, he's got a girlfriend, but who knows her motives?) Eventually, something snaps. Though I suppose Bruno figured Daddy was just about ready to commit him -- he has to go.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

So here's another question: where do we put Tony Wendice in all this?

As with Lars, the motive is prosaic: it's a crime of passion (in Tony's case, a presumably faithless wife). And if we employ Dr. Richman's binary, Tony's is a crime of profit as well (wife's got money)...as is Bruno's to an extent (having his father out of the way will loosen the family purse strings). But is Tony a psycho? He's as methodical as Lars, Bruno and Bob, and as cold-blooded as Bruno, Bob and Charlie. But would he kill again?

We can return to the Hitchcock mix-n-match: Lars and Bruno would, if only to protect themselves from exposure. Just for fun, let's bring in Brandon and Philip. Brandon seems the more psychotic of the two, cooking up a murder purely for the emotional thrill and intellectual satisfaction of acting on a philosophical theory, and the weak Philip goes along. But when exposure is imminent, Brandon intends to avoid further violence and brazen it out intellectually, while the guilt-ridden Philip panics and goes for the gun. Tony, unable even to do his own killing, doesn't seem inclined to do what Charlie, Philip, Bruno, Lars or Norman do when exposure looms.

Perhaps in the end, it's the matter of guilt itself that separates the men from the boys, psycho-wise. While they all fear and attempt to avoid exposure of their legal culpability, only Philip and Norman show overt signs of any internalized emotional guilt (out of which grows Norman's very psychosis). I think Lars, like Tony, falls into a gray area left entirely up to audience inference: we can choose to imprint such feelings upon him or not, and there's nothing in the film to contradict either interpretation.

The primary difference between these is yet more Hitchcock mix-n-match: viewers are successfully manipulated into sharing Tony's and Norman's guilt, but not Lars's. This is one of the ways in which Rope falls apart: it's never clear with whom we're supposed to identify.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

So here's another question: where do we put Tony Wendice in all this?

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Where, indeed? I feel my "one psycho per decade" theory falling apart. And this: I think that Charlie, Bruno, Norman, and Rusk are the real stars in their films(though only Perkins got top billing); such is the case with Milland as the (top billed) villain in Dial M. Perhaps Hitchcock felt HIS psychos were the stars of their films, he wanted to study them at length. James Stewart is clearly the star of Rear Window, so Lars is at more of a (literal) distance.

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As with Lars, the motive is prosaic: it's a crime of passion (in Tony's case, a presumably faithless wife).

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Hitchcock sure beat the Hays Code in the fifties. Miriam in Strangers is a slut(sorry) who is married but has another man's baby in her when she goes on a double date with two guys and still yields to Bruno!

But she got killed. The "cheating wife" in Dial M(Grace Kelly) survives all of her ordeals(attempted murder, near gallows hanging) and thus, evidently, will be allowed to keep her lover(Bob Cummings -- punishment?)

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And if we employ Dr. Richman's binary, Tony's is a crime of profit as well (wife's got money)...as is Bruno's to an extent (having his father out of the way will loosen the family purse strings). But is Tony a psycho? He's as methodical as Lars, Bruno and Bob, and as cold-blooded as Bruno, Bob and Charlie. But would he kill again?

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If he killed again, I expect it would be for practical reasons. Had Swan lived, Tony might have killed HIM.

The serial killer element certainly separates the true psychos from the "one offers," doesn't it?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

We can return to the Hitchcock mix-n-match: Lars and Bruno would, if only to protect themselves from exposure.

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Yes.

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Just for fun, let's bring in Brandon and Philip.

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Indeed. Its becoming a fun thread. As Hitchcock said "the stronger the villain, the stronger the picture."

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Brandon seems the more psychotic of the two, cooking up a murder purely for the emotional thrill and intellectual satisfaction of acting on a philosophical theory, and the weak Philip goes along. But when exposure is imminent, Brandon intends to avoid further violence and brazen it out intellectually, while the guilt-ridden Philip panics and goes for the gun.

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That is a great twist near the end, how Brandon turns chicken and Philip's ready to kill again, but I suppose we are meant to realize that Brandon's psycho plotter needed a "killer type" like Philip to really carry out the killing. One recognizes the other.
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Tony, unable even to do his own killing,

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Yeah, what a chicken...

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doesn't seem inclined to do what Charlie, Philip, Bruno, Lars or Norman do when exposure looms.

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Indeed. He pours everybody a drink...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

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Perhaps in the end, it's the matter of guilt itself that separates the men from the boys, psycho-wise. While they all fear and attempt to avoid exposure of their legal culpability, only Philip and Norman show overt signs of any internalized emotional guilt (out of which grows Norman's very psychosis).

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Ummm...Bruno, too, yes? (Those trances he goes into when he sees Pat Hitchcock in her glasses...helping the blind man cross the street..)

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I think Lars, like Tony, falls into a gray area left entirely up to audience inference: we can choose to imprint such feelings upon him or not, and there's nothing in the film to contradict either interpretation.

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True. I know that Hitchocck liked doing that, it was "fun" for him to leave his villains "up for grabs" sympathy-wise.

Tony Wendice had a true cold-blooded streak though. The way he plots a truly brutal death for his wife(see: Frenzy); the way he slowly lowers the boom on Swan to HAVE to do the crime(and yet Swan doesn't kill TONY); the way he quickly figures out how to frame Margot for murder and send her to the gallows, and how he sadistically tortures his romantic rival -- mentally of course -- by sending the unspoken message, "Yes, I AM framing your lover, and I'll get away with it."

Nasty guy, Tony Wendice. Except for that moment on the "fatal phone call" when he has emotional difficulty listening to Margot getting strangled...thinking "this is it." Milland's acting was mighty fine here...the cold-blooded criminal mastermind ALMOST has feelings. But not for very long.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The primary difference between these is yet more Hitchcock mix-n-match: viewers are successfully manipulated into sharing Tony's and Norman's guilt, but not Lars's.

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Well, we spend more time with Tony and Norman, I suppose. Lars is interesting to me: he seems sad and pathetic and sympathetic MOST of the time across the courtyard, but then he yells at that art woman("Why don't you just shut up?") and we realize he's anti-social. And just when he's getting REALLY sympathetic(because Stewart is tormenting him at a distance)...he kills the dog. The End. Bob Rusk time.

Or is it?

For Lars RETURNS to pathos when he confronts Jeff in his apartment -- the famously shockingly sympathetic lines "What do you want from me? Money? I have no money." Most "studio notes" would have called for these lines to get cut.

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This is one of the ways in which Rope falls apart: it's never clear with whom we're supposed to identify

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True, isn't it? The "leading man"(Stewart) is as much a punk as the two killers. I suppose our saddest sympathy goes to the victim's father, slowly but surely realizing that something is very, very wrong.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

To show my respect for Hitchcock's four psychos, I will present my "reasonably" certain list of Hitchcock's Ten Greatest Villains

1 through 5:

Norman Bates
Bruno Anthony
Philip Vandamm
Uncle Charlie
Bob Rusk

....there's the four psychos, in that order, one per decade.

And special notice for Rusk. If "the stronger the villain, the stronger the picture" is the rule, Rusk was welcome because after Psycho (and even counting The Birds), Hitchcock's movies were weak on villains for awhile: Marnie doesn't have one; Torn Curtain kills one early(Gromek) and the rest are bureaucrats; Topaz leaves one sympathetic (to leftists) villain in Rico Parra and trades him in for a couple of late breaking French guys.

So Rusk was very welcome, and that's why Frenzy was a comeback hit. (Psycho, Strangers on a Train, and Shadow of a Doubt are acknowledged Hitchcock classics.)

Which brings me to the harder 6-10:

Alexander Sebastian in Notorious
Lars Thorwald in Rear Window
Tony Wendice in Dial M
Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca
The Birds in The Birds.

Its hard to cut off at 10, isn't it, with so many great Hitchcock villains. But Claude Rains was Oscar-nominated, Lars Thorwald is terrifying/sympathetic in what some consider Hitchcock's best film; Tony Wendice is top-billed and ice-cold-blooded in his film; Mrs. Danvers is the most famous REAL female villain in Hitchcock(versus Mrs. Bates.) As for those birds, well, they are more force than villain, but everybody remember them as terrifying..

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Honorable mentions:

Otto Kruger as Charles Tobin in Saboteur: the dry run for Philip Vandamm. So cheery, so "practical" in his matter-of-fact businessman villainy. And when he smiles, he looks like skulll-face Mrs. Bates with those teeth...

Willliam Devane as Arthur Adamson in Family Plot. Two of Hitchcock's best villains came at the end. Following the amiable but terrifying psychopath in Frenzy, Hitchcock gave us a well-tailored smoothie with a lugubrious voice and the look of a werewolf in a three-piece suit.

And...oh, you can pick the rest. Brandon and Philip? The guy missing a finger in 39 Steps? Paul Lukas in Lady Vanishes? Peter Lorre in anything? How about that slimy child-kidnappping Commie guy in Man Who Knew Too Much '56 who Stewart pushes down the stairs?

Not to mention: Gavin Elster. Perhaps the most diabolical of all Hitchocck villains, one of the most cruel...and we never see him BE a villain. And he gets away. Maybe.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I suppose one could take the position that ANYONE who deliberately plans and carries out the killing of another human being must, if not actually being psychotic in some way, have a screw loose somewhere. But for purely dramatic purposes, we can perhaps categorize Hitchcock's villain killers (or would-be killers) in three general ways:

1) The "professionals" - Minions often do their killing for them, and they're almost exclusively associated with espionage of some sort, but it's occasionally purely for gain of one kind or another; the attitude is, "It's too bad but it has to be done."

The Man Who Knew Too Much ('34)
The 39 Steps
Sabotage
The Lady Vanishes
Jamaica Inn
Foreign Correspondent
Saboteur
Lifeboat
Notorious
To Catch A Thief
The Man Who Knew Too Much ('56)
North By Northwest

2) The "situational killer" - Driven to one very personal killing by extreme circumstances, but may resort to others for self-protection.

Young and Innocent/The Girl Was Young
Spellbound
I Confess
Dial M For Murder
Rear Window

3) The "pathologicals" - Driven to either single or multiple killings by deep psychological disturbances.

Shadow Of A Doubt
Rope
Stage Fright
Strangers On A Train
Psycho
Frenzy

I've left out those I don't remember well enough, and because of what I've been calling the "mix-n-match" approach, there are overlaps (like the "professionals" or "situationals," the "pathologicals" may engage in more personal killings to avoid exposure, and any of the first two may be "pathologicals" as well) and outliers (like the crazy Mrs. Danvers who never actually kills anyone, or Gavin Elster, whose motive is never really gone into...Hitchcock perhaps considered killing a wife who was both inconvenient and well-to-do sufficiently self-explanatory...or Arthur Adamson, who seems to equally embody all three).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I suppose one could take the position that ANYONE who deliberately plans and carries out the killing of another human being must, if not actually being psychotic in some way, have a screw loose somewhere

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I"ve taken this position for years. Perhaps Hitchcock's movies give us a sense of how the legal system itself singles out "insanity defense" killers. There was the old test of "being unable to tell right from wrong," and Psycho and Frenzy posit men who have no financial or jealousy motive for their killings -- they just HAVE to kill, arbitrarily, with no relationship to the victim.

But what of the Mafia killers in "GoodFellas" and "The Sopranos" who use murder as a hair-trigger way to solve problems, with no compunction or remorse? Who dismember their victims to elude detection? Are they not psychopaths, too? Yet I cant think of any real-life Mafia killers getting off on an "insanity defense."

And while many men are inclined to hold up banks or convenience stores for some quick cash -- the ones who also kill a clerk over $200 bucks are, perhaps, psychopaths.

The "nature versus nuture" argument enters in here, in a way Hitchcock never wanted to cover. Simply put: intense poverty, broken families, fatherless homes...translating into a criminal rage to kill with no regard for the consequences(prison.)

Anyway, Hitchcock, in picking his villains from novels(Psycho, Frenzy) or originals (NXNW, Torn Curtain), seemed to modulate their rationales. He refused to do "gangster stories"(for class reasons, I'll bet -- though he had plenty of gangster stories on his TV show) and did seem to drift often to the idea of "a human monster."

When we watch Mrs. Bates kill Marion in the shower, or Rusk kill Brenda in her office...we are confronting the bedrock mystery of a human being who looks like you or me, but has something missing in the brain. He isn't human, really. He's animal.

And that fascinated Hitchcock. And his audiences.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

1) The "professionals" - Minions often do their killing for them, and they're almost exclusively associated with espionage of some sort, but it's occasionally purely for gain of one kind or another; the attitude is, "It's too bad but it has to be done."

The Man Who Knew Too Much ('34)
The 39 Steps
Sabotage
The Lady Vanishes
Jamaica Inn
Foreign Correspondent
Saboteur
Lifeboat
Notorious
To Catch A Thief
The Man Who Knew Too Much ('56)
North By Northwest

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Note that the vast majority of those films are "spy films." This was Hitchcock's preferred genre, really, which is why he sounds, all these year later, in James Bond on the one hand, and Jason Bourne on the other.

In WWII , he could specify the villains as Nazi agents(though in some movies I don't think the word "Nazi" is used.) Came the fifties and sixties, Hitch shifted to Communists as villains, but this was so dicey in the Blacklist 50s, that he didn't even CALL them Communists in Man '56 or NBNW. Only in the 60's -- and not necessarily using the word "Communists" -- could Hitchcock have outright Communist villains in Torn Curtain and Topaz...and some leftwing critics took offense.

But whether they were Nazis or Communists or unnamed, Hitchcock took them at their human value first: they could be practical businessmen (Tobin in Saboteur), they could be loving and kind(Claude Rains in Notorious), they could be family men(Herbert Marshall in Foreign Correspondent, the ones in Torn Curtain), they could be lovelorn(Rains; Mason in NXNW.)

I daresay that Mason and his gang in NXNW have qualities of both gangsters AND psychopaths, to me. Mason solves all CIA problems the same way: he has them killed. By henchmen who seem to like killing. And even "the woman he loves"(Eve Kendall), is to be dealt with that way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

2) The "situational killer" - Driven to one very personal killing by extreme circumstances, but may resort to others for self-protection.

Young and Innocent/The Girl Was Young
Spellbound
I Confess
Dial M For Murder
Rear Window

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These are the killers with whom audiences are most asked to identify with. We aren't sexual psychopaths who kill "as the urge takes us." We're not spies dedicated to killing and other villainous acts "in the name of country" with the same deadpan practicality of a solider at war.

But we MIGHT find ourselves pushed to the breaking point by a bad marriage or a family feud or some other passion that leads to a crime OF passion. Not to mention the fear of losing wealth and power(Tony's motive in Dial M along with jealousy over infidelity -- even as he has been unfaithful, too.)

I do think of the group you've listed, though Lars Thowald is henpecked and "pushed too far," there is something of the psychopath in both the dismemberment angle(he could have taken the intact body out in a trunk, like Rusk at the end of Frenzy) and his grumbling, heavy personality, which seems a little tamped down and inhuman.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I do think of the group you've listed, though Lars Thowald is henpecked and "pushed too far," there is something of the psychopath in both the dismemberment angle(he could have taken the intact body out in a trunk, like Rusk at the end of Frenzy) and his grumbling, heavy personality, which seems a little tamped down and inhuman.

I can buy that. I wonder, though, if Hitchcock wasn't dabbling in themes that would be brought to full fruition in Psycho: "We all go a little mad sometimes;" and perhaps more pointedly that, having done so, committing the "unbearable" crime itself, as Dr. Richman called it, propels psychosis to take hold, as he suggested when describing how Norman had to "erase the crime, at least in his own mind," and restore Mother to life.

But I'm probably overthinking it. In this case, anyway, Hitchcock was likely more interested in observing behavior - as Jeff was - than examining any psychology behind it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I can buy that. I wonder, though, if Hitchcock wasn't dabbling in themes that would be brought to full fruition in Psycho: "We all go a little mad sometimes;"

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There ya go...yet another way in which Rear Window presages Psycho -- six years before the movie, five years before the novel, three years before Ed Gein's murders (which certainly involved dismemberment).

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and perhaps more pointedly that, having done so, committing the "unbearable" crime itself, as Dr. Richman called it, propels psychosis to take hold, as he suggested when describing how Norman had to "erase the crime, at least in his own mind," and restore Mother to life.

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Robin Wood said this of a connection between Psycho and Rear Window: we see the beds of the killers in their bedrooms and thus we are reminded: killers have to SLEEP. Wood left it at that, but I inferred he meant that guilt could take over in those moments of trying to sleep, or perhaps during a sleepless night. And what are the dreams of such killers?(In Norman's case, WHO dreams? Norman, or Mother.)

Lars Thorwald commits his murder (planned? or sudden rage? And how -- I'm guessing strangling, there are no gunshots and no blood around the apartment.) Then Thorwald as to deal with the consequences. His wife's body. One can imagine all sorts of guilt --or lack thereof. But in any event, he's got a body to dispose of.

And when he realizes that his private hell has an audience...there's hell to pay. For Thorwald and for Jeff.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But I'm probably overthinking it.

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Nah. I don't think so. Lars Thorwald is really a rather fascinating character in Hitchcock. As with the crimes of Norman Bates to come, what Thorwald does is "beyond imagining" so we start to try to imagine the kind of person who could DO that.

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In this case, anyway, Hitchcock was likely more interested in observing behavior - as Jeff was - than examining any psychology behind it.

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I'm reminded that while Psycho took the daring step of moving top-billed Tony Perkins front and center as the film's "protagonist"(once Marion is gone)...Rear Window is a bit more of the standard issue type of Hollywood film: James Stewart and Grace Kelly as a romantic couple are "up front"; Thorwald is background.

Except: Stewart and Kelly seem awkward as a couple(and he's a jerk) and our attention keeps floating across the courtyard to Thorwald.

Which is why it is so powerful when Thorwald finally looks back at Jeff...and comes on over...

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Compared to Psycho's, Rear Window's narrative structure certainly seems more conventional, but I daresay it was groundbreaking in its own way in 1954, particularly at a time when it might have been considered derivative in the wake of several earlier films:

Shock (1946) - A young war wife is so traumatized by the murder she witnesses through an adjacent apartment window that she's committed to a sanitarium and finds herself under the care of the murderer himself, Vincent Price, who's all too happy to encourage hubby and the police to believe she imagined the whole thing.

The Window (1948) - A child known for spinning tall tales sees Ruth Roman and husband Paul Stewart murder a man in a nearby apartment; they then set out to silence him before he can convince anyone. Also from a story by Cornell Woolrich and directed by Notorious cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff.

Shadow On the Wall (1950) - A little girl is rendered mute by the trauma of witnessing Ann Sothern kill the sister who's had an affair with her fiance, who then tries to get to the child before compassionate doctor Nancy Davis (who was really quite good) can break through to her. John McIntire and Tom Helmore are also among the cast.

Witness To Murder (1954) - This one was released only months before Rear Window, and is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink exercise: not only does no one believe Barbara Stanwyck's claim of having seen George Sanders kill an inconvenient mistress in his apartment across the street, but Sanders sets out to gaslight Stanwyck by helping to engineer her commitment to a mental ward and all but convincing her it never happened, before inexplicably confessing both to the murder and being an ex-Nazi who - with the promise of a fortune through his upcoming marriage to a rich widow - intends to reconstitute the Third Reich, before pursuing her to the top of an under-construction skyscraper for a cliffhanger climax.

more...

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

After all that sensationalism, Hitchcock's tightly-controlled POV approach, keeping the supposed killer at a mysterious emotional remove, while employing other neighbors as commentary on the dysfunctional Stewart-Kelly relationship, must have seemed rather daring in itself.

Two years later, Van Johnson appeared in 23 Paces To Baker Street as an embittered blind playwright who's broken his engagement to Vera Miles and fled to London, where he overhears the plotting of a kidnapping and, unable to convince anyone, sets out to do his own sleuthing with the help of Miles, who's tracked him down, and his loyal manservant Cecil Parker (the philandering husband of The Lady Vanishes). This and The Window are the best of the pre-and-post Rear Window bunch. From a novel by Philip MacDonald, who had a hand in adapting Rebecca for the screen, had done some Charlie Chans and Mr. Motos and would later contribute a story for Hitchcock's half-hour show.

And then it would all start all over again with Blow-Up, Sisters, Dressed To Kill, Blow Out and others.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

3) The "pathologicals" - Driven to either single or multiple killings by deep psychological disturbances.

Shadow Of A Doubt
Rope
Stage Fright
Strangers On A Train
Psycho
Frenzy

Here we reach the mad killers, and critical consensus seems to be that there are three "official" Hitchcock classics in there (Shadow, Strangers, and Psycho) and one that sometimes makes the classics list, sometimes misses it, but WAS a talked-about hit on release( Frenzy.)

Of the rest, Rope seems to have developed great cachet in the Hitchocck canon after an initial period of being banned and being a "stunt." And its study of what is called a "dyad"(a murdering pair) is echoed in the real life killers Leopold and Loeb(upon whom Rope was based) and the much later Columbine killers. The fascination here is the idea that "two people can share one madness" or that ONE mad killer can "infect" a less mad partner to join in the crime. (It is said that when the two Columbine killers entered the school and started shooting, only one of them did the actual killings.)

Which leaves Stage Fright, which, frankly, I've only seen a couple of times, decades ago. I can't remember it. I remember Richard Todd being revealed as a killer and dying a nifty villains' death -- but I don't remember his motivations or character at all. A psycho? In any event, a psycho in one of the less memorable Hitchcocks. To me, at least.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've left out those I don't remember well enough,

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You did better than I would. Richard Todd in Stage Fright draws a complete blank with me.

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and because of what I've been calling the "mix-n-match" approach, there are overlaps (like the "professionals" or "situationals," the "pathologicals" may engage in more personal killings to avoid exposure, and any of the first two may be "pathologicals" as well)

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Sure. Tony Wendice is out to kill Margot mainly to keep her money, but ALSO because he is jealous of her infidelity...and he proves horrifyingly cold-blooded and sadistic in carrying out his plan.

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and outliers (like the crazy Mrs. Danvers who never actually kills anyone,

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Indeed. I put her on my Ten Best Hitchcock Villains list because there seems to be a big role for Mrs. Danvers in movie history...but indeed, she kills no one but herself. Though she sure tries to PERSUADE the second Mrs. DeWinter to kill herself.

--

or Gavin Elster, whose motive is never really gone into...Hitchcock perhaps considered killing a wife who was both inconvenient and well-to-do sufficiently self-explanatory

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Yes, that would seem the case. And he "dumped" Judy after the crime, so it wasn't as if he wanted to kill his wife to get Judy. I expect Gavin's line about missing "the freedom and the power" of old San Francisco is a clue. He wants out of the constraints of life. And if he has to kill one person(the real Madeleine) and destroy two other lives (Scottie and Judy) to do it. Oh, well...

One of the reasons Vertigo fascinates is how it simply removes Elster from the story...so as to concentrate on Scottie's obsession with Judy. Is Scottie the REAL villain of Vertigo? Still, Vertigo might have made a few more bucks if Scottie and Elster had it out at the end. Hitchcock had no interest, on this one, in making those few more bucks, but it probably created a dissatisfaction in the audience not to see Elster confronted.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

or Arthur Adamson, who seems to equally embody all three).

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I was old enough, by the time I saw Frenzy in 1972 and Family Plot almost four years later in 1976, to watch a Hitchcock movie and to ask myself: "So, when is this guy going to reveal he's a villain, and why IS he a villain?"

Villains had been a contrived staple on the TV shows Batman, The Man From UNCLE and The Wild Wild West, but in a movie, they had to be better explained.

Rusk was explained simply: he was a sexual psychopath, one of those one-in-a-million human beings whose sexual urges are not under control and who resorts to killing to satisfy them. This, we learn in the office with Brenda. He's a VILLAIN.

Adamson is a somewhat more interesting case. His bent towards criminality is clear, but he lacks Rusk's out-of-control psychopathy. Adamson is cool and calculating and not out to kill anybody, really. He'lll kidnap rich victims, treat them well(with gourmet meals) and return them unharmed for ransom.

And yet: we learn that he killed(with a dyad buddy, Joe Maloney) his adoptive parents when he was a boy, and we see him get downright dominating and menacing with his girlfriend Fran, and then physically abusive to Madame Blanche, before intending to kill her.

In short, Arthur Adamson starts Family Plot as far less "evil and animalistic" a villain than Bob Rusk, but reveals his OWN psychopathic traits as Family Plot unfolds and back story is revealed.

All this and yet there is a great little scene where Adamson and Fran sit in a car to spy on Blanche and Lumley and seem like the most well-adjusted and loving couple in the world.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Which leaves Stage Fright, which, frankly, I've only seen a couple of times, decades ago. I can't remember it. I remember Richard Todd being revealed as a killer and dying a nifty villains' death -- but I don't remember his motivations or character at all. A psycho? In any event, a psycho in one of the less memorable Hitchcocks. To me, at least.

Arthur Adamson starts Family Plot as far less "evil and animalistic" a villain than Bob Rusk, but reveals his OWN psychopathic traits as Family Plot unfolds and back story is revealed.

Stage Fright is one I like a little more each time I see it. It has intimate scale and quirky charm similar to that of Frenzy, and Richard Todd's Jonathan is a character with whom Blaney has a lot in common, in the form of hair-trigger outbursts giving the impression of his always being on the verge of violence.

Unlike Adamson, Jonathan's true backstory is revealed at the conclusion: He (like Norman) is the guilty party, and has killed before (although acquitted on a self-defense plea).

As you say, Adamson lacks out of control psychopathy, and delegates his killings to Maloney (his parents, and giving the go-ahead to eliminate Blanche and George...although the murders of his parents seems especially twisted, particularly for a youth), and he'll do it himself only as a last resort. So: part professional in his executive gentility; part situational in his willingness to do the dirty work when there's no other way; part psycho in his sadistic youthful plotting of his parents' deaths.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Which leaves Stage Fright, which, frankly, I've only seen a couple of times, decades ago. I can't remember it. I remember Richard Todd being revealed as a killer and dying a nifty villains' death -- but I don't remember his motivations or character at all. A psycho? In any event, a psycho in one of the less memorable Hitchcocks. To me, at least.

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Stage Fright is one I like a little more each time I see it.

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Well, I should take a look at it again. I actually own it -- in a Hitchcock DVD collection. And yet...decades since I saw it. (My hand will pass over it on my way to pulling out "Strangers on a Train" DVD-wise.)

Occasionally when Stage Fright is on TCM I watch the opening and I'm taken by the dynamic shot of a car roaring right up to the camera and braking, with the usual "Hitchcock weirdness" to how the lens captures the car. It feels like Hitchcock right off the get...

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--- It has intimate scale and quirky charm similar to that of Frenzy,

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Much was made of Frenzy being Hitchcock's first film in England since Stage Fright, (thus 22 years)...but they kept forgetting how a lot of Man Who Knew Too Much '56 was set in London, of course including the unforgettable "new" Albert Hall scene. Thus -- 16 years.

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and Richard Todd's Jonathan is a character with whom Blaney has a lot in common, in the form of hair-trigger outbursts giving the impression of his always being on the verge of violence.

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Some irony there, yes? Blaney proves not guilty but Todd proves as good as his temper -- guilty. Well, some guys get female sympathy even if they DID do it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Stage Fright is notable for me for being quite the "chick flick" star attraction among Hitchcocks. He had Jane Wyman shortly after her Oscar win for Johnny Belinda, and the always-great Dietrich(who once noted that she always mixed THIS movie up with her role in Billy Wilders' Witness for the Prosecution -- with good reason; she rather played the same role in both films. Even I can remember THAT.)

I also remember the creepy bit with the blood on the dress. And the strange scene with the doll.

And Alastair Sim, a case of Hitchcock landing a "hot" actor for a less than hot film.

But I'll take another look. Soon.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Dietrich's one of those I find impossible to evaluate objectively. I have no idea whether she was a great - or even good - actress or not, but she was so good at being Dietrich that it didn't seem to matter. Rather than becoming a character, she made every character become her, so she's equally effective as everything from a western saloon gal to a Baghdad princess to the widow of a Nazi war criminal.

Her confusion might be well understood. The WFTP flashbacks are a replay of the character she played in her earlier Wilder film, A Foreign Affair, as an impoverished cabaret performer on the make taking advantage of an Allied officer in postwar Berlin. Likewise, her patronizingly solicitous yet barbed remarks about Jean Arthur's dowdy appearance in that film are echoed by similar observations about Jane Wyman in Stage Fright. Similarly, the conclusion of her opening WFTP lines - "I'm vewy disciplined" - is revisited in Judgement At Nuremberg: "From childhood, I was taught discipline...'control emotion;' it has served me well."

She seems such an outsized and indomitable presence for a modest Hitchcock thriller. But now that I've said it, I want to take it right back, remembering Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat. At any rate, I'm guessing that Hitchcock found her very harmonious to work with: someone in whom he could put complete trust for her knowledge of screen craft right down to lenses and lighting.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Dietrich's one of those I find impossible to evaluate objectively. I have no idea whether she was a great - or even good - actress or not, but she was so good at being Dietrich that it didn't seem to matter.

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Truly an icon. I haven't seen all of her films, but in the ones I"ve seen, it seems she's being gracious even deigning to talk to the other charactors.

And she's great in Touch of Evil in black wig and tan make-up as the gypsy lady berating Fat Orson Welles: "You a mess, honey...you better lay off the candy bars" and then remarking at the end "He was some kind of man." Or SOMETHING . Dietrich always childed people who got the line wrong.

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Rather than becoming a character, she made every character become her, so she's equally effective as everything from a western saloon gal to a Baghdad princess to the widow of a Nazi war criminal.

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To a gypsy woman.

I recall her hellacious catfight with -- Una Merkel!? -- in Destry. Again, a big surprise: the legendary Marlene going down and dirty in a long fight with another woman.

---

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Truly an icon. I haven't seen all of her films, but in the ones I"ve seen, it seems she's being gracious even deigning to talk to the other charactors.

This may seem an odd comparison, but Dietrich and Mae West, another leading lady coming up at Paramount in the early '30s, always seemed sisters in spirit if not type: always in control, and the match of any man (or woman, as you note in Destry).

Every studio had their stable of leading ladies, but Paramount in particular, sometimes referred to as the most Continental of the majors, seemed to favor strong, assertive ones. At the same time as Dietrich and West, they had Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins and - yes - Tallulah Bankhead; not a demure, helpless, delicate flower or innocent, sweet young thing among them. To stretch a point, I might even throw in Alison Skipworth, Paramount's alternative to MGM's Marie Dressler.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

This may seem an odd comparison, but Dietrich and Mae West, another leading lady coming up at Paramount in the early '30s, always seemed sisters in spirit if not type: always in control, and the match of any man (or woman, as you note in Destry).

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Mae West is a good simile; I suppose what's important with both West and especially Dietrich is that movies weren't the only place they worked. Dietrich had a big stage act with singing, right? And West started out young doing risky stage revues that couldn't get filmed...

West had her problems in her old age, but I recall reading her noting that Barbra Streisand was IMPERSONATING West in "Hello, Dolly" (1969.) And that's pretty true. West was well aware of her image.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Every studio had their stable of leading ladies, but Paramount in particular, sometimes referred to as the most Continental of the majors, seemed to favor strong, assertive ones. At the same time as Dietrich and West, they had Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins and - yes - Tallulah Bankhead; not a demure, helpless, delicate flower or innocent, sweet young thing among them. To stretch a point, I might even throw in Alison Skipworth, Paramount's alternative to MGM's Marie Dressler.

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I'm out of my depth/comfort zone here , but certainly I recognize the strong ones there. Its the discussion we've had , I think , about female roles changing away from strength...or at least THAT kind of strength...as the 60's and 70s came on. I can't overgeneralize, but I'd say the 60's were ruled by "the Bond girl" iconography everywhere: Ann-Margret, Raquel Welch, early Jane Fonda. And all over series TV -- Batman, UNCLE and Wild Wild West were rife with bodacious babes.

And our female movie stars? Liz(pretty bodacious, herself), Doris(sexy body, non-sexy personality), Audrey (just too much the boyish thin gamin to work out...though she fought hard and won in "Wait Until Dark.") I dunno...it was just a different era.

Came the 70's. Streisand, unto herself and strong unto herself(the only true female superstar.) Faye Dunaway(in everything) Candice Bergen(weakly, in everything Dunaway couldn't do.) Diane Keaton? Uh, interesting but not necessarily a role model OR a sex symbol(not even nude in Goodbar.)

I'm mixing things up here. Strong female role models. Sex symbols for the male gaze. Not always the same.

Unless you're Wonder Woman...

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

West was certainly on-target with that criticism of Streisand. More so than Bankhead was when accusing Bette Davis of imitating her in screen adaptations of her own stage vehicles (Dark Victory; The Little Foxes).

It might have been Charles Pierce who used to work their rivalry into his act:

DAVIS: "Why would I want to imitate you? You have a voice like a hog-caller."

BANKHEAD: "And here you are, dahling."

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

West was certainly on-target with that criticism of Streisand.

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Yes, it was there, and "on purpose." But then -- so was Groucho Marx (in the fast tawkin duels with Walter Matthau.)

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More so than Bankhead was when accusing Bette Davis of imitating her in screen adaptations of her own stage vehicles (Dark Victory; The Little Foxes).

It might have been Charles Pierce who used to work their rivalry into his act:

DAVIS: "Why would I want to imitate you? You have a voice like a hog-caller."

BANKHEAD: "And here you are, dahling."

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Ha!

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There's a "sub-issue" to stardom about certain stars not making it because they were too much like other, bigger established stars:

John Gavin, too much like Rock Hudson

James Whitmore, too much like Spencer Tracy.

Jayne Mansfield, too much like Monroe..

....but I can think of one star who survived such comparisions.

MORE

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I wrote who it was and my post disappeared.

Here, quick: Burt Reynolds.

He beat the "Marlon Brando" lookalike rap.

"Gotta go" til the Board's more friendly to post at...

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Reynolds also had something Brando rarely exhibited and rather strained him when he did: a sense of humor.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Honestly, I had written some musings about how Reynolds "broke away" from the Brando comparisons by mixing together equal parts Cary Grant, Johnny Carson and Don Rickles -- all with his muy macho handsomeness -- but the post disappeared.

So I'll try to say that again now.

Also, this: Brando openly disliked Reynolds when he was just a TV guy(Reynolds spoofed Brando on a Hitchcock episode)...and then spoke ill of him as a superstar in Brando's Playboy interview("I don't know why I have it in for that poor egg," he said, after insulting Reynolds for the fourth or fifth time.)

So...Brando was bugged by his imitator.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I should have qualified my remark as having pertained to Brando's performances.

I remember the Playboy interview if not that particular passage, and from that and his Cavett appearance, I found him far more interesting as a personality than as an actor, possessed of remarkable self-awareness and inquisitiveness, but which also led him off onto unexpected tangents. Complex guy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I should have qualified my remark as having pertained to Brando's performances.

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True. Bedtime Story (which became Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Steve Martin in the Brando part) didn't play well for comedy, though I think Brando relaxed nicely spoofing The Godfather years later in "The Freshman."

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I remember the Playboy interview if not that particular passage, and from that and his Cavett appearance, I found him far more interesting as a personality than as an actor, possessed of remarkable self-awareness and inquisitiveness, but which also led him off onto unexpected tangents. Complex guy

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That he was. He's interesting now in that while he was worship for his earl 50s work as the greatest movie actor from then on -- he was mocked for his non-committal cameos and massive weight gain in his later years. The controlled madness of his personality moved from being "mysterious" to being "ridiculous."

Me, I liked him. On screen, a powerful force. Off screen, well -- I give him credit for fighting hard against all the promotional BS that we live with today, every day.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I think Brando relaxed nicely spoofing The Godfather years later in "The Freshman."

This is my morning for forgetting things. I now remember being surprised seeing him do that.

I very much enjoyed him in Don Juan DeMarco with Faye Dunaway and Johnny Depp; an accessible performance free of artifice, mannerisms or pyrotechnics. Rather sweet little film.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I think Brando relaxed nicely spoofing The Godfather years later in "The Freshman."
This is my morning for forgetting things. I now remember being surprised seeing him do that.

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Yes, literally re-playing his most famous (modern) role, and having fun with it.

He did Don Juan De Marco a few years later. I recall with both films being surprised to see Brando so relaxed and accessible -- while retaining his storied legend "in reserve." The new weight thing was there, but a lot of his shots were close-ups...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I very much enjoyed him in Don Juan DeMarco with Faye Dunaway and Johnny Depp; an accessible performance free of artifice, mannerisms or pyrotechnics. Rather sweet little film.

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It truly was. Brando seemed to be playing "just a regular guy." It must have been a lot of work for him so say his lines so naturally.

--

Johnny Depp's in some sort of meltdown right now, and under attack from the gossip press(and if he DID hurt that pretty wife of his,, I guess I'm done with him. But can they prove it.)

And yet, back BEFORE Pirates of the Carribbean made him superrich, Depp was a charming young movie star in a group of really good movies. The Burton films, sure, but also Don Juan De Marco, and Donnie Brasco, and Chocolat, and Blow.

Evidently Depp and Brando bonded on their movie together; they were kindred weirdos in handsome shells. You can sense their friendship on screen.

And when the roly-poly Brando romanced Dunaway due to Depp's romantic influences, you felt DUNAWAY swept up in the goodwill of the movie, too.

And it had that gorgeous theme song by Bryan Adams, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?"

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Her confusion might be well understood. The WFTP flashbacks are a replay of the character she played in her earlier Wilder film, A Foreign Affair, as an impoverished cabaret performer on the make taking advantage of an Allied officer in postwar Berlin. Likewise, her patronizingly solicitous yet barbed remarks about Jean Arthur's dowdy appearance in that film are echoed by similar observations about Jane Wyman in Stage Fright.

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And , isnt' there the issue that in both SF and WFTP, Dietrich seems to be the "baddie" but is really covering for a nice guy who turns out to be the killer?

--

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Similarly, the conclusion of her opening WFTP lines - "I'm vewy disciplined" -

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Which reminds me:

Madeleine Kahn. Blazing Saddles. Possibly more famous now than the REAL Marlene.

"Oh...you Bwought me a Wed Wose!!"

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is revisited in Judgement At Nuremberg: "From childhood, I was taught discipline...'control emotion;' it has served me well."

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Yes. Now there's a 50s'60s cusp epic I love. Dietrich is paired off with Tracy, away from the other superstars in the courtroom...and makes something special of it. Meanwhile, back in the courtroom -- Monty Clift and Judy Garland, two real-life basket cases, giving great performances. Richard Widmark, working hard under weird circumstances: his righteous anti-Nazi prosecutor is played as unsympathetic. Burt Lancaster, brooding stoically. And Maximillian Schell, getting an Oscar. Hoo boy whaddya cast!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

She seems such an outsized and indomitable presence for a modest Hitchcock thriller. But now that I've said it, I want to take it right back, remembering Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat.

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Ha. Well...there ya go...and there ya go.

Proving another "Hitchcock cliche that's not true." The one where all he went for was "cool blondes." Dietrich was blonde, but not cool.And Bankhead was wild.

And let's not forget the biggest star Hitchcock ever discovered: a redhead. Shirley MacLaine.

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At any rate, I'm guessing that Hitchcock found her very harmonious to work with: someone in whom he could put complete trust for her knowledge of screen craft right down to lenses and lighting.

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Yes, I hear Dietrich knew her stuff and helped out in getting herself camera ready for mystery. Such an odd pairing: Dietrich and Wyman. That's almost Hitchcockian when you think about it.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

And , isnt' there the issue that in both SF and WFTP, Dietrich seems to be the "baddie" but is really covering for a nice guy who turns out to be the killer?

Well, up to a point. Everyone seems to think Dietrich's the guilty party, but she adopts the pose that she knows nothing and has washed her hands of Todd, and Wyman can't get anything incriminating on her. When she's finally maneuvered into what's expected to be a confession, she admits only to being an accessory and fingers Todd for the killing.

At least, that's how I remember it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

At least, that's how I remember it.

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Well, you certainly remember it better than I do. Its been at least two decades for me.

I've mentioned this before, but my "quest" to see Hitchcock films was really a fever of youth that started in about 1965(when I first learned of Psycho), and took off with the 1966-1968 corridor of Big Hitchcock Movies on Network TV(Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, The Birds...cancelled Psycho, local Psycho)

A somewhat delirious memory I have of those sixties Hitchcock debuts is that I had no sense of his canon, his film list, his history. Each title showed up and I learned it was a HITCHCOCK, and I was amazed each time. Rear Window -- out of nowhere in '66. Vertigo -- out of nowhere in '65. North by Northwest -- out of nowhere in '66(not for its TV debut, but for a re-release.)

When I finally had a copy of Hitchocck/Truffaut, I had a copy of "the Hitchocck list" and the trackdown began. It took roughly the 70s through 1984 (and the art theater/video debut of Rope) to get them all seen.

And then, maybe around 1990 or so -- I didn't watch most of them ever again.

Oh, I have my list. Psycho of course. And NXNW. Those two uber alles. Then Frenzy(because I experienced that one, first run.) Then Rear Window and Vertigo. And Strangers on a Train and The Birds. And a smattering of favorites I could watch again and again(The Wrong Man, To Catch a Thief.) And other late ones like Topaz and Family Plot(again, I SAW them, in theater, first run, so I get the memories of where and when, whenever I take them out.)

but that leaves about 2/3 of the Hitchcock canon unseen by me in decades.

And alas, Stage Fright is on THAT list.

But I can always change that. Stage Fright is right in my DVD bookcase.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

I'm not sure I've ever given particular thought to tracing my personal "Hitchcock trajectory," but I can recall it pretty clearly: the first was Saboteur on TV; I don't think I was more than eleven. I couldn't have articulated it then, but there was a quality of kinetic visual interest and vitality in its propulsive narrative that set it apart from other films I'd seen. Within a year, I'd also seen Lifeboat on TV, and was struck by that same "something special."

At 13, I saw North By Northwest on that re-release (on a double bill with The Naked Prey, of all things), and there it was again: that special energy and sense of involvement. And they all felt "adult" and "intelligent," yet were accessible to someone of those ages and enabled me to feel more sophisticated than I was.

By that time, I'd been regularly checking out every movie book I could get my hands on at the library, and had begun to get a handle on who this Hitchcock fellow was (my parents never watched his show, and I didn't see it until its final season), so I was off to the races. That same year, Mom and I saw Torn Curtain and then, as you note, came Psycho and those others on broadcast. Within a couple years, I was driving and taking advantage of L.A.'s many revival houses.

I can't really claim a "quest," though; there are still a handful of his British ones I haven't caught up with. And I haven't yet re-watched Topaz as I resolved to do a while back, but my Blu-ray "Masterpiece Collection" containing it arrives day after tomorrow.

EDIT: I was checking ahead on the TCM schedule tonight, and lo and behold, they're running a crop of those early films next week, so I've scheduled Downhill, The Manxman, Number Seventeen and one or two others for DVRing.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As you say, Adamson lacks out of control psychopathy, and delegates his killings to Maloney (his parents, and giving the go-ahead to eliminate Blanche and George

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Yes, Adamson(ne Eddie Shoebridge in his past youth) seems to depend nicely on Maloney to do his dirty work -- even as Adamson chafes at Maloney's always coming around for some semi-blackmail payoff ("What is it this time, Maloney? A new washing machine for your wife?) Adamson ruefully also notes that the childhood friendship of Eddie and Joe has been kept alive all these years later because they murdered, together.

---

...although the murders of his parents seems especially twisted, particularly for a youth),

--
"The most glorious moment of my whole miserable childhood." More ironies there: Adamson is really the child of a very wealthy woman, but he was given away as a baby and seems to have been a "bad seed" regardless of financial status.

Perhaps the chauffeur and his wife treated Eddie badly, but someone says the young lad "always seemed evil," so...bad seed. And adult Eddie elects to turn to the criminal pursuit of kidnapping rather than murder...even as he develops a knowledgeable front business as a distinguished jeweler(which likely required some education.)

Though we get a lot of dull spoken backstory on Eddie Shoebridge in Family Plot, Arthur Adamson remains interesting to me. How'd he get involved in the jewel business? Did he make that move so as to have a way to launder money and obtain ransoms once kidnapping seemed the way to go?

And how/when/where did he meet Fran, a woman who likely went along for the ride -- kidnapping! a felony crime! before realizing how dangerous it might be?

Unanswered questions. Tantalizing enough, to me.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

and he'll do it himself only as a last resort. So: part professional in his executive gentility; part situational in his willingness to do the dirty work when there's no other way; part psycho in his sadistic youthful plotting of his parents' deaths.

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It occurs to me that even as Hitchcock perhaps didn't plan it that way, nonetheless with Arthur Adamson as his "final" villain(which Hitchcock likely suspected would be the case)...Hitchcock rather provided us with an "all-purpose overview" of the Hitchcock villain. He's not a spy. But Adamson hits the other notes you mention above, quite nicely.

But this: William Devane akinned Adamson to Vandamm in North by Northwest, given that Ernest Lehman scripted both films.

But Lehman later said in an interview: "No, Adamson is not in Vandamm's class. He's a punk."

Well, Devane was still sorta right. Adamson was well-tailored, with a great voice and a certain elegance. He was also, like Vandamm, a man who could land a beautiful woman.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

I think he was just a frustrated man who no longer loved his wife.
She was an invalid and a nag. There was another woman in the picture and he wanted to get rid of his wife.
Psycho? No.
Murderer? Yes.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Psycho? No.
Murderer? Yes.

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I'm very inclined to accept that, MissMargoChanning...because that keeps intact my "one psycho per decade" theory that allows in only Charlie, Bruno, Norman, and Bob.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I watched this on Netflix for about the 10th time - one of my all time favs