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"I Wish I Could Have Been There to See Psycho When It First Came Out"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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There is a powerful emotional pull for fans of a certain impactful movie released before they were born: "I wish I could have been there to see it when it came out."

I've read posts from people much younger than I who have written that about: Star Wars(the very first one), Jaws, The Godfather....and even Pulp Fiction (much more recent at 24 years ago.)

Its hard to put one's finger on why its such a "pull" to wish we could have been there. Perhaps to see something the very first time it made an impact?

Given my age, I do have memories of the first time I saw (in chron order), The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, and Pulp Fiction. With the first three, the crowds were huge. I saw Jaws the day it opened, and I saw Star Wars BEFORE it opened (on the Fox lot), and both times the crowds were full house and the vocal/applause reaction was off the charts(screams with Jaws, cheers and whoops with Star Wars.)

Interesting about The Godfather. As with Jaws later, I had to stand in a very long line for a very long time to see the film. I saw both films with guys - friends -- and both times we brought a pack of playing cards to pass the time(poker, I think, of sorts.) But when I got in, The Godfather too had a full house -- and it was about three months into its run! I don't recall cheering or screaming or much of anything with that Godfather full house, though one of my male companions kept vocalling reacting to each murder, as if hit in the stomach: "Oh! Oh! Oh!" Honestly, whenever I watch The Godfather on DVD and Sonny gets machine-gunned, I can hear my friend's voice: "Oh! Oh! Oh!"

"Pulp Fiction" was from the era when movies got released to lots of theaters, so I walked right in. I remember the audience laughing a lot. But here's the main thing I remember and have kept about Pulp Fiction: I thought it was very good, but I had no idea I was seeing something that would LAST. That would become a classic and the influence on so many other films.

I wonder if that's how I would have felt if I saw Psycho on its first release. Would it have been the major impact its had on my movie life? Would I have found its smallish size, its cheap production values, its short running time, its coupla murders and that's all...not all that much of a big deal?

I'll never know. Yes, indeed, Psycho is a movie I did NOT see on first release(though I was alive; tricycle age), that I sometimes wish I COULD have seen on first release(with what, 1960's The Time Machine), and it will remain the ONLY movie that came to me in waves...as I became aware of its existence("What's this Psycho?" "Oh, its horrific -- a woman gets stabbed in the shower 100 times!") , was prohibited from watching it, had to chase it down and seek it out.

I've read some "personal reminiscnes" of "the first time I saw Psycho" in a few places, and this is funny to me: a couple of 1960 viewers recall seeing it in a near-empty theater, as a Saturday matinee. What a letdown way to see Psycho!

Better: reminscences of both Peter Bogdanovich and Teresa Wright seeing Psycho in NYC during its debut week with full house audiences screaming away and lines around the block to see it.

Best: The 1960 LA Herald Examiner review recounting a full-house opening day audience filled with KIDS...parents had dropped them off thinking Psycho was just a "William Castle haunted house movie." Screams at that special level kids can generate -- "one boy fell into the aisle," wrote the critic. Was this inadvertent child abuse? Or does Psycho really work best when it scares "the child in us all"?

My simile for how I think I would have seen Psycho was seeing the 1967 shocker Wait Until Dark in early 1968. Full house crowd. Quite rowdy and boisterous. With a lot of talking over the first two acts of mystery-play chit-chat. And then the movie started getting suspenseful. And scary. Really , really scary. And the final half hour was practically nothing but a screaming crowd all the way to the end.

I'd like to believe that if I saw Psycho on its first release in 1960, it would have been like my Wait Until Dark experience -- full house, screaming all the way -- and that I would NOT have settled for a third-full theater on a Saturday afternoon. I'd also like to believe that somehow the shower scene would surprise me(if I had NOT seen Hitchocck's trailer), that Arbogast getting it would get me, and that I would have been fooled by the twist (I'm sure I would have -- I was fooled by The Sting, The Crying Game, and The Sixth Sense.)

Indeed, it does seem that many people who have wished "they could have seen Psycho on opening day" are mainly wishing that they could have seen Psycho without knowing what the world knows now -- who the killer is, what happens in the shower, what happens on the stairs. A desire to be "reborn" and see Psycho "pure."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The 2012 film "Hitchcock" only occasionally gave us a sense of what it was like to make Psycho(no clips could be shown, no scenes could be re-staged)...but it gave us(I think) , one really great scene right near the end, entirely fictional but one that one WISHED happened.

Since the filmmakers could use no clips(Hitchcock estate refused), but could use Herrmann's screeching violin(Herrmann estate allowed), the script envisioned Hitchcock standing alone in the lobby of a theater premiering Psycho, waiting patiently as the full house audience started to watch the shower scene.

We got shots of the crowd, watching the movie in the eerie b/w glow. Men, women, couples...a certain boredom yielding to interest(hey will Janet get nude?) leading to ...apprehension.

Cut to: Hitchcock in the lobby. He HEARS: the shower curtain ripping open as the steel rings jangle...the screeching violins kicking in...and the audience going nuts. Back and forth the movie cuts, from Hitchcock "conducting" his screaming audience in the lobby with a smile, to the audience members screaming at the top of their lungs, subsiding and then screaming LOUDER. (One can almost picture EXACTLY which shot in the shower scene would generate the next big scream, like the final stab to Marion's back as she turns away.) Then the unseen shower scene ends, and we cut back to the audience, shaken, breathing, clutching their chests, chuckling...stirred. They will never forget what they have just experienced.

I do wish I could go back and see Psycho on opening day in 1960...but its impossible. This truly great scene in "Hitchcock" is as close as I'll get.

PS. To have been old enough to see Psycho on opening day in 1960, I figure I would have ended up old enough for the Vietnam draft. Which I wasn't, "in real life." So maybe a good reason to have been too young. For both.

[–] MizhuB (165) 6 years ago

Its hard to put one's finger on why its such a "pull" to wish we could have been there. Perhaps to see something the very first time it made an impact?

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ecarle, I think we're of the same age. Of the films you mentioned though, I saw them at very different ages.

Star Wars I saw on its RE-release. I wasn't interested when it was first released. I thought the special effects (for the time) were cool. That was about it. Maybe that started my aversion to slam-bang special effects movies, unless the effects are necessary. Once was good enough.

The best movie for me of that period was CARRIE.

Jaws scared the hell out of me. I've read many times about how Spielberg had to improvise during the attack scenes, because 'Bruce', the mechanical shark, didn't really perform. But it worked for the better.

The Godfather I've only seen once in my life. Some are surprised by that. The only three scenes I remember (even if I have these right) are the horse's head in the bed, Sonny getting bulldozed by bullets, and a closing shot of Diane Keaton. Maybe someday I'll watch it again, but as of yet there's no pull.

I saw Pulp Fiction once, and I hated it. The only reason I saw it is because I ordered the film Jackie Brown (which I loved), and Pulp Fiction came with it as a second feature.

I was born only a couple years after Psycho was released. And the first time I saw it was when it was heavily edited for TV (we've talked about that). But I remember hearing talk about it for years. From my parents, their friends, other relatives.

The lines were around the block! Everyone was screaming and hiding their eyes during the shower scene! The film suddenly turned to color so you could see the blood in the shower!

So the build-up led me to be frightened by the film even before I first saw it in it's highly edited form.

[–] MizhuB (165) 6 years ago

Eh. The shower scene was hacked to pieces (no pun intended). Arbogast's murder, I remember hearing the next day in the school yard as 'looking like a leaf floating down'.

The biggest shock was mother's skull face. THAT was what everyone was talking about.

You said you just walked right in to see Pulp Fiction. That wouldn't have been possible with Psycho, given its marketing campaign of having to wait till the next showing before being admitted. Which no doubt added to the excitement of what people would see, in addition to what they'd heard about it. Come on, NOBODY told about the shower scene? Everybody wanted to see it. I remember relatives talking about that, too.

'Hitchcock' was released in 2012? Damn, time's really passing, isn't it? I'm not getting older, Anthony Hopkins is ;)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Of the films you mentioned though, I saw them at very different ages.

Star Wars I saw on its RE-release. I wasn't interested when it was first released. I thought the special effects (for the time) were cool. That was about it. Maybe that started my aversion to slam-bang special effects movies, unless the effects are necessary. Once was good enough.

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Ha, well...we don't all go for the hype and the type of movie Star Wars was. I don't particularly, myself. I prefer "grounded" fantasy -- of the Lucas canon, I much preferred Indiana Jones to Star Wars.

And you raise a great point here. The "first time" people see a movie can really be years later than its initial release.

Weirdly for me, what I saw of Psycho -- the first time I saw it -- was literally the part BEFORE Marion reaches the Bates Motel. It was the second of two close-together runs of Psycho on KABC-TV Los Angeles: February 17, 1968. Saw the hotel scene opening, the real estate office, the embezzlement decision, the cop, California Charlie, Marion's drive through the rain and then...

...the folks came home for the night and it got turned off . Talk about "movie interruptus." For three more years, all of knew of Psycho was that non-horror opening segment.

I saw it all the way through, on TV -- unedited -- in 1971. (Weirdly, Hitchcock's NEW movie, "Frenzy" came out in 1972 to rave comeback reviews, so I saw Psycho the first time, and Frenzy the first time, not much more than a year apart. And I saw the ultra-violent Bonnie and Clyde(1967) and The Wild Bunch in 1968 and 1969, respectively, before I saw Psycho in 1971. And 1967's Wait Until Dark in 1968. Put it all together, and I saw five of the classic violent films of my life within a four year period. No wonder I'm so messed up. Hah.)

I guess "on topic" with my OP, I saw some key American classics on their original release (as above, count Frenzy as British, though.) And they can't take that away from me....

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The best movie for me of that period was CARRIE.

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It certainly was a hit, and it put Brian DePalma fully on the map without recourse to copying Hitchcock(though the film takes place at Bates High School...a reminder of how seminal Psycho really was.)

I remember the ads for the sneak preview: "Its American Graffiti meets Psycho." Well yeah...except Psycho didn't have any "magical telekinesis" scenes.

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Jaws scared the hell out of me. I've read many times about how Spielberg had to improvise during the attack scenes, because 'Bruce', the mechanical shark, didn't really perform. But it worked for the better.

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You know, I didn't KNOW that when I first saw Jaws on opening day, and instead I thought it was just brilliant filmmaking: the shark isn't seen at all when he kills the naked female swimmer; then just a flash of him and his fin(swooping in a circular motion) when he takes the boy; then -- finally -- a clear view of his head and open jaws from above as he munches on the lifeguard(the screams were huge on this shot). When the movie moves to the open sea, often he is only represented by those yellow barrels attached to him and floating on the sea. And only at the climax do we see him fully at work, gulping down one of the film's leads. I mention all of this detail because I recall being very impressed by how and when Spielberg showed that shark, and how "fun" it was to imagine him the rest of the time(as when, unseen, he rams the boat while the three men are drinking below.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Note in passing: in 1971, there was a documentary about Great White sharks called "Blue Water, White Death." I went with a couple of male friends to see it - and one of them revealed his lifelong terror of sharks. HE was so scared of "Blue Water, White Death" that I became scared of "Blue Water, White Death." I've often wondered if author Peter Benchley saw "Blue Water, White Death" and it inspired him to write Jaws. Anyway, four years later, with that same friend, we saw Jaws, and it made the movie that much more powerful. It was HIS experience of sharks, transferred to me. Postscript: some friends stick around a long time. Just a few years ago, well into our middle age, he and I elected to go see "Jaws" via the Cinemark Classics series at a local Cineplex. I'm talking 2013 or so. We reminisced about Blue Water, White Death.

And...a coupla years later, this good friend of decades, died.

So Jaws has extra meaning to me, now.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The Godfather I've only seen once in my life. Some are surprised by that.

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Yes. Those of us who know it by heart and can quote the lines verbatim.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

"You're my older brother, and I love you -- but never take sides against the family again."

"Never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking!"

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Its like these lines are wired into our brains, forever. IF we are of a certain type of Godfather fan.

Which is why I do find it interesting that there are people out there(millions probably) for whom The Godfather just ain't that big a deal. Hah.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The only three scenes I remember (even if I have these right) are the horse's head in the bed, Sonny getting bulldozed by bullets, and a closing shot of Diane Keaton. Maybe someday I'll watch it again, but as of yet there's no pull.

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No need to be. Interesting that your memories are of two of the more horrible killings in the film...and of that final non-violent but very powerful shot. Of the one woman of any consequence in a story almost entirely about men.

Which reminds me: speaking of memorable lines but now for the wrong reasons, old Don Vito says "Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men." I think even in 1972, that line was meant to be anachronistic. Modernly, only children can afford to be careless.

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To me, The Godfather, though billed as a "drama," is really a great big thriller, with many of the kills being in the stylized Hitchcock tradition. Like Psycho with its two big murders, The Godfather its murders as punctuation -- except there are about 10 of them.

The Godfather is also twinned in its studies of family and business -- with sidetrips to politics and war theory.

But it is also a bunch of great dialogue-acting scenes, all strung together, all good, none even mediocre, let alone bad.

The movie has a great "structure" device: one great big long opening wedding scene at which practically all the major characters are established and "backgrounded" (Pacino tells their stories to Keaton.) Once that expository(but interesting) long opening sequence is out of the way, the rest of the movie moves like gangbusters to the end two hours later or so.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Here's a point about "the first time I saw The Godfather." It was 1972. I was a teenager. I'd read the oversexed book(quite an education.) I understood a lot of the movie , but hardly ALL of it. I don't think I understood the intricacies of the negotiations, or why Don Vito resisted getting into the drug trade, or how his son Michael took power just when everyone else thought he was down and out. (Including a smart traitor who sells Michael out, notes Michael in figuring it out, because "its the smart move.")

The first time I saw The Godfather I got "the gist"(and enjoyed all the murder scenes, and the one sex scene and the one nude scene.) It was only with age, re-viewings and greater study of the film that I really came to know it. And memorize the lines.

I would say that this was the case with other favorite films too, that I first saw in my youth. Psycho, North by Northwest, and Vertigo, for three.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I saw Pulp Fiction once, and I hated it.

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Well, alrighty then! That's fine. I don't always bring folks on board my Tarantino love boat. And even I think he's got mental problems.

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The only reason I saw it is because I ordered the film Jackie Brown (which I loved), and Pulp Fiction came with it as a second feature.

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Jackie Brown is my favorite QT , and though people get killed in it, it is easily his least violent, least "sick" film. I accredit that to the film being an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, and QT's respect for Leonard(he wasn't going to "gore up" Leonard.)

Jackie Brown is famously , about middle-aged people, and a good watch FOR middle-aged people. We get to see heroism and love through our eyes. Robert Forster got a much-deserved Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor, but it should have been Best Actor and he should have won, he was that good. DeNiro wanted Forster's role, but QT stood his ground and DeNiro relented and took a secondary role that was nonetheless hilarious, one of the best things DeNiro ever did. Of course, the whole thing is a vehicle for QT's beloved Pam Grier, and the rest of the cast serves her. (Sam Jackson's great, and really scary, but...he would do this character type again.)

I think it has been said(by QT himself) that "Jackie Brown" is his "Rio Bravo." Very long, but not TOO long. Laid back, with lots of scenes of people hanging out and talking. A world is created and you really don't want to leave at the end.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And the first time I saw it was when it was heavily edited for TV (we've talked about that).

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Yes. Weirdly, I believe that first time I saw Psycho on local TV in 1971...it was intact. The shower scene, start to finish. Arbogast getting finished off at the bottom of the stairs(sometimes that part is cut, even though we see nothing of the kill.) Mother's face(only once was that cut.)

Indeed, I think when and if Psycho was censored, the cuts were ONLY to the shower scene. The rest was left intact. (Stephen King wrote that the rest of the movie other than the shower scene is "TV movie level violence." Well, not in 1960!)

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But I remember hearing talk about it for years. From my parents, their friends, other relatives.

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This remains the key to Psycho that perhaps can't be communicated unless you were there. The reason Psycho took hold in my imagination earlier on and for so long is...everybody talked about it. I mean, like every time it was re-released, and every time it was on TV. Usually the parental adults were against it("You must never see that horrible movie"), and co-youths were delighting in its gory details.

In one of the books on the making of Psycho, one of the art directors said, "Of all the movies I've worked on , Psycho was the only movie that I kept hearing people talking about ...at the supermarket, in bank lines, at gas stations...everywhere."

And I recall overhearing this conversation at a Taco Bell in 1974:

"Have you seen The Exorcist? Its really, really scary."
"No I'm too scared to see it. I still haven't gotten over seeing Psycho."

So Psycho "raided The Exorcist's turf," even in 1974.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The lines were around the block!

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Though we are now an "instant gratification society" and we can usually walk right in to a showing of any film, perhaps waiting in a line before the doors open, that's all...

...waiting in a long line for a couple HOURS, was a great movie-going experience unto itself.

....I can tell you that The Godfather, Jaws, The Exorcist and Star Wars were very long waits on line. I guess Psycho was in its day, too.

And there is something about having to wait that long to see a movie you are excited to see that makes it that much more exciting when you're finally seated, the lights go down, the curtain goes up(if the theater has one) ...and that movie you've been DYING to see for hours now...starts up.

Still...eh...I prefer walking right in.

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Everyone was screaming and hiding their eyes during the shower scene! The film suddenly turned to color so you could see the blood in the shower!

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"The film turned to color" seems to be one of the great myths that came out of Psycho. I also read an article in the 70s that said it was rumored Hitchcock had filmed some of the movie IN color before deciding on b/w. Those color reels were rumored to be in a vault. That rumor makes no sense at all.

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So the build-up led me to be frightened by the film even before I first saw it in it's highly edited form.

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Same here. I do recall being surprised and a little shocked by all the "early scenes" in Psycho when I saw only the beginning on TV in 1968. The real estate office, the cop, Cal Charlie. I sat there thinking "Is this really Psycho -- or a different movie? Am I on the wrong channel?"

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Eh. The shower scene was hacked to pieces (no pun intended).

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Seems to be the scene that would get cut -- and such irony indeed, hacked to pieces.

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Arbogast's murder, I remember hearing the next day in the school yard as 'looking like a leaf floating down'.

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An interesting analogy -- and you heard this "the next day in the school yard." Today, we call that the Internet.

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The biggest shock was mother's skull face. THAT was what everyone was talking about.

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Yeah, it is an interesting SORT of shock, isn't it? Her face is so ugly -- not a "pure" skull, there is skin on it -- her teeth "grin" sickly AND we think for a split second: THIS is the killer? A zombie? We expect this monster to rise up and kill Lila and THEN...

..Norman rushes in and the screams kick up another notch(his killing face -- bloodthirsty, demented, grinning - is scary all itself.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

You said you just walked right in to see Pulp Fiction. That wouldn't have been possible with Psycho, given its marketing campaign of having to wait till the next showing before being admitted. Which no doubt added to the excitement of what people would see, in addition to what they'd heard about it.

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Yes, Hitchcock really added to the anticipation. Of course, he was fighting a policy of people "walking right in, in the middle of the movie" which was evidently custom through the 30's, 40's, 50s. People entered the theater whenever they wanted to, watched the movie from where they came in, sat through an intermission and watched the beginning they missed ("This is where we came in.") Older movies even had dialogue along the way to "catch up" any newcomers.

BTW, I do recall seeing one movie exactly this way. The Birds. We came in when Melanie was in the motorboat. Watched the movie from there. Stayed through intermission, watched ANOTHER movie. Stayed through the next intermission. Watched The Birds up til Melanie got in the motorboat(I remember thinking: "Why, we didn't miss any bird attacks at all!")

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Come on, NOBODY told about the shower scene? Everybody wanted to see it. I remember relatives talking about that, too.

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As I've pointed out (and you can see on imdb)...Hitchcock in his 1960 trailer blabbed all about the shower murder and showed a staged clip of its start(with Vera Miles.) Anybody saw that trailer could not have been surprised. And I'll bet word leaked out and soon people HAD to see the shower scene, to "be in with the in crowd."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I expect viewers were better about not revealing the twist, and maybe not revealing Arbogast's fate.

By the way, both Hitchcock and his crew felt the big shock of the movie was Arbogast's death. "Wait'll you see what happens to Marty Balsam," one of them said to a friend as they were in line to see the . Its as if the shower murder was necessary to SET UP the big jump shock in the later murder.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

'Hitchcock' was released in 2012? Damn, time's really passing, isn't it? I'm not getting older, Anthony Hopkins is ;)

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You and me both. This is the case with "children" in my extended family , too. All these little kids became teenagers and then young adults. I'm still the same age. At heart.

A funny trick of time:

In 1978, 1972 felt like "a long time ago." Perhaps the shift from high school to college did that.

In 2018, 2012 feels like "a coupla years ago." Time flies. Its a sad truth, but I live with it.

[–] MizhuB (165) 6 years ago

Jackie Brown is my favorite QT , and though people get killed in it, it is easily his least violent, least "sick" film.

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Like I said, I love that movie.

I worked with a woman who really liked QT's movies. I recommended this movie to her. Next time I saw her I asked her how she liked it. She said she turned it off within 15 minutes. I asked her why.

'The LANGUAGE!!!'

Are you kidding me? That's what offended you, after Pulp Fiction?

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To bring this back around (somewhat) to Hitchcock.

I always loved his scenes of cutting between objective/subjective camera shots. For example, the scenes in Vertigo when James Stewart follows Kim Novak.

In Jackie Brown, I loved two long scenes in particular. One was the first 'test transfer' of the money in the mall. Then the longer 'real transference'. Which was shot from several different points of character's views.

The amount of planning, filming and cutting that has to go into scenes like that kind of fascinates me. And they're always fascinating to watch.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Like I said, I love that movie.

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Me, too.

SPOILERS BELOW

Of all the Tarantino films, its the one I put in the most and enjoy practically the same way(and amount) each time I see it. Forster is the key for me, to the whole thing. Grier is the focus, but she enlists Forster who, as one critic admiringly said, "is pleased to be the lieutenant to Jackie's commander," and together they put in motion not only a caper, but the "domino effect" by which all the bad guys lose: DeNiro kills Fonda; Jackson kills DeNiro; Keaton kills Jackson. (I always smile a bit, putting Jackie Brown in the player, to watch the scenes in the apartment with Jackson, DeNiro and Fonda. They all get along enough, but by film's end, two of them will have killed two of the others.)

I like how bail bondsman Forster likes to play hookey from work and go see weekday afternoon movies at the Del Amo Mall(where the caper will play out.) I think a lot of men can relate to that -- whether single or married or attached -- men like to go solo to a movie sometimes. There's a scene that begins on the side theater door opening and the small crowd files out and we can see past them to the "end credits" running down the screen as Foster emerges. Well, that's how one would see Jackie Brown -- and get one of those small experience to remember for a lifetime.
Its very meta. A character in a movie seen...going to a movie.

Which reminds me of much the same thing in Psycho, in the first scene, when Sam says to Marion:

"And after supper, do we send sister to the movies, and turn mother's picture to the wall?"

Suddenly, we picture that sister(who we haven't met yet) at the movies, seeing, what -- North by Northwest? The movies as an entertainment referenced in a movie we will never forget.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I worked with a woman who really liked QT's movies. I recommended this movie to her. Next time I saw her I asked her how she liked it. She said she turned it off within 15 minutes. I asked her why.

'The LANGUAGE!!!'

Are you kidding me? That's what offended you, after Pulp Fiction?

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Ha. I suppose in the other, ultra-violent ones, one barely notices the language. Well, the cussing. QT's affection for "the n word" is its own controversy and he refuses to bow down on it. In Jackie Brown, that word comes exclusively out of Sam Jackson's mouth, if I recall right (and principally to Chris Tucker in their great scene, most of which is done in one take.) I've always felt that QT uses that word as Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks used it. 'nuff said.

Meanwhile, in Jackie Brown, you've got Jackson saying, "When you've got to kill every m....f...r in the room...accept no substitutes!"

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To bring this back around (somewhat) to Hitchcock.

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Sure...but our OTs can be on topic...and Hitchcock and Tarantino have great connection.

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I always loved his scenes of cutting between objective/subjective camera shots. For example, the scenes in Vertigo when James Stewart follows Kim Novak.

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Oh, yeah. Part of the key to enjoying Hitchcock pictures is enjoying their distinctive visual style...so often based on making YOURSELF the star of the picture, vicariously accompanying the characters on their quests. (Stewart here; Leigh AND Balsam AND Miles in Psycho.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In Jackie Brown, I loved two long scenes in particular. One was the first 'test transfer' of the money in the mall. Then the longer 'real transference'. Which was shot from several different points of character's views.

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Both great, and all those different replays of the same scene from different POVs -- I assume that was based on some famous European film or something, all that backing up in time.

Of course, QT moves time around a lot in some of his films. In his first one, Reservoir Dogs, we are moved around in time so that one character is sometimes mortally wounded and bleeding, sometimes walking around fine. In Pulp Fiction, a big star dies early(ala Janet Leigh), but is resurrected for the third act because it is earlier in time. Same thing happens in The Hateful Eight....until it returns for final scenes set back AFTER that character is dead.

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The amount of planning, filming and cutting that has to go into scenes like that kind of fascinates me. And they're always fascinating to watch.

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QT is the total package as a filmmaker, I think, which is why I think some of the insults against him don't reflect a sense of what he does.

First of all, he's a great , distinctive writer. One of maybe only two "at the movies" today. (Aaron Sorkin of Charlie Wilson's War, Moneyball, The Social Network, and Molly's Game is the other one, and QT has said so. 3 of those 4 movies are my favorites of their years; Social Network won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, but I just couldn't stand all the Superrich Kid characters.)

Billy Wilder told waiter/aspiring actor Billy Bob Thornton, "actors are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. What we need here are good writers. Write yourself a role." Billy Bob wrote Sling Blade and the rest is history. QT simply wrote some great dialogue and the rest is history.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Still, QT -- working with his cinematographers, most recently genius Robert Richardson -- had a great cinematic sense as well. The camerawork and PACING of the caper scenes at the Del Amo Mall. The color sense of Django and The Hateful Eight.

QT and camera movement: I don't know if it is still there, but on YouTube at one time you could find two sequences running side by side:

QT: Jackie Brown: Jackson lures Chris Tucker to lie in the trunk of his car with a shotgun; and in one take and camera movement, drives the car to a field around the corner(high angle shot), stops the car, opens the trunk, and shoots Tucker.

Hitchcock: Frenzy: Bob Rusk lures Babs Milligan to his flat, taking her up the stairs and saying "You're my type of woman" before entering the flat with her as the camera retreats back DOWN the stairs. One take, one camera movement(well actually two -- there's a hidden cut from inside to outside the building.)

The comparison was to show both Hitchcock and QT using a one-take camera movement to describe how a killer maneuvers a victim into a deathtrap situation.

[–] MizhuB (165) 6 years ago

Hitchcock: Frenzy: Bob Rusk lures Babs Milligan to his flat, taking her up the stairs and saying "You're my type of woman" before entering the flat with her as the camera retreats back DOWN the stairs. One take, one camera movement(well actually two -- there's a hidden cut from inside to outside the building.)

========

For all the accolades that Frenzy got, after all the good reviews I read, I can tell you that when I saw it on a first run in NYC (I know I keep saying that, but back then most movies premiered in large cities before they moved on, and I lived close by), it played to a mostly empty theater.

And one of the biggest groans from the audience was that we DIDN'T get to see Babs' murder. This is Hitchcock! We're supposed to see the murders! He copped OUT!

I think most people had Psycho and The Birds stuck in their minds, i.e., Hitchcock made gory thrillers and that was it.

Similar to Family Plot. Which played to a packed house. Comments afterwards were things like 'It was Okay but I was expecting at least ONE gory murder!'

Incidentally, that 'break' in the film between the studio set to the actual outside wasn't noticed in Frenzy. I think it goes back to what I said about things just looking more realistic when they were projected on film, in lower resolution. Now, when you see it on DVD, even the colors look different. It LOOKS like a jump cut.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Hitchcock: Frenzy: Bob Rusk lures Babs Milligan to his flat, taking her up the stairs and saying "You're my type of woman" before entering the flat with her as the camera retreats back DOWN the stairs. One take, one camera movement(well actually two -- there's a hidden cut from inside to outside the building.)

========

For all the accolades that Frenzy got, after all the good reviews I read, I can tell you that when I saw it on a first run in NYC (I know I keep saying that, but back then most movies premiered in large cities before they moved on, and I lived close by), it played to a mostly empty theater.

---

I have written many times about what it felt like, as a young Hitchcock fan(based on 1966-1968 TV airings of Vertigo, Rear Window, NXNW, The Birds and, locally Psycho) to know that his films from The Birds through Topaz were considered "works of steady decline," how hopes weren't much higher for Frenzy and how -- almost miraculously -- it arrived to a chorus of "The Return of Alfred the Great" comeback reviews, and a fairly triumphant 90-minute Dick Cavett Show interview with Hitch. It was exhilarating.

On paper.

For as much as I personally like Frenzy and agree with those reviews -- I never felt it was all that much of a hit. I don't remember hearing much "buzz" about it at school, for instance(in the fall after the summer it came out, I recall ONE teenage girl who had been freaked out by it, in my circle. Only one.)

I saw the film several times, but one time was in June with a co-ed group of teenage friends, at a drive-in. I remember a few things: (1) How the marquee that said "ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S FRENZY" made me think of how it was when a marquee like that would have said "ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S PSYCHO" -- but those days were over. It was another "creepy" title, but the new movie just wasn't a big "boo!" blockbuster like Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I also remember that my teen friends didn't much like it. I also remember that my teen friends much preferred the second feature, the older 1971 Clint Eastwood thriller "Play Misty for Me" -- which DID feature Psycho like bladed killings.

Oh, well.

Meanwhile I have read that Frenzy made $16 million dollars on a $2 millon budget. I assume the 16 million was gross, but in any event -- the movie made money(and earned another $2 million for TV showings.) So it was a success if not a blockbuster. Topaz had lost money.

Personally, what I think happened was an initial crowd rushed out to see Frenzy based on the rave reviews...and then word of mouth killed it. No screams. No stars(save Hitch.) Too British. Too expository. And when horror DID arrive in the film (Rusk rapes/strangles Brenda) way too disturbing for entertainment.

What Hitchcock made was a very good art film, actually.

I recall these titles getting more "buzz" in 1972: The Godfather(uber alles, it played for most of the year); The Poseidon Adventure(at the end of the year) Cabaret, What's Up Doc, The Getaway(McQueen/MacGraw) and good old creepy Deliverance.

And yet, about ten years at one of my local cineplexes, they had slides that came up while you waited for the movie to start, with movie years and "top titles." Here is what I saw:

1972

The Godfather
Cabaret
Frenzy

...so 21st century audiences in one city saw "Frenzy" mentioned with every movie they saw at that Cineplex.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And one of the biggest groans from the audience was that we DIDN'T get to see Babs' murder. This is Hitchcock! We're supposed to see the murders! He copped OUT!

---

Ha. Well, I think it went like this. The murder of Babs WAS detailed in LaBern's source novel, at least the beginning of it. We entered the flat with Rusk and Babs and the attack began.

Hitchcock intended to script and film this second murder, but, according to his screenwriter, Anthony Shaffer(on the Making of DVD doc) SHAFFER talked him out of making the second murder as explicit. (I suppose it would be like Psycho with TWO shower scenes, TWO women getting killed. Overkill.)

Hitchcock ended up praised in some quarters: "Brilliant; he gives us the first murder in excruciating detail but allows us to imagine the second one." (Its rather like in Psycho, how we see all of the clean-up/burial of Marion Crane and none of Arbogast's -- we know the drill by then.)

As it turned out, a bit after the "Farewell to Babs" staircase shot, Hitchcock DID show Babs starting to be strangled, it was a jolting flashback, but too quick to be as disturbing as the first killing (its a plot point, too -- Rusk remembers Babs pulling his tiepin into her hand as she dies.)

I dunno. Perhaps one reason Psycho did better than Frenzy is that we DID see two murders, not just one. In Frenzy, not seeing what happens to Babs almost felt like a cop-out: didn't we come to see a horror shocker? What's with withholding the shock?

But of course in Psycho, it was one woman getting killed, and then one man. Again, had Hitchcock lingered on two women getting raped and killed..he might have drawn brickbats.

Oh, well, he made his choice.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I think most people had Psycho and The Birds stuck in their minds, i.e., Hitchcock made gory thrillers and that was it.

Similar to Family Plot. Which played to a packed house. Comments afterwards were things like 'It was Okay but I was expecting at least ONE gory murder!'

---

Yes, Family Plot was famously -- and surprisingly -- non-violent after the string of movies from Psycho to Frenzy, each of which featured something gory or violent:

Psycho: the two stabbings.
The Birds: the farmer with the pecked-out eyes.
Marnie: The bludegeoning of the sailor(in a sexually charged scene.)
Torn Curtain: The lingering killing of Gromek.
Topaz: No lingering murder scenes, but views of the aftermath of torture and one bloody-faced corpse.
Frenzy: A rape-murder that is the most savage and heartbreaking killing in Hitchocck; manhandling of a naked corpse in a potato truck.

And then suddenly in Family Plot: nothing? (One character gets killed in an accidental car crash.)

Word is that Universal chief Lew Wasserman had lunch with Hitch and urged him to knock off the "not fun" grim ultraviolence of his recent films, do something more like North by Northwest.

So Hitch hired "North by Northwest" screenwriter Ernest Lehman and made a non-violent comedy thriller.
Personally, I think there's more to it than that.

While Hitchcock said he would "definitely make another movie" after Family Plot and he tried(preparing The Short Night), I wonder if Hitchcock knew how bad he was feeling in 1974-1975, and decided that he was not going to leave the grim sexual ultraviolence of Frenzy as his final statement on film. Better to go out ...literally with a wink. And uplift. And a happy ending. (None of which the brilliant end of Frenzy had.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

When Hitchcock abandoned work on The Short Night, he told colleage Norman Lloyd: "This movie isn't necessary."

I think that Hitch felt Family Plot WAS necessary: to go out with a "nice" movie instead of something as sickening(despite its humor) as Frenzy. And the big thrill sequence in the film, rather than a rape-murder...is a hilarious roller coaster ride in a runaway car.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Incidentally, that 'break' in the film between the studio set to the actual outside wasn't noticed in Frenzy. I think it goes back to what I said about things just looking more realistic when they were projected on film, in lower resolution. Now, when you see it on DVD, even the colors look different. It LOOKS like a jump cut.

---

Interesting point. I haven't seen Frenzy on the big screen since the 70s, all I've seen is TV/VHS/DVD versions where indeed the cut is visible. We're getting cheated on the effect! Same with Arbogast's fall!

It seems so quaint now. Hitchcock gave long interviews on his "effects" in Frenzy, and how he had a man walk across the screen with a sack of potatoes to "cover" the switch from the studio set of the stairway to the real one in Covent Garden. He also talked in detail about how he filmed Rusk's encounter with Brenda Blaney from alternating POVs, with Rusk drawing closer, closer, closer....and how he had Barry Foster crouch "like a street urchin" behind Anna Massey so that Foster could spring up into the frame when the focus shifted to him: "Got a place to stay?"

These were old fashioned, "raw" ways in which cinematic tricks were pulled off by Hitch. Modernly, computers get a lot of this done, and the camera work(such as Rusk approach to Brenda) is little noticed.

[–] swanstep (2615) 6 years ago

One of maybe only two "at the movies" today.

No, there are others. The Coens are at least as good as Tarantino at the dialogue and sharp characters side of things. QT rarely mentions them when he self-compares - it's very like Hitch bestowing few compliments on fellow thriller-makers in my view.

Similarly, it's interesting that QT never mentions Charlie Kaufman. CK is even more distinctive and more influential dialogue-wise and themes-wise than QT is.

Ditto, Wes Anderson.

And when you go foreign, people like Almodovar and Haneke and Lanthimos and Claire Denis and Nuri Bilge Ceylan and even lunatics like Takeshi Miike (one of whose films QT starred in) stand tall.

(Do vernacular dialogue-driven scripts and films full of ultra-specific pop-culture references suffer in translation? How many layers of footnotes will QT's films require for future generations to get their jokes.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

No, there are others.

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Oh, yeah...them. (Hah.) Well, I like to "set the table," you know?

---

The Coens are at least as good as Tarantino at the dialogue and sharp characters side of things. QT rarely mentions them when he self-compares - it's very like Hitch bestowing few compliments on fellow thriller-makers in my view.

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Oh, yes -- QT and Hitch are/were both very arrogant men, and not terribly interested in praising others. I was surprised when QT praised Sorkin -- but their dialogue styles are rather identifiable -- people TALK in their movies, and talk and talk and talk. Their movies are almost ABOUT the talk, and the rhythm of the talk. I'm not so sure that the Coens and Anderson are so selfish about the talk.

Now, with the Coens, an issue might be that they don't have a "unified voice." Fargo has all the funny Minnesota accents; The Big Lebowski is centered on the Dude's hip syntax; No Country for Old Men favors its novelistic source. And even The Ladykillers -- hated by many, loved by me -- relies on Tom Hanks' overarticulate Southern gentleman speeches and a fair number of Poe quotes. QT and Sorkin usually sound exactly the same, movie to movie.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Similarly, it's interesting that QT never mentions Charlie Kaufman. CK is even more distinctive and more influential dialogue-wise and themes-wise than QT is.

Ditto, Wes Anderson.

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Well...and we can keep shifting our terms here -- I think we are getting into the issue of QT and Sorkin being "Mainstream"(remember I call myself Mainstream Man), and having delivered much bigger hits than Charlie Kaufman ever did. I see Kaufman as an art film guy(I know he writes, does he direct?)

Anderson has done better -- The Royal Tennebaums and the one about the hotel did well and have followings. And he is identifiably 'twee." (SNL did a spot on spoof of his style with a "Wes Anderson horror movie trailer" narrated by Alec Baldwin, who also narrated Tennebaums.

----

And when you go foreign, people like Almodovar and Haneke and Lanthimos and Claire Denis and Nuri Bilge Ceylan and even lunatics like Takeshi Miike (one of whose films QT starred in) stand tall.

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Sure. But that is foreign.

Well, I guess maybe QT and Sorkin are "American pop stars." And they've used big stars, one or the other or both of them: Pitt(both QT and Sorking); Cruise(Sorkin); Leo(QT), Nicholson(Sorkin)...etc.

I'd like to point out that Sorkin repeats himself:

Charlie Wilson's War:

"If I wanted to you to run the Helskini bureau, you'd be running the Helskini bureau!"

The Social Network:

"If they really had invented the Internet...they would have been invented the Internet!"

Gotcha.

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(Do vernacular dialogue-driven scripts and films full of ultra-specific pop-culture references suffer in translation? How many layers of footnotes will QT's films require for future generations to get their jokes.)

---

Good question. If you know the references, the jokes are immediate. If not..you gotta look 'em up. Basterds, Django and Hateful Eight are period pieces; its in the modern films that you get references to Get Christie Love , The Guns of Navarone, and the Delfonics.

[–] swanstep (2615) 6 years ago

I see Kaufman as an art film guy(I know he writes, does he direct?)

He's directed twice: Synecdoche, NY and Anomalisa (even Kaufman's titles - Eternal Sunshine... - are unlike anyone's else's!).

Syn., NY (w/ Phil Seymour Hoffmann in his greatest role - seriously!) is *amazing*. Too good in fact - it's self-consciously a magnum opus (about magnum opuses) - and it's necessarily almost impossible to follow up. Anomalisa was an off-Broadway play that Kaufman directed and perhaps it should have stayed there. Some people (including my sister) really dug the film but it left me cold.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I have seen two of the Kaufman-written films: Being John Malkovich and the one with Nick Cage and Meryl Streep(back when Nick Cage was ALLOWED to work with Meryl Streep.)

I'm a pretty good reader of reviews, so I know the other (amazing) titles...should see them.

And the Spotless Mind plot sounds wonderful(erase all bad memories) but I have trouble with Jim Carrey(even as I did see Truman Show.)

Spielberg in the 90's said that if he were to cast Jaws again in that decade(late) in the Richard Dreyfuss role, "I'd cast Jim Carrey...and sit on him."

I've sometimes pondered -- with Strangers on a Train remakes being bandied about -- if a sat-upon Carrey could do Bruno.

But Carrey's not a star anymore...

[–] swanstep (2615) 6 years ago

Wow, I hadn't realized you hadn't seen Eternal Sunshine ecarle. It's the 21C film I've seen most; more than 10 times, including on consecutive days opening week! Even if you're a little Carrey-phobic, it works great I think. I remember thinking at the time that ES *was* the watershed for Carrey that The Truman Show was only *supposed* to be (in truth that film barely survived all of Carrey's mugging).

Anyhow, you've got two of the greatest American films (both at least top 50 all time easily I'd say) ahead of you with ES and Synecdoche. Be warned: Synecdoche is *incredibly* depressing and kind of overwhelming. I was in a dark mood and slightly in shock for at least a week after I saw it.

[–] swanstep (2615) 6 years ago

BTW, interesting QT news: he's found his Manson... and it's the same actor used for Manson by Fincher in the forthcoming Season 2 of Mindhunter!

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

In a way, we are seeing it again, but not on the big screen and waiting in line and all that. I think we are discussing the same things after seeing the film and probably would see it again for the second and third times to go over what was discussed. What we don't have is waiting in line and seeing it with the audience reaction and all. So, in that sense, I want to see the movie if it ever plays again due to IMAX, 4K resolution and sound or director's cut. It may not be same as the original screenings, but every one is different. I want to see if the back projection is more realistic in the theater. I can't remember any scene like the Arbogast killing or like the shower murder. Maybe the twist ending would not be as dramatic as the first watch (I did get a semi-jump the first time I saw it on vhs). I'd like to see the director's cut with extended scenes intact. Seeing both killings on the big screen would be worth the price of admission.

There are closer theaters to where I live showing classic films, but the closest theater showing Hitchcock films again is the Castro Theater in San Francisco. I see they got The Birds lined up next month in a double feature. Others are Classic Cinemas and Cinemark. Selected amc theaters used to have them, but it looks like they're gone now. BTW I just missed 2001: A Space Odyssey in IMAX as they cut the week long running short and replaced with Marvel CBMs.

http://castrotheatre.com/p-list.html

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In a way, we are seeing it again, but not on the big screen and waiting in line and all that.

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I'm not sure if I'm "on point" with what you are saying here, but it is another "magic aspect" of the movies, I think:

If we put Psycho in the DVD player right now and look at it, we are looking at exactly the same movie that theater goers saw almost 60 years ago! I mean, we could take a time machine to June 1960 and go into one of the NYC showcase theaters(the DeMille and the Coronet) where Psycho opened and see it with people all around us in coats and ties and dresses BUT -- we would be looking at exactly the same movie we put in the DVD. I think that's a small miracle. In other words, our DVD today IS a time machine. Let's go back to 1960 and look at the cars, the clothes, the hairstyles -- and a Phoenix Arizona that has long been razed to the ground(save a few buildings) and rebuilt.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

What we don't have is waiting in line and seeing it with the audience reaction and all. So, in that sense, I want to see the movie if it ever plays again due to IMAX, 4K resolution and sound or director's cut. It may not be same as the original screenings, but every one is different.

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Well, to some extent, modernly we are NOT seeing the exact same movie that 1960 audiences saw. In many ways, the new versions are BETTER: better sound, better picture, bigger picture.

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I want to see if the back projection is more realistic in the theater.

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Well, that's the Arbogast fall, and I think it is more dizzying that big and "above you," but it will never look totally realistic. I think it is damn good. Take a look at director Tony Perkins trying to re-stage that fall in Psycho III and how BAD that one looks in comparison; the victim doesn't move and emote properly.

--

I can't remember any scene like the Arbogast killing or like the shower murder.

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They are interestingly "complimentary." They don't play the same way or look the same way. In one, a woman is a victim. In the other, a man is a victim. The shower murder is about 70 shots; the staircase murder is 4 shots. The shower murder is close-in and a flurry of shots; the staircase murder is more "wide open"(a high angle on the first attack, an "action sequence" staircase fall.) The shower murder takes place at the motel. The staircase murder takes place in the house. The shower murder plays "white"(in the shower); the staircase murder plays "gray"(in the house.)
Etc.

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Maybe the twist ending would not be as dramatic as the first watch (I did get a semi-jump the first time I saw it on vhs).

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Well, I finally got the effect with a screaming audience in 1979. What's great is that Mother's face gets a big scream -- and then Norman's arrival gets a BIGGER scream -- they feed into each other.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I'd like to see the director's cut with extended scenes intact.

--

That "director's cut" would seem to consist of (1) more of Janet Leigh's chest and back undressing for the shower; (2) a longer shot of blood on Norman's hands and (3) more stabs of Arbogast on the floor. Except I still don't believe the Arbogast footage, it looks "manipuated to me.

The published Joe Stefano script for Psycho has some scenes that aren't in the movie. But there is no record of Hitchcock even filming those scenes.

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Seeing both killings on the big screen would be worth the price of admission.

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Well, they really are the reason Psycho is Psycho. Nothing in American movies before them for sheer terror and violence. All of the rest of the film -- no matter how well acted, well written, well scored and well directed -- would not matter in film history without those murder scenes to shock the world and to give the movie its unique reputation.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There are closer theaters to where I live showing classic films, but the closest theater showing Hitchcock films again is the Castro Theater in San Francisco. I see they got The Birds lined up next month in a double feature.

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I saw one movie at the Castro. The restored Vertigo. 1996.

I'm afraid that as much as seeing Psycho in 1979 with a full house was one of the best movie nights I've ever had -- the night at the Castro with Vertigo was easily THE worst. Not ONE of the worst. The worst.

The topic is sensitive, but I will go there.

It was a fairly long wait on a fairly long line to see Vertigo IN San Francisco, and the theater was packed.

But not too long after the movie started, I became aware of one thing:

This huge audience was laughing at Vertigo. Not just at one outdated line or over-emotive moment. And certainly not only at the small jokes in the movie("Well, there are plenty of street level bars.")

No, they laughed at EVERYTHING. And very very hard.

For instance, when Scottie looks panicked at Judy and says "Your hair" -- BIG LAUGHS.

And then when Judy falls to her death at the end(an abrupt moment, I'll admit) a long GALE of strangled laughter.

And weirdly, they then applauded as The End arrived.

What I learned was that the crowd had a lot of gays in it. And according to a gay friend, that's how some group viewings are done: with mocking laughter and a sense of "camp" to any movie being viewed.

I actually found an article, years later, where San Francisco Chronicle film critic Peter Stack gently chastised "the Castro crowd" for making fun of the classics shown there.

I've decided its a cultural thing to which I simply can't relate. Like overweight straight men with their shirts off and chests painted at NFL games.

So..no more movies at the Castro for me. I don't belong.

Unless there is less mocking laughter there now. Is there? Otherwise, The Birds will never survive.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Others are Classic Cinemas and Cinemark. Selected amc theaters used to have them, but it looks like they're gone now.

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Cinemark Classics are still running. That's how I saw the 60th anniversary of Vertigo last April, and Psycho around Halloween two years ago. But they run more "recent" classics like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, too.

The Cinemark Classics Fall Series starts soon. I have to see what they are showing! The Sound of Music is one, I'm already seeing commercials.

Sometimes TCM and Fathom Entertainment run their own classics -- Vertigo was one, The Sound of Music is coming -- and tie them into the Cinemark Series. When I saw Vertigo in April, it was advertised as BOTH a Cinemark Classic AND a TCM/Fathom Event -- and they ran video of Ben Mankewicz of TCM introducing and capping off the Vertigo showing.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 6 years ago

That's good to know about the Castro. I haven't seen any classic films there yet. Maybe I'll try to make it to The Birds, but it's about 1.5 hour drive + parking in San Francisco. I didn't think about the "audience" in SF. Hope my Mini Cooper car doesn't get stolen while being parked. Maybe the audience just thought that it's a campy retro thing to do and made it a point to make fun of the "old" movie and how it was done. Corny by today standards. I can see why you'd want to go back into 1960 and see it when it first came out. Things were different and we were still elementary, middle school or teens. Every show and theater is different, so it could be a more entertaining experience. Have there been any modern movies where one could not enter by price of admission once it had started? I can't think of any, but am past the age of having movies directed toward my age group.

>>Cinemark Classics are still running. That's how I saw the 60th anniversary of Vertigo last April, and Psycho around Halloween two years ago. But they run more "recent" classics like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, too.

The Cinemark Classics Fall Series starts soon. I have to see what they are showing! The Sound of Music is one, I'm already seeing commercials.

Sometimes TCM and Fathom Entertainment run their own classics -- Vertigo was one, The Sound of Music is coming -- and tie them into the Cinemark Series. When I saw Vertigo in April, it was advertised as BOTH a Cinemark Classic AND a TCM/Fathom Event -- and they ran video of Ben Mankewicz of TCM introducing and capping off the Vertigo showing.<<

We have a West Wind drive in theater, Esquire IMAX and Cinemark where I live so it's not like I have to drive to another state. I'll BOLO for TCM and Fathom Entertainment to see if they're come to my area. I think TCM is the Castro or another theater in San Francisco :(. I don't think I have to re-watch Star Wars, but Hitchcock classics I'll drive for. Still watch AHP and AHH shows.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That's good to know about the Castro.

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Well, like I say , it is obviously a sensitive subject, but evidently I didn't know "the rules" when I went in there to see Vertigo.

I was somewhat "backed up" on this years later when I watched an episode of "Six Feet Under" that began with a gay group showing "The Bad Seed"(1956) and derisively laughing at IT. Some of The Bad Seed deserves it, I get it -- but that story is heart-rending.

I'll say this -- if one DOES feel that Vertigo is overrated(and I DONT) see it at the Castro.

And finally, I'm sure that was one specific sub-group and I should not generalize. But great movies should not be treated like that.

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Look, I've been to Hitchcock films that get derisive laughs with a mixed crowd, too.

I'm afraid The Birds gets a few.

Its a tough moment when the mother screams "You're evil! EVIL!" and gets slapped...but right after that happens, the bartender runs in clumsily and yells something like "they're leaving." The two elements TOGETHER, one right after the other...big laughs.

And yet, Hitchcock clearly believed in that confrontation with the mother, wanted it in the movie, sold it as well as it could sell(the mother is terrified to start with and the attacks DID start when Melanie showed up.)
I dunno.

Some of the too-sincere lines in the hotel scene in Psycho get laughed at, along with Sam's "when you do, you'll swing!" But that's archaic stuff.

North by Northwest gets laughs but you can't tell if the audience is laughing with or at the movie.

--

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Maybe the audience just thought that it's a campy retro thing to do and made it a point to make fun of the "old" movie and how it was done. Corny by today standards.

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Certainly conceivable. Vertigo plays by some "old fashioned rules" of melodrama that Hitchcock was just about to throw over in NXNW and Psycho. Its like a fond farewell to deep emotion(Judy in green light emerging from the bathroom.)

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I can see why you'd want to go back into 1960 and see it when it first came out.

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Dare I say I'd like to go back to 1960...period? Still, I'd like to see Psycho if I went back. Exact same movie...likely a terrified crowd.

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iThings were different and we were still elementary, middle school or teens.

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Some film scholar made some study somewhere and said that most people find "their favorite movie" in those years -- teens and young adult mainly. And that's why movies of the past 20, er 30, years don't have quite the same nostalgia for me. The hormones were coming or there back then.

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Every show and theater is different, so it could be a more entertaining experience. Have there been any modern movies where one could not enter by price of admission once it had started? I can't think of any, but am past the age of having movies directed toward my age group.

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Great question. I have no idea, but I doubt it. I think about only the semi-enforced movie policy is NC-17. I've been to theaters a few times and seen special guards guarding Showgirls (wasn't that NC-17) and the like.

Truth be told, Hitchcock's policy really isn't much needed anymore. People are TRAINED to come before the movie starts, and it can be like, an hour between showings. No time to wait.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

We have a West Wind drive in theater, Esquire IMAX and Cinemark where I live so it's not like I have to drive to another state. I'll BOLO for TCM and Fathom Entertainment to see if they're come to my area. I think TCM is the Castro or another theater in San Francisco :(. I don't think I have to re-watch Star Wars, but Hitchcock classics I'll drive for. Still watch AHP and AHH shows.

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As a fellow Hitchcock fan...I'm with you.

In the past decade or two, the Cineplex classics have run Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo, NXNW, The Birds. Years ago I saw a TCM version of "Strangers on a Train" at my Cineplex, but it was in their early days...the print was like a TV video.

One of the biggest crowds -- bigger than NXNW -- was for To Catch A Thief, which looked gorgeous on the big screen in its Oscar-winning Technicolor print.

I think that's about it. No theater is going to risk screen time on Topaz or The Trouble With Harry. I think maybe some of the 40's stuff -- Rebecca, Spellbound, Notorious -- sometimes got Cineplex play.

But even Frenzy -- some sort of hit when it came out -- isn't anything folks are clamouring to see again. No stars, too sexually ugly. I don't think its ever been sent to the multiplexes. (Though I actually SAW it at one of the early multiplexes, in '72. That's outside of seeing it at the Cinerama Dome and at a drive-in with friends. I sort of followed it around.)