when did you first see this? Where were you? What did you think?
Saw this upon release in 1976. Local movie theater. I was in junior high school. Loved it!
The ending was great!!!!!!!!!!! Slam!
"In every dimension , there's another YOU!"
At its world premiere on the opening night of FILMEX on March 21 in Century City.
After Hitch's triumphal "comeback" with Frenzy, Family Plot seemed labored, poorly paced and largely uninspired and, in spite of its high points, was initially a disappointment. In the years since, I've come to appreciate much more of what it has to offer, and have grown quite fond of it, weaknesses, flaws and all.
And of course, we didn't know at the time that it would be his last.
Poe! You are...avenged!
At its world premiere on the opening night of FILMEX on March 21 in Century City.
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I was there too. Honestly, you should have waved or something. Hah.
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After Hitch's triumphal "comeback" with Frenzy, Family Plot seemed labored, poorly paced and largely uninspired and, in spite of its high points, was initially a disappointment.
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I felt a little bit better about it that very night. My "simple take" was that the first hour was pretty slow and not too good(EXCEPT for Karen Black's silent ransom diamond recovery scene) and that the second half gathered fantastic momentum and had a bunch of great scenes(the bishop gets kidnapped, the runaway car, and the whole series of funny coincidences that brought Madame Blanche face to face with Arthur Adamson in his garage.)
What I remember is that we in the audience tried to "help" Hitchocck out by laughing politely at most jokes and applauding certain scenes.
But very REAL applause greted the moment when Adamson and Fran knock out the bishop just as the doorbell rings to announce Madame Blanche(whom we'd forgotten about.)
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In the years since, I've come to appreciate much more of what it has to offer, and have grown quite fond of it, weaknesses, flaws and all.
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I think there are several key reasons for that. One is that its the last Hitchocck picture, and once we lost him...we never had a Hitchocck movie again. "Accept no substitutes."
Another is that the plot of Family Plot reveals itself, after several viewings, to be as intricate and patterned as many of the best Hitchcocks. It is very much the "suspense structure" of Psycho: investigators in one story(Blanche and Lumley; Arbogast, Sam and Lila) are searching for someone(Eddie Shoebridge, Marion Crane) and running headlong into ANOTHER story, with someone dangerous waiting for them(Adamson; Mother.)
Another reason is the jolly clutch of good Hitchocck set-pieces in Hour Two and the Fran Gets the Diamond sequence in Hour One(plus I like the interview with the kidnapped magnate; its funny and crisp.)
And a truly GREAT reason is...that cast. William Devane in his younger, dark-haired prime was almost a movie star(that voice, those teeth.) Barbara Harris rather owns the film in general. Bruce Dern is eccentric. And Karen Black is..well..pretty.
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And of course, we didn't know at the time that it would be his last.
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Truly so. With each of his "final" movies -- I'd say Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot, we worried if he would actually finish them for release even before we worried if he would make another. But he fooled us those three times, so I, for one, fully expected another Hitchcock movie...and he kept promising one, and even announcing titles(Unknown Man 89, The Short Night) and possible stars(Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau...none of whom was committed but all of whom allowed their names to be used.)
But Family Plot DID turn out to be his last.
And that makes it historic.
Honestly, you should have waved or something. Hah.What? Y'mean you didn't see me?
You never know: we could have been no more than a seat or two away from each other.
I felt a little bit better about it that very night. My "simple take" was that the first hour was pretty slow and not too good(EXCEPT for Karen Black's silent ransom diamond recovery scene)Slow openings are difficult to get past. Complicating the issue was my callow youthfulness; a couple weeks shy of my 23rd birthday, I knew nothing about "spirit guides" and, all the while trying to make sense of the Rainbird backstory, I was completely unclear on who this "Henry" was.
I saw David Lean's 1945 film of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit for the first time only a day or so ago, into which just such a spirit guide figures. Shoulda seen it long before I ever saw FP. I'm still learning how deficient my cultural exposure has been here and there.
...the plot of Family Plot reveals itself, after several viewings, to be as intricate and patterned as many of the best Hitchcocks. It is very much the "suspense structure" of PsychoWith only the most minimal changes in dialogue, the script could have been filmed 20 years earlier, and it's tempting to consider how it might have come out if it had been, during that period when Hitch described his creative "batteries" as being "fully charged" (and, I daresay, as they were again when he made Frenzy four years earlier).
With each of his "final" movies -- I'd say Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot, we worried if he would actually finish them for release even before we worried if he would make another. But he fooled us those three times, so I, for one, fully expected another Hitchcock movie...and he kept promising one, and even announcing titles(Unknown Man 89, The Short Night) and possible stars(Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau...none of whom was committed but all of whom allowed their names to be used.)I don't recall being aware of any of that PR at the time, and in retrospect, I wonder if, without the powers of prophesy, there wasn't the subliminal thought that this would be his last somewhere in the back of my mind.
And among the "what ifs," I think I can safely say my reaction to FP would have been more favorable from the get-go if Frenzy hadn't provided that "high point" excitement after nearly a decade.
But that's all relatively ancient history now, and the succeeding four decades have allowed me to view FP in appropriate perspective and context.
Poe! You are...avenged! share
Honestly, you should have waved or something. Hah.
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What? Y'mean you didn't see me?
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If only I had a time machine, I could go find you today then.
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You never know: we could have been no more than a seat or two away from each other.
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Entirely possible.
I've noted this before: During the "opening festivities"(during which a rather shaky Hitch emerged from a limosine on the street below, to be met by columnist Army Archerd with two rave reviews to read), I was outside, up on a higher level of the theater complex...only about 15 feet from MCA-Universal boss Lew Wasserman and Hitchcock's daughter, Pat.
I've always said I would never forget what they said to each other...but I've forgotten all of it. Hah. This much I do remember: it was the friendliest of small talk, the fearsome and raging Lew Wasserman was nowhere to be seen, and Pat Hitchcock -- soon to be very wealthy indeed from papa's fortunes -- was very down to earth and "normal".
What I thought was strange even THEN was...why were powerful players like Lew Wasserman and Pat Hitchcock standing out in the crowd with the peanut gallery dwellers like me?
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I felt a little bit better about it that very night. My "simple take" was that the first hour was pretty slow and not too good(EXCEPT for Karen Black's silent ransom diamond recovery scene)
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Slow openings are difficult to get past.
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Yes. I remember feeling excited at the opening shot with its great "Vertigo red and green color scheme" and John Williams top grade score, and then -- minute by minute, line by line, I watched as the whole thing started to collapse and groan on..and then out to the horrible process work in Bruce Dern's cab. I felt bad FOR Hitchocck at that point. He was sitting with us. 100s of us. And we were all these witnesses to sub-par work.
In greater contrast was how comparatively perfect the first ten minutes of Frenzy had been, with Gil Taylor's glistening, rich camera work making that opening speech by the Thames look like the visual work of a true Master, not a Columbo episode. I guess the true auteur was the DP? Also Anthony Shaffer's speech for the politician was better than Ernest Lehman's dialogue for Blanche and Mrs. Rainbird and Lumley. (BTW, a "side sadness" about Family Plot was how it felt like a quality drop not only for Hitchcock, but for his North by Northwest screenwriter, Ernest Lehman, too long gone from the action.)
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Complicating the issue was my callow youthfulness; a couple weeks shy of my 23rd birthday, I knew nothing about "spirit guides" and, all the while trying to make sense of the Rainbird backstory, I was completely unclear on who this "Henry" was.
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Yeah, I had read the book and found it all very confusing -- and not really interesting -- and I just sort of thought past that in the movie. They were hunting Eddie Shoebridge, is all.
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I saw David Lean's 1945 film of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit for the first time only a day or so ago, into which just such a spirit guide figures. Shoulda seen it long before I ever saw FP. I'm still learning how deficient my cultural exposure has been here and there.
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You are ahead of me. I know that "Blithe Spirit" was read (or maybe seen on the LA stage) by Hitchocck in preparing Family Plot.
I think a big problem with Family Plot will always remain the essential fakeness of Madame Blanche AS a medium. Hitch rather refuses to consider her powers real at all, and the famous kicker at the end(she finds the hidden diamond -- "Blanche! You ARE psychic!") turns out to have a rational explanation(she overheard Adamson say where it was, in the chandelier) that the proverbial second viewing would reveal. Which is why the ads for Family Plot said: "You have to see it twice!"
With Madame Blanche so clearly a fake, the whole medium/séance business is really just a con. I suppose you could say that Family Plot is Hitchcock's answer to "The Sting."
Ironic though: Without the "great beyond" to really guide them, Blanche and Lumley get the job done like detectives: questions and shoe leather. They work hard(especially him); you have to admire them.
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...the plot of Family Plot reveals itself, after several viewings, to be as intricate and patterned as many of the best Hitchcocks. It is very much the "suspense structure" of Psycho
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With only the most minimal changes in dialogue, the script could have been filmed 20 years earlier,
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Very true. Hmmm...1956. Let's cast it:
Lumley: William Holden
Blanche: Judy Holliday
Adamson: James Mason
Fran: Eleanor Parker
I have no idea why I picked THOSE four, though William Devane did say that James Mason's Vandamm from NXNW was his inspiration for Adamson(to which scenarist Ernest Lehman later said, having written both villains. "Nah...Adamson is more small time than Vandamm."
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and it's tempting to consider how it might have come out if it had been, during that period when Hitch described his creative "batteries" as being "fully charged"
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Yes. Unlike Torn Curtain, Topaz, or The Paradine Case -- which were rather dreary, not terribly compelling tales -- Family Plot had all the makings of a classic Hitchcock tale that could have been one of his greats if made in his best health and with top studio support.
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(and, I daresay, as they were again when he made Frenzy four years earlier).
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As I've noted from my "Hitchocck readings," Hitchocck LITERALLY recharged his batteries to prepare for Frenzy. Even as he was searching submissions for his next movie(which would be the novel Goodbye Picadilly, Farewell Leiceister Square, aka Frenzy), he was taking time off, resting at his home in bed, travelling to Hawaii and Europe and doing whatever an obese 70 year old man does to get in "fighting shape" to make a better movie.
Whereas he undertook "Family Plot" four years later with heart problems (heart attacks, a pacemaker) and other ailments.
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With each of his "final" movies -- I'd say Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot, we worried if he would actually finish them for release even before we worried if he would make another. But he fooled us those three times, so I, for one, fully expected another Hitchcock movie...and he kept promising one, and even announcing titles(Unknown Man 89, The Short Night) and possible stars(Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau...none of whom was committed but all of whom allowed their names to be used.)
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I don't recall being aware of any of that PR at the time, and in retrospect, I wonder if, without the powers of prophesy, there wasn't the subliminal thought that this would be his last somewhere in the back of my mind.
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Well, I think it nagged at all of us. When Family Plot was released Hitchocck said "I will definitely make another picture" and there was no reason to doubt him after he surprisingly delivered Family Plot.
When the American Film Institute had its salute to Hitchocck in March of 1979, they issued an advertisement in Variety which listed all of Hitchcock's films to date -- and one in the future. So it looked like this:
1969: Topaz
1972: Frenzy
1976: Family Plot
1980: The Short Night.
I remember reading that and thinking: "1980. Wouldn't it be great if Hitchcock could make one more movie for the 80's? Thus working in the 20's, 30s', 40s, 50's, 60's, 70's AND 80's.
But the AFI had lied to me. What happened with Hitchcock in 1980 was: he died.
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And among the "what ifs," I think I can safely say my reaction to FP would have been more favorable from the get-go if Frenzy hadn't provided that "high point" excitement after nearly a decade.
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Frenzy is a real anomaly, sandwiched between sub-par Hitchcock movies almost as a weird island unto itself.
Part of the issue is that a hungry horde of New Wave critics perhaps went TOO far over the top in praising Frenzy; it got notices in the summer of 1972 ("One of Hitchcock's very best") that really weren't matched by the box office.
Still, Frenzy is the best of the final five Hitchcock films and I'd say that the source material("The Psycho and The Wrong Man"), Shaffer's literate script, Gil Taylor's gleaming and classic cinematography, Pinewood Studios as the production facility, the realism of Covent Garden AND...Hitchcock's directorial touches AND...its unheard-of sexual brutality(which made Hitchocck "relevant" albeit in a sick way)...made it a winner that fit 1972 like a glove.
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But that's all relatively ancient history now, and the succeeding four decades have allowed me to view FP in appropriate perspective and context
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Same here. Put Family Plot on the DVD player in 2016, and the film is downright nostalgic for its maker and his wit and style.
You never know: we could have been no more than a seat or two away from each other.I may have mentioned this before: my husband of 2.5 years (and partner of 34) and I discovered in the course of swapping stories over time (as you do) that we'd been in the same place at the same time on two occasions years before we ever met. One was at a particular performance of the play Streamers at the Westwood playhouse (during which a patron had a heart attack during the play's most intense scene), and the other at a one-time-only pre-release screening of the uncut A Little Night Music at West L.A.'s Pico Theater. I'm not especially a believer in fate, destiny or superstition, but the Dec '81 Christmas party at which we finally did meet could, I suppose, qualify for "third time's the charm" designation.
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Entirely possible.
Apropos of very little, but I love any excuse to tell that story.
Pat Hitchcock -- soon to be very wealthy indeed from papa's fortunes -- was very down to earth and "normal".It's always struck me that she must have been from her earliest years a person of remarkable intelligence and self-possession, inheriting the very best respective qualities of her parents (when it could so easily have been otherwise). Of her three film roles for her pop, I like to think of Barbara Morton as being the closest to the real person: precocious, observant, incisive and outspoken; completely secure in her own skin and no-nonsense viewpoints.
What I thought was strange even THEN was...why were powerful players like Lew Wasserman and Pat Hitchcock standing out in the crowd with the peanut gallery dwellers like me?Is it at all possible that you had innocently and happily wandered into some kind of VIP area? I remember being on an upper level to the northwest of where Hitch made his entrance myself, but that's about all.
With Madame Blanche so clearly a fake, the whole medium/séance business is really just a con. I suppose you could say that Family Plot is Hitchcock's answer to "The Sting."I think we've talked before of the "opposite sides of the same coin" comparative natures of the two couples: the polished elegance of Arthur and Fran's "front" and meticulous planning of their schemes versus the diminished circumstances and make-it-up-as-you-go (but effective) doggedness of Blanche and Lumley. As you say:
Blanche and Lumley get the job done like detectives: questions and shoe leather.And to the irony you cite, I think one of the most enjoyable moments is that when their gumshoe-ing has led Blanche directly to Arthur's door, upsetting all that planning and prompting his one outburst: "THIS is IN-CREDible." When I watch it now, I wait for that moment.
Hmmm...1956. Let's cast it:I especially like the Holliday and Mason choices. I'm thinking Lumley needs to be someone a bit less "leading man-ish;" Paul Douglas comes to mind, which may show some lack of imagination on my part, what with his double connection to Holliday. Parker I resist mainly because I've always found her one of the blandest and most uninteresting actresses of the '40s - '50s. I wonder if someone with some "edge" like Linda Darnell (who had her own Paul Douglas connection) might not have worked. Or even Vera Miles (perhaps too young and fresh to pair with Mason). Maybe make both Arthur and Fran Brit ex-pats: Glynis Johns?
Lumley: William Holden
Blanche: Judy Holliday
Adamson: James Mason
Fran: Eleanor Parker
Devane did say that James Mason's Vandamm from NXNW was his inspiration for Adamson(to which scenarist Ernest Lehman later said, having written both villains. "Nah...Adamson is more small time than Vandamm."Well, it's true Arthur is out only for himself while Vandamm is frying bigger fish. It only just now occurs to me that Arthur/Eddie is given a very detailed backstory, yet we know nothing about Vandamm other than what's on overt display from the very first moment he's seen. Lehman's scripted action and dialogue and Mason's (to borrow a phrase) expert play-acting nevertheless provide a fully-dimensional character.
Frenzy is a real anomaly, sandwiched between sub-par Hitchcock movies almost as a weird island unto itself.In that context, quite so. But it also seems a throwback to the brisk and blunt, droll and more youthful adventurousness of his best - and best-known - pre-U.S. work, into which '70s-style permissiveness (and even matter-of-fact brutality) fits very comfortably.
Shaffer's literate script, Gil Taylor's gleaming and classic cinematography, Pinewood Studios as the production facility, the realism of Covent Garden AND...Hitchcock's directorial touches AND...its unheard-of sexual brutality(which made Hitchocck "relevant" albeit in a sick way)...made it a winner that fit 1972 like a glove.Gee, I kinda just restated above what you'd already expressed.
I had a very interesting reminder last night of the differences that cultural forces either imposed upon or permitted in films relative to those produced in the U.S. and Britain in the '30s - '50s.
In the '39 film 21 Days, Lawrence Olivier, ne'er-do-well younger brother of barrister Leslie Banks (who is up for a prestigious justice seat), and his paramour Vivien Leigh accidentally kill her estranged husband in a struggle, and Banks, fearing jeopardizing his expected appointment, helps them cover up their involvement and arranges for their journey to South America. When a defrocked, derelict and alcoholic priest is arrested after filching cash from the body (stashed in an alley), his guilt over past sins and desire for penance leads him to offer no defense at trial.
Olivier's own guilt eventually overwhelms him and he resolves to turn himself in, in spite of the consequences to both he and his brother. He's literally on the steps of the police station when Leigh catches up to him with the newspaper reporting that the derelict has been convicted but spared the noose. And that's the happy ending.
Banks is eligible for his appointment, Leigh and Olivier are free to begin a life together and the ex-priest does the penance for which he'd hoped.
Joe Breen's Production Code Administration would never have allowed that in a U.S. produced film.
Poe! You are...avenged! share
You never know: we could have been no more than a seat or two away from each other.
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Entirely possible.
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I may have mentioned this before: my husband of 2.5 years (and partner of 34) and I discovered in the course of swapping stories over time (as you do) that we'd been in the same place at the same time on two occasions years before we ever met.
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This is why swapping stories can be more interesting than one might think!
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One was at a particular performance of the play Streamers at the Westwood playhouse (during which a patron had a heart attack during the play's most intense scene),
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Wow. I heard that was an intense and violent play; I've rarely heard of such intensity provoking a heart attack. At least UCLA medical center was less than a half mile away!
I'm reminded that a 1970s catalog to order movies for school showings(I used it for such) had this warning on renting Psycho: "This film is not to be shown to the elderly, people with heart conditions, or pregnant women." Ya see just how BAD Psycho was considered in those days for shocks? Its so quaint, now.
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and the other at a one-time-only pre-release screening of the uncut A Little Night Music at West L.A.'s Pico Theater. I'm not especially a believer in fate, destiny or superstition, but the Dec '81 Christmas party at which we finally did meet could, I suppose, qualify for "third time's the charm" designation.
Apropos of very little, but I love any excuse to tell that story.
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Its a great story. I can't really touch it, but it turns out a significant amour in my life and I were at the same James Taylor concert a few months before meeting. Just a few rows apart, we learned. (We raised Taylor in conversation, both jumped to say we'd just seen him, then to the date and...ta da.)
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Pat Hitchcock -- soon to be very wealthy indeed from papa's fortunes -- was very down to earth and "normal".
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It's always struck me that she must have been from her earliest years a person of remarkable intelligence and self-possession, inheriting the very best respective qualities of her parents (when it could so easily have been otherwise).
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Yes. For whatever "scandalous exposes" there are out there about Hitchcock as a director bully or possible harasser, his family life seems to have been pretty darn normal and loving.
And daughter Pat gave Hitch three granddaughters, all of whom have appeared on the 2000's DVD documentaries to carry forward the Hitchcock Family traditions.
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Of her three film roles for her pop, I like to think of Barbara Morton as being the closest to the real person: precocious, observant, incisive and outspoken; completely secure in her own skin and no-nonsense viewpoints.
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Yes, I agreed. Barbara is her great -- and movie-length -- role. Psycho her most famous, but it is almost a cameo -- I believe dad "lured her out of retirement" to do it.
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What I thought was strange even THEN was...why were powerful players like Lew Wasserman and Pat Hitchcock standing out in the crowd with the peanut gallery dwellers like me?
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Is it at all possible that you had innocently and happily wandered into some kind of VIP area?
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Probably so, now that I think of it...maybe time has allowed me to erase a memory of sneaking in where I didn't belong?
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I remember being on an upper level to the northwest of where Hitch made his entrance myself, but that's about all.
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North by Northwest? I was on an upper level, but I can't really give you the coordinates. It WAS right on the "movie theater" side of the complex, not the stage theater side.
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With Madame Blanche so clearly a fake, the whole medium/séance business is really just a con. I suppose you could say that Family Plot is Hitchcock's answer to "The Sting."
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I think we've talked before
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As we're allowed to do again...maybe new readers among us, or we're simply revisting and refining the topic
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of the "opposite sides of the same coin" comparative natures of the two couples: the polished elegance of Arthur and Fran's "front" and meticulous planning of their schemes versus the diminished circumstances and make-it-up-as-you-go (but effective) doggedness of Blanche and Lumley.
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Yes. Part of the greatness of the flawed "Family Plot" is Hitchcock's rigorous attention to patterns (its from a book called "The Rainbird Pattern" after all.) And rhymes. As with the structure of Psycho, you can FEEL the rhyming structure of Family Plot, and you know you are "still in the hands of a master." Just an old, ill one.
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As you say:
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Blanche and Lumley get the job done like detectives: questions and shoe leather.
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And to the irony you cite, I think one of the most enjoyable moments is that when their gumshoe-ing has led Blanche directly to Arthur's door, upsetting all that planning and prompting his one outburst: "THIS is IN-CREDible." When I watch it now, I wait for that moment.
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I wait for that moment -- and the string of moments all around it. For all the press that was given to the runaway car scene; the cemetery pursuit scene; and the bishop kidnapping scene -- I think the sequence that begins with an unseen Blanche ringing a doorbell and ends with Adamson lowering the automatic garage door to trap Blanche with him is...some sort of Hitchcock at His Best:
Its like "finger snaps":
Adamson and Fran in shadow give the bishop the shot. DING DONG. What? Oh, wait -- the audience remembers -- BLANCHE IS COMING, omg she's here!(The Century City audience gave this huge applause as I recall -- it was so purely Hitchcock in its perfection, its puckishness.
SNAP!
Fran and Adamson walk to the front door, Fran looks through the peephole(Psycho shot.)
Fran: Its her!
Adamson: This is IN-CREDIBLE! (Our cool master plotter reduced to a raging wreck; big laugh.)
They decide to ditch Blanche, but on a re-check, Blanche is gone.
SNAP!
Now Adamson and Fran are in the garage, with their bishop tucked in the back seat and Adamson raises the garage door with his opener...
and there's Blanche!
SNAP!
Adamson: I thought you said she was gone.
Fran: She was!
(Their consternation is funny.)
Now Adamson and Blanche finally meet -- have GREAT dialogue together("I'll be happy to talk to you..but not RIGHT...NOW!") and then the bishop pops out and the garage door goes down and:
A GREAT SHOT of Adamson simply holding the garage door opener, a cooly mean look on his face, Fran worried by his side.
then cut to : Blanche trapped with them.
SNAP!
Hitchcock at his best.
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Hmmm...1956. Let's cast it:
Lumley: William Holden
Blanche: Judy Holliday
Adamson: James Mason
Fran: Eleanor Parker
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I especially like the Holliday and Mason choices. I'm thinking Lumley needs to be someone a bit less "leading man-ish;" Paul Douglas comes to mind, which may show some lack of imagination on my part, what with his double connection to Holliday.
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Eh, I brought in Holden because of "Born Yesterday" -- and I was unsure when I pencilled him in and I feel much better about Douglas. 1956 audiences would have loved to see Holliday and Douglas again.
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Parker I resist mainly because I've always found her one of the blandest and most uninteresting actresses of the '40s - '50s.
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Maybe that's why I thought of her -- sorry, Karen Black.
I don't know why I thought of her. I think I thought she was pretty.
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I wonder if someone with some "edge" like Linda Darnell (who had her own Paul Douglas connection) might not have worked. Or even Vera Miles (perhaps too young and fresh to pair with Mason). Maybe make both Arthur and Fran Brit ex-pats: Glynis Johns?
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All fine by me. In fact, I think I was only truly confident about Holliday and Mason for Blanche and Adamson...the two better parts in the film, I think.
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Devane did say that James Mason's Vandamm from NXNW was his inspiration for Adamson(to which scenarist Ernest Lehman later said, having written both villains. "Nah...Adamson is more small time than Vandamm."
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Well, it's true Arthur is out only for himself while Vandamm is frying bigger fish.
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I suppose. Devane said he based his work on Vandamm in an magazine interview for Family Plot. Lehman made his snappish remark at a 1976 seminar where he SHOWED NXNW even as Family Plot was playing a new theater several blocks away. It was "Hitchcock/Lehman" time in Hollywood.
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It only just now occurs to me that Arthur/Eddie is given a very detailed backstory, yet we know nothing about Vandamm other than what's on overt display from the very first moment he's seen. Lehman's scripted action and dialogue and Mason's (to borrow a phrase) expert play-acting nevertheless provide a fully-dimensional character.
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This is very strongly taken point. A good one. Hitchcock himself said things like "North by Northwest is just a fantasy" and that "in the second half of Psycho, the characters are mere figures." Which I think was Hitch's way of saying that characters like Vandamm and Leonard in NXNW and Sam and Lila and Arbogast in Psycho simply weren't going to be given that much backstory(though Sam sure has a lot)...but Adamson/Eddie gets a LOT. As did Marion Crane. As did Norman Bates.
The cipher in Family Plot to me is: Fran. Exactly how she met Adamson and why she agreed to participate in criminal activity with him is a mystery beyond she loves him and, maybe, greed. I figure that Fran's background is very hardscabble and tough, and Adamson some how lifted her out of it with his money and charm...and THEN entrapped her as his accomplice.
Frankly, I would say that Fran, Blanche, and Lumley are ALL sketchy characters in Family Plot, "from nowhere" and a bit cartoonish to me. So maybe that makes the film truly the story of Arthur Adamson, the Don Draper of his day, with Eddie Shoebridge as his Dick Whitman.
Another great direction Hitchcock gave William Devane to play Adamson: "Play the clothes."
And...Hitchcock wanted Devane to picture William Powell in the part. Powell was "one who got away" from Hitchcock...he almost played Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt!
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Frenzy is a real anomaly, sandwiched between sub-par Hitchcock movies almost as a weird island unto itself.
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In that context, quite so. But it also seems a throwback to the brisk and blunt, droll and more youthful adventurousness of his best - and best-known - pre-U.S. work, into which '70s-style permissiveness (and even matter-of-fact brutality) fits very comfortably.
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Yes, It think someone wrote that "Frenzy arrived in 1972 as if to show us what Hitchocck would be making if he'd never left England and just kept working there from 1940 to 1970."
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Shaffer's literate script, Gil Taylor's gleaming and classic cinematography, Pinewood Studios as the production facility, the realism of Covent Garden AND...Hitchcock's directorial touches AND...its unheard-of sexual brutality(which made Hitchocck "relevant" albeit in a sick way)...made it a winner that fit 1972 like a glove.
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Gee, I kinda just restated above what you'd already expressed.
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Oh, somewhat, I like the shift you took to the "old" British movies and how Frenzy ties in. That was ANOTHER sales hook for Frenzy IN 1972: "Like a prodgal son, Hitchcock Goes Home Again!"
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I had a very interesting reminder last night of the differences that cultural forces either imposed upon or permitted in films relative to those produced in the U.S. and Britain in the '30s - '50s.
...
Banks is eligible for his appointment, Leigh and Olivier are free to begin a life together and the ex-priest does the penance for which he'd hoped.
Joe Breen's Production Code Administration would never have allowed that in a U.S. produced film.
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I'm always watching movies pre-1968 with a "censor's eye" -- "How'd THAT get in? Or ...they couldn't allow THAT," sort of thing. Its really funny how one gets pre-conditioned to watch pre-R rated movies that way.
But clearly, the films of Europe in almost all regards got to do what American studios(well under the thumb of the powerful churches of the time) could not.
And as in this case, the issue wasn't sex or violence but simply "getting away with it."
I once watched the original 1960 Ocean's Eleven with a young nephew. When the gang lost all the dough at the end, I told my nephew that back then, "crime could not pay and they couldn't get away with it."
His answer was incredulous: "You mean they could never get away with it? Didn't that make movies pretty boring...they'd always get caught?"
Good point.