Suspicious Behavior

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"Well, well. You're the first woman I've ever met who said yes when she meant yes."

Johnny (Cary Grant)

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I am a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's movies — something, as I have written before, that I picked up from my parents — but nearly all of his movies were before my time, and I have often wondered why his movies didn't win more Oscars. After all, many of his movies are considered classics today. You will always find them on "best of" lists. The American Film Institute included four Hitchcock movies in its list of the top 100 movies of all time. AFI included nine of Hitchcock's films in its list of the top 100 thrilling movies of all time.

Hitchcock himself was nominated for Best Director five times, but he never won. In spite of directing many of Hollywood's brightest stars in the 1940s and 1950s — some, like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, in multiple films — only one received an Oscar.

That was Joan Fontaine for her performance in "Suspicion," which was in American movie theaters on this day in 1941.

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Hitchcock wasn't nominated for his directorial work in "Suspicion," but the movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Score of a Dramatic Picture in addition to Fontaine's Oscar for her acting.

Fontaine played an introverted, rather frumpy heiress who married a rogue/charmer (Grant) she met on a train. After their honeymoon, Fontaine's character began to discover her new husband's shadowy past. He was a rather reckless gambler who sold two of her antique chairs to pay off a gambling debt, and she became suspicious of his motives when one of his friends turned up dead under mysterious circumstances.

Fontaine's character wondered if he planned to kill her for her money, especially after he questioned a friend of hers, who happened to be a mystery writer, about poisons that could not be traced, and you had all the pieces in place for a classic Hitchcock psychological thriller.

In the end, though, Grant's character was vindicated, and, in truly Hitchcockian fashion, the movie shifted in the final minutes from a tale that cautioned wariness when facing the unknown to a cautionary tale about making assumptions based on incomplete and inaccurate information.

It was Fontaine's movie, and she was rewarded with the Oscar, but Grant was the one who really stole the show with his magnetism.

The story I have always heard is that Grant was frustrated by what he perceived as Hitchcock's preferential treatment of his leading lady. That shouldn't surprise any student of movies. Hitchcock always had an eye for lovely ladies, and he featured them prominently in his movies. Fontaine was merely one in a rather long line that included the likes of Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, Janet Leigh and Tippi Hedren.

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I guess Grant found this particularly egregious, though, perhaps because it was pretty well known that he thought Fontaine was unprofessional and temperamental, and he pledged never to work with Hitchcock again.

They must have patched things up because they made three more movies together, including perhaps my favorite Hitchcock movie of all, "North by Northwest."

Spellbound by Hitchcock and Salvador Dali

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"Women make the best psychoanalysts until they fall in love. After that they make the best patients."

Alex (Michael Chekhov)

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I know that many movie aficionados regard "Spellbound," an Alfred Hitchcock psychological thriller that premiered on this day in 1945, as a classic, but probably the majority of modern movie watchers wouldn't know anything about it.

And that makes me wonder if, even with its reputation among those in the know, perhaps "Spellbound" is Hitchcock's most underrated movie. It is even underrated with some who are in the know. The American Film Institute, for example, did not include "Spellbound" in its list of the Top 100 movies of all time.

Even in its own time, "Spellbound" was overlooked by its peers. To be fair, it did achieve something that comparatively few Hitchcock movies achieved. It was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, but it only won one — for its music. The music for "Spellbound" was appropriate, as it almost always was, for a Hitchcock movie, but the only on–screen work that was recognized with a nomination was Michael Chekhov in a supporting role.

That wouldn't have been nearly as egregious if, as was frequently the case with a Hitchcock movie, the stars weren't A–listers of their time — but "Spellbound" starred Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Now they weren't the A–Lister's A–listers. There were stars in Hollywood who probably rated a little higher than Bergman and Peck on the A–list scale — but not many.

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And both were nominated for Oscars that year — but for performances in other movies.

Bergman played a psychoanalyst at a mental hospital, where the director was being forced to retire after an extended absence for exhaustion. His replacement was played by Peck — who, it was observed by his colleagues, brought little baggage with him. Physical baggage, that is — although that distinction was not made by any of the characters, and only in hindsight could it be correctly interpreted.

That assumes, of course, that the viewer would remember a snippet of dialogue in the first 15 minutes of a two–hour Hitchcock movie. Verbal clues were tossed into Hitchcock movies so casually that such details could be missed even after several viewings, and that was especially true of "Spellbound," which was not only psychological in its nature but was about the study of psychology and evaluation of mental disorders. Listening to psychoanalysts speak in such a movie can reach a point where it's all white noise for the ordinary viewer.

I don't remember how many times I saw "Spellbound" before I made that connection about the baggage. I had probably seen "Spellbound" at least three or four times by then, and I consider myself reasonably intelligent.

Speaking of connections, Bergman and Peck apparently made a connection of their own when the movie was being made. They were both married — to other people — when they made "Spellbound," yet they had a brief affair during that production. Their relationship may have been known to their relatives and/or friends, but the public had only its own suspicions, whatever they may have been, until 1987, five years after Bergman's death, when Peck confessed in an interview.

That answered some questions about the obvious chemistry between the two on screen.

There was obviously something strange about Peck's character — or at least it seemed strange to his colleagues, who embarked on waves of psychobabble about whether Peck's character was really who he claimed to be. In true Hitchcockian fashion, it was suggested that Peck had murdered the doctor he claimed to be and had assumed his identity. That turned out to be correct. Bergman's diagnosis, that Peck was an amnesiac, also turned out to be true.

And there was always the tiniest sliver of doubt that couldn't be easily explained, not matter how many psychoanalysts contributed ideas.

That is what made "Spellbound" such a good movie. It was what succeeded in all of Hitchcock's works — the element of what some would call plausible deniability.

Sure, Peck might well be guilty, but what about ...?

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The crowning touch may have been a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali that was just loaded with psychiatric symbols.

Too bad Hitchcock wasn't making color movies at the time. A Salvador Dali–inspired dream sequence was just meant to be done in color — kind of like the imagery from "Vertigo."

That alone would have been hypnotic, a unique experience for moviegoers in 1945. The mystery, on the other hand, wound up being rather routine, I thought. It wasn't one of Hitchcock's best — but the performances of the actors deserved more recognition.

Rod Taylor Didn't Ride a DeLorean Into the Future

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"When I speak of time, I'm speaking of the fourth dimension."

George (Rod Taylor)

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When Rod Taylor died back at the start of this year, there was a bit of a debate over which was his best movie — "The Birds" or "The Time Machine," which premiered on this day in 1960.

For me, there really isn't a debate. As I have written here many times, I admire the work of Alfred Hitchcock very much — and there are many of his movies that I would see and have seen over and over. "The Birds," though, is not one of them. A friend of mine and I were discussing it about a week after Taylor's death, and he described the plot of "The Birds" as a "one–trick pony." That is about as good a description as I have heard.

"The Birds" was good the first time — but "The Time Machine" is always good, no matter how many times you see it.

The cast was first rate, with faces that became more familiar to TV audiences within a few years. Alan Young had been in movies for more than a decade, but it was a year after he made "The Time Machine" that he became Wilbur Post on TV's Mister Ed, which is most likely his defining role.

Likewise, Sebastian Cabot had been in many movies by the time he appeared in "The Time Machine," but he is probably best remembered for his role as Mr. French in Family Affair.

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For that matter, Taylor is probably remembered more for "The Birds." That really is a pity.

He received no Oscar nominations for either movie, but I always felt that he was the star of "The Time Machine," whereas Tippi Hedren really was the focus of "The Birds." "The Time Machine" was the story of Taylor's character's travels through time — and the people he met along the way.

The time machine remained in the same physical location but could not be seen when it was traveling in a different time. From time to time, as Taylor traveled into the future, he would stop and explore, usually encountering Young as his own descendant. (Talk about a family resemblance.)

In a minor example of director George Pal's Oscar–winning use of time–lapse photographic effects, Taylor monitored developments in women's fashions by observing the mannequin in the window of the shop across the street from his home.

Now, I liked the idea, but I was disappointed that the director didn't take it to its logical conclusion and try to forecast women's fashions after Taylor's character developed his time machine. The story took place in early January 1900, and it is reasonable to assume that, since the movie supposedly projected Taylor into a future that was thousands of years from his own time, at some time part of it must have taken place in the 20th century.

The '60s, after all, brought us mini skirts, tie–dyed T–shirts and blue jeans as the drivers of women's apparel — quite a change from what people of Taylor's real time (as far as the movie was concerned) expected.

It was also quite a change for the theatrical audiences, who, in 1960, might have been shocked to see the fashions that were soon to come their way.

Yvette Mimieux played Taylor's love interest. She was a member of the Eloi, one of two post–apocalyptic species. The Eloi were benign people. At some point, being quite intelligent for a time, the Eloi resolved all the earth's problems, then were segregated into their own group by the other species, the aggressive Morlocks.

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Hitchcock Diplomacy

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"I came 4,000 miles to get a story. I get shot at like a duck in a shooting gallery, I get pushed off buildings, I get the story, and then I've got to shut up."

John (Joel McCrea)

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Contrary to what you may have always believed, Alfred Hitchcock didn't spend his whole career directing movies about psychotic slasher killers. True, there was usually a dead body involved — but not always.

In "Foreign Correspondent," the Hitchcock movie that premiered 75 years ago today, there was a dead body or two, but they were elements of the tale, not the tale itself. The story started with a New York editor's concern about the growing crisis in Europe — and his desire to prevent a war and the resultant loss of life — prior to the outbreak of World War II. He was frustrated with the foreign correspondents who contributed little to the public's understanding of what was happening across the Atlantic. He wanted a reporter, preferably one who had covered the crime beat and had no real opinion of what was happening in the world — and could therefore be counted on to provide reasonably balanced reports. (Having covered the police beat as a reporter for a time in my career, I kind of resent that stereotype.) Thus, he chose Joel McCrea, whose character's only initial concern was whether his new appointment would come with an expense account.

After arriving in Europe, McCrea's first assignment was a peace conference in Amsterdam, where he was looking for an elusive Dutch diplomat. The diplomat was assassinated as McCrea stepped out of the crowd to greet him.

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I guess that editor was right about McCrea and the need to have a reporter on the story. In his quest for the assassin, McCrea found himself in a windmill — where, it turned out, the real diplomat was being held. The man McCrea saw shot was a lookalike, a decoy.

That was followed by some spine–tingling Hitchcockesque suspense in which one couldn't help seeing glimpses of things to come. Still, it was a different kind of Hitchcock movie. If you've never seen it — and you think "Psycho" is all you need to know about Hitchcock — you're in for a real surprise — as well as a real treat — when you see it.

McCrea's character really gave his editor what he wanted — an open, inquisitive and creative mind who found all sorts of ways to get around obstacles. McCrea's love interest was 19–year–old Laraine Day, playing the daughter of a local politician. Don't let her age fool you. Her character was very articulate, as when she had to step in at the last minute as featured speaker when the diplomat failed to show up.

"I think the world has been run long enough by well–meaning professionals," she said. "We might give the amateurs a chance now."

And she could be tough, too, when the situation called for it.

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As a Hitchcock fan, I am always inclined to think that any year in which one of his movies was showing in theaters — and that was most of the years in roughly a four–decade span — was Hitchcock's year, but 1940 really was Hitch's year. At the Academy Awards, "Foreign Correspondent" was one of two Hitchcock movies nominated for Best Picture. The other was "Rebecca," which went on to win the award. It beat some pretty good competition, too — "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Philadelphia Story," "The Great Dictator."

I think the Academy made the right choice. "Rebecca" was a better movie, but "Foreign Correspondent" was deserving of recognition as well. Both were fiction, but "Foreign Correspondent" was a vision based on what was known at the time of what might happen in a not–so–distant future. Sometimes, I suppose, the vision was inadequate, but trying to tell the future based on a limited amount of information was what made the project so challenging.

Deservedly, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director, too — but for "Rebecca," not "Foreign Correspondent."

"Foreign Correspondent" received six Oscar nominations in all. In addition to Best Picture, it was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Black and White Art Direction, Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Special Effects (which isn't hard to understand, once you've seen McCrea crawling along the exteriors of windmills and hotels in scenes that must have served as preparation for the Mount Rushmore scene in "North by Northwest") — but lost all six.

To Catch the Style of a Thief

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Francie (Grace Kelly): I called the police from your room and told them who you are and everything you've been doing tonight.

Robie (Cary Grant): Everything? The boys must have really enjoyed that at headquarters.

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Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King had a lot in common — primarily the fact that each was/is misunderstood. People like to give labels to others, but King and Hitchcock really defied being pigeonholed. As a result, people who had little, if any, exposure to their work labeled them based on a vague comprehension of that work.

For example, while he is far more talented as a writer than labeling gives him credit for, Stephen King has been known as a master of the horror genre for decades. There is some truth to that, just as there is in most stereotypes, but King's skills really are more diverse. Dismissing him as only a horror writer does him a disservice.

Likewise, Hitchcock has been known for directing scary movies — probably the legacy of 1960's "Psycho," which may be his best known movie among non–devotees of Hitchcock's work. But even if the speaker has more familiarity with Hitchcock's movies than that, the speaker is still likely to think of Hitchcock as the director of scary movies.

I take issue with that. His movies weren't scary. They were electrifying. There is a difference.

Hitchcock himself regarded his movies as thrillers, suspense flicks even, not horror movies. It is true that most of his movies had a certain whodunnit quality to them because someone usually wound up dead at the hands of another; if that happened, the audience either saw it from a distance or after the fact. It wasn't explicit. But there were exceptions. Sometimes no one died at all, and such a movie, "To Catch a Thief," premiered on this day in 1955.

There were certain themes that Hitchcock explored frequently in his movies, one of which was mistaken identity. Those movies are among the most gripping that Hitchcock ever made — and "To Catch a Thief" was one of the best from that particular subset of Hitchcock movies.

It was also made smack dab in the middle of what could — arguably — be regarded as Hitchcock's peak period — the 1950s.

Of course, it starred Cary Grant, which had a lot to do with its success. I do think Grant did star in the best of Hitchcock's mistaken identity movies, but it wasn't "To Catch a Thief." It was "North by Northwest."

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But that doesn't take anything away from "To Catch a Thief." It was a stylish movie. With Grant as its star, though, could it possibly be anything other than stylish?

Grant's co–star was the incomparable Grace Kelly. She had a brief career (11 movies in six years), but she made three of those movies with Hitchcock in the director's chair. You could always tell Hitchcock's favorites among the actors with whom he worked, too. They were the ones who were in more than one movie that he directed.

Grant was a favorite of Hitchcock's, too, appearing in four of Hitch's movies. Reportedly, Hitchcock said Grant was "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life." Read into that what one will.

Grant played a retired jewel thief known as "The Cat," who was leading a quiet life tending his vineyards on the French Riviera — nice work if you can get it, right? Out of the blue, burglaries bearing The Cat's signature began happening, and the police naturally suspected Grant's character was involved. He sought a sanctuary of sorts with his old gang from his French Resistance days, but they all suspected him of pulling off the crimes while they were under suspicion.

Grant decided that the way to prove that he was innocent was to catch the actual burglar in the act — and enlisted several people to help him, including Kelly, who still harbored suspicions of her own.

Nevertheless, Kelly became something of a rival for Grant's attention with a young French girl (played by Brigitte Auber), the daughter of one of Grant's old buddies and something of a love interest at one time. Based on her apparent age, one suspected that she may have had a schoolgirl crush on Grant. Right now, I don't recall what, if anything, was said about that. My memory is that it was mostly implied. But there was something there between them — or there had been at one time.

One–sided it may have been, but there was something there.

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In a memorable scene in which the two women were introduced to each other while in the waters of the Riviera, Grant (Robie) said to Auber, "Say something nice to her, Danielle."

Auber replied in her distinctive French accent, "She looks a lot older up close."

Kelly remarked, "To a mere child, anything over 20 might seem old."

I've always thought Auber's response was one of the most classic of Hitchcock lines: "A child? Shall we stand in shallower water and discuss that?"

As beautiful as Kelly was, I have a hunch that, if she had accepted that challenge from the 27–year–old Auber (who was more than a year older than Kelly), it would have been a very close contest. Clearly, Auber did not have the figure of a child. Hers was a voluptuous figure compared to Kelly's. But Kelly was regal in her beauty — fitting, considering that she married the prince of Monaco less than a year later.

Many years after that, when Kelly suffered a stroke while driving her car in the hills of Monaco, it was said that her car went out of control along the same stretch of winding mountainside road where her character terrified Grant in "To Catch a Thief." I never found out if there was any truth to that.

Hitchcock, of course, liked having beautiful women in his movies, and he really hit the jackpot in "To Catch a Thief." Not only were the women beautiful, but one of them played a significant role in the story. Auber, it turned out, was the copycat Cat.

Oh, shoot, I've given away the ending, haven't I? Well, it's still an enjoyable movie, one that everyone should see once.

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"To Catch a Thief" received Oscar nominations for Best Color Art Direction and Best Color Costume Design — and won for Best Color Cinematography.

Making the Case for the Short Story

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"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

Stephen King

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I guess you could say I am a fan of Stephen King.

I haven't liked all of his books — full disclosure: I haven't read them all, not even close, but I've read enough to know that he's going to be good most of the time. As such, I figure he is worthy of my admiration.

I consider myself a writer, but I'm a slacker compared to King. Do you think he has written a lot of novels over the years? You're right. He has. Dozens of 'em. He's also written several collections of short stories, which is what "Skeleton Crew," which was published on this date in 1985, was — a collection of short stories. He has published about a dozen of those.

"Skeleton Crew" was his second collection of short stories. I prefer his early collections because they really are short stories. His later collections are more like a handful of novellas in a single volume. In that sense, I guess "Skeleton Crew" was a bit deceptive if you started reading without glancing at the Table of Contents. The first story truly was novella–like, but the rest really were short stories. There were roughly 20 stories in that book and a couple of poems; the poems were only a few pages long, and some of the stories weren't much longer than that.

Actually, that first story would have made the book worthwhile all by itself. I wasn't terribly impressed with the poems, but the legitimate short stories ranged from entertaining to astonishing.

I got interested in reading "Skeleton Crew" when I saw one of the short stories, "Gramma," dramatized on the second–generation Twilight Zone TV series in the '80s, but I suppose I was already predisposed to like the short story format. When I was in elementary school, I remember reading a series of short story collections that leaned heavily to the horror genre. Just the sort of thing a 9– or 10–year–old boy loves to read — you know, with plenty of zombies and such — and my buddies and I passed them around.

Those weren't single–author collections, though. In that respect, I guess they were more like anthologies, although not as voluminous as the ones I used to slog through in college.

As a writer, I found King's introduction to be the most satisfying I have read. It was a discussion of the art of writing, why writers write, that kind of thing. Near the end, he said he hoped the readers would enjoy the collection. "I suspect you won't like it as well as you would a novel," King wrote, "because most of you have forgotten the real pleasures of the short story.

"Reading a good long novel is, in many ways, like having a long and satisfying affair. ... A short story is a different thing altogether — a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction."

I hope "Skeleton Crew" reminded readers of "the real pleasures of the short story." It certainly reminded me, and it is a lesson that has stayed with me all these years.

In his introduction, King told readers that the collection spanned much of his life, from early in his writing career (the late '60s) to the time the collection was published. Trust me when I tell you there are treasures for every taste.

Each of the short stories is rewarding in its own way. People who avoid King because they aren't fans of the horror genre should read "The Reach," a charming tale about a great–grandmother who was born on an island off the coast of Maine and had been there her entire life. It's the kind of thing that King's fans share with non–King fans as evidence of his range as a storyteller.

Much of it, though, is the kind of King writing you've been conditioned to expect — although I would argue that he, like Alfred Hitchcock, is misunderstood. He doesn't write horror stories so much as he writes suspense stories, thrillers. That's a lot more difficult to achieve in the pages of a short story, and King did a great job of it in "Skeleton Crew."

If you read "Skeleton Crew," don't skip King's notes at the end. They're possibly the best observations on books and writing that I have read:

"Not everyone is interested in where short stories come from," King wrote, "and that is perfectly proper — you don't have to understand the internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't need to know the circumstances which surrounded the making of a story to get a bit of pleasure from it."

As I said earlier in this post, I am a writer. I like to think I'm a good writer — although I suppose that is a matter of opinion — but I don't think I am so good that I cannot learn from others, and King really is one of the best — if not the best — of his generation. So I enjoyed reading what he had to say about writing 30 years ago, realizing how successful he has been since he wrote those notes.

For King's part, he seemed almost apologetic — and appeared to encourage some readers to skip his notes altogether. "I've included a few notes here on a few of the stories — such things as I thought might interest the casual reader," he wrote. "But if you're even more casual than that, I assure you that you can close the book without a qualm — you won't be missing much."

With all due respect, yes, you will be missing much.

A Routine Courtroom Drama

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"The Wreck of the Mary Deare," which premiered 55 years ago today, might have been an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

MGM approached Hitchcock about directing it, and the idea was tempting. Hitch had wanted to work with Gary Cooper for quite awhile, but, after reviewing the script, he reached the conclusion that it could not be done without becoming a routine courtroom drama.

So Hitchcock opted out and began another project, this one with Cary Grant — "North by Northwest."

Michael Anderson ended up as the director, but, in spite of any efforts to the contrary, I don't think the finished product varied from what Hitchcock anticipated.

If you saw "The Perfect Storm," "Titanic" and "The Caine Mutiny," you probably have a pretty good grasp of the story. "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" combined elements of all three.

There were more than two people in the cast, but, ultimately, the story was about Cooper and Charlton Heston.

Heston's character was the captain of a salvage ship that was nearly struck by a freighter that seemed to be abandoned. Heston went aboard the ship looking for property to plunder and encountered its looney captain, played by Cooper.

Despite their efforts, the Mary Deare sank.

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Anderson deserved credit, too, for keeping the suspense level up through much of the movie — I'm sure his experience with special effects ("Around the World in 80 Days,") helped. But, ultimately, the story turned out the way Hitchcock expected it would.

Heston's character believed Cooper's character when he claimed that the ship had been sabotaged to collect insurance on the cargo — which had been unloaded earlier — but the court did not. That led Cooper and Heston to dive to the sunken ship in search of evidence to prove Cooper was telling the truth.

Cooper worked right up until his death from cancer in 1961. He made other movies after he made "The Wreck of the Mary Deare," but he isn't remembered for any of them. He is remembered for "Sergeant York," "Pride of the Yankees" and "High Noon," and those movies, as well as a handful of others, were his legacy. And that is as it should be.

He should not be remembered for a routine courtroom drama.

Killing Time

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"That's no ordinary look. That's the kind of a look a man gives when he's afraid somebody might be watching him."

L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart)

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I have written here before of my fondness for Alfred Hitchcock's movies.

I've seen most of them on TV, but "Rear Window" was an exception. In 1984, it was re–released to theaters to celebrate its 30th anniversary, and I took advantage of that opportunity. In fact, I remember going to the theater to see it. I couldn't tell you the exact date, but I remember the experience of seeing that movie in a theater — and not one of today's multi–cubicle screens but a single–screen theater like the kind that existed when "Rear Window" was first released.

It has always made me regret not having seen more of Hitchcock's movies on the big screen — because that really is where they should be seen. Well, most of them, anyway. Hitchcock's work predated the wide–screen format; because of that, I'm not sure if his early works are more impressive on a big screen than they are on a television screen. Some might be; others might not.

All of Hitchcock's wide–screen films probably should be seen on the big screen — at least once.

Anyway, that was the conclusion I reached after I saw "Rear Window" at the theater. It premiered 60 years ago today, but it was fresh and new to me when I saw it in 1984. I thought I was in love with Grace Kelly before I saw "Rear Window," but she was breathtaking when I saw her on the big screen.

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I felt there was an electric kind of attraction between Kelly and Jimmy Stewart. I really regret that their only movie together was "Rear Window." Don't get me wrong. It was a great movie, but it was a one–shot wonder. They could have been one of the great movie teams of all time.

The American Film Institute rated "Rear Window" 48th of all time. AFI also named it 14th among the thrillers. Besides, the movie matched the #3 actor and the #13 actress of all time, according to another AFI list.

Who could ask for anything more?

"Rear Window" had the benefit of Hitchcock (nominated for an Oscar for his direction) and screenwriter John Michael Hayes (also nominated for an Oscar). That combination produced possibly the best of Hitchcock's movies. Well, that is what I have heard some critics say; that isn't a conclusion I would reach because I tend to think that "North by Northwest" is Hitchcock's best. My second choice probably would be "Psycho" or "Vertigo" — and then "Rear Window."

They're all good, certainly worth seeing on a big screen. (If I have a cinematic bucket list, it would include seeing those other three Hitchcock movies on a big screen before I die. Actually, I'd like to see them all that way, but if I can only see three, those are the three I would choose.)

The movie dealt primarily with voyeurism. "It's wrong, we know, to spy on others," wrote critic Roger Ebert, "but after all, aren't we always voyeurs when we go to the movies?"

Stewart's character was stuck in his apartment while he recuperated from a broken leg. A successful photographer, he filled his days by spying on his neighbors through the lens of his camera. The audience saw everything he saw. When he dozed off and missed things, the audience did, too.

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His only regular visitors were his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend (Kelly). They were skeptical at first when he suggested that one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) had apparently killed his wife, but Stewart's character persuaded them.

It didn't require much persuasion. Kelly's character was already eager to get Stewart's character to commit to her. It seemed like she would do just about anything to score points with him. "How far does a girl have to go before you notice her?" she asked at one point.

"Well if she's pretty enough," Stewart replied, "she doesn't have to go anywhere. She just has to be."

He insisted that "I'm not exactly on the other side of the room." They were locked in a passionate embrace at the time, which made it difficult to dispute what he said, but, nevertheless, Kelly begged to differ.

"Your mind is," she said. "When I want a man, I want all of you."

And I had to give it to Stewart's character. He kept his mind on the mystery he was trying to solve. Most men probably wouldn't have that kind of will power. I wouldn't. Not with Grace Kelly in my arms.

A lot of things have changed since "Rear Window" was made, and, if someone found himself in Stewart's position in 2014, he might not be able to use the same camera tactics that Stewart did — like using the flash to blind Raymond Burr when he was lured from his apartment and confronted the wheelchair–bound Stewart.

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I had never seen Burr in a bad–guy role before. When I was a child, my father used to like to watch reruns of Perry Mason and Ironsides on weekend afternoons, and I watched them with him. As a result, I had an image in my head of Burr as the kind of guy who investigated and/or prosecuted crimes. He wasn't the kind of guy who committed crimes.

But, in "Rear Window," he was. At least, he was the kind of guy who could murder his wife and then try to dispose of her body. Stewart had reached that conclusion on his own; his problem was that he didn't have the kind of evidence that courts like to have.

"Rear Window" received four Oscar nominations, including (as I said earlier) one for Best Director (one of five for Hitchcock).

Mistaken Identity Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

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"In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only the expedient exaggeration."

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant)

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"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant," Cary Grant once told an interviewer. "Even I want to be Cary Grant."

It always seemed to me that that was especially true of Cary Grant in "North by Northwest." Oh, I know, he had some run–ins with some not–so–nice folks who tried to kill him, but no one was as suave as Cary Grant, even when someone was trying to kill him.

I guess his identity was quite a dilemma for him, on screen or off. Like most of the folks in Hollywood, his screen persona (and name) differed from real life. He was born Archie Leach in England and came to the United States in his teens. He legally changed his name to Cary Grant when he became a naturalized citizen.

(The Cary part came from a character he once portrayed in a play. He chose the surname Grant from a list of options the studio gave him — because the CG combination had already proven successful for stars like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper.)

I suppose he always felt torn between his roots and his professional persona.

Combine Grant with Alfred Hitchcock in a movie about mistaken identity.

Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors, and I have seen most, if not all, of his movies. He is remembered as a master of suspense, and that was certainly an element of his style — he said he preferred suspense to surprise — but there were certain themes he explored more often than others. I suppose one of the most prominent was the one of mistaken identity. Offhand, I can think of at least half a dozen movies Hitchcock made that dealt with mistaken identity.

I'm inclined to think that the one that premiered 55 years ago today, "North by Northwest," was his best.

A pretty good case could be made for "Vertigo," I suppose. The same could be said for "Shadow of a Doubt" and "The Wrong Man."

The case is weaker for some of Hitchcock's other mistaken identity motif efforts of which I am aware.

But stacked up against "North by Northwest," everything else comes up short — in my opinion, anyway.

I have mentioned Hitchcock's famous cameo appearances on this blog before. At first they came well into his movies, but, as audiences became increasingly aware of them, there was a tendency for viewers to focus too much on spotting Hitchcock before they gave their full attention to the plot.

Consequently, Hitchcock began having his cameo appearances earlier and earlier. Late in his career, it was a sign of just how much he wanted his audiences to follow the story; if he was eager for viewers to concentrate on the story — and he usually was — he got his cameo out of the way very early.

Only three of his movies had quicker cameos than "North by Northwest." In fact, the cameo came while the opening credits were still rolling. Hitch didn't want the viewers to miss a thing.

Come to think of it, rolling is probably a pretty good word for "North by Northwest" because it hit the ground running and kept charging along until the end.

I guess that is why Hitch was in a hurry to get down to business. He must have felt he had no time to waste.

As much as I like "North by Northwest," though, I will readily admit that it isn't perfect.

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Probably the most famous image from "North by Northwest" was of Grant running from the crop–dusting plane that was intent on killing him.

Frankly, I didn't think that was too sharp of ol' Cary. I mean, the plane was dusting crops where there were no crops. I never did find out exactly what his character was thinking.

After all, enough strange things had already happened. If I found myself standing out in the middle of freakin' nowhere and I saw a crop–dusting plane dusting crops where there were no crops — and I knew that some bad people had been trying to kill me — I do believe I wouldn't keep standing there.

But that's just me. Hitchcock's movies sometimes had a logic all their own.

And then, of course, there was that iconic chase across Mount Rushmore. It was great, nothing else like it on film, but I had to admit that the ending was rather ambiguous.

I mean, just how did Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint manage to get off whichever president's face that was?

I know that movies, both then and now, often require the audience to believe whatever it sees on the screen — but that really was asking a lot of the viewers. They really deserved to know more than Saint was in a perilous predicament and managed to get out of it — somehow.

Isn't that asking a bit much?

Well, I guess you can get away with it if you're Alfred Hitchcock.

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Oh, and Grant and Saint must have gotten married in the interim.

This was 1959, after all. Ike was still president. Married couples couldn't even be seen in the same bed together on TV for another decade or so, and here were Grant and Saint about to get it on just as their train went into a tunnel.

You didn't have to be Fellini to figure that one out.

But perhaps I am being too picky.

"North by Northwest" was only nominated for three Oscars in the year of "Ben–Hur" — and lost all three.

The Wrong Number?

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Tony (Ray Milland): How do you go about writing a detective story?

Mark (Robert Cummings): Well, you forget detection and concentrate on crime. Crime's the thing. And then you imagine you're going to steal something or murder somebody.

Tony: Oh, is that how you do it? It's interesting.

Mark: Yes, I usually put myself in the criminal's shoes and then I keep asking myself, what do I do next?

Margot (Grace Kelly): Do you really believe in the perfect murder?

Mark: Mmm, yes, absolutely. On paper, that is. And I think I could plan one better than most people; but I doubt if I could carry it out.

Tony: Oh? Why not?

Mark: Well, because in stories things usually turn out the way the author wants them to; and in real life they don't always. I'm afraid my murders would be something like my bridge. I'd make some stupid mistake and never realize it until I found everybody was looking at me.

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"Dial M for Murder" premiered 60 years ago today.

That was before my time — which is true of nearly every Hitchcock movie — but I still enjoy watching it whenever it's on.

It seems dated now, I admit, but I didn't mind that when I saw it the first time. Nor did I mind that nearly all the action takes place in a single location, which makes it seem more like a stage play than a movie. Actually, the movie was based on a very successful stage play.

The author of that play, Frederick Knott, did the screenplay as well, which may account for its virtually seamless presentation. In my opinion, movie adaptations of books or plays usually turn out better if the original author is involved. That isn't always possible, of course, but if the author is involved, it seems to improve the chances that his/her vision will be faithfully represented on the big screen.

Well, it helps to have a good cast, too — and the cast of "Dial M for Murder" was top notch. I have written before of my admiration for Grace Kelly, and she was excellent as Margot, Ray Milland's wealthy and (for the most part) faithful wife. Her character was also a bit naive, I thought. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

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At one point, Kelly was roused from her slumber by a ringing phone (which was intended to lure her into the living room, where her intended killer waited for her). It seemed to me, when I first saw "Dial M for Murder," that only a handful of humans have ever been able to roll out of bed and look like they were ready to go out on the town. Apparently, Grace Kelly was one of them.

Her character was also alert enough to fight back against her attacker and stab him with some scissors. She was convicted of murder (in one of the few segments in the movie that took place outside the cozy little flat that Kelly and Milland shared), but, apparently, she never figured out that Milland had planned the attack.

Well, not until the very end.

She had had an affair with an American writer (Robert Cummings) but then broke it off. He wrote several letters to her, all of which she destroyed except one, which disappeared. But she never put two and two together until it was spelled out for her at the end — the man she had killed had been sent to her apartment by her husband to kill her.

She had acted in self–defense.

I guess Margot was an exceptionally trusting sort. The first time I saw "Dial M for Murder," I thought Milland's complicity was obvious. Apparently, it never occurred to Kelly's character. Well, they say love is blind ...

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In his droll yet understated way, John Williams, as the chief inspector, helped persuade her that her husband was behind it all.

But, while I always enjoy watching Kelly in any of her movies (and she made three of them for Hitchcock), I have to say I don't think her British accent was very convincing. For me, that was and continues to be a distraction, mainly because "Dial M for Murder" is such a talkative movie.

There is more to it, I suppose. My parents spent a lot of time overseas in the first years of their marriage, and they met many people from other countries, some of whom came to visit us in the United States later. A few of those people were British so I had more exposure to that accent (and some of its variations) than most.

But perhaps I am nitpicking. Most people probably didn't notice.

"Dial M for Murder" may seem to have a transparent plot — but you have to remember that the plot hasn't been a secret for 60 years. It probably packed quite a punch when it was new. Personally, I have always thought the early scene in which Milland blackmailed his old friend into murdering his wife was impressive.

AllMovie.com's Michael Costello appeared to agree. "Kelly, and Robert Cummings as her lover, are forced to contend with underwritten stock characters," Costello wrote. "Neither comes off particularly well."

I'm not sure I would take it quite that far. I have already praised Knott's "seamless" story and the quality of the cast — and I stand by that. I still think "Dial M for Murder" was a good movie, but maybe Costello was on to something. Kelly and Cummings did not come off well even though their characters prospered. Maybe it was hard for some viewers to care what happened to them.

Sometimes, I suppose, all the elements in a movie are good — until they're mixed together.

Technically, "Dial M for Murder" was noteworthy for its early attempt at 3–D. If you look closely, you can see remnants of the rudimentary technology that Hitchcock used to create the 3–D effect.

Personally, I have never really cared for the 3–D effect, but I was never sure why until I read an online journal entry by Roger Ebert.

"There is a mistaken belief that 3–D is 'realistic.' Not at all," Ebert wrote. "In real life we perceive in three dimensions, yes, but we do not perceive parts of our vision dislodging themselves from the rest and leaping at us. Nor do such things, such as arrows, cannonballs or fists, move so slowly that we can perceive them actually in motion. If a cannonball approached that slowly, it would be rolling on the ground."

I guess that explains it.

Survival in the North Atlantic

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It would be quite a challenge for a modern movie director to make a film like "Lifeboat," the Alfred Hitchcock drama that made its debut 70 years ago today.

It isn't that disaster movies are so rare. They aren't. But disaster movies like "Lifeboat" — which require a good story and great acting in the absence of splashy special effects — are quite rare, if not nonexistent, today.

Hitchcock had been playing it safe, I suppose, in the years before "Lifeboat." He had made some of his best movies in the preceding years, but they were mostly melodramas, not quite as thrilling as the thrillers he produced later in his career. In fact, many of his projects could be described as routine.

Apparently, he decided to stretch his creative wings with "Lifeboat."

"Lifeboat" was a real challenge for Hitchcock. It was really his first movie to be set entirely in a confined space. He revisited that style in a couple of movies a decade later — "Rear Window" and "Dial M For Murder."

In "Lifeboat," a diverse group of people found themselves together in a lifeboat in the North Atlantic after their ship and a U–boat sank each other, and they were forced to work with each other to achieve a mutual objective — survival.

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The group included mostly British and Americans, but there was one German survivor who was pulled into the boat. That led to some remarkable discussions ...

For example, at one point, it was suggested that the German should be thrown overboard and allowed to die. But, after a spirited argument, the German (who was later revealed to have been the captain of the U–boat), was allowed to stay on the boat.

One could hardly imagine a more diverse cross–section of passengers in a cramped lifeboat — but Hitchcock's exploration of the characters made for a gripping story.

Hitchcock was known for his cameo appearances in his films. Usually he appeared briefly and casually as a very minor character, but a movie like "Lifeboat" presented him with some unusual problems.

Given the fact that "Lifeboat" was set at sea, Hitchcock couldn't exactly walk by as he did in other films. But he could be seen as the before and after photos in a newspaper ad for a weight–reduction project.

Hitchcock's greatest influence in the film could be seen in the performances he drew from his cast. Tallulah Bankhead gave what may have been her best performance as a cynical columnist, but she didn't outshine her co–stars, like William Bendix and Hume Cronyn.

If you've never seen "Lifeboat," you should — and you will have your opportunity a week from today. Turner Classic Movies will be showing it next Saturday at 7 p.m. (Central).

'Carlito's Way' Was Routine and Recycled

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After I saw "Carlito's Way" — the movie that was released 20 years ago today — I concluded that the movie's star, Al Pacino, simply added a Spanish accent to the same character he had played in the "Godfather" movies, especially "Godfather III."

Pacino's character, a Puerto Rican drug–dealing gangster, was doing time (decades of it) in prison but was freed after only a few years on a technicality, thanks to his unscrupulous attorney (Sean Penn, who, I thought, bore a striking resemblance to Art Garfunkel in "Carnal Knowledge"). Upon his release, he decided to get out of his line of work as soon as he had accumulated enough money as the manager of a club owned by his lawyer to retire to the Caribbean.

But, like Michael Corleone, he couldn't escape his past.

In the interim, he rekindled his relationship with Gail, a stripper played by Penelope Ann Miller, and agreed to help his attorney, who had been coerced into helping a convicted mob boss (from whom the lawyer had stolen $1 million) escape from prison. Cocaine seemed to course through every relationship and every act in the story, which was to be expected, I guess, especially in the environment of the '70s, but the intriguing part was that Carlito actually did manage to keep his nose clean — until his lawyer talked him into helping with the prison break (and the murder the lawyer planned to commit).

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After being brought in for interrogation, Carlito heard a tape of his lawyer agreeing to sell him out. From that point, it was a race to see if Carlito and Gail could escape.

I felt it was a B–level story, average if not mediocre, with a mostly A–level cast. The personnel was too good for the material but never quite rose above it. That wasn't for lack of trying, and I will concede that Brian de Palma's direction helped, but I had seen enough of his earlier movies to recognize some of his signature filmmaking tricks.

De Palma had been making movies for 25 years when he made "Carlito's Way," and he had grown comfortable with certain camera angles and other techniques he relied on to manipulate the emotions of the viewers.

It's never been a secret that, as a young director, de Palma was influenced by the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. In recent years, he has said he outgrew that as a director, but I'm not convinced. When he began saying that he was past his Hitchcock phase, it was after "Carlito's Way" was in the theaters, and I definitely saw some Hitchcock–inspired moments in that one. Someone who had seen several of his earlier movies could recognize his touch; those who had not seen many of his movies were probably impressed and apt to rate the movie highly.

Clearly, at least in "Carlito's Way," de Palma was also influenced by Bob Fosse — particularly Fosse's closing sequence in "All That Jazz" in which the lead character hallucinated as he died. Some folks probably thought it was a creative touch, not realizing it was recycled.

But I found it to be, in many ways, a routine re–telling of the gangster's tale — and of de Palma's movies in general.

Just Enough 'Rope' ...

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There is an art to fine film making. Sadly, it seems to me, it is a rapidly disappearing art.

I teach in the local community college system. I teach writing in general, journalism in particular, not film appreciation or anything like that. But I speak with my students about things — and I overhear more of their conversations with each other than they think I do — and I have seen more interest in flash than substance among young people.

That may well change as they grow older — and I'm certainly not speaking about all young people, only of a tendency I have seen in a majority of them.

Perhaps it is always this way, to whatever extent technology has advanced. But it seems to have gone to a new extreme of late. There has been much angst in recent months about what connection, if any, there may be between violent video games and violent acts committed in public places.

If there is such a link, it may have existed all along. The only difference would be that the catalyst was not as high tech as it is today.

I have often heard it asked: Doesn't modern technology make it easier to encourage violent acts — by dehumanizing victims and virtually eliminating individual responsibility? And doesn't technology raise the bar when it comes to impressing and motivating the young?

If all that is true, how can one explain the thrill killing of a teenager by college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb in the 1920s? Movies were decidedly less flashy then than they are today. In fact, movies at the time of the Leopold and Loeb murder case didn't even have sound, and they weren't in color. It's hard to imagine young people being inspired by that level of technology — and, in fact, I have seen no evidence that they were.

But, clearly, some young people were doing that sort of thing nearly a century ago, and I would argue that it has been going on longer than that. Indeed, if you speak to someone who believes in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that person will tell you that young people murdering others goes back to the dawn of recorded time.

I have mixed feelings about portions of the Bible, but I can't help but think such a trait has been with us all along. Until recently, though, it may have been harder to make a convincing case that technology was the prime culprit in violent crimes.

I'm sure it must have been even more difficult 65 years ago today, when Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" premiered. It was inspired by a play that had been inspired, in due course, by the Leopold and Loeb case, which was quite sensational in its day but was more than 20 years old when Hitchcock made his movie.

As a how–to for committing murder, "Rope" was practically worthless. The victim was seen for only a few seconds, and I do not recall hearing him speak any lines. In fact, I think the only time his voice was heard was in the trailer that you can see attached to this post.

The rest of "Rope" really was psychological. There was none of the blood and gore to which modern moviegoers are accustomed — although, to be honest, there rarely was anything of a graphic nature in Hitchcock's movies (not even in the infamous shower scene in "Psycho" — there were no lingering shots, and even if one freezes frames on a DVD, it still is not possible to see anything that is truly graphic).

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Audiences heard more — much more — about the murder than saw it.

"Rope," as I say, was psychological. I saw "Rope" for the first time when I was a teenager. Maybe I was a weird kid, but I always liked it because it was such a psychological exercise. The partners in the crime, played by John Dall and Farley Granger (who is probably better remembered for his role in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" a few years later), were inspired to commit the "perfect murder" by the words of a mentor (Jimmy Stewart, who was already familiar to film audiences, in the first of four movies he made with Hitchcock).

One of the two was decidedly more enthusiastic about the murder and went to great pains to make it a "masterpiece" by hosting a dinner party to which the mentor and the victim's father, aunt and fiancee had been invited. The party was held in the murderers' apartment, and the victim's body was hidden in the same room where the guests would be eating.

With the exception of some initial excitement and, perhaps, nervousness, Dall's character was sailing along at the party, but Granger's character made no real attempt to hide the fact that he was upset (only Dall's character knew why). He drank too much and appeared to be experiencing remorse, but the guests, having no knowledge of what had happened, could not figure out why.

Stewart's character did put two and two together, but the rest of the guests were increasingly alarmed by the fact that the victim had not arrived and had not called. If this movie were to be remade today, that is something that would have to be addressed. The guests in the 1948 movie fretted that they did not know where to reach the victim because he had not called. In the 21st century, they all would have cell phones, and each probably would have made at least one attempt to call and/or text him.

But time probably would not alter the greater theme — that young people are easily influenced by their elders. Role models do wield considerable clout.

And that is something else that, as an adjunct professor, I try to keep in mind. I try not to be careless with my word choices. I try to be aware that whether I think that something I say or do is of significance isn't nearly as important as whether my students think it is.

I don't want to say anything that could be misinterpreted — especially if it could lead to someone's death.

Jimmy Stewart's character in "Rope" probably felt the same way — if somewhat belatedly.

(By the way, you can see "Rope" on Turner Classic Movies this Sunday at 11 a.m. [Central]).

Hitchcock's Most Personal Work

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It's my understanding that Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was mostly dismissed by critics when it premiered 55 years ago today.

But over the years, it has evolved and been elevated in the eyes of those critics and their successors — to the point that it is often mentioned as at least one of Hitchcock's best, if not his absolute best.

I'm not sure I would go to that extreme. There are two or three of Hitchcock's movies that I would pick over that one — but I certainly would concede that it is perhaps Hitchcock's most complex movie. It is certainly one of his most psychological movies — and that's saying something when you consider Hitch's body of work.

And it is "Vertigo," more than almost any other Hitchcock movie, that is cited as an influence for Hitch's directorial descendants in the genre.

As I say, it must rank as Hitchcock's most complex movie. It's got to be one of his most experimental.

Other movies were at least as psychologically complex as "Vertigo," but it was visually complex, too. It was the first noteworthy use of the dolly zoom technique that created the sensation of the condition that gave the film its name.

Stewart was the main attraction for moviegoers in 1958. He'd been a familiar star for more than 20 years, almost as long as his co–star, Kim Novak, had been alive. Moviegoers knew what they were getting when Stewart was in a movie, much as they knew what they were getting when the star was Humphrey Bogart or Spencer Tracy or Henry Fonda.

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But Novak, who was 25 the day "Vertigo" premiered, was no newcomer. She had already been in 10 movies, including parts in "Picnic" and "The Man With the Golden Arm."

I get the feeling from having seen many of the movies Novak made before "Vertigo" that, rather than viewing her beauty as a blessing, she regarded it as a burden. That probably came in handy when she took on her role in "Vertigo." I've always felt that character was a bit shy, a little hesitant and, in some unexpected ways, vulnerable — and, yet, she was dangerous.

Novak was already conditioned to play a role that way. (Her simmering passion and cool intellectual quality served her well in "Bell, Book and Candle.")

Maybe Hitchcock knew that.

Funny thing, though. Novak wasn't Hitch's first choice; Vera Miles was. But a series of twists of fate allowed the role to practically fall into Novak's lap. First, Hitchcock had gall bladder problems, then Miles became pregnant. Hitchcock was not willing to postpone filming any further so he gave the role to Novak.

In hindsight, it's hard for me to imagine Miles in the role. Novak always seems ideal for it. Perhaps it is because I am conditioned to think of her as Judy — and my mind associates Miles with the roles she played in two other Hitchcock films, "The Wrong Man" and "Psycho."

Maybe Novak played the role so well I can't imagine anyone else playing it.

I know there was a great chemistry between Stewart and Novak, as there usually was between the male and female leads in a Hitchcock movie. Such chemistry was especially important in "Vertigo," which had a complex plot — even for a Hitchcock movie.

I guess the chemistry didn't help much when it was first released. I've been told "Vertigo" wasn't too successful at the box office.

But, as I say, in the years that have passed, "Vertigo" has come to be recognized as one of Hitchcock's best film achievements.

Hitchcock himself said it was his most personal film. I'm not sure what his reasoning was, but there is no questioning the quality of the movie.

The American Film Institute ranked it in the Top 10 of all time.

For The Birds

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As I have written here before, I am a great admirer of Alfred Hitchcock's work.

It's something I picked up from my parents. They were Hitchcock fans, too, and they introduced me to many of his best movies.

And a lifetime of watching Hitchcock movies has convinced me that you can learn a lot about a person based on which Hitchcock movie is his/her favorite.

But I'll be darned if I know what it is.

Personally, I'm torn. I really like 'em all, but my very favorites are "North By Northwest" and "Psycho." I can, however, make a case for "Vertigo" or "Rear Window" or "Strangers On A Train." Depending on my mood, I can even make a case for "To Catch A Thief."

Well, I told you I'm a Hitchcock fan!

I know several people who would tell you that the Hitchcock movie that premiered 50 years ago today — "The Birds" — is their favorite.

It's never been my personal favorite. I watched it for the first time when I was about 20, and I thought it was good, but, if anyone had asked me at the time, I would have said that I preferred maybe half a dozen Hitchcock films to that one.

My opinion hasn't really changed over the years, and I have often wondered about why that is so. Here is what I have concluded:

"The Birds" is the only Hitchcock movie I can think of in which the villain is not a human.

That's an important distinction for me. You see, however bizarre their behavior may have been, anything that birds do falls under the heading of natural phenomena in my book.

It is not a conscious choice. Blaming animals for behavior that leads to the loss of human life makes as much sense as blaming a tornado or an earthquake.

Human behavior, on the other hand, frequently is the result of a conscious choice — at some point and on some level.

Well, that's the distinction. And I think it does say something about those who pick "The Birds" as their favorite Hitchcock movie.

But, as I say, I'll be darned if I know what it is.

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I do know, however, that animals and suspense movies are an effective combination.

The shark in "Jaws," after all, was named to the list of the movies' greatest villains by the American Film Institute. "Snakes on a Plane" provided considerable chills for moviegoers as did the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park."

But those creatures were always menacing in those movies. The only time they were not threatening was when they appeared to be confined.

The birds in "The Birds," though, were docile at the beginning of the movie — and at the end, even when they seemed to have congregated in one spot.

The official story I heard was that "The Birds" was inspired by a novel, and I don't doubt that, but I am inclined to think the reason why Hitchcock was drawn to a story about birds gone wild is because, for the most part, birds are seen as nonthreatening creatures. The same cannot be said of sharks or snakes or even dinosaurs (although dinosaurs disappeared long before man came along).

Nonthreatening creatures that suddenly become threatening seem to be more frightening. Maybe that's because we are taught from an early age that dogs and cats — and birds — are friendly creatures whereas sharks and snakes and bears are hostile. We don't expect dogs or cats — or birds — to be hostile; when they are, we don't know how to react.

I suppose that is particularly true of birds.

As I was writing this, a flock of birds flew past my window. Under ordinary circumstances, I probably wouldn't think twice about that.

But I've been writing about Hitchcock's "The Birds."

Spooky.

'Wait Until Dark' Was Classic Suspense

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Few of their mid–20th century contemporaries could match the appeal of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly.

A large part of their appeal, I think, was the fact that they could be credible damsels in distress — but, when it became clear that no one was going to come to their rescue, they were able to rescue themselves ... plausibly.

There was steel beneath the facade.

Not an easy task, considering that both actresses, especially Hepburn, seemed rather frail. You wouldn't think from looking at them that either could stand up to a sudden gust of wind.

But, somehow, they did. It was largely because the characters they played were resourceful and independent — truly deserving of admiration.

My admiration for Kelly knows no bounds, but, frankly, Hepburn takes the prize for her performance in "Wait Until Dark," a movie that made its debut 45 years ago today.

Hepburn played a young blind woman who was believed to be in possession of a doll that had been used to smuggle heroin into the country.

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The doll had actually been given to Hepburn's husband by a woman he met on a flight. The doll's presence in the apartment was unknown to Hepburn.

But that was something that a trio of criminals — played by Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston — who wanted the doll (or, rather, what was inside it) did not know. They assumed she knew things she did not.

And they tried to take advantage of her blindness, playing the roles of police officers who were investigating a suspicious death in the neighborhood. Through this ploy, they won her confidence, gained access to the apartment and searched unsuccessfully (and right under Hepburn's nose) for the doll.

With the help of a young girl named Gloria, Hepburn's character discovered what was really going on around her and fought back.

Modern audiences might not appreciate the way most of the action in the film takes place in a small apartment. But "Wait Until Dark" was a psychological thriller, and there are few scenes in movie history that are as gripping as the climactic struggle between Hepburn and her ruthless nemesis, played by Arkin.

Each time I have watched "Wait Until Dark" — and I have watched it many times — I have been struck by how effortlessly the movie leads the viewer to empathize with Hepburn's predicament.

That, it seems to me, is the essence of a truly suspenseful movie. The viewer can see the threats to Hepburn, but she cannot. It reminds me of what the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, used to say.

Hitchcock rejected the idea that suspense could be achieved merely by watching an explosion. True suspense, he said, came from letting the audience in on the presence of a threat — a ticking bomb, perhaps — of which none of the affected characters in the scene was aware.

Hepburn proved that he was right.