Happy Birthday, Alfred Hitchcock.

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE
(13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980)

Alfred Hitchcock was born 123 years ago today. Of course, he was one of the greatest filmmakers of them all. His films seem as fresh today as they were the day they came out. He was incredibly influential — you can see him reflected in some way in just about any movie you see (especially when it comes to suspense). And to our great delight, he never took himself too seriously.

Here he is blowing out the candle (there’s just one) during the shooting of To Catch A Thief (1955) as Cary Grant and Grace Kelly look on.

Hillary Brooke.

This week, I’ve been polishing up my commentary notes for “The Western Story,” an episode of The Abbott & Costello Show. It’s reminded me how much I love Hillary Brooke. She appeared in about half the show’s episodes.

From Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) to Fritz Lang’s Ministry Of Fear (1944, above) to Road To Utopia (1945) to Africa Screams (1949) to Invaders From Mars (1953) to The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), she’s one of my favorites.

From one role to the next, she could be funny or sinister or sympathetic — but always lovely and always worth watching.

Blake Lucas On Psycho (1960) For MUBI.

Blake Lucas recently completed a terrific piece on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that might make you look at the movie a little differently.

Click on Hitch and Anthony Perkins to read it.

Blu-Ray News #154: Two More Hammer Double Features From Mill Creek.

A couple years ago, Mill Creek Entertainment treated us all to a couple of twin-bill Blu-Rays of some Hammer horror pictures. While some folks had problems with the transfers — I thought they were terrific, you sure couldn’t complain about the price. My hope was that those titles would sell enough to warrant more, and it looks like they did. The next two double features pair up Scream Of Fear (1960) with Never Take Candy From A Stranger (1960) and The Maniac (1963) with Die! Die! My Darling! (1965). All four of these were originally released by Columbia in the States.

Scream Of Fear (1961; UK title: Taste Of Fear)
​Directed by Seth Holt
​Starring Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd, Christopher Lee

These four films come from Hammer’s string of often Psycho-inspired thrillers of the early 60s. One of the best of the bunch is Scream Of Fear, which borrows more from Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955) than it does from the Hitchcock picture. Susan Strasberg is terrific as the handicapped young woman who is being systematically scared to death by a conniving couple. Jimmy Sangster’s script, Seth Holt’s direction and Douglas Slocombe’s black and white photography are all top-notch. This is a good one.

Never Take Candy From A Stranger (1960)
Directed by Cyril Frankel
Starring Patrick Allen, Gwen Watford

In a way, it’s hard to believe this story of an old man praying on young children even exists. But it does, Hammer made it, and while it’s hard to take (especially is you have a teenage daughter), by implying what’s happening rather than showing it, it becomes all the more effective. That’s a lesson I wish all filmmakers would learn. Not for everyone, for sure, but it’s excellent.

Oh, it was called Never Take Candy From A Stranger in the UK.

(The) Maniac (1963)
Directed by Michael Carreras
Starring Kerwin Mathews, Nadia Gray, Donald Houston

Aside from the psycho freak (Donald Houston) wielding a blowtorch, what strikes me about Manic is what a slimeball Kerwin Mathews is in it. To see Sinbad himself hitting on both a teenager and her stepmother, as he pounds gallons of brandy, is a little jarring.

Michael Carreras’ direction is a bit flat, and the movie suffers for it. He was a much better producer or writer than a director — his dad ran Hammer. What the picture really has going for it is DP Wilkie Cooper’s black and white Megascope — love those B&W ‘Scope pictures!

For some reason, Columbia dropped the The from its title in the US.

Richard Burton (center) is about to kick Donald Houston’s teeth out in Where Eagles Dare (1969)

Donald Houston, the picture’s maniac, would go on to appear in my all-time favorite movie — he’s the Nazi agent Richard Burton kicks in the face during the cablecar fight in Where Eagles Dare (1969). In Maniac, he’s appropriately over the top, and stills of him with his torch and goggles fascinated me as a kid.

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965; UK title: Fanatic)
Directed by Silvio Narizzano
Starring Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Yootha Joyce, Donald Sutherland

This time, Hammer aimed for something more in the vein of Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). They wisely got the great Richard Matheson to write it and the incomparable Tallulah Bankhead to star. Good, creepy stuff. This would be Bankhead’s last role, aside from her turn as Black Widow on Batman.

Mill Creek has these scheduled for a March release. I’m eternally grateful for their ongoing efforts to bring movies like these to hi-def at such low cost.

RIP, Karin Dor.

Karin Dor
(February 22, 1938 – November 6, 2017)

I love You Only Live Twice (1967). And I hated to see that Karin Dor, seen above with Sean Connery, had passed away.

With Lex Barker in The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (1967).

Like so many of the Bond girls from the 60s, Ms. Dor appeared in a lot of other cool things. You’ll also find her in The Face Of Fu Manchu (1965) with Christopher Lee, Hitchcock’s Topaz (1969), and a number of German films co-starring Lex Barker — such as The Invisible Dr. Mabuse and The Treasure Of The Silver Lake (both 1962). From time to time, she even turns up in American TV shows like Ironside and The FBI.

Happy Birthday, Vera Miles.

Vera June Miles
(Born August 23, 1929)

Vera Miles was lucky enough to survive Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), but she had to be the one to discover Mrs. Bates.

Vera shot scenes as John Wayne’s wife in The Green Berets (1968), but they were cut by Warner Bros. I’ve never even seen a still from one of her scenes. Wayne made it up to her by casting her as his better half in The Hellfighters (1968).

Happy Thanksgiving.

Alfred Hitchcock certainly knew a thing or two about birds. Here’s hoping yours comes out as nice as Hitch’s did back in 1956.

This Thanksgiving, enjoy your meal, enjoy your family and friends, and enjoy a good movie (or a favorite bad one).

Blu-Ray News #84: Lifeboat (1944).

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Jo Swerling, from a story by John Steinbeck
Starring Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn, Canada Lee

They say constraints can greatly influence creativity. (Working advertising, I hear all it all time.) You can see evidence of this idea in movies that overcome obstacles ranging from limited budgets and schedules (the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher Westerns) to a mechanical shark that doesn’t work (Jaws).

No one understood this better than Alfred Hitchcock, who seemed to choose projects because of the challenges they’d toss at him. Lifeboat (1944) might be the ultimate example of this, an entire picture on a lifeboat.

Lifeboat puts a handful of people in a lifeboat after their ship’s torpedoed by a Nazi submarine. That’s it. The movie never leaves the boat. What’s more, once the titles are out of the way, there’s not even a score.

Of course, this being Hitchcock, it all comes together perfectly. It helps that his cast turns in one flawless performance after another. Tallulah Bankhead makes a huge impression here, but everybody else is just as good.

Kino Lorber has announced an upcoming Blu-Ray of Lifeboat to set sail sometime in 2017. I can’t wait.

RIP, Rod Taylor.

Rodney Sturt “Rod” Taylor
(11 January 1930 – 7 January 2015)

Hated to see that Rod Taylor passed away. It’s baffling to me that he never became a big-time movie star. It certainly wasn’t because of a lack of good movies: The Time Machine (1960), The Birds (1963, below), The Glass-Bottom Boat (1966) and on and on. There’s a bunch of ’em.

One that I only discovered last year, Dark Of The Sun (1968, above), is just astonishing. It’s available from Warner Archive, and I’d put it near the top of the list of 60s action films.