Most disappointing movie

[epepke]

There was no way that the aesthetic that worked so well in with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief was going to fly with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in the 60's.

Good point, and yet I don't know--North by Northwest seems to me in some way I can't explain far less dated than Frenzy. I think that in the latter he may have been trying too hard to update himself.

Also good point on Torn Curtain. But, like Topaz, I think that a lot of the problems were with things that he often got right but just didn't. At his best, Hitchcock was almost laconic. Topaz relied far too heavily on a plethora of false-suspense subplots that seemed to get glossed over later with dialogue.

I think that Hitchcock at his best was so very good that people tend to gloss over the times when he, well, wasn't. Psycho, for example, has what is probably the worst ending in the history of film. It's so bad that people block it out and don't even remember it existed. I also think that, maybe, some wise televisors decided to cut it. For those who have so forgotten, after the insanely great "Mother" scene, there's a good two reels of some dipweed spouting pseudo-Freudian gibberish in court. What's that supposed to tell us? That Norman was nuts? Think we already figured that out?

 

[hgc]

I haven't seen Topaz but Torn Curtain is recognized as one HItchcocks more awkward pieces. He never liked using either Newman or Andrews. They were each pushed on him by the studio. Neither actor was particularly suited to the characters or to the style of the picture. They would have been much more at home in "The Trouble With Harry" though I quite like that one as it is. I really liked Shirley Mac Laine when she was young.

Glory

Agreed on "The Trouble with Harry." Great cast also includes John Forsythe, Edmund Gwen, Mildred Natwick and Jerry Mathers.

 

[hgc]

Good point, and yet I don't know--North by Northwest seems to me in some way I can't explain far less dated than Frenzy. I think that in the latter he may have been trying too hard to update himself.

...

Definitely. I think I didn't make myself clear. It's Hitch's later films that are dated, not his mid-career ones. The films of the 40's and 50's are almost all great to watch today. What happened in his later career is he didn't know how to make current movies. Hence they come off as stilted, stuffy, uncompelling, unentertaining, etc.

Now his films of the 30's -- there's a different problem. Many of them are just a little too shabby.

 

[boooeee]

Originally Posted By Rosencrantz
Hee hee. I love the commercials, too. Is it just me, or were commercials incredibly long back then?

Not nearly as long as the Holiday Special itself seemed to be. Watched the bootleg taped cop at a friend's house around the holidyas. I swear that thing clocked in just shy of six hours. Although there is something about unsubtitled Wookie-speak that makes time crawl.

If I ever have the chance to meet Harrison Ford, I know exactly what I'm going to say to him : "Happy Lifeday, pal".

The commercials were awesome, though. My favorite was some bizarre promo for the Garment Worker's Union. Apparently they had unionized for the right to make really ugly shades of plaid, and wear them on their commercials.

 

[kittynh]

"Tuck Everlasting" a favorite of the young crowd (4th-7th grade).

Disney totally screwed up that movie. The kids were so excited to see it. Come on disney, this was a lot of kids "Harry Potter"

 

[Marc]

"Tuck Everlasting" a favorite of the young crowd (4th-7th grade).

Disney totally screwed up that movie. The kids were so excited to see it. Come on disney, this was a lot of kids "Harry Potter"

When Disney got the rights to all of Miyazaki's works in the US it made a lot of anime fans nervouse. His stuff is excellent!! We were all scared they would be Disneyized, but they did a good job with what I saw. They just burried it all. Princess Mononoke, which outdid Titanic in Japan, was only released in 50 theaters in the US, none of them in New England. Then in an extended release it was finally available in a shoebox theater in this state. Not quite the respect this quality film deserves.