BEFORE: I'm going to relate what's been on my mind this week here, because I'm not quite sure where else to do it. I've been flooded with a wave of nostalgia after listening to a few albums on YouTube that I used to own on cassette - specifically Boston's "Third Stage", and two albums from Mike Oldfield, "Discovery" and "Islands". What they have in common is that when I was in film school, my mind had concocted very specific cinematic stories to go with them, and the thought that I might get to make them into movies someday was what spurred me on.
For "Third Stage", I suppose my idea was pretty pedantic - since the band Boston favored graphics of spaceships and flying saucers (which were really guitars viewed on end, though I didn't notice that) seen in orbit around strange planets, my idea naturally sprung from that suggestion. An astronaut would be seen saying goodbye to his wife ("Amanda"), then prepping for space travel ("We're Ready"), then there would be some sort of trouble during the journey ("Cool the Engines"), but they would eventually reach an alien world ("A New World"). By track 8 the ship would be travelling back to Earth ("I Think I Like It") and our hero would be looking forward to seeing his wife again ("Cantcha Say/Still in Love") only to find that due to his traveling for years at near light-speed, he would be only a few years older (due to the theory of relativity), and his wife would be much, much older since he had been away for decades. But he would then meet the daughter that he didn't even know he had ("Holly Ann"). (I've never seen time dilation used as a plot point, not in any film...)
I had something similar in mind for Oldfield's album "Discovery" - I happened to be listening to it while reading Carl Sagan's novel "Contact", and I found that the track listing synched up fairly well with the turns in that plot - "Poison Arrows" could be played when the spacecraft was being sabotaged, the title track symbolized the role of science in making discoveries, and "To France" could accompany the various scientific meetings that took place in, yep, Paris. Other songs on the album like "Tricks of the Light" and "Saved by a Bell" seemed to echo the book's debate between beliefs in religion and science. And the 12-minute New Age instrumental "The Lake" seemed like a natural for the scenes of space travel, using black holes to travel to another galaxy. I had the whole thing practically storyboarded out in my head, and would listen to the album frequently with headphones on just to keep it all fresh.
For Oldfield's "Islands" album, I found many tracks appropriate for a film I wanted to make, based on the novel "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah", by Richard Bach. Again, I felt there was enough religious iconography in those songs to perfectly accompany the ideas set forward in that book. So I had my end goal, I would become a famous Hollywood director, and then option the rights to one of these books or albums, and everyone would marvel at the way I told a story with the amazing confluence of film imagery and soundtrack.
The trouble was, I didn't know how to get from where I was, in film school, to where I wanted to be, as a famous director. The path between those two things was quite murky, to say the least. And then I got busy with school work, and then I got busy with real work, where people paid me money to work as a production assistant, then a production manager, then an office manager. Plus life happened, I got married, divorced and married again, and I got caught up in various hobbies like crossword puzzles and beer festivals, and before long twenty years have passed and I never found the time or money to option the rights to my favorite books and turn them into movies. Hollywood went ahead and made a film out of the book "Contact" anyway, and they did all right without my help.
I wish I could say that's the end of the story, but I'm left wondering if I never followed up on these ideas because I got so busy, or if I was just too afraid to stick my neck out and make my own films - in many ways it's been easier helping other people make their movies instead of spending my time and money on my own pet projects. Plus, I don't have to risk making a bad film this way - these days I get paid whether the films I work on are successful or not. But was I too afraid of failure, or have I been afraid of success? Those three films are still locked away in my brain, so I can't really claim I've had no ideas, I just haven't had the nerve to let them run free. Who knows, maybe my ideas all suck and they're better kept where they are.
Linking from "Under Capricorn", Michael Wilding carries over. Hitchcock also makes another cameo, as a man on the street who turns to look.
THE PLOT: A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high society entertainer.
AFTER: This is just another "man framed for murder" story - or is it? Another "wanted fugitive on the lam" story - or is it? Another film where every woman has at least two lovers - right? Well, things are a little different tonight because the focus shifts to the women trying to clear the man's name, and she goes undercover as a reporter to find out what the police know, and then as a servant to get close to the woman that may have framed him. In the meantime, she's getting courted by the detective who (wouldn't ya know) is in charge of finding the man she's trying to clear. What are the odds on that?
She pulls a Clark Kent (or is it a reverse "She's All That"?) by donning some thick glasses to play the maid. Good thing that putting on glasses makes a woman look completely different... But she also adopts an accent and a submissive demeanor, to get close to the ice queen. Then she's got to deftly dodge her detective boyfriend when he comes to the house to ask more questions. There are some nimble gymnastics performed in this plot to keep people from finding out about her deception, until it becomes important that they do.
Marlene Dietrich plays a stage performer here who sings a song called "The Lazyiest Girl in Town", and this simply MUST be what Mel Brooks was riffing on when he made "Blazing Saddles" and had Madeline Kahn's character on stage, seductively crooning a similar song titled "I'm Tired". Right?
I might have scored this one higher if Hitchcock hadn't pulled a fast one, plot-wise, in the last quarter of the film. Some might say he changed things up in order to justify a twist ending, but to me it seems more like he painted himself into a corner, and had no choice but to tunnel out through a wall.
NITPICK POINT: Hitchcock cut to Eve's mother, about to answer the phone, just a bit too soon. Plus we never hear the phone ring, she just picks it up. The implication here is that little old ladies have nothing to do all day except stand next to the phone, picking it up every few seconds just in case someone happens to be calling just then.
Also starring Jane Wyman (last seen in "The Lost Weekend"), Marlene Dietrich (last seen in "Witness for the Prosecution"), Richard Todd, Alistair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh.
RATING: 5 out of 10 programs
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