BEFORE: We didn't do much on Memorial Day itself - I just tried to get both of my DVRs cleared, as much as possible anyway, and I came 10% closer to finishing the Lego-based "Pirates of the Caribbean" video-game. That's respectful, right?
Linking from "Notorious", Alfred Hitchcock carries over in another cameo (tonight he's carrying a cello case across the screen), but also Ingrid Bergman was in "Spellbound" with Gregory Peck, just the other night.
THE PLOT: A happily married London barrister falls in love with the accused poisoner he is defending.
AFTER: Viewing a director's entire filmography from start to finish is akin to listening to all of a band's albums, earliest to latest. I've been doing a lot of that too, recently, thanks to YouTube - I'll pick a band from the 80's that I liked back in the day, whose albums I never got around to buying on CD because I owned them on cassette, and I'll just have a band's whole career playing in audio form while I work.
But what makes one album "better" than another? Some were more popular than others, for sure, and some had more #1 hits, which tend to make us think they're better, but at heart some songs are just catchier than others. Of course, I may like an obscure album from a band once in a while, but generally speaking, their most popular album tends to also be my favorite. Some examples: ZZTop's "Eliminator", Huey Lewis & The News' "Sports", and The Outfield's "Play Deep". Solid albums all, and they also have the added effect of making it hard for later albums from the same acts to measure up. (See for yourself - listen to any ZZ Top album after 1989, I guarantee it's shitty).
How does this relate to Hitchcock? I think those first 15 films were like a band's first albums, made on tiny labels and heard by only a few people. "Rebecca" was his first Hollywood film and won Best Picture, so that's like a band's first release on a major label, and a huge hit. It's Hitchcock's "Meet the Beatles". Maybe you've heard of the "second album" trap that some bands fall into, releasing a follow-up album too soon that isn't ready, or was made without the same care, and that about sums up films like "Foreign Correspondent" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith".
Continuing the analogy, Hitch started to hit his stride with "Suspicion" and "Lifeboat", sort of the "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" period, and then "Spellbound" and "Notorious" had some bold, wild creative choices, like the "White Album". So, tonight's film is sort of like the "Magical Mystery Tour" of Hitchcock films - a weird creative left-turn that doesn't seem to fit at first into his oeuvre at all.
Seriously, there's not much here that you can't see in your average episode of "Law & Order" - OK, maybe the attraction between the barrister and his client, but honestly I think that felt a little tacked-on just to give the wife something to worry about. Hitch forgot the rule about "Show, don't tell" and when the majority of the action is happening inside a courtroom, you're telling and not showing.
Also starring Alida Valli, Louis Jourdan (last seen in "Octopussy"), Charles Laughton (last seen in "Jamaica Inn"), Charles Coburn, Ann Todd, Leo G. Carroll (last seen in "Spellbound"), Ethel Barrymore.
RATING: 4 out of 10 objections
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