Top 10 Best Alfred Hitchock
Movies.
Alfred Hitchcock's (1899-1980) own perception was that his best movies were
the ones that have been embraced by the audience. Although in the Top 10 list
below you can find some of his greatest box-office successes, more criteria
have been included such as the acting, script, influence and innovation. Well,
here we go:
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10) The 39 Steps (1935)
One of Hitchcock finest movies he directed in the U.K. before he left for
the U.S. In the very tightly plotted "innocent man on the run" -tale
(Hitchcock used this format also in Young and Innocent, Sabotage
and North by Northwest), the protagonist Richard Hannay (Robert
Donat) gets involved in a murder
mystery in which he's unjustly the prime suspect. From that moment he's
haunted by the police and the real culprits and therefore is subjected to some
suspenseful and hilarious events. Besides the nicely timed plot twists, the
performances from Donat and Madeleine Carroll (the resentful heroine) really
standout.
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Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat in The 39 Steps
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9) The Wrong Man (1956)
The Wrong Man probably
Hitchcock's least characteristic movie.
Not a playful and suspenseful thriller
but a grim urban tale, presented in grainy B & W camerawork, about the
wrongfully accused (robbery) jazz musician Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda). The
movie is a rarity in Hitchcock's oeuvre with its customary sense of mischief
entirely absent. Hitchcock and his film crew went to extraordinary lengths to
tell Balestrero's story accurately. Although Hitch didn't feel that strong
about it, the result is a stark and chilling film with impressive performances
by Fonda and Vera Miles, as his feverish and anguishing looking wife.
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Henry Fonda (l.) in a line-up
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8) Shadow of a Doubt (1942)
Without a doubt Hitchcock's most personal film (and one of his favorites). Joseph
Cotten plays the beloved uncle Charlie, who's
adored by his niece (Teresa Wright) but turns out to be a murderer. He's
trailed by the police and seeks refuge with the small-town family of his
sister. The focus is on the gradual realisation of the niece that her uncle
has "two faces" but on a subliminal level it also is a satyrical
analysis of middle-American life. Together with Psycho, this is the only
Hitchcock picture in which the central figure is a villain.
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| Affiche for Shadow of a Doubt
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7) Notorious (1946)
The espionage plot in Notorious, of Nazis seeking refuge in
South-America is merely a MacGuffin*. The real focus is on the sadistic
relationship between a US agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant), the alcoholic Alicia
Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) and the Nazi with a mother complex Alexander
Sebastian (Claude Rains) who's
trying to poison her. In his famous interview with Hitchcock Francois Truffaut
remarked: "...in Notorious you have at once a maximum of stylization
and a maximum of simplicity". It remains one of his finest movies of
the Forties with top-notch performances.
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Ingrid Bergman (l.), Cary Grant (m.) and Claude Rains (r.)
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6) North by Northwest (1959)
North by Northwest
has a
masterful blend of nightmarish suspense and refined comedy. Cary Grant is
Roger Thornhill, a nonchalant advertising executive who gets submerged in a
web of intrigue. The rapid pace in which the events take place (especially in
the first third of the picture) was unprecedented at that time. The movie is
filled with memorable scenes, like the thrilling airplane sequence in the
cornfield or the iconic climax on Mount Rushmore, and magnificent supporting
acts from Leo G. Caroll, Martin Landau and James Mason as the charming
villain.
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Cary Grant in North by Northwest
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5) Frenzy (1972)
Hitchcock's return to the UK (London, Convent Garden) and the epitomization
of his "wrong man" plotting. In one of the interviews concerning Frenzy
he said: "If you choose Cary Grant in the leading part everyone knows
he's not the villain". That's why he chose the unfamiliar theatre
actors Jon Finch
and Barry
Foster in the leading parts. Frenzy is full of wonderful set pieces
like the grisly corpse wrestling match on a truck loaded with potatoes,
masterfully edited murder scenes and great acting with a very amusing role of
Alec Mc Gowen as the inspector who's not only investigating the "Necktie
Murders" but also his wive's "cooking". With this movie
Hitchcock proofed, after a rather dull and failed series of pictures he made
in the Sixties, that he was still able to appeal to a modern audience. It's
nasty, humorous, manipulative and it's the last great work of the Master of
Suspense.
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Affiche for Frenzy
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4) Strangers on a Train (1951)
Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith about two complete strangers who
have a unilateral exchange of murders. Robert Walker
(excellent) is the dandy-esque psychopath Bruno Antony who tries to entice the
star tennis-player Guy Haines (Farley Granger, Hitchcock initially wanted
William Holden) into a murder swap. Strangers on a Train is as tightly
plotted as one possibly could get and is rightfully called a Hitchcock classic
despite some minor flaws (Dull performances by Granger and Ruth Roman and some
illogical plot twists.) it's a very clever, funny and atmospheric movie.
Besides the dominating perfromance of Walker as the suave and charismatic
villain there is a very amusing supporting role by Patricia Hitchcock
(Hitchcock's daughter) as the indiscreet but alluring Barbara and by Marion
Lorne who plays the delirious mother of Bruno.
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Farley Granger (l.) and Robert Walker
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3) Rear Window (1954)
Hitchcock was mainly interested in doing this movie because of the
technical challenge in doing a purely cinematic picture but along the way
while working on the script more importance was attached to the story itself.
The idea of an immobilized man Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart) looking out of
his window showing what he sees and then how he reacts. He called it the
purest expression of a cinematic idea. The movie reveals every kind of human
behavior in a small universe portrayed in a group of little stories.
Hitchcock's movie Rear Window
has a wonderfully created (studio)
set, a script that is larded with countless memorable lines and a magnificent
ensemble cast with Grace Kelly as Jeffries' girl-friend, who's more beautiful
than ever, Thelma Ritter as the sarcastic nurse and Raymond Burr as the
malevolent salesman.
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Grace Kelly and James Stewart in Rear Window
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James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo
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2) Vertigo (1958)
When police detective Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) resigns after having
a traumatic experience (due to his vertigo - fear of hights) in which he lost
a colleague after chasing a suspect on a rooftop, an old friend hires him as a
private detective to trail his beautiful but suicidal wife Madeleine (Kim
Novak).
During this followings he slowly falls in love with her and after she dies he
becomes obsessed, seeing her everywhere. In the interview with Truffaut
Hitchcock explained: "I was intrigued by the hero's attempts to
re-create the image of a dead woman through another one who's alive".
Vertigo is Hithcock's bleakest and most enigmatic picture (numerous
books have been published concerning the various contexts, themes and subjects
treated in the movie) with an excellent cast (Novak is sublime in a double
role). It is also famous for Hitchcock's 'Dolly out/Zoom in' technique which
is used in countless movies afterwards like Spielberg's Jaws (1975)
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Anthony Perkins in Psycho
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1)
Psycho (1960)
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its minor flaws (the supporting role of Simon Oakland as Dr.
Fred Richmond who gives a nonsensical explanation at the end) Psycho
is Hitchcock's best and without a doubt his most influential
picture. Famous (or infamous) for eliminating its heroine (Janet
Leigh) after two reels in the perfectly edited shower sequence
and groundbreaking in constantly shifting the audience's
expectations and switching their loyalties. The movie was
adapted from Robert Bloch's novel Psycho which was inspired by
the serial killer Ed Gein who had a mother complex. Hitchcock
was especially attracted to the book because he liked to idea of
the "out of the blue" murder in the shower. For
Anthony Perkins the movie was his breakthrough but unfortunately
he was so convincing in his role of the estranged psychopath
Norman Bates that it ruined his career. The movie was Hithcock's
biggest success and was made on a modest budget of only
$800.000,- and spawned four sequels (Psycho III directed by
Anthony Perkins). To name all the movies and books that are
tributary to Psycho
is a hopeless mission but some of the more important are Repulsion (Roman
Polanski, 1965), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe
hooper, 1974), Halloween
(John Carpenter, 1978), the novels Red Dragon and Silence of the
Lambs by Thomas Harris and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis.
In 1998 Gus van Sant made a faithful shot-for-shot remake of
Hitchock's masterpiece with Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates and
Anne Heche as Marion Crane.
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*MacGuffin: Hitchcock used this word to describe an item or
objective upon which the plot hangs that is immaterial to the actual story.
What it actually is is
unimportant, because it's merely the catalyst that sets the drama in
motion.
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