So then.
I left Tuesday night's decision to T., since she was the one with vomit on her shirt. Would she rather sit and cradle a sick toddler through a Hitchcock movie or an artsy French movie? It seems that Hitch won.
Truth is, for a movie reputed to be Hitchcock's favourite, Shadow of a Doubt sort of washed over me. Make no mistake that I liked it, but I'm not certain that I could see a lot of extra bits trembling below the surface. And I'm talking about those extra bits that would make this a movie to see again and again.
It was a very solid, solid thriller. A model for how to efficiently build a story and keep the narrative air-tight. Definitely. [Is it too easy, writing about Hitchcock, to throw out the word taut?] It did occur to me at a few points in the first hour that a modern mainstream thriller would have tipped its hand much sooner, and it would have been the poorer for it. Rather, Shadow of a Doubt really piles question on top of question for that first 60-minutes and that hour is wonderful. Absolutely nothing is given away for free. [The opening sequence, which leaves viewers disoriented and confused about what is happening on-screen, is particularly exciting and effective.]
But at the 60-minute mark, we begin to get the answers. And with every new piece of the puzzle on the table, my excitement began to settle. The movie just didn't go anywhere that I wasn't expecting. And the mystery didn't pay off with the sort of surprise that I hoped it would.
[On re-reading the synopsis at www.allmovie.com, I realize that most of the twists in the film are given away on-line. I used this site to build my Monday list and I remember reading this blurp recently - it's entirely possible that this outline spoiled the movie for me. And now I've directed you there also. Spoil away.]
Joseph Cotten is a funny sort of actor and I wish more than anything that I could nail down the person he reminds me of. But I think it was someone I went to high school with, so that's neither here nor there. He does a great job of giving away very little (and in most cases nothing) and playing a really impenetrable mystery of a character. Even when the evidence of what is happening is plain, Cotten's stiff mannerisms and inconsistent behaviour (these are good things for the character, I swear) cast doubt on whether we are misreading the clues. And just this instant, I realized this must be the root of the title. (I hadn't given it much thought before now.)
Perhaps the most entertaining character in the film is that of Hume Cronyn (the second Cocoon-alumni to show up in my line-up) who plays a co-worker and friend to the father figure. Cronyn's character (and the father, played by Henry Travers) are obsessed with murder and particularing murderering each other (in theory). There are a few great sequences in the film where the plot stops cold to give the pair some time to debate their murder theories and squabble over details and oversights. Death by bathtub. Death by poison. Death by blunt instrument. The dialogue is remarkable in part because of how much life Cronyn and Travers brings to it. And seeing a young Hume Cronyn is simply fantastic!
I realize these impressions are pretty thin, but perhaps the movie will grow on me in the days to come. In the meantime, this is the first of more than a dozen Hitchcock movies to show up in the Monday list. I'm eager to see more.
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Yep, it's candy, but it's candy of an era past -- which either makes it sweeter, or makes all the sugar crystalize...
Back in ought-one, I had the luxury of seeing Raiders play here at the Uptown Theatre. It was a 20 year-old print. The colour had faded. About a minute or so of the film was missing due to splices and breaks. The image was a bit scratchy, as was the sound. No Dolby 5.1 or THX here -- just pure stereo.
It was glorious. I sat in a row all to myself, about 10 rows back from the front (had to -- the screen's hard to see any closer), a bag of popcorn in one hand, large cola product in the other, and a shit-eating grin all over my face for the about 110 minutes that I watched the movie.
Prior to that point in my life, I did not believe that a true classic movie would be made in my lifetime. The true classics, in my opinion (at the time), were made long before I was born, and most in black and white. Coming out of that theatre, I had the revelation that classics will be made in our time. Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Kubrick, among many others are the defining artists of our time. They do have the visions that create the classical nature of cinema, who hold themselves to something different, and not the generic cookie cutters we are oft exposed to.
It's safe to say that we will probably latch onto the Indiana Jones trilogy, the original Star Wars movies, heck, even The Goonies (to some extent) as the classics of our generation. When we're old and grey, telling grandkids of these things called "movie theatres", we will think back wistfully, wishing the days of yore were alive and well.
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