Screen Drafts is a podcast that helped me survive the pandemic and, along the way, captured my heart through the sense of camaraderie that permeated each conversation. Since I first wrote about it nearly seven months ago, I have caught up with all the publicly posted episodes, and I have joined the Patreon group and dabbled … Continue reading KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! The Mini-Mega Hitchcock Draft, Home Edition
Alfred Hitchcock
PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
“There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away . . . “ These words by Emily Dickenson were emblazoned on the bookplates my grandparents gave me when, at an early age, I declared my love for reading. I pasted them into every volume I owned and used up my stock long ago. … Continue reading PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
THE (OTHER) HITCHCOCK WOMAN
Saturday is my mom’s birthday. She always hated that her birthday was on Christmas Eve, and not because she’s a nice Jewish Bronx-born girl. She envied the idea of a person’s birthday being months away from Christmas or Hanukkah, of the celebration of your life – along with gifts - being upstaged by a major … Continue reading THE (OTHER) HITCHCOCK WOMAN
A FINE-FEATHERED FINALE: Hitchcock’s The Birds
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a – caw caw!” (T.S. Eliot, via Woody Woodpecker) All good things must come to an end, and the end of my ten-week course on the best of Alfred Hitchcock has been . . . apocalyptic. In our final class last night the … Continue reading A FINE-FEATHERED FINALE: Hitchcock’s The Birds
A CUT ABOVE: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
I can just imagine the Hollywood studios in 1959 watching North by Northwest and heaving a great big sigh of relief! At last - they thought – the Master of Suspense has finally gotten the message!! NO more art films, NO more experiments. Just good old fashioned exciting-but-wholesome entertainment. Certainly they had cause for hope: Alfred Hitchcock had come this close to … Continue reading A CUT ABOVE: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
HITCHCOCK TO THE NTH BY NTH DEGREE: North by Northwest
The many varied stories about the inception of North by Northwest are as entertaining as the film itself. Here are the bare facts: Alfred Hitchcock agreed to a first-time two-picture deal with MGM, and for the first film he wanted to adapt Hammond Innes’ best-seller, The Wreck of the Mary Deare. This would give Hitchcock the chance to … Continue reading HITCHCOCK TO THE NTH BY NTH DEGREE: North by Northwest
A KISS BEFORE DYING: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Throughout most of his life, Alfred Hitchcock was both appreciated and dismissed as a maker of entertaining mystery thrillers. After his first American film Rebecca won the Academy Award, Hitchcock’s critics got wise and considered him first and foremost a genre filmmaker; the best of his movies might get nominated for Sound Design or Art Direction and … Continue reading A KISS BEFORE DYING: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
NUCLEAR REACTOR: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
You know you’re in “favorite film” territory when you try and write a blog post, arrive at the million-word point, and realize you’ve only scratched the surface of what you want to say. You start over, go in completely different directions . . . and the same thing happens. This is the challenge for me … Continue reading NUCLEAR REACTOR: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
“SLAUGHTER AND BE GAY”: Hitchcock and Farley Granger
My opinion of actor Farley Granger changed forever last year when our film noir class watched 1948’s They Live by Night(aka Thieves Like Us). It was only Granger’s third film, his first with top billing, and he is revelatory here. I wrote previously about that film, about his heartbreaking performance and the disappointing trajectory his career would take … Continue reading “SLAUGHTER AND BE GAY”: Hitchcock and Farley Granger
A DIVINE SYNERGY: Hitchcock’s Notorious
“Of all your pictures, this is the one in which one feels the most perfect correlation between what you are aiming at and what appears on the screen . . . “(Francois Truffaut to Alfred Hitchcock) Notorious is the shining light of Alfred Hitchcock’s output in the 1940’s and his first true masterpiece. Oh, Rebecca won the Oscar, Foreign Correspondent is … Continue reading A DIVINE SYNERGY: Hitchcock’s Notorious
Ah Sweet Mystery! 