Sunday Afternoon with Criterion: The 39 Steps Edition
I: Intro II: My Hitch Criterion Wish List III: The 39 Steps IV: What’s New? V: Links Intro Welcome to Sunday Afternoon with Criterion, a series of fortnightly posts on JohnLikesMovies.com covering everything Criterion—the company’s newest releases, just-announced projects, reviews, lists, links, and more. This past week, we celebrated what would have been Alfred Hitchcock’s […]
Side Effects Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) The auteur theory is a frequently debated and discussed topic within the film world. Behind the theory is the idea that an “auteur” is a prolific director whose work is easily identifiable based on just a few characteristics—themes, camerawork, music, regular collaborations with specific actors, and other things of this nature. Opponents […]
Dial M for Murder Review
RATING: (4 STARS) One of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest strengths was his ability to manage enormous set pieces and make them extremely memorable. Take the plane crash scene in Foreign Correspondent, the Royal Albert Hall scene in The Man Who Knew Too Much, or the crop duster chase in North by Northwest. Ironically, one of the […]
WHICH IS BETTER: The Man Who Knew Too Much
Very generally, The Man Who Knew Too Much is about an assassination, a kidnapping, and an ordinary man who is forced to do extraordinary things to save someone he loves, yet the two versions have a number of quite obvious differences. The original begins in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks) and his wife, […]
Foreign Correspondent Review
RATING: (4 STARS) For a film that frequently goes way over the top, Foreign Correspondent is still an exceptional piece of work. It’s very much what you’d expect from a Hitchcock film (international intrigue, questions of identity, and an ordinary man getting caught up in something much bigger than himself), but it contains some amazing […]
North by Northwest Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) In the realm of Hitchcock, few titles are as universally revered as “North by Northwest.†My preference is Psycho, but I’m sure there are plenty of cinephiles out there who would label this film as the Master of Suspense’s greatest. But I’m not really sure why. It’s a serviceable mystery that plays […]
Psycho Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Alfred Hitchcock is usually regarded as one of film’s most talented directors. With a resume as strong as his, it’s hard to argue. “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “North by Northwest,” “Rebecca,” “Strangers on a Train,” “The Birds.” The list goes on and on. I haven’t seen all of Sir Alfred’s films (I haven’t […]
Marnie Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) I’m not familiar enough with Hitchcock’s entire body of work to say where “Marnie†would rank, but I have to imagine it would be near the bottom. This is half a good movie, but the deeper we get into the past of the title character, the less successful it is. Of course, […]
