Film Reviews by Steve

 For his penultimate film Alfred Hitchcock returned to London and the east end where he was born. And he was rejuvenated. This is a superb exhibition of Hitchcockian suspense with one of the tightest sewn up of all his wrong men. Jon Finch looks set to pay the price for Barry Foster's necktie murders.

There is one of his least glamorous environments; shot around Covent Garden when it was a busy, shabby vegetable market. This is far from Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on the Côte d'Azur. There's a grimy location for a disturbing story. The sexual assault is hard to watch, and arguably lacking in taste. Though scarcely by the standards of the present day.

There is bravura camerawork, with many fascinating tracking shots and startling close ups. And there's a classic example of the Hitchcock gallows humour in the tussle between Barry Foster and a corpse in the back of a potato truck culminating in the serial killer breaking its fingers to get back some incriminating evidence.

Credit to Anthony Shaffer for the downbeat humour of his screenplay- adapted from a novel by Arthur La Bern. There are superb comic performances from Alec McCowen and Vivian Merchant as the investigating police inspector and his gourmet wife. I wanted to see a lot more of them. This is a late return to form by the great director.

Alfred Hitchcock's longest film is another cold war thriller. He was inspired to make his previous film, Torn Curtain, by news stories about the Cambridge spy ring, but really this is more similar, though with French government officials handing over secrets to the Soviets in Cuba.

It's tempting to compare Hitch's two cold war thrillers, which oddly get criticised for not being what the other one is. Torn Curtain is typical Hitchcock and got negative reviews because he was repeating himself. But Topaz gets overlooked because it's an outlier. There are no stars, no romantic subplot and no bravura set pieces.

 The most memorable image is a view from above of a gunned down Cuban counter-revolutionary, her dress pooling beneath her like spreading blood. The ensemble cast is mostly made up of French actors. There's a a nice atmosphere and it looks appealingly unglamorous.

Hitch tells the convoluted story- from a novel by Leon Uris- reasonably well. But this is the forgotten Hitchcock. While it doesn't add anything to the director's considerable reputation, it is still an interesting period piece which leads up to a satisfyingly cynical and understated twist. But it's a bit long and slow in getting there.

This unofficial remake of The 39 Steps was made shortly after an update of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which maybe gives an impression that Alfred Hitchcock was running short on inspiration. Though that proved illusory  a year later when he changed everything with Psycho.

The feeling of repetition is amplified by Ernest Lehman's threadbare dialogue. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll (in the 39 Steps) traded infinitely more sophisticated sexual innuendo than Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, who share zero chemistry. The two stars don't even share neighbouring generations.

I love Cary Grant but he could have performed this in his sleep and at times appears to be doing so. The best performances are by James Mason and Martin Landau as an all time great double act of villains. And yet. This is still an exciting, chic thriller with some of the Master's most brilliantly constructed set pieces,

Of course there's the crop dusting scene which grows out of nothing in a rural wilderness to a stunning crescendo of action. The denouement on Mount Rushmore is cinema legend. There are weaknesses and the MacGuffin of the trafficking state secrets is horribly perfunctory. But as a summation of Hitchcock's cinematic art, it is a triumph.

Alfred Hitchcock said farewell to Hollywood aged 77 with this rapid paced and suspenseful comedy thriller, which leaves an evocative flavour of '70s west coast America.

The labyrinthine plot- from a novel by Victor Canning- originates in the deep history of Californian aristocracy and then resurfaces in a present day crime located in a Los Angeles of charlatans, unreliable chauffeurs and dangerous heavies; it's pure Raymond Chandler.

And the Master tells the story with a typical lightness of comedic touch. Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris make for a wonderful pair of screwball leads. Her funny, adorable performance steals the film. It's a big shame that she didn't work with the Master again.

Karen Black is top billed and gets a nice in joke. She's a brunette but wears a blonde wig... So the last Hitchcock blonde is a fake! His departing shot in pictures is of Harris looking into the camera and winking. This wasn't intended to be his own final fade out, but given that it was, it's a sweet and felicitous goodbye.

Alfred Hitchcock's second purely comic film- after the screwball of Mr. & Mrs. Smith in '41- is a farcical black comedy about an inconvenient corpse who the eccentric inhabitants of a small village in rural Vermont have alternating reasons for burying and digging up again.

The macabre premise (from a novel by Jack Trevor Story) is played for laughs, principally through the deadpan reactions of the characters' to the absurd situations. It's very understated, very dry, and that's always been very Hitchcock. And it is funny, with many big laughs.

As ever, Hitchcock's support cast adds so much to the humour, particularly Edmund Gwenn in his fourth and final collaboration at the age of 82, having started with The Skin Game in '31. Shirley MacLaine makes her screen debut, and what an inspired choice. The is instantly the Queen of Kook.

One of the main pleasures is the picturesque setting of autumn in New England, filmed in Technicolor. Another is Bernard Herrmann's first soundtrack for Hitch, which the director said was his favourite. Not a typical Hitchcock suspense thriller of course, but entirely successful.

Stunning crime drama in which in some ways hardly looks like an Alfred Hitchcock film at all.  It feels more in accord with the wave of b&w vérité which swept American cinema in the '50s in the wake of Italian neorealism. The premise of the innocent man accused of crime is classic Hitch, but this is much more naturalistic.

During the opening credits at Stork Club, a woman suddenly looks into the camera, to stress that this is intended to look like a documentary and a long, long way from the Hitchworld of spectacular set pieces and sexual innuendo with an icy blonde on a speeding train. He then throws in some jump cuts, to show his style is up to date.

Henry Fonda plays a musician at the club, wrongly accused of robbery by a negligent and mediocre judicial system. And his life and marriage fall apart. Fonda and Vera Miles give deeper performances than we expect from Hitch. And Robert Burks photographs New York on location- in that realistic Weegee style- at least as well as anyone else in the period.

Hitchcock introduces the film personally to emphasise this is a true story. There are familiar themes of guilt, mental instability and the imperfection of justice, and it's as suspenseful as his thrillers. But this is different. Instead of a MacGuffin, we get social realism. This is Hitchcock goes New Wave. And he succeeds completely.

Like in Spellbound, the MacGuffin is a trauma locked away in a character's subconsciousness, exposed by certain dramatic indicators (red, storms) in her everyday fears. Her anxiety is sublimated by deviant actions like kleptomania and frigidity. So it's a psychological thriller, adapted from a novel by Winston Graham.

Marnie (Tippi Hedren) marries into old money (Sean Connery) in a romantic melodrama of wish fulfilment gone wrong (like Rebecca). While she gets wealth and status, her suppressed emotions say no. Hedren does a fine job and Connery could have been a great Hitchcock leading man. But this was their only film together. Diane Baker is ideal as Marnie's waspish rival.    

The best scene is when Marnie steals from an office safe with a shoe about to fall from her pocket to alert a woman cleaning in the next room. It's a pure expression of Hitchcockian suspense. It's the  time-bomb. The passage of the shoe out of the pocket is the ticking clock. But Hitch thought the bomb should never go off as that was bad technique. The shoe falls but the cleaner is deaf...

The big clunking calamity is the matte painting of a ship in harbour in Baltimore which feels so wrong, especially in '64. The back projection on the hunting scene too. Hitch liked to be in the studio. Be warned, the sexual politics are also of their time. It's hokum elevated by the stars and the Master's cinematic know-how.

After four straight box office flops, Alfred Hitchcock was back in the money with this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's debut novel. The one with the famous premise; two men (Farley Granger and Robert Walker) meet by accident and discuss an exchange of murders, which would obscure their motives...

Granger is the innocent party who gets snagged up in Walker's insanity... Hitch hired Raymond Chandler to write the screenplay. But sacked him- rather than work through their disagreements as Billy Wilder managed on Double Indemnity. So there's a feeling of might have been.

It has a classic film noir look, with many memorable images and set pieces, like the shot of a distant Robert Walker seen isolated against the Jefferson Monument. Or the climactic chase scene on a carousel. The murder of Granger's wife in the reflection of her spectacles is unforgettable.

The big bonus is Marion Lorne as one of Hitch's most wonderfully eccentric mother figures. And yet it doesn't quite succeed. Many thrillers skate round the idea that the stooge should just go to the police! But this more than most. Chandler thought the plot was crazy. But, for those who can suspend disbelief, there is a surfeit of the Master's virtuosity to be enjoyed.

Woody Allen's last American  film (to date) is a simple diversion about a couple of college kids getting separated in the eponymous circumstances and getting snagged up in contrasting adventures. In a way, it takes us back to the director's early New York comedies...

Not just that Timothée Chalamet plays a lascivious, intellectual update of the old Woody persona but, more enjoyably, Elle Fanning clearly channels Diane Keaton in a delightful portrayal as a ditsy naif from small town America. She gives the screen a lot of light and energy.

And it takes us back to contemporary New York after Allen's European period, to the streets that he walked in the early classics. But 50 years on. If it all fades out with the lovers meeting in Central Park in the rain, it would feel appropriate. 

There's little plot, just a loose chain of events evoking the charm and romance of life in the great metropolis and the sweet benevolence of chance. It doesn't feel like the work of an artist running down on inspiration and motivation. It is a film still fascinated by the hazards of the human heart.

Alfred Hitchcock returned to London for this loosely plotted comedy-thriller set in the theatres of the west end. Apparently he made it so he could visit his daughter Patricia at RADA. She makes her screen debut in a small role. And we get proper Hollywood stars and a wonderful British support cast.

It kicks off with Richard Todd telling Jane Wyman he had to clear up after Marlene Dietrich killed her (Marlene's) husband. This is shown in flashback, though it's revealed to be a lie. It's hard to understand the kerfuffle this caused; there were unreliable narrators long before Stage Fright.

The real joy is that gallery of character actors, particularly Alastair Sim and Kay Walsh who steal the film. Todd does well in a civilian role. Michael Wilding performs his usual Cary Grant impression as the detective with an eye for Wyman, as well as the killer.

Hitch always makes much out of a kiss, and the long prelude to Wilding and Wyman's clinch is a classic touch. The big weakness is Wyman's pallid performance. A touch of screwball from her would have brightened the occasional longueur. It's a bit short on thrills, but the cast makes it worthwhile. 

It's difficult to watch Alfred Hitchcock's retread of his own 1934 thriller without comparing them. And not all the changes are unfavourable. James Stewart and Doris Day bring star power to the leads which eclipses the rather grey Leslie Banks and Edna Best. And Day's mental fragility is an interesting addition.

Some of the negativity that gathers around the update isn't really a fault: the original was a breakthrough by a director on the edge of greatness; the remake is the least of his amazing sequence of '50s thrillers. He owed his studio a film, and considered revisiting any of his British releases.

The best scene is still the climax at the Albert Hall. It is expanded to a considerable longer running time, but the suspense still holds. Composer Bernard Herrmann showed good judgement in retaining the same music. Reaction to Doris' lengthy singing of Que Sera Sera is probably a matter of personal taste.

The remake has a larger budget, more glamorous fashions, Technicolor and Vistavision and is 45 minutes longer. But these don't amount to better film. And it feels a little bloated at times, especially the long new ending at the embassy. It's a decent work of suspense. Its misfortune is that the Master had already made it so well.

This gorgeously touristic comedy thriller is beautifully photographed in Vistavision on the French Riviera. And only the most glamorous stars of its period would not be outshone by the chic locations. Alfred Hitchcock casts Cary Grant and Grace Kelly! This is pure Hollywood magic.

Grant (formerly of the Resistance!) protests he is not the cat burglar carrying out a series of jewel robberies in the fabulous hotels and chateaux of the super-rich, but no one believes him. Including the police. The star is in his absolute element with the racy screwball dialogue.

He outclasses the curiously awkward Grace Kelly, in the role she was surely born to play; a rich American on holiday on the Côte d'Azur looking for a suitable husband. She still catches the eye in those Edith Head costumes. And French actor Brigitte Auber makes an impression as her tomboyish rival.

It's completely weightless but so much fun. Including the visual innuendo of the firework display that signifies the stars' sexual congress. Hitch has left film noir behind and creates a genre of his own. This remains an indulgent treat. And the Vistavision looks amazing on HD television. 

Yet another Alfred Hitchcock release from his early Hollywood years which is set in England. It's one of his oddest American films. It feels like it is building to a rather interesting murder trial but frustrates when it suddenly ends and the audience discovers it has watched a character study which is hardly a thriller at all.

There was a troubled production with the footage re-edited several times as studio boss David Selznick took control. Several scenes go on after any possible interest in them is over. He even wrote a whole new screenplay. Selznick and Hitchcock were always uneasy partners.

And Selznick shortened the film. Ethel Barrymore, who got an Oscar nomination based on the original cut, was left with three minutes of inconsequential screen time. Hitch was experimenting with long tracking takes, but Selznick snipped them out. The footage was later lost in an accident.

But while it is a disappointing film of doubtful psychology and little humour, it isn't boring and the director adds interest to the disjointed plot with some characteristic flourishes. Charles Laughton's voyeuristic interest in Ann Todd is one of the Hitchcock touches to survive. File this one under contractual obligations.

Exciting adaptation of Frederick Knott's London stage hit is one of Alfred Hitchcock's impediment films, almost entirely shot on a single set. Ray Milland plays a bitter and betrayed man of leisure who plans the perfect murder of his rich, unfaithful wife (Grace Kelly) which crumbles excruciatingly under investigation.

It's a clever murder story with the confinement of the action proving no barrier to friction free suspense and some satisfying complications. Hitch fills the set with memorable images, such as the ostentatious demise of a hired assassin (Anthony Dawson) killed with Kelly's sewing scissors.

 Some critics see this as a rehearsal for Rear Window, which is similarly staged on a single set. But it is more than that. It's one of the best ever conversions of a traditional British stage thriller to the big screen,  and enhanced with many virtuoso Hitchcock flourishes.

 This kind of thriller is inevitably quite superficial, with flimsy characterisations and little relevance to real life. But, the unscrupulous Milland and the dapper (Columbo-esque) investigator John Williams make it fun. It was intended to be seen in 3D, which no longer seems a possibility.

This is one of Alfred Hitchcock's impediment films; entirely shot within a single room, mostly looking outward from the back of action photographer James Stewart's swanky New York apartment. The set of the Manhattan tenements is one of the most impressive man made structures in cinema.

The invalided photo-journalist grows addicted to voyeurism. His window is an opening into the lives of strangers. The inability to hear what is happening in their rooms means that Hitch is able to demonstrate his brilliant capacity for visual wit and storytelling- adapted from a short story by Cornell Woolrich..

 The sustained suspense builds to a  climactic frenzy when the lame hero  observes his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) entering the apartment of a killer just as he returns home, while a woman below diverts his attention by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. Stewart carries the film well, with fine support particularly from Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr.

Some critics feel that this is a personal to Hitchcock because it about observing. The gaze and the cut to what is seen. Maybe, but Hitchcock is an acute observer of human behaviour rather than a philosopher. This mimics a  cinematic process and the role of the audience, but it doesn't say anything profound about either. But it's still one of the great Hitchcock thrillers.