Film Reviews by Steve

Alfred Hitchcock may have been reflecting on his experiences at UFA in Berlin in '24 when he made this taut and exciting film noir, as it is reminiscent of the expressionist films of the period, particularly the long flashback, and an impressive near silent performance from German actor Dolly Haas.

Montgomery Clift plays a priest suspected of murder who hears the confession of the real killer but is unable to break the sanctity of the sacrament in order to clear his own name. It's a thriller that's quite close to home for the Jesuit educated Hitchcock and the themes of catholicism and guilt are- of course- integral to his work.

Hitch didn't get on with his star and felt him unpredictable and uncooperative (and often drunk). But it's Clift's palpable anguish which makes this more emotionally compelling than the director's films often are. And Haas and OE Hasse are haunting in crucial support roles.

There is a strong evocation of the City of Quebec and the b&w photography is beautiful. Not absolute Grade A Hitchcock, but it's unique in his filmography and full of atmosphere. It's tempting to wonder if Clift's difficult time on location was  a symptom of Hitch's indifference to his actors' motivations.

Polished spy thriller with Cary Grant as a CIA operative who runs party-girl Ingrid Bergman undercover in Rio de Janeiro to infiltrate a Nazi spy ring, and then become the wife of one of the prominent members (Claude Rains). It's one of Hitchcock's most critically praised film, particularly in relation to the developing love story between the two stars.

Though... arguably the romance doesn't stand so much scrutiny; the couple share levels of empathy which would shame a sociopath. Grant is willing for Bergman to enter the household of dangerous, scheming Nazis, and then marry one of them. Anything for the flag.

The story pulls in contrary directions. It's easier to suspend disbelief for this as a thriller than an exploration of the human heart. Though no one plays a woman in love as convincingly as the luminous Ms. Bergman. As a work of suspense, it's stunning and a classic example of the director's style.

There are quintessential Hitchcock set pieces. Like the ticking time bomb of the dwindling supply of champagne at a swanky party which compels Claude Rains down to the wine cellar where Cary and Ingrid are... discovering Nazi uranium. And many more! This is style over content. But what style!

There's the traditional hero of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller; the wrong man fleeing the law to clear his name. But the MacGuffin is an incident suppressed in the guilt complex of his psyche. It's among the first of the Freudian thrillers released after WWII. The authority of the subconsciousness became one of the Master's motifs.

Gregory Peck plays the doctor who must prove his innocence. When he and Ingrid Bergman (in her glasses and lab coat) appear as psychiatrists at the start of the film, they look so drop dead beautiful that it takes about 20 minutes to suspend disbelief. Rhonda Fleming maintains the glamour as a photogenic patient.

Made in peak period film noir, it is diverting to see a thriller which is preoccupied with whiteness. The frantic suspect reacts unpredictably to any memory of snow. There's a standard Hitchcock plot- adapted by Ben Hecht from a forgotten novel. It's the colour design with striking modernist touches which sets it apart.

The dream sequence featuring original artwork by Salvador Dali is crucial. But there are many startling and influential flourishes. When the camera tracks the disorientated suspect down a stairway and closes in on the cut throat razor in his hand, we could be watching '70s Italian Giallo. Realism isn't a priority, but this is still a stylish suspense classic.

Alfred Hitchcock's first colour film is an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's play based on infamous real life killers Leopold and Loeb. It is one of the director's impediment films, set entirely within a single apartment in long edits of about eight minutes, joined by screen wipes. There is the illusion of a single 80 minute shot.

At the end of WWII, Hitch filmed footage in a concentration camp for the UK government and when he made it into a short film, he used long edits so hostile observers couldn't suggest he had changed the truth of these places through montage. He adopted this aesthetic for Rope.

Some feel the idea is gimmicky. James Stewart called it a film about the camera. But it still works as an exciting thriller. The searching camera and claustrophobic interior suits the theme; the exposure of sociopaths indoctrinated by eugenics who kill someone they consider inferior. It's a reflection on Nazi Germany.

While Rope is remembered for the original and complex staging,  it is Hitch's most philosophical film. The script is analytical though still dramatic and exciting. Like in the climax when Stewart fires shots out of the window and we hear the sounds of strangers coming to help, who contrast with the elitist intellectual solipsism of the murderers.

This is among of a few Alfred Hitchcock films made in a Hollywood studio but set in England, and with a predominantly British cast. It is a thriller from a novel by Francis Iles about a frumpish spinster (Joan Fontaine) who marries a dangerous sociopath (Cary Grant) and grows to fear for her life.

And that premise conceals a number of difficulties. In 1941, Fontaine was a very beautiful young woman and there is little about her character that is unappealing. And Grant was the great screwball star of the period, but a limited dramatic actor and his portrayal is idiotic.

But the main problem is derived from Hollywood star etiquette. The plot continually stretches plausibility until it eventually rips apart during a climax purely devised because RKO wouldn't let Cary Grant play a murderer. Still, despite these fundamental weaknesses, it's an entertaining film

This is mainly thanks to the Master's imaginative visual approach. It is shot in the emerging film noir style with its ominous house of shadows. Fontaine does her best and won the Oscar she deserved for Rebecca a year earlier, playing another vulnerable new wife. It's a flawed woman in peril thriller with a few nice moments of black comedy. 

Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock's least celebrated release from his American period, but there are still points of interest. He persists with the long edits used in Rope, but with less of a rigid aesthetic; there are some reaction shots cut in, and it is set in multiple locations. 

It was admired by French critics, but failed everywhere else as audiences weren't going to pay a babysitter to go and watch a Hitchcock costume melodrama. As a historical film, it's high on hokum, but there is an interesting, if preposterous story and the Australian setting is a novelty.

Ingrid Bergman is miscast as an Irish alcoholic but whenever a scene catches fire, it's when she's on screen. Joseph Cotten broods effectively, but Michael Wilding seems more intent on impersonating Cary Grant than a 19th century Irish aristocrat. His future wife Margaret Leighton is better as a Mrs. Danvers type housekeeper.

There are a few memorable episodes, particularly a dinner party held by a murderer (Cotten) which the ladies of Sydney are too genteel to attend, and broken up by a pie eyed Ms. Bergman. It's a rare Hitchcock film that has nothing to offer, but it's not obvious why he made this one.

When Alfred Hitchcock was about to go to Hollywood, he expressed a desire to work with Carole Lombard. The year after, she had a comedy already in production at RKO and offered it to the Englishman. And so the Master of Suspense met the Queen of Screwball.

Lombard and Robert Montgomery discover three years after their wedding that they are not married after all. And she decides she wants to be single again and play the field. They are one of those Hollywood screwball couples who live in a swanky apartment in Manhattan where they mix cocktails and dress for dinner.

She's as great as ever, and Jack Carson also scores in a familiar supporting role as an amiable klutz. Hitch's comedy tended to be quite dark, but this is a decent farce with a few genuine laughs. Though I suspect even a film student would struggle to detect the hand of the Master.

Maybe the brief disorientated point of view shot on an out of control fairground ride, might be claimed as a Hitchcock touch... Lombard is on more familiar ground. This is principally a vehicle for the frantic comic persona of its legendary screwball star.

With the war on in Europe and the US public largely disinterested, the legion of expats and Jews in Hollywood worked to turn public opinion towards entering the war against Germany. This is the first of Alfred Hitchcock's American films made in the style of his British thrillers, and his first anywhere to name the Nazis as the enemy.

It's a picaresque adventure, with decent comedy and superb visual touches. It is even set mostly in England, as an American reporter (Joel McCrea) chases down a key Dutch diplomat who has been kidnapped by terrorists. McCrea and Laraine Day are anaemic leads, but there's some fine support.

When Edmund Gwenn is performing an adorable cameo, we could be back with Hitch at Gaumont. For once George Sanders gets to play a hero not a heel. It treads water badly at halfway (and Hitch would have got this done half an hour sooner in the UK), but it recovers with an exciting and well staged plane crash at sea.

This isn't one of the Master's most suspenseful thrillers, but it is packed with wonderful imagery, like the chase of a would-be assassin viewed from above through a sea of umbrellas. Joseph Goebbels called it a masterpiece of propaganda. McCrea's final broadcast from the blitz to the US audience is the real purpose of the film; this is your fight too.

Fairly faithful adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's rewrite of Jane Eyre makes for one of the screen's great gothic romances. This was Alfred Hitchcock's debut at the dream factory and it is much longer and visually more spacious and opulent than his British films, with a more prominent score. 

Laurence Olivier is well cast for that touch of ruthlessness that he could never quite conceal. Judith Anderson is legendary as Mrs. Danvers, the malevolent housekeeper. And Joan Fontaine breaks your heart every single time as... well, we never even learn her name, as the book/film is titled after the first Mrs. de Winter!

She plays the unsophisticated girl who marries into one of the great homes of England, only to be tormented by the ambient memory of her husband's former wife. Sort of a love triangle, between the newlyweds and a memory. Fontaine is magnificent and definitive in the role. And as so often, underplays her natural beauty.

Supposedly Hitch wanted big changes but David Selznick insisted he stay close to the source novel. Some see this as more of a Selznick film. But the direction is exceptional, especially at creating an impression of the second Mrs. de Winter's isolation at Manderley. The ballroom scene is a triumph. Whoever provides the signature, this is a Hollywood classic.

This is one of Alfred Hitchcock's impediment films, in this case made entirely in the water tank at Twentieth Century Fox, within a lifeboat holding a broad cross section of the American public, and the captain of the u-boat that sunk them. The director and a fine ensemble cast make a virtue of this limited environment..

By 1944, WWII films were starting to look beyond the conflict towards the kind of future that the men and women of the services would return to. But this is actually more like the propaganda films of '39 to '41 intended to get the US into the war; alerting them to the virtue of the cause, the degeneracy of the enemy and the dangers of neutrality.

The scene that stays in the memory is pure interventionist propaganda; the wretched death of William Bendix's lame hepcat, borne away on the waves with the taunts of Walter Slezak's German skipper in his ears, while the others sleep. Among the survivors, Tallulah Bankhead stands out as the sort of woman who attends a shipwreck in a fur coat.

It is a powerful, and very unusual experience, even if not the sort we normally go to Hitchcock for. It lost money at the box office, maybe because it was making a case for something that already happened and people were pretty tired of war. But now, this is a fascinating Hitchcock curiosity.

I've seen this on a list of worst ever films. It's nowhere near that bad, but there isn't much of Alfred Hitchcock's signature style. It was made by Charles Laughton's production company as a vehicle for the actor and it's not obvious why the Master got involved. They clashed throughout.

It's the first of three adaptations by Hitchcock of stories by Daphne Du Maurier; this one about wreckers on the Cornish coast who lure cargos onto the rocks. It was filmed on location including the actual Jamaica Inn and there is some nice atmosphere drawn from the scenery. But it's ultimately a bit of a drag.

This is historical melodrama, rather than a thriller. And Hitch doesn't give us many classic visual touches. The best moment is when Laughton as the ringleader of the smugglers jumps to his death from the rigging of a merchant ship, viewed from above. The star overacts shamefully.

There is something wrong when the most restrained performance is by Robert Newton. Margaret O'Hara is feisty in her first leading role (Laughton took her to Hollywood to star in Hunchback of Notre Dame). It doesn't take Hitch long to get her down to her underclothes and into bondage. Which is at least one of his recurring motifs.

An early Alfred Hitchcock curiosity adapted from a stage detective story. For two thirds of its short running time it's like an old dark house horror, full of expressionist shadows and close ups of threatening hands. The last third is a chase, utilising models of various modes of transport, none of them convincing.

The MacGuffin of the search for some stolen jewels is banal, and Hitch offers little to distract us from that weakness. He doesn't tell the confusing story that well. The cast is unremarkable and John Stuart a candidate for the Master's weakest lead. Though there is the signature dark humour and eccentricity.

What is different from earlier films, is there plenty of physical action in the last third, much of it well realised. There are characters holding on to the outside a speeding train. Over the years we would see many Hitchcock heroes and villains clinging on over a precipice or some other hazard.

Hitch didn't want to make this and his relationship with British International Pictures was falling apart. It was his last production for them. The complicated story is a bit of a muddle, but if you manage to follow it, then there's just about enough of the Master here to make this passable entertainment.

This version of a John Galsworthy play is as far from what we came to think of as the signature style of Alfred Hitchcock as he ever got. But at least he does a better job of turning Edwardian theatre into entertainment than with Juno and Paycock a year earlier.

As with the Sean O'Casey adaptation, little is done to open up the events from the stage and many scenes merely assemble the cast around the camera booth. And the narrative has absolutely nothing to offer the Master of Suspense.

It's about the friction between old and new money. Both sides are equally unsympathetic and there is little warmth from the actors to sweeten the class war. The best scene is a bidding contest over a plot of land within the eyeline of the manor, full of fast camera pans and long takes.

When the director does- occasionally- draw on expressionism and his emerging style, it feels incongruous. Once again, Hitch felt  hemmed in by his studio, and shooting projects of scant personal interest. It's not terrible by the standards of early British talkies, but surely of most interest to Hitchcock scholars.

This has a darker mood than most Alfred Hitchcock films in his British period. It's a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, which is reconstructed into a series of suspenseful set pieces and opportunities for black comedy.

The content requires a skilled dramatic lead and the production is blessed by the brilliant, liquid eyed Hollywood star Sylvia Sidney. This is nearly as much her picture as a Hitchcock. How frustrating that Robert Donat was cast to co-star but backed out due to illness.

Saboteurs are active around London (their aims are vague) and plan to leave a time bomb at Piccadilly Station which is... entrusted to Sylvia's young brother. He dawdles across London unaware of what his package contains. But we know the time of detonation, and Hitch cuts ever more rapidly between clocks, the package and the fatal distractions of the big city.

The staging and editing of this episode are widely praised, though the Master often used the outcome as an example of bad film making.  It is a political thriller, and one of the director's best and most suspenseful thrillers with atmospheric location work and many memorable set pieces.

This is punchy social realism about conditions in American prisons. James Cagney plays a crime busting news reporter who is framed for manslaughter after threatening to expose a corrupt DA running for Governor. Sent down for 20 years, he becomes socialised by the violence and demoralising monotony of his environment until he he is locked away in solitary.

It's a liberal Warners' protest story that crusades against a penitentiary system which entrenches its inmates' antisocial weaknesses. The wardens are a brutal, reflexly vindictive gang enforcing ceremonial rules. Cagney enters the pen as a law abiding citizen but is transformed into an unstable nucleus of vengeful fury who sides with the cons. And it's a potent performance.

The innocent man gets attached to a hardcore gangster (George Raft) who busts out and pledges to clear the reporter's name on the outside. He then goes back inside (!) to coerce a confession out of the convict who set up the frame. This part of the film doesn't work as well, mainly because it is hard to believe a tough mobster would stick his neck out so far for a cell buddy, and it's too sentimental.

There are the usual signifiers of a '30s prison film: Cagney has a girl on the outside who never stops fighting, and a heartbroken Ma; the meanest bull gets his just reward at the hands of a con he pushes too far; there's a desperate breakout that ends in a wall of bullets from the national guard. The reporter is reprieved and the prison boss turns out to be a liberal reformer! But this is what the censors demanded.