Alfred Hitchcock Marathon

[Tom]

Alfred Hitchcock Marathon

Deadline	Year	Title	Reviewers
2009-04-12	1926	Easy Virtue	Dragonfire
2009-04-12	1927	The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog	Dragonfire
2009-04-12	1934	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Dragonfire , Jon
2009-04-12	1935	The 39 Steps	Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , Tom
2009-04-19	1936	Secret Agent	Dragonfire , Jon , Tom
2009-04-26	1936	Sabotage	Dragonfire , Tom
2009-05-03	1937	Young and Innocent	Dragonfire
2009-05-10	1938	The Lady Vanishes	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon , Tom
2009-05-17	1940	Rebecca	Dragonfire , Jon
2009-05-17	1940	Foreign Correspondent	Jon
2009-05-24	1941	Suspicion	Dragonfire , Jon
2009-05-31	1942	Saboteur	Dragonfire, Achim , Jon , Tom
2009-06-06	1943	Shadow of a Doubt	Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , Tom
2009-06-08	1944	Lifeboat	Dragonfire , Jon
2009-06-15	1945	Spellbound	Dragonfire , Jon
2009-06-22	1946	Notorious	Dragonfire , Rich , Jon
2009-06-29	1947	The Paradine Case	Dragonfire
2009-07-06	1948	Rope	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon , Tom
2009-07-13	1950	Stage Fright	Jon , Tom
2009-07-20	1951	Strangers on a Train	Dragonfire , Jon , Tom
2009-07-27	1953	I Confess	Jon , Tom
2009-08-03	1954	Dial M for Murder	Dragonfire , Jon , RossRoy, Tom
2009-08-10	1954	Rear Window	addicted2dvd , Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , RossRoy, Tom
2009-08-17	1955	The Trouble with Harry	Jon , Tom
2009-08-23	1955	To Catch a Thief	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon
2009-08-30	1956	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon , Tom
2009-09-07	1956	The Wrong Man	Jon , Tom
2009-10-18	1958	Vertigo	Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , RossRoy, Tom
2009-11-30	1959	North by Northwest	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , Tom
2009-11-30	1960	Psycho	Achim, Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , RossRoy, Tom
2009-12-31	1963	The Birds	Dragonfire , Jon , Rich , RossRoy, Tom
2009-12-31	1964	Marnie	Achim , Jon , Tom
2010-02-21	1966	Torn Curtain	Achim , Jon , Tom
2010-03-07	1969	Topaz	Achim , Jon , Tom
2010-03-21	1972	Frenzy	Achim , Jon , Rich , Tom
2010-04-04	1976	Family Plot	Achim , Dragonfire , Jon , Tom

[Tom]

The marathon will not yet start. Just for preparation. I would say we start in a couple of weeks, to give others the chance to maybe join us by buying one or two sets themselves.

Here are the movies that as far as I can tell are relevant for the participants who have signed on so far.

Dial M for Murder
Family Plot
Foreign Correspondent
Frenzy
I Confess
Lifeboat
Marnie
Mr and Mrs Smith
North by Northwest
Notorious
Psycho
Rear Window
Rebecca
Rope
Sabotage
Saboteur
Shadow of a Doubt
Spellbound
Stage Fright
Strangers on a Train
Suspicion
The Birds
The Lodger
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Paradine Case
The Trouble with Harry
The Wrong Man
Topaz
Torn Curtain
Vertigo
Young and Innocent


I will put up a time table listing these movies chronologically in time.
Please tell me, if there are some missing. Also please list Hitchcock movies not yet in the list, with which you can and want to join in in this marathon.


Edit:
Other wished inclusions:
The Lady Vanishes
To Catch a Thief
The 39 Steps
Secret Agent
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Jamaica Inn
Blackmail

[Achim]

I own "The Lady Vanishes" (The, or A, or even withoiut article...?) Criterion release and might want to squeeze it into that marathon.

I guess I might want to proceed to purchase the Premiere Collection. Or better the Signature Collection (I already own North By Northwest though)? Or both (which would make it a rather steep total)?

[Dragonfire]

I can watch my mom's copy of To Catch a Thief too.

[Jon]

Like Achim, I also have The Lady Vanishes, plus:

The 39 Steps
Secret Agent
The Man Who Knew Too Much (there are two versions: 1934 and 1956)

I finally have an excuse to add a couple of ones I'm missing. Apart from some already listed, I would like Jamaica Inn and Blackmail hopefully (the latter being Hitch's first sound film).

[Mark Harrison]

I currently have 45 Hitchcock titles.  I'd like to pick up the new releases of The Lodger and The Paradine Case since I don't have those.  And maybe pick up Sabotage and Young and Innocent.  I already have those two, but they're cheap, public domain quality versions.  The Paradine Case would complete my collection of American films.  There's still a few British films I need to track down.

[Tom]

I have updated the first post with the films mentioned until now.
As I can only jump in with the 14th movie so far, the ones who want to watch the early movies should give the starting signal.
Also should we adhere strictly to a one movie per week rule, or make it more dynamic? I.e. should we change the pace throughout the marathon?
For example faster in the beginning (depending on the early participants).

[Jon]

I haven't got any of his really early stuff. There are boxsets: The Early Hitchcock Collection and The British Years which might contain a couple you're after. I'm waiting for a price drop. British Years looks a bit low quality, though I may be very wrong.

Is The Paradine Case really worth having? I've heard it's weak, mainly because Hitchcock only did it to complete his contract with Selznik.

Alert for people who can receive BBC4! Tomorrow, 28th Feb, 9pm, Paul Merton is doing a programme about Hitchcock, with some focus I would guess on his earliest work. Click Here

Paul Merton is a fairly decent comedian, but you may be unsure if he could do a documentary like this, but actually I can't think of anyone better. He did a short series about classic silent comedians last year, maybe a touch earlier. It was wonderful. He really knows his stuff and hopefully this will be similar and will form a nice intro to the marathon.

EDIT: My earliest is the 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much. If someone else has anything earlier and wants to play, I'll let them set the pace...

[Rich]

There is a programme on BBC tomorrow evening, hosted by Paul Merton, profiling Hitchcocks early film career

[Jon]

There is a programme on BBC tomorrow evening, hosted by Paul Merton, profiling Hitchcocks early film career

 

I even put in bold! 

[Dragonfire]

 

I haven't seen The Paradine Case and really have no clue about it..it was just part of the set I got last week.

[Tom]

Which one is it?
A colleague (who has now also bought the two Hitchcock sets I have bought, when I told him the price  ) says, that he remembers an early Hitchcock movie, where a woman on a train sees a crime, but nobody believes her. She is getting more and more hysterical throughout the movie. He couldn't remember the title, but he knew, that it is not "Strangers on the Train". Which movie did he mean?

[addicted2dvd]

obviously I don't know... but it sounds good! so I would like to know too! 

[Jon]

Which one is it?
A colleague (who has now also bought the two Hitchcock sets I have bought, when I told him the price  ) says, that he remembers an early Hitchcock movie, where a woman on a train sees a crime, but nobody believes her. She is getting more and more hysterical throughout the movie. He couldn't remember the title, but he knew, that it is not "Strangers on the Train". Which movie did he mean?

Ahhh, that's the wonderful The Lady Vanishes. A bit dated, but along with The 39 Steps, still pretty amazing. You'll know the story. It's been refilmed by lesser mortals a couple of times (a really odd version with Elliot Gould in the 70s) and the format taken by other films, most recently, Flightplan with Jodie Foster (daughter goes missing). In the Fox Film Noir series, there is a pretty good take on it in Dangerous Crossing (hubby goes missing).

The hysterical lady meets a nice old lady on the train. Then, the lady vanishes... and no-one believes her because none of her evidence of the ladies existence can be corroborated. Soon she's dismissed as a loon, except one fellow passenger helps her, not because he necessarily believes her, but simply thinks if she gets to a conclusion of any sort, she'll be content. And he fancies getting in her knickers, but this was 1938 and one doesn't think about such things!

There are some classic Hitchcock touches, where the viewer just starts to wonder if the woman was ever there... except for the heart traced in condensation on the window.  A move Foster used in Flightplan.

[Tom]

Sadly I couldn't get the Alfred Hitchcock: The British Years at a reasonable price. There is a Marketplace offer, which I would have bought, but the seller doesn't ship to Germany

So have now ordered this set for €9.95.
Looks like a public domain set. I couldn't find any decent info on this (there is also no Profiler profile), so I hope that it does have at least English soundtrack. It includes, going by the Amazon description:
- 39 Steps
- Sabotage
- The Secret Agent
- The Lady Vanishes
- Spellbound
- The Paradine Case