Vertigo Falls

Antti Alanen: Film Diary: Vertigo (vintage La Cinémathèque française print, ...

2015-08-17T11:23:00.001-07:00

Antti Alanen: Film Diary: Vertigo (vintage La Cinémathèque française print, ...: Vertigo poster designed by Saul Bass. Click to enlarge. Sueurs froides / La donna che visse due volte / Aus dem Reich der Toten / Verti...

Hitchcock's Vertigo: The new home of Vertigo Falls

2013-06-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Please bookmark the new location for Vertigo Falls:

Hitchcock's Vertigo (hitchcocksvertigo.com)

Some Thursday fun: Have you Vertigoed today?

2013-06-13T12:32:00.002-07:00

By now, Vertigo Falls denizens should know that to be Vertigoed is to take Bernard Herrmann's iconic music (hmm, can music be iconic?) and lay it in as the new score for any film you can imagine. The farther a stream the better (NB that snake charmer classic from the last time we Vertigoed).

Here's something for your post hump day blues . . .

Braveheart Vertigoed from Michael Pollard on Vimeo.

Unrealized Kaleidoscope footage to screen

2013-06-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

From the LA Times

By Susan King
June 12, 2013, 9:42 a.m.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is teaming up with Cinefamily for a program of "Unseen Hitchcock: Home Movies & Other Rarities" culled from the Academy Film Archive on Saturday at the Silent Movie Theatre. Think of it as an evening of Alfred Hitchcock's "B-Sides."
Included in the evening are a 35mm screening of "Bon Voyage," the 1944 French-language propaganda short Hitch made for the British Ministry of Information; test footage for an unmade 1960s Mod thriller "Kaleidoscope" (not to be confused with the 1966 "Kaleidoscope" with Warren Beatty); screen tests of Tippi Hedren for "The Birds," including one featuring "Psycho"s' Martin Balsam; an extended "Psycho" trailer and even the Master of Suspense's home movies.

Still from the unproduced "Kaleidoscope"

These "B-Sides" are just part of a summer of Hitchcock. Next week, the Academy will present the silent and sound versions of his 1929 thriller "Blackmail," as well as 1954's "Dial M for Murder," which was shot in 3-D, and 1958's "Vertigo." And at the end of the month, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will show "Hitchcock 9" -- his silent films that have been restored by the British Film Institute. Besides Saturday's program, Cinefamily will be presenting an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," with guest Norman Lloyd, on June 18; 1956's "The Wrong Man" on June 21; 1940's "Foreign Correspondent" on June 22; 1955's "The Trouble With Harry" on June 23; 1964's "Marnie" on June 25; and 1937's "Young and Innocent" and 1972's "Frenzy'" on June 26.

Hitch 9 and Vertigo this month at LA Film Fest

2013-06-12T14:44:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, June 18

The city of Los Angeles honors the work of Alfred Hitchcock and the recent British Film Institute restorations of the Hitchcock 9 (his surviving first nine films) starting this month, including tonight’s double feature of two versions of Blackmail at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The silent version — created by Hitchcock for cinemas not equipped to show sound at the time — will have live accompaniment. It will be followed by the sound version.

The celebration continues with Dial M for Murder on June 19 in 3-D, also at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. On Thursday, June 20, the L.A. Film Fest will screen Vertigo outdoors (with a standby line). Cinefamily also will be showing Hitchcock films throughout the month. And the Hitchcock 9 series will be shown at LACMA starting June 27.

io9 goes on set with Metropolis, Frankenstein

2013-06-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Nice collection over at io9. No Hitchcock here, but the director did visit and film a German co-production at Ufa in mid-twenties (while Fritz Lang was at work on Metropolis). The io9 article goes on to other science fiction films of note beyond Lang’s extraordinary film. Oh, and despite Universal insistence and a fair pile of Ivory-ed pigeon holers, Frankenstein, from novel to its iconic presentation of the Monster by Boris Karloff, is a science fiction story not a Gothic horror. If we must put it somewhere, let’s put it right: Frankenstein is a science fiction novel using genre elements of the then popular Gothic horror novel.

My other dollar’s worth of an opinion is that Boris Karloff as the Monster, in the make up design by Jack Pierce, may be the most important and universally recognized image from film of the 20th century.

Hitchcock and his iconic profile would be second And the Hitchcock show opener with the Man walking into the Image and becoming one has philosophical implications I could belabor in and endless blog scroll.

The last sample from the io9 blog is from the same genre, 2001.

“I give you the…”

Pushing Hitch

2013-06-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

Rare Hitchcock Items Up for Auction | The Hitchcock Report

Thanks for the great post and tip for collectors. I am sorely tempted by the Truffaut book door sized poster. I once owned a French four sheet (wall size)of a re-release of La Mort aux Trousses.

http://www.emovieposter.com/agallery/search//all.html

NO-TORI-OUS: Hitchcock and the sensuality of politics

2013-06-08T14:43:00.001-07:00

After each Free Film Friday there will be an essay that wanders around the film freely and sometimes, alas, confusingly. Last week you enduring my thoughts on Rebecca. This week on Notorious, seen being shot at the The Plaza in New York City. All this in what must be the world's longest photo caption to say that the essay presupposes, eh hem, that you have seen the film Notorious. Last night. In Vertigo Falls. And you thought the films were really free--Ha!

Hitchcock shied away from discussing politics with journalists though he told a reporter once when asked about his politics, "No-Tory-us" (Tory meaning the more conservative party in England).

Alfred Hitchcock in reality was not so enigmatic. He was rather openly politically and socially liberal. I think it is safe to say that on the most liberally charged issue of our day, Hitchcock and his wife would have sided with gay marriage (in spite of, or perhaps because of his Jesuit Catholicism) and, like many Brits, would have favored common sense background checks and restraint in terms of owning a gun. In the sadly cliched gun's defense, Hitch's films are undoubtedly arguments for the improper use of almost any household object, but as Slate pointed out in May, Hitchcock's Bang Your Dead is certainly not going to be opening the next NRA rally.

And Hitchcock's almost non-stop work with gay themes and his complete acceptance of actors, writers and craftsman who were openly gay in the private lives that Hitchcock would have known makes it safe (in my mind) to assume his position would be liberal here as well.

Not a very smooth transition for Notorious though which may be Hitchcock's least gay film and his most overtly romantic and "straight" sexual film. And other than the jack booted and pistol packing motorcycle cop, there is not a single cliche weapon in the film.

Notorious swims in a sensuality and politics that later would revisit in lighter turns a decade or so later with North by Northwest. Both films concern using women and their sex-ability as political pawns in post-war politics.

Cary Grant anchors both films, but he is at his finest in Notorious. Certainly the cinematography of Ted Tetzloff and the presence of Ingrid Bergman give the film a sensuality unlike any other Hitchcock film. It is a career depth of visual and story sensuality matched only by Vertigo (perhaps the unmade first Frenzy, otherwise known as Kaleidoscope, would have been Hitchcock's "erotic" moment. His notes indicate a perverse and tantalizing mix of violence and eroticism, saturated color schemes and cinema verite flourishes--ah, the perfection of permanent anticipation; the unmade classic)

[BTW Does anyone know why Notorious was Ted Tetzlaff's last movie he filmed? He went on to direct for a decade, but then, just as suddenly: gone. He died in the 1995 at the age of 91, and worked very consistently shooting an incredible list of films, including My Man Godfrey. Then--gone. I will do the ubiquitous Google for details but IMDB says nothing about why he vanished after Hitchcock's film. Not that I'm implying . . .never mind, too many Hitchcock films in the psyche.)

Notorious, a classically great film with a pedigree to kill for (come on, a tight tight and perfect, oh so perfect script by the immortal Ben Hecht) has that ability to explode the mind of a cinema sensualist with possibilities, ideas--fantasies, lurid in detail (I mean that in a nice way, of course). During this big bang it's easy to run circles around the cold hard politically messy structure at the heart of the film--governments using civilians and spies and combatants. In each film, suggesting that this was Hitchcock's personal belief, the question is begged--when will we stop doing this?

Never. And in that same sentiment expressed the philosopher Harry Lime at the top of a ferris wheel, cinema is better for that. Heavens, the American cinema has certainly mastered the equivalent building the perfect cuckoo clock by the potato truck load. Without the compelled Mata Hari's, where would our rich cinema noir history be?

"Daisy and buttercups."

Free Film Friday; Notorious (1946)

2013-06-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cast and Crew

Directed by:

Alfred Hitchcock

Starring:

Cary Grant - T R Devlin
Ingrid Bergman - Alicia Huberman
Claude Rains - Alexander Sebastian
Louis Calhern - Captain Paul Prescott
Leopoldine Konstantin - Madame Sebastian
Reinhold Schünzel - Doctor Anderson
Moroni Olsen - Walter Beardsley
Ivan Triesault - Eric Mathis
Alex Minotis - Joseph, the Butler

Produced by:

Alfred Hitchcock

Written by:

Ben Hecht

Photographed by:

Ted Tetzlaff

Edited by:

Theron Warth

Music by:

Roy Webb

Costume Design by:

Edith Head

Production Design by:

Carroll Clark - art director

Club celebrates cinema victory with Hitchcock documentary

2013-06-07T16:54:00.001-07:00

Club celebrates cinema victory with Hitch film

Thursday, 06 June 2013

by Pat Jones

CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating saving historic EMD cinema with a special screening of film by Alfred Hitchcock – who watched movies there when he was a boy.
The McGuffin Film Society, which fought for ten years to save the Walthamstow cinema from conversion to a church, is marking last week’s Government decision to preserve it, with a free showing of a film about the area made by the master of suspense.
The group will show the feature-length documentary ‘Alfred Hitchcock in East London’ which is about the legendary director’s Waltham Forest roots and inspirations.
“This is a great opportunity to thank everyone in the borough who has supported the campaign to save the EMD Cinema and a chance to celebrate Waltham Forest’s unique legacy as the birthplace of the world’s most famous film director,” said McGuffin spokesman Bill Hodgson.
Hitchcock was born above his father’s Leyton-stone grocery store in 1899 and is believed to have watched films on the EMD site as a boy. He went on to create some of the most influential and enduring films of all time and last year the British Film Institute voted his 1958 masterpiece Vertigo as the greatest movie ever made.
The screening of ‘Alfred Hitchcock in East London’ is being held as part of Waltham Forest Council’s Love Your High Streets weekend. It is free entry, on Saturday, June 8 at O’Neils Music Venue, 762 Leytonstone High Road, London E11. Doors open at 5pm.
Further details about the show can be found at www.mcguff-in.info.
To view the full line-up of Love Your Streets events you can visit www.walthamforest.gov.uk/
loveyourhighstreet.

Email: waltham@yellowad.co.uk

Since Hitch is our Shakespeare...

2013-06-07T16:33:00.005-07:00

What Your Favorite Shakespeare Play Says About You – Flavorwire

From the article ...

Much Ado About Nothing

You think affection is best shown in insult form — and you expect a lot from your lover.

The Merchant of Venice

You exaggerate on your taxes.

The Taming of the Shrew

You’re a feminist — or not. It all depends on how you read the ending.

Twelfth Night

You find unisex T-shirts to be very convenient.

King Lear

Your sisters are total bitches.

This is fun. But it's more fun with Hitchcock.

For example, if your favorite Hitchcock film is ...

Psycho

You are quiet, keep to yourself and struggle with your innate masculinity and femininity.

If not watching Psycho, you are sometimes found in the fruit cellar doing scenes from Gypsy or Auntie Mame.

Vertigo

You never met a fetish you couldn't transform into your own life passion. If not watching Vertigo, you are rewinding it.

Yes, you Luddite. Careful though, sometimes your fascination with the past will keep your tree from seeing the forest...

Now it's your turn.

And Prospero like, I summon the forces of the divine Lady Eve, the inestimable Hitchcock Geek and that wizard from the East, DeRosa, to call forth your loyal minions to send in their own Hitchcock film as personality test entries.

The Harvard IB TECH Vertigo

2013-06-06T18:01:00.001-07:00

Vertigo Falls residents in the Cambridge area should keep an on the Harvard Film Collection's screening schedule. Word is that an IB Technicolor print of Vertigo will be screening in the next few months.

A few frames from the print have been reproduced here and are from a research project out of Zurich on the history of the color process in movies. More on this just completed project in upcoming posts.

Spirit of film: VF honorary citizen John Huston.

2013-06-06T17:55:00.001-07:00

To me, the perfect film is as though it were unwinding behind your eyes, and your eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were seeing what you wished to see. Film is like thought. It’s the closest to thought process of any art.
Take a look at that lamp across the room. Now look back at me. Look back at that lamp. Now look back at me again. Do you see what you did? You blinked. Those are cuts. After the first look, you know that there’s no reason to pan continuously from me to the lamp because you know what’s in between. Your mind cut the scene. First you behold the lamp. Cut. Then you behold me.
John Huston

quoted by Walter Murch in In The Blink of An Eye: A perspective on film editing

HITCHCOCK Summer Screenings

2013-06-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

Alma and Hitch arriving in Vermont to film Trouble with Harry

Vermont and Hitch

Genius of Alfred Hitchcock celebrated in Bellows Falls screenings - Brattleboro Reformer

WHITE SHADOW flickers on to DVD

2013-06-05T08:47:00.001-07:00

Earliest Alfred Hitchcock film rediscovered, to be available on DVD - LA Daily News

GUILTY PLEASURES: Gothic weekend with the BFI at the British Museum

2013-06-04T09:55:00.001-07:00

If you are film horror philanthropist looking to have someone go with you to this late Summer dream event, well my contact information is everywhere. What a tremendously great idea--bravo programmer at the BFI.

Gothic | British Film Institute

Night of the Demon	Aug 29, 2013 8:00 PM		On sale 06-06-2013 11:30 AM
	Dracula	Aug 30, 2013 8:00 PM		On sale 06-06-2013 11:30 AM
	The Mummy	Aug 31, 2013 8:00 PM		On sale 06-06-2013 11:30 AM

Rebecca, Hitch, Welles and cinema's soul

2013-06-01T09:18:00.001-07:00

Rebecca floats around in that Platonic list of "best" Hitchcock films. I remember loving it in high school, losing interest though once Rebecca is packed in with the rest of Hitchcock's work.

Rebecca is, nodding now at Aristotle, a classic film. Archly romantic and melodramatic in its story adaption by Alma, Alfred, Joan Harrison and David O Selznick. Beautifully framed and lit by George Barnes. And directed with real restraint by Hitchcock.

There is little doubt that Hitchcock knew a test when he was taking one. He was aware that his golden contract with David O, was tomorrow's bird cage lining if he didn't pass. The test? To make the best Hollywood film. Or the best Selznick film, for in 1940 these are synonymous.

Hitchcock aces the test, winning for Selznick the Oscar for Best Picture and himself the respect of the industry for not being another Orson Welles.

Citizen Kane was Hollywood's other story that year. Kane is flashier and better than Hitchcock's Rebecca. The two films are fascinating to double feature. They are oddly similar. Both are about the hero competing with an idea of an antagonist. The new Mrs DeWinter vs Rebecca. Kane vs Charles Foster Kane. They are heroes that gain peace by film's end only to see that which haunted them consumed by fires.

The difference in artistic quality and ability between Welles and Hitch is two small to measure. They are distinct in their interests and style. Their talents off screen could not be further apart Welles difficult and insulting to the East Coast money that was still the life blood of Hollywood. The enfant terrible artist who didn't need the Thatchers of the world.

Hitchcock with his stern mother and Jesuit education was the disciplined school boy. Hitchcock's economic wisdom built a career and an artistic oeuvre without parallel.

Welles gave us Kane. Hitchcock gave us Vertigo. The battle between the two films and the two artistic sentiments is the soul of cinema. Not for the soul. It is the soul.

NEW SERIES: Friday Free Feature REBECCA (1940)

2013-05-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

Rebecca

Cast and Crew

Directed by:

Alfred Hitchcock
Edmond F Bernoudy - assistant director

Starring:

Laurence Olivier - George Fortescu Maximillian "Maxim" de Winter
Joan Fontaine - The Second Mrs de Winter
George Sanders - Jack Favell
Judith Anderson - Mrs Danvers
Gladys Cooper - Beatrice Lacy
Nigel Bruce - Major Giles Lacy
Reginald Denny - Frank Crawley
C Aubrey Smith - Colonel Julyan
Melville Cooper - Coroner
Florence Bates - Mrs Edythe Van Hopper
Leonard Carey - Ben
Leo G Carroll - Dr Baker
Edward Fielding - Frith
Lumsden Hare - Tabbs
Forrester Harvey - Chalcroft
Philip Winter - Robert

Produced by:

David O Selznick

Written by:

Daphne Du Maurier - original novel ("Rebecca")
Philip MacDonald
Michael Hogan
Robert E Sherwood
Joan Harrison

Photographed by:

George Barnes

Edited by:

W Donn Hayes

Music by:

Franz Waxman

http://youtu.be/7cf0-GsXDzI Sent from vTube for Kindle Fire.

TGIF Doodle time

2013-05-31T15:50:00.001-07:00

Cleaning out my virtual inbox, I found these Google doodles honoring Saul Bass. G-doodled Psycho and that lil' Hitchcock masterpiece, Vertigo.

Set Photos: HuffPost includes Hitch in Survey

2013-05-31T08:06:00.001-07:00

Hitch directs Dahl and Grainger in Rope rehearsal.

Stewart and Novak taking a break during the filming of Vertigo

James Franco does gallery Hitchcock

2013-05-31T05:58:00.001-07:00

Showing now at a London Soho Gallery, James Franco's Psycho nacirema

Actor's multimedia installation draws inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic horror film | West End Extra

JUST IN: Hitch directed LIFE photo spread during WWII

2013-05-30T11:42:00.001-07:00

Alfred Hitchcock picture story in LIFE | Alfred Hitchcock ‘Directs’ a LIFE Picture Story, 1942 | LIFE.com

Classical Voice on SF Hitchcock 9 screenings

2013-05-29T07:18:00.001-07:00

Music for Hitchcock's Silent Films : San Francisco Classical Voice

FROM THE ARTICLE

Stephen Horne composed the music for The Manxman:

I was commissioned by the BFI to write the "official" score for the restoration.
I wrote the full score for a quintet, comprising myself on piano, flute, accordion, as well as oboe, oboe d' amore, fiddle, viola, lever harp, and percussion.

The film is set on the Isle of Man — an island which had quite an austere religious tradition. At the same time the musical tradition of the island reflects its position geographically — somewhere between Liverpool, Scotland, and Ireland.

To Hitchcock

2013-05-27T16:24:00.001-07:00

...if Hitchcock was the only accursed poet to meet success, it is because he was the greatest creator of form in the 20th century and that these forms tell us in the end what there is at the bottom of things now.

And what is art if not where form becomes style. And what is style if not man?

So it is a bra-less blond tailed by a detective who fears the void who furnishes us proof that all of this is only cinema. In other words, the infancy of Art.

To HITCHCOCK

Jean-luc Godard

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And thus the bodhisattva sat prajna paramita.

The Heart Sutra

MEMORIAL DAY Hitchcock's Holocaust Film

2013-05-27T09:15:00.001-07:00

In honor of the brave who were there to liberate and save what was left of a generation. We remember.

And we will remember.

An Alfred Hitchcock documentary on the Nazi Holocaust. - YouTube