The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: To Catch a Thief (1955), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "To Catch A Thief" by Lovage

       I wasn’t intending for Alfred Hitchcock to end up like Terry Gilliam or David Lynch where he gets an entry year after year, but I can’t deny that he’s a great time-saver. Crafting these lists every year isn’t the hardest thing in the world, but the amount of times I revise which movies end up on the final print is annoyingly high. Does it seem interesting enough to talk about? Does it fit the criteria? Do I feel like it? Just a constant filtering program that leaves me in a perpetual state of second guessing myself, and it’s exhausting. Sometimes what you want is the cinematic equivalent of the station wagon; Solid, reliable, wood paneling, all of that good stuff. That’s what Hitchcock’s films have been for me lately: whenever I’ve had a particularly hard time deciding on films, I just take a step back and throw on Hitchcock, because I know there’s going to be something worth talking about when it comes to his films. Also, because many of his films are ‘thrillers’, thus falling under the nebulous label of genre films, it means I have one less movie to worry about for years to come. Quite the boon.

       Released in 1955, To Catch a Thief was written by John Michael Hayes and directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the book by David Dodge. Cary Grant stars as John Robie, a humble grape and flower seller who years before terrorized the French Riviera as The Cat, master jewel thief. After serving with the Resistance during WW2 Robie earned himself a parole and had made good use of it, but when a new rash of jewel thefts occur, all of which are identical in style to his old work, all eyes turn to him. Uninterested in being thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Robie goes on a hunt for the copycat, casing the same joints and people that he would in order to root them out. Which would be fine if that was all he was doing, but when he meets the beautiful Francine Stephens (Grace Kelly), his best laid plans threaten to go awry.

       To Catch a Thief is certainly the most extravagant of all the Hitchcock films reviewed so far. The seaside villas, the hotels, the mansions, one wonders where the people who actually work for a living are supposed to fit in between all this luxury. You couldn’t ask for a better setting for a story as removed from the general populace as this one is though, and Hitchcock makes full use of it. Every single shot we get of the coastline and the city, especially the aerial views during the driving scenes, make it look almost otherworldly, the kind of place you thought existed only on postcards. The opening shot of the film is of the window of a travel agency advertising trips to France, and after watching this movie I want to go just to see if this place is real.

A new setting, but Hitchcock’s penchant for marquee names remains intact. Cary Grant makes his third appearance in the filmography, his last being Notorious almost a decade previous, and despite looking a bit leathery under the Riviera sun I think he paints a interesting picture of the character of John Robie; Charming and intelligent but at the same time cynical and aloof, the kind of guy who is fun to hang out with but who never wants to hang out. Grace Kelly also makes her return after co-starring in Rear Window, one of her last films before retiring from Hollywood to become the Princess of Monaco (look it up) and once again it’s obvious why Hitchcock wanted to bring her back, because she looks like Grace Kelly. Her performance as Francine Stephens here is not too different from her character in Rear Window, the naive yet paradoxically witty and seductive woman who inserts herself into the protagonist’s life which ultimately leads to romance, although the whole ‘woman acts like a bratty kid because that’s cute’ thing tends to miss more than it hits, and overall I found her character in Rear Window far more endearing. John Williams, who appeared in Dial M for Murder and The Paradine Case as insurance agent H.H. Hughson, a man so overwhelmingly British you’d swear he pisses Earl Grey. Jessie Royce Landis (who would show up again along with Cary Grant in North by Northwest) plays Francine’s sassy mother Jessie, and honestly that bit of snark makes her my favorite character of the film. She’s also one of those actors who you’d swear was in everything because she has that certain look but that’s not the case, although she did have a career that stretched from the 30’s to the 70’s. Solid casting to be sure.

Unfortunately the concept of To Catch a Thief is more interesting than the execution. You hear the elevator pitch of a master thief forced to come out of retirement to hunt for another to clear his name and it gives the impression of a tense mystery-thriller, but that’s not really this film. There is a mystery that slowly unfolds over the course of the film, but it never feels like Robie is actively figuring anything out. There are a couple scenes where Robie has to sneak around or escape the cops but there’s no real sense of urgency to those scenes to really get the blood pumping. Most of the film is dedicated to building the romance between Robie and Francine, but despite the fact that Grant and Kelly are fine actors I don’t think they have any chemistry together. That’s the problem with the film as a whole in a way: no spark. The film looks good, sure, but there’s no stakes; It’s not like anybody cares if a bunch of rich people have their baubles stolen, and the biggest tension comes from Robie getting caught by the police, which is only a thing because he’s purposefully staking out the places that a thief would hang out in. Not that a film needs action to be good, but for a director who built their career on suspense this film lacks bite.

       To Catch a Thief gets the tentative recommendation. Getting that view of the French Riviera is great, and Hitchcock being Hitchcock still knows how to construct a watchable movie, but this is the first Hitchcock film I’ve reviewed that is definitively not a must-see. Put it on the queue if it’s there, maybe make it a movie date with the SO, but if it’s between this and Rear Window or Rope, then go for the other option. Less chance of contracting a deadly respiratory virus than actually visiting the French Riviera these days though, so that’s a plus.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Rear Window (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Lisa - Intermezzo", by The City of Prague Philharmonic

       It’s strange to consider just how few of Hitchcock’s film I’ve seen over the years. Even if I like to designate a lot of films as review material, which if you’ve seen my posting schedule really limits my intake, but this is Hitchcock we’re talking about here. A man who has become synonymous with the words ‘motion picture’. Film students study him religiously, other filmmakers rip him off shamelessly, his is a legacy that few others can even hope to match. Everything is telling me I should have seen at least half his filmography by now, and yet I’ve only seen four at this point. Gives me a lot to look forward to I suppose, but until then I’m struck with this gnawing sense of inadequacy. More so than usual, I mean.

Anyway.

Based on a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich by the name of “It Had to Be Murder”, Rear Window centers around a location (a room facing out towards the back of a New York City apartment complex) and a man (L.B. Jeffries, played by the illustrious James Stewart). Jeffries was a photographer, a damn good at that, until an encounter with a rather surly race car earned him a cast on his leg and an unplanned vacation. With nothing on the radio and reality TV still 4 decades away, the former man of action is left with far too much time on his time. Visits from his nurse Stella and his fiance Lisa Carol Fremont alleviate some of the boredom, even if he thinks Lisa is too dainty for his kind of lifestyle, but his main hobby is looking out his window into the lives of his various eclectic neighbors. In one window is Ms. Torso the buxom blonde ballet dancer, in another The Pianist, in yet another the salesman and his invalid wife, and so on. A rich tableau of the human experience, a glimpse into their personal lives, all from the comfort of his apartment. And he didn’t even have to pay for it! 

On the last week on his convalescence however, Jeffries’ innocent voyeurism turns upon something strange. The salesman’s invalid wife has up and disappeared, and the salesman is engaging in some… questionable activities. Late night trips, long distance phone calls, wrapping up knives and saws in newspaper, things which could lead to some macabre conclusions. Which is exactly what Jeffries does, becoming absolutely convinced that the salesman (Lars Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr) murdered his wife and is trying to hide the evidence, even convincing Lisa and Stella of it. Trouble is, how exactly do you prove anything happened when all you’ve got are a couple of suspicious scenes from a window? Moreover, how far is Jeffries willing to go to prove that he’s right? Pretty damn far, as it turns out.

While I’m not an expert on Hitchcock’s work by any means, what I do like about his films is how very simple they appear on the surface. Within the first few seconds of the film starting you understand exactly where you’re at in the world of L.B. Jeffries, and the same goes for Stella and Lisa during their introductions. You know who they are, what their motivation is, and what their relationship is to the other characters. Not just our main cast either, the entire film is built on this premise of constructing narratives based on the small amount of information we’re given. It’s as if Jeffries is situated across from a wall in which multiple theaters are each playing its own (mostly) silent film, each with its own protagonists dealing their own trials & tribulations. Possibly a metaphor for life, but I don’t want to put words in anybody’s mouth.

Hitchcock was, as his business cards would attest, the master of suspense, and Rear Window is no exception to that. Unlike Rope, the Hitchcock movie that I always love to trot out during comparisons, this is not snowballing anticipation of inevitability. This is a slow burn, almost mundane to a degree, until suddenly you realize that your footing isn’t quite as strong as it used to be, and that’s when Hitchcock springs his trap. The fact that there’s little in the way of a score, preferring instead the sounds of the city and muffled piano, only serves to heighten the sense of paranoia growing in your gut as Hitchcock nudges you right next to Jeffries. I don’t know if I was necessarily on the edge of my seat, since Rear Window is probably the most reused Hitchcock concept in pop culture next to the shower scene from Psycho, but seeing the original does have an appeal that imitators lack.

Acting is at generally the high standard you expect from a Hitchcock film, which is pretty impressive considering this is a movie where most of the people on screen are practically mimes and that it’s only the second time our leads have worked with him before (James Stewart with Rope back in 1948, and Grace Kelly with Dial M for Murder released earlier in ‘54). James Stewart as L.B. Jeffries is deceptively (natch) charismatic, seeming for all the world like an obsessive crank, but his enthusiasm is so infectious that you can’t help but identify with him. Grace Kelly, as one might expect from her famously brief film career, is a unique talent, seemingly embodying everything that makes up the perfect fiance: Beauty, elegance, wit, devotion, dynamism, the whole shebang. Every time she’s on screen she draws the attention to herself, and her radiance is often heightened by the dingy brownish squalor of Jeffries’ apartment. I’m not 100% sold on the chemistry between the two, I think James comes across as a bit of a cold fish in the more passionate moments, but that may just be me. By the end you’re invested in these characters anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

Rear Window is one of the quintessential Hitchcock films, one that captures the essence of what made him such a influential filmmaker, and as such easily snags the recommendation. Simple but never simplistic, easily digestible but never bland, it’s so damn easy to just watch Hitchcock’s films that I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t. Give Rear Window a try, hell throw on three or four of his movies, and you’re bound to have a great Halloween. Just remember to be cautious around windows, you never know who might be watching.