SUNDAY CINEMATHEQUE AT THE CHAZEN: HITCHCOCK MASTERWORKS
The Cinematheque-Chazen Museum of Art collaboration for Spring, 2014 salutes Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps the best-known director in film history and the greatest, most influential practitioner of the thriller. Hitchcock will be represented by 13 masterworks of suspense that will screen Sunday afternoons in the Chazen Museum of Art’s auditorium. The selections will take viewers from Hitchcock’s late British period, with films like The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps, through his decades in Hollywood, which yielded such all-time classics like Notorious, Psycho, and North By Northwest. The series will also extend to include Hitchcock screenings in the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival, April 3-10, including an original Technicolor print of Vertigo, recently selected as the greatest film ever made in Sight and Sound magazine’s once-a-decade poll of filmmakers and critics.
- Sun., Jan. 26 | 2:00 PMChazen
In this witty and fleet-footed take on Hitchcock’s classic “wrong man” storyline, debonair Canadian Richard Hannay (Donat) visits a London music hall and meets a mysterious spy who is later found dead in his apartment. Suspected of murder, Richard embarks on a mission to the Scottish Highlands to stop an espionage plot, while staying one step ahead of the police. In the unlikely chemistry that develops between Richard and Pamela (Carroll)—a no-nonsense woman convinced of Richard’s guilt—Hitchcock proves himself as deft at showcasing screwball-style repartee as he is at constructing quotidian paranoia and thrill-a-minute suspense. (MC)
- Sun., Feb. 2 | 2:00 PMChazen
A young woman (Lockwood) traveling by train befriends an elderly English governess (Whitty) then undertakes a search for her when she goes missing. However, none of the other passengers claim to have seen the old woman at all, and all evidence of her existence has disappeared. The quintessential train murder mystery is also a reminder that Hitchcock could make you laugh just as easily as he could stop your heart with suspense. Two particular delights in the cast are Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as a pair of cricket-loving fellow passengers Caldicott and Charters. These characters proved so popular that Wayne and Radford reprised the roles in three more movies!
- Sun., Feb. 9 | 2:00 PMChazen
The nameless new wife (Fontaine) of an enormously wealthy widower (Olivier) must deal with the constraints of the dead woman’s memory. With surprising confessions and transformations, the new couple struggles against sinister forces to come to terms with Rebecca’s death. This Oscar-winning adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s novel is told with the requisite shocks and twists by Hitchcock in his first Hollywood production.
- Sun., Feb. 16 | 2:00 PMChazen
This slow-building, disquietingly cynical small-town thriller was also Hitchcock’s avowed personal favorite of his own films. A suspected murderer of widows, Charlie (Cotten, both charming and menacing in a brilliant performance), returns to his hometown to visit his teenaged niece (Wright). Harrowingly insidious, this was the closest Hitchcock ever came to film noir and remains entirely deserving of its description by critic Dave Kehr as “Our Town turned inside out.” Not coincidentally, Thornton Wilder collaborated on the script!
- Sun., Feb. 23 | 2:00 PMChazen
In Hitchcock’s great post-war spy thriller, G-man T.R. Devlin (Grant) convinces Alicia Huberman (Bergman) to infiltrate a group of Nazis living in South America. Devlin, despite his obvious romantic feelings for Alicia, pushes her into marriage with the group’s leader, Alex Sebastian (Rains). “There is never a moment when improper behavior is actually stated or shown, but the film leaves no doubt.” (Roger Ebert)
- Sun., Mar. 2 | 2:00 PMChazen
In their Manhattan high-rise apartment, two well-to-do young men (Granger and Dall) strangle an acquaintance and place his dead body in a trunk. The two thrill killers immediately welcome in a number of friends for a party where the ersatz coffin doubles as a serving table, but the murderers’ former mentor (Stewart) proves an unlikely challenger to their sick game. Hitchcock’s film version of Patrick Hamilton’s Leopold-and-Loeb-inspired play provides uninterrupted, “real-time” suspense through a series of innovative ten-minute camera takes.
- Sun., Mar. 9 | 2:00 PMChazen
Tennis pro Guy Haines (Granger), traveling by train, meets the charming but psychopathic Bruno Anthony (the brilliant Walker, in his penultimate film performance). Before you can say “Criss Cross,” Guy’s made a Faustian deal with Bruno that leads to murder. Filled with witty, dark humor and two marvelous lead performances, Strangers on a Train builds to one of the most suspenseful conclusions in all of Hitchcock.
- Sun., Mar. 16 | 2:00 PMChazen
Injured and homebound in his Manhattan apartment, photographer (and voyeur) Stewart witnesses what he thinks is foul play while peeping in on his neighbors. With the help of friends (Ritter and Wendell Corey), the stationary Stewart gets to the bottom of the mystery, but not before placing himself and his girlfriend (Kelly) in serious danger. Recently restored to its original luster, Hitchcock’s innovative classic is just as smart and fun as it was when first released 60 years ago.
- Sun., Mar. 30 | 2:00 PMChazen
In one of the most entertaining classics of all time, Grant is Hitchcock’s prototypical “wrong man” Roger Thornhill, an ad exec sucked into an intrigue of mistaken identity. The ensuing chase plays out across the American landscape, including one particularly memorable Midwestern farm, and concludes with a showdown at Mount Rushmore.
- Sun., Apr. 13 | 2:00 PMChazen
Marion Crane (Leigh) checks into the Bates Motel for a destiny-changing shower; a scene that also forever altered the expectations of moviegoers. Hitchcock's most unrelentingly dark work is greatly enhanced by Bernard Herrmann's chilling score and Perkins' unpredictable performance as Norman Bates. Though it’s one of the most imitated horror movies, nothing equals the power of seeing Psycho in a cinema.
- Sun., Apr. 20 | 2:00 PMChazen
In Hitchcock’s viscerally intense study of nature gone wild, a plague of homicidal feathered creatures descend upon the small, sleepy community of Bodega Bay, CA. Simultaneously, aggressive Melanie’s (Hedren) attempts to romance Mitch (Taylor) are thwarted by Mitch’s cold and domineering mother (Tandy). In the psychologically-charged cinema of Hitchcock, these two seemingly unrelated plot strands have a lot to do with each other. Come for the shocks, but dig that Oedipal subtext!
- Sun., Apr. 27 | 2:00 PMChazen
Hedren is the title character, a troubled kleptomaniac who becomes obsessive object of wealthy Connery. A gripping sexual drama that pits obsession against repression and rotating roles of predator and prey, Marnie was Hitchcock’s last film with music by Bernard Herrmann. The composer later wrote a score for Torn Curtain that was rejected by the director.
- Sun., May. 4 | 2:00 PMChazen
Hitchcock’s penultimate feature, his first British production in two decades, focuses on a rapist-murderer terrorizing London, and the “wrong man” accused of the crimes. The clever, suspenseful script by Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth) reveals the criminal’s identity to the audience long before the police catch on.