SUNDAY CINEMATHEQUE AT THE CHAZEN: MORE HITCHCOCK!
Following-up our enormously popular spring series of great films by Alfred Hitchcock, our Fall 2014 Sunday series at the Chazen Museum of Art will bring audiences another dozen classics by the Master of Suspense, all screened in 35mm prints. The series kicks off with the director’s first collaboration with Cary Grant, Suspicion and concludes with Hitchcock’s final feature, Family Plot. Also included is a special program of Hitchcock rarities on November 16, featuring outtakes, trailers, unused test footage, and two short films made for the Allied war effort in the 1940s.
- Sun., Sep. 14 | 2:00 PMChazen
In one of Hitchcock’s earliest American masterpieces, Fontaine (in the role that won her an Oscar) plays a rich spinster-in-the-making who is swept off her feet by broke playboy Grant. After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, Grant’s increasingly deceptive behavior leads Fontaine to begin fearing there’s a plot against her life. A predecessor to Notorious and North By Northwest, this enormously entertaining and suspenseful first collaboration between Hitchcock and Grant features a number of memorable moments, especially that glowing glass of milk! Print courtesy of Library of Congress.
- Sun., Sep. 21 | 2:00 PMChazen
In one of the most entertaining films from Hitchcock’s early British period, Sidney plays a London movie theater proprietress who learns of a terrorist bomb plot. “This adaptation of Conrad’s The Secret Agent may be just about the best of [Hitchcock’s] English thrillers” (Pauline Kael).
- Sun., Sep. 28 | 2:00 PMChazen
In this funny and suspenseful variation on Hitchcock’s oft-used “wrong man” plot, a young hero (de Marney) is accused of a murder he didn’t commit. While the police close in on him, he tries to find the real killer with the help of a teenaged girl (Pilbeam). The witty climax takes place in a hotel ballroom, where the heroine has tracked down the eye-twitching villain.
- Sun., Oct. 5 | 2:00 PMChazen
After making some films for the Allied war effort in Europe, Hitchcock returned to Hollywood for this audacious and memorable WWII tale. The director cast theater legend Bankhead as one of a grab bag of shipwreck survivors set adrift in the title object. John Steinbeck was one of the contributors to the screenplay.
- Sun., Oct. 12 | 2:00 PMChazen
In Morocco, Stewart and Day witness the mysterious death of a stranger who reveals information regarding an upcoming assassination. When their son is kidnapped, the couple is embroiled in a globetrotting plot that takes them to a thrilling climax in London’s Royal Albert Hall. A remake of Hitchcock’s 1934 British thriller, this bigger-budgeted Hollywood classic features some of the director’s most-anthologized moments.
- Sun., Oct. 19 | 2:00 PMChazen
Hitchcock goes almost purely for laughs with this dark comedy about a New England community dealing with a very inconvenient dead body. Full of the ironic and absurd, the superb comic cast includes a pixie-ish Maclaine in her big-screen debut. Harry also began an almost decade-long collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann - the score is rumored to be Hitchcock’s favorite.
- Sun., Oct. 26 | 2:00 PMChazen
Hitchcock’s first film set entirely in America stars Cummings as an aircraft factory worker unjustly accused of a wartime act of terrorism on the homefront. His effort to prove his innocence takes him on a cross-country chase culminating in a breathtaking finale at the Statue of Liberty. Dorothy Parker contributed to the screenplay.
- Sun., Nov. 2 | 2:00 PMChazen
In his only collaboration with Hitchcock, Newman plays an American scientist during the Cold War who supposedly defects to East Germany. Andrews plays his apprehensive fiancée/assistant. The undeniable highlight is Newman’s fight to the death with a communist agent, a sequence that makes memorable use of a gas oven.
- Sun., Nov. 9 | 2:00 PMChazen
Hitchcock’s second Hollywood production, released the same year as Rebecca, is a rousing, heart-pounding, and globe-trotting espionage adventure. McCrea plays an American crime reporter in Europe who discovers a Nazi plot to kidnap a peace-making Dutch diplomat. The director’s many memorable set-pieces include an assassination in the rain and a spectacular plane crash.
- Sun., Nov. 16 | 2:00 PMChazen
This selection of rare, archival material from the career of the Master of Suspense contains screen tests, trailers, and promotional material, as well as unseen test footage for Hitchcock’s uncompleted 60s thriller, Kaleidoscope. Part of the program will be devoted to Hitchcock’s Allied war effort contributions through two rarely shown 1944 narrative shorts, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, made for the director’s native England in order to bolster morale in neighboring occupied France. A co-presentation of UW Cinematheque and the Academy Film Archive.
- Sun., Nov. 23 | 2:00 PMChazen
A throwback to Hitchcock’s globe-trotting espionage thrillers of the 30s and 40s, Topaz follows French and American intelligence agents who collaborate to investigate Russia’s involvement with Cuba. Filled with a number of directorial grace notes and stylistic flourishes, this adaptation of Leon Uris’s bestseller comes alive on the big screen.
- Sun., Dec. 7 | 2:00 PMChazen
When Peck arrives as the new head of a mental institution, brilliant staff doctor Bergman is attracted to him but begins to suspect that something is amiss. Hitchcock explores the unfathomable machinations of the human mind in this intriguing murder mystery. Spellbound is also notable for a surreal dream sequence conceived by Salvador Dalí and a moody, Theremin tinged score by Miklós Rózsa.
- Sun., Dec. 14 | 2:00 PMChazen
A cab driver (Dern) and his phony-psychic girlfriend (Harris) turn detective when they stumble onto an elaborate kidnapping plot. In Hitchcock’s droll and delightful final film, Dern returned to work for the director after appearing in Marnie and two episodes of Hitchcock’s television series.